She stops abruptly, raising an eyebrow as she gives him a quizzical look. “Minhyuk. Don’t play with my heart here. You realise this means this churro plan actually has to happen now.” She laughed before sighed over dramatically at his statement. “That’s true. You also seem to be pretty chilled about the fact you’re walking with an idol. No starstruck eyes or anything.” She laughs again.
“Oh, I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. I’m as down to eat a pool’s worth of fried pastries as you are.” He nods firmly, a certain playfulness seeping into the smile that graces his lips. Said smile then breaks into a full fledged grin as her next comment has him falling into a short fit of laughter, “Should I be sweating? Looking over my shoulder in case any rabid fanboy decides to jump me?” He shakes his head, his amusement evident in his light tone of voice, “I guess I’m just so laidback because apart from your striking good looks and talent, you’ve proved yourself to be pretty normal in the time that I’ve known you. It feels like I’m hanging out with any other ‘churro-obssessed’ friend.”
She lets out a snort. “Okay. Points, medals, it doesn’t really matter. Actually, I’d love a whole tub of churros for our efforts.” She smiled back at him, nodding her head in return before following the direction of his gesture. “We tend to do that a lot don’t we.”
“Screw the tub, let’s get a whole pool filled with churros. Maybe even several pools of them if we actually make it to the restaurant without letting distractions get the better of us.” He snickers, walking alongside her and slipping his hands into his pockets, “It can’t be helped though, we both seem to be pretty absentminded people.”
In the silence she was sure he was about to offer his own interpretation. After all that was what half of art was and as she’d found people could get a thousand meanings from something despite what the artist had set out to show. How the artist saw their own work was important, but often the piece seemed to take on a life of its own. Her eyebrows raise at his response. She was only saying what she thought as she thought it, no idea if it was what he would see or anyone else.
Listening, her eyes were on the artwork in front of them, but her mind was somewhere else. In the end of the day it’s not who you really are. Those words resonated with her the most. Who was she at the end of the day really? CL, Lee Chaerin? Someone else entirely? When she turns her eyes back to him she feels heavy. Heavy with her thoughts. “I don’t believe that either. People can’t even be honest with themselves a lot of the time. I don’t think they can be completely honest with other people like that…” she pauses at the realization of how harsh those words sounds, but she doesn’t mean it to be that way. You don’t have to know everyone’s secrets to know them.
The next question has her in silence and then she’s watching him with a bit of a bemused smile. It is a question that she wouldn’t have been expected to be asked on the street by someone she barely knew but… “Sometimes strangers can tell each other more than close friends, I think.” She tucks the sunglasses away inside the pocket of her hoodie. “I know I do. Nearly everyday, but-” What is she trying to say here? Teeth worrying at her bottom lip and head tilting to the side she continues, “I made that one for a reason. I wear it for a reason. I did this to myself. The problem is when I want to take it off… or you know have people see me without it. It’s like it’s still there. They judge me because of that mask when that’s not really me. It is, but it isn’t.” She can feel herself babbling, the words were coming out without thinking again, but she can’t stop. “And underneath that one there’s another one.” Her hands come up in front of her face to illustrate, one in front of the other. “The first one.” The front most hand wiggling a bit to show words added on in silence The one I wear on stage. “The second one.” Hands dropping to the side she added the last. “And then there’s what’s under that.”
The realization of how much she’d said hits slow. They really were strangers like he said, maybe she’d gone too far, but she shakes her head and the thought out of it. There was no way to take it all back. That was it, she’d said it and now she had to own it. “Was that a lot to take in?” With a shrug she smiled. “That question made me think a lot. It was a good one.” Hesitating, she continues. “What… about you? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but if you want to…” Her eyes meet with his. “I’m listening.”
He hadn’t expected her to answer his question. He was fairly certain that if he had been in her position, he wouldn’t have uttered a word. But she had a point, it would be easier for strangers to tell each other more than close friends. He could see the logic behind the concept, how simple it would be to vent to someone you’d never have to see again as opposed to a close friend whose friendship you could lose along the way. He does not have time to voice more than a quiet hum of assent before she speaks again, however. But rather than be offended by being unintentionally cut off, he finds himself falling silent as his attention is pulled toward her words.
