"Jinhee?"

I heard Taehyung called my name and swayed his hand in front of my face to shake me out from my reverie. But I just stared at him with widened eyes, too flabbergasted to say anything.

"Do you... remember anything?" He asked, looking at me with a careful, yet hopeful gaze.

I blinked and came back into my senses when my brain had slowly processed every foreign sentiment of the unexpected kiss. The wrap of his arm around my waist, the gentle stroke of his fingers burning on my skin, and the ardent touch of his lips traced against mine—everything felt so surreal.

It was as if I had a palpable dream about it before, and now it just felt like a deja vu.

Dare I say, a crazy kind of