Obsessed

“Yo, you never told me you got a girl!”

“What are you—give that back! Who said you could look at my messages?”

“No no no, first explain this: ‘did you eat yet?’, ‘are you coming home late today?’, ‘who was that girl you were eating with?’—” You snatch the phone out of your friend’s hands, but he still recites the last message to you, “‘I’m sorry I couldn’t see you today. I miss you~’—”

Your heart skips a beat. “That’s—my aunt.”

“Yeah right—”

“She’s just been concerned for me after hearing that I moved out of my parents’ house recently.”

“…Is your relative a stalker?”

It’s a bad excuse and you know it, but that’s all you are willing to give your friend. After all, there is no way he will be more willing to accept the truth. Hell, you aren’t even sure you are more willing to accept the truth to even the flimsy, half-assed explanation you just provided him.

“You got a real cougar of an aunt.”

“No, she’s—” trying to conceal the actual message sender as your aunt is probably a futile effort, especially with that last message, but telling Beomgyu the truth is absolutely out of the question. “—she’s just worried for me.”

Your friend rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Not my problem if you’re not ready to reveal your relationship to even your best friend yet.”

“You know what, you’re free to believe whatever you wanna believe. I don’t care enough to try to change your mind.” That’s only partially true. What matters isn’t that Beomgyu thinks you have a girlfriend, but if he knows the identity of the girl in question. It’s a good thing you had the foresight to save her number with an innocuous name.

“You aren’t seriously going to tell me that you’re close enough to your aunt that you just call her ‘Ji’, do you?” Ok, maybe the name isn’t that innocuous.

“I was in a rush, ok? Plus, it doesn’t even matter what I save the names as, all that matters is I know who the number is.”

“Wait, what do you have me saved as?”

“‘Beom’.”

“Hmm…”

Beomgyu only pesters you half of the remaining meal, thankfully not catching the occasional glancing around of the restaurant you did. Maybe it’s paranoid of you, especially since it’s a normal weekday evening in a relatively crowded place, but you want to be on your toes at all times.

“Hey, you’re coming golfing with us next week, right?”

“We’ll see.”

“Date with your girl?”

You roll your eyes. “No, not a date with ‘my girl’. I’ll just have to see if I wanna go on the day.”

“Right.” The two of you stop at the intersection. “Well, have fun on your date.”

“It’s not a—” seeing the smirk on Beomgyu’s face makes you sigh. “Whatever. Yeah, I’ll have fun on my ‘date’.”

Not a few steps after you separate from him, an all-too-familiar voice whispers into your ear, “You’re going on a date?”

You try not to jump out of your skin as she wraps her arm around yours while seamlessly falling in perfect step with you. The playful manner in which she leans against you is sharply juxtaposed by the sharp, very pointedly upset tone she asked the question with.

You knew you weren’t paranoid to suspect she was nearby. But … where was she? You swear you did a pretty thorough visual sweep of the restaurant without landing on anyone who even remotely resembled her. Unless … did she wait outside the restaurant?

“No, I’m not—”

“Hey, kiss me first, or else people will get suspicious.”

“No, they won’t—” don’t get flustered, don’t get flustered, “—what are you talking about?”

You turn an exasperated expression towards Yu Jimin, who is shooting you a playful grin. However, as exasperated as you sound, your heart is beating a million times a minute. This isn’t even your first, or even tenth, encounter with her, but every single one is still as nerve-wracking as the last. “You never know.”

“I think I do, from the fact that you still somehow haven’t been exposed as an avid stalker of mine.”

“Never mind that,” In an instant, her expression changes, the playful grin disappearing from her face, “what about this date Beomgyu was talking about?” The duality of the two expressions makes your heart beat even faster, although this time for a slightly different reason.

“There’s no—” Have you ever introduced Beomgyu to Karina? Hell, have you ever even mentioned Beomgyu to her? “—date…”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Then…” Suddenly, her voice turns bashful. She slows down a bit, forcing you to do the same. “…do you want one?”

This is way too ridiculous. Truth is stranger than fiction, so they said. You don’t know who this ‘they’ character is, but you can’t agree more with that seemingly absurd statement.

“Aren’t you busy?”

“I can make myself free.”

“Don’t go pushing back another photoshoot or choreography practice for this.”

“…But it was definitely worth it…”

You scoff. “How?”

“Well, I got this picture of you!”

You look over and down at her phone to see what seemed like a perfectly normal picture of you standing between a few bookshelves at your local library looking down at the book in your hands. “That’s … it?”

“What do you mean ‘that’s it’?!” You jump at the sudden peaking of her voice, hurriedly looking around to make sure she hadn’t drawn any more attention than she needed to before turning back to her. “Look at how hot you look when you’re serious!”

You have absolutely no idea what Karina sees in you. As far as you’re concerned, you’re a perfectly normal guy. You aren’t even particularly good-looking, having only ever been in one relationship that lasted only the last year of high school. You’ve asked her before, and she said something about you ‘being her white knight in shining armor’ and how you had saved her in a ‘manga-like way’, but honestly, you have no recollection of such an event.

“Right…”

“I used this picture for at least two weeks straight.”

“You ‘used’…?” It doesn’t mean what you think it means. To save your own heart, you have to believe that. Otherwise… “By the way, you aren’t going to be following me all the way home, are you?” You pose the question already expecting an answer, so when she decides instead to remain quiet, you turn to her and follow up with, “…Are you?”