After a wonderful Tuesday evening, as odd as it sounded, Wednesday was a total let-down for Gio. The lingering pleasant feel of the events of the previous day still kept her mood up, but in all truth, she only went along with the motions of the day, waiting for night time, when Taehyung would be done with his shooting and all the customers were cleared from the restaurant. She even stayed back later than usual to help Cami clean up, in hopes that she would spill how she knew Taehyung's favorite color. When she confronted her, Cami claimed she had read it on a fan website- after all, he was a member of a moderately famous music group. However, that answer still did not convince Gio- why would Cami be going on fan websites for Taehyung's group when she wasn't particularly the type to obsess over boy bands, that was Noly's job.
"I'm a stalker, and I care about you," Cami replied, coolly as if she had not just confessed to giving her friend's potential love interest a full FBI-grade search.
"You also think something's up with Tae? Oh my God, unbelievable, of all people I trusted you-"
"Need I remind you of "Tilapia?"," Cami said, in reference to Gio's previous crush. Gio blushed, ashamed, but she was quick with a comeback.
"Oh shut up, if it were up to you, Eve would have left Adam because he 'wasn't good enough'," Gio said.
"Why do you insist on settling so much?"
"I'm not settling for just anyone," Gio said, "I found someone I genuinely like and I expected you to be happy for me."
"Okay, and I am. I just wanted to make sure he didn't have a shady past- nothing exclusive to Taehyung, I'd even stalk my own cousin if he tried to flirt with you."
"Fine, glad we cleared that up," Gio said, but she still felt somewhat upset. Her friends showed too much resistance against her relationship- could it be that they were right?
After closing, Eloy drove by to pick Gio up as usual. On Wednesdays, Nany drove her to work and Eloy picked her up to go to the movies, because the theater had a student discount. On that particular week, none of the movies seemed appealing, so Eloy and Gio decided to watch a trite romantic comedy. Gio hardly understood anything that was going on, because her thoughts were on Taehyung and his whereabouts, plus Eloy was talking on the phone the entire time, and his strange conversations with his friends were oddly intriguing. Gio swore she could not find another group of grown men in the world who could switch from talking about agriculture, to trap music, to girls and lastly, knitting. Her brother and his friends were essentially grandmothers in the hormonal bodies of 20-something-year-olds.
As they were coming out of the theater, Gio felt the urge to use the restroom. She told Eloy before going in, and he grunted in frustration, but she knew he would still wait for her. She went in just at the perfect moment, before another packed showing ended, flooding the restrooms with tons of mothers carrying young children who couldn't hold in their sodas. Gio had to squeeze her way out of the crowd of impatient toddlers and angry-middle aged yoga moms. When she reached the end of the mob, her eyes spotted something she would later regret seeing.
Taehyung was there, probably with his friends, waiting in line to see a movie- last showing of the night, and he looked as handsome as usual. She stared at him in awe for a moment, thinking wow, I'm dating this man. I'm his girlfriend.
It was strange to think of herself as someone's girlfriend, but Gio did not feel any different from how she did when she was single. Granted, she felt a little excited at the moment, but she still felt like herself, and she took that as a good sign: with or without a man her life was complete.
Gio was about to walk over and say hi when something terrible happened:
A girl with long pink hair came up to him and wrapped her arm around him.
