Fate's Little Bell

Chapter 8

 He finally texted me two days later, on Thursday. It was the Thursday before their comeback and I was thoroughly drowning in excitement alongside my friends.

When my phone buzzed with a notification from an unknown number, I did a little happy dance and promptly shut myself up in my room. I clicked on it, and wisely turned off the "send read notifications" so that I could take as long as I needed to respond to stuff without leaving him on read or seeming suspicious.

"Hi," he'd sent. "This is Jeongguk. Namjoon gave me your number."

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I grinned like an idiot. I started typing, then deleted it all, then typed again. Eventually I wound up with, "Hi. I'm glad you finally texted me. How are you?" After asking Prudence and Helena for approval (they thought it was fine), I sent it, impatiently staring at my phone as I waited for a response.

After approximately thirty seconds that felt more like a century, he responded.

"I'm good. And you?"

I blinked for a couple seconds. This is so awkward, I thought. While I was trying to come up with something to say that would make this less awkward, he sent another text.

"I'm sorry for making you wait."

I grinned, feeling a stupid blush spread across my face. Throwing myself against my pillows, I replied, "It's okay, it was worth the wait. And I'm good. Definitely better now."

After about a minute (a very anxious minute on my part), he responded.

"Good. Also, I'm taking a long time to answer because I'm translating stuff. I don't want to say something wrong. Sorry about that."

I let out a sigh that I didn't even realize I was holding. "That's totally fine! It made me a little nervous at first, but now that I know, it makes so much sense. It's all good."

"Ok. Good," he said.

"What are you doing right now?" I asked.

"Sitting in my hotel room trying to think of something to draw."

I laughed as a ridiculous idea popped into my head. After convening with the group chat and receiving approval, I returned to messages and started typing.

"You could draw me," I sent, following it by a couple laughing faces.

After a couple moments he responded. "Haha it'll probably turn out horribly, but I will try if you want me to."

"I mean, it'd definitely be cool, but don't do it unless you really want to." I thought of five million other things I could say, but before I could type another word, my phone lit up.

"No it's okay I want to. I'm going to use a picture as a reference though. So if you don't want me drawing you from the one we took the other day, send me a different one."

I did a little happy dance. "Ok hold on time for me to find a picture where I actually look decent," I said, adding a laughing face before jumping into photos and scrolling.

After finally locating a decent picture of me, I sent it to him and quickly exited out of photos. When he finally responded, I squealed so loud I was certain my mom would come in wondering what the heck was going on. Thankfully she did not.

"I like your braids," he said. "And I think you look perfectly cute in the other picture too."

"Thank you," I replied, adding a cute blushy face.

"You're welcome. If I'm gonna draw though, I won't really be able to text you...."

Hmmm, I thought, then took a chance. "Well, we could talk on the phone instead. If you want to, I mean."