He was distracting. She turns her head and catches him staring with a wide grin, stretched and slow over sharp facial features. His eyelids were heavy and the way his lips curled upwards seemed a little lazy. She knows the image well and years apart hadn’t changed how well acquainted she’d become at his intricacies. Park Chanyeol was tipsy and looking at her with the adoring features she remembers from her past, the one that causes a dangerous feelings to surface across her chest, the same thoughts she knows she shouldn’t dare to think of. Park Chaeyoung is well familiar with the clear mirth bubbling beneath his eyes and the way the high volumes of soju in his breath fails to mask it.

But right now was not the time to indulge in the way he’d look at her as though she were the only woman in the universe. 

“You’re staring, please stop because I need to focus on my work and you’re making me uncomfortable,” she spits out with a failed degree of acidity, concealing the way her lungs momentarily forgot to breath and the sudden wave of nostalgia at his presence, “… looks like your soju tolerance hasn’t improved.” 

She’d become an expert at concealing the feat behind her skin, at hiding the way her heart skipped a beat at the vision of his strong gaze on her features but inside, she fears his ability to read her like a book. 

Park Chaeyoung wasn’t a book that was easy to read.

“Are we not going to talk about it?” 

His voice is a contradiction of sorts, groggy yet clear, heavy yet fluid in a tone that seemed almost light in its own way. She turns her head, lifting a brow as she puts down her circle shaped lenses from her face onto the table, closing her laptop shut. While she knows exactly what she means, she decides that she can’t give him the satisfaction of an answer, not tonight at least.

“About the stalker? The police are investigating and are looking at CCTV but it may take some t—”

He shakes his head before leaning in, practically crawling between the small space between the couch and the living room table she’d been working on her case with so that he was sitting directly beside her, placing his lips over her to shush her. She’s caught off guard by the gesture, a slight gasp departing from pomegranate coloured lips, eyes widening. 

“About us,” he’s too intoxi