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Peach-colored dress drooping down your sides and hair in curls framing your shining face. Park Jisung watches you from his seat in the corner of the school gym and finds you simply magnetizing, your every move pulling him in and making him feel intrigued by you. It’s been like this for a long time– he can’t stop staring at you at any given moment, even if he tried– but the young male had chosen to ignore this fact for more weeks than he can even count.
School proms were never really his thing. He didn’t like going, because there was just too much alcohol and noise for his shy self to enjoy, the people around him making him easily feel claustrophobic when they crowded around him and talked about topics he wasn’t really even interested in, judging by the fact that in his whole life, he’s clicked with maybe 4 people at least on a level where he could call them his friends.
One of them was Mark Lee, the junior who adopted him on orientation the first day of his high school experience, who also, coincidentally, managed to drag him to the school dance second year in a row.
“Come on dude, I’m graduating this year. There’s no way you’re not going to the prom. I need you there,” he pleaded for two weeks straight, and truly speaking, Park Jisung is not a guy with a lot of patience, so after some time, it started to really eat at his nerves and that’s just the thing that convinced him to go. It’s not that Mark is annoying. He’s just persistent. A quality Park Jisung isn’t used to dealing with.
The second and third people from his small circle of friends were Na Jaemin and Lee Jeno, the juniors he met while watching Mark practice football one day. Jisung somehow questions how he managed to have friends that were all so much older than him, and he guesses it’s not due to his maturity because come on, even if his ego was that big, he is at least a little self-aware– there was no way Park Jisung was mature in his first year of high school to fit in with the older kids. The only valid reason in his eyes must have been the fact that it was not him that was too mature for his age, it was his friends that were too immature– resulting in making friends with the younger one.
Or they just simply wanted to take care of him. But that’s like, besides the point.
Even Huang Renjun, the friendly, but short-tempered junior that shares a room with Jeno tried to adopt him under his wings, but the day when Jisung starts to trust more people than the limit he’s set up for himself on four is yet to come and so the talks about outer space the two of them share are the closest he’s got to having another close friend.
If you read passionately and paid enough attention, you’d know that only ¾ of close friends of the young male were mentioned. Who was the last one, then?
Well, it might be a little easy to miss, with how secretive the friendship really is. Some would be surprised to see him talking to the person he grew so close to over the past three months, because, well, he treated it like a secret most of the time. It’s not his proudest moment, admittedly, but the damage is already done, and even though he feels embarrassed to even think about it, he can’t take the lost time back now.
Because the last person on his close friends list (and I’m not talking about the Instagram feature, I’m talking about the real one he keeps in his head) is you, the exchange student that switched her place with his classmate Zhong Chenle for the year. You were shy and a little awkward at first, but really, there was nothing about you that would make Jisung realize why you were hated by the public so much. It made no sense to him to see the whole school treat you like an outcast when you needed a friend the most, but it was nothing he could change even if he tried.
And, as the immature coward he is, he chose to not associate with you in the public in fear of being hated too. Selfish, wasn’t he?
Society is a weird complex.
Why does he suddenly feel his heart hurt at the sight of you in the corner of the room, with another cup of drink by your side as you stand alone wordlessly and gaze around the filled auditorium? It’s not like he had the right to feel bad for you anyway.
His fingers grasp the long pencil and start to tap it against the wooden desk. He’s not that much familiar with how the student council office looks like, he’s only seen the sign at the door before that confirmed that he is, indeed, in the right room when his teacher sent him there with keys in his hands, while he waits for something– or someone to come in to tell him what’s going on and why he’s suddenly trapped in the room while the rest of his class are having P.E. at the moment.
He starts to get bored over time, looking around the poorly decorated room, seeing the list of members of the student council taped onto the wall right next to him. He doesn’t know most of them, but the president’s name shines bright in silver ink, making him think the person himself chose to write it in this way, snickering. Hands rummage through the drawers of the desk, fiddling with the paper clips and Christmas decorations thrown in a box under it when the student council’s president appears in the room and scares the living life out of him with his loud voice cutting through the peaceful silence.
“What are you looking for, Park Jisung?” he laughs at the poor boy’s scared expression, big eyes staring at him with shock. Lee Donghyuck can be a scary person when he tries to be, yet, this is not one of the times, resulting in only watching the sophomore quickly putting away the tinsel back into its box and hiding his hands behind his back.
“Nothing, nothing,” Jisung peeps in innocence, irises shaking.
Donghyuck only laughs out loud at his antics, coming closer to him and patting him on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’s not like we’re hiding anything important in here,” he grins, “the tresor with money is locked in that cupboard over there. I should have told Ms. Jung to pick someone more reliable, though.”
“What do you mean?” Jisung quirks up an eyebrow.
“Someone who, you know, wouldn’t look through every drawer in the short 5 minutes that it took me to get here…”
A sigh leaves his lips as he rolls his eyes at the older one, tightly smiling at him. “Okay, I’m sorry.”
Donghyuck only hums, nodding. “Alright. Anyways, I have no time, so let’s get this over with. We have a new exchange student, you know, the one that’s staying here instead of Chenle,” he says while simultaneously peeking his head out of the door, into the school corridors and motioning for someone to come in shortly after, “here.” he smiles just as the person steps inside, figure shrieked in and small. Donghyuck presents you as if you were the new pet he got from the pocket money his mum gave him every week, a tight smile sitting at his lips as he waits for a second for his junior’s reaction.
Jisung takes a quick look at the person on his senior’s right, meaning to look away shortly after, but getting too caught up in the way they look at him with big eyes and a confused look on their face– making him look back to the person again and examine the way they look. Your presence instantly makes him nervous for more reasons than he can possibly count, his hands becoming sweaty as your eyes meet. Donghyuck keeps talking and starts explaining something, his voice is loud enough to be heard in the whole corridor, but Jisung doesn’t pay attention– the tone of his voice is drowned out while he can’t help but keep staring onto your face.
