Jisung has not shut up once since you two left his house, and strangely, you didn't mind one bit.

His curiosity was endless. Questions after questions left his lips, skipping not one beat of silence as he dumped words out of his mouth at a rapid speed; questions about where you stayed the night for this long, and if you have gotten any help from other people before, and where you work and how many jobs you have.

Most of the questions steamed from him simply wanting to dive headfirst into your life, while some other questions were him hoping to find more clues about your daily life so if you were to ever ghost him again, he would at least have a lead he could see through and attempt to track you down.

"How many jobs do you have exactly?" Jisung asked, his fingers outstretched in a counting manner. "You said you work part-time at a coffee shop, and then there is this boutique store right around the corner, and you help around with this old lady with her antique store during the weekends?"

"All of that, plus I work the night shift at a convenience store during the weekends," you said, almost exasperatedly since no matter how many times you mentioned it, Jisung always seem to leave out the part where you work a night shift. "So I work three part-time jobs and I sometimes help out at the antique store."

"Do you have to work there? It's so dangerous." He frowned.

"You're telling me it's dangerous like I didn't blast you across the room last night even though I was asleep," you said pointedly, rubbing your hands together and wiggling your fingers to remind him that you will always have the magic to spare.

When his worried frown didn't disappear, you relaxed your shoulders in a softening manner and you sighed. "I've never gotten into trouble before. The worst case I've had were a couple of drunkards but I can put them to sleep easily."

"I'm just worried, that's all," Jisung said quietly as he crossed his arms in front of his chest, a gesture that mimics a hug for himself.

"You don't have to, I can handle myself well," you reassured him.

"I can't help it," he exclaimed with a pout, wanting to explain to you the unreasonable intrigue he felt towards you but also did not want to come off weird. He was still so sure it was just a crush, a really strong crush; it would be better not to voice it into existence yet until he's got his feeling settled. "It just makes me feel safer knowing you're home at night."

You looked away from him, a faint smile appearing on your lips. It was a heartwarming smile at first, something that derived from the way you shivered at his caring words. But your eyes quickly flickered their lights and turned your smile into something bitter, uncertainty erasing the flustered feeling in your chest with a snap of time.

He talked as if you've got a home, which to him you probably do, but it couldn't be one if you don't feel comfortable being in it.

And while he and his family have been delightful to be around and they have been one of the nicest people you have ever encountered so far, while you do feel comfortable with Jisung, you couldn't get past the cost, the unfamiliarity of people going out of their way to be so nice to you.

Jisung noticed the way your expression morphed into a somewhat pained, untrusting turn. He bit his lower lip and decided to reach out so he could tug at your sleeve to get your attention. He glanced down at the ground to avoid meeting your eyes when you turned to him, his fingers fiddling with each other nervously.

"I know I told you this already but I want to tell you that it's okay again," he said, the tension in his gaze building up like fire added with fuel when he finally met eyes with you. He has a pout in his voice but he still sounded serious, nonetheless. "You have a home with me, I want you to know that."

You gulped. "We barely know each other."

"If everyone thought like that then friendships won't exist, [Name]," he retorted.

"It's different when you let strangers stay over at your house." You smiled with a pinch to his cheek.

"But we're not strangers," Jisung said, catching up with you when you started to walk away. "We're friends. You helped me even when you didn't need to!"

"That's because I know helping you won't cost me anything," you responded. "You, on the other hand, are too trusting and unnecessarily nice to people."

Jisung gasped in disagreement. His energetic energy started to bounce off of his movement as his legs began to stomp and his fists curled in front of his chest in a pumping motion.

"It is not unnecessary!" he exclaimed, stepping in front of you and causing your steps to halt for a moment. He let out a whine of protest when you gently shoved him to the side by poking your finger to his forehead. "I'm telling you, [Name]! What was I supposed to do, let you roam around the street for the night and sleep on a tree?"

"On second thought, sleeping on a tree might be quieter than hearing you cry about your Math homework every five minutes," you said.

His cheeks pinked up at your words. "Oh... sorry about that, I have a habit of being loud when I'm doing homework," he said, then he exclaimed to jump back onto the topic at hand. "Anyway! My point is that helping you was absolutely necessary."

