second lead. | 정원

chapter 68.

lxviii.

How was Jeon Mira supposed to sink all that information in her small head? She was too flustered to even look up from her fluffy jacket, refusing to let any passersby see her flushed cheeks despite it being almost late in the afternoon.

That third kiss was so sudden.

What was Jungwon thinking? Doing that out of the blue? It surprised her — and it was fortunate there were not many people on the bus. Only an old married couple, a group of junior high school students who were fast asleep at the back, and a few grown-ups going back home from work, tired.

The cold December air made her shiver, causing her to shove her hands inside her pockets as she clutched her jacket tighter. She spotted a vacant bench and sat herself down, trying to shake the thoughts of the dark-haired dimpled boy out of her mind.

She remembered the way Jungwon looked at her, the strange warmness he exudes that enveloped her like a warm summer air even though it was freezing. His soft gentle eyes that dive into hers as he said those words. You mean so much to me, Mira. But then his previous worried eyes before they kissed snapped her back to existence.

As much as Mira was confused, she knew she should listen to him. Jeon Mira wasn't the type of person to be socially active on her social media, but the girl did open it once in a while to catch up with her friend's life knowing they liked to update themselves online. It just never occurred to Mira to open up her unread DMs from her classmates or random strangers, and she felt a little guilty about it. However, she didn't recall having a mutual with the name Lee Jongna.

Mira opened her Instagram and clicked on her friends' stories — the longest being Kim Sunoo's. Nothing new. The now black-haired lad had been doing this for as long as he had opened his account. It amazed her how daily Sunoo posts about his life, updating every hour so it was no surprise to see him with a huge number of followers. He mirrored a celebrity in school.

She scrolled through her explore page this time, finding a lot of edits about her favorite artists, a few hair styling techniques, some memes, and short dance tutorials from well-known influencers.

Her phone buzzed and a follow request appeared at the top of her screen in a form of an icon. She clicked on it as it brought her to the list of people who had requested a follow. Among the twenty different names displayed (some were strangers), Mira's eyes stopped at two usernames. Jungwon and Yunseo's account. Accepting and following Choi Yunseo back wasn't a problem since the girl had a public account. Jungwon, on the other hand, had his account private, much like Mira herself.

She scanned his account. A total of almost seven hundred followers were shown with three posts that she was unable to view yet, and he followed around a hundred people. Mira's lips unknowingly puckered, but it soon disappeared when another notification appeared on her Instagram.

@jwon.yang had accepted your follow request!

As she read the words over and over again, her fingers unknowingly refreshed his page. It only took a few seconds for her to finally be able to view his account. Two out of three of his posts were of his dog, Maeumi, but the third wasn't.

Reckoning from the date written below his pictures, Jungwon had posted this just recently. Roughly two weeks ago. A picture of himself standing on a bridge dressed in an oversized black coat was on the first slide. It was taken candidly and the male wasn't smiling. Yang Jungwon had his eyes glued on a camera in his hands, fiddling with it.

Was it weird of her to think that he looked extremely attractive not smiling? Mira genuinely loved his smile, but when he put on a stoic expression, it just made him look more attractive.