CHAPTER five

Our Baby Steps

“What is wrong with her?”

Jaejoong replays that darned moment in his head and tries so hard not to rip his beautiful golden hair out.

A pained groan is released past his lips and Jaejoong doesn’t care that the cars behind him are honking at him to go at the green light. “What am I doing?!”

“Being a jerk!” A young guy in a sportscar yells as he passes him on his right.

But Jaejoong could not have paid any attention. “I just got to stop thinking about her. Yeah. It’s nothing. Let’s just go to work, Jaejoong. Go to work.”

☆

“Junsu.”

“What?”

“Do you notice anything wrong?”

Junsu raises an eyebrow at him. Jaejoong looks strangely serious and he can't figure out why.

“Well, I think that the melody sounds good. The beat is subtle and not too overpowering. Has a pretty sweet effect. The arrangement is basically perfect. I don’t think anything’s wrong. Why? You don’t like it?”

“Junsu. I am not talking about the song,” Jaejoong says with a poker face, tapping an index finger to his temple.

“Oh. Well. If you’re talking about you, then yes. Your whole attitude today is just wrong. Why?” Junsu flips a few switches and throws his friend a stare. He watches as Jaejoong’s forehead meets the desk.

“Jaejoong.”

Jaejoong lays motionless for a decent amount of time. He eventually picks himself up and tells Junsu plainly, “So. I have a new pet.”

Junsu scoffs with an underlying tone of you-can’t-be-serious-Kim-Jaejoong. “Remember the last time you had a pet? You ended up giving that big dog to your parents after just a week of keeping it.”

“Well, this time this pet is unreasonably… dumb.”

“Sounds better than Vick already,” Junsu adds with much unneeded sarcasm in Jaejoong’s opinion.

“Come on. Hear me out first,” Jaejoong insists and Junsu stops his work, leaning back in his chair to listen.

“Okay. Go.”

“This pet is driving me crazy, and it’s only been like, a day! Actually, has it been a day yet?” Jaejoong exclaims, only now realizing the short amount of time he’s spent with Boa.

Junsu hums a bit of the song that they’re working on. “Sounds like he’s not going to be easy to take care of.”

“She,” Jaejoong corrects him with much insistence in his voice. “She is not easy to take care of.” He throws both hands up, palms facing the ceiling. “So naive, so needy. so-”

“Is it cute?” Junsu adds without a thought about the intensity of what that one word means to his troubled friend. “It must be cute, right?”

“SHE, Junsu. And she is not cute- well, she’s kind of… NOT CUTE. ANNOYING. ANNOYING.”

“Kind of not cute? There is definitely something wrong with you,” Junsu remarks and gets up from his seat. “I’m going to get you some alcohol so that you can think straight.”

“Junsu. That doesn’t even make sense,” Jaejoong quips, and sits his friend back down in his chair. “This all doesn’t make any sense to me! Are you going to help me or not?”

“Well. Why did you even decide to keep the pet anyway? Think about that and I’ll be back in five. I need a bathroom break.” And Junsu makes a quick escape.

Jaejoong gazes up at the empty ceiling and tries to pull his scattered thoughts together. “Why am I keeping her, he asks? …Why am I?”

“I’m home,” Jaejoong speaks into the apartment walls as he usually does even when there was nobody else there.

“Welcome home!” Boa chirps in a melodic voice, and he smiles warmly. It  feels strangely nice to have someone to answer.

“Look!”

Jaejoong’s joyful expression drops in an instant, seeing the hot mess in his apartment. “What. Happened.”

“Hm?” Boa looks at him innocently with a face screaming what ever do you mean?

“Oh, let’s eat dinner. It’s my first time cooking so I don’t know if it tastes good but there wasn’t much of anything to eat in the fridge so I thought that maybe I’d try-”

“Does your idea of dinner usually look like a volcano erupted in the kitchen and then disappeared into thin air?” Jaejoong couldn’t see anything that looked like edible food anywhere.

“Well, see. I haven’t cleaned up yet~ but look, this looks delicious doesn’t it? It took me a few tries,” Boa shows off her eye-smile, as well as the two full bowls of what she called ramen that went unnoticed because of the chaos all over the stove and the mountainous pile of mayhem in the kitchen sink.

“It looks awful..” Jaejoong has never been so unsure about food. He unwillingly opens his mouth when Boa insisted on stuffing his face with the spoon of noodle soup.

“How is it? What do you think? Huh? Huh?” The way she beams at him expectantly makes it taste only slightly less burnt and repugnant.

“It’s not that terrible,” Jaejoong remarks curtly, trying to show as little disgust in his reaction as possible, before quickly turning on his heel to head straight to his room.

“Really?” Boa asks, taking it as Jaejoong’s way of saying that it was delicious. “Then, where are you going? Let’s eat together!” She bites her lip in confusion and sets the spoon down on the kitchen counter. She thoughtlessly follows Jaejoong into his room.

“Does it really taste good or are you just trying to be nice?” Boa puts her hands on her hips, not noticing until a good moment later that she was looking at the scene of Jaejoong taking off his clothes.

Once the realization hits her, the game is over. “JAEJOONG, HOW INDECENT!”

Jaejoong turns his head back to stare at Boa peeking through the gaps between the fingers over her eyes. He scoffs as he throws a plain white tee over his blonde head, adding in a mocking tone, “You’re the one who came into my room uninvited. You’re the one who is looking at me changing. How am I the one indecent?”

“But I just want to eat dinner with you…” Boa tells him, pushing the tips of her index fingers together as her voice trails off at the end.

Jaejoong blinks at her a few times. “I have a question. And answer me truthfully.”

Boa nods with a curious glint in her eyes. “Yes!”

“Why are you staying here?” Jaejoong looks at her softly, both unexplainably nervous and eager to hear her answer.

They both stand there, in silence, motionless, expecting something but giving nothing as they’re both trapped in their minds full of interesting thoughts. And there was that dreadful question of why? Why? WHY?

Though a little caught off guard at first, Boa is able to gather her thoughts and responds with, “Well, I told you. I.. I like it here.”

“Well, why do you like it here?” Jaejoong continues to inquire, crossing his arms in the process.

“Um, it is a nice apartment in a good neighborhood-”

Jaejoong cuts in, “And what about the fact that you’re living with a guy that you barely know?”

Boa had to pause at that one. She looks down at the floor and merely mutters, “Jaejoong. Do you not like me living here?”

Slightly taken aback, Jaejoong jumps in quickly, “No, it’s not that.”

“Then why did you bring me here in the first place? Why were you there? Outside of the wedding hall? Why did you take me prisoner and let me stay here? If you don’t like me staying here, or maybe you just don’t like how I am, then just tell me honestly. I mean, I don’t know where I can go but I will—mmmmmmmmm!”

The world freezes for a moment when Boa finds another pair of soft lips on hers. Jaejoong’s strong hands pull her waist in towards his and he deepens their kiss. Boa’s mind gradually goes blank but she doesn’t tear away.

A beautiful moment passes and Jaejoong slowly pulls back. He gazes into her eyes and you would think that a little smile would spread across his handsome face after he realizes how he actually cares about this stupid woman’s feelings but-

“Move out.”

Jaejoong doesn’t even flinch but Boa trembles, still captured in his arms.

“Now.”

AN: longer update^^