make me a liar (part two) (jonghyun/taeyeon)
make me a liar (part two)
jonghyun/taeyeon; pg-13; 10,138 words (in full)
college!au-niverse
an: the same as the first part, this is just... the second part. god, i could have just cut it down a few words but i was afraid it'd kill the quality (lol, that was already done when i was writing it though).
"That wasn't as awful as I thought it was going to be."
The thought struck her as Jonghyun rested the neck of his bass against the monitor of the front desk computer, jumping up onto a free counter space next to Taeyeon. If this had been a month earlier, she would have barely been able to resist the urge to grab him by the collar and push him onto the ground but now? It wasn't so bad.
He was warm, and she'd failed again to dress well for the weather, and that was making being stuck in the far too cold shop a little less excruciating for her.
It was just the connotations that went along with it - they were friends, right? Maybe not of the outspoken variety but she'd went to a gig of his. That made them a little bit of something, right? She just wasn't sure if he was on the same page as she was there.
Maybe it was because of the way he'd looked at her that night, or the way his gaze was piercing into her right then. It was full of something she couldn't exactly decipher as her head turned to the side to get a better look at the situation.
That probably hadn't been the brightest of ideas, she thought as her head shot back forward, trying her hardest to hide that same creeping red that had flushed over her skin a few nights earlier.
----
"I don't understand guys," she let out, tongue swirling around the top of her third (maybe fourth, she'd stopped keeping count after the first) bottle of soju.
Taeyeon rolled onto her side, resting her back onto the plush of her good friend, Tiffany's, carpeting. The corner of her coffee table had left a probably visibly and incredibly uncomfortable mark at the small of her back - but it was nothing compared to the tight, warm, confusing swirling at the core of her stomach.
"What's to understand? They have penises and that's basically the only relevant thing about thing because you know controls most of their thoughts." Soonkyu, her smaller (though not by much), pixie haired friend, plopped down at her side, small hand moving to link fingers with her own.
Taking the hand willingly, Taeyeon let out an exasperated sigh. "I know that, but it's not helping me." She pouted slightly, not really sure why she'd decided to bring the subject of the opposite sex up.
"Helping you? Are you implying that there's…," Taeyeon let out a small gasp as the body of her blonde friend dropped down at her other side, cutting off the start of her sentence, arm flopping against her stomach. "… there's a guy you're into?" She finished off just as their third and final friend entered the room, a expression nothing short of complete awe stuck on her face.
"Oh my god, you have a crush?!" Tiffany let out, taking seat cross legged at the base of Taeyeon's feet before beginning to shake around her unopened bottle of soju in excitement. "This is so great, I can't remember the last time you've come to us about something about this!"
"I'm not coming to you guys about anything," Taeyeon let out, nothing short of monotonously as she attempted to raise herself into a seated position, a whirling sensation striking her as she attempted to do. Wow, maybe she really had miscounted on how many bottles she'd downed already. "I was just stating a fact."
"A pretty goddamn obvious one," Sunny let out through a mouth of cheetos, causing a thick and obvious eyeroll from Tiffany.
"Oh, come on, don't turn her off to the idea of liking someone if that's what's going on here!" Tiffany let out, raising a hand to place an encouraging pat or two against Taeyeon's knee cap. "There's nothing wrong with liking someone or… you know, not liking someone, but you shouldn't feel guilty about either."
Did she feel guilty? No, she didn't. That wasn't it; she'd gotten over an guiltiness connected with him after she'd actually started to pay attention to what he had to say with her. Pursing her lips together as Tiffany continued to ramble about the prospect of her having a crush, she let out another sigh.
She was too drunk for this.
----
"Noona?" Noona. Why did he have to call her noona. "I have to go swing by my sister's place and pay her back some money I owe her but Jonghun was a dick and scraped our plans for tonight in favor of… uh, well, your friend."
Taeyeon turned to her company, eyes glassy, and chuckled softly. So, that was really a thing now? "Yeah?"
"Yeah," he repeated back with a small nod of his head. "I rented a movie for us and everything," he groaned and she couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "It'd guess it'd be kind pointless if I let the rental go to waste, right?"
Right.
"Wanna come over? I can order us in pizza or something."
She liked pizza. Who could turn down pizza?
"Okay."
----
His apartment wasn't exactly the way she'd envisioned it would be. Taeyeon wasn't sure what she had been expecting before she'd rapped almost nervously against the surface of his door half an hour earlier. Maybe she was just used to a guy's apartment being nothing short of a pigsty. That was how things had been back in New York, that was how Jinwoon apartment had been the one time that she had actually accepted an offer to swing by his place during a prolonged lunch break.
Everything was put together pretty well. Nothing too fancy, but comfortable. Not the sort of comfortable that she had grown used to (within the four walls of her place, but that was irrelevant) but something she could settle into easily enough for the time being.
She wasn't sure why she was giving the situation as much thought as she was though. She was just there for a movie; pizza, a movie and a few bottles of soju that she had hauled along with her on a whim. Soju always heightened her senses anyway, and what was better than to have a heightened sense of taste and smell when you were chowing down on your fourth or fifth piece of pizza? Nothing.
It was kind of a right of passage with friends to drink together anyway, wasn't it? And she was friends with Jonghyun.
He was talking to her like an old friend, anyway; prattling on about how he'd brought in a nearly perfect score on some big mid-term exam earlier that day. He wanted to teach music. She had no idea; she'd just kind of assumed that he was going to stick to the band thing. The more you know.
"I think it's pretty admirable that you want to do that - teach kids music. It's cool of you," she let out truthfully as she bottomed out her first bottle, reaching forward to place it against the side of their pizza box.
"Really?" He smiled against the neck of his bottle, and his eyes were almost sparking at her - with happiness, maybe a bit of surprise. Was that the first time she'd ever given him any sort of compliment? Probably. It seemed like a compliment to her, at least.
