A/N: Thanks for reading you guys! This chapter is a bit shorter than the last one, but I'll probably be posting the next chapter a lot sooner.
mkerkau : In answer to your suggestion, the story might go a little bit longer than I originally anticipated, although probably not 15-20 chapters worth. Once this story finishes, though, I'll probably see what else could happen from there. Thanks! :)
It was just Ga Eul's luck to have the bus break down while she was trying to get away from this mess of an evening. She could have waited for another bus or hailed a taxi, but she realized Yi Jeong was probably going to follow her anyway, and she didn't think she could stand being in an enclosed space with him much longer. Thankfully, there were plenty of people milling about in this part of the city, and she took off walking past the brightly lit restaurants and shops, her heels clacking against the concrete.
Her feet were going to be killing her by the end of the night. She could tell that from the blisters that were forming on the backs of her heels. That and the fact that these shoes were brand new and stiff as cardboard. But she wouldn't stop walking, and she wouldn't glance back to see if a certain someone was following her.
Behind her, she heard a group of girls giggling. Ahead of her, a car horn had gone off, and the night air pulsated with its incessant blaring. People streamed out of cafés and cell phone stores and chocolate shops, emerging momentarily into the yellow light from the street lamps and then disappearing into the shadows. Young couples held hands; elderly couples bought food from street vendors; and now and then a few children tugged at their mother's coats or pressed their faces up against a store window, their breath fogging up the glass. Walking along these streets every day, Ga Eul had always felt connected to the sea of people coming and going, leaving and returning, but tonight she felt isolated—like one person hadn't touched her and now the whole of humanity couldn't touch her either.
Impulsively, she turned off from the route she would have normally taken home and took a slight detour past a park in the area. Her mom had taken her and Jan Di to play there once when she was little, and she remembered being scared of a red and orange lion someone had expertly drawn in chalk on the concrete next to the slide.
The crowd thinned out as she went further along this path, and Ga Eul tried to walk faster despite her throbbing feet. Turning another corner, she could see in the distance a group of guys—all of them probably around her age or a little bit older—smoking cigarettes and hovering around one entrance to the park. Their sharp laughter echoed in the still night air, and Ga Eul suddenly realized there were now very few people around—a fact which she had been too absorbed in her thoughts to register before.
Spinning abruptly on her heel, Ga Eul took a few rapid steps in the direction she came from. As she rounded the corner again, she nearly collided with a man in a black suit. An expensive, one-of-a-kind, tailor-made black suit. A suit only a member of the F4 would wear.
As if he'd been expecting her for some time, Yi Jeong grinned when she looked up at him.
"Miss me?" he asked.
Ga Eul scoffed.
"Who's missing who? Excuse me."
She tried to shove past him, but he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back, almost making her lose her balance.
"Hey, aren't we headed to your house? Why are you going back that way?"
Ga Eul jerked her arm from his grasp.
"Because I don't want to walk this way anymore. Besides, this isn't the way to my house."
"So we walked all this way for nothing?" A look of incredulity passed over Yi Jeong's face, one so utterly child-like that Ga Eul might have laughed if she hadn't been so upset with him.
"We did not walk all this way for anything. I just wanted to…see something here, that's all."
Over Ga Eul's dead body would she admit that walking alone out here so late at night actually quite terrified her—that the only reason she had walked this far by herself was because she had been fairly certain he was close behind her the whole time.
That said, she had hardly taken another step in the direction they had come from when Yi Jeong stepped in front of her. She stepped to the right, and he stepped with her. Then to the left and there he was again, blocking her way. His dark eyes had turned serious, and she didn't know what that meant, and she didn't know that she wanted to find out.
"Yi Jeong Sunbae, please let me go by."
"Not until you answer a question."
"I don't have anything else to say to you tonight. As you so accurately pointed out at the coffee shop, it's getting late, and my parents are going to be worried."
She moved, and he jumped in front of her, this time causing her to run into him again. For a brief moment, she breathed in the spiciness of his cologne mixed with an earthy scent that probably came from him working with clay so much. Or maybe that was just her. She had been handling pottery earlier that day, too, in his workshop. In fact, she had been doing pottery for almost three months because of him.