“Got it?” He snaps the younger one back into reality, making Jisung quickly look the older one’s way with big eyes and fear on his face.
“Huh?”
Another sigh leaves the student council’s president’s lips, a roll of his eyes accompanying the tongue pressed to the side of his cheek in frustration. “I’m going to say it one last time, and make sure to listen because I’m leaving the same second I finish talking– I need you to show this girl around-”
“Y/N,” you mumble, “I have a name, you know…”
“Right,” Donghyuck rolls his eyes again, “I need you to show Y/N around. She’s going to be in your class and I have no time on my hands to do it myself, so I told Ms. Jung to find someone responsible, so I’m counting on you. Show her the gym, the cafeteria, her locker, the library, you know, the usual stuff… Got it?”
“Y-yeah,” a stutter leaves his mouth, nodding as he watches Donghyuck do exactly what he promised– leaving without any further word, creating an impact worthy of a ‘mic drop’ effect followed by a silence that envelopes the now alone, awkward teenagers. The sound of his sneakers hitting the linoleum floor is the only thing resonating in the empty hallways, Jisung’s eyes finding you once again as he feels a rush of adrenaline wash over him when he hears you speak up, making him realize he hasn’t taken the initiative in his whole entire life. Maybe he should start now, he thinks– but it’s too late as you’d already beat him to it.
“Should we… should we go?” you ask. Jisung doesn’t know what’s with him today that is making him act so strangely and what’s making his hands sweat and his neck burn whenever he meets eyes with the foreigner in front of him, but he doesn’t have any more time to dwell on that thought before he has to nod hurriedly not to embarrass himself even further.
“Yeah,” he nods again, this time without any further stuttering, yet, his voice comes out a little hasty and hesitant. Is this normal? Is he just going through puberty, or is it something more serious?
His legs move on themselves as he prepares for the departure, watching you follow him as he closes the door of the student council office after him and locks the door, keeping the keys in his jean pocket. He cracks his knuckles in a nervous habit before he turns to you with a tight smile on his face, a shy one, to say the least, opening his mouth to ask you a crucial question.
“So…” he starts, wetting his lips in nerves, “what do you wanna see first?”
You stare at him wordlessly, lips pressed into a tight line. Something about your expression tells him you’re just as clueless as he is when you shrug and point to your bag.
“Uh.. could you maybe show me where my locker is? This is getting really heavy because I just got all my textbooks and I don’t feel like carrying them around the whole day… the number’s 174! Of the locker, I mean.” you say diplomatically, giving him the small piece of paper that has the number 174 scribbled with blue ink on it, chewing on your bottom lip.
“Yeah! Sure.” Jisung nods and turns around a few times, like a broken compass trying to find the North, thinking hard to realize where your block of lockers might be located, when an imaginary light-bulb appears at the top of his head and he strides forward, motioning for you to follow him. It doesn’t quite register in his brain just how awkward and weird he must have looked while doing that, and maybe that’s for good. He’d be too embarrassed to continue the tour if it did.
The rest of the little tour was just as awkward, though. Jisung managed to get lost in his own school at least twice, because he was too busy thinking of everything else– the way your smell filled his nose and made him dizzy, the way you anxiously clutched your notebooks to your chest, and the way you almost fell into him when he decided to stop mid-walking, thinking of the shortest way he could get to the school cafeteria. He asked you where you came from and how long you were staying for, while simultaneously trying to learn the most about you he could. He was drawn to you and your voice, your sweet-looking exterior, and your polite way of talking. You told him you only arrived a few days ago and the Zhong’s were a good family, but not exactly like you imagined your guest family to be.
Jisung understood. Zhong Chenle’s quite the individual, he could only imagine how his upbringing was. You said the house you’re staying at is pretty but feels a little empty in your eyes and how he left his small dog at home and how it can’t stop coming into your room in the middle of the night– you had to sleep with its ass in your face because Daegal, as you learned her name was, refused to turn around and let you sleep in peace.
At least the dog was friendly, you noted.
Jisung laughed along with your stories, liking the way your face shifted completely when you smiled at him in joy. Time flew by quickly and he realized the tension he had in his shoulders was slowly going away and his hands started to sweat less and less the more time he spent with you. Maybe it was just a change in atmosphere that made him feel so giddy around you.
“And this is the cafeteria!” he exclaimed, “the lunch break is written on your timetable, the time’s different for everyone depending on the classes you take,” he notes, slightly bending over to get closer to your ear to whisper into it. “They cook nice, but please, never order the pizza. I know it looks inviting, but it tastes like the bottom of my shoe.”
A giggle escapes your lips, making Jisung proudly smile by your side. “Noted.”
With that, he awkwardly coughs, humming to pass the time. “Anyways, that would be it for the tour…. If you ever need something, find me! I’ll be here.. somewhere…” he says, thinking of how much longer he can stay by your side so it doesn’t become awkward. He decides a few more seconds is fine before he takes it as his sign to leave and give you some space, exclaiming: “I see my friends there, so I gotta go, but I’ll see you around!” with a bright smile on his face.
You’re not too happy about staying in the queue for lunch alone, but Park Jisung doesn’t see that. You were glad to have a new potential friend, yet, the anxiety of not knowing anyone and having to order food for yourself slowly crept into your bones. It felt like everyone around you was whispering about you and talking about you, but you chose to ignore the voices and the accents the best you could, only focusing on yourself. That’s what your mum advised you to do back home, and you choose to listen to your mother because as the tradition goes, mothers are always right. Even when they’re not.
Jisung reaches his friends at the table, a tight smile sitting on his lips.
“You were with the new girl?” Jaemin asks.
“Yeah,” Jisung nods, scooting over on the bench and taking a seat next to Jeno, facing his other friend when he answers, “I was showing her around. Lee Donghyuck asked me to.”
