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JAMAIS VU
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Yi-Seo

Taehyung doesn’t bother about the embarrassment plastered on my face, and he proceeds to throw himself on my couch, manspreading his legs while I stand there wishing I had something to hide my whole self behind.

The atmosphere in the room is so silent and awkward, his eyes are stuck on me, and I could almost hear the creepy cricket noises inside my head. When a few more seconds pass by in complete weird silence between the two of us, he slowly tilts his head to one side, casting me a look that seems to be wordlessly asking me why I’ve been standing still like a tree for so long.

“Don’t worry, we all make choices like that sometimes, and this isn’t anything that I haven’t seen before,” he chuckles dryly, shaking his head a little as he looks away.

My jaw almost drops down in disbelief, and I feel as if I want to cry away all the shame and humiliation that I’m experiencing at the moment. I feel baffled by his wry humor, and there’s no way I’m buying his senseless justification.

“You can’t say that. Of course, you haven’t seen anything, it’s my body, and you don’t get to decide if you’ve seen it before or not,” I retaliate in a slightly shaky tone, and this makes Taehyung’s head snap in my direction.

His visage twists in confusion, and it is evidenced by how his dense eyebrows slowly come together, but his face relaxes shortly after.

“Body?” He casually raises an eyebrow, folding one leg on top of the couch and turning around to sit down facing me, and then he continues to speak in a slightly intrigued tone, “what body? I was talking about this hideous couch,” he points with his thumb to the backrest of the blazing red couch on which he is seated, and this time the ridiculousness of the situation is just too much to handle that I definitely need a shovel to dig the ground and bury my head inside the hole and never face the world ever again.

I slap a palm on my forehead and divert my eyes away from him in an attempt to conceal the flustered look on my face, but in vain. Taehyung chuckles softly, shaking his head, probably unable to believe the extent of my stupidity.

Granted, the couch is eye-stingingly bright and everything, but something tells me that he did not just mean the couch.

Turning around swiftly, I walk away into my kitchen to recover from the embarrassment, and to try and collect myself together and also probably make some coffee, which is why I brought him home in the first place.

I can’t believe I said something like that to him. Shit! Yi-Seo, you’re such an idiot!

Just as I stand there, using my hands to pacify myself by rubbing my cheeks and fixing my hair, I hear Taehyung’s baritone echoing in my kitchen from behind me.

“Miss Kwon,” I turn around in an almost panic mode upon hearing his voice. “Just so you know, I don’t drink coffee, so don’t bother making anything for me,” he informs me with a small smile and stands leaning against the doorframe with his hands crossed under his chest.

“Oh,” I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “What about tea? Hot chocolate?” I ask him as I clasp my fingers together under my stomach and stand rooted on the spot, and I’m not going to lie, but the way his eyes just moved up and down my body is making me feel naked. He is actually making himself appear like one of those middle-aged creeps who would strip everyone with their eyes.

“Nope, I don’t drink any of those. What about watermelon juice?” He raises his eyebrows and demands as if he is entitled to getting that darned juice.

“Uhm, no, I don’t have it,” I shake my head a little.

Taehyung exhales a sigh through his parted lips and runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it a little.

“Beer?”

“You aren’t supposed to drink any alcohol for two days,” I repeat the fact in a feeble voice, and he laughs softly, nodding his head a few times.

“Beer is a kid’s drink. And why are you so concerned about that?” He questions me in a much deeper tone as he takes a few steps, getting closer to me, and this makes me automatically take a few steps backward with my slightly terrified eyes fixed on his piercing eyes.

He stops just about a foot away from me with his hands stuffed deep inside the pockets of his trousers, and his towering height makes it impossible for me to look at his face without having to raise my head and crane my neck a little.

“Because I don’t want to feel bad that I wasted a whole night waiting for you to wake up,” my words tumble out of my mouth, sounding nothing above a trembling whisper, and Taehyung stares at me intently for a long few seconds before taking a step back.

“Am I allowed to drink juice?” He asks me a little sarcastically, his big eyes wandering around my kitchen as if trying to spot that non-existent bottle of juice on the counter, scanning the space with a kind of rude curiosity.

“I guess so,” I keep my answer short, my shoulders lifting in a small shrug as I cross my arms across my stomach.

Taehyung nods his head a few times, flipping his naturally silver-streaked hair back with one hand.

