[Edited]
With his heart pounding frantically away in his chest, Jimin hesitantly steps towards the girl he's been dared to bother. The girl, the so-called best friend of Mina, has her whole face covered by a huge black book. Jimin's nagging curiosity gets the best of him, and tilts his head to the side in order to read the golden font printed across the spine. He straightens up with a smile and takes the last couple steps towards the table, silently sliding into the seat across from the girl. Apparently she's a Lord of the Rings fangirl.
At least she has good taste.
He takes a moment to examine her again at a closer distance, and he marvels at the professional sheen of her gorgeous silver-white hair. Jimin also realizes that the girl is very, very small. She can't be any taller than 5'1", her pale hands that hold the book in front of her face are even smaller than Jimin's own tiny hands, and her frame is thin and petite in every way, almost as if Jin could snap her like a toothpick with his bare hands. Not that the gentle eomma of BTS would do that, but still.
She's tiny.
Jimin watches as she turns the large pages of the older book with precision, fixated on the careful moment of her steady hand. The young dancer remembers reading the book himself years ago, and watching the movies not long after. It wasn't his favorite series, but they were incredibly detailed and well written, and it would've been impossible for Jimin to not enjoy them. At the least they'll have something in common to talk about... if the dare goes well.
And that's a big if, especially when Jimin recalls the exact details of the deal...
If she isn't bothered by the first two things I've been dared to do, then she'll definitely be annoyed by one of the others. I have to poke her until she looks up, and then ask her about her book!? I already know what book she's reading! I've read it myself. How am I supposed to pretend that I don't know it? I can imagine how that conversation would go:
"Hey, whatcha reading?"
"Lord of the Rings."
"Yeah."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I already knew what you were reading."
"What? Then why'd you'd ask?"
"Uh.... I can't really say."
"Creep."
*girl leaves*
Yeah, I'm definitely not doing that. If I'm not careful enough I might come across as a perv, and then she might slap me or something. The hyungs would never let me forget it if I got slapped by a girl! But on the bright side, I suppose there isn't much I can lose. Worse case scenario is the girl never comes back to this cafe and I get permanently banned from rainbow sprinkles. Nothing to stress myself so much about.
Jimin takes a deep breath to settle his nerves, his heart beating wildly inside his chest.
I guess it's now or never.
Jimin, with an anxious feeling deep in his gut, begins humming softly. Unforeseen nervousness makes his hands a little sweaty, and he feels painfully out of place in the quiet cafe because of his humming. Mina, however, isn't taking any of his 'nervous' nonsense, so she glares at him and motions for him to be louder. With extreme self-consciousness, Jimin hums 'War of Hormone' louder than before.
After the first verse and chorus of the song Jimin pauses long enough to take a large sip of his caramel macchiato. Jimin can't help but moan softly as the taste of the best coffee he has ever had hits his taste buds. Mina smirks at him knowingly as he closes his eyes to savor the taste, but Jimin can feel the eyes of three or four other customers stare at him with befuddled expressions as they wonder what the heck is wrong with him.
Jimin blushes in embarrassment at his involuntary noise, and takes another even larger mouthful of his exquisite refreshment.
Although the customer service is questionable, the coffee here is admittedly the best in Seoul, probably the best in Korea, and undoubtedly some of the best coffee in the entire world. I'm actually somewhat glad I took the dare, now. The coffee is totally worth it.
With a satisfied expression on his face, Jimin resumes humming with renewed enthusiasm and he attempts to pretend that there isn't anybody else in the shop to hear him. To his great surprise (even though he makes it through two complete songs quite loudly and enough time passes for multiple customers to come and go) the girl doesn't look up once.
Her ability to ignore her surroundings and submerse herself in literature is quite commendable. I wish I could be that adept at tuning out everything else.
With a heavy heart Jimin embarks on the second part of the dare. The orange-haired boy winces the instant he starts whistling, feeling sorry for the other cafe-goers that have to witness the horrid, nails-on-a-chalkboard-like sound. Jungkook had tried to teach him how to whistle once, but all attempts only led to a hesitant and flat sound. Jimin could hum beautifully for hours, but he couldn't whistle a thing.
And yet he does.