“I bet he didn’t want to waste his time with someone like her…” Jaemin snickers, taking Jisung by surprise. He spent a solid hour with you, talking and laughing, so it didn’t even cross his mind that someone would think of you like that.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed and a pout sitting on his face. Something was off and he didn’t know what, but he for sure knew that the treatment you were getting wasn’t anything he’d like on his first day in a foreign school.
“Just look at her. She looks so out of place.” Jeno laughs, stuffing his cheeks with food and shaking his head.
A sense of protectiveness warms up his insides, yet, Park Jisung doesn’t do what he should– he doesn’t stand up for the new girl. You’re just a new girl, after all. He can’t risk losing his friends and reputation over a girl that’s only going to stay until the school year ends. And so, as a self-aware coward, he nods and agrees.
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
If there’s one thing Park Jisung loves the most in the whole entire world, it’s dancing. His friends would argue that it’s eating or playing videogames, but truth be told, even they don’t know his friend well enough to count the endless hours he’s spent in the dance practice room of their high school, dancing to music and forgetting about everything else in the world. He would stay in there after the dance club finished their practice and he would dance until the janitor didn’t come to the room and yell at him to go home because he’s locking the school gates and he doesn’t want to be responsible for him if he stays inside and has to sleep on the floor. Jisung usually obeys him, because, well, he doesn’t have any other choice. The point is, though, that Park Jisung really likes to dance. Not enough to join the dance club, because for an introvert, that’s simply just embarrassing– but enough to spend hours on it and dedicate all his free time to it.
He watches his body move in the mirror, the music playing loud in the background as he tries to come up with a choreography cool enough to satisfy his needs. It makes him feel productive and also accomplished to dance so freely since in reality, he really should be doing his homework just about right now– but dance was more important to him. Will it help him get good grades? Surely not. Does he care? You guessed it. Not really.
The atmosphere of the empty practice room and the music overbearing all of his senses makes him lose himself in the song, closing his eyes and twirling around in his place for a moment of rest. He’s no ballerina, but it feels good to just spin sometimes. Park Jisung is still a kid at heart, after all.
The door of the room opens and closes, making him snap out of his little trance and turn around, prepared to be faced with the figure of the janitor staring at him with an annoyed expression on his middle-aged face, but is met with a surprise as his eyes meet yours and the sweat on his forehead intensifies in a new wave of shyness and anxiety.
“O-oh, hi? Hello?” he mumbles, jogging to his phone connected to the speakers laying on the ground in the far right corner of the room, chewing on his bottom lip in nerves and shouting at himself in his insides for being so embarrassing again. Teenage hormones really decided to fuck him over this time, didn’t they?
“Hi,” you greet him, smiling. The first two weeks in your new school were over right now and even though it felt more like torture to you than a blessing, it felt nice to finally meet someone who was willing to talk to you with a face free of any visible disgust. Park Jisung was the first person that was nice to you in this school, but the joy of finally talking to him again is overpowered with the realization that he was also the last.
“Those were some pretty spins you got there,” you grin at him, trying to lighten up the atmosphere.
Jisung almost chokes on his own spit as the music stops and silence overtakes the spacious room, cracking his knuckles and wiping the sweat off his forehead. The hoodie he was wearing is now laying in the corner of the room and his black shirt is sticking to his body, making him feel weirdly exposed when he doesn’t have the comfort of the long sleeves to cover his long limbs in with the sweater paws he so anxiously makes whenever he feels his palms sweating in stress.
“What are you doing here?” he asks instead, chuckling at your remark. He doesn’t realize just how rude his question must have sounded before he sees your face darken a little in a shadow, chewing on the inside of your cheek as your voice comes out in a nervous stutter.
“I-I just…”
“I mean, it’s good that you’re here! It’s… It’s amazing to talk to you again, I just thought you’d be home already. Classes ended a long time ago and I’m usually the last one that stays here, so I’m just a little… shocked? To see you?” he explains hurriedly, finding no time to feel embarrassed by his heartfelt confessions and stressed waving of his hands around his head, seeing your face light up instantly as you smile at him and release the breath you’ve been holding.
This school really must have made you feel really unwanted.
You shrug, stepping in one place for a few seconds before you answer. “I didn’t feel like going back to Zhong’s house,” you mumble, “it’s boring to stay there all the time. I went to the library to read something, but I got bored of that too and then I heard music, so I just followed it…”
Jisung grins at you, shaking his head to move the bangs out of his face so he can see you more clearly. “Oh. Well,” he starts, mustering up the courage to make his next move, “you can join me if you want.”
Your mouth opens and closes on itself for a moment, looking like a fish washed up on the shore gasping for air, when you shyly glance to your feet and shrug again. “Sure. Okay,” you smile, taking a few daring steps away from the door and placing your bag next to Jisung’s in the corner he’s sitting at. You nervously lick your lips when you notice him watching you, averting your gaze and lighting softly.
“I can’t really dance, though. Not to the music you were dancing to anyway,” you say, looking at his back in the mirror. Somehow, it’s easier to watch him move in the full-length reflective surface stuck to the wall opposite of you, so you choose to do just that as he stands up and reaches your body stiffly set in the middle of the dance floor.
“What music can you dance to, then?” he asks.
He’s ready to change the music to whatever you want to listen to, fully prepared to make you feel comfortable and at ease. If he’s the closest thing you have to a friend, he’s happy to fit the role and be a kind soul to you behind closed doors.
“Uh,” you mumble, grinning, “I can’t dance to modern stuff. I’m kind of good at like… classical dance?” you propose, eyes full of doubt, but still shining with excitement.
Park Jisung is a teenage boy. Classical dance is something he’s not so familiar with, the shocked expression on his face making it known to you instantly when you watch him from the corner of your eye. The corners of your lips tug up into a shy smile when you squint at him in teasing, laughing.
“You know, the stuff you dance at proms? Waltz and stuff?” you say, seeing his eyes widen even more when he nods, licking his lips.
