Afterimage | HEEHOON

Afterimage

After their first eventful encounter, Sunghoon was rather surprised Heeseung still wished to go on a date with him. And listen, in Sunghoon’s defence, Heeseung had taken him by surprise, he’d have never pepper-spray him had he known who he was. He would have not pepper-spray him at all had he known it wasn’t his stalker.

With a frustrated first date, they spent two weeks texting and chatting, sharing tiny details about each other. With Heeseung constantly in his pocket, Sunghoon almost forgot he even had a stalker to begin with. He only really remembered when he had to walk around alone, constantly feeling eyes on him. Whenever he absolutely had to go alone somewhere, he’d clutch his phone in his hand and have it ready to call anyone as fast as possible.

Heeseung helped get him more relaxed, most days, like he was a constant presence even if he wasn’t there with him. Jake believed this was dangerous, as it could lead to Sunghoon letting his ward down when he shouldn’t. For the most part, Sunghoon thought Jake worried too much. His stalker hadn’t even done anything too bad, yet. As far as he could tell, his stalker only followed him around, left somewhat disturbing messages in his mail and there was that one time he’d stood outside his apartment for a whole night. All things concerning, but nothing harmful.

None of his friends seemed to agree with him on this, however, and Heeseung had joined their side.

That was not important, though, as Heeseung had texted him to finally have the date they never got to have. Sunghoon was over the moon, honestly, the longer he talked with Heeseung, the more he looked forward to going on a date with him. He told himself that if Heeseung still made the effort to arrange for it to happen, it meant he wanted it as much as he did.

“I still think this is a terrible idea,” Jake made his thoughts known, again, as Sunghoon got ready for his date.

“No matter how many times you say it, I’m not changing my mind,” Sunghoon told him, trying to figure out how he wanted to style his hair.

“I have hope that you may if I say it enough times to annoy you,” Jake sighed. “Why can’t I just…  walk you there? Why do you insist on tempting your stalked?” Jake complained, clearly concerned.

“Because you have shit to do, the coffee shop is like seven blocks away and it’s the middle of the day,” Sunghoon enumerated his reasons. “It’s not that bad,” he tried to calm Jake down.

“Which is why you are staying here instead of your own apartment,” Jake pointed out. “Last time you went alone, you pepper-sprayed your date,” Jake continued to try and convince Sunghoon to, at least, let him accompany him.

“It was an accident, okay, I didn’t mean to,” he huffed. “Besides, I was on edge because it was at night, there’ll be more people on the street now,” he said as he fought one strand of hair that simply wouldn’t stay put.

“Why are you so stubborn? Fine! Fine, whatever, you’ll have us all dying young,” Jake relented. “Just… send me your location? Can you please at least do that?” Sunghoon rolled his eyes, but agreed if only to ease some of Jake’s worries.

Sunghoon checked his phone and almost panicked when he saw a text from Heeseung, it could only mean that he was already at the place or close to it. Much like Jake, Heeseung had insisted on them walking together for Sunghoon’s safety. Sunghoon had also firmly denied him. He was grateful that they all worried so much, but he could deal with it on his own. Regardless, he needed to finish getting ready and get going, he’d hate to make Heeseung wait too long.

With the sun of the late morning shinning bright, it wasn’t as cold as for their last attempted date. Sunghoon started walking relatively fast, he wanted to get there soon, but he didn’t want to mess up his look. Jake watched him from the entrance door until he was too far away to be seen any longer. Sunghoon was sure Jake stayed at the door anyway. The stalker was more annoying because of how everyone else treated him than for the stalking itself, Sunghoon huffed as he continued to walk, reminding himself to still be aware of his surroundings.