"Would I lie?" She questioned, unscrewing the top of her second bottle, knowing that after the first kicked in first kicked in, this one was only going to do her in completely. She could slam as many as five bottles if she wanted to but that only led to her losing control of her motor skills and passing outside against the nearest warm surface - which was him, at the moment, so maybe slowing it down wasn't such a terrible idea.
He laughed. "I've never taken you for the lying type, so," he replied, smile still intact as he took a large swig out of his second bottle. He'd gone faster than she had; something about his mouth getting cottony whenever he ate too much pizza (which he had eaten four pieces in under five minutes, it was believable enough).
"Good," she answered back simply with a nod of her head - eyes locking with his own for a moment before sending back a matching smile. She wasn't sure if it was because she normally opted out for giving more than a casual smirk to him or not, but the flash of her teeth seemed to cause his own to become even more visible. She forced herself to smile awhile - at risk of copying him any further and making herself out to look like a total jackass. She didn't want to look like she was trying to mimic the Cheshire Cat - embarrassing.
The movie wasn't that interesting, to be honest, but she tried her hardest to make it seem like she was as into it as he was. Taeyeon had no idea if his sense of humor was simple, easy or if the liquor rushing through his system was making everything seem more amusing than usual for him. Possibly a little bit of both. All she did know was that watching him watch the movie from the corner of her eye - catching the shine in his eyes and little chuckles that he gave off at the most mediocre of punchlines was far more amusing than the actual film itself.
She wasn't sure if that made her creepy - watching him, but it was kind of hard not to. He was interesting - something that she was easily able to shake off when not under the influence of a bottle and a half (going on two) of soju, but now it was undeniable.
"How many bottles do we have left?"
The question posed itself seemingly out of nowhere, just as the climax of the film struck, and Taeyeon found herself having the adjust to being spoken at directly again after that good half hour of silence. Neck resting against the back cushioning of his couch, her head lolled to the side to look at him, eyelids dropping slightly. "Maybe one? I don't know. I just grabbed whatever my friend had left behind at my place this weekend."
"I can go get more, if you want." She let out a small laugh at his suggestion, shaking her head against the couch. If she drank anymore than she already had, she'd be out and drooling against his nice, soft couch which was, once again, embarrassing.
"I have to be honest with you here. I'm not wasted or anything but if I drink anymore than the…," she trailed off, raising her head off of the cushion to swing her bottle from side to side, the small amount of liquid left inside sloshing around the bottom. "… yeah. I'll black out, and I'm dead weight when that happens."
"I am too," he answered back quickly. "I mean, I'm kind of a lightweight compared to a lot of my friends," he chuckled, raising a hand to the back of his neck, scratching at it for a moment before allowing it to drop back down to his side, using his other hand to sit his almost empty bottle onto the coffee table at their feet. "I wouldn't want you passing out on me, anyway. I wanted to talk to you more, we never really get to talk to each other."
"We talk to each other all the time," Taeyeon answered back with a small laugh, taking cue from him to sit down her own bottle, gripping onto the arm of the couch as she adjusted her seated position. Legs pretzeled, body facing his which was still toward the film, so close to it's encore.
"Well, it's more like I talk to you and you nod and quip in when you de-…," he trailed off, seeming to either lose track of what he was trying to say or the right word for it. "Yeah."
"That doesn't bother you, right? I'm better at listening."
"No, I'm fine with it. I'm just wanna know more about you, you know?" It was a simple enough admission but something about it caused her pulse to pick up.
(It had to be the alcohol, that was definitely it, it was the alcohol.)
"More," she repeated back to him, her tone catechistic as she found herself unknowingly scooting closer to him, crossed knees knocking against his side.
And he seemed to notice the closeting of proximity of the two of them because, she swore, she saw him gulp in apprehension. "Yeah, more. Not even anything big…, like, dumb little things. Your favorite color, ice cream flavor, what the first physical album you bought was, if you can play any instruments…," he trailed off with a small shrug. "It's stupid, I know, I'm just interested."
"It's not stupid," she replied back, hand moving forward to rest against his biceps, fingers treading the soft material of his shirt. "I really like that one purplish blue color, not violet but… purplish blue," she realized how dim she must have sounded and couldn't help but chuckle a bit as he fingers continued to trail the hem of his sleeve. "I like this color too," she nodded down at the light blue coloring of his shirt.
"You do?"
"Yeah, I've never seen you wear this before, it's nice," his eyes widened slightly and she couldn't help but send him another smile - wider than the last. What was she doing?
"Thanks." His gulping become more prominent and constant with every second that passed. Or maybe that was normal for him - maybe he did that all the time and she'd just neglected to notice until now. She'd really neglected to notice a lot about him; neglected or forced herself to focus on anything but. Probably the latter, she was known to do that sort of thing anyway.
"I like a lot of things, it'd take too long to tell you all of them," she started back up, head moving forward, chin resting against the corner of his shoulder. If she was starting to get too close for comfort, he wasn't saying anything, he just remained in the same position that he had been for minutes now, eyes only turning down in her direction as she shifted forward, nose nestling into the nape of his neck. "You smell good."
"I smell like pizza and soju," he laughed nervously.
"Well, I do too so it's okay," and she could feel him holding his breath as her lips ghosted the side of neck, before moving to travel the line of his jaw and finally resting against the corner of his lips, pausing for a moment before pressing a soft, almost chaste kiss against the warm flesh.
She remained in place for what felt like five, even ten minutes - waiting for some sort of reaction. Repulse, confusion, shock, happiness, whatever; she would have taken anything to keep her from having to pull back in complete horror and act like she hadn't kissed him, even in the most simple and innocent ways.
It was the turn of his head that she hadn't come to expect though - the craning of his neck and fingers latching to either side of waist. She barely had times to clamp her eyes shut in expectation before his lips were against hers, parting slightly to mumble something against her that she couldn't exact decipher out.
