Veiled | JHS | ✓

Platform 9 and 3/4

"Look ahead, the way is shinin'
Keep goin' now
(Ready, set, and begin)" 

                                                        — Outro: Ego, BTS

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10:10

Hoseok stared at the time on his phone. He breathed out a sigh. He should have known...

It wasn't the first time he was being stood up by someone. But perhaps it was the first time in a while he actually expected someone to come.

He pursed his lips. There were only five more minutes left to board the train that left for Fairy Town and it was apparent that his traveling companion wasn't coming. He clutched the two tickets in his hand. What a waste.

Hoseok ran his eyes along with the crowded platform one last time. Not that he thought he'd find her if he did but as a final look before he departed for the journey to gain his humanity. That's when he spied movement in peripherals; a flash of lion's mane of a hair.

______________

Oh my god! I'm so late!

Sia ran around the crowded train station, dragging her suitcase as her eyes searched for him. She had been so busy packing the other night that she hadn't realized when she fell asleep. It was just her luck that she forgot to set the alarm. Now as she pranced around the station unable to find the guy she was supposed to be accompanying, she regretted every life decision she had ever made. Why hadn't I asked him for his number?!

She stopped in the middle of the station, trying to catch her breath. A curious sensation spread over her and she was succumbing to a strange urge to turn around even before she realized what it was.

Hoseok stood there, his hands outstretched as if he were about to tap on her shoulder. He slowly withdrew his hand back, face portraying surprise for some unknown reason.

"Jung Hoseok! Oh thank god, I'm not late, am I?" She tugged on his sleeves. "Come on now, let's go get the tickets!"

"I- I have it right here." Sia didn't know why he stuttered.

"Oh, that's great! Then let's go find our platform." Snatching the tickets out of his hands, she squinted her eyes to read the printed numbers on the tickets, holding them up. "Hmmm...Platform nine and three quarters."

Hoseok frowned as she tugged him alone. Platform nine and three quarters? There was no such platform--

Oh...

A few minutes later, an over-enthusiastic Sia had finally managed to find their compartments and dragged her suitcase inside. Placing it on overhead space, she slumped down on her seat exhausted at having run all the way. Hoseok took a seat across from her, a curious look lingering on his face. She puffed out air, blowing the stray strands of her hair away from her face when he posed his question.

"Can you really not stay away from me?"

"I can but it's annoying," Sia replied, taking long, heavy breaths just as the train jerked forward slowly. Upon his confusion, she began to explain. "Let me put it this way. When you go too out of my range, it's like an itch you can't scratch. It keeps you on my mind. It's okay at first, but then it develops. It keeps growing and growing and growing until its torture. So nah, it's not impossible to stay away from you."

Hoseok pursed his lips at her explanation, thinking deeply about it. Again, Sia didn't know why he looked a little guilty.

"Oh, wait. The tickets. Thanks for that! Tell me your flash pay ID, I'll transfer you the price." Sia pulled out her phone to get her online bank account.

"You don't need to pay me back. Actually, I will sponsor your entire trip." Sia's eyes almost popped out of her sockets.

"You're going to sponsor me? Why?"

"Because you're being inconvenienced and dragged into all of this because of me. So I must do at least something to make it a little more convenient for you. Think of this as a sponsored vacation." He answered, as a matter of factly turning his attention to his phone.

Sia's lips pulled up, amused. "So you're going to sponsor the entire trip? Just to be sure, are you going to pay for everything?"

"Yes."

She leaned back in her seat, arms and legs crossed. "A fair warning then. I can get quite expensive to maintain."

Hoseok's eyes snapped away from his phone and dragged all the way from her messy half-done hair, her ruffled shirt to the tattered old converses. He raised his eyes back to her. "I don't think so." He went back to his phone.

Sia bristled, turning an embarrassing shade of red. "Hey, are you saying that I'm cheap? These shoes are because I was late! I couldn't find my things on time, I just threw on the first thing I found--"

Hoseok halted her with a raise of his index finger, his eyes still on his phone. "Excuse me, I'm getting a call." Sia scoffed, folding her arms over her chest as he took the call.

"Yes, Mom? Yeah, I'm on the train...No Mom, we're not going there. It's in Fairy Town... Yes, I will send pictures... No, I won't..."

Sia couldn't help the smirk as she listened in on his conversation with his mom. Hoseok was such a Mama's boy.

"Yeah, sure. Am I a child, Mom? Go nag Minhyeok or Dawon, they'll like it... Being the youngest doesn't mean I am a child... yeah, no..."

At a certain point, his eyes snapped up to Sia as he talked with his mom.

"No, Mom. No girls. It's just a guys' hangout..." Sia felt the corner of her mouth curl into an indignant sneer. "Okay, Mom. Bye. I'm hanging up."

As soon as he ended his call, Sia snapped at him. "Do I look like a guy to you?"

"Do you need the honest answer or the sugar-coated version?" He asked nonchalantly, scrolling through his phone. Sia ground her teeth. "The honest version."

He looked back at her once again, narrowing his eyes contemplatively. "Kind of."

"Hey!" She sprung up from her seat, clenching her fists. Hoseok wasn't looking as he scrolled through his phone. "I said what I said."

"What did you say, you donkey hole?!" She growled, advancing on him. Hoseok's eyes widened as he realized too late that he had screwed up.

"Say that to my face, bish! Imma fight you!" She roared as Hoseok lost his composure, sliding back into his seat from a raging Sia. "S-stay in your seat, please."

"You coward, say that again! You think I'm easy, don't ya?!"

"S-stay back! You're making a scene, miss."

"You bet I am, you nut job! And why you calling me miss like some trashy CEO in some trashy k-dramas?!"

"Trashy CEO? Is that supposed to be an insult?"

"Totally! Now say that again, loser. Let me hear it from your pretty little mouth! I will rip it apart!"

"Calm down!"

And the train chugged along the tracks into the sunrise as the duo bickered all the way throughout. If Hoseok had any plans to take a short nap on the train, he never got a chance. All in all, it was a loooooooong ride.

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A/n: And the journey begins... You don't know how excited I'm for this!