Fate's Little Bell

Chapter 44

Jeongguk

Jane looked even prettier in her bridesmaid's dress than she had in her dress from yesterday. Even with a fine sheen of sweat on her cheekbones from both the humidity and running around the church, checking that all the bouquets and garlands of white roses were in the right place, she looked like an angel. If angels wore pink, anyway.

It was hard to concentrate on getting ready when every couple minutes I'd see her run past, out of the corner of my eye, her bare feet barely touching the ground as she dashed about, a messy ponytail swinging from side to side, a few stray strands clinging to her bare shoulders. It probably would've been smarter if she'd waited to put the dress on, but with less than an hour until guests started arriving, it seemed silly to say something now.

She'd been gone for a while and I was starting to wonder if she'd finally run out of things to do when she ran right into the men's dressing room. The door had been open anyway, which is why I'd been able to see her running past all those times, but it was still a bit of a shock to look up randomly from my phone and see her standing in the midst of eight men.

"Hi, sorry," she said, her small gap of cleavage becoming more and more distracting with every breath she took. It took every ounce of willpower I had to stay focused on her pretty, if sweaty, face. "Prudence sent me to make sure all of you had tied your ties properly."

Her eyes traveled over us, her face growing ever more appalled as she finished surveying us. I glanced around the room, trying to see what exactly was the problem. Our ties looked fine to me.

"Okay, yeah, this is not going to do," she declared, huffing with exasperation at our apparent inability to tie our own ties. "Jeez, what would you guys do without me?"

She started on the other side of the room, systematically untying each man's tie and then quickly, but carefully retying them, asking each time if she'd made it too tight and gently loosening it if she had. As she neared me, a bizarre euphoria filled me at the prospect of her being so close. At the prospect of her soft, little hands brushing against my neck.

Fuck. I dislodged the thought from my brain, fighting back the anticipatory blush that I knew was going to spread across my face any moment.

She was next to me now, working on Yoongi's tie. It was getting really hard to concentrate, and I was doing my best to focus on anything that wasn't her — or Jimin across the room, smirking at me.

Turning towards me, she paused for a second before approaching. Her face was slightly pink, but it was hard to tell whether it was from all her running around or some other cause. She lifted her hand, and I didn't fail to notice the way it shook slightly. But then her fingers brushed across the soft silk and they became steady again, gently sliding the knot out.

I stared at the door, keeping my face as blank as I could, not failing to notice the way everyone else in the room was staring at us.

It was so hard to keep my eyes off her, to refrain from taking in the sharp dips of her collar bones and the pale, unmarked skin that finally, disappointingly, disappeared under her dress. What in the world was her fiancé doing? Didn't he want to make it clear that she belongs to him? I mean, if it was me, I'd—

No, no, no, bad Jeongguk. Let's not think about that, I thought, glancing up at the ceiling. I swallowed, realizing a moment too late that Jane probably saw that, not to mention everyone else in the room, who would surely interpret that in the dirtiest way possible.

But that was nothing compared to when the side of her pinky brushed against my neck, rupturing my very sanity. I managed to hold back from shuddering, but she definitely heard my whimper, her eyes shooting up to meet mine.