THE TRACE OF LOVE // 양정원

제 5 과

This time, I do turn away to somewhere, mentally flustered.

"Well, is he?"

Damn it, Daisy.
I bite my own inner lips, "No."

Then, she primly gives a glance to the direction, "Dan, he's going somewhere."

"Go follow him, go!" I say, taking a furtive glance at the area if he's still has his eyes on me.

I take a small breath when he's also getting up to follow Jay but the process turns incomplete since Dairy yanks my arm together with her and naturally heads toward the pool house where the two guys under her surveillance enters.

"Daisy, what are you doing!" I silently protest with tight-lipped words.

"You told me to follow him—I can't go there alone!" She snaps back and drags us inside the first floor of the two-storey pool house furnished in calm white and blue interior. Two big ice boxes lay upon the little kitchen counter that Jay and Jungwon are standing at, picking drinks from the ice.

But before Daisy can step toward them, the two leave as if not finding what they want and stroll inside the back of the place. Daisy and I nevertheless take their previous place and pretend to be choosing something. But there were only beers.

The next moment, Jay comes out of the back and heads toward us where Daisy panics and clings to the hem of my blouse as she sticks her side to mine.

Jay doesn't really seem to notice us standing in such awkward figures from the counter and searches for something. Then, he head involuntarily whips at us and his eyes end up in Daisy's left hand.

He casually looks up at her, "are you done with that?"

I follow his eyes to see a bottle opener clasped in Daisy's hands. Flustered, she switches her eyes between his and the tool and I get tired of her addled expression. She gives me a glance of asking me what to do but I step a bit away from her.

My girl's really dumb but Jay patiently stares and waits for her to hand him the tool.

She quickly hands him the opener and stutters, "sorry."

"It's okay." He checks back at the counter and turns at us again.

"Are you really done with it?" Jay asks since she's gawking at him like an absolute minion.

This is where I intervene, "Oh, Daisy hasn't opened hers yet because she's still choosing what she wants to drink."

He nods, turning at her, "Do you need me to open it for you?"

I avidly speak again. "That'd be great because she doesn't know how to open the bottle either. Daisy, choose one while he's here. I'll be back."

I slip away from them leaving Daisy with cold hands and wide eyes. Thinking of making Daisy to deal with him alone for the first time, I stroll around the house while taking the last glimpse of her reluctantly approaching the ice boxes. I giggle to myself and arbitrarily make a stop at the back door of the house. The back yard is weirdly empty and a sound of chinking glass followed by the glass shattering from beyond the door makes me slowly open it.

Some drunk must be breaking the glass, I thought.

I peek through the little gap I made, Jungwon is found cleaning up the pieces of a shattered beer bottle and I hurry toward him hoping I can help. Picking up a piece of glass, he looks up with a furrow.

Reckless had I been in squatting down next to him, our nose almost touch each other as we lift up our heads. And I back away immediately, my heart thumping.

From an unconscious furrow to conscious realization of a sudden mere soft expression, Jungwon's hard eyebrows lasts in the end.

"Tell me you weren't stalking me till here." He irritatedly says.

"I'm not. I heard the sound of you breaking something, I came to help." I look up to the table he's working at to find a bucket filled with the same beers.

He put a rag onto the spilled beer and gets up.

"You're taking them to the front?"

He ignores my question and put more beers inside the second bucket.

"Do you want me to carry one for you?"

"There's no need." He tersely says.

The corner of my eyes catch a sight of Jay and Daisy together heading toward the back, a sudden Cupid-instinct hits me with a thought.

Jay and Jungwon are to carry the buckets together after Jay's opened them, but if he doesn't find his friend here, he must ask for my friend's help which surely will make them closer.

And if Daisy gets used to being alone with him, she needs not to seek for my help anymore.

"Ah, Jungwon, can I ask for a favor?" I ask that he whirls around.

Before he can reject me, I briskly drag him to the other side of the storeroom until I hide ourselves in another small entrance covered by a long, velvety curtain. But due to my briskness and such narrow space of the entrance that leads to a miniature storeroom, our chest brush upon each other as I stick him to the wall and hold his sides in desperate spirit to make ourselves non-existent when Jay and Daisy enters the empty storeroom.

"Where did Jungwon go?"

Jay murmurs and only then, I look up to the quiet guy whose face centimeters away from me.

And my heart vibrates relentlessly.