You rolled your eyes. "You're too nice, Jisung."

"And that is bad, why?"

"Your kindness is going to get you killed."

"First of all, dramatic," Jisung said, moving ahead of you and stopping in his tracks when you two finally approached the end of the bus-stop line. He spun gracefully to face you, his eyes innocent as doves as he shrugged. "Second of all, if I am going to go down then I'd rather go down as a decent person than an asshole."

You sighed. Supposed it was great that he grew up in an environment where he could afford to think that way. If he was even a little rougher around the edges then he might think differently, and a part of you was glad that he wasn't. Looking past him instead of responding, your brows furrowed slightly at the line in front of you before you looked back up at him.

"What are we doing?" you asked.

"We are waiting for the bus," he replied. "You don't plan to walk to school, do you?"

You grimaced at him. How long has it been since you've last used any form of public transport? You couldn't even remember. For so long, all you've done was teleport yourself to a remote area and walk towards your destination.

It took some time for all the scouting and planning to make sure you never appear in public places out of thin air and raise suspicion but you managed, and since then you've been running your transportation on five purple strings.

Jisung raised a brow when you grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him away from the line. He tugged at you, his head flipping back and forth to glance at the line and you, strings of protests against your incredulous action leaving his lips in a frenzy.

"What are you doing? [Name], I thought you said we can't be late! We have to go back in line! If it gets too long, we might have to wait for another one and it takes fifteen minutes for the second bus to–"

"Jisung." You finally stopped after turning a corner into a remote area hidden behind concrete walls.

When he was finally quiet, you reached behind you for your bag and got your plastic board out. Jisung watched curiously as you unwrapped a small strand of purple string, pausing for a moment to look up at him before you generously pulled a few centimeters more off the board. You snapped it off with a harsh yank before shoving the board back into your bag.

"Waiting for the bus–yeah," you scoffed with an eye-roll as you began to work on creating a pattern with your string, your delicate fingers poking through holes and knitting together a special symbol you learned back then from school. When you were done, you looked up at Jisung and raised your arm, motioning for him to go under.

He tilted his head to the side. "What?"

"Come inside, we're teleporting and it'd be better if you hold onto me. The magic is going to wrap around me so I need you sandwiched in-between," you said casually, reaching your arm higher. When Jisung didn't budge, you sighed out loud. "It's faster, Jisung."

Oh, he knew that. He knew it would definitely be faster. He just hasn't tried enough teleportation in his life to know if he would come out of it alive. There were plenty of errors he's seen in movies about it before, such as being teleported right in front of a car or being sent off to some unknown place nobody can ever find. Or, one of his worst nightmare, being sliced in half by a portal.

Although those instances were all fiction and therefore, probably unlikely to happen in real life, it was still a part of his unshakeable childhood fear. He's gotta live through today to tell you all about the time he thought his mom died in a portal when he was around four, after he watched a movie clearly not meant for children his age!

"I'm not going to let you die, Jisung," you said. "Come on, we don't have all day."

He groaned a little in dismay but ultimately complied with your request. Ducking under your arms, he stepped closer to you and waited for you to rest them on his shoulders. The embrace was loose but Jisung stood close enough to you for him to feel your breath on his face.

Flustered, Jisung kept his hands pressed to his abdomen just in case they wandered somewhere they weren't supposed to. And he tried to glance away from your concentrated face, he tried to look at the wall standing in front of him, but his eyes kept reverting to you anyway.

You two stood so close, and he could feel the tug in his chest again when he was standing so close to you.

"自由漂流在空間, 讓吾超越界限." You muttered under your breath and waited until you felt the tightness of the strings wrapped around your forearm.

Bringing your hands to his back, you carefully brought Jisung closer to you for the sake of safety, ignoring the way your heartbeats mingled together in a way you couldn't tell if it was his heart or yours that was beating so fast. Jisung closed his eyes to brace for the impact that never came. It was just a quick swoosh of wind and then you two were slapped right in the middle of a different alleyway.

