Model
Taeyoung is walking me back to campus. He offered to give me a clean shirt but I refused. He then told me to keep his black shirt again for now since I had no clean shirt to change into, so I walk home in the same clothes as yesterday.
We walk in silence for a bit, but the mood is so much different between us. His hand brushes against mine constantly, our eyes catching side glances of each other, small smiles pushing their way through the wall we try to build.
To fill up the silent yet giddy energy, I asked him about school.
He is in his fourth year, a senior. "So you should call me your 선배님, meaning senior."
"Sunbaenim? Instead of oppa?"
The memories of my sickly sweet voice calling Taeyoung oppa every 5 seconds when drunk makes my cheeks hot. It's just a word, but something about it made me feel strange about saying it aloud.
"Uh," he scratches the back of his neck, clearly a bit nervous.
I smile at him. I think he likes oppa more.
"Whichever you want is fine. You can just call me Taeyoung too..." He trails off.
I then learn that he's in music production. He likes to make music, he says. I guess he uses the keyboard I've seen in their apartment. I wish I got to major in what I wanted, although I wasn't really sure what I'd take if I really did get the chance.
All too soon we reach the front of my dormitory. We stop to face each other, the air getting a bit awkward. Then he grabs my hands, squeezing them, "I have to go. We can meet up tomorrow?"
"Sure." I'm so shy when I say this that I snort out of embarrassment after. He laughs before waving goodbye.
When I turn to the dorm doors, dread falls onto me like an avalanche. I drag my feet as I get inside, scuffling up the stairs and to my room. After I do laundry, shower, and change I feel a bit better, but become bored very easily. This allows for my thoughts to flash back to last night.
"I like you too."
My hands hold my hot cheeks as I squeal. I was never a squealer, yet here I am, acting like a teenager again.
My smile falls when I remember something. Or rather someone.
Koko.
I pull out my dead phone from my bag, plugging my charger in and waiting for it to come back to life. Once it does it begins to vibrate madly.
5 Calls from Koko and 34 messages.
I don't even bother to read them all, instead I just reply with:
S: I'M SORRY FOR LEAVING. I'M OKAY, I'M BACK IN MY ROOM NOW
She responds back asap with:
K: YOU BITCH YOU HAD ME SEARCHING ALL NIGHT
She ends up coming to my room. She immediately pulls me into a very tight hug, her bones basically digging into me, her towering height of 5'8" engulfing me.
"Okay, where the fuck did you go last night?" She begins to interrogate me.
I fill her in on most things. Like me calling Taeyoung and him picking me up. I also include sleeping in his room, but exclude the confession and kiss. Koko has never actually met Taeyoung before, so I decide to keep that a secret for now.
"And he didn't try anything on you?" She looks at me cautiously.
"What? No," I respond.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
"Hmm... That's one strange dude you got yourself there. That's good though, I'd never forgive myself if something happened to my sweet little friend." She pinches my cheek and I grimace.
"How about you then? What'd you do all night?" I turn the interrogation on her. She doesn't even bat an eye.
"I slept with some guy."
"What?" I'm at a loss. I know Koko likes boys, and I've even noticed her openness to girls too, but I didn't know she was so... I mean I guess it's normal nowadays to hook up for a one night stand, but I could never make myself do such a thing. Maybe because I'm still a virgin. Or most definitely because I still am.
Or maybe I am naive like Taeyoung said.
"Who was he?"
"I think his name was Mark? No. Jae? Minwoo? No that definitely wasn't it..." She begins talking to herself, her thoughts clearly somewhere else. "It started with an M I think."
"Okay... Can't even remember his name, that's a good sign. How did the whole communication thing go?"
"Honey, you don't need communication when you have sex, you speak the language of love instead." She laughs at her last few words which sounded overly dramatic. "No, he actually spoke really good English." She says after laughing.
"Oh..." I decide to leave it at that, not wanting to get any more details of the night.
We spend the rest of the day watching tv shows in my room, Koko sometimes randomly laughing as she brings up something this mystery guy said.
Does she actually like him?
***
The next day falls into a familiar pattern of wake up, Business class, lunch, Korean class, pass out on my bed. My phone vibrates with a message from Taeyoung, which immediately fills me up with the energy I had none of a few seconds ago.
He's asking to meet by the university gates. I change my clothes, wanting to look nice. But maybe I shouldn't put too much effort, that'll be too much, won't it?
I fight with myself over what to wear and settle on a skirt and long sleeve baggy sweater. The skirt is girly, but the baby pink sweater made the outfit much more comfy and casual.
I've reached the university gates now, and am about to pull out my phone when my eyes catch something. My mouth opens up slightly in shock when my eyes find Taeyoung. My whole body begins to grow hot, my face very likely a bright shade of pink.
Why does he look so...hot?
He's wearing clothes that I have never seen before. A plain white shirt with a sparkly black suit jacket over top. The sparkles shine in different colours with each movement he makes. He even had some jewellery on.
