Dispatch || Han Jisung

-6-

Akari is done with her recording and Dawn and I are both cleaning the working space. Meaning: turning off the devices and putting the notes away.

For some reason I'm anxious to meet Jisung for lunch. Thinking it could be a date is making my heart beat faster and my head spin.

This is probably not a normal way to feel when you meet up with a friend.

I text Jisung I'll meet him at the JYP cafe in a minute and walk out the recording room with Dawn.

"Have fun with Jisung." Dawn smiles at me, but then sees how anxious I look. She hugs me tight and I hug her back. She rubs my back before parting away from me, looking me in the eyes.

"You're going to be okay. Jisung is a good guy, he won't do anything you don't want. Just have fun, okay?" I hug her shortly one last time and smile at her before walking away from her, on my way to the cafe Jisung is waiting for me.

Once walking into the cozy cafe, I see Jisung sitting at a table in the back. He sees me and smiles. I smile back and walk towards him.

The cafe isn't empty but neither crowded, just the nice amount of people present. The people are talking and eating away their lunch break, all of them enjoying their break.

I reach the table for two and sit down opposite of the boy whose still smiling. The moment Jisung wants to open his mouth, the waiter comes at our table.

We order our drinks and receive the menus from the waiter who leaves our table again. I look at the boy seated opposite of me and see him already looking at me.

"You look pretty today, as always," he comments while scanning my outfit and face again and I scoff. "Nonsense. I have been working since 7 am, there's no way I look presentable."

Jisung raises an eyebrow and looks at his menu. "I'm still standing with my statement." I blush at that and hide my face behind the menu, hearing the boy laugh at that, lowering the menu in my hands.

"You didn't have anyone to eat lunch with today?" I'm curious, since he always eats lunch with one of his members for how far I know. I'm interested in why he wants to have lunch with me all of a sudden.

He shakes his head without a second thought. "That's not it, some of my members were free as well. I just wanted to spend time with you." I scan his face and frown, tilting my head a little to the side. "Why?"

He scoffs and giggles afterwards while shaking his head in disbelief, making me frown even more I'm sure my eyebrows will hurt. "You're good company, I want to hang out with you more."

I chuckle, surprised he wants to get to know each other even better all of a sudden. I think of the last time the two of us hung out with just us and when I say I had to think deep, I mean it.

Then I remember the first time we met. We were both still trainees. Jisung was making a new track with 3racha and Minhi wanted to listen to the finished song, me coming with her.

Jisung and I didn't talk much back then, since we're both not very talkative nor social. Only three months before Stray Kids' debut we actually started talking and having fun together.

The same waiter comes to take our order and we tell him our choice of food. He takes our menus from us and walks away with a smile on his face.

I lean forward, my arms on the table and my head resting on my hands, looking Jisung straight in the eyes. "So, let's say we do hang out more, how do you want to do that? We can't be seen together outside those massive doors."

Jisung follows my actions and stares back at me. "I don't know. This building is quite a good hangout place, though."

I nod my head, not breaking off the eye contact. "I bet that you are only seen in the dance practice and recording room. You expect me to come there all the time?"

"Like you are any different from that." I push my head off my hands and lean back in the chair, crossing my arms. "Clearly we haven't hung out a lot."

It has turned into a staring competition. Jisung tries to make me laugh by making weird faces, but I hold myself together.

The boy opposite of me gets a harder time keeping his eyes open and squints his eyes a little. And after a little while, he surrenders and blinks.

I laugh in victory and stick my tongue out to him, him rolling his eyes at me.

We get disrupted by the waiter already coming back with our order. I clap my hands together in excitement and see the boy opposite of me laugh at that.

We dig into our food and start eating in a comfortable silence, casually enjoying the dishes and each other's presence.