As each word falls past her lips, Minhyuk finds himself growing more and more intrigued with the nature of the stranger standing beside him. The comments she makes bare a striking resemblance to the thoughts he keeps to himself and he idly wonders how likely an interaction such as this could be. It’s as she continues to ponder out loud that he allows himself the shortest of moments to contemplate whether or not the familiarity he finds in her countenance is a product of her features or of their own subtly similar mindsets. He’s astounded not only by how much she reveals but also by how much her feelings resembled his own. He’s snapped from his wandering thoughts once again when she pauses for several moments only to call for his attention in the form of an inquiry. The first is easy to answer. He merely shakes his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips, “It wasn’t that much. I understood what you were saying so it didn’t feel like much at all.”
The second question is not as easy to answer and a sudden rush of anxiety has his smile fading from his face. Minhyuk had spent the majority of his life trying to fit into the mold of something he wasn’t, creating masks and personas that would allow him to receive the approval he could never get on his own. His whole being craved for a way to be noticed as himself, for people to know there was more to him than what meets the eye. There was more to who he was than being the “popular” kid in high school, more to his passion than being the wild kid who messed around in the underground scene and tagged Seoul’s streets, and definitely more to his personality than the unusual university student this stranger saw before her now. And it’s with this overwhelming desire to finally confide in someone that Minhyuk opens his mouth and confirms what he’s sure she’s already thinking, “I wear masks so often I think that even I forget what’s underneath them.”
He doesn’t mean to go on past that but the words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them, “It’s not that I want to wear these masks all the time, I just feel I need to, y'know? I’ve learned the pain of judgement through experience and I’ll be damned if I let someone in close enough to be judged like that again.” He sighs with the end of his sentence, lifting his hand to run long fingers through the dark locks of his hair, grimacing slightly as his bangs fall messily against his forehead, “Then again, I guess I get judged either way. Whether it be good or bad, people will judge the masks I wear and it becomes a giant pain in the ass to maintain or destroy a faux image of yourself.”
He lazily glances over at her, the relief of making a twinge of his inner turmoil known giving his voice a casual edge, “It has to be tiresome for you too, huh?”
rixpunzel said: She laughs loudly. “We deserve points for our effort, okay? But yeah, let’s go.”
“Points?” He scoffs, lazily rolling his shoulders as he flashes a lopsided grin, “We deserve a medal at this point.” With a quiet chuckle, he nods and gestures for her to follow him, “Let’s hurry before we get sidetracked.”
He snorts, the sound transitioning into a low chuckle, “Oh yeah? I somehow doubt in our abilities but let’s give it a shot anyway.”
The expression that had taken over the male’s features made her realize that he had been daydreaming – and the thought itself was rather endearing to her, as it was the kind of activity in which she found herself engaged more often than not, always seeming to get lost from the world around her in one of hers own, where she made the rules just the way she liked them. Nonetheless, she felt rather apologetic towards the interruption she had caused (and, even more so, the scare she had delivered to him), so she bowed her head, murmuring a rushed excuse – now that her shift was over, even if she wouldn’t go home right away, she was still in a hurry to leave the place. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy her job, it clearly had its own palette of satisfactions, but she wasn’t crazy about it. It wasn’t something she could see herself doing for a long time. It wasn’t an option anyway – such establishments had the habit of kicking out their waitresses when they were past a certain age, much like modeling did. When you based your business on the whims of customers who always put the service in first place, and only then other „ingredients”, to say so, you couldn’t afford being charitable with, let’s say, a waitress that had passed her prime.
