“Do you not know what a moth is?” Jade questioned, becoming more and more amused with the sight before her. This was the first time she had ever seem a grown boy (man? whatever he was) scared of a tiny moth. Compared to Chanyeol, the moth was like a tiny coin.. or a button. He had shaken his head as a response to her question. “Well,” she began, trying to think of a scary example she could give. “Moths are highly dangerous here. If you haven’t gotten a vaccine for them, you could die on contact!” Jade did her best to make her words sound real by adding over exaggerated expressions. Chanyeol looked scared, so she had to be convincing. He shook his arm slightly and Jade yelled, “No! Shaking your arm will make it attack you more!” Chanyeol dropped the cleaning bottle and was staring at Jade wide-eyed.

          “H-How do I get rid of it?” he asked in his not-so-quiet whisper.

          If Jade would have known that the cleaning solution had leaked out and was now covering the bottom of the tub with a slippery substance, maybe she would have rethought her next actions, but she didn’t. So when she screamed, informing Chanyeol that the ‘deadly’ moth was near his face, she didn’t realize he was going to slip and fall, making the shower curtain and curtain rod fall on top of him as well. But when that happened, she couldn’t hold back her laughter, no matter how hurt he could possibly be.

          Chanyeol lay there, aching and in pain from the hard fall, as he wiggled around, trying to avoid the moth – wherever the vicious creature was – and trying to get out of the death trap of a tub he was in currently.

          “Is it gone?” he asked. Jade, who was leaning against the door frame laughing, forced her laughter to go away momentarily as she nodded. He looked around at the mess he caused and smiled sheepishly, “Sorry about this.”

          “It’s okay,” she reassured him, still not letting up her lie. “That was a deadly moth after all.” She smirked before leaving Chanyeol there to lie in the bathtub. She did feel a bit bad about it, but that was the funniest thing she had seen all week – and it was only Wednesday.

          After finishing cleaning and making sure Chanyeol was okay, Jade started her assignments, studying, and finished taking notes. College classes were a lot of work. Well, depending on your major. Hers was in business. And even though she needed to study for an upcoming test… Chanyeol’s constant questions weren’t helping.

          “Does everyone do this?” he had asked. “We have scholars on Olympus, but my father says those guys are nerds. I rarely visit Olympus though…” Chanyeol was looking through one of Jade’s many magazines. “Scratch here?” He scratched the page. Sure enough a sweet smell came from the page and he rubbed it all over himself, smiling with his eyes closed. “What is this magic?” Jade, who was already disturbed by his lack of closing his mouth, turned around to answer yet another stupid question. When she saw Chanyeol rubbing a magazine on his shirt, she couldn’t help but give him a weird look. Even Jisook had noticed Chanyeol’s actions and was looking at him.

          “What are you doing exactly?” she asked him, still observing his unusual actions.

          He opened his eyes and held up the magazine. It was Cosmo. “I scratched the thing that said ‘scratch here’ and it smells good!” She knew he was talking about those perfume samples they have. Women’s perfume. She went back to her work, not caring the slightest about Chanyeol’s newfound love for the strong scent. Within seconds though, the magazine was in her face and she looked up to see Chanyeol, who was nodding with that creepy smile of his. “Smell it.”

          “It smells nice,” she said and pushed the magazine away.

          “But you didn’t even smell it,” he whined.

          “You’ve got enough on that I can smell it from a mile away,” she told him. It was true. How much did he rub on himself? How much did the sample even contain? Glancing back at Chanyeol as he walked back to the couch, she saw him clutching onto the magazine for dear life. He really liked that smell, didn’t he? That was odd. She shook thoughts out of her head, trying to regain her focus again.

          “Come here, Jisookie! It smells good!” Chanyeol was sing-songing. Off key as usual.

***

          “Now, tomorrow I have classes and more work to attend to,” Jade told Chanyeol when she arrived home from her small shift at the library. He nodded. “Don’t burn down this place or murder my cat.”

          “Why would I do that?”

          “That’s a good question,” she spoke in a calm tone, but was narrowing her eyes at him. She didn’t like craning her neck up at the boy, so she constantly made him sit down. He was what? Six feet at least? Give or take. “So, tell me,” she said after placing her phone in her pocket, “did the deadly moth come back?”

          “No,” he replied, shaking his head. She had noticed that he had a never-ending look of innocence on his face. How old was he? If he told her, she couldn’t remember. He could probably get away with anything if he wanted to.

          The next day arrived fast. Jade headed off to work until 2 PM, and then headed to college classes. During that time, Chanyeol decided to look around her apartment. He first went outside, but met one of her neighbors, which the encounter didn’t go quite so well..

          “Oh hi!” the middle-aged woman greeted Chanyeol as he stepped out of Jade’s apartment and into the hallway. Chanyeol smiled widely and bowed to the lady. She ignored his weird bowing, though. Nothing was too weird for her. She was wearing clothes that didn’t quite fit her age, but she knew that already. The bright colors were quite a contrast compared to the cloudy day and plain hallways where they were standing. “Are you Jade’s boyfriend?”

          Chanyeol nodded. It didn’t really hit him that she didn’t mean a friend that was a boy. “Yes. I’m Chanyeol! It’s nice to meet you!” Chanyeol extended his long arm and waited for the lady to shake his hand, which she did casually while grinning. He was a foot taller than her at least and she had to crane her neck to look at him.

