Time Difference

8. Irony Man

"Jin will be furious. Here. It's just soy and veggies," Jungkook tossed me a pack of dried ramen from his kitchen cupboard. I wasn't sure what to do about it, and was still reeling from inhaling too much of him.

"Why will Jin be mad?" I asked, holding the ramen awkwardly. I wasn't about to ask what I was supposed to do with it.

"He wanted to cook, and we're, or more precisely, you, are going to do this." He held the packet in my hands and started crushing the noodles. "Once you've got them crushed up pretty well, open the noodles, open the seasoning and dump it in, and hold the noodle pack while you shake the seasoning around. How can I describe it? It's like flavored potato chips kind of. This is how I used to eat it when I was younger and I didn't want to bother cooking."

"You mean, bother boiling a little water?" I was skeptical. Not even I was that lazy.

"Exactly," he grinned at me, and I could almost picture younger Jungkook feeding himself broken dry noodles. "Go ahead and try it, I promise you'll like it."

"I wonder if this works with spaghetti. They are surprisingly not interchangeable noodles." I tipped the bag back and dumped some of the crunchy mix in my mouth. It was pretty good as it was.

"Not much experimentation for me these days," he sighed wistfully.

"Do I dare ask? I'm not sure I quite got what or why. Maybe it's not my business."

"I'll explain it some time, but maybe my diet isn't going to be that impressive for you."

"I'm still curious." I hastily added, "Because I care about you. And the things you do, and your health."

"You care about me?"

"Of course," I said, staring intently into the pack of ramen in my hand, ignoring the warmth of the blood rush in my face. "You're nice."

"Hmm," was his response. I was glad I couldn't see his face. I kept pouring noodles into my mouth to avoid talking, with effort to not choke, and had eaten the whole thing in a matter of minutes. Whoever said I had no talent wouldn't dare compete with me in an eating contest. Jungkook kicked off his shiny sneakers and flopped backward sideways onto the monument of mattresses against his living room wall. With his arms stretched over his head he was almost five mattress widths long. Admittedly it looked comfy.

"Next question." I set my empty wrapper on the half wall counter top.

"I'm ready."

"I have reason to believe I've seen most of your mattress collection at this point. What's your mattress to pillow ratio?" I had seen none. Not a single pillow, not here on these beds, not on his kitchen one, not even on the couch. Maybe they were all in his bedroom.

"Yes, you would notice." He sat up and crossed his legs then beckoned to me. I hesitated. "No pillows."

"Why not?" I hesitantly sat on the edge of the mattress, feet away from him in the middle of his installation.

"Didn't need one." He slid next to me gracefully, I couldn't help notice how fluid his motions were compared to my own clunky movements. He was high resolution and I was blurry pixels viewed on a microwave. "I'll make sure to have one for the next time you visit." My wide eyes must have betrayed me because he apologized for the thoughts I was thinking. "It's nice to have one behind your back when you're watching a movie, right?" It was my turn to grunt in agreement.

We spoke together the next second, talking over each other.

"There was something I wanted to tell..."

"There was something I wanted to ask you...," but I stopped the same moment Jungkook stopped talking so that I could continue. "No, Jungkook, I'm sorry, go ahead. Please."