The compliment was met with a silent arching of her brow, along with a light shade of pink that covered her cheeks, making her glance away for a moment, in hopes he wouldn’t have noticed it. Somehow, she was rather convinced that he would, but, nonetheless, a girl could try, right? „T-thank you. You are t-too kind.” She murmured, teeth sinking down into her bottom lip, momentarily, as she finally rose her dark hues again, in order to meet his own, the suggestion met with a quick and rather enthusiastic nod – she hadn’t gotten the chance to explore the park in a rather long time, because, well, it was simply no fun at evening if you were all alone, and she never had the time to go back home and fetch her puppy from there for a walk and return – by the time she’d be back, it would be much too late for such passtimes. So she relished her morning walks, or afternoon ones, in days when she was free from work, but nothing more. „Sounds good!” She agreed, reaching into her purse for the keys to the cafe as she motioned for him to follow her, her footsteps already heading for the door – she wouldn’t spend one more minute in that building if she could avoid it somehow. „Lead the w-way!”
His lips curve into a slow smile as he takes note of the soft color heating her skin but he chooses to act as if he hadn’t noticed, not willing to chance making her uncomfortable if he were to point it out. It’s with this thought that he settles for a simple, “You’re welcome.” He then allows his smile to widen slightly at the clear enthusiasm of her next response, his eyes curving to form small crescents as he laughs and follows her toward the door, “I’m glad you’re so pleased with my choice of venue. I couldn’t think of anything else if I needed to.” He waits until she’s finished locking the door before he sets off down the street, remaining quiet till she’s fallen into step with him, “Normally I’m not a fan of these long summer days, they make me feel like the day will never end, but today I’m rather grateful.” He nods, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his pants casually, “There’ll still be enough decent light by the time we reach the park.” With the end of his absentminded comment, they reach a crosswalk and he leans his back against the warm metal of the streetlight as they wait for the signal to change. He ponders over the fleeting thought of remaining silent for the remainder of their walk before deciding against the tempting tactic, opting to make another attempt to start conversation as they were stalled at the corner.
“You know…” he begins quietly, pausing for a short moment as if he were mentally sorting through ways to voice his idea, “…since I am going to be drawing you and we’ll be spending a while longer together…don'tcha think it’d be nice to get to know each other’s names?” He spares her a glance, an eyebrow arched questioningly for a brief moment before he chuckles and looks ahead again, “You don’t have to tell me, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to mug me or something so I’m comfortable not knowing your name. I’m Minhyuk though, in case you were wondering.”
As the other began to speak again, Bora looked up from the blue shirt she was holding to watch as the man tried to come up with something to say. The sight was simply adorable to her. She understood how it felt to have to sudden awkward aura around after saying something, but the other didn’t have to feel such a way. Quickly nodding her head, her lips stretched into a friendly smile. “Yeah that would be great. You seem to have good fashion sense so why not” She replied while looking over the boy’s appearance. Was he older or younger than her? She wasn’t too sure since he face seemed youthful but the way he conversed with her was somewhat older. Deciding to ask him later, Bora pointed her index finger towards the section of sweaters. “We can move over there. Again thank you so much for helping me out. Oh- I almost forgot.” Adjusting the shirt to drape over her left arm, she held out her right hand. “I’m Bora.”
At the sound of her voice, he peeks up from the floor to glance at her through the shield of his bangs only to turn his gaze downward to briefly examine his attire when she compliments his sense of style. They hadn’t been the first words of praise he received concerning his opinions for fashion yet his reaction was still the same, mild surprise. Although he gave opinions when asked, Minhyuk never tried to look particularly good himself, he really just threw clothes together and since his clothes were mostly dark in nature; it wasn’t hard to match. He was about to jokingly tell her that but when he looks back up, he takes note of her thoughtful expression as she eyes his appearance and the words are suddenly stuck to the back of his throat. He knows she couldn’t be thinking anything strange, but the short attention still rattles him though he strives to maintain an outward look of general indifference. This inwardlly flustered state lasts only until she reaches her out toward him in courteous introduction, the action seeming to break his spell of confusion. Clearing his throat, he reaches out to take her hand and shake it gently as he easily replies, “It’s no problem, I’m Minhyuk and like I said, I have nothing to do and I’d rather make use of my free time to help you out instead of loitering.” He withdraws his hand, a smile curving his lips as he nods toward the section she had previously pointed toward, “Let’s get looking, yeah?”
taeeunit said: Why must you always do that?
Because I’m not creative or mature enough to come up with a better comeback.
I know you are, but what am I?
