After my date with Jaebum that night, he and I had been going back and forth on all sorts of communication. Texting, tweeting, DMing, calling each other. Whatever it was, we were communicating. Not only that, but our scene was making a ton of progress. After Reina told me to use our relationship as an "as if", the chemistry as well as just the flow of the scene has been amazing.
I was on my way to the little hole in the wall coffee shop Jaebum had taken me on our first date a couple weeks back to do some more research on our scene as well as some homework and just to hang out. It was almost Halloween and everything in town, and on campus had been decked out for Halloween and the fall season in general.
I reach the coffee shop and don't see Jaebum inside, so I pick a seat and then go order a hot tea and muffin. After I ordered and got all my things situated, Jaebum walks into the coffee shop. He was wearing a beanie, a white T-shirt with print on it, jeans, and sneakers. He looks around the coffee shop and then spots me.
His eyes light up the moment he laid eyes on me. He walks to the counter to order a drink and then heads over to the table I'm sitting at.
"Hey," He says as he sits down across from me.
"Hey."
"Were you waiting long?" He asked me.
"No. I just got here." I said honestly.
"Did you have class today?"
"Yeah. I had my Modern Japan class this morning and then I sat in on the ballet class for a little while. You?"
"I was in the communications building all day. I was working on my thesis."
"That's right. Did you figure out a topic yet?"
"Sort of. I don't really know what I want to do. I mean I have until Thanksgiving to figure something out, but it's almost Halloween and most of my class has at least something."
"Why don't you do something about your band?"
"I thought about it, but I don't know."
"Do you not want your peers to know about your band?"
"Yes and no. It's hard to explain."
"Actually, I understand why you said yes and no."
"Really? How come?"
"Why you love your band, is the same love I have for dance. You want to be able to share your passion with other people, but sometimes, people downgrade your passion usually because they aren't good at it or they simply don't understand it. It's almost like you love a certain genre of music, but no one else does for the stupidest reasons."
"Like 'how can you like that, if you don't understand it?' or 'you shouldn't like stuff like that'. You know?"
"Exactly!" I exclaimed.
Jaebum smiles at me and the cashier brings his drink. "You know, we have to present our scene in a couple days."
"I know. Are you nervous?" I asked.
"A bit. But, I have high hopes for our scene. We've been rehearsing every night. We have great chemistry. I think we'll get good comments from the professor."
"I do too." I smiled.
"I was wondering—"
"Yeah?"
"After class. I mean like after we do our scene, do you want to go celebrate?"
"Like on a date?"
"Yeah." "I'd love to." I smiled.
"Cool." He smiled with a slight blush on his cheeks. Ever since Jaebum and I have gotten a little more serious, he's been showing me this side I haven't seen before. Usually, he's cool, suave, and dominant. But lately, he's been more shy, and a little more aware of what he says and does.
It's almost as if I'm actually seeing him, rather than this other side of him that I usually see. It was a nice change. Plus, I could open up a little more to him as well. I wasn't as shy and was a lot more vocal on our dates or whenever we hung out. It was nice.
"So, with Halloween around the corner, do you know who or what you're gonna be?" Jaebum asked me.
"No. It's been really difficult trying to figure out what I want to do for Halloween." I answered.
"Well, my band is performing on Halloween, so maybe you can just come as your cute self." He smirked.
"You know I'll be there, but if it's Halloween themed event, I have to dress up." I complained. "Although—"
"What?" Jaebum pestered.
"I've always wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood." I mentioned.
"There you go! You can be Little Red, while I'll be the Big Bad Wolf." He said as he leaned towards me in his chair.
"You're too much." I giggled as I playfully push him away. I finish my muffin and we continue doing homework until around six. We then head over to Jaebum's place and practice our scene a few times. When we get there, Jaebum and I spot Jackson and Elise on the couch really cuddled up.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" Jaebum teased.
"We're just hanging out." Elise defended.
"Surrrreeee." Jaebum said as he took my hand and led me to his room. This is the first time I've actually been with him in his room. He's been very respectable of our time together, even though we hang out all the time. You could even say that he was more of a gentleman. He's kept his word about protecting me and just being an all around great boyfriend.
"I don't know why they don't just admit that they like each other. It's frustrating." Jaebum said as he sat down on his bed.
"Some people go through relationships differently. I'm sure when they finally accept their feelings for each other, they'll come around."
"That's the thing though. Everybody knows they both like each other. Jackson is too stupid to make a move and Elise is too up her own ass to figure out what she wants." Jaebum explained as he lied down.
"Do you have to be so vulgar about it?" I asked as I sat at his desk.
"Yes. I'm just calling it for what it is. Bullshit."
"It's not bullshit, if they like each other."
"All right. I'm just being blunt about it. They need to confess to one another or someone is gonna get hurt."
"See? Was that so hard?" I said as I pinched his cheeks.
"Yes." He pouted. I giggle and look down at Jaebum's desk.
"Do you want to run our scene a couple times?" I asked.
"Yeah." Jaebum and I clear a few places in the room, so we can move around and kind of do all the blocking for our scene. We improvise walking in drunk and start our scene.
We say a couple of our lines and then turn on the radio for the scene. Jaebum's character turns up the volume, but I turn it down and then he suddenly turns it up, but not too loud.
"It shouldn't be too loud." I spoke.
"It will help drown out the sounds." His character says as he moved to closer to me.
"What sounds?" I say as I play with the bottom of his shirt.
Jaebum gently caresses one side of my face and leans down and kisses me as the script has us. Something about this kiss felt different. The kiss is supposed to be sudden and not so much romantic since technically, the scene is the "foreplay" of the booty call.
In fact, the kiss felt more like Jaebum and Aria are having a moment, not our actual characters having a moment. Jaebum pulls away, slightly and looks down at me with lidded eyes.
I pull away, as the script instructs, but Jaebum wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me back towards him.
"Jaebum, we're rehearsing our scene."
"I know."
"You know this isn't the blocking, right?"
"Yeah." Jaebum has no intention of letting me go.
"We should keep rehearsing." I encouraged.
"We could or we could fool around?"
"I don't think that's wise."
"Come on, Ari. Live a little. What are you afraid of?" Jaebum asked when he caressed my cheek.