Ateez Imagines

🔞 Song Mingi ✧ Lipstick Love

You tilt your head to the sky as you watch the raindrops fall outside the restaurant. They were light at first, individually identifiable before becoming heavier and heavier. You suppose this is karma for signing up for an online dating site and expecting it to work.

Typically, you wouldn't resort to going on dates with strangers. But in a pathetic attempt to make your feelings for someone disappear, you thought why not? It wouldn't hurt. It shouldn't hurt.

That was, if it had worked. If the guy you talked to actually decided to show up. Instead, you found yourself dressed up for an empty chair for about an hour and a half. You'd have to admit the empty chair had been the most respectful company of the evening, nonetheless, considering everyone else in the establishment had given pitiful side glances to you sitting alone.

But now, you're sitting on a bench in the rain all because of a crush on your best friend.

How meaningless it is, in some ways, to have a crush on someone unattainable. Someone that you knew had your back through thick and thin but didn't see you the way you wanted to. Someone that you would give all the money in the world for to look at you in the same endearing way as in the movies but knew that no monetary value could give. And now, you were waiting for that same someone to pick you up from the miserable sob story that you had caught yourself in.

You close your eyes as you let the drops fall onto your face, forming trickles down your face. They ran cold, much different from the warm tears you hopelessly attempted to swallow back.

"You know, you're supposed to put your hood up to stay dry, not spread it out like a rain catcher," scolds a deep but lighthearted voice from beside you. You turn to your left to see the source of all your confusing thoughts, Song Mingi.

You stand up from the bench, planning to apologize for calling him so late and having him pick you up. But before you could mutter a word, he walks towards you, reaching a hand on either side of your face. He pulls up the hood of your jacket, tucking your hair in on both sides. His hands are warm. Not the kind of warm from tears, no. But a warm that felt safe, shielding you from the cold rain.

Your eyes meet and he pauses, his hands still on either side of your face. The street and restaurant seem to fade away as his gold-flecked eyes held yours. You wanted this moment to last forever, bathing in the depths of his eyes.

But then, his hands drop. You could have sworn there was reluctance as he did so. He looks both ways; no one is in sight but you both can hear vague chatter in the distance coming from the restaurant you left behind.

"Come on," he says before beginning to walk in the other direction, away from the restaurant and towards his car. Feeling no presence behind him, he turns back to where you stand, your feet uncertain. He holds up his right hand, his pinky finger curved up while his others were tucked in. You look at his hand, unsure until he glances down to your left hand and then back at your eyes. You hold up your hand and he hooks your little finger with him, giving it a tug before turning and walking to his car, pulling you along.

You mistakenly take his off-put behavior as his annoyance for having to pick you up; however, it was just the opposite. He was exceptionally worried about you, and admittedly a bit jealous. You chose to go on a date with a stranger when he was right there, willing and ready to hold you for eternity? He's always felt like his feelings for you were obvious. At least, obvious enough that Yunho had given an entire 45-minute motivational pep talk about how he should just go for it and ask you out.

It's not that he didn't want to, but there was a fear lingering in his mind. He didn't want to ruin what the two of you had just because his feelings got in the way. Instead, he chose to sacrifice his own romantic feelings for you to try and stay content with just being friends.