Complications Because of Distractions

Sometimes, in order to make a difficult choice in life, you need someone else to give you a little encouragement. You know, the kind that usually goes along the lines of: "You should give it a try," or "You do whatever your heart tells you to do." In Sage's case, however, a semi-flirtatious text written by her friend is what she had received instead.

How did she allow this to happen? Even she doesn't know. She should have expected it though. It's Tabby we're talking about here! The girl is never up to any good with her antics. Now Sage is beginning to seriously question how she'd manage to stay sane after having been graced with her rowdy presence for almost a year now. Then again, if it hadn't been for Tabby, Sage would have never been able to get Morgan back home before the sun rose that summer night considering she doesn't even have her driver's license.

Running her hands over her shirt to smooth out the wrinkles that have been bothering her, Sage stares at her reflection and lets out a soft sigh. Will it really be okay for her to go out and meet up with Jack? It isn't too late. She can still cancel. Knowing him, he wouldn't blame her if she told him she couldn't make it either. What's a girl to do?

As Sage is having a mental sparring match with herself, contemplating on what she should do, her phone buzzes and lights up on the nightstand. She peers out the window, which has a view of the front lawn, and catches sight of Jack's oh-so-familiar Sonata pulled over and parked by the curb, his headlights brightening up a section of the street. Her heart beats a little faster as she picks up her phone and sees a text from him informing her of his arrival. Well there goes her idea on backing out last minute. It's most definitely too late for that now.

"Where are you going?" Morgan is seated on the couch with the television remote in her hand and her eyes settled on Sage. For a minute, the younger girl doesn't utter a word and simply looks at her cousin from where she stands. Why is she hesitating? It's not a hard question to answer. Clearing her throat, Sage zips up her jacket and slips into her winter-boots, trying to act nonchalant and normal.

"Out with a friend. I'll be back later." Before she can pry any more information from her, Sage bolts out the door.

Morgan is startled by the loud slam and immediately purses her lips, her curiosity aroused. Something's off. She jumps up to her feet and scurries to the window, pushing the curtains aside so that she can see outside. She notices how Sage is practically sprinting towards the car parked in front of the house and her eyebrows rise as her head tilts to the right. Unfortunately, Morgan's vision is as terrible as an eighty year old man's, if not worse, which ultimately means she can't make out a single detail of whoever it is that's sitting in the driver's seat.

Jack doesn't even bother hiding his smile as he watches Sage climb inside his car, a gust of wind accompanying her. "Hey," he says while she buckles her seatbelt. She glances up at him and holds her breath when she finds him looking at her with a winsome smile sitting on his face.

"Hi," she replies after she averts her gaze and turns forward. What's gotten into her? It's only a smile. A gorgeous one, might she add. Once she registers her peculiar thoughts, however, Sage chastises herself. For what? Even she's not positive on that.

"Do you have everything?" She nods and Jack takes this as his cue to depart. "So, what have you been doing these last few days?" he questions, trying to make some light conversation to conceal his jittery nerves. He might look as cool as a cucumber on the outside but on the inside he's a hot mess. On the way here, he'd been both ecstatic and anxious to see her. Now that he's actually with Sage, all he can think about is not screwing up and making himself look like a complete idiot. Not that he hasn't already done so in the past. It's not like this is the first time the two of them are hanging out, yet something feels vaguely different.

"Sleeping and reading." She may or may not have been worrying about today as well, but she's not going to tell him that. There's no reason for her to. Even she can't fathom why she's been feeling antsy, even up until this very moment, so of course it'll be quite difficult for her to try and explain it someone else.

"Sounds relaxing," replies Jack.

"It was."

He steals a glimpse of Sage through the corner of his eye and notices that she's fiddling with her fingers. He's never seen her do that before. "You know, I was beginning to wonder if you didn't want to hang out with me." He lets out a chuckle to indicate that he's joking, but Sage stiffens at the remark.

"That's not it!" she blurts out, face flushed. "I'm sorry. It's—I just wasn't sure what to do." And she still isn't.

"Hey, there's no need to apologize," he says as he nudges her lightly with his elbow. Maybe he shouldn't have done that. "I was only kidding with you. I know how hard it is to get up from bed. I'm really glad you texted me though."

"Actually," Sage starts off, "to be honest with you, I wasn't the one who sent that message."

His dirty blonde eyebrows pucker in confusion as he attempts to focus on the road. "What do you mean by that?"

"It was Tabby."

He doesn't recognize the name at all. "Who's Tabby?"

Sage sits tall and sighs. "A very nosy friend of mine."