“Aah, got it,” he chuckles, “I’m not… I’m not really good at that.”
You just shrug, taking a few steps backward to lean on the white wall of the practice room, folding your arms on your chest, and sighing in acknowledgment. “It’s okay. I can just watch you do your thing for a while if you don’t mind, or I can just go home-”
“Don’t go!” Jisung stops you quickly, cringing just at how desperate he sounds, his voice rising a few octaves at his urgent plea. He really doesn’t want you to leave, the sight of your face making him feel nervously giddy, but surely at least a little excited. He would hate it if he made you go away, but the thought of having you watch him dance was making him crawl in his skin with embarrassment and shyness, letting him quickly muster up something in his mind that wouldn’t make him hate the realization just as much.
“You can… You can teach me a little something? And then I’ll teach you what I do. Next time. If you want,” he says hesitantly, nervously laughing. He reaches your figure leaning against the wall in a few big steps, hopeful eyes drowning in yours with the preposition. The relief that washes over you is very much apparent on your face and he can’t say he doesn’t like it, making him jump a little in his place when you nod and agree.
“Okay. Let’s teach you what dance really is then, Park Jisung,” you grin. Jisung finds himself smiling at the way his name sounds coming out of your mouth. It tastes like honey on his tongue and he feels himself growing a little addicted to the sweetness you make him feel.
He lends you his phone to search for the music on youtube, playing the song you exactly wanted, your fingers curling around his phone case and softly placing the piece of technology back down on the floor. You two meet in the middle of the dancefloor again and the closeness of your body makes Jisung’s heartbeat quicken and his palms sweat, making him remember the first day he met you and wonder about the reason why you make him feel so, so flustered in the first place. He knew classical dance is something you do in two since you already mentioned the prom dances to him, but he’s still surprised when you ask him if you can touch him and lead him across the room.
“Can- can I?” you ask, your hand hovering over his shoulder, making him gulp and hurriedly nod. He hopes he doesn’t look too eager. Don’t get him wrong, it’s not that he desires for you to touch him (well, maybe just a little), but he doesn’t want you to think he is disgusted by you like everyone else seems to be.
With your hand on his shoulder and his hand on your waist, he feels even more unsure and insecure. You interlock your hand with his and stare down to his feet, making him do the same. He’s glad he doesn’t have to meet your eyes, for he’s sure he’d be a stumbling mess if he did so, praying and begging all the gods above you don’t feel his sweaty palm on yours and don’t connect it to the obvious– you make him nervous. Your voice is just loud enough to hear over the music when you speak to him, explaining the basics to him.
“Now, you’re going to take a step back with your left,” you say, watching him do just as he’s told, following his leg with yours, “and then, you’re going to do the same, but you’re going to step back where you were. Just like that.”
You smile at him, noticing that he learns quickly. A true dancer at heart, indeed, you think as he dances freely with you, even moving in a circle like you subconsciously lead him to, teaching him the most basic dance of them all– Waltz.
He finds himself growing less and less nervous around you, daring to move his eyes off his feet. Something inside of him screams at him to look at you, to steal a glance at you when you’re unaware of his eyes on your face, but just when he moves to watch the crown of your head, he’s met with your eyes already watching him. Your soft eyes that once used to watch the bangs falling into his eyes and the focused look on his face are now glazing over his big eyes and rosy cheeks, making you grin and look away. The look he gives you is too much for you to handle right now, with the unspoken romance of it all, making you clear your throat and watch his feet. You’re not sure if he’s looking you in the face or not, but you don’t dare to check.
“You’re doing great. It’s hard for me to believe you never did this before,” you say, laughing.
“I’m just talented, I guess,” he shrugs, snickering. The atmosphere changes around the two of you, the air grows thicker and more intimate. He almost forgets he’s in the school dance room, waiting for the janitor to come in any second to tell him he has to go home, when he feels your hand squeezing his in a moment when you burst into laughter.
“I can see that. You have to show me your talent next time, though. If you’re so good at this, I can only imagine how good you are at what you usually dance,” you compliment him, soft-spoken and gentle. It’s hard for him to believe the shyness in your voice with how your comment makes his heart race.
“You’ll see. It will blow your mind,” he laughs.
“I’m sure it will, Jisung,” you nod. He knows so, because he keeps watching you.
You dare to meet his eyes again, the closeness of your faces allowing you to count his every eyelash, allowing you to notice the glimmer in his eyes and his slightly chapped lips. Both of you are blissfully unaware of the heat in your cheeks, the shyness spreading all around you.
You’d look like a happy couple to a stranger’s eye, Jisung realizes.
He doesn’t hate that thought.
Hushed whispers and soft laughs resonate through the silent neighborhood, the two amused teenagers thinking that they’re quiet enough not to be heard while Park Jisung offers his open arms to you as you climb down from the open window with panic in your eyes. You land safely on the soft grass of the Zhong’s backyard and not to his arms, much to Jisung’s dismay, but he’s glad he doesn’t have to have you so close again in fear of getting another rush of adrenaline and blushy smiles.
He’s not quite yet used to the way you make him feel and act. Park Jisung is still a stranger when it comes to love, finding it hard to even recognize the feeling in fear of ruining something if he had to admit that he is, indeed, very much smitten with your aura.
The truth is that ever since dancing with you in the spacious practice room of his high school and finding it hard to even look you in the eye, the feelings he feels bubbling in the center of his whole being have only grown to learn how to intensify. It’s not like you two meet that often– which is very much good for his heart– you only ever meet him in the dance room and the two shared classes you have, but the conversations he’s shared with you and the laughs you two have had, he would consider you his friend.
It’s only now that he decided to hang out with you away from the walls of the hell he calls his high school. It’s 2 in the morning and you two spent the evening texting, which resulted in his mum curiously asking him questions about why he keeps smiling into his phone when you told him that you’re incredibly hungry.