She found her own hands traveling under the fabric of his shirt, chilled against his abdominals, causing him to shiver slightly. She mumbled a weak apology against him as his lips explored the canvas of her neck, teeth scraping against her in a way that she was certain was going to leave a mark later. She was far from caring though as she gripped at the back of his hair, pulling him back upward to meet his lips again.
She just wanted to kiss him, to be close to him, because he was so warm and nice and beautiful hovering over her like that. But she knew it wasn't that simple as he pulled back from, pupils blown with something she that wasn't as much undecipherable as it was terrifying to her.
It wasn't lust like she expected it to be - okay, maybe there was a bit of that there but there was something more lingering that made her gulp, hands shaking against him. "You're shaking," he stated the obvious, eyes narrowing slightly. "Are you cold?"
And he actually sounded like he was concerned as to whether or not she was cold, or warm, or hot, or lukewarm, or feeling well or feeling terrible and that made her gulp again. "No, I'm okay."
"Okay," was all he managed out before moving back down to kiss her again and it felt right - almost too right as his front teeth scraped at her bottom lip, pulling away only to clarify what she was pretty sure had been bringing her to the brink of anxiety for the last few minutes. "I really like you, you know that, right?"
She froze against him and she was pretty certain that he caught onto to it because he was pulling back from her again, eyes still colored with that same look, face contorted into that same apprehension she had saw earlier on.
Before she knew what she was doing, or could tell herself that maybe asking to slow down or stop to talk things out may have kept the situation from growing into something much more confusion, Taeyeon was removing her hands out from under his shirt. She pushed herself back against the arm of the chair, swinging her legs out from under his before reaching forward onto the table for her cellphone.
It didn't take her long to gather her coat and slip her boots on - it was record time for her, actually, before hastily typing out a text for Tiffany to come and pick her up out in front of the building. It was in this moment that she realized she had become so lost in trying to get out of the situation that she'd completely neglected to remember that she was still in his apartment. That Jonghyun was still mere feet away from her with this look at his face that pained her to take in as she finally allowed herself to look at him again after detaching herself from him.
"I'm sorry," the words echoed around her as she gazed down at the screen of her phone, desperately waiting for Tiffany to text her back and say she'd be there any minute. She couldn't be here; she couldn't explain why she'd pulled away to him because she wasn't even sure why she did it. And she certainly couldn't look him in the eye when she'd possibly just shattered his heart in a thousand little pieces. "I wasn't being… presumptuous, right? I just… thought… I don't know."
"No," she replied back, her tone flat - feeling as if the last bit of alcohol in her system had been flushed away at that second alone. "I kissed you first, I have to go though, sorry."
She cringed inwardly at how formal she sounded - like she was leaving a meeting at work or trying to ditch out on plans with someone she wasn't exactly fond of when it wasn't like that at all. This wasn't work, and she was fond of him, maybe a bit too fond and this realization dawned on her as she dashed toward the exit of his apartment, turning the knob and stepping outside of it.
As she started down the hallway, she was stuck with the urge to turn back on her heel and return to him - to try and talk things out but she resisted. If it were that easy, maybe she would have just caved and kissed him after that gig of his.
----
Something like two weeks could pass by painfully slow when the only thing to be anticipated between the fourteen days was release after release of single and full albums that you could care less about.
It was nothing unlike how things had been a two months earlier, before Jonghyun had stumbled into her life and helped to make all those things a little more bearable. He could find an amusement in a bland track that she'd never been able to, make a joke about it that was relatively lame but still entertaining enough to get a chuckle out of her. He'd went from a nuisance to something Taeyeon looked forward to being able to call her company on the daily.
Tiffany had told her that she had it bad - and she had just frowned in response.
Her friend, despite only knowing her for a few years, had discovered figured out the way she was wired quite easily. She seemed to understand what Taeyeon was feeling better than she knew herself, but rather than being grateful for the push toward the truth, it just made things more complicated for her.
And, frankly, it also made it sting a little because having Tiffany talk to her about it meant having to think about it and that meant also having to think about him not coming around the store anymore.
She understood why he hadn't, she would have done the same thing.
Jinwoon had pouted to her about him not coming around anymore a few days earlier and all she'd been able to do is shrug back in response. Taeyeon was sure that her response had come off as nonchalant as most other things she said until he shot out the million dollar question at her. The question that she had assumed someone would ask her sooner or later, she just hadn't expected it to come from Jinwoon, of all people.
"Weren't you guys dating, though?" He had asked and it'd taken a great deal of force for the keep her head from spinning in his direction, grateful that she'd been able to anyway - she was pretty sure her eyes had been bugging far enough out of her head to give away that something or another had been going on there.
Something.
----
It was an early April afternoon, just near the end of her shift, that her manager had turned the wheels on his favorite computer chair away from his cluttered desk in her direction. Taeyeon had been struggling to reorder everything in the goddamn jazz and blues section again (she had no idea who was coming around to fuck with that section solely, but they were now forever on her shit list).
"You've been looking more apathetic than usual lately," he had commented to her, his tone flat and casual, as usual. It wasn't often that he initiated conversations of the personal variety his employees but, when he did, Jong Wan kind of had a tendency to dig deep.
He'd done the same with Yi Young once, apparently, so it didn't surprise Taeyeon that he was trying to pull the same thing with her now.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she mumbled in response, blowing a thin film of dust off the top of one of the older albums. "I'm fine."
"Obviously you're not, you haven't been since that…," he trailed off and Taeyeon felt something undecipherable feeling coil in the pit of her stomach at him not knowing Jonghyun's name.
"Jonghyun," she replied back to him, wanting to go back to her usual hiding space behind the front counter as soon as she'd finished his sentence for him. She hadn't said his name out loud for days - it felt heavy on her tongue now.
"Right, Jonghyun," he started back up with a nod of his head. "You obviously liked being around this Jonghyun character, I don't see why…"
"I don't know why you're prying into this, ahjussi, it's not really any of your business."