When he opened his eyes to find that he could see his school building from just a few streets down, he let out a surprised squeal and turned to shake your shoulder. You, having already been exposed to this for much of your life, attempted to calm him down while dragging him out of the alleyway so he could proceed with walking to school.

"Oh, that is so fun! I didn't see anything but I still teleported!" Jisung beamed, clapping his hands together. "Can everyone do that? Or is it just you who can teleport?"

"Everyone can but we all use different methods," you replied briefly before giving his forehead a flick. "What are you jumping for? It's not that big a deal."

"I'm sorry but if you introduce free transportation to people, everyone is going to think it's a big deal," Jisung said.

"Just get a car then?"

"Who's paying for the gas, [Name]?"

Jisung laughed hysterically when a look of realization hit you. This has got to be one of the most hilarious things he has known about you, which wasn't all that great as there were less than ample competition in your pool of life experiences. You were so pulled away from the mortal reality that you couldn't even remember the concept of needing to pay gas for a car. He doubted you would without magic, anyway, as from what he remembered, your family was wealthy.

Come to think of it, if you couldn't grasp the concept of that, how the hell did you manage to get paid? Did you create a bank account with the magic of compulsion or did you just went the easy way and persuaded the managers to pay you in cash? Ah, Jisung has so many damn questions to ask you!

You scoffed at him and smacked his finger away from your face. Great, you were probably not going to get out of that for a while. After that, the remaining journey simply consisted of Jisung teasingly asking you about normal, human things as if you haven't been living the same way as everyone else for the past ten years and more.

A relieved sigh left you when you finally saw other students approaching from other streets and the sight of the school finally came into view.

"Look! Your school is here, Jisung," you said, pointing at the opened gate and stopping on your spot. You eyed him once, finding him unmoving on his spot as well, and you waved your hand towards the school's direction. "Go! Get out of here! Leave me alone!"

Jisung frowned dramatically and put his hands to his heart. "I thought you liked me, [Name]."

"You thought wrong," you retorted.

He mumbled something under his breath, possibly something childish, then he brought his hand up to wave at you. "Fine, I'm leaving," he mumbled. "Have fun at work."

You hummed with a nod and returned the wave before turning around to leave the scene. But you only went so far when a hand clamped on your shoulder, forcing you to look at Jisung again. He was glaring at you questioningly for a moment, his brows furrowed and his lips pursed troublesomely.

You shifted the weight on your leg, giving him a look to prompt him to speak.

"You're going to be here, right?" he asked firmly but not without cowardice. He was scared of what you might answer and how he might not be able to convince you of otherwise. "When school ends, you are going to be here, right? And we can go home together?"

Oh, he was back on that again.

"Jisung." His grimace deepened at your exhausted tone. You gulped; it was your turn to look at him with confusion. "Why are you so hell-bent on making sure I have a place to stay?"

He thought about asking you why it was so hard for you to accept help but he thought better about it. A retort might not be appreciated at the moment, he figured. What he needed to do was to appeal to you, and honesty has done its job time and time again when it came to you. Jisung gave you a faint shrug before he spoke.

"Because I like you, and I want you to have somewhere warm and safe you can stay in," he confessed. "So you are going to be here when school ends, right? I'm not leaving school unless I am leaving with you."

He was telling the truth. Not only could you see it from the reddening of his ears, but you could also hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes. Jisung just genuinely wanted you to have a home, albeit it wasn't with your biological family.

He cared even though you've barely met each other yet; something you believed to be a fatal flaw and has tried so hard to keep yourself from doing.

It annoyed you so much. That gentle soul of his simply made him a much better human-being and so much more likable than you hoped he has to be. It annoyed you so much because you did end up liking Jisung a lot and you'd probably feel miserable without him rambling next to you again sometime today.

The tension in your muscles loosened and you softened upon his honest face. Reaching up, you brushed his bangs out of his eyes and you let your finger linger on his forehead for a moment before removing yourself.

You smiled faintly at him. Supposed there could be another way for you to make it up to his family somehow.

"I'll see you soon," you told him.

And Jisung's smile was wider than ever upon your response.