Chapter Eight: Caught You

“So, tell me, Taehyung,” Mi Ja sparks up a conversation in between chews of the super sophisticated food, as she had remarked earlier as the waitress jotted down their orders. Taehyung’s head immediately jerks upwards to meet her eyes and hums a question before slurping down a strand of past to its edge. She cringes at the sight of his totally charming act, and don’t get her started with his wonderfully catsup-tainted lips, and then looks away before continuing, “As I was wanting to ask you, how many weeks? Or perhaps, months?”

“What?” this time, Taehyung cleanses his face as he brings up the ends of the table cloth to his lips. Mi Ja chuckles, and that’s it. She doesn’t even question it, because maybe, this part of Taehyung didn’t actually change at all. He’s still Taehyung, and at the same time, not. Taehyung clearly didn’t get her point, confusion written all over his wrinkled face. She takes a few gulps from the glass of water and then says, “How many weeks of your allowance will this cost you?”

Taehyung chokes just after he swallows a mouthful of food. Uh oh, he nervously fiddles with his collars to loosen it up a bit. He should have seen this coming, but he didn’t. Mi Ja’s the type of person who would question the worth of everything; and it comes to the point where she’s already questioning if today’s expense is worth his weeks (or possibly months?) of not eating lunch from the school cafeteria. He anxiously counters back, “That’s not something you should ask on a date, don’t you think?”

“Date? Who says this is a date?” Mi Ja laughs, although to be honest, she really wishes it is a date. But for the sake of humanity, this isn’t supposed to be a date. Taehyung has a girlfriend, and Mi Ja wouldn’t want Taehyung’s first relationship to last for, who knows, a day? And to be honest, Mi Ja didn’t really want Taehyung’s first romantic attachment be with someone other than her. But to be more honest and realistic, it’s never in her million expectations that Taehyung would possibly fall mutually in love with her.

“Why wouldn’t it be a date?” Confused and astounded, he questions.

“Because you have a girlfriend and you’re on a date with someone else on your supposedly first day as a couple?” rather than meeting his eyes, her eyes are fixated on the half-filled plate laid down in front of her. Taehyung knows more than anyone that Mi Ja is telling the truth. And he had already considered the measures of this action, all the possible consequences he’d take responsibility for. He will tell Jinri that he loves her. And he will tell her that even if he does, that doesn’t automatically mean there’s supposed to be a distance between him and Mi Ja coming along their relationship package.

“I’ll take responsibility,” Taehyung proclaims, “Because you’re worth it.”

“I know you can’t do that, and you know that too,” it almost comes out as a challenge to him, which he playfully responds with a sneer. He rests his head on top of his folded hands and stares at her without wavering. She stares back into his eyes, not managing to blink because there’s an unwritten rule right now that whoever blinks first would be the loser. Besides this said rule, Taehyung adds up another one for them to go by while their petty competition is going on. He mutters, trying not to move a muscle but he knows it’s impossible, “Whoever closes his or her eyes first wouldn’t open his or her eyes until the victor says so.”

“Sounds fair to me,” she giggles, not moving her cheeks in fear of blinking as well. They stare at each other for a while, not saying a word nor moving the attention from each other’s presence. At the very moment, the only thing that’s inside their heads is the fact that they’re facing each other now, eye-to-eye, in a romantic venue for a rendezvous. Taehyung can’t help but to think of this as a date—but, of course, a birthday date slash sorry-for-everything date slash escape-from-the-suffocating-handling-of-teachers date. And he knows that if he’s not with Mi Ja, he wouldn’t be willing to run away like this, even if he already has a girlfriend he’s supposed to attend to.

For the whole day, Taehyung’s mind has been occupied with thoughts of being with Mi Ja, and also a tiny pint of guilt left. Due to this, it never occurred to him that he still hasn’t texted Jinri yet. But fate acquiesces with Mi Ja this time, thus, making Taehyung overlook this type of thing too. Just for today, even if he was a day a late, Mi Ja just wants Taehyung to be beside her. And that’s what she’s given now. Last night, Taehyung seems so unreachable. And now, if only Mi Ja inches forward a bit, their lips would be unimaginably close. But that’s just it, Mi Ja won’t do that. Not yet, perhaps.

“Time?” she puffs out a sigh, still not managing to blink. Taehyung chuckles and quickly stole a glimpse of the time. He mumbles out the answer and they continue the fierce battle. How long has it been? It feels like everything lasts forever whenever Mi Ja’s with Taehyung because her heart has been clenching in bliss since few moments ago. She doesn’t really want to part with him because originally, they planned to go back to the hotel at 9. And it’s already 35 minutes past 7; the trip takes an hour and a half, approximately, if there’s no traffic. Which is rather impossible.

Mi Ja can feel the moment slowly dying away. She can feel that Taehyung is already about to ask her to surrender, or he’d surrender by himself, so they could go back now. She obviously doesn’t want this to end, even if she’s supposed to be distancing herself from someone else’s boyfriend. But she doesn’t have a clue that Taehyung has been wishing that time would stop for the two of them right now. It’s not exactly the same with what she wished for, but they’re practically similar. They want to be together as much as they could, and it hurts her because it’s as if it’s going to be their last time together.

They continue staring at each other, studying each and every of one another’s features. From slightly disheveled hair, to neatly trimmed eyebrows, moderately long eyelashes, averagely tall nose, tad red cheeks, fair chin, to the faint curves on each of their lips. But then, maybe the skies also got weary as they don’t even say a word to each other for few minutes, because there are suddenly loud booms and claps then booms again from a distance. From their peripheral view, they could both see colorful glows dotting the skies in a split moment. With this, their heads turn towards the direction of the fireworks with their smiles unable to jump off of their faces.

They’re both sure that neither won their little battle.

Taehyung unconsciously holds her hand after the short-lived date and pulls her towards the bus. The trip goes on without them talking about something related to them, Mi Ja would talk about Soojung’s sleeping habits or how she dries up her hair in the morning or how she expertly did Mi Ja’s makeup and Taehyung would then talk about Junmyeon’s stupid replies and arrogant smirks and how he captures the attention of anyone landing their eyes on him. They avoid talking about each other, because maybe, they don’t want to know more about each other anymore. Maybe this is the last time they’d be laughing at each other like this. Maybe she should give up already.

Once the two of them part ways as they enter the hotel, Taehyung starts feeling incomplete. Like he forgot to do something or that he wants to do something but he doesn’t know what it is. He feels perplexed. But as perplexed as he feels, he sees Junmyeon who has the same expression as him, walking back and forth on a certain radius.  Taehyung chuckles a bit before leaning on the wall and calling the older one’s attention, “Troubled?”

Junmyeon stops moving as soon as Taehyung’s voice rings inside his head. He his head towards him and runs with clenched fist. He raises his closed fist, aiming at Taehyung as if he’s about to bury a strong punch on his face, but he lowers his hand afterwards. Junmyeon pants and slams his hand on the wall, “You’re late, so ing late.”

“Sorry. Don’t worry, anyways, this might be the last time,” Taehyung smiles at him, knowing that Junmyeon has stayed this late waiting for the two to end the day. Junmyeon stares at him for a little while. He notices how odd Taehyung is right now, so then he concludes that it didn’t go the way Taehyung pictured it to happen. He tells Taehyung to tell