“Since you don’t have any juice here, let’s go out and get some,” the tone of his voice makes sure that it doesn’t sound like a request at all. It sounded more like a command, but he waits for my response, which, of course, my brain has no trouble in giving what he expects.

“Okay,” I nod in acceptance, bringing a small smile to Taehyung’s face that somehow reflects on my face too.

I guess he really needed some company to do something as simple as maybe just go and have a glass of juice with someone. The truth be spoken, I have been yearning for some company too, and as a full-grown adult, I can deal with him even if he’s that middle-aged horny creep.

After all, I didn’t take up years of rigorous and dedicated Taekwondo training for no reason.

Grabbing my car keys, I lead us both out of my home and to the car, and Taehyung occupies the passenger seat beside me while I take over the wheels. I choose to remain silent throughout the drive, and Taehyung doesn’t speak anything either, and he only keeps staring out of the rolled-down window on his side, resting his elbow on the window frame.

Using my peripheral vision during the drive, I observe a few subtle mannerisms about Taehyung—he bites his fingernails and lips quite a lot, and he also frequently rubs his earlobe.

The drive to the nearest juice bar takes us about twenty minutes, and I pull over a few blocks ahead of the small building before we both climb out and head inside.

Walking ahead of Taehyung, I glance through the special menu that’s put up on a chalkboard mounted behind the counter and decide to order the featured drink of the day, strawberry slushie. When I turn around to ask what Taehyung wants to have, I notice that he isn’t standing beside me anymore—he has occupied a bar stool in a far corner, and he’s sitting there as if he owns the whole place.

Since I’d be paying for our drinks, I order a delicious strawberry slushie for me, and a plain old boring watermelon juice for him, and pay up for the order. It takes a few more minutes for our order to arrive, and then I take them to where Taehyung is seated.

“What’s this?” He asks when I get closer to him, pointing with his chin to the slushie that’s in my left hand and completely ignoring the watermelon juice that I’m holding in my right hand. As if in reflex, I pull my left hand a little closer to my body.

“That’s mine. This is yours,” I extend his juice to him, and he takes it with an ungrateful look on his face. But again, he is Kim Taehyung, and what else do I expect from him?

Before I could hop onto one of the bar stools, he climbs down from it. Sticking the straw into his mouth, he starts sipping his drink and also starts walking towards the exit door without even bothering to tell me what he is planning to do next.

A groan of defeat and frustration leaves my lips as I hold tight to my drink and follow him out the door onto the pavement outside, my steps almost turning into a little jog to keep up with his pace.

“Taehyung-ssi,” I call out to him from behind him, and he stops walking, turning around to look at me at the exact moment when I feel a hand on my shoulder making me turn around and look at the person who called me.

“Yi-Seo, hi,” my eyes widen upon seeing him there, and my mouth hangs open too.

I stand frozen on the spot for a few seconds before I shake my head off the unwanted thoughts and put on a square face.

“Yeah?” I ask Jungkook, my ex-boyfriend.

“I just happened to see you, and I thought,” he says, pausing to glance over my shoulder to look at Taehyung, probably, and then his big Bambi eyes return to me, “maybe we could hang out for a bit?” He keeps his tattooed hands stuffed inside the pockets of his baggy jeans and flashes a toothy grin that I once fell hard for, but that charm has no effect on me now. Jungkook looks and feels like a stranger to me, even though our history together runs much deeper.

“No, thanks,” I turn down his offer without a moment of hesitation and spin around to face Taehyung who has his head slightly tilted to one side, his stern eyes casting an accusatory glance at Jungkook.

I try to move forward, but Jungkook forcefully grabs my wrist from behind, and it makes me jolt a little. “Hey, hold on, you can’t leave like that,” he says in a suddenly menacing tone, making my eyes widen, and my heart begins to pound faster.

“Do you know him?” Taehyung questions me in an even more deep and menacing tone, and I swallow thickly, shaking my head a little and lowering my terrified eyes to the ground beneath my feet.

“Let her go. She does not know you,” Taehyung asserts to Jungkook and takes a step closer to me, and Jungkook chuckles sarcastically.

“I bet she can’t look into my eyes and say that, isn’t that right, jagiya?” Jungkook’s malicious usage of the pet-name he once used to call me makes me cringe and curl inward while Taehyung’s face exhibits no shift in emotions.

How the hell do I vanish from here?

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Published on : 01/07/2023