Cat Boy

14 | all tied up

"Did you ever go on that second date?"

The question is not one Daehyun hears every day—in fact, it's a question she's never heard before in her life. At least, not addressed directly to her. She might have heard it in a movie or something, but details, details. The point is, it's not a question she hears every day. It's just not a likely question. Even less likely when Vernon's the one asking it.

"Whaaaaat?" She draws out the word like a bowstring, adding a little nervous laugh after, and chokes at the end of it. Vernon's eyes widen fractionally at that, the way they do when he's taken aback or anxious, and she waves a hand vaguely to turn down the bottle he offers her.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

"I think so," she answers honestly. "I'm just a little—why? What do you mean? I just, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." She laughs nervously again, a short chuckle which sounds like a staccato note. "No idea."

"I was talking about Wonpil." He turns his eyes back to the notebook, and stares at it with his brow slightly furrowed in an expression of intense concentration that refuses to waver even when he's talking during it. He does it a lot, she's noticed, but it seems more like a way to avoid eye contact (another thing she's noticed he hates) and pretend he's doing something important. "About whether you guys have gone on a second date yet."

"Well, I—" She bites her lip, thinking, then cuts off with a sigh when she realizes she truly has no idea what to say. "We haven't gone on a second date. We actually haven't even gotten to talk properly after the first one—wait." She narrows her eyes at him. "Why are you asking me this?"

It's a slow day at the café despite it being a weekend, and the two are holed up in Vernon's room, or his bed, to be more specific. September brings with it the promise of a chill, and though it's far from a rainy day, the skies outside are gray and Vernon's feet are covered in gray ankle socks with little lightning bolts on them. His flannel shirt of the day is loose and dips a little at the neck, exposing the delicate outline of his collarbone as he reaches forward to pluck a book from across the bed.

"Because I can," he says, and Daehyun notes how it's been forty seconds since she asked him the question in the first place. He looks as solemn as ever, though, and his voice doesn't waver one bit when he finally speaks. "Friends ask each other stuff."

"I wouldn't know," she replies with a lazy, self-deprecating smile she doesn't mean. "I'm friendless and alone."

He gives her a look. "What am I, a bagel?"

"No, you're a kitty." She reaches over to ruffle his hair, and he scrunches his nose up with a crinkled smile as he pulls back and swats her hand away.

"And you're deflecting," he retorts, looking significantly less high-strung than before. His eyes flit over Daehyun's face, and she realizes he's trying to look at her, so she turns away so he can do it without feeling awkward. "Do you not like people?"

"You don't like people," she says, then bites her lip thoughtfully. "It's not that I don't like people. I do. I just never seem to want to stick with someone, though. Detaching yourself from someone is easy if you were never really attached in the first place."

"Why would you want to detach yourself?" Vernon asks. "Do you have a terminal illness or something?"

She rolls her eyes playfully and flops back down on the bed, tapping the end of her pencil against her lips. "I don't know." She shrugs. "I keep thinking that they'll tie me down—which wouldn't be that much of a problem, really, but what if they left right in the middle?" Vernon frowns at that. "If I was all tied up and they weren't so they just—left?"