Backing up, she crossed her arms and looked away. For a long moment, they just stood there.
Then Ga Eul said, "Answer me a question, then, Sunbae." The statement was directed more at the trees in the distance, as Ga Eul refused to look at him, and so she wasn't sure he heard her at first as a short silence ensued.
"Okay," he finally said. "Go ahead and ask then."
Stepping back from him a few paces, Ga Eul asked, "What is my favorite color?"
"What?" Yi Jeong blinked.
"My favorite color," Ga Eul repeated, standing up a little straighter and finally looking him in the eye. "What is it? You should know that. I am your girlfriend after all."
"Ah, Ga Eul yang…"
Ga Eul shoved her hands into her coat pockets and stared at him, unblinking.
"Fine. Fine, I know. Your favorite color is red."
Ga Eul glanced down at her red pumps then back up at him. She raised her eyebrows.
"Wrong. If I could go to one place in the world, where would it be?"
"Ah?...Ah, Ga Eul-yang likes the beach."
"There are a million beaches in the world, Sunbae. You're going to have to be more specific."
Yi Jeong paused and tried to remember her saying anything about traveling before or about any places she wanted to go. But that really could be anywhere, couldn't it? From the awed look on her face whenever she took trips with the F4 and Jan Di, Yi Jeong gathered she hadn't been to many places, even within Korea. However, that meant Ga Eul would probably choose some cliché romantic tourist destination she'd read about in school.
"You really don't know, do you?"
"Hawaii?" Yi Jeong guessed. Noting the doubtful look in Ga Eul's eyes, he tried again, "Paris? Ah, I know!" He snapped his fingers. "Venice!"
"Pabo," Ga Eul mumbled and rolled her eyes.
"Ah, I know, the place isn't important."
"What?"
"The place isn't important," Yi Jeong stated confidently, "as long as you're with someone you like. Isn't that it? Romantics like you would say that. That was a trick question."
"No it wasn't! And who says I have to go to this place with anyone? You got the question wrong."
"That's not fair. You're asking me things you never told me about."
"I'm asking you things you never asked me about."
"Same thing. At least I know all the important stuff about you."
"Such as? No, I know, I know. I'm good and stupid and a friend of a friend. I got that already."
"I never said you're stupid. I said you're foolish. And you are." For liking me, he added mentally.
"Is that it? Is that all you know?"
"I know you like food." Yi Jeong grinned then, and Ga Eul glared at him. "And beaches and ice cream cakes and makeup and being dressed up like a princess."
"Bravo, Sunbae. You just described most of the women on the planet." Ga Eul moved abruptly and managed to get around him to continue walking back to the main street.
Unperturbed, Yi Jeong strode up beside her and kept her pace.
"Hey! Let's play a game."
"Aren't we already?"
"What?"
"I don't like games, Sunbae."
"That's nonsense. You're the one who suggested 'Truth or Dare,' remember?"
Ga Eul throws a sideways glance at him. "I'm not playing that with just you. There's no telling what you'll dare me to do."
"Don't flatter yourself too much, Ga Eul-yang."
"Yes, Sunbae," Ga Eul deadpanned.
"So, shall we begin? I'll be a gentleman and let you start."
Ga Eul kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk. She knew what she wanted to ask him, and she definitely wasn't asking that.
"Ga Eul-yang?" Yi Jeong waved his hand in front Ga Eul's face.
Ga Eul shooed his hand away and shuffled away from him slightly, at least as far as she could while staying on the sidewalk.
"Will you cut it out? Fine. Truth or dare?"
"Dare."
Ga Eul had expected him to reply 'Truth.' What could she dare him to do at this time of night? Actually, on second thought, she shouldn't think about that. Ga Eul shook her head.
Thankfully, inspiration struck just then, as they'd managed to reach a more populated area. Grabbing Yi Jeong by the arm, Ga Eul pulled him across the street.