And he laughed and Taeyeon wanted to grab one of the nearest albums and whip it at his head for that reason alone. "Well, I'm sorry for prying then, I just don't take well to seeing my employees stuck in a rut."
"I'm not in a rut."
"You're in a rut."
Was she in a rut? She pursued her lips together at the thought, avoiding locking gaze with him in the moment that she did so. A sigh escaped not long after, her forehead falling forward against the album she had just been dusting off. "I don't know what to do."
"This is going to sound cheesy as fuck, but," he started, wheeling himself out a little bit further, positioning the front wheels of his chair close behind her so he could manage a small pat against her back with his open palm. "I think you have to go with your heart on this one, kid. I know it might sound difficult but it's better to get the difficult over with and be happy, right?"
"Oh god," she let out. "You sound like something off of a love songs compilation album."
"I've listened to a lot of albums in my time, I can't say I'm surprised."
Taeyeon groaned, turning to face her manager before standing up and pushing the album she'd been dusting for far too long now back into it's rightful place. "I'll think about it."
----
If there was something that Taeyeon did do well, it was thinking about things; thinking about or overthinking if the opportunity presented itself. This was one of those moments.
But rather than huddling herself in front of her television set, tightly securing herself under a warm blanket and attempting to sort through her thoughts, Taeyeon had opted out for something a little more extreme.
If she was going to figure this out - if she was going to figure things out with him, she had to do it with him.
There was a good chance that he didn't want to see her, to talk to her but that was a chance she had to take. At least then she'd know and she could work on trying to get over things (god, get over, that sounded so strange to her) on her own terms.
The most difficult thing was not as much start the conversation with him as it was trying to convince herself to knock on the door of his apartment. She could have sworn that she stood there for twenty minutes, breathing heavily against the metal framing, before mustering up the actual courage to do so.
One, two, three, four, five knocks before she caught wind of rusting from inside the apartment; rusting and a groan. She frowned a bit, hoping she hadn't caught him in the middle of a nap, or at the good part of a movie, or…
Her thoughts were cut off abruptly as the chain lock of door drug against the wooden surface of the door, knob turning slowly before a large and familiar eyeball was peering out from her from the other side of the door. "Taeyeon?"
He sounded hoarse and it was then that she was pretty certain he had been sleeping - or crying, but the latter would have made her feel all the more guilty. Giving him a weak smile, her hand shot upward from her side, awkwardly waving at the single eye before falling back downward as the door opened up a bit more, Jonghyun stepping to the side somewhat in what she assumed was an invitation to come inside with him.
Her frown returned at this action - he was still willing to let her inside that easily after she'd ran out on him like that?
Taking cue from him, a small sigh escaped her lips as she stepped inside, pressing her back up against the wall opposite from him as he shut the door behind her. "Hey," she let out, her tongue flickering out of her mouth to nervously wet her bottom lip. "How have…" she trailed off, eyes wandering around the apartment quickly to catch pile after pile of take out wrappers, empty bags of chips, empty cans of soda, and a mound of pillows and blankets against the couch she'd managed to make herself so cozy on three weeks earlier.
"I would have cleaned up if I knew you were going to come here…," he trailed off, taking off in the direction of the living room, beginning to scoop up random pieces of trash into his arms before tossing them into a nearby garbage can. "It's disgusting, I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine, it's not that bad," she lied with a shake of her head. "How've you been?"
She eyed him as he turned his head downward, more than obviously avoiding to lock gaze with her, this action alone enough to make her stomach drop. "I've been okay," he lied back at her. "Hopefully you have been too."
Another sigh escaped at his response, Taeyeon finding herself absentmindedly taking a start in his direction - steps small and slow. "You don't have to lie to me," and there came the frown again - unintentional as she took the final few steps in his direction, her arms loosening at her sides before traveling upward and slithering around his neck. She knew it was incredibly presuming of her but she couldn't help it.
Hands locking behind him, her head fell against his shoulder, feeling herself loosen up even more as his own body loosened against hers. "I'm so-…," she started before she heard a grunt of disapproval from the other.
"Don't," and his tone seemed much more even than it had a few seconds before - even and more like himself, that alone making her stomach begin to settle down. "You have nothing to apologize for. I understood why you left, I'm just kind of had an… extreme reaction to that. I do that sometimes."
He laughed, chin vibrating against the top of her head before she felt a hand travel up under the bottom of her chin, pulling her at level with his mouth, lips pressing against her forehead in a quick peck. "I feel like I should explain myself still though, I mean, I've been really vague with yo-…"
"No, it's really fine, we have all the time to do that," he paused as she took a step back from him in an attempt to create more comfortable space between them, hands traveling down from behind his neck, over his biceps and forearms before finally accessing his hands. Lacing her fingers with his own, she felt herself settle into something close to comfortable for the first time in weeks. "If you're into that sort of thing."
"Maybe," she let out at his thrown back to their first conversation - it wasn't the first time he'd done it and she was pretty sure it wouldn't be the last. "There's more important things to deal with before we get there though."
He squinted his eyes in confusion at her, not sure where she was headed with her comment before Taeyeon stepped back up against him, taking away that last bit of personal space she had given back moments before and meshing their lips together. It wasn't the first time, sure - but it felt different this time around. More certain, less afraid, more happy. She could be happy with him, right?
As she pulled away to look at him a final time, the look her was enough to answer her question.
----
The next morning, Taeyeon stirred warm against his chest, the vibrations from his small chuckles bringing her out of her long, deep slumber. The scent of chocolate and dough wafted to her nose, causing her to pull herself upward from him, stretching her arms up over the top of her head with a yawn.
"You hungry?" The other asked, mouth half full, hand digging into a bag of mini donuts discarded lazily on top of his nightstand. It was the furthest thing from attractive but she couldn't help but smile, taking the food from him, her small frame curling up against his side to focus on whatever show he whatever he was finding so funny.
