“Aww noona, do you have to leave so soon?”

I finished paying the food bill, stuffed my now empty wallet into my skirt pocket, and scurried out the door, Zelo tailing me like a puppy. Taking a deep breath, I inhaled the chilled night air. My stomach was stuffed, my mood fully renewed and happy. “Of course I have to go. It’s getting pretty late, and plus, we all have school tomorrow.” I reasoned.

“Yeah, it’s late, we should start heading home.”

My head whipped to the side and I let out a surprised gasp. Daehyun was directly beside me, his expression one of complete innocence. He gave me a weirded-out look as I my hand darted up to cover my mouth. How did Daehyun appear next to me so fast?

“Oh right, it is pretty late,” Yongguk shuddered as he shoved his frozen hands into his sweatshirt pockets. “And it’s getting chilly, too. You should get home before you catch a cold.”

“A-ah, yeah, I'll get going then."

“I’ll walk her home,” Daehyun offered.

The members’ eyes grew and both Jongup and Himchan’s mouths shot open.

“Calm down, calm down, I live by _____, so it’s not like I’m going out of my way."

That’s when something odd struck me. Jongup had seen where I lived before, but he didn’t mention one thing about Daehyun living in the same building. Did they know that Daehyun lived there? By their reactions just now, I wondered.

“Well, thanks for the dinner noona,” Zelo’s teeth shown brightly and Yongguk and Youngjae both nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, it was delicious!”

“Well, we’ll be going,” Daehyun ended the conversation. He grabbed my arm and pulled me along with him as he began back down the sidewalk.

I gave Jongup one last, sympathetic glance, before I spun around to prevent myself from tripping over my own feet as Daehyun dragged me along. I waited until B.A.P was out of sight to wriggle free of his tight grip.

I narrowed my eyes and whacked Daehyun in the arm. “You really love to drag people around, don’t you?”

Daehyun gasped and rubbed his arm where I had hit him. “Geez, you really are violent…”

I scoffed. Daehyun just looked so funny at times like this; it was hard not to laugh.

But Daehyun didn’t react to me the way I had expected him to. He quietly apologized as his eyes drifted down to the ground. He continued, his vision fixating on the sidewalk without a second glance upwards.

 My eyebrows arched downwards at the oddly quiet Daehyun. Why was he acting all weird again? I studied him as he walked aimlessly, hands in pockets, whistling a tune to himself. Why was it so difficult to find out what he’s thinking?

As time went on, I realized that the atmosphere was somewhat awkward. Daehyun wasn’t saying much of anything, and I had no idea what to do. Occasionally, I would steal glances up at the ever-silent Daehyun in hopes for at least some sort of reaction. He just ignored me and kept walking.

The temperature had dropped, causing Daehyun’s breath to come out in wispy, icy strands. His hair turned a glossy, ashen black in the night, his deep locks in all remaining moonlight. As I brought my gaze down, I noticed the troubled expression that hung on his face.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked.

Daehyun turned to me, his features illuminated from the nearby streetlights. He still didn’t say anything, but rather just into my eyes queerly, as if searching for something.

“You’re really interesting, you know?” I said, trying my best not to be fazed by Daehyun’s unyielding stare. I saw his eyebrows raise as a questioning look came over him. “Daehyun, I want to know what’s going on inside your head.”

He remained motionless, but I could just see the gears moving inside of his head. My heart suddenly started beating like crazy inside of my chest.

“I hate it, I really hate it,” Daehyun broke the silence. Taking a step towards me, he continued. “I hate you, I know that I do, but… why do I always find myself drawn to you? And why can’t I stand it when overly happy Jongup always by your side, or when Zelo’s buzzing around you like a fly?” For a moment, Daehyun’s jealous side was revealed, but all too quickly he regained his composition. “That’s what was on my mind,” he ended with a bitter tone.

Daehyun had unconsciously moved closer and closer to me until I was practically against the wall of the ally that we had been passing. Here we were, all close and in each other’s space yet again. Yet, this time it felt different. Being this near Daehyun again, it surprised me that I had just noticed his tall height and broad shoulders. As my gaze moved down, I couldn’t help but linger on his luscious lips.

“It sounds like you like me,” I burst out. Realizing what I had just said, I shot my hands over my mouth, and internally cursed at myself for being so outright stupid.

Daehyun chuckled to himself. I smiled meekly, but cowered back from his sudden change in mood.