Now, one would ask if you haven’t eaten dinner. Park Jisung did just that and was weirded out when you answered that you didn’t want to, but the messages following that made him break into laughter as he decided to invite you to a late-night McDonald’s run in fear of letting you starve yourself to sleep.
It’s a big step for the young boy– to publicly hang out with you in front of the world, after ignoring everyone’s snarky comments when they talk about you behind your back and not doing anything to stop them. He’s never the one to mention you in a conversation, which, in one light, could be a good thing– too bad he never gives any effort to clear out the bad reputation you have just by existing and coming here from a foreign country.
He doesn’t know how you feel about all of that, but he surely feels ashamed. Every single time you look at him, there’s something else accompanying the butterflies he gets in his stomach, and that something is guilt.
“Shh, they can’t catch me sneaking out, or else they’ll send me back to where I came from and my certificate will go to waste,” you mutter with a humongous grin on your face mirroring the excitement you feel on your insides.
You haven’t done anything quite adventurous and exciting ever since you came here– the most adrenaline you felt was while you were trying to find your guest family at the airport and that surely wasn’t an experience you’d like to remember when you come back home. It was only good for you to have someone to show you the true excitement you’ve been desiring when you signed up for the exchange program, and if that someone was Park Jisung, the lanky boy with an adorable smile, then that be it. You weren’t going to complain.
“You keep talking too loud, don’t throw the blame on me!” he giggles, feet shuffling in the grass as you exit the property of your guest family and walk down the illuminated street.
“I can’t believe you actually refuse to eat their food,” Jisung snickers, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’re going to be hungry the whole time?”
“I’m not going to eat that, Sung,” you offendedly let out with a dry chuckle leaving your lips. The nickname makes the young boy’s heart skip a beat as he dips his head down not to show the redness spreading over his cheeks, listening curiously to your reasoning. “It just… it doesn’t taste good. At all. And the last time I tried it, I spent the whole evening on the toilet. It’s not that my guest family is bad, really, but Ms. Zhong’s cooking just isn’t it for me.”
Jisung bursts out in laughter, leading you to turn left when the block comes to an intersection, noticing your lack of knowledge on where the 24/7 open McDonald’s is located. He wonders if you had anyone to show you around the city and feels a numb pung in the stomach upon the realization that he could have been the one to do so on the first day he met you, only if he wasn’t such a coward.
“Well, what do you do during lunch? Do you just sit there?” he asks.
You avoid answering for a few seconds, licking your lips and looking at the night sky. “Well,” you start, chuckling at your own response, “I just… I pretend I’m eating and then dump the food to Daegal.”
“Daegal,” he repeats in bewilderment. “You throw the food to the poor dog.”
“Well, yeah! What else am I supposed to do when the food makes me sick all the time? I swear she puts laxatives into that shit, even the poor dog has to go out to take a dump more often than usual!” you exclaim lively, hands flying around your whole figure. Jisung finds you so entertaining, with your voice resonating through the empty streets. He once again notices the clothes you’re wearing– looking 100% ready to sleep with the checkered pyjama bottoms and the big hoodie thrown over your figure so you don’t get cold in the crisp air of the evening. You look like a big cuddly teddy bear to him and he gets ashamed of the picture that sparks inside of his brain– your figure inside of his arms. He doesn’t know why he has such a strange urge to hold you sometimes, but he’s sure he won’t ever act up on it.
Again, Park Jisung is a coward.
When you two reach the fast-food chain of his wettest dreams, he leads you inside. Opening the door for you seems like the bravest thing he’s done since standing up for himself in middle school after a kid named Yangyang threatened to take his lunch from him if he didn’t let him copy his Biology homework and the way you look at him while you walk through the door makes his knees weak and hands sweat again. He wishes to control these feelings, but he quickly learns that it’s impossible– he can’t really get used to it either.
“What do you want to order?” he asks, stepping quietly next to your figure waiting in the middle of the McDonald’s looking at the signs with big pictures of their menu at the top of the counter. You take a little more time than usual to decide, chewing on your bottom lip and scamming through the numerous options, indecisive and hungry.
“Anything…” you mumble, shrugging. Your eyes meet and he feels himself grinning when you sigh and tiredly mourn: “Or everything, really.”
Jisung is an expert at ordering from fast-food chains. He’s been to this particular McDonald’s numerous times before and he knows just what tastes the best done at 2 in the morning with the only server working being the kid that graduated from his high school a few years ago– you just have to pick the safest choice, really.
“I’d get anything but the salads. Or the Big Mac. It might be a good choice when anyone but this guy’s working,” he whispers close to your ear, knowing damn well the annoyed eyes of the server behind the counter are watching him, chewing on his gum and waiting for the young pair to order. To be honest, if he had to work the night shift, Jisung, too, would be annoyed out of his mind.
“Oh, I just have to trust your food advice after that one time where I doubted you and ordered the pizza in the school cafeteria the first week of being here,” you giggle and watch Jisung gasp, a fakely offended look sitting on his face.
“You didn’t trust me when I said it tastes like rubbish?”
“Well, I just didn’t think it could get that bad… I thought I was eating rubber from how the cheese kept squeaking under my teeth. Almost gagged when I tasted the sweet tomato sauce too,” you sigh, trying hard to battle the memory out of your mind. It’s almost as traumatic as the joyful look Ms. Zhong gives you when she expects you to eat the soup she made, not knowing you hate carrots and you’d rather eat your left toe than the half-raw piece of meat sitting on your plate.
“Okay, let me order for you this time, though. Go find a table to sit at and it’ll be a surprise,” he smiles at you, watching how you happily nod and trail away to sit somewhere in the corner of the room, away from the nosy server and closer to the window. The parking lot is empty, except for the bike locked around the stray lamppost in the far left corner, and the streets heave with silence as you listen to the quiet tones of the radio.