It was simple and probably a bit boring but she was fine with that - she could deal with that. She was actually more than happy with it.
jonghyun/taeyeon; pg-13; 10,138 words (in full)
college!au-niverse
an: the same as the first part, this is just... the second part. god, i could have just cut it down a few words but i was afraid it'd kill the quality (lol, that was already done when i was writing it though).
"That wasn't as awful as I thought it was going to be."
The thought struck her as Jonghyun rested the neck of his bass against the monitor of the front desk computer, jumping up onto a free counter space next to Taeyeon. If this had been a month earlier, she would have barely been able to resist the urge to grab him by the collar and push him onto the ground but now? It wasn't so bad.
He was warm, and she'd failed again to dress well for the weather, and that was making being stuck in the far too cold shop a little less excruciating for her.
It was just the connotations that went along with it - they were friends, right? Maybe not of the outspoken variety but she'd went to a gig of his. That made them a little bit of something, right? She just wasn't sure if he was on the same page as she was there.
Maybe it was because of the way he'd looked at her that night, or the way his gaze was piercing into her right then. It was full of something she couldn't exactly decipher as her head turned to the side to get a better look at the situation.
That probably hadn't been the brightest of ideas, she thought as her head shot back forward, trying her hardest to hide that same creeping red that had flushed over her skin a few nights earlier.
----
"I don't understand guys," she let out, tongue swirling around the top of her third (maybe fourth, she'd stopped keeping count after the first) bottle of soju.
Taeyeon rolled onto her side, resting her back onto the plush of her good friend, Tiffany's, carpeting. The corner of her coffee table had left a probably visibly and incredibly uncomfortable mark at the small of her back - but it was nothing compared to the tight, warm, confusing swirling at the core of her stomach.
"What's to understand? They have penises and that's basically the only relevant thing about thing because you know controls most of their thoughts." Soonkyu, her smaller (though not by much), pixie haired friend, plopped down at her side, small hand moving to link fingers with her own.
Taking the hand willingly, Taeyeon let out an exasperated sigh. "I know that, but it's not helping me." She pouted slightly, not really sure why she'd decided to bring the subject of the opposite sex up.
"Helping you? Are you implying that there's…," Taeyeon let out a small gasp as the body of her blonde friend dropped down at her other side, cutting off the start of her sentence, arm flopping against her stomach. "… there's a guy you're into?" She finished off just as their third and final friend entered the room, a expression nothing short of complete awe stuck on her face.
"Oh my god, you have a crush?!" Tiffany let out, taking seat cross legged at the base of Taeyeon's feet before beginning to shake around her unopened bottle of soju in excitement. "This is so great, I can't remember the last time you've come to us about something about this!"
"I'm not coming to you guys about anything," Taeyeon let out, nothing short of monotonously as she attempted to raise herself into a seated position, a whirling sensation striking her as she attempted to do. Wow, maybe she really had miscounted on how many bottles she'd downed already. "I was just stating a fact."
"A pretty goddamn obvious one," Sunny let out through a mouth of cheetos, causing a thick and obvious eyeroll from Tiffany.
"Oh, come on, don't turn her off to the idea of liking someone if that's what's going on here!" Tiffany let out, raising a hand to place an encouraging pat or two against Taeyeon's knee cap. "There's nothing wrong with liking someone or… you know, not liking someone, but you shouldn't feel guilty about either."
Did she feel guilty? No, she didn't. That wasn't it; she'd gotten over an guiltiness connected with him after she'd actually started to pay attention to what he had to say with her. Pursing her lips together as Tiffany continued to ramble about the prospect of her having a crush, she let out another sigh.
She was too drunk for this.
----
"Noona?" Noona. Why did he have to call her noona. "I have to go swing by my sister's place and pay her back some money I owe her but Jonghun was a dick and scraped our plans for tonight in favor of… uh, well, your friend."
Taeyeon turned to her company, eyes glassy, and chuckled softly. So, that was really a thing now? "Yeah?"
"Yeah," he repeated back with a small nod of his head. "I rented a movie for us and everything," he groaned and she couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "It'd guess it'd be kind pointless if I let the rental go to waste, right?"
Right.
"Wanna come over? I can order us in pizza or something."
She liked pizza. Who could turn down pizza?
"Okay."
----
His apartment wasn't exactly the way she'd envisioned it would be. Taeyeon wasn't sure what she had been expecting before she'd rapped almost nervously against the surface of his door half an hour earlier. Maybe she was just used to a guy's apartment being nothing short of a pigsty. That was how things had been back in New York, that was how Jinwoon apartment had been the one time that she had actually accepted an offer to swing by his place during a prolonged lunch break.
Everything was put together pretty well. Nothing too fancy, but comfortable. Not the sort of comfortable that she had grown used to (within the four walls of her place, but that was irrelevant) but something she could settle into easily enough for the time being.
She wasn't sure why she was giving the situation as much thought as she was though. She was just there for a movie; pizza, a movie and a few bottles of soju that she had hauled along with her on a whim. Soju always heightened her senses anyway, and what was better than to have a heightened sense of taste and smell when you were chowing down on your fourth or fifth piece of pizza? Nothing.
It was kind of a right of passage with friends to drink together anyway, wasn't it? And she was friends with Jonghyun.
He was talking to her like an old friend, anyway; prattling on about how he'd brought in a nearly perfect score on some big mid-term exam earlier that day. He wanted to teach music. She had no idea; she'd just kind of assumed that he was going to stick to the band thing. The more you know.
"I think it's pretty admirable that you want to do that - teach kids music. It's cool of you," she let out truthfully as she bottomed out her first bottle, reaching forward to place it against the side of their pizza box.
"Really?" He smiled against the neck of his bottle, and his eyes were almost sparking at her - with happiness, maybe a bit of surprise. Was that the first time she'd ever given him any sort of compliment? Probably. It seemed like a compliment to her, at least.
