Maja had expected Taewon to follow her because that was the kind of guy he was. She also suspected that heâd blame himself for her peculiar behavior, but the impact of his words felt like a slap to the face, like someone had gone and snapped her unbeating heart in two. Since Alekosâ death, sincerity had been her enemy. There was no place in her life for men outside of those she slept with and then discarded, those who donated to her on Twitch and worshiped her face and body. It was easy to play them, to fuck them, to leave them. Sheâd never once considered what would happen if she began to feel something genuine because it had yet to happen, and she was inclined to think it never would. She had been wrong.Â
Oh, Jesus Christ, the voice in her head said, you actually like this guy? I thought this was all some kind of joke.Â
The grip she had on her arm tightened, nails digging into the skin even though she was wearing gloves. She gazed up at Taewon with big eyes, and she was afraid to open her mouth, lest the entity took control of her tongue again. Her first impulse was to wrap her arms around him like sheâd done in the haunted house, but it seemed pathetic. He barely knew her. He thought he had frightened her. He wanted to keep her safe.Â
And how is he going to do that?
She knew she had to say something, that she very well couldnât go on staring up at his face indefinitely. âYou didnât scare me,â she chanced, and it was her own words that sliced through the smokey air. âIâm just⌠Iâm not really feeling like myself. I guess. Sorry. Iâm being a freak.â
She inhaled deeply, even though she did not require the air. It was a performance, but it calmed her. A brief second passed where she expected the entity to make some sarcastic quip. It was silent.Â
âI should go home,â she said, âBut I donâtââ Want to be alone. But she was not alone, was she? She swallowed hard. The entity remained quiet. if it wasnât such an immediate relief she mightâve been suspicious. âMaybe we could just have a drink at my place or something? Get out of here.â Under normal circumstances, this would be a line. The drinks a ruse to get him into her bed, to see what was underneath that Kigurumi, to feel those big hands trace the contours of her body. But her bodyâÂ
Her body was buzzing. If she wasnât so deeply aware of her own anatomy, she mightâve thought sheâd unknowingly ingested something. She was beginning to feel utterly drugged, and with that sense of being drugged came terrorizing dissociation. Her limbs were tingling, falling asleep. She clumsily grabbed his hand and laced their fingers. She nodded as if to say, take me home. Take us home.Â
She let herself be led by him, and as they exited the club she studied the side of his face. It was the side with the scar and instead of wondering how he got it, she simply admired it as a fact of his existence, cataloged the way it looked like she was examining a piece of art in a museum. They stopped on a crowded sidewalk, waiting to cross the street. Under the streetlamp, she noticed that the scarred lacerations were comprised of a multitude of deep colors and that within those two bigger gashes, there were these raised mauve rivets, thin like mouse whiskers.Â
When they made it to his car and sheâd settled in the passenger seat, her tingling hands made quick work of pulling up her address on her phone. The GPS elicited directions in robotic Korean. He hadnât even put the key in the ignition yet, but the pins and needles were intensifying and she feared she soon would lose the ability to command her hands. The entity, in its conniving silence, was up to something. Fear blossomed in her chest like a hideous flower.Â
In a desperate, intimate gesture, she leaned over the center console and caressed his cheek with her cloddish fingers, and spoke with care, âYouâre really sweet, you know that?â She pulled her hand away, not trusting herself - or rather, not trusting the thing inside her - to allow it to remain there any longer. She took another breath she didnât need.
The courage needed to lift his gaze came as she spoke, concern pinched his features before they smoothed with understanding. Not feeling like yourself was an all too familiar sensation. His hands twitched in his pocket, ultimately escaping to hover at his sides at that tiny pause in her thoughts. The urge to draw her closer itched the tips of his fingers, but it came from a selfish place, too much like capitalizing on her uncertainty, and so it was tamped down.
His face remained tentative despite a rollercoaster rocketing his heart all over his body, crashing when she talked about going home and rising when she offered a drink. "I could use a coffee," he mumbled, a feeble attempt to show he was listening despite the fact that he didn't know what to say. Was there anything he could say? The small shock of cold as her fingers found his hand stopped him from spelunking into a pit of speculation. Right. She wanted to go home. Braving a small smile, he gave her hand a light squeeze and returned the nod.
As they walked to his car, Taewon's eyes drifted up, one corner of his mouth dropping at the sight of the moon. The longer he stared the higher his unease crept up his spine. While he was grateful that he wasn't transforming at the moment, that didn't change the facts: she had come early, and he should be shredding through his kigurumi. Taking a deep breath, his nose guided him to lock gazes with another wolf at the crosswalk and exchange hesitant glances. So it wasn't just him. That didn't make him feel much better.
It was only when he was staring at the door handle that he realized he needed to fish his keys out of his pocket. Not the kigurumi pocket but from his jeans. An awkward, mostly flailing, dance maneuver later had him grasping his keys with a misplaced sense of victory. Clicking himself into the driver's seat, he sent a quick text to his neighbour asking her to check on Ras and Guma. Then he scrolled through his playlists and panicked that he was taking too long and thinking too much so his thumb mashing onto anything decided that they were listening to Luli Lee. âYou can-â He swallowed the rest of the sentence down. She was touching him again and so that meant his brain turned off.
âIâm not,â Taewon shrugged, placing his phone in the cupholder before turning to face her, âMaking sure you feel safe is the bare minimum.â Implications hung heavy in the air and he let it show, brows pinched as he chewed at the inside of his lip. âYou deserve to be a priority.â He concluded only to get immediately distracted by reminding her, âseatbelt.â
Pulling off the curb, he mentally kicked himself, praying she found abiding by traffic laws cool. At a red light after a few blocks he finally remembered what he was going to say. âYou can change the music, if you want. I just put on something random.â He offered, partially as a ploy to save face in case habit had him humming (or worse singing) along. His tapping to the beat on the center console was enough. Although he had a separate, ulterior, motive for keeping a hand nearby since she seemed more comfortable when they were holding hands.
Maybe this moon was affecting him more than he thought as he found himself making a valiant effort at small talk. Commenting on a passing fried chicken place, or musing out loud if that one retro electronics shop had shut down or not. Anything to fill the space as silence felt all too easy to slip into. Thankfully the journey ended before he was forced to dig too deep into his repertoire. That always came with the risk that he would end up talking about work and what specific crime brought him behind that dumpster and ruin family dinner. Again.
After parking in a designated guest stall, he did his key dance once more and tucked them away while hip checking the door closed. âI hope youâre not too attached to the bear look,â he huffed, flapping his hand in his sleeve until it was finally free. âI need to skin myself before I melt.â
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