And his face. He is almost unrecognizable as his once caramel coloured hair is now so blonde that it looks white, and his eyes a light hazel colour, softly surrounded by eye makeup, and his lips are even more of a muted blood red than usual.
I stare in absolute awe and perplexity as he walks over to me. He looks like a model, walking like that.
"Hey!" He delivers a smile, acting as if nothing is wrong as I just stare at his light, intimidating irises.
People are staring. And why wouldn't they? I'm staring too.
"Sohee?"
I could probably drool at this point.
"Oh—" His ears start to turn red, "I knew I should have changed before meeting you, but I was running late."
"What—" That's all I can say as I stare at him some more.
"I do some modelling to help pay for school. I never wanted to, but people scouted me a few times and I became desperate for cash so..." He looks at me, becoming amused by my expression.
"What kind of model dyes their hair for one photoshoot?"
"One that's getting paid enough to not care."
Oh.
"Sorry, I should have at least taken these out." He gestures to his eyes.
"They're kind of scary," I say. He laughs. "It's like you're a different Taeyoung, like a twin or something," I continue, still in awe of his gorgeous looking hair and off-putting contacts.
He chuckles before taking off the sparkly jacket, but it doesn't do much to camouflage him. Even with just the white shirt, he stands out like a sore thumb. When I look around, sure enough, every girl is staring in awe, some even pulling out their phones to take pictures.
"Come on," Taeyoung grabs my hand, breaking me out of my trance.
We walk around the streets—Taeyoung ends up buying a cheap black baseball cap to somewhat cover his hair and face. It doesn't stop me from staring at him every chance I get. I'm so infatuated with this surreal looking man beside me that I barely notice that he never lets go of my hand.
"Are you hungry? Or do you want to do something else."
"Uh..."
He chuckles. "Will you stop staring please, it's still me."
"Okay," I say while still staring.
"Let's go to a cafe."
"Ooh, can we go to a cat one?" I remember seeing these cafes online last year.
"Oh, you don't want to go to a sheep one?"
"WHAT?!" My eyes widen in shock.
He laughs with his mouth open and eyes crinkled. "How about we start with cats and work our way up."
I nod my head vigorously. Food plus cute animals? What kind of heaven on earth is better than that?
So we end up in a cute cat cafe, drinking lattes and sharing a waffle equipped with scoopfuls of ice cream and a mountain of fruit. I end up inhaling the food as I eye a big fluffy cat lying down in the corner. He's mine.
Taeyoung laughs at me as I jump out of my seat, wiping a bit of ice cream off of my lips before heading towards the ragdoll.
The animal trills at me when I reach it, immediately getting up to stretch it's long back. Then it weaves between my legs before plopping on its side in front of me.
I groan from the cuteness, turning towards Taeyoung with a pained face, "Taeyoung, I want it."
He chuckles, mouth full of fruit. He comes over to me and pets the cat. "We can't have it. These cats live here."
I pout as the cat rolls on its belly. "But—"
"Nope."
We spend at least an hour petting cats. The older lady that works there even asks Taeyoung if she can take pictures of him to put on the photo wall. He humbly agrees, not phased one bit. Is he used to this?
I stay on the sidelines watching him get photographed. He eventually grabs my hand and pulls me to sit with him. I try to hide behind him so I don't get in the photo shots.
The lady gives us free 빙수 [bingsoo] as a thank you. Taeyoung smiles at me when I first taste it. While it doesn't look like it's much, don't take it lightly, this shit is delicious. I end up emptying most of the bowl.
We leave the cafe hand in hand, and that's when I realize that we aren't just simply hanging out, we're going out. Out on a date. How do I figure this out? Well, we spend the whole rest of the day together.
We end up watching a comedy in the theatre and eat some more afterwards. I even tell him about my mother, describing her bright fire-red hair and her big light brown eyes. He says that that must be where my "big beautiful eyes" come from, and this makes me blush just as red as my mother's hair. I even bring up that my father is Korean, but that I've never met him. He doesn't push me to talk more about him which I'm thankful for.
I don't mention that my mom is dead.
Eventually, it's nightfall when he walks me back to my dorm.
"So how was our first date?" He asks me with a mischievous smile on his way too attractive face.
Was he always this sexy? I swear he always just looked cute before.
Wait.
"So this was a date?"
He laughs at my obliviousness, using his hand to tuck a lock of my hair behind my ear. Then he leans in to kiss my forehead and leaves.
I turn around to stare at him as he walks away. His left hand is in his pant pocket, sparkly suit jacket hanging over his arm. His white hair peaks out from under the black cap.
Holy shit.
"He's hot," a familiar voice finishes my thoughts for me.
I don't even turn to look at Koko, I just keep staring at Taeyoung as his figure gets smaller.
"Wait a second. Is that him?" She asks, looking at me.
Without looking I just say, "yep."
She turns her gaze back to where he is.
"Well shit. Good luck." Then she walks into the building, leaving me standing there.
. . .
Instagram: @sooaura
Twitter: @_sooaura
Love,
Sooaura