There are Many Flowers in Seoul

Chapter Sixty-One

Rose took the black cat from the top with furrowed brows above his sleeping eyes and little canines poking out of his mouth. For a moment she contemplated keeping it. It was, after all, adorable despite it's grumpy face, which was why it reminded her of Tae-won. Unfortunately, she'd never get so many toys into her luggage for the flight home in a couple of months. Besides, it might cheer him up if he had a prize of his own. Rose pushed the cat against Tae-won's chest. 'Here.'

Tae-won grasped the cat and looked down into its face. 'Why do I get the angry one?'

'Do you really need to ask?'

'This is what you think I look like?'

'I feel like that cat was designed for you.'

'Which one looks like you?' he asked.

Rose checked over the cats. One was tabby – that was definitely Yuta – and the calico was more like Hitomi. Rose thought she was more like the white cat; plain, simple, but sweet in its own way. She held it up beside her face and said, 'This one. It's the cutest.'

Without invitation, Tae-won took the white cat and swapped it for his black cat. 'This is better.'

'Hey!'

'What? You think I should have a cat that reminds me of myself? You should have it so you always think about me. And then I'll have the one that looks like you.'

'So you can think about me?'

'So I can think about how annoying you are, and that you're only cute when you're sleeping.' It was Rose's turn to pout. What could've been a sweet, romantic sentiment was just a way for him to insult her. Tae-won smirked and flicked the black cat in the head. Speaking directly to the toy, he told it, 'Oi, you have to hug her when I make her mad. That way she won't stop loving me.'

'I don't know if his hugs are that powerful.'

'Are you doubting Cat-won?' Tae-won asked. 'Don't you know how strong his hugs are? Aish, and you call yourself my girlfriend.'

'Cat-won?'

'Yeah. He's Cat-won, and this is Rose-meow.'

Rose snorted with laughter. Leaving karaoke had been the right choice; Rose would rather see this side of Tae-won while they were alone and hiding from her friends than sit through karaoke with Si-woo flirting with her to get a reaction out of Tae-won and Jin-hee pawing at him. She felt bad for leaving Hitomi, Yuta, and Eun-young behind without a word about where they were going, but this was fast becoming habit for her and she always came back to the apartment in one piece, so there was no reason for them to worry about her.

'Okay,' Tae-won said, 'I admit defeat. You're better at games than me.'

'Don't feel too bad about it. I spent a lot of time doing this outside of school.'

'Really?' he asked. 'You seem more like you'd be a model student.'

'I could do both. Besides, I had a reason to go back. A promise.'

'Promise?' Tae-won asked. He couldn't imagine a promise that would involve going to game centres rather than studying. Besides, Rose didn't seem like the kind of girl to agree to something so frivolous without good reason. That said, he didn't know what she'd been doing in the time since they'd last met and it was possible this was a promise she'd made to a boyfriend before this Keiji guy she'd dumped on her graduation night.

Rose shrugged lightly and a blush kissed her cheeks. 'When I was fifteen I went on a date with a guy to a game centre and I promised I'd get better so the next time I met him there I could beat him at the UFO catcher.'

'Did you meet him another time?'

'No,' Rose admitted. 'But it was fun, so I kept going back. I don't think I'll ever see him again. My dad dragged me home in the middle of our date while he was getting us water, so he probably thought I'd run away from him.'

'Oh,' Tae-won said. 'I guess most guys would think that.'

'Aren't you supposed to tell me a comforting lie?' Rose asked. 'Like, that the guy probably still thinks about me and never got over me after that one date?'

'Why would I want to tell you there's another guy thinking about you when I only want you to look at me?'

Rose smiled helplessly. 'True.'

'It's getting late,' he said. 'I should take you home if we're going to keep this a secret.'

'Or... we could go back to your apartment and we could tell everyone that you kidnapped me again?' Rose suggested, batting her lashes.

Tae-won reached out to pinch her cheek. 'Aigoo, you're so cute when you want to be. But I'm still taking you home.'

'Why?' Rose whined.

'Because if we keep using the kidnapping excuse, Yuta is going to have me arrested.'