s.c.s. ☆ j.jh ☆ ayakashi series | ✔

jaehyun [fifteen]

The knock that came at your door that evening startled you, mostly because you'd had adrenaline pumping through your veins for the past fifteen minutes or so— ever since Jaehyun texted you that he was on his way.

Turning to the cat that had been laid next to you on the couch, you pat his head gently, "Bye, love. I'll see you later, okay?"

Taeyong mrowed in response, just in case Jaehyun could hear him. Smiling down at him appreciatively first, you then rushed to the front door to open it. Jaehyun was there on the other side, beaming at you from above a small bouquet of white roses—half a dozen. He was dressed comfortably but not necessarily unkempt in his pair of khaki pants, nice sneakers, and large, comfy-looking hoodie.

"Hey, Y/N," he greeted you smoothly, opening his arms for you to hug him. You did, albeit with your blood still roaring in your ears.

Accepting the roses shyly, you motioned him in for a moment, "Hey. I'll put these in some water."

He closed the door behind him as he watched you open your kitchen cabinets and get on your tiptoes to reach for your singular vase. It had been something your mom had sent with you to your new apartment, despite you telling her you didn't really have flowers around ever. Too expensive to get regularly. She had argued that it'd be good to have, just in case. Looks like she was right.

Even as you strained to reach, the vase was just barely millimeters from your fingertips.

"Here, I'll—" Jaehyun moved to join you in the kitchen, presumably to get it for you with his superior height, but instead you thrusted the flowers back out to him.

"I've got this."

With an eyebrow raised, he took the roses and observed as you hopped up to kneel on your counter, easily acquiring the vase this time. You closed the cabinet and turned around, sitting down before sliding off your counter and over to your sink to fill it up.

Still a little antsy with nerves, you gestured to his clothes, "Should I bring a jacket?"

You'd been wearing a pair of long pants as well, but it was your short sleeves that worried you.

"Nah, you won't need one," he reassured you nonchalantly, and you nodded, taking his word for it.

Once the vase was full enough, you took the roses back and deposited them into the water. They made a quiet plop! sound as the stems broke the surface. Looking back up from the task to Jaehyun, you felt your chest constrict for a moment as you were caught off-guard once again by how handsome he was.

He asked, "Ready to go?"

"Yep, yep," you nodded, following behind him through your apartment. By the front door, you gave a final goodbye to Taeyong, "Bye, bud! See you when I get home!"

"Bye Tama!" Jaehyun cheerfully waved to him as well, making you giggle at how Taeyong narrowed his eyes at his cat name.

You turned to make sure to lock your door behind you, only to realize that someone was already in the process of doing so. Struggling against the opposing force for an awkward amount of time, you subtly kicked the bottom of the door with your foot, then groaned to both Jaehyun on your side and Taeyong on the other side, "Stupid door! Never does what I want it to!"

"Maybe you should have your landlord take a look at that."

"Yeah, maybe I should," you agreed facetiously as Taeyong finally seemed to understand what was happening and gave up, allowing you to smoothly lock the door. "There we go! Ready!"

☆

Jaehyun hadn't told you any details for this date other than the day and time, so you had no clue where exactly you were going until the two of you reached the base of the mountain. You brushed it off, it was a big mountain, there was no way you'd be going anywhere near the shrine. Not to mention it had the cloaking charm on it, the odds of you finding it accidentally were next to none.

He split off from the main trailhead at a less-worn path, your heart threatening to leap to your throat. There was still two-thirds of the mountain in this direction, it would be fine.

Then he took yet another familiar turn, and another after that. You weren't sure Jaehyun knew exactly where he was going, probably just looking for a clearing so you two could actually see the night sky. But nevertheless, he was still getting nail-bitingly close to the location of the shrine.

You kept your position beside him, stomach dropping as he took yet another random turn that brought you fifty feet from the shrine.

"Do you even know where we're going, Jae?" You went to tease him lightly, trying to cover up your anxiety over the possibility of him stumbling upon your Tsukumo-gami friends.

"I know exactly where we're going," he retorted fondly. "Somewhere we can see the stars."

"I think there might have been a place like five minutes back."

"No, the trees are thinning now, you see?"

Unfortunately, he was right. But still, you couldn't let him find the shrine. Not now, not tonight.

The two of you had kept trekking through the trees while you spoke, and you suddenly grabbed his arm, spinning him around to look at you. He was literally a hair's width away from the edge of the cloaking charm. A single movement backwards and the shrine would become fully visible to him.

"What's up, Y/N?" He tilted his head curiously to ask you.

"Uhm," you gulped, very clearly sensing Jungwoo and Sungchan just on the other side of the border. And surely, they could sense you too. You couldn't risk one of them coming out to see you. Shifting your eyes around, you pointed to your right, away from the shrine, "What about that way?"

Jaehyun shrugged, "Looks promising."

Holding in your sigh of relief, you started to turn in that direction. Unfortunately, the two of you had moved at the same time and bumped into each other, falling directly through the cloaking charm. You let out a rather embarrassing yelp as you fell half on top of Jaehyun and half on the ground.

"Woah, Y/N, are you okay?" He asked from below you.

But you couldn't focus on your own well-being, or your current position atop your date, or anything except for the fact that you had crossed through the cloaking charm. Scrambling to your feet, you held onto a desperate hope that maybe you could yank him away before he turned around and saw it. Until he looked around to gain his bearings once more.

"Where'd that come from?" He stared directly at the shrine.

"Uh, I don't know," you blurted out. "I saw some kind of big shadow through the trees, I think this was it."

"Huh," he looked at it with intrigue before turning to you conspiratorially. "What do you say we put stargazing on hold and go adventuring instead?"

Oh hell no. As soon as he stepped foot in the shrine, he would realize it was populated. There was a reason Jungwoo stayed up here, far away from the city and all the people there. You didn't know exactly why, but you knew you wanted to respect that.

Swallowing your pride of your reputation as Occasionally a Bad Bitch, you clutched onto his arm and squeaked out loudly, "No, Jaehyun, I don't think we should stay here."

"What's wrong?" Jaehyun looked down at you with concern.

Really leaning into it, you let your voice crack as if you were about to cry, still loudly declaring, "This place looks abandoned, it's kind of scary! What if it's haunted? Please, let's go somewhere else!"

"Okay," he immediately moved to hug you to his chest, rubbing a soothing hand up and down your back. "I'm sorry, we'll go stargaze."

Maybe sacrificing your reputation wasn't so bad.

Letting go of you, he took your hand in his to guide you back away from the shrine. You took one last look over your shoulder, spotting a candle flickering in one of the windows. Your shouting must have startled one of the inhabitants. But you couldn't dwell on it, taking off through the forest with Jaehyun.