drama, zb1

011

third person pov.

Dokja and Jia meet up with the sunshine-grumpy duo in the parking lot.

Although not very thrilled to see the latter, Dokja is not surprised either because Hao and Hanbin are always joined at the hip. She's been giving him the cold shoulder for the past few days, but Jia's giddiness and Hanbin's smile is enough for her to deal with the sight of him.

Surprisingly though, he is wearing the new shirt she got him, and he actually smiles at her when they meet up. Dokja politely returns one.

"My uncle owns the place," Hanbin says as they start walking in the direction of the restaurant. "It's twenty minutes from here."

"We get free food all the time," Hao chimes in.

"That's cool," Dokja replies. "What's it called?"

"Maison de la Sung."

She snorts. "Sounds boujee as fuck."

Hanbin's lips twitch the slightest. "They are. Unnecessarily so."

Jia is quiet, Dokja notes—which isn't unusual for the shy girl but in this case wouldn't do her any good—so when they veer into a slightly narrower sidewalk with lots of people walking around them, Dokja slightly pushes her to the front so she comes side by side with Hanbin. Then she falls back into step with Hao.

Hanbin looks back at her occasionally, but doesn't say anything. Hao turns to her, though, and bumps his shoulders with her. "Are you still mad at me?"

"I never was mad at you," she replies evenly.

He eyes her weirdly and scoffs. "Really? Then what was the whole soul searching thing about?"

"I just—" She pauses, looks ahead and thinks of something to say. The truth, maybe? She settles for something vaguer: "I was sad, that's all."

"Sad?" He frowns and looks down at her. She didn't care for it before, but now she hates the height difference between them. It makes her feel all the ways inferior when he looks down at her like that. "Dokja, I made you sad?"

She shrugs. "Any comments on the choreography? We're supposed to start on monday."

He blinks a few times at the change in topics before nodding. "Yeah, I actually had an idea for the beginning—"

As he's talking, an older man heading the opposite direction rams into her shoulder, causing her to lose her balance and almost tumble to the ground, if it isn't for Hao grabbing her waist last second. Dokja is so startled all she can do is stare at him, both his arms around her body.

Just like a cliche kdrama scene, it actually feels like the world stopped, and her heartbeat suddenly picks up. Hao is so close, she notices details she overlooked before. Like the tiny mole under his eye.

"You okay?" he asks, a little breathless.

"Uh, yeah." Dokja puts her hands on his chest and pushes him away. "Let's go."

They reach Maison de la Sung in silence, Hanbin and Jia engaged in small talk a few paces away. Dokja ends up sitting next to Hao and directly across from Hanbin. The staff already seemed familiar with the duo, conversing briefly before they let them order.

"What are your plans for the weekend?" Hanbin asks, looking at Dokja with a warm smile.

"We're going to opera!" Dokja replies, excited just thinking about Aki's reaction. He's a geek for stuff like that, mostly because his mom is a retired opera star and he's always prided himself in her. Hopefully it would alleviate some of the stress he'd been feeling lately.