Suddenly, the disaster date he'd experienced with fake Sage flickers into his mind and Jack can't help but feel hopeless. Are they the same person? Talk about déjà vu. What had he been expecting? "Oh, I see," he mutters. "So you're only here because of her? I didn't know that." He should have realized it sooner. She never sent smiley faces to him. It isn't her style. "Sage, I don't want to force you to go out with me if you don't want to. Do you want to go back home? I can turn around right now if you want me to."

He doesn't sound upset, let alone angry, and Sage waves her hands in the air as she looks at him, eyes wide. "That's not it. I never said I didn't want to hang out with you. I do. It just took me some time to realize it. But, I was kind of relieved that she was the one who texted you or else I wouldn't have known what to say." She pauses and grows embarrassed. She's never said this out loud before but because she doesn't want Jack misunderstanding her, she has to do it.

"I don't know if you can tell or not, but I don't have many friends. Mainly because I'm not really good at making them. So all of this,"—she moves her hands in circular motions, gesturing at nothing in particular—"us going out and everything, I'm not that familiar with it." It's silent and Sage exhales in defeat. She sounds like a total loner and she won't blame him if he thinks so either. It's the truth.

"That's a relief," Jack heaves with the corners of his lips etched upwards, shocking her. "Because I really didn't want to bring you home." Sage's heart nearly stops and she can do nothing but stare at his handsome profile. She can't seem to find the strength nor will to turn away, not this time. "Friendship's a two-way street," he says, his eyes still fixed ahead. "So even though you're not used to any of this, you've got me and all the time we need to figure it out. All you have to do is be yourself and everything'll be perfect."

"Perfect," Sage lets out in a small whisper before valleys and creases form on her forehead, her brain kicking back into gear. "Logically speaking, nothing in the world is perfect," she announces. "Everything's flawed. It's a known fact."

Her statement evokes laughter from him and Jack shakes his head in amusement. Now this is the Sage he knows. "You have your opinion and I have mine," he quips. "I'll have to meet this Tabby one day and thank her for this."

Sage recalls all of the teasing remarks Tabby had thrown at her after her complexion changed into a deep crimson red. "I'm not sure if that'll be a good idea." If she were to meet Jack, who knows what other inappropriate things will come splurging out of her mouth. Sage doesn't want him feeling awkward or uncomfortable, especially not around her. Marriage and children are definitely not matters which should be treated lightly. Even she's well-aware of that fact. Clearly her friend isn't. "Tabby has a hard time containing herself. Meaning, her mouth typically works faster than her brain. I don't want to put you in a weird position."

"If you're friends with her, surely she can't be that bad," Jack answers. Even though there's a chance that Tabby can turn out to be the fake Sage he had encountered a few months ago, Jack doesn't feel all that worried about it. Perhaps, by now, he has become nothing more than a distant memory to her, a blur of the past. At least, that's what he's hoping for.

Being optimistic is the only way he can remain so calm about this. He wants to tell Sage the truth. Fill her in on their families' history and relationship and how he was the guy she was supposed to go out on a date with, but he doesn't know exactly how to approach the situation. The scale can tip in his favor or completely against it and the notion of this possibly driving a wedge between them has Jack second-guessing himself. What if Sage gets mad at him for keeping hush? What if she never wants to see him ever again? Will he be okay with that happening? Subconsciously, his fingers curl tighter around the steering wheel and his entire body tenses up.

"She's not terrible," Sage remarks after putting some thought into it. "She just tends to overstep boundaries sometimes without knowing it."

Her voice soothes his qualms and Jack is reminded of her presence. What's he doing? He shouldn't allow his mind to wander elsewhere, not when she's here with him. "I totally get where you're coming from," he empathizes. "My friends can be the same way. There are only two of them but you can't even begin to imagine all of the trouble they're capable of causing."

"I don't think I've ever heard you talk about your friends," Sage points out, surprised that she had never noticed this before.

"I can say the same about you," returns the boy. "They wanted to meet you, but I didn't know if you'd be okay with that."

"Why would they want to meet me?"

"Oh—uh..." Struggling to come up with an excuse, he sputters out the first thing he can think of. "Because I told them about my lame herb reference when we first met and they've been holding against me ever since. My embarrassment is often used as a source of entertainment by them." It's not a total lie.

"I don't blame them. It was a rather terrible joke." She stifles a chuckle and Jack is glad that he has managed to distract her. There's no way he's going to tell her that the only reason Claudius and Simon have been dying to intrude on their outing is because they want to be a nuisance. "Believe it or not, my parents didn't intentionally name me after an herb," she explains. "Sage is supposed to mean wise. I guess they were hoping I'd grow up to become a woman full of knowledge and wisdom. Rosemary, on the other hand, she was definitely named after the herb."

Jack snorts out loud as his grin stretches from ear to ear. "Rosemary? That's your little sister with the atrocious bedroom I'm assuming?"

