The Boy Next Door

gaslighting the nurse

"Hey. You." Sunwoo's voice was close to my ear from behind.

I flinched and Changmin, who was walking beside me stopped the conversation.

"What do you want?" Changmin asked as we turned around in the hallway.

The traffic of students naturally went around us when they saw that Sunwoo was there. Almost everyone who passed by would glance at him, girls and guys included;

"I wasn't talking to you JiChang, sorry to say." Sunwoo said.

"We're on our way to lunch, wanna come?" I asked.

Sunwoo looked around for a second and spotted someone. "Heeji!" He waved her over.

"Hey Sunwoo!" She smiled at him and stood near us.

"Wanna walk with Changmin? I have to talk with Joy privately." Sunwoo said casually.

"Of course!" She said and linked her arm with Changmin's who was glaring at us suspiciously.

My eyes fell to the way their hands grazed as they started walking.

"What if we go on a date?" Sunwoo said suddenly.

I could have sworn the hallway went quiet for a second.

Changmin stopped walking, his sneakers skidded against the floor.

I looked around at the people watching us. It was too much pressure.

I grabbed his hand and led him outside, where there were no people.

"what the hell was that??" I asked. "you can't just confess your love from someone in public like that!"

"Trust me, if I were to confess my love for you it would be much different." He shot his eyebrows up. "What's the matter? Don't want to?"

"No! I just--" this isn't how I thought it would happen. There was no romantic hand holding or formal asking. It was as simple as he said it.

"Okay clearly you haven't given into my seductive flirting yet, so why don't we make this a pre-date?" he said. "Just come to my work after my shift, we'll walk home together."

I let out a breath of relief. "Okay." I said.

"Goddammit you really are hard to impress." He smiled to himself.

"To be honest I don't have much dating experience," I said. "Does that freak you out?"

"Why would it? Less expectations for me then." He said and I punched his arm. "Ow."

"Thought so."

"Damn girl you have that basketball arm that hurt!" He rubbed his muscle.

I snorted.

"I'm kidding." He said seriously. "I don't care if you dated or not. Why would it?"

I shrugged. "I don't want you to think I'm boring."

He stopped walking when we reached the cafeteria.

"You? Boring?" Sunwoo asked.

I crossed my arms and looked up at him, he genuinely looked shocked.

"I guarantee I wouldn't even glance at you if I thought you were boring. In fact I don't know the last time I was the one to beg someone else to go on a date." Sunwoo clicked his tongue. "So you didn't believe me when I said you excite me?"

"...well now I do," I said.

"Because if not, I guess I would have to keep convincing you until you did." He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I couldn't help but lean into his touch a centimeter.