detention | pjh

15 | silent admirations

Jihoon's POV

Arin's eyes widened at what I had said.

To be very clear, I do not like Arin. Nor did I fall for her after holding her hand. She was just the first girl I've ever held hands with and it felt nice- and warm- so I guess I got... a bit shy about it.

I expected Arin to start teasing me and making fun of me so I analyzed some comebacks in my head in advance. But she has shookened me with her response.

"You liked it? Was it nice? Would Jinyoung think it's nice if I held his hand? Was it really okay?" Arin showered me with questions about how Jinyoung would feel about her holding his hand based on how I felt. It kind of... maybe made me a bit annoyed, since we weren't even talking about Jinyoung at the moment.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes at her, "I don't know, why don't you go hold his hand then? See how he feels about it," I say, a tone of annoyance leaking out of my voice. I looked up at Arin only to see her thinking while tapping her chin.

"You're right, I must hold his hand. But first-" Arin stood up with her bag and walked to my side of the table, "I must get extra practice," she says. Wait what- Arin takes my hand in hers and pulls me up out of my chair. She uses her free hand to grab my bag, which was on the floor resting against the table leg, and throws it at me.

"What are you doing?" I ask her in a whisper yell. After all, we were still in the library. Arin pulls me over to the door and pushes it open with her arm.

She looks back at me with a smile on her face, "we are going to take care of the dogs and cats now!" she says. Her fingers were securely woven between mine as she pulled me towards the school entrance to leave.

"What about detention?" I ask her, Arin shrugs.

"There's nobody there today anyways," she says. She pushes open the last door, the main entrance door, and walks hand in hand with me out of the building. Some students were still around, waiting for friends, playing soccer, or waiting for their parents to pick them up. I lean over a bit to Arin, "can't we hold hands later? What if someone notices our hands?" I ask. Arin looks at me cluelessly, "so what?" she asks.

I let go of her hand, "only people who like each other hold hands." Arin stops walking and frowns. I stop in front of her as she crosses her arms.

"That's not true! I see a lot of friends hold hands all the time," Arin says.

I face palm before replying, "Arin, people are gonna think we are dating or that we like each other."

"Well, neither is true so let's go," Arin says as she takes my hand again and keeps walking.

I brushed off her comment but I couldn't help but feel a bit... offended? Disappointed? I don't even know how I felt. It just- it was not a good feeling.

We walked hand in hand to Arin's home. She didn't seem to notice the stares and people talking about us as we walked by- but I did. I tried not looking at anything but the ground, but our hands together came into my view. It was already enough feeling the sensation of holding her hand but looking at how our hands were made me even feel more weird.

We arrived at Arin's house and Arin finally let go of my hand to open the gate. I followed her through the gate but when Arin opened the door and I tried to walk behind her, I was knocked onto the ground by a large fluffy dog before I even entered the house.. Arin squatted down beside me while the dog kept licking my face.

I could see her smiling as she spoke, "That's Snow. I think she likes you," Arin says, offering me her hand to me. Her eyes locked with mine as she laughed at the situation I was in. I take her hand, but instead of just getting up, I pulled her down with me. A few more dogs come out of the house and starts playing with us.

I learned that the dog with golden and white fur's name was Carmel, and the white dog who looked like Snow but was a little bit smaller went by Apple.

After a few minutes of playing with the dogs while sitting on the ground, we both decided to go inside. A few more dogs went outside with us by that time so we thought it would be hard to gather them all, but most of the dogs all chased me into the house so there was no point in worrying about leaving one outside.

Arin went out to get one more dog and then shut the door behind her. I turned to look at her and noticed her holding a small puppy, staring at it kindly while smiling.

As if it were a baby, she cradled it in her arms and bounced around gently.

I could feel my heart beating faster as I looked at her.