Mr. No || NCT || Completed

37 - Where shoes should be burned

Chaewon's hysterical laughter overpowered the jazzy piano music playing in the well-lit elevator. Renjun sulked at the marble floor, not willing to face his travel companion, and tried to behave as if nothing had happened.

"Alright, I have your reservation information here", the receptionist said. "So, one bed – "
Renjun's face dropped. "What?"
The sudden loudness of his voice startled both the receptionist and Chaewon who had been wandering around the lobby.

The receptionist cleared his throat. "Pardon me, sir?"
"One bed?" Renjun repeated. His voice was kind of high-pitched, like he was panicking. Which he wasn't. Obviously. "What the hell do you mean by one bed?"
"Ah, sir, you must have misunderstood me", the receptionist hurried to explain, "I was going to say one bedroom with two separate beds."

Renjun wanted to bury himself in a hole. Why didn't he allow the employee explain the situation before interrupting him? Had he listened first, it would've been easy for him to ask the worker to change their reservation to two completely separate bedrooms but after the misunderstanding, he had been too embarrassed to say anything.

While they wouldn't have to share a bed, they'd still be in the same room.
Renjun's face felt hot.

"It wasn't that funny", he snapped, unable to face her.
Chaewon snorted. "It was." Still, she forced herself to stop laughing. "I didn't know you were so afraid of beds."

"Aren't you clever."
"Thank you."

The elevator reached their floor.

"If you're uncomfortable staying in the same room with me, I can go back downstairs to check if they'll allow us to switch rooms", Chaewon offered while pulling her carry-on baggage to the hallway.

Renjun glanced at her briefly as they followed the plaques that pointed towards their room number. The hallway was nicely decorated and there was fresh scent of citrus in the air. "Are you okay with it?"
"I don't have a fiancée."
"That's not what I asked." Renjun noticed that she was staring straight ahead very determinedly – like she was avoiding eye contact. "Yun Liying has nothing to do with this."
"Okay."

Renjun stepped in front of her. He didn't know why, but somehow her reaction bothered him. "You're acting strange. I asked if you're okay with sharing the room or not", he said, trying to make eye contact with her. Now that she could no longer look ahead without facing him, Chaewon's eyes started wandering from side to side.

"What do you think?" she mumbled.
Renjun frowned. A thought of Jaemin popped into his head. "Are you like this because you like Jaemin?"

Chaewon didn't say anything.

Maybe she didn't want to share a room with him because she liked another guy?

"It's difficult for me to know what to do if you don't tell me what you want", Renjun pointed out, starting to feel frustrated. "Tell me, is this because of Jaemin? That's the first thing that came to my mind."
Chaewon shrugged, staring at the floor, unwilling to deny nor confirm anything.

The conversation they had had on the previous day resurfaced in his mind.

"Even though I essentially can't lie, I'm pretty good at diverting people's attention from things I don't want to talk about. I can offer a new topic, pick which questions to answer, and be vague enough that people draw wrong conclusions without me actually saying anything."

Renjun frowned.
"Are you doing that thing again, where you wait for me to make a lie on my own and then you pretend like that's what you meant all along?"

Chaewon's eyes snapped up to him. She looked alarmed.

That was enough of an answer.

Renjun crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head. "You don't need to do this, Chaewon. If you're uncomfortable with the idea of a shared room, we can change it. We were supposed to have separate rooms to begin with, and I don't know whether I messed up while making the reservation or the hotel did something wrong, but I'm sure they'll change it if we explain the situation to them."