Duality | Monsta X [√]

25: Burning sensation

You will be
My girl, my girl, my girl

-We fell in love in October,
Girl in red

"Mom, you're embarrassing me," Jooheon whined with both of his hands clasping the shoulders of the small woman with big round eyes and a bob on her head.

She looked at us avoiding Jooheon standing in front of her, Kihyun stood by my left and Minhyuk by my right. "I just wanted to share the brownies I made," she repeated herself before pushing Jooheon away. "And I certainly wanted to see your new friend. Oh my, look at this sweety!"

Jooheon was still trying to hold her back as she tried reaching me with the short clicks of her heels. This was the type of moments in socializing that were certainly not for me, but in a futile attempt to make some sort of conversation at least, I took steps towards her.

"I'm just a worker here. Nice to meet you, mam, I am Kang Daisy," her doe eyes raked me head to toe, eyes that were anything unlike Jooheon's, I guessed, he got his slanted eyes from his father instead.

But then she smiled and a pair of deep dimples appeared on her both cheeks, her eyes turning into moon crescents. At that moment, she very much looked like a smaller and female version of Jooheon.

"First time seeing a female worker in this club!" She gushed excitedly, Jooheon making faces at her back. "Please take good care of these boys sweety. And do enjoy the brownies. You have nothing against chocolate, right?"

Frantically I shook my heads to the sides, with that I felt someone come and stand by my side. "I'll take you home, Mrs Lee. Thanks for the treat!" Minhyuk chirped happily and Jooheon let out the biggest breath of relief.

"Bye bye, Daisy! Bye bye!" Either way his mom kept waving her small hands at me while Jooheon kept lightly shoving her towards the exit, Minhyuk following them.

Her son nonstop complaining that he was a grown adult and this wasn't the rover scouts anymore.

"She likes to visit us sometimes," Kihyun came and stood by my side, a hand on the nape of his neck messaging there as he looked at me.

His attire was entirely different from what I'd see the other nights. A white v neck sweater loosely hung on his frame, his hair a fluffy mess falling on his forehead. There was a distinct sweet and fresh scent coming from him, an aroma of shampoo or aftershave perhaps.

"What are you doing here? I thought you would take a break for a few days," he said with his voice a bit husky, as if he had just woken from his sleep. Then he took a shower and came here, maybe. That's why his look and scent were different.

Not that it mattered to me.

"My mom is fine. The doctors said they would keep her in the hospital for another night. And I wanted to look at the final products of the photoshoot the other day," I fished out my phone from my pocket, opening up the lockscreen and going straight to the emails. "Changkyun sent me a few snippets-"

My breath hitched on my throat when I felt his sudden scent of aftershave hit me from closer, way closer than it was before. His sweater brushing to my side.

"We thought of postponing the project since you ought to take a break. I don't know why you're still worrying about that when your mom is sick."

Well, I did not I was important enough for you to push back the ad project. But his husky low voice that felt so close now jumbled up my thoughts, I just stood there like a zombie.

"By the way, I can barely see anything-" he craned his neck as he bent his head forward with his arms crossed over his chest, almost as if his nose would touch my screen. "Without my contact lenses."

"I did not know you wore them," I blurted out and he turned his face towards mine from that position.

The sudden thought hit me that at day time he would always wear his glasses, once he even told me he was blind as a bat without them, but at night I'd never seen him wearing them.

Figured, he had contact lenses on. I was expecting him giving me his notorious "are you stupid" look but he just calmly stared at me with his brown, translucent eyes.

"Maybe we should change the fonts to a bigger size," he straightened his back but his nonchalant eyes still on me. But then, all of a sudden he lunged forward, his face closer to mine. So close that I could count the freckles on his cheek area.

He stared at me with his eyes squinting, judging me scrupulously. "Are you blushing?" He taunted and I took a quick step back involuntarily.

"What? No? I'm just glad, I mean. I also came to say thank you today, for what you guys did for my mom and because you stayed with me that night and-"

"Stop with that talk, you can say that to Shownu or others," he blatantly stated but my jibber-jabber had not stopped yet.

"And I also wanted to apologise for the things I once told you when I got here the first day. I was rude and I did not mean to make that comment."

His kind of angry looked dissolved into something that gave away he was surprised. Almost the same look he gave me at that night when I told him not to talk about my mom with his filthy mouth.

But my views on them and this place had changed since then, once this place felt like suffocating to me but now felt like a second home, or at least something close to home.

"Whoa, am I interrupting something here," A sudden voice squeaked out, it was Jooheon with half of his body slipping through the door as he was giving us a look.

"I'll just go," he vanished the next second from that very door.

"Go to your mom," Kihyun told me without paying any attention to what just happened here. "Take a good rest."

He turned on his foot and started walking towards the bar, for his evening glass of red wine perhaps, or who knew. For a brief second he turned to me. "Your heavy past, I'm glad you shared with me. If it gets hard you can talk to any of us. Minhyuk shares something close to yours."

I nodded before I took my cue to leave. However, my face was still burning in that slight sensation.

---
A/n: we are more than halfway through the book. I'm so glad you guys are still here <3

Anyway I'm curious, which one do you use to read with? white mode, black mode or brown mode?