You watch him sit at the table a few minutes later with a red tray in his hands, two servings of fries balancing at the top alongside with a cheeseburger neatly placed on the side facing you, packs of sauce flying all around the small tray when he drops it to the table and takes a seat opposite of you with a satisfied look on his face.
“How much was this? I’ll pay you back,” you hurriedly say, taking out your wallet, the only thing you brought with you alongside your phone, lazily throwing it into the big front pocket of your hoodie.
“Oh, it’s whatever,” Jisung mumbles, looking down into his lap. He doesn’t even offer you a glance when you kick his leg under the table, opening the wallet in the meantime.
“Stop with that bullshit, I’m not letting you pay for my food!” you stump your foot, kicking him once more. When he doesn’t react, you take one of the fries into your hand and throw it his way, making him pay attention to you instead of his lap, the piece of potato reaching the crown of his head and falling down into the tray.
“What are you doing?” he asks, looking at you in confusion.
“How much was it?” you ask again, seeing him stare at you with wide eyes, dumbfounded.
“I don’t remember,” he shrugs, trying to play it off, a shy grin sitting on his face. He doesn’t know why he wants to pay for your food so much– perhaps it’s his way of saying sorry for ignoring you in the school corridors and not taking you out sooner, perhaps it’s his way of showing you he doesn’t like the way even his friends treat you sometimes.
“Stop it!” you mourn, taking another fry and throwing it his way. This time, it falls right into his lap, making him let out a frustrated heave.
“You stop! It’s gonna stain!” he mourns, throwing the fry back onto the tray, shaking his head.
“Tell me how much it was so I can pay you back, or I won’t hesitate to throw the whole thing onto your head,” you threaten him, a serious look sitting on top of your adorable face, making Jisung soften on the inside as he shakes his head again.
“No.”
“Okay, I’m adding ketchup to the mix,” you shrug innocently, opening the pack and dipping the fry into it, reaching your hand out to throw it onto him, efficiently making his clothes dirty and paying for his mistakes.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh trust me, I would. And I will.” your gaze sharpens, eyes fiercely looking into his. When he doesn’t move and tell you exactly what you want, you reach out your hand again– you fear no man and Park Jisung is never going to be the first one.
His reflexes are fast, though– he’s a skilled one at defense. He is friends with Na Jaemin, which means he has to dodge kisses at least seven times a day from how much the older one likes to show affection. His hand comes in contact with your wrist, stopping you mid-move and not prepared.
You gasp at the contact, trying to make him let go, to which he only laughs at your antics and continues to watch you struggle.
“Hey! This is not fair. I can still throw the fry if you really want me to-”
He comes near, so near you almost feel his hot breath on your skin, so near you can almost count all his eyelashes and admire his face from so up close again. The last time you had the opportunity to do so was in the practice room of your high school while slow dancing with him after dawn, and you don’t like going back to the memory. It just makes you a little too giddy for your liking.
However, he quickly brings you out of your shock when he bites off the fry you’re holding in your hand, grinning at you as he lets go and rests his back against the red cushions of the booth, watching you stare him down in shock and bewilderment.
“You can pay next time.”
And with this subtle invitation, Park Jisung feels braver than the marines.
If you really wanted to search for character development in Jisung, it would be a little hard to do, I admit. You could squint and even take a magnifying glass because, in reality, Park Jisung is still very much a coward. The fact that he so dearly wishes he wasn’t more than any time before doesn’t change the fact that he himself doesn’t change either. With how he pays little to no attention to you except from when you two are alone and how he still has yet to admit to having your phone number to anyone he knows, it’s quite evident to see that he just feels a little too comfortable with going with the crowd.
It’s a little surprising to see him with you in the daylight, right in front of everyone’s eyes. It’s a moment for the memory books and a moment he knows he’ll never forget. It’s also a little surprising to see him just a little before 7 pm in sportswear and with a bag sitting on his back in one of the most famous city attractions for all sorts of tourists– walking along the Seoul city wall with you, excitedly skipping through the space with a wide smile on your face.
“Are you really sure you’ve never been here before?” you ask, turning around just a few steps in front of him, a curious look mirroring your features.
“100% positive,” he nods, slangily moving up on the hill, his hands in his pockets and a desire for water in his heart.
Don’t get me wrong, Jisung likes Seoul. It’s the city he was born in and the city he grew up in– but to live here and know about the city, you don’t often have the opportunity to visit such tourist attractions. At least that’s how he sees it. Yes, he knows the history, he’s learned it in school– but the true knowledge of the city is in the hidden beauties and the most efficient fast food places to eat the cheapest at. He’s never hiked the Seoul city wall, in reality, he never really had the desire to do so, but with you striding around the place as if you were a local, he’s glad he took on this opportunity.
Picking you up from the Zhong’s house– not on his car, because, well, he doesn’t have any- or a driver’s license, for that sake– but just by simply standing in front of the house, safely behind the fence so he’s not on the property (It scares him a little to stand there. He doesn’t know why, cut the poor boy some slack.), it all felt a little weird when you didn’t climb out of the window with a hushed giggle and sleepwear hugging your figure. You’re dressed up casually now, but still stylish enough to blow the poor boy’s mind, and you walked out the door like a normal person, not a rebellious child.
Jisung nervously led you to the object of your desire, the place you wanted to visit the most when he asked you once in the dance room of your school, his heartbeat drumming in his ears with the realization that this feels oddly close to being on a date, hands sweating in his front pockets as he kicked the stray rocks on the street and watched you kick them his way when they landed in front of your foot. He found himself childishly grinning with the game, glad to have something to focus on as he tried to talk to you as always, casually and friendly.
Because that’s what you are– friends. Or at least, that’s what he hopes you are. Not that he wouldn’t mind being something more, he realizes, the thought sinking in his stomach and creating only more nerves and tension in his limbs, but most of all, he just really hopes he isn’t anything less than a friend to you. It’s the first step and he wishes not to skip it if he ever has the guts to confess to you or tell you how you make him feel.
