Han So-Hee's glad that she's not visible from inside the water. Taehyung's last words are simple and yet they open up a plethora of possibilities, many of which she doesn't want to think about.

I want him to like me. So-Hee has been trying to act perfectly calm in Taehyung's presence and it's been hard to keep up that pretense because the bottom line is that she's naked and he's here, the only thing that separates both of them is the rapidly disappearing bubbles and air. But still, it's not a shame that's eating her up.

 Well, it's shame but it's a different type of shame. It's like watching and enjoying a movie that you shouldn't enjoy. It's like a hardcore harry Potter fan choosing to re-read Fifty Shades of Grey over The Goblet of Fire.

This, by far, is The Boldest Thing she's ever done. This is dirty. Like hot, dirty, like not pornographic dirty, but still dirty, dirty in a good sense, a kind of dirty she can't explain. Quite frankly, she feels a bit like a pervert right now to be enjoying this.

 She likes how Taehyung is stealing glances at her, she likes how he's all shy about it, she likes how he's red in the face, just like she is, she likes how he must be thinking in his head, and she likes how he thinks that she's pretty.

'I think I'm done,' says So-Hee when she realizes that most of her bubbles are gone and her refracted nakedness might be visible from outside.

'I'm not sure if I'm happy about it,' says Taehyung.

'Stop being a pervert. You don't play it well. You have been looking at your phone all this while!'

'I'm a shy pervert.'

'See you outside,' says So-Hee. 

Taehyung leaves.

 She dries herself, wipes the condensation on the mirror, and watches herself intently. While dressing up, she also searches for the term 'exhibitionism' just to check if she's slowly turning into some kind of a desperate weirdo.

When she comes out she finds Taehyung on the floor, in front of the television, flipping through the comic books she remembers having seen in her father's cabinets.

'I see you have busied yourself,' says So-Hee.

Taehyung looks back at her and it takes him an extra second to react.

 So-Hee has come to like these little amazing pauses he takes, the double-takes, how he stops looks at her, smiles coyly, looks away, and then answers.

'This is awesome! I have never seen a collection like this before,' remarks Taehyung.

'Come! Sit. Look at this! I never thought people owned these in Korea. This is pretty awesome.'

'I didn't know you were a comic book fan,' says So-Hee, a little disappointed because she thought they would talk about how big a fan he is of Seeing So-Hee Bathe thing. You're a pervert, So-Hee, stop it!

'A big fan! But comics weren't really widely available.'

 'But tell me about them.' 

She likes how Taehyung's eyes have suddenly lit up. She picks up a comic and immediately hates Wonderwoman for her huge bust, and keeps the comic out of Taehyung's reach.

'Oh! There's so much about them. I remember renting them for ten bucks for a week.'

So-Hee, immensely amused by this supposedly half-famous singer getting excited like a kid.

'There are only so many superpowers that you can give people. You're bound to run out of them! Okay, what superpower would you give yourself if you had the choice?' asks Taehyung, smiling, because he's thinking his superpower will be what every boy wants, to be invisible. For obvious reasons.

'I would be Wonderwoman!' says So-Hee without thinking.

'Why?'

'Umm . . . because she's hot?'

'You're hotter, So-Hee. If you and Wonderwoman were in a to-death match in hotness, she would cover up and shy away.'

So-Hee feels rather shy at this and they get back to the comic, They finish the three comics, which made little or no sense, but So-Hee still felt she had spent the best two hours of her life.

'That was interesting, very interesting . . .'says So-Hee, a bit sarcastically.

'You think it's crazy, right? You have to suspend all beliefs to like them. '

'Don't get offended. I liked it. I just have to get used to Bueno Excelente killing people by having sex with them,' says So-Hee and chuckles.

'So-Hee's father walks in; dressed in oddly fitting faded blue trousers and a shirt that hangs over the belt. So-Hee knows grandma would have talked to Dad but still, she's wringing her fingers thinking what he would say seeing a boy in his house.

'Hello, Uncle,' says Taehyung.

'Hello,' says her father.

 'Your parents know that you're here?'

Taehyung nods.

Dad looks in So-Hee's direction. She is quite amused by her father's measured behavior.

'Your grandma called,' says Dad. 'If y . . . ou need anything, do let me know.'

'I will,' says So-Hee. She's strangely proud of her father for being so well behaved and chilled out.

'I have ordered pizzas for you,' says So-Hee's father and looks at both of them. 

'I hope you like pizzas?'

