37. Bet

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

a/n: to make things more consistent for y'all, I'm going to start updating weekly, on Mondays. So look forward to Monday updates!

Jimin runs a comb through his hair, smiling. He's much more at ease today than when we had the conversation with Dong Yoo. "Hey, Kyung Mi, do you wanna hang out with the girls? I miss Eunji and Jina."

I laugh. "What's this change in your personality, Jimin? You actually like people?"

"No. I'm just sick of you." He deadpans.

I throw a pillow at him, and his serious face morphs into a grinning one. "But, yeah, what's the plan today?"

I slump into my bed. "Nothing. Lazy Saturday for me."

He groans. "You dull girl. Fine," he hops onto my bed, "tell me about your mom."

My eyebrows raise to match my surprise. "Huh? But I already told you about her."

"No, not that. The good stuff. Tell me what she was like." His face, glowing with genuine interest, moves my heart a bit. He's really attractive.

I smile. "She was wonderful. I remember one time I was telling her how difficult math was for me, so she marched up to my school and asked my math teacher to explain it to her so that she could tell me the concept herself."

He laughs. "She didn't!"

"No, she was serious. My teacher was shook, to be honest, but he taught her. And you know what? Eomma explained it to me perfectly." I smile at the memory.

Jimin giggles. "You've met my best friends. The youngest, Jungkook, finds math really hard. We always scold him for not matching the Asian stereotype of being good at it."

I can't help but smiling. "It's so funny how a lot of Asians do, though. Like, it was always the Asians that got the math awards at my high school."

Jimin fake gasps. "Kyung Mi, are you insinuating that stereotypes are both justified and accurate?"

"Oh, shut up." I nudge his arm, and the contact makes my heart skip a beat. I meet his eye. He stares right back.

My face warms and my hearing gets muffled as my heart pumps rapidly. What feels like hours pass as we just look at each other.

Can he feel the tension too?

Jimin blows a breath of air onto my face. I flinch suddenly.

"Hah! You blinked!"

I look at him. "Huh...?"

"We were having a staring contest, silly." He gives me puppy eyes and smiles at me adorably.

I try to keep my heart in check before saying, "Oh, right, then, you dirty cheater! Rematch!"

It's good, too. I have to stop myself from getting hurt by him all over again.

Jimin POV

"Rematch!" Kyung Mi yells with a new surge of competitiveness.

I breath a sigh of relief. The tension in the air a few seconds ago had been thick. She'd stared up at me with those glittering eyes and I felt the sudden urge to get close to her. To touch her face and feel its warmth, to hold her cheeks, to stroke her lips...

I had to stop myself or else I would be in deep trouble. She's my client. I'm here to protect her. That's it.

I readjust myself on her bed and look at her. I close my eyes before saying, "Ready? Three, two, one!"

We stare each other down intently. As she looks at me and I look back at her, I regret the decision to turn this into a staring contest. Looking at her for so long makes me sad. It reminds me that I can never look at that face lovingly. I can never press those lips against mine, I can never-

"Augh!" I yell frustratedly. I close my eyes and shake my head continuously.

Stop it.

That's creepy. It's inappropriate. It can never happen.

"What's wrong?" The soft voice cuts my thoughts. I turn towards Kyung Mi to see she's moved closer to me, eyes laced with concern and hand outreached, hovering towards me.

I shake my head and give her an apologetic look. "Sorry, my eyes watered and it annoyed me that I'd have to blink. I get really competitive."

"Oh." She grins. "You get upset over staring contests? No wonder you can beat people up so easily. Anything sets you off." She laughs beautifully.

My lips turn downward in an embarrassed smile. "Guess so."

"Hmm. You'd think someone with so much pent up anger would be able to stop me from going to the hospital." She takes her water bottle and sips it pettily.

Her referral to the event saddens me. It's a reminder that I failed. And she had to go to the hospital because I couldn't. But the worst thing is that that was the first of two times she passed out from getting attacked. If I can't even protect her, why am I here?

"Jimin, calm down, you look like someone just told you your dog died." She giggles. "Don't worry about it." She pauses before saying, "but I do remember when we arm wrestled, you cheated then, too. You're such a cheater!"

I grin at the thought. "Yeah. I don't like losing."

"Oh yeah? Let's hold you to that." She says, turning the TV in her room on after checking the time. "Family Feud is on right now. Let's each pick a team who we think will win, and if yours doesn't, you have to wear a special shirt." She smirks and I raise an eyebrow.

"What kind of special shirt?"

She leaps up excitedly from the bed to her closet, appearing a minute later presenting a white tee with the words "ME? LOSER." plastered on the front in bold. I laugh. "Why do you even have that?"

A sour look appears on her face and she throws the shirt on the ground. "My ex gave it to me as a gag gift."

A surge of anger runs through me at the thought of her being with another man. I feel the need to punch this jokester ex.

"I take it you don't like him anymore?" I ask.

Her nose scrunches. "I actually stopped dating after him. He was only dating me for my dad's money, the filth bag."

I shouldn't be happy by that comment, but it makes me giddy that she hasn't had any boyfriends since then.

I clear my throat. "Alright, I'll take you up on that offer. But if your team loses you have to-" kiss me "-teach me how to make those scrambled eggs you're known for."

She shrugs. "I could've done that anyway, but okay. Bet."


You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net