"Would I lie?" She questioned, unscrewing the top of her second bottle, knowing that after the first kicked in first kicked in, this one was only going to do her in completely. She could slam as many as five bottles if she wanted to but that only led to her losing control of her motor skills and passing outside against the nearest warm surface - which was him, at the moment, so maybe slowing it down wasn't such a terrible idea.
He laughed. "I've never taken you for the lying type, so," he replied, smile still intact as he took a large swig out of his second bottle. He'd gone faster than she had; something about his mouth getting cottony whenever he ate too much pizza (which he had eaten four pieces in under five minutes, it was believable enough).
"Good," she answered back simply with a nod of her head - eyes locking with his own for a moment before sending back a matching smile. She wasn't sure if it was because she normally opted out for giving more than a casual smirk to him or not, but the flash of her teeth seemed to cause his own to become even more visible. She forced herself to smile awhile - at risk of copying him any further and making herself out to look like a total jackass. She didn't want to look like she was trying to mimic the Cheshire Cat - embarrassing.
The movie wasn't that interesting, to be honest, but she tried her hardest to make it seem like she was as into it as he was. Taeyeon had no idea if his sense of humor was simple, easy or if the liquor rushing through his system was making everything seem more amusing than usual for him. Possibly a little bit of both. All she did know was that watching him watch the movie from the corner of her eye - catching the shine in his eyes and little chuckles that he gave off at the most mediocre of punchlines was far more amusing than the actual film itself.
She wasn't sure if that made her creepy - watching him, but it was kind of hard not to. He was interesting - something that she was easily able to shake off when not under the influence of a bottle and a half (going on two) of soju, but now it was undeniable.
"How many bottles do we have left?"
The question posed itself seemingly out of nowhere, just as the climax of the film struck, and Taeyeon found herself having the adjust to being spoken at directly again after that good half hour of silence. Neck resting against the back cushioning of his couch, her head lolled to the side to look at him, eyelids dropping slightly. "Maybe one? I don't know. I just grabbed whatever my friend had left behind at my place this weekend."
"I can go get more, if you want." She let out a small laugh at his suggestion, shaking her head against the couch. If she drank anymore than she already had, she'd be out and drooling against his nice, soft couch which was, once again, embarrassing.
"I have to be honest with you here. I'm not wasted or anything but if I drink anymore than the…," she trailed off, raising her head off of the cushion to swing her bottle from side to side, the small amount of liquid left inside sloshing around the bottom. "… yeah. I'll black out, and I'm dead weight when that happens."
"I am too," he answered back quickly. "I mean, I'm kind of a lightweight compared to a lot of my friends," he chuckled, raising a hand to the back of his neck, scratching at it for a moment before allowing it to drop back down to his side, using his other hand to sit his almost empty bottle onto the coffee table at their feet. "I wouldn't want you passing out on me, anyway. I wanted to talk to you more, we never really get to talk to each other."
"We talk to each other all the time," Taeyeon answered back with a small laugh, taking cue from him to sit down her own bottle, gripping onto the arm of the couch as she adjusted her seated position. Legs pretzeled, body facing his which was still toward the film, so close to it's encore.
"Well, it's more like I talk to you and you nod and quip in when you de-…," he trailed off, seeming to either lose track of what he was trying to say or the right word for it. "Yeah."
"That doesn't bother you, right? I'm better at listening."
"No, I'm fine with it. I'm just wanna know more about you, you know?" It was a simple enough admission but something about it caused her pulse to pick up.
(It had to be the alcohol, that was definitely it, it was the alcohol.)
"More," she repeated back to him, her tone catechistic as she found herself unknowingly scooting closer to him, crossed knees knocking against his side.
And he seemed to notice the closeting of proximity of the two of them because, she swore, she saw him gulp in apprehension. "Yeah, more. Not even anything big…, like, dumb little things. Your favorite color, ice cream flavor, what the first physical album you bought was, if you can play any instruments…," he trailed off with a small shrug. "It's stupid, I know, I'm just interested."
"It's not stupid," she replied back, hand moving forward to rest against his biceps, fingers treading the soft material of his shirt. "I really like that one purplish blue color, not violet but… purplish blue," she realized how dim she must have sounded and couldn't help but chuckle a bit as he fingers continued to trail the hem of his sleeve. "I like this color too," she nodded down at the light blue coloring of his shirt.
"You do?"
"Yeah, I've never seen you wear this before, it's nice," his eyes widened slightly and she couldn't help but send him another smile - wider than the last. What was she doing?
"Thanks." His gulping become more prominent and constant with every second that passed. Or maybe that was normal for him - maybe he did that all the time and she'd just neglected to notice until now. She'd really neglected to notice a lot about him; neglected or forced herself to focus on anything but. Probably the latter, she was known to do that sort of thing anyway.
"I like a lot of things, it'd take too long to tell you all of them," she started back up, head moving forward, chin resting against the corner of his shoulder. If she was starting to get too close for comfort, he wasn't saying anything, he just remained in the same position that he had been for minutes now, eyes only turning down in her direction as she shifted forward, nose nestling into the nape of his neck. "You smell good."
"I smell like pizza and soju," he laughed nervously.
"Well, I do too so it's okay," and she could feel him holding his breath as her lips ghosted the side of neck, before moving to travel the line of his jaw and finally resting against the corner of his lips, pausing for a moment before pressing a soft, almost chaste kiss against the warm flesh.
She remained in place for what felt like five, even ten minutes - waiting for some sort of reaction. Repulse, confusion, shock, happiness, whatever; she would have taken anything to keep her from having to pull back in complete horror and act like she hadn't kissed him, even in the most simple and innocent ways.
It was the turn of his head that she hadn't come to expect though - the craning of his neck and fingers latching to either side of waist. She barely had times to clamp her eyes shut in expectation before his lips were against hers, parting slightly to mumble something against her that she couldn't exact decipher out.