Taehyung nods and So-Hee has half a mind to throw a tantrum because as a teenager she's supposed to do that but she refrains. So-Hee's father disappears in his study.

'Sweet,' mutters Taehyung.

'He's not like this,' says So-Hee. 'Usually.'

'What's he like?'

'I don't know. He's always lost, always a little nutsy. He just says a few words and locks himself in the study. As long as he lets you stay, I'm okay with him. Though he did chase Jungkook away once with a bat . . . ,' she trails off and she is thrown back to the time she was leaving for Daegu and her father lied about his trip so that he could spend some time with her.

 'He's trying to reconnect with me,' So-Hee thinks, smilingly, and says this aloud.

'Then what's stopping you?' asks Taehyung.

'I hardly know the man.'

'You hardly know me as well and I saw you bathe today.'So-Hee is about to find the words to argue with that when the bell rings and Dad comes running out of the room to pay.

 He struggles with the boxes and Taehyung reaches out and takes them from him. He's then about to go back to his study when Taehyung invites him to share the pizza with them.

'I'm okay. I will eat what the maid has cooked,' says So-Hee's father.

'But Uncle, eat with us. It's too much for two people.'

So-Hee wants Taehyung to let her father go, but Taehyung insists and her father joins them. There's awkward silence at the table and So-Hee wishes the Defenestrator would throw her out of his window and put her out of her misery.

'Six-pack never realized what his true power was,' mutters Dad.

'Huh?' So-Hee mutters. 

She finds Dad looking in the direction of the three comics. The Wonderwoman remains hidden, but it doesn't matter anymore since Taehyung said So-Hee's hotter.

'But wasn't his superpower the strength he got when he was drunk?' asks Taehyung.

'No, it wasn't. It's an awful comic but the main guy is said to be a commentary alcoholic. Six-pack was so busy being drunk and imagining his successes that he never found out what his real powers were.'

For the first time, So-Hee's father doesn't seem like a man whose hopes are lost; who's leading a slow life that eventually ends in an old age home or death or both. Her dad's excited when he shows the last few panels of Hitman to Taehyung and they are reading it as eighth-grade students would. 

For the next half hour, Taehyung and her dad are passionately discussing the deaths of superheroes and supervillains, and some of those arguments are damn ridiculous. So-Hee is torn between liking Taehyung a little more and ignoring him because liking him would mean she liked her dad too. 

The pizza slices are disappearing fast. The two men are discussing the near impossibility of a certain Miss Arrow, a woman made of spiders and an enemy of Spiderman, to die because a few birds attacked her in an aviary. The topic is hotly debated and soon books are brought out to corroborate facts.

'She could have just disintegrated into a million spiders and then integrated again,' Dad throws his hands up in protest.

 'It was a stupid way to die.'

'But Uncle, but what if the birds plucked at the one spider that was her heart? What then? She could never be whole!' argues Taehyung.

'It was a chance she should have taken,' frowns her father. Both Taehyung and her father collectively mourn Miss Arrow's death—could have been a more able nemesis for Spiderman. Batman and Spiderman are discussed in explicit details, and the inconsistencies in the superhero movies are frowned upon.

 She does like the bit where she gets to know that Mary Jane, Spiderman's love interest, in one of the series died because of Spiderman's radioactive sperm. So-Hee hates to admit it but she likes the little camaraderie that the two men have going on. 

The conversation dies down when So-Hee's father's phone rings and he has to leave.

'There's another cabinet there,' Dad points behind Taehyung. 

'It has collaborations from major illustrators and story writers. You can have a look.'

Taehyung nods excitedly.

 Her dad's at the door of his study smiling at both So-Hee and Taehyung, which is both creepy and comforting and leaves So-Hee a little confused.

'This. Was. Awesome! Your father is a living legend. He knows every panel by heart. No wonder he's a genius mathematician or whatever you call him,' says Taehyung.

'I call him a failed mathematician.'

'Maybe he's just ahead of his time,' says Taehyung, still impressed.

So-Hee hates to kill his enthusiasm but she has to. 

'We had to go out, remember?'

'Oh. Yeah. We have to go,' says Taehyung and keeps the comics aside, frowning.

 'We can read these brilliant, rare comics later. These awesome comics obviously aren't begging for our attention. They are okay by themselves just sitting in cabinets, unread.'

So-Hee can sense the sarcasm in Taehyung's voice but she chooses to ignore it.

After all, it's her father and he can't have a better equation with her father than her. 

It's as simple as that.

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Lots of love<3

ARA~