Jimin, although still terrible, puts all his efforts whistling the correct notes of Run. The piercing, slightly-off-key song is easily noticeable and highly irritating to everyone in the shop, and Jimin taps his fingers on the table nervously as a few of the customers get up and leave within the first few minutes. Mina sends him a thumbs up and a wink for his 'job well done', and Jimin groans at the pleasure she takes in his suffering.
The whistling is by far much worse than the humming, but the only one who doesn't acknowledge that fact is the girl. The girl still doesn't stir. She remains in the same hunched position, only moving her fingers every minute to turn the page of her incredibly thick book. The respect Jimin had for her turns into awe.
Does anything bother her?
After two and a half times through Run Jimin permanently gives up on his career in whistling and stares anxiously at the half full coffee in front of him. His fingers finally pause their tapping, but his left foot takes their place. Jimin glances at the girl, this mysterious 'B', and suddenly regrets his acceptance of the dare.
What am I gonna say after I ask her about the book? How do I carry on the conversation? What if she's actually deaf and won't be able to understand me? Jimin momentarily pauses in his train of erratic thoughts, chastising himself for his own stupidity. You pabo. Of course she's not deaf! She was able to hear what Mina said earlier, wasn't she? So she isn't deaf... but what if she slaps me for touching her and then accuses me of harassment?! I could be sent to jail and all my dreams will be dashed to pieces! ...Okay, so maybe that's a little extreme. But the point still stands.
Mina sends more signals of 'go on' and 'hurry up' to Jimin, and Jimin begs her with his famous puppy dog eyes to be let out of this one. Mina smirks evilly, and shakes her head vigorously. Jimin hangs his head in defeat. Apprehension tenses up his muscles as he predicts terrible outcome after terrible outcome. With a deep breath and a fearful gulp, Jimin steels himself for the worst.
As a last resort, he clears his throat with extra gusto; hoping that B will raise her head at least an inch or so to acknowledge his presence. To Jimin's great disappointment, the girl doesn't even shift in her seat at the obnoxious sound.
So much for tact.
Jimin swallows, and reaches across the table to gently prod her right shoulder with his pointer finger. The girl reacts the instant his hand touches her shoulder, the words shooting out of her mouth faster than Yoongi's most difficult rap.
"Touch me one more time, Noise Boy, and see that I won't cut off all your fingers one by one."
The response is so sudden and so savagely violent that Jimin can't help but jump, flailing out of his chair and landing on his bum on the floor of the cafe. Mina bursts out laughing, startling the customer she's currently taking an order from, and Jimin can't help but think of Suga-hyung yet again.
Both Suga hyung and this odd girl have such soft, gentle voices that could easily lull someone to sleep, yet the words they speak could set people on fire and cause natural disasters! I never thought I'd find anyone as soft-spoken or as violent as Suga-hyung, much less a girl, yet here she sits in front of me-- peacefully reading. Looks really can be deceiving! How can someone so small be so intimidating?
Absolutely dumbfounded and perplexed, Jimin sits on the floor with his mouth gaping open as he replays her scary sentence over in his head.
Noise Boy? Where the heck did she get tha-
The odd combination of humming, whistling, tapping both his feet and his fingers, and clearing throat pop into Jimin's head.
Oh. I guess her nickname does makes sense... But still! She didn't have to threaten to cut off my fingers! I need my fingers! Jimin looks up at Mina with wide eyes, silently asking her what he should do now in order to complete his part of the deal without losing his fingers along the way. Mina looks away with a glint in her eyes. All I wanted was rainbow sprinkles, and I get death threats instead. Why can't anything be simple and easy for once?
"Well?" To Jimin's surprise, the voice continues, the tone as fluid and pure as a mountain stream and the words as sharp as knives, "As you just gonna sit there on the floor for the rest of your predictably short life or what?"
Jimin scrambles up off the floor and dusts his pants off before sitting down, fear coursing through his veins.
I didn't know girls other than eomma could be so scary! Are rainbow sprinkles really worth provoking someone like this? Jimin stares at his delicious coffee. Okay, so maybe this coffee is totally worth it. But why in the world did the coffee barista tell me to bug this girl, knowing that she'd mutilate me if I touched her? Even so, this scary girl still hasn't looked up from her book. What the heck am I supposed to do now? Provoke her to cut off all my fingers?