You wait for him to catch up and grin when he raises his eyebrows at you in question.
“Don’t look so grumpy! It looks like you don’t even want to be here,” you sigh, a pout sitting on your lips. Jisung forces himself to stare anywhere but at your mouth in fear of his hormones exploding, snickering at your sudden outburst and nodding in acceptance.
“I do want to be here, though. It’s nice to spend some time with you when we’re not trapped in the school or running to get you some decent food,” he explains, seeing you softly smile.
“But?” you ask.
“But what?”
“I don’t know, you tell me! It sounded like this sentence is supposed to be followed with a but, so I’m waiting for you to say it,” you giggle, meeting your eyes with his and pulling a little at the strings of your backpack.
“There’s no but, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jisung laughs, shaking his head in disbelief. Something inside of him is telling him that you feel the tension in his body and notice the way he tries to focus on anything but your presence. It’s slightly embarrassing to think about since he is just desperately trying to not fall for you even more now when it’s only two weeks until you have to leave back home, but it’s there and he wishes not to let it show to the whole world.
There are a few reasons for this, and I’m fairly certain most of you are aware of them. I’m going to repeat them, though, just in case.
- Park Jisung is a coward.
- Park Jisung has never been in love before, and it scares him. You scare him sometimes. Not in a bad way, just more in a what-am-I-supposed-to-do-with-myself-way. It’s the same amount of terrifying, though.
- Park Jisung still acts like he doesn’t talk to you when it comes to his friends. It’s embarrassing and he wonders how you don’t mind, but it makes him guilty just the same.
- You leave in two weeks and he doesn’t want to get too attached.
The truth is, though, that all of these reasons contribute to the fact that even though he loves being here with you, even though his heart jumped when you asked him to go with you and made it sound like a date invitation, he would rather not be so close to you in the first place.
He’s risking too many things– his reputation, his emotions, his mental well-being, but most of all, he’s risking getting his heart broken. Not by you, just by himself and his poor actions.
You don’t have to know all that, though. And for that reason, there are no buts.
“Okay, if you really say so…” you shrug, leaving the thought be and trailing a little behind him as you search for something in your pocket, “take some pictures for me! I only have some pictures of the town center that I took when I went alone and I wanna show something to my mum when I get home,” you smile and thrust a phone into his hand.
It’s an innocent suggestion, but it makes Jisung’s heart break just a little. You took pictures of the town when you walked around alone. You have no pictures of yourself in front of the sightseeings because you had no one around to take some. It must feel so lonely to be in Jisung’s hometown.
“O-okay,” he nods, taking the unlocked phone with the camera app already waiting for him, watching you run a few meters in front of him out of the corner of his eye and throwing out a peace sign for him to take a picture of.
He follows you around and takes a picture of you in every little thing you like because you deserve to have your gallery clogged with blurry ugly pictures he takes, for it’s been heaving with loneliness ever since you arrived. Pictures of the scenery, of you, randomly pointing out something you like in the distance, of your back facing him and walking up the hill. The sky turns dark with the evening and the orange hues of the lampposts make your face illuminate with beauty and Jisung doesn’t even wait for you to order him around and pose for a picture, he just takes them by himself like your designated photographer for the day, because you’re too beautiful in his eyes and he desperately wants to capture the feeling you make him feel in a single photo, even though he knows it’s impossible.
He even takes a photo of you on his own phone when you’re not looking. To remember you when you’re gone.
To curse at when he misses you. Because he imagines he’s going to miss you.
When the skies turn completely midnight blue and you two eat ice cream on your way back, Jisung feels his heart heave. He had a good time, sure, but it also made him realize he missed out on so much. He could have hiked the wall with you the first week after your arrival. He didn’t have to wait so long.
“Can you take one last picture for me?” you ask him, taking him off guard.
He snickers at your question, rolling his eyes. “Don’t you have enough photos for the day? I don’t think you have enough storage for one more.”
You playfully nudge him in the shoulder with your elbow, giggling. “If that’s the case, I’ll just delete one picture of myself so this one can make the cut. Come on, take my phone. You’re taller than me,” you explain with a grin on your face, making Jisung furrow his brows and question you, much like he always does, after all. He’s a confused individual.
“Take one of us! Come on!” you plea, pouting to get your way, seeing Jisung quickly look away and sigh.
He’s defeated a little too quickly this time, raising the phone above his head and seeing you shuffle close next to him on the phone screen, smiling at the camera once he counts down from 3 and lightly pulls you to him around your shoulders. It’s a bold move for someone like him, considering he was afraid to even look at you a few hours ago.
You quickly hug him around his waist in the second picture. You don’t know what your sudden wave of affection does to the boy and he’s glad it’s the evening and you can’t see the red in his cheeks.
When you look through the photos a few seconds after, a silent confession leaves his mouth, whispering into the crisp air.
“I’m going to miss you when you’re gone.”
You stand in the corner of the room in your peach-colored dress and the ugly red plastic cup in your hand. You stare the people around you down and Jisung feels bad, he feels so utterly bad he almost feels like he’s going to puke, but he can’t do anything about the sinking feeling in his stomach if he doesn’t want to look like a coward.
His friends either wandered off to other corners of the room or the dance floor. He figures it’s his fault anyway since his mind’s been in a different place pretty much since he arrived, but he can’t help but feel a little alone. Was there even a reason for him to come? He is getting ignored anyway. It’s no fun sitting in a full room alone– it feels utterly lonely now. Is everyone staring him down while laughing at him in their head?
He can’t really know.
But then, a sinking realization hits him right in the gut. It’s only been a few hours since he had to feel like this, but it’s been three months for you. Three months that were supposed to be the most exciting and full of adventure for you– they were all ruined because of prejudice and pathetic teenagers who think they’re something more just because they are local.