          “It’s nice meeting you, Deary. I’m Louise. I live just two doors down.” She pointed in the direction she had been heading and Chanyeol looked and nodded. “Can you tell Jade I’m making stew tonight so you two can stop by and eat if you like.”

          “Of course! That sounds good,” Chanyeol told her cheerfully. “Louise, do you know where I can buy catnip? Jade’s cat told me she wants some and I have no idea where to find it.”

          Louise blinked a few times, processing what he said. “There is a pet store across town. Near that cheap department store.” 

          “Thank you! Jisookie was getting annoying with her constant ‘Can I have catnip?’, ‘Can you buy me catnip?’ and on and on. Cats really talk a lot!”

          “Mmm…” Louise agreed fakely, her smile faltering a bit. “I’m sure they do, Hun.”

          “Especially Jisook. She talks too much. But maybe catnip will shut her up.”

        “Yes, well,” Louise hoisted her purse over her shoulder, “I have to go. See you later, Dear.. or not.” She quickly walked away from the tall boy and he just smiled after her. Completely unaware of Louise’s urgency to get away from him.

          “I’m hungry,” Chanyeol told Jisook. He saw that it was raining outside, so didn’t try to go find Jisook some catnip. The cat was ignoring him now. Not catnip, no love, she had said to him. He found that to be extremely rude, but shrugged it off. He was sure the cat would come around again sooner or later. “Where’s Jade?”

          After hearing his stomach growl for what seemed like the millionth time (and no sign of Jade’s return) Chanyeol traveled to her kitchen to find food. He was sure he could concoct some type of meal easily. He had seen Jade do it, so he was sure he could.

          He opened the fridge and blinked at the items. He eventually found eggs and remembered her frying eggs at one point so decided to try that. Six broken eggs and a burnt wash cloth later, Chanyeol had managed to fix some type of.. meal. He had burnt eggs, dry cereal, whipped cream, and bowl of kimchi. He found the kimchi in the back that said ‘special’ written on it. He ignored that and decided to eat it. Jade could always get more.

          “Chanyeol, I’m home!” Jade called as she entered the apartment near eight at night. She smelled the burnt food from earlier and scrunched up her nose. This wasn’t a good sign or a good thing to come home to. “What did you burn?”

          “Food! And my hand.. and a towel.. and my eggs, but it’s okay now!” he called from an unknown place. Jade looked at the living room, tiny dining area, and kitchen. He was nowhere to be seen.

          “Where are you?” she asked him, curious as ever and slightly worried.

          “In your room!”

          Her eyes widened. “Why?!”         

          “I got bored! I like these poems you have in this book!”

          Jade quickly rushed to her bedroom and literally tackled Chanyeol, who was sitting on her bed, reading her diary. She ripped the diary from his hands and rolled off of him, frowning. “What the hell are you doing reading this?” She was clutching the diary to her chest, scared and pissed off at Chanyeol. If looks could kill..

          “I found it under your pillow,” he explained. “Why were you hiding it?”

          “Because it is personal and something you shouldn’t read.” She stood up and walked into her walk-in closet and set it on the top shelf, with her purses. She walked back out and looked at him. “What all did you read?”

          “From page one,” he held up one finger, “until I got to the poems.” He looked at her and smiled. “They were pretty poems, Jade.” She flinched. That was practically the entire journal. That had a ton of personal info in it that was not allowed for anyone else’s eyes. From her crushes on random college classmates, to her frustrations over periods and other female issues to the fact she hates cliché ending to dramas that you can predict – which really wasn’t a secret, but everything in between was personal; some too personal to even think about Chanyeol knowing about. Now Chanyeol knew her like a book – literally. She wanted to strangle him, but that was against her morals. Strangling people and intentionally wanting to kill them was bad.

          “Get out of my room,” she told him flatly. She pointed to her door. He nodded and stood, walking to her door before turning around. At least he still followed her orders.

          “Louise invited us over,” he told her. “Can we go eat food?”

          “No!” she shouted, pushing him completely out of her room before slamming the door. He stood there as he stared at her door, pouting. He didn’t know what he did wrong. Jade collapsed on her bed and covered her face with one of her pillows. She couldn’t believe he read her diary. This was too much. How many days were left exactly? She counted mentally before groaning loudly.

          “Are you okay?” Chanyeol called to her. He sounded like he was right outside her door, which he was, but she assumed he had walked away by then. He didn’t. He knocked on her door lightly and pressed his ear against it, trying to detect any sound or movement from the girl inside. “Did you hurt yourself?”

          “No, now get away from my door!” she yelled, sitting up and glaring at the back of her door. There was an old, torn poster there. She couldn’t glare at the person on the poster (it was her celebrity crush), but momentarily she imagined that was Chanyeol’s face and she was burning holes through it.

          “Why? Is it ‘personal’ time? Like you said-“

          “NO! JUST GO!”

         Chanyeol finally moved away and walked to the living room to find Jisook. Jade grabbed a pillow and held it against her face. She couldn’t believe he just asked her that. Does he really know nothing? She had to find out more about him. Like what the hell is up with the idea of him thinking he is some sort of.. God? Sure, she knew about Greek mythology.. or Roman. Whatever he was. He was Korean, right? Korean mythology? She shook her head, not wanting a thousand questions filling it up at the moment.

         "Seven days is just too long," she said to herself, brushing her fingers through her hair.

➥ author's notes; ♡
If I had a dollar for every time I made an idiot out of Chanyeol, I'd be rich.