the bet | dojae

eight

"so when's the next date?"

doyoung froze, his fork halfway to his mouth as he stared at taeyong. "what?"

"doyoung, it's the third day and he's barely made any progress. he's either gonna ask you out again and cut his time short by taking too long to do it, or you're gonna be the one to ask him." he set his fork down and looked down at his phone on the table, frowning slightly. it was late, and while he had seen jaehyun at school that day, they hadn't spoken to each other since the date. it wasn't like they couldn't; they had each other's phone numbers, and if it was bad enough, taeyong would have contacted jaehyun himself.

but for some reason, neither of them were doing anything.

"it's too late in the day to ask him now, isn't it?"

"are you serious?" taeyong asked with a scoff. "it's never too late in the day. nighttime dates are the best, anyway."

doyoung rose an eyebrow, but picked up his phone regardless, opening his messages and beginning to type something out to jaehyun. taeyong watched over his shoulder, giving him a reassuring thumbs up once he sent the text. it was short, simple and to the point; all he asked was if jaehyun would be willing to meet him at the park in half an hour. "what if he says no?"

"he won't, he's basically in love with you."

"you—" they both froze as his phone went off, the screen lighting up with a new notification. it was jaehyun. 'sure :)'

it was late, and it was cold, but as doyoung walked to the park, his mind was racing. as the seventh day crept closer and closer, he felt anxious. what happened once they got to the seventh day? would they do it just to get it over with, or would one of them suffer through the punishment johnny came up with? shaking his head, he brought himself out of his thoughts and sat down at one of the park benches, looking around and waiting. and waiting. and waiting.

finally, he saw jaehyun's figure in the distance and got up, walking over to him. "is there any reason you wanted to come here this late?" jaehyun inquired as they went to the playground.

doyoung was quiet. "taeyong ... thinks we won't make it."

"what?"

"he thinks we're going too slow, and he asked when the next date was, and i told him i didn't know, and he said there wasn't any point in waiting around for you to do it and that i should ask you out."

"did he actually say that?"

"not word for word, but generally, yeah." they each sat down at the swing set, the metal creaking quietly.

jaehyun looked like he was deep in thought. "doyoung, the truth is that i don't know what i'm doing. and i don't know what i'm supposed to do. i don't think you know, either. neither of us have even had sex before, and i don't want to fuck you just for the sake of some stupid dare and then we never talk to each other again. i doubt we'll go our separate ways after we do, but it just feels ... wrong. i've done a lot of stupid shit before, but never something on this scale."

"well, it's like you said, right? worst case scenario, we call the whole thing off and one of us gets the punishment instead."

"do either of us really wanna wear cat ears, though?"

"no," doyoung muttered, making jaehyun crack a smile at him. "if we did it on the seventh day, it would still count, wouldn't it?"

"as long as we did it before midnight, yeah."

doyoung jumped as his phone began ringing loudly and yanked it out of his pocket, letting out an annoyed sigh when he saw the caller ID. "hello?"

"doyoung! how's it—"