Lips To Lips ||《Jaerosé》

Chapter One

It is a wonderful start to a blind date, really. It hasn't even been ten minutes and he's already zoning out, trying his best to catch whatever his blind date is verbally spewing at him. Jaehyun never regarded himself as the sort who'd ignore a woman, but after countless dates that lead to nowhere, one could hardly blame him either.

Now, this isn't to say that the woman in front of him is, in a sense of the word word, pretty. She looks like a zealous woman who is in desperate need of some sort of man in her life. He watches her greedy eyes sweeping across his body, as if he is merely the model on the cover of a magazine; something to be appreciated. "So, what's your ability?" She's straight forward, which he guesses is positive. It isn't like this is the first time he has ever been asked this exact question.

For some time now, the tagline became the first thing girls ask whenever they meet a boy, all too excited over the romanticized prospect of meeting that one, special person. As such, he finds that lying about his ability was much easier, not entirely being fond of the idea of strangers constantly harassing him to test out his ability just to, and he quotes: "see if  maybe I'm your soulmate."

Yet another day passes with him letting the lie slip through his lips like breathing. "I'm able to see a faint glow emitting from their body."

She huffs, blowing nonexistent hair out of her face. "Do you see it?" She questions, hands crossing against her chest in an almost bored manner.

Attempting to spare the woman's feelings, who's name he belatedly realizes, he forgot, he replies, "Unfortunately, no, I cannot," he tells her in a soft voice, whispering it as he lowers himself closer to the table. An unreadable expression glazes over the woman's face. Maybe she regrets asking. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's ok. I guess my love is still somewhere out there."

Jaehyun hums, finding the situation between them somewhat unfair. Why is it that only men who had to deal with the curse of these abilites? If not for this need to find exactly one person in a planet of billions, he thought that maybe he could have given this woman a chance and that he could have been the love she was looking for.

The guilty feeling that is left with every rejection becomes some sort of departing present for the women who's heart he's somehow broken, and it always left a bitter taste in Jaehyun's mouth. Apart from the fact that he also has to turn these woman down, he knows for a fact that he could be wrong about them too. Any one of those women could have potentially been the one for him, but he is to much of a coward to simply test every woman with his damned ability that is just so annoyingly inconvenient.

It all began at the tender age of 13 years old, still so young and naive. When his middle school girlfriend expressed her childish desire to 'take their relationship a step further' and gave him a small peck on the lips without warning, his whole world turned on it's axis. And not in a good way.

Instead of fluttering butterflies and jelly legs, he got a pounding headache and a bitter taste in his mouth that made tolerating everything on earth completely impossible for at least a few hours.

Much to his relief, he discoverd that the simple remedy to rid himself of the side effects is the smell of roses. The discovery was a welcome accident, after walking past the plant that his mother insisted she grows inside their house. The condensed scent hit him full force, calming him almost immediately from the sorry state he was after his first kiss. Needless to say, after that day, he broke up with his girlfriend. Now, however, he does tend to ask about the woman's preferences in flowers. Who know? Maybe it might help.

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"Excuse me, but I think we might be soulmates," the girl gives a lazy turn of the head to look towards the man who claims to be the one, raising an eyebrow in caution.