The First Cigarette - (A Jaywon Story)

☆셋☆

So, let the chaos begin.

They were both staring at each other, too afraid to look away. For that moment, that endless moment, they felt naked under the other one's gaze. Every one of their secrets seemed to be bubbling up like soda on their stomach. Sadly for both of them, the movement of the vehicle made them break the eye contact after a few seconds.

Jay cleared his throat loudly looking outside the window while Jungwon tried his best to look at his hands processing everything that just happened. It was uncommon for him to feel this way, Jay's gaze made him feel somehow weird and he couldn't understand quite well the reason why his heart was beating so fast on his chest. He usually hated eye contact, human contact, contact of any kind, but for once he really didn't want to look away or change his seat, for the contrary he wanted to be a little bit closer.

Jay's heart was also beating so fast that he thought it was probably a bad a idea to leave his apartment in such a weak condition. He abruptly realized that the boy sitting next to him seemed to be weaker and it only made him feel irritated, not with the boy, but with the reason why he seemed to be so in that condition. Was God so unfair that one of the prettiest beings he has ever seen seemed to have a pitiful and merciless life? What could he have done in order to own God's rage? He finally worked up the nerve and asked him confidently, almost in a whisper,

"Penny for your thoughts?".

"Huh? What?" Jungwon was so immerse in his own thoughts that he dropped his phone in the moment he heard Jay's voice, creating a loud and clangy sound.

"M-my t-thoughts? I-I mean.. I-I don't u-understand.. I-I'm-I'm really sorry.." Jungwon was frustrated, speaking to people was never his forte, he'll prefer to listen to them rather than being listened to. Right now he was stuttering and dropping things like a mad person, he was afraid of scaring the guy away but his mind and mouth wouldn't work together to help him out.

"Hey, hey, hey. It's okay, really, it was just an ice breaker. I was trying to get your attention, stupid idea, I'm so sorry about that", Jay said trying to ease the situation, mentally slapping himself for being so tactless. He leaned on slightly and picked up Jungwon's phone from the floor handing it to him with an ashamed smile. "Are you heading up to school?"

Jungwon looked at Jay, again, in amazement. The fact that he helped him picking his phone up was probably the kindest thing someone has done for him in a while. His cheeks were burning red in shyness as he blinked repeatedly trying to understand what he just asked.

"N-no, huh.. ", he cleared his throat taking his phone from Jay's hands touching them softly, like they could break, feeling electricity at the light touch, "I-I'm in the second semester of Law school in the University, I'm not a child.", he stated.

"O-oh, of course. Huh, how old are you?", Jay said as he brushed his hair back with his hands mentally slapping himself again at the obvious answer, it was clear that he was not a high school student since he was not wearing an uniform. Jay was still startled by the careful touch that Jungwon's hand left on his, it was so soft, that he couldn't manage to ask something clever.

"I-I'm 20", Jungwon said with a loud-enough giggle that made Jay's heart flutter in his chest as he smiled widely in return. 'He's very handsome', Jungwon thought. "M-may I ask how o-old are you?"

Jay was having the time of his life watching the situation, not only he achieved starting a conversation with the cute boy he just met but he also seemed interested in keeping up as he giggled and interacted actively with him. This was going on just too perfectly .

"I'm 24, last semester of Business Administration. I guess I'm your senior", Jay said with a playful tone. "May I know your name kid or is it just too much to ask?"