cherry bomb › nct

04 | mistaken

PANDORA'S BOX
10:56 PM, MONDAY

LIU YANGYANG'S VIEW。

"Does she know...?" I whisper lowly towards Xiaojun who sipped onto the glass.

He hums, chuckling a bit, "Maybe?"

My nerves began wrecking in as my eyes widened, "M-Maybe? What should we do now? Are we gonna retreat? What would Taeyong-hyung say!" I say in a panicked voice.

Xiaojun smacked the back of my head and I yelped, "Hey!"

He laughed, "Don't panic, Yang."

"But–"

"We know what to do, we always do, remember?"

"How would you even get her to trust you?" I scoffed as my eyes trailed onto the bartender who was attending few costumers from afar, "Seems like she knows what we are."

Xiaojun clicked his tongue, "She just sensed something suspicious from us, we need to prove that we just came here for drinks!"

I gave him a nervous smile, "Are you sure she's going to fall for that?"

He hums, "I've done it before..." he trails off slowly, "...to Dasom and look where that got us."

"But, Dasom's different, we took her in because—"

A cough cut my sentence off, quickly averting my gaze to the person, I locked eyes with the head bartender.

"So," she started off, "what are you two still doing here?"

Xiaojun and I looked at each other before chuckling, "Sorry, but if you think we're here for something else, no, we're not." Xiaojun said in a soft voice.

Is he trying to...

My eyes switched onto her name plate, Cerise.

Keiko scrunched her nose cutely, giving us an unconvinced look, "Well, I'm sorry to have mistaken you... I guess." she mumbles and grabbed Xiaojun's now empty glass.

"Your name is... Cerise?" Xiaojun points out in an unsure tone.

Keiko's eyes went wide for a second before looking down at her name pin, "Right. Yes, I'm the head bartender and owner of this place. My name is Cerise." she gives us a smile before walking off, "If you need anything, just call me."

"Kirsche." I mutter.

"Is that cherry?" Xiaojun turns to me after hearing what I said and I nodded.

Slumping my shoulders in disappointment, "What should we do now? This looks like it would take awhile." I mutter and finish up my drink.

Xiaojun huffed, "I'm not gonna back down on this, I'll make her trust us, one way or another." he spat darkly.

I squinted my eyes at him, "What do you even mean..."

"Taeyong-hyung said, if we don't end up getting her to trust us in a few days, we'll have to get Jungwoo–"

"No!" I refused quickly, "What if he uses that manipulative thing he has on her."