CHAPTER two

Our Push and Pull

Boa is frozen in silence for just a little while longer before her senses eventually call her back. She pushes Jaejoong with her palms against his chest, sending him stumbling just a few steps back.

“Whoa, hey.” He smiles cheekily at her, hands up in surrender before him. “I was just kidding. It was a joke, princess—”

“I told you not to call me that!” she screeches at the top of her lungs, and then suddenly her eyes come to tears again. Boa quickly drops and curls herself into a ball, hugging her knees through her puffy white wedding dress as tightly as she could towards herself.

Jaejoong looks on for just a moment before he tries a hand at negotiating.

“Hey…” he speaks in a soft voice, gentle and tender in his own special way. “Hey, look. I’m sorry. Don’t… don’t do that. I can’t deal with crying women. Especially crying women in royal wedding dresses.”

Boa lifts her face up slowly and for a second Jaejoong has hope that she’d stop but – “Who cares about you?!” she screeches and buries her head back into her knees, sobbing even more.

Such a line usually offends the prince-like Jaejoong but the way that her cheeks are stained with black eyeliner and mascara makes him stifle a laugh. Not to mention the way her shoulders shake to a funny rhythm.

“Come on, you.” Jaejoong holds out a white leather-gloved hand towards the beauty in the shimmery dress. “Come on, I’ll take you back.”

Boa looks up again with furrowed eyebrows this time. “What do you mean-hic- you’ll take me back? Hic- I don’t want to go back! I- hic- ran away-hic- remember?!”

“Stop that hiccupping,” Jaejoong tells her firmly as if his command would magically work and then forcefully pulls her up by her forearm.

“I know. We’re not going back to the wedding hall, silly. I’m bringing you back to my place.”

He adds an innocent smile.

Boa’s eyes grow noticably wide, and she hopelessly digs her glass heels into the ground to resist Jaejoong’s dragging. “Y-y-your place? What are you going to do to me? NO!”

She repeatedly smacks the life out of Jaejoong’s surprisingly strong grip over her arm, and at last he lets go.

“FINE! I’ll leave you here to DIE then!” he shouts; his voice resonates throughout the moonlit forest.  Jaejoong puts on his helmet and mounts his motorcycle, revving up the engine without a back seat passenger.

Boa inwardly whimpers, seeing an owl fly by through the black sky. Her pretty eyes nearly pop out of their sockets when Jaejoong drives a few meters away down a seemingly dark road towards the myriads of trees. “HEY! HEY, WAIT!”

The motorcycle’s tires screech to an abrupt halt. Jaejoong whips his head back at her with a triumphant smirk- one that she can’t see under the guise of his helmet.

Another silence.

“You coming?” Jaejoong finally asks, and holds another smaller helmet out at arm’s length.

“…Yes.” Boa pouts, and mentally beats herself up in her head.

What has she really gotten herself into this time?