She found her own hands traveling under the fabric of his shirt, chilled against his abdominals, causing him to shiver slightly. She mumbled a weak apology against him as his lips explored the canvas of her neck, teeth scraping against her in a way that she was certain was going to leave a mark later. She was far from caring though as she gripped at the back of his hair, pulling him back upward to meet his lips again.
She just wanted to kiss him, to be close to him, because he was so warm and nice and beautiful hovering over her like that. But she knew it wasn't that simple as he pulled back from, pupils blown with something she that wasn't as much undecipherable as it was terrifying to her.
It wasn't lust like she expected it to be - okay, maybe there was a bit of that there but there was something more lingering that made her gulp, hands shaking against him. "You're shaking," he stated the obvious, eyes narrowing slightly. "Are you cold?"
And he actually sounded like he was concerned as to whether or not she was cold, or warm, or hot, or lukewarm, or feeling well or feeling terrible and that made her gulp again. "No, I'm okay."
"Okay," was all he managed out before moving back down to kiss her again and it felt right - almost too right as his front teeth scraped at her bottom lip, pulling away only to clarify what she was pretty sure had been bringing her to the brink of anxiety for the last few minutes. "I really like you, you know that, right?"
She froze against him and she was pretty certain that he caught onto to it because he was pulling back from her again, eyes still colored with that same look, face contorted into that same apprehension she had saw earlier on.
Before she knew what she was doing, or could tell herself that maybe asking to slow down or stop to talk things out may have kept the situation from growing into something much more confusion, Taeyeon was removing her hands out from under his shirt. She pushed herself back against the arm of the chair, swinging her legs out from under his before reaching forward onto the table for her cellphone.
It didn't take her long to gather her coat and slip her boots on - it was record time for her, actually, before hastily typing out a text for Tiffany to come and pick her up out in front of the building. It was in this moment that she realized she had become so lost in trying to get out of the situation that she'd completely neglected to remember that she was still in his apartment. That Jonghyun was still mere feet away from her with this look at his face that pained her to take in as she finally allowed herself to look at him again after detaching herself from him.
"I'm sorry," the words echoed around her as she gazed down at the screen of her phone, desperately waiting for Tiffany to text her back and say she'd be there any minute. She couldn't be here; she couldn't explain why she'd pulled away to him because she wasn't even sure why she did it. And she certainly couldn't look him in the eye when she'd possibly just shattered his heart in a thousand little pieces. "I wasn't being… presumptuous, right? I just… thought… I don't know."
"No," she replied back, her tone flat - feeling as if the last bit of alcohol in her system had been flushed away at that second alone. "I kissed you first, I have to go though, sorry."
She cringed inwardly at how formal she sounded - like she was leaving a meeting at work or trying to ditch out on plans with someone she wasn't exactly fond of when it wasn't like that at all. This wasn't work, and she was fond of him, maybe a bit too fond and this realization dawned on her as she dashed toward the exit of his apartment, turning the knob and stepping outside of it.
As she started down the hallway, she was stuck with the urge to turn back on her heel and return to him - to try and talk things out but she resisted. If it were that easy, maybe she would have just caved and kissed him after that gig of his.
----
Something like two weeks could pass by painfully slow when the only thing to be anticipated between the fourteen days was release after release of single and full albums that you could care less about.
It was nothing unlike how things had been a two months earlier, before Jonghyun had stumbled into her life and helped to make all those things a little more bearable. He could find an amusement in a bland track that she'd never been able to, make a joke about it that was relatively lame but still entertaining enough to get a chuckle out of her. He'd went from a nuisance to something Taeyeon looked forward to being able to call her company on the daily.
Tiffany had told her that she had it bad - and she had just frowned in response.
Her friend, despite only knowing her for a few years, had discovered figured out the way she was wired quite easily. She seemed to understand what Taeyeon was feeling better than she knew herself, but rather than being grateful for the push toward the truth, it just made things more complicated for her.
And, frankly, it also made it sting a little because having Tiffany talk to her about it meant having to think about it and that meant also having to think about him not coming around the store anymore.
She understood why he hadn't, she would have done the same thing.
Jinwoon had pouted to her about him not coming around anymore a few days earlier and all she'd been able to do is shrug back in response. Taeyeon was sure that her response had come off as nonchalant as most other things she said until he shot out the million dollar question at her. The question that she had assumed someone would ask her sooner or later, she just hadn't expected it to come from Jinwoon, of all people.
"Weren't you guys dating, though?" He had asked and it'd taken a great deal of force for the keep her head from spinning in his direction, grateful that she'd been able to anyway - she was pretty sure her eyes had been bugging far enough out of her head to give away that something or another had been going on there.
Something.
----
It was an early April afternoon, just near the end of her shift, that her manager had turned the wheels on his favorite computer chair away from his cluttered desk in her direction. Taeyeon had been struggling to reorder everything in the goddamn jazz and blues section again (she had no idea who was coming around to fuck with that section solely, but they were now forever on her shit list).
"You've been looking more apathetic than usual lately," he had commented to her, his tone flat and casual, as usual. It wasn't often that he initiated conversations of the personal variety his employees but, when he did, Jong Wan kind of had a tendency to dig deep.
He'd done the same with Yi Young once, apparently, so it didn't surprise Taeyeon that he was trying to pull the same thing with her now.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she mumbled in response, blowing a thin film of dust off the top of one of the older albums. "I'm fine."
"Obviously you're not, you haven't been since that…," he trailed off and Taeyeon felt something undecipherable feeling coil in the pit of her stomach at him not knowing Jonghyun's name.
"Jonghyun," she replied back to him, wanting to go back to her usual hiding space behind the front counter as soon as she'd finished his sentence for him. She hadn't said his name out loud for days - it felt heavy on her tongue now.
"Right, Jonghyun," he started back up with a nod of his head. "You obviously liked being around this Jonghyun character, I don't see why…"
"I don't know why you're prying into this, ahjussi, it's not really any of your business."
