Hairstyle | nct

Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

I had fantasies of my crush before. Many as a kid, not so much as a young adult. But still, I would have fantasies of them.

But I would never have imagined sitting across Lucas at a café—that likened to a restaurant more—like this. He was sitting there, examining the menu very intently and not saying a word. He pointed at different things on the menu and looked like he was weighing in his options. Then, he looked up and met my eyes. "You already decided?" he asked me.

"I, uhh..." I let my sentence trail over and reexamined the menu. I pointed at a tuna sandwich. "I'm getting this."

He looked at my menu. "That's it? Are you sure?"

"I'm not very hungry." When I saw him look at me with a slight pout—he was trying not to be obvious but I could see the corner of his lips falling—I immediately added, "And I'll get a big milkshake. So I'll be full. And I might steal of some of your food. Or maybe I shouldn't have told you that."

He laughed. "Sure. No problem. I'll be happy to have you steal some of my food."

I just smiled at him.

After we relayed our orders to the waiter—this was why it likened to a restaurant more than a café—we sat in silence for a long two minutes. Neither of us said anything. Neither of us wanted to break the silence either. Either that or neither of us knew what to say. But after a while, Lucas was the one who broke it by saying, "You seem different, Jinseo."

"How so?" I asked him.

He leaned forward, placing his hands on the table and shrugged. A boyish grin fell on his lips. "I don't know. You just seem different. You look different too. It's your hair. You really look good with it."

"Thanks," I said, unsure what else to say. "I like your hair too. You styled it well. And you grew it out?" The last time I saw him, his head was shaved.

He touched his hair and ran his hand through it. "Yeah. A lot has changed, hasn't it?"

I was silent for a moment. "Yeah."

Lucas didn't say anything after that so I knew that it was the end of the conversation. He wasn't going to bring up the topic anymore. He wasn't going to talk about why he ghosted me all of a sudden and ignored me like I was air. But it was OK. I was OK with that.

Our food finally came and we ate in silence for most of the times. We cracked jokes here and there and we laughed and suddenly, silence was the last thing that surrounded us. I'd steal his food when he wasn't looking but he wouldn't do the same to me because all I ate was a sandwich. But he did steal a sip or two from my milkshake when I wasn't looking. I scolded him but he only laughed at me.

"You're cute," Lucas said all of a sudden.

I slowly stopped laughing and looked at him seriously. "What?"

He rested his head on his palm and looked at me with a smile. "I said you were cute."

Everything inside of me just stopped processing. Was this healthy? It didn't seem so. Not while I was second guessing my feelings about him. I was hurt before. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through that again.

"Thanks," I decided to say after a while.

Lucas had this easy smile on his face—like everything was so easy. He hadn't removed his hand from his palm and continued to stare at me. I pretended like I didn't notice and kept looking elsewhere. The silence was killing me and all I wanted to do is excuse myself from the toilet. But the café/restaurant didn't have a toilet and the nearest one was near our sticker store, all the way on the other side of the third floor. I didn't want to leave Lucas for that long as it might be rude.