Seeing this, he crept closer. I discovered myself becoming increasingly nervous with each passing second Daehyun slunk closer to me.

 “T-they say,” I managed to croak.  “You can tell your true feelings for somebody by a-“

“Kiss?”

I was shocked and expected Daehyun to be kidding or lying. However, his stoic expression shown that he was nothing less than serious. I nodded in response to him, daring him to do the unthinkable.

“I was thinking about that,” he said sincerely.

As Daehyun closed the gap between us and glued our lips together, I didn't back away. His hand wove around my waist, pulling me into him. Things around me slowed to a startling standstill. Everything inside of me screamed to push Daehyun away, but with every passing second with his maddening lips melting into mine, I found it harder and harder to break away.

My heart leapt inside of my chest as Daehyun began placing delicate kisses along my jaw-line. I knew that I succumb to him. Fastening my arms around his neck, I urged him closer to me; afraid that he would just up and disappear if I let go. His soft lips left my neck and quickly connected with my lips once again. I felt Daehyun sigh contentedly into the kiss.

As time went on, our kiss progressively became more heated, his tongue snaking in between my lips as his arms tightened around my torso. His musky smell filled my nostrils, it becoming like an intoxicating poison to me.

He eventually pulled back, his gentle kiss, agonizingly slow, left me breathlessly wanting more. Resting his forehead against mine, he closed his eyes, basking in the feel of the moment. I smiled and buried my head in Daehyun’s warm chest.

I waited for him to say the words. The one’s that would send electric jolts through my body, the one’s that would make my heart dance and the butterflies inside of my stomach explode, but they never came.

“Thank-you for dinner tonight, it was really good.”

I pried Daehyun’s arms from my mid-section and gaped at him in disbelief. “That’s all you have to say?” My brows creased at the center and my lower lip stuck out. “You were supposed to say, ‘I like you’.”

Daehyun was unfazed by my wining, and instead of pulling me into another hug, he tugged on my hand. “C’mon, it’s getting cold.”

Deep down I was very disappointed. That would have been the perfect moment for Daehyun to confess his feelings to me, so why hadn’t he? In the end though, I nodded and reluctantly let him hold onto my hand as he led us back to our apartments.

***

Daehyun jerked to a stop beside me, the blood turning chilled in his already frigid fingers.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

All of the color had left his face, leaving him a horrified, ghastly looking ghost. He wordlessly lifted his finger past me.

I spun around and my jaw dropped when I saw what Daehyun was pointing at.

Police Officers, at least fifty of them, surrounded our apartment complex. The defining flashes and buzzing of the police lights and sirens hovered in the air around us. The officers’ cries and hollers split through the otherwise silent night. Before I was able to ask any questions, Daehyun was already darting down towards all of the commotion.

“Daehyun!” I called as I chased after him.

Daehyun rushed over to a short, stout officer who was talking to an older woman. “What’s going on?”

The officer finished speaking with the woman, before he turned his body to Daehyun. his thick mustache he cleared his throat. “Ahh, well, there was an incident earlier with some gang members picking a fight with an employee here. We’re investigating the whole scene right now.”

“Employee?” I asked breathlessly once I had reached Daehyun and the officer.

The officer’s lips formed into a tight line as he nodded. “I think his name was Donghae or something like that.”

My heart froze in my chest and my eyes flew open. I hadn’t even realized that I had clutched onto Daehyun for support until he looked over to me. “That was why he wasn’t here earlier,” I mumbled, barely above a whisper. “Is he okay?”

The officer mustered up a solemn smile and rested a thick hand on my shoulder. “Yes, they say he’ll make a full recovery in the hospital.”

“Why was he attacked?” Daehyun abruptly asked from beside me.

The officer scanned over the clipboard he was holding. “I’m not sure. They just finished interviewing him at the hospital, and the man that was attacked said that they were looking for someone. And apparently, he wouldn’t tell them where that person was, so that’s why he was attacked so ruthlessly.”

One of the other officers tapped the mustached officer and motioned for him to come over, but just as he was turning to leave, Daehyun grabbed onto his arm. He locked eyes with the officer and in a dangerously low whisper, asked, “Who were the gang members looking for?”

The officer stared at Daehyun in confusion. Muttering to himself, he flipped through the clipboard once again. “Somebody named Jung Daehyun, but that’s all I know.”