4*TOWN

Matchmaker 2

Later that day, Tae Young is helping out at the local animal shelter. He's already walked five dogs and given two of them baths. As he sits in the lobby for a break, he gets a call from T.

"Hey Tae!"

"Hi."

"Woah dude, you sound tired. Is now a bad time?"

"I'm good. How's it going with Jesse?"

T sighs on the other end of the phone. For the past few hours, he's been trying to get Jesse to talk; to say something, anything about his crush on a certain someone, to no avail.

"Ugh, he won't tell me anything. Also, Raya's coming over later today, he told me to tell you that. She has some news for us, apparently."

"Hm, okay. I'll try to talk to him when I get home, I have some more work to do."

"Okay! See ya!"

"Bye!"

Tae hangs up, checking the time on his phone. He's been sitting here for fifteen minutes, the time passing rather slowly. The shelter isn't very busy today, the only ones there are him, the manager, and the animals, of course.

Tae only stays for another hour, wrapping up his work and calling Robaire to pick him up. When they get home, Tae finds Jesse sitting on the couch.

"Hi Jesse!"

"Hey."

Tae sees that Jesse is painting a ceramic piece, he only looks up for a second to greet him.

"What are you doing?"

Tae asks, although he can clearly see what he's doing. His plan is to start a casual conversation, slowly drifting toward the topic of Jesse's crush.

Jesse just shows him his work, turning it over in his hands so Tae can see it at different angles.

"Cool! Is it for anything, or uh, anyone in particular?"

Jesse sighs, already catching on to what Tae is doing.

"I know what you're trying to do. It's not... ugh."

Tae watches as Jesse sets the piece down onto the table.

"It's not for Beck."

Jesse looks as if he wants to say more, fidgeting with his hands. He wears an expression of uneasiness, Tae almost doesn't know what to do.

For context, Beck, or Rebecca, is Jesse's ex girlfriend. They dated for many years, and she's even the mother of his kids. Obviously, they were extremely close, but they rarely interact with each other anymore when it doesn't have to do with the family.

"Oh. Uh, are you... okay?"

"I... I don't know."

"Would you like to talk about it?"

Tae asks, uncertainty clear in his voice. He's not used to comforting Jesse, it's usually the other way around when it comes to their friendship.

"I miss her. But every time we talk, it feels different. I don't know how to describe it, but I just want things to be like before."

"Before you...?"

Jesse nods.

"Before we broke up, yeah. But still, I'm not sure if it's actually-"

"Open up, guys!"

Both Tae's and Jesse's heads turn to the door, where they hear Raya knocking. Jesse gets up to answer, ending their short conversation.