Jimin trembles in his seat, fearing for the safety of his fingers as he scrambles to come up with some kind of solution.
Maybe... Maybe I could just ask her? Who knows; she could be a really nice person behind all those sharp words.
"Um..." Jimin nervously runs a hand through his bright orange hair, "E-excuse m-me?"
"What." The suddenness of her reply again scares Jimin, but he somehow manages to keep from flinching.
"U-uh..." All comprehension of words leaves Jimin's brain as he scrambles for something-anything to tell the silver-haired girl sitting across from him, "I- uuhhhh... um, I- I like sprinkles, and nowhere else has sprinkles, and my hyungs told me that this place had good coffee, so I came here to get a coffee cause I was having a stressful day and I needed coffee. I- uh... sprinkles?"
Jimin watches in surprise as the face of the girl raises just enough so that he can see a single, dark and thin raised eyebrow of her unperturbed expression.
Well, an expression is better than no expression, I suppose. Maybe the rambling will actually work. Not that I have any other ideas, anyway.
"Tae Tae was supposed to come with me to get sprinkles today, because I like sprinkles and he told me about this place, but he couldn't come. So I had to walk all the way here all by myself. I don't like walking by myself. What if I get mugged? Or hugged? Not that I'd mind that though, I like hugs. But still, what if I get mugged? Not that I blame Tae Tae, though. Everybody's stressed right now because of Suga-hyung, and our manager especially is having a tough time. All because of Suga-hyung. Did I mention Suga-hyung? He's been off in his own world for three weeks after hearing some heart-breaking family news, and he won't talk to anybody except Jin and he only responds to Jin with single word answers! You remind me of him. He's mean, and grumpy, and sarcastic, but he's also usually so thoughtful and kind in his own silent grumpy way. Nothing's right right now with him being so uncharacteristically not-sarcastic. All I wanted was sprinkles! But instead here I am, worrying about Suga-hyung some more. Maybe I need more sprinkles. Do you like sprinkles? Rainbow ones are my personal favorite, but Jin-hyung always tell me that they all taste the same. Do sprinkles really all-"
Jimin's voice dies away as the book slides slowly down the girl's face and the edge slowly travels to her nose. His breath catches in his throat as her dark, sparkling eyes raise from the page to meet his own chocolate brown eyes. The depths of her unbelievably dark brown eyes shine with unnameable emotions, stirring up strange feelings deep within Jimin as well even though he's known about her existence for less than half an hour. The purity in her brilliant gaze starkly contrasts with the brutality of her words, and Jimin suddenly feels whip-lashed.
Her eyes... it's as if they've seen the world, and know all the pain, the brutality, the suffering, and the betrayal that fills all of its darkest corners. What has she seen that makes her look this way? But even though she looks so tired of everything... there's still a spark of life in those dark eyes of hers. She's still got a lot of fire in her.
Wait a second. Jimin stares deep into her large eyes, his heart aching for some reason. How in the world am I figuring all this out by just looking into her eyes? What am I, some sort of psychic?
Jimin blinks repeatedly at her; unable to believe his eyes. She blinks once back, her eyes flickering from one of his to the other.
"Um... hi?" Jimin tentatively starts, unable to look away from her eyes. Her eyebrows are dark, unlike her hair, and the perfectly clear and soft-looking skin of her forehead and around her eyes is as pale as snow. Her eyelashes are dark black and long, curling around her eyes in a way that's too perfect to be natural. The rest of her face is still covered by her book, but her beautiful eyes are more than enough to make Jimin nervous.
All of Jimin's anxiety about the dare fades away into the back of his mind as all of his attention is suddenly consumed by the sheer complexity of the emotions in her eyes. The sudden silence of the room makes Jimin uncomfortable, so he says the first thing that pops into his head.
"You have really pretty eyes."
Cue the cliffhanger! (I really wanted to finish this whole scene but I have to stop it here because it's already 11:40 and I've got school in the morning!) Sorry :(
Please keep reading and don't forget to vote!
~singformeangel