Sage guffaws at his description, a mirror image of her own words, and he is momentarily mesmerized by the sound of her laugh. "That would be her." At a red-light, he peers over to the girl and is greeted with a wide and generous smile. He's never seen her laugh so wholeheartedly and god is she beautiful. Knowing that he's the reason for her bright smile makes Jack feel both proud and bashful. It's then that he realizes he's willing to do anything just to see Sage smile like this every single day.

Even if it means wearing his heart on his sleeve.

No longer feeling uneasy or on edge, Sage settles down with her lips still upturned in a faint smile. She had been fretting over nothing! Silently, she contemplates on expressing her gratitude towards Tabby for having made tonight possible as Jack had mentioned earlier. However, she opts out on the idea once she figures doing so will only provoke more unnecessary taunting from her friend. "Where are we going anyways?" she inquiries as she glances out the window, watching as everything passes by in a blur.

"You'll see in a bit. All I can tell you is that I'm glad you wore a big jacket. It'll definitely help cushion you," Jack answers with an air of mystery.

The next thirty minutes are spent discussing the classes they'll be taking in the spring semester. Although Jack still hasn't found where his passions lay and what he wishes to study, his academic advisor for the university suggested he take a few more general education courses which will buy him a little more time.

Again, Sage voices her support, reminding Jack every now and then that it's perfectly normal for him not to have declared a major yet because it's not something that should be rushed. It's only his first year at college anyhow. Deciding on what you want to do for the rest of your life isn't like picking what outfit you want to wear for the day.

"We're here," Jack declares once they arrive. He makes a right turn, pulling into a parking lot packed with cars. Sage scans the area and it doesn't take her long to figure out where they're at thanks to the ginormous sign situated in front of them.

She turns to him, a baffled countenance plastered over her face. "A ski resort?"

"Yeah, have you never been to one before?" he returns as he unbuckles his seatbelt.

"Not since I was six," she explains sheepishly, "when I broke my arm."

"Ouch, that must have been painful." Jack winces and although he's never broken a bone in his body, he's been close to it and can imagine how much it must have hurt, especially for a child. "But you can't let fear stop you. If you don't overcome it now, you might never overcome it at all and running away from a challenge doesn't seem like the Sage I know."

"I'm not too sure about this." The hesitation is written clearly across her features and Jack decides it's time for him to make his move. He takes hold of her hand, careful not to startle her. She doesn't yank away in disgust, thank goodness, and his heart hums a little louder. Her skin feels soft, as he'd expected, and he basks in the warmth of her hand.

"I'll be right here," he tells her, the pad of his thumb grazing ever so gently against her knuckles. "I won't let anything happen to you, I promise." And as Sage delves deeper into those inviting gray eyes of his, she finds nothing but utter sincerity behind them, something Jack never seems to lack whenever she looks at him.

Promises, from what she's seen, are only lies people tell to make someone feel better. They're simply empty words—sweet nothings—that'll only ever result in one thing: disappointment. Sage has never been too fond of these so-called promises but hearing it from Jack sounds different. Perhaps it's because for once she actually wants to believe that promises are more than what she makes them out to be. More than just disappointment.

The callouses on his hand are rough, nothing like him, and his words reassuring. Slowly, her gaze falls down to their hands and heat rises to her cheeks once she registers that she's enjoying his touch just a little too much for her to disregard it. Jack then notices where her eyes are settled and he releases her. From the expression on her face, it seems like she's wondering why in the world he had been holding onto her hand.

"We should get going." Without waiting for her to say anything, he exits the vehicle first.

The door slams shut and realizing she's been left behind, Sage mutters a near inaudible, "Right." Moments later, her door swings open, much to her surprise. She cranes her neck up and discovers Jack waiting for her on the other side.

"Are you ready?" His head is cocked to the right while one side of his lips tugs up into a subtle smile.

His actions cause Sage to feel foolish but she doesn't make a comment as she steps out of the car, careful not to bump her head against the roof. How can she even think that he, out of all people, would leave her? He's a true gentleman, the embodiment of chivalry. It's due to these exact reasons that Sage Chan has also convinced herself that all of this, her being here with Jack, him opening the door and smiling at her like that, they mean absolutely nothing.

It's Jack simply being Jack and she doesn't have a clue on whether she likes it or not.          

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Author's Note: So many thoughts and feelings and emotions in this chapter! I cannot deal with these two! As you can see, Sage and Jack still haven't progressed much. I mean, I feel like all they ever talk about is school but that'll change soon. It just shows how guarded a certain "wise" woman is. What do you think of Sage? Jack?

I hope you're all doing well! Please vote and comment if you want :) The song is also super cute and in english and from one of my favorite dramas! It fits well with the beginning in my opinion.