Luminous • Jisung

40 • Ice Cream

• Chapter 40 •

"I'll take her now," Haechan declared as he took Cho-a's hand, glaring at Young-hee. 

"You don't trust me at all," she noted under her breath, looked at Cho-a and nodded. "You were right, I didn't have a choice." 

"I know," Cho-a replied swiftly. Young-hee just rolled her eyes. 

"I guess I'll see you around." And without waiting for any type of response, she disappeared. Gone from one moment to the next, leaving the other two all alone. 

Once she was no longer in sight, Cho-a turned to the boy. She let out a relieved sigh as she came face to face with a bothered looking Haechan. 

He glared at her. 

"What?" 

"'What?'" he repeated in disbelief. "Are you dumb? Why did you meet her?" 

"She wanted to talk." 

"So?" he urged angrily. She took that as her cue to take a step back, gain some distance and inspect him carefully. 

He seemed stressed and hurried. 

He must have been worried. 

Cho-a bit the inside of her cheek and looked away. She felt bad.
"I didn't tell you because of how you react now-" 

"Would you have told me before then I would have let you two talk and just kept an eye on you from afar." He took the step towards her that she had made backwards before. "Then I wouldn't have worried." 

The shimmering of the lights around dipped the boy in warm colours. It threw soft shadows on his face. His skin was glowing. 

He let go of her, then pressed a finger against her forehead. "Is something in there?"

She pushed his hand away, scrunched her nose. "You're stupid." 

"Who is stupid?" he retorted quickly. 

"You should really give me more credit. I can defend myself," Cho-a reassured with flawless conviction. So it was almost weird to see that Haechan didn't care at all. 

"No." 

Ouch. 

He could've made it sound at least a little less certain and final. 

Cho-a pushed the corners of her mouth back as she grimaced. She didn't know he felt that way. Yet, he had sympathy for her. So when he saw how upset she seemed, he gave in. 

"Maybe you are strong enough to protect yourself," he corrected. "But you don't know how to use your powers. Thinking about it, you can't do much yet - and that's okay. You have us. You have me. We have been friends for years, just talk to me." 

Cho-a looked away. She felt it was unfair of him to use the I-thought-we-were-friends card right now. 

"I wanted to spare you the trouble," she said earnestly. 

Haechan rolled his eyes. "Just trouble me. I don't mind." 

Turning, he started walking along the busy sidewalk. Cho-a quickly caught up with him. 

He wasn't angry with her, of course not. It was something closer to disappointment or disapproval which wasn't much better though.

It was easy to feel the heavy atmosphere that surrounded Haechan, causing Cho-a's brain to run laps to figure out what she could say or do to brighten the mood.