The Park

“So how does air taste like?”

“Funny, you should try it out for yourself.”

“You seemed like you were enjoying it.”

—

You weren’t exactly sure how it got to this point.

Meeting a K-pop idol wasn’t exactly on your bucket list, but here we are, with a K-pop idol, a pretty famous one at that, in the middle of the night, in an empty park, with her laughing and dragging you around like she wasn’t a famous K-pop idol.

It doesn’t help that she’s wearing a pretty explicit outfit. The top alone was driving you crazy. So much so that you just want to pin her down the nearest tree- wall -whatever and show her how much she’s affecting you by simply existing.

The dumbest thing? You didn’t even know she was a K-pop idol till she told you.

So how did you let it get to this point?

Well, it kinda started at a convenience store.

You got off work pretty late, your boss telling you to do a bit of overtime for a bridge call he wanted you to attend because someone decided to mess up a couple of accounts, on a Friday of all days. But you, not wanting to lose your work visa because you didn’t suck up to your boss and potentially lose your job, stayed.

I mean, you’ll still get paid regardless, but it sucks having to leave the office five hours later than you wanted to be.

So here you are, coming into the nearest convenience store to your apartment, still in your work clothes that you got from the discount stores you occasionally visit because if it fits and it looks good on you plus it’s cheap, then that’s good enough for you.

You round the corner to the food aisle to get whatever stops your stomach from being hangry with how you decided to work five more extra hours. But you remember that those five extra hours translates to more money so you think that your stomach will be fine, especially when you see a bento box that has tempura, some sushi, and a salad of some kind. Wasn’t your favorite meal but-

“Food’s still food.” You shrug, grab it, and head off to the drinks aisle for your favorite peach drink.

Then you see her.

At first glance she was pretty unassuming. With her back turned she looked like a regular old nobody like you that also wanted to buy a drink, so you thought that there’ll be no problem just going up next to her and opening up the beverage cooler to get your peach drink.

But she turns to face you when grab your drink, and by God was she beautiful. So much so that your brain short circuited and forgot that you were supposed to get your drink. And when she smiles, you’ve lagged out-

“You okay there?” She asks, and her voice sounds divine, unreal even. But she is, and she’s looking at you with a teasing glint in her eye and a slight smirk in her face as you come back to reality, shake your head a bit, and give a shaky laugh.

“Sorry, just a little tired from work.” You know it’s a very shitty excuse because you totally weren’t enchanted with her smile, but you did spend close to 15 hours in the office today. Although she doesn’t know that of course.

You quickly grab your drink and attempt to close the cooler, but she squeezes in between the door and your hand to grab the same drink you did, and straightens to give you another one of her smiles.

“Thanks for helping me choose my drink.” She says, like you two weren’t complete strangers and walks away to the counter, and you’re left shaking your head and trailing behind her after closing the cooler.

It takes you a teeny bit longer than her to pay but that also lets you subtly check her out and you swear she knows, because she saunters away with a little sway in her hips that just…fuck.

And when she sits down next to an empty table with a conveniently placed empty chair and looks at you, gives you a knowing smile, and pats the table while she goes about opening her drink, she definitely knows.

And so here you are, sitting across this beautiful stranger in the middle of the night while trying your best to focus at your bento box, which you begin munching down to avoid thinking about the fact that she wanted to sit next to a complete nobody who just so happens to be you while she takes a sip on her own drink, taking glances at you with a glint in her eye that makes you uneasy in a weirdly good way.

For the next few minutes, it was pretty silent between the both of you, you focused on your food and her scrolling on her phone, drink halfway empty. It wasn’t until you took a sip of your own drink that the silence gave way to conversation.

“You always ask strangers to sit next to you at convenience stores?” You begin, and she chuckles.

“You would be the first.” A sip of her drink.

“Then why ask me?” A stab of a fork hitting sushi.

“Because you looked like you needed company.” A ringtone plays out of her phone.

And that made you stop midway into having food into your mouth, placing down said food to give her a stare that screamed ‘doubt’.

“What, you a therapist now?” Your eyebrow raises, and your mouth goes upwards.

“Maybe, should I start asking for payment?” She side-eyes, and her mouth goes upwards.

“Depends, what kinda payment do you accept, miss…?” You ask, and she turns to face you.

“Jimin.” She leans towards you.

“And I accept payment in gossip, mister…?” She grins, a palm on her cheek.

You tell her your name, she repeats it, and you’ve never wanted to hear your name spoken out loud like that again so much your brain is activating neurons.

“Well then!” She claps her hands. “Start talking.” She beams, and that might actually get you killed.

—

You didn’t know how long you spent with Jimin talking, ranting, venting, everything. You just know that being with her felt nice.

Like it was okay just talking about anything with her.

You tell her about taking overtime just to make sure your boss and your boss’ boss is happy, she laughs and tells you that she’s doing overtime because she’s “in demand” at her job and she doesn’t get enough sleep.

You say that you work as an analyst at an electronics company and she says that she’s a model for a couple of brands out there that are too expensive for you to buy, let alone look at.

You’re annoyed that you lost your last 50/50 at the latest banner on this popular gacha game, having to angry pull another 70 or so tickets just to get your favorite purple-haired amnesiac and she brags that she’s “a little over 11,000” levels at some connect 3 game, showing you the game on her phone that clearly says “11,552” on the bottom right of the screen.

You two keep this back and forth until you realize that you’ve been taking sips out of an empty bottle for the last couple of minutes, and you hear a sweet little giggle that just sounds so fucking cu-

Stop.

You embarrassingly take a glance at her, and she’s grinning ear to ear. “And now he notices.” She brings up her own empty bottle of peach and dangles it in front of you. “So how does air taste like?”

“Funny.” You stand up, grumbling as you start to clean up your mess at the table. “You should try it out for yourself.” You tap her bottle as you stand up and head to the garbage can.

“Wanted your opinion on it Mister Analyst, you seemed like you were enjoying it.” she follows you to the garbage and throws it out her bottle as you soon follow.

“Peachy.” You step outside. “Really peachy.”