And he laughed and Taeyeon wanted to grab one of the nearest albums and whip it at his head for that reason alone. "Well, I'm sorry for prying then, I just don't take well to seeing my employees stuck in a rut."
"I'm not in a rut."
"You're in a rut."
Was she in a rut? She pursued her lips together at the thought, avoiding locking gaze with him in the moment that she did so. A sigh escaped not long after, her forehead falling forward against the album she had just been dusting off. "I don't know what to do."
"This is going to sound cheesy as fuck, but," he started, wheeling himself out a little bit further, positioning the front wheels of his chair close behind her so he could manage a small pat against her back with his open palm. "I think you have to go with your heart on this one, kid. I know it might sound difficult but it's better to get the difficult over with and be happy, right?"
"Oh god," she let out. "You sound like something off of a love songs compilation album."
"I've listened to a lot of albums in my time, I can't say I'm surprised."
Taeyeon groaned, turning to face her manager before standing up and pushing the album she'd been dusting for far too long now back into it's rightful place. "I'll think about it."
----
If there was something that Taeyeon did do well, it was thinking about things; thinking about or overthinking if the opportunity presented itself. This was one of those moments.
But rather than huddling herself in front of her television set, tightly securing herself under a warm blanket and attempting to sort through her thoughts, Taeyeon had opted out for something a little more extreme.
If she was going to figure this out - if she was going to figure things out with him, she had to do it with him.
There was a good chance that he didn't want to see her, to talk to her but that was a chance she had to take. At least then she'd know and she could work on trying to get over things (god, get over, that sounded so strange to her) on her own terms.
The most difficult thing was not as much start the conversation with him as it was trying to convince herself to knock on the door of his apartment. She could have sworn that she stood there for twenty minutes, breathing heavily against the metal framing, before mustering up the actual courage to do so.
One, two, three, four, five knocks before she caught wind of rusting from inside the apartment; rusting and a groan. She frowned a bit, hoping she hadn't caught him in the middle of a nap, or at the good part of a movie, or…
Her thoughts were cut off abruptly as the chain lock of door drug against the wooden surface of the door, knob turning slowly before a large and familiar eyeball was peering out from her from the other side of the door. "Taeyeon?"
He sounded hoarse and it was then that she was pretty certain he had been sleeping - or crying, but the latter would have made her feel all the more guilty. Giving him a weak smile, her hand shot upward from her side, awkwardly waving at the single eye before falling back downward as the door opened up a bit more, Jonghyun stepping to the side somewhat in what she assumed was an invitation to come inside with him.
Her frown returned at this action - he was still willing to let her inside that easily after she'd ran out on him like that?
Taking cue from him, a small sigh escaped her lips as she stepped inside, pressing her back up against the wall opposite from him as he shut the door behind her. "Hey," she let out, her tongue flickering out of her mouth to nervously wet her bottom lip. "How have…" she trailed off, eyes wandering around the apartment quickly to catch pile after pile of take out wrappers, empty bags of chips, empty cans of soda, and a mound of pillows and blankets against the couch she'd managed to make herself so cozy on three weeks earlier.
"I would have cleaned up if I knew you were going to come here…," he trailed off, taking off in the direction of the living room, beginning to scoop up random pieces of trash into his arms before tossing them into a nearby garbage can. "It's disgusting, I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine, it's not that bad," she lied with a shake of her head. "How've you been?"
She eyed him as he turned his head downward, more than obviously avoiding to lock gaze with her, this action alone enough to make her stomach drop. "I've been okay," he lied back at her. "Hopefully you have been too."
Another sigh escaped at his response, Taeyeon finding herself absentmindedly taking a start in his direction - steps small and slow. "You don't have to lie to me," and there came the frown again - unintentional as she took the final few steps in his direction, her arms loosening at her sides before traveling upward and slithering around his neck. She knew it was incredibly presuming of her but she couldn't help it.
Hands locking behind him, her head fell against his shoulder, feeling herself loosen up even more as his own body loosened against hers. "I'm so-…," she started before she heard a grunt of disapproval from the other.
"Don't," and his tone seemed much more even than it had a few seconds before - even and more like himself, that alone making her stomach begin to settle down. "You have nothing to apologize for. I understood why you left, I'm just kind of had an… extreme reaction to that. I do that sometimes."
He laughed, chin vibrating against the top of her head before she felt a hand travel up under the bottom of her chin, pulling her at level with his mouth, lips pressing against her forehead in a quick peck. "I feel like I should explain myself still though, I mean, I've been really vague with yo-…"
"No, it's really fine, we have all the time to do that," he paused as she took a step back from him in an attempt to create more comfortable space between them, hands traveling down from behind his neck, over his biceps and forearms before finally accessing his hands. Lacing her fingers with his own, she felt herself settle into something close to comfortable for the first time in weeks. "If you're into that sort of thing."
"Maybe," she let out at his thrown back to their first conversation - it wasn't the first time he'd done it and she was pretty sure it wouldn't be the last. "There's more important things to deal with before we get there though."
He squinted his eyes in confusion at her, not sure where she was headed with her comment before Taeyeon stepped back up against him, taking away that last bit of personal space she had given back moments before and meshing their lips together. It wasn't the first time, sure - but it felt different this time around. More certain, less afraid, more happy. She could be happy with him, right?
As she pulled away to look at him a final time, the look her was enough to answer her question.
----
The next morning, Taeyeon stirred warm against his chest, the vibrations from his small chuckles bringing her out of her long, deep slumber. The scent of chocolate and dough wafted to her nose, causing her to pull herself upward from him, stretching her arms up over the top of her head with a yawn.
"You hungry?" The other asked, mouth half full, hand digging into a bag of mini donuts discarded lazily on top of his nightstand. It was the furthest thing from attractive but she couldn't help but smile, taking the food from him, her small frame curling up against his side to focus on whatever show he whatever he was finding so funny.
It was simple and probably a bit boring but she was fine with that - she could deal with that. She was actually more than happy with it.