His phone lights up on the table to a photo of you two under the lamppost of a lonely hill– the one you took together the last time he hung out with you. A sudden urge fills his throat and makes his bones move, standing up just in time to see you walking out of the school auditorium, the dress swinging in the air behind your figure subtly reflecting in the lights.
Park Jisung had been a coward, but now, a day before your departure, he thinks that being brave isn’t such a bad idea.
He knows he’ll regret it if he lets you leave.
Big steps across the room, hurried breathing, and a cautious hold of your wrist– he is finally close to you and making you jolt in your steps. You turn your head to him and watch him with surprised eyes, mouth agape, and earrings swinging in your ears. If this was a scene in a movie, the video would be in slow motion and the music would stop just to enhance the effect– the world stopped turning and the time stopped ticking right at the moment he approached you again, right in front of everyone.
He doubts anyone’s really looking. He doubts if anyone really cares, but truthfully, this moment feels like it’s the most important step in his life.
“Are you leaving?” he asks, voice shaky and unsure.
“Well… I was going to, yeah…” you mumble, loud enough to be heard over the music. The atmosphere is heavy and the air around you thickens. It’s not like you two to act so hesitantly around each other anymore– it’s long forgotten after the many dance dates and late-night McDonald’s runs. He knows what changed, but he doesn’t quite like admitting it out loud.
“Would you… would you like to stay for a minute? And dance with me?” he asks. He sees your eyes brighten upon his request, and even though your face seems positively changed, you still hesitantly bite down on your lower lip and drift your eyes away from him in thought.
“I don’t know, Jisung, maybe I should just go home. I have a flight to catch tomorrow and nobody wants me here anyway, so-”
This is the first time you admitted it out loud. Jisung feels a little defeated, his shoulders slouching down and breathing halting. It’s like both of you knew you weren’t that popular, both of you knew that people talked about you behind their back and that Jisung never talked to you in class in fear of being judged, but you both just danced around it and ignored the fact to not make anything any more awkward between the two of you.
“Please,” he says, squeezing your arm a little in his hold. You seem to doubt him, the shadow once again falling on your face as you chew on the inside of your cheek. “You taught me how to dance the Waltz. I wanna try now.”
Desperation sits in his voice and you notice it instantly. He knows his time is running out and that you are no longer as present in his life as you used to be, he realizes more than any time now that he has been treating you poorly– but he is trying to do better. He is trying to make the most out of the little he has, and you feel a strange feeling of warmness spreading in your stomach. It may be a little late now, but it’s better than never, right?
“I think you forgot all of it,” you softly giggle, finally meeting his eyes. “It’s been too long ago.”
“My memory is good, I’ll let you know,” he points out, stepping closer to you, “want to challenge me?”
You stare into his eyes for a second, emotions swirling around them making Jisung a little confused. A grin breaks out onto your face as you sigh, nodding. It’s a sign that he’s won, he made you stay just a little longer so he could dance with you one last time, and he swears he has never felt so up in the clouds before.
“Okay, let’s try, then.”
He leads you to the dance floor. He’s not sure if the music choice of the DJ is good enough for Waltz, but it’s slow enough for dancing like a pair. You seem to notice the loss in the counts and the different speeds of the song, opting to just put your hands around his neck and watching him hold you close around your waist.
You two are closer than ever now– he’s never seen you so from up close before. Your eyelashes crown your cheeks in the prettiest of dust and your lips are softer from here, inviting the young male even more hurriedly now. It’s making his blood boil and his hands sweat, but you seem content. You seem happy when you smile and you seem happy when you whisper into his ear, making him lightly chuckle.
“We can’t Waltz now, but this is nice too.”
He nods. He swallows down the lump in his throat and he lets you lead him, slowly swaying to the music. He doesn’t know how much of the blush that’s sitting on his cheeks you can see in the dim lights of the auditorium, but he hopes it’s not so apparent.
“Can I walk you to the airport tomorrow?” he asks.
“The Zhong’s are driving me, so it’s okay,” you say, a coat of remorse in your voice making Jisung shake his head.
“It’s fine. I just wanted to spend some more time with you before you leave.”
The sentence hangs in the air and makes both of you stiffen. Unsaid questions swirl around your head when you watch the boy looking at you in admiration, the last kick of bravery hitting you in the guts as you decide to mention what you’ve been meaning to for the last two weeks at least.
“Well… You wasted two weeks for nothing, so I kind of get that,” you mumble, raising your eyebrows and seeing him crumble under your gaze.
The sound of music is the only answer to your ears for a while, thousands of emotions mirroring the young one’s face in an instant. You know you put him in the hot seat now, but you don’t mind getting the last piece of explanation from him. You deserve it, after all you’ve been through, don’t you?
“Sorry,” he starts, meeting your eyes. “I just… Didn’t want to fall for you harder when I knew you’re leaving in a few.”
He expects you to be shocked, but the acceptance and no hint of surprise in your face make even more sense to him now, if he really thinks about it. Perhaps you knew all along. Perhaps he didn’t have to hide it for so long.
You smile at him, the strongest wave of fondness in your grin, shaking your head in disbelief and pressing your body closer to him, the feeling of your figure hitting his making his blood boil and breathing hitch in his throat.
The hint of your breath on his lips wakes him up, wide eyes watching you as you reach to him and press your lips lightly against his, stealing away his first kiss with the softness of comfort and the adrenaline of fireworks. You don’t even mention it when you pull away, the content smile on your face never leaving as you dance with him some more, excitingly making him twirl you around like a ballerina. Once you finally settle into his arms again, his hands now firm and nerves leaving, you take it upon yourself to break his heart just a little with your next sentence. It doesn’t hurt much, only a little– he’s been prepared for the hit all along, there is no turning time and changing the future.
He had you for three months and now you’re going to be gone– but at least no one’s going to steal those three months from him away.
“I’m going to miss you, Park Jisung.”