afterglow ‣ s.jy

010

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JAKE

"Siyeon slept in your house?!" Hyejin's eyes widened.

Jake and Hyejin were currently in a restaurant, both talking about the long days they'd had. Their conversation came to the point where he had to explain why Siyeon was in his car. He decided to tell her everything, which he should've given a second thought first because he had accidentally revealed that he lied to her about not doing anything when she had asked him for his help. Safe to say, she seemed satisfied with herself after slightly raising her voice in public to tell him how wrong he was.

When she was sure he got what she was saying, she allowed him to proceed to the next part of the story. During the long narration, she almost choked on her food twice because of how surprised she was with every turn of events.

"Don't you dare choke again." He glares at her, earning an eye roll and a giggle. "It was an act of kindness. I would've done it for everyone."

"It's just surprising?" What was supposed to be a statement started to sound like a question by the end. "Whenever I see you both together, you always find a way to sneak a glare or an insult. Seeing you both civil doesn't even feel true." She further elaborated her point.

"I understand what you mean." He tells her. His late night conversation with Siyeon proved that they could be partly civil, or at least last half an hour without at least raising their voices at each other. "My story's done by the way. You can tell me now how your day went." He informs her, leaving out that one specific conversation with Siyeon.

Hyejin wiped her mouth with a napkin before hesitatingly meeting his eyes that has been waiting for her to speak. "Actually... I heard something earlier. My parents were talking about ehem our friendship and well, you know how it's been established that we'd end up together—"

"You're rambling, Hyejin. Get to the point." Jake said; his interest was piqued by the mere mention of her parents talking about them and their relationship.

"They don't want to wait for us to naturally get together anymore, so they're planning on making our eventual engagement official. And it seems your parents are in on it."

Jake paused. He only knew it was a matter of time before their parents get impatient and anxious. If both he and Hyejin wanted to take it slow, they wanted the opposite. With the future fast approaching, having to wait was no longer an option, especially when every day that passed is another day wasted on planning a future for them.

Jake and Hyejin both despised arranged marriages. They found it unfair and even ancient. That's why they had long encouraged their parents to stop themselves from officially arranging the two, and allow their relationship to happen on its own. Yet either of them should've figured out that their parents were never going to listen to them.

"They're meddling again." He sighed, clearly vocal about his dislike towards making his relationship with her a business matter.

A thin smile appeared on her face. "They're afraid that we'd fall in love with other people. They don't want to take that risk."

"That's absurd, why would I fall in love with anyone else?" Just the idea of loving someone that wasn't Hyejin seemed foreign to Jake. All his life it's always been about her. Every plan laid out to him always included her, so why should he look for anyone else when someone as perfect as her was already there? "Unless.. you did?"

She chuckled. "I haven't fallen in love with anyone else, no. However, I believe that now that we are older and better able to make new friends, they are more concerned."