✓ skirt lifter | hwang hyunjin

t h i r t y - o n e

c h a p t e r 31

After my spontaneous confession yesterday, it felt like the air had became more thick and everything felt a little too suffocating when I was left alone with Hyunjin. I was a fumbling mess and it didn't help that I kept stuttering every time that I had to reply to whatever stupid comments he had to make. Due to my great distress, when the car was finally slowing down to my apartment, I jumped out of the still moving car and isolated myself inside my room for the rest of the day. He had bombarded me with texts about my behaviour at night and I made sure to reply as vaguely as possible or none at all.

It seems that I haven't gotten any proper sleep ever since I met him and last night was no exception. I stayed up until the crack of dawn pondering about Yeji's question. I wasn't always fully honest about my feelings but at the rare times I do, it eats me up from the inside and my body practically begs me for some sort of release. Hence, the parkour out of the car.

After tossing and turning for 10,000 times, I finally came into terms with myself and decided to just tell him about my feelings in the morning. I had nothing to lose anyway. I wasn't expecting him to return my feelings. I was doing it for myself.

Grudgingly, I exited the bathroom while I dried my hair with the towel. My head tilts to the side when I realised that my mother was humming. Humming! And in the kitchen! Cooking!

"Mom?"

She looked up with a spatula in her hand. "Oh? Good morning!" She greeted cheerily. "I made breakfast. Eat some before you go to school."

I sat down confused, eyeing the table filled with food. "Why are you up? I could have cooked for myself." I picked up the chopsticks as she placed a fried egg on my plate.

She smiled sheepishly before sitting down in front of me. "No reason. It's been a while since I cooked for you." She looked at me gently. Feeling a little flustered at her words, I decided to stuff my mouth with rice to avoid having to reply. "Anyway, would you go straight home tonight? I have something to tell you." She joined her hands together.

I looked up from beneath my bangs before averting my gaze back to the food. "Why not now?"

"I think it can wait until later." She beamed a closed lip smile. "Eat a lot."

There was something different about the way she was acting. She seemed.. excited? I couldn't exactly pinpoint but there was definitely something up. I chose to wait until later tonight and quickly ate before bolting out of the house, making sure to thank her for cooking.

•••

Maybe it was the lack of sleep or maybe it was the extreme nervousness for having to confess but I felt like literal death when I ambled my way to school. Actually, I felt like death every time I went to school, it just so happens that it had tripled today.

I ignored all of the looks that were thrown to me as I cringed my way through the streets while I constructed a way on how to plot my own demise and calculated how much I was going to embarrass myself in front of Hyunjin.

"Miso?"

I halt in my tracks and craned my neck to see a figure jog up to me. "Uh.." I immediately racked my brain for some sort of information.