The Cupid Complex

17. Protecting Ame

Taehyung was lost in his thoughts by the time he finally made it to the grocery store. He kept thinking back on what had just happened at the cafe. He still felt as if he had been to that cafe at some point before. He didn't know why he felt that way, but he couldn't shake the feeling.

"You need to focus," he said out loud to himself in the middle of the cereal aisle. "You have a task to complete."

He had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed that there was a woman in the aisle with him. He only registered this fact when she began to move. Catching the movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned to look at her. The woman was dressed in jeans and a red and white checkered blouse. She was arching an eyebrow his way while holding on to the hand of a little blond boy that looked like he was no older than five. The boy was hugging a box of cereal to his chest with one arm.

"Sorry," said Taehyung, even though he really didn't know why he was apologizing for talking out loud. People did it all the time, didn't they?

The woman continued her trek down the aisle while giving Taehyung a wary glance. Taehyung turned his attention back to the shelves and grabbed a can of soup off the shelf just as he heard a girl squealing down the aisle. Turning again, he saw a teenage girl rushing right over to the woman with her cell phone out.

"Mom! Mom! You won't believe what just happened!"

"Calm down," said the woman to her excited daughter. "You don't need to make a scene in the store."

"But mom, I met Jungkook's panic girl!"

Hearing Jungkook's name, Taehyung's ears perked up as he continued to watch the teenage girl trying to shove her phone in her mother's face.

"Meeting her means that I met Jungkook through association!" declared the girl in excitement.

"You're ridiculous," muttered the woman, looking embarrassed to the extreme. "You need to lay off the K-Pop."

"But MOM!"

Taehyung watched as the woman quickly herded her daughter out of the aisle. He would have asked her about panic girl, but he already knew that he wasn't that woman's biggest fan. Keeping the can of soup in his hand, he moved to walk out of the aisle. Was it possible that the woman he and Jungkook were looking for worked here? Was it really that easy?

He forgot about what he had come to the store for at that point, beginning to scour all the aisles for a mobbed employee. He saw a lot of bored ones, but none of them were the woman he was looking for. None of them fit the bill.

Taehyung gave up on shopping, knowing that he had to get back to the apartment to tell Jungkook what he found out. He kept the soup in hand as he moved to the only checkout aisle open. The woman there was intriguing. She had rainbow streaks through her platinum blond hair. Her hair looked like it was the result of a sandy beach having a baby with a unicorn.

"Is that all you're getting?" asked the cashier as she rose an eyebrow at Taehyung. No doubt she was wondering why he was so covered up. "Are you sick?"

"I'm fine," he said as he waited for her to ring up his one item.

Maybe that was why the woman had been staring at Taehyung so oddly. He forgot how covered up he was.

"Whatever you say, dude," said the woman.

Taehyung's eyes landed on the name tag on her apron. Freddi. An interesting name to go with the interesting hair do. Maybe he ought to ask her about panic girl.

"Do you happen to know someone that people are calling panic girl?"

Freddi froze halfway through beeping the soup can, keeping it in her hand as she looked at the man in front of her.