His Stylist Noona

Chapter 15

As you were driving into work the Monday after the party, you glanced down at your hand on the steering wheel and swore you could still feel Tae's lips brushing against your fingertips. Just thinking about it again now made you blush and gave you butterflies. It was such a sweet gesture, one that told you how much he respected you and cared about you. However, that one little gesture, and the rest of your conversation with him, had also left you feeling extremely confused.

At first, you were surprised by how upset he'd gotten and how hard on himself he had been, but after thinking about it more you realized that what happened with Hyun had clearly been triggering for him. You had literally just said that you didn't know how to tell Hyun that he was making you uncomfortable because you worked with him and didn't want things to be awkward. Tae probably took that to mean that you hadn't been telling him all along that he was making you uncomfortable for the same reason. That coupled with you bitterly mentioning how 'some guys' behaved, which he honestly might have thought was in reference to him, likely amplified his guilt tenfold which led to his breakdown.

It made you feel extremely guilty to know that he had spent weeks thinking he had done something wrong, especially when you recalled how you had acted that first Monday after the shoot. You had walked in and then not acknowledged him for almost ten minutes. It's no wonder he thought you wanted nothing to do with him. You were, of course, embarrassed for your own reasons, but he didn't know that. All he knew is that something had happened between you two, something that he had inadvertently caused, and because of it, you could hardly look at him.

You believed wholeheartedly that he had only been trying to help you that night and that you'd ended up in that strange situation by accident. Everything had happened so fast when the door opened; he had clearly acted reflexively when he hid you both behind that statue. The fact that you were in a questionable physical position hadn't even registered with you two until the security guard left, that's how laser-focused you'd been on not being found.

However, regardless of the circumstances, the two of you had ended up in each other's arms, pressed together up against the wall. The moment the danger had passed you had become acutely aware of that fact and had been extremely affected by it, so much so that you had almost tried to kiss him.

You couldn't help but wonder if part of the reason why he felt so guilty was that he had, at least briefly, in the heat of the moment, maybe thought about kissing you.

But, every time that thought wandered into your head, you then remembered what he said after kissing your fingertips in what you originally thought was an extremely romantic way.

"Never," he then vowed with utter sincerity, his voice barely above a whisper, as he brought one of your hands to his lips and placed a tender kiss on your fingertips, sealing his promise and stealing your breath with that simple, intimate gesture.

"You're like family, Da-Eun," he added, letting go of your hands. "I would never do anything to hurt my family."

Family members don't kiss each other, at least not in the way you thought about kissing him and hoped he might have thought about kissing you that night.

After he said that, the two of you promised to stop acting weird around each other and go back to being your friendly, rowdy selves. You then wandered back over to the party and got talking with some of the other members and staff. Right away things felt infinitely more relaxed and almost completely normal between you two, but in the back of your mind, you were still trying to process and understand everything that had happened and what it all meant.

It was clear that he cared a lot about you, but whether his affection for you was romantic or platonic was still a mystery. It had always been this way, though. Time and time again he'd had you wondering what was going on inside his head when he would look at you or talk to you in a way that made your heart flutter, but then two seconds later go back to treating you like just another friend. What happened in the museum and then on the roof were just the most recent in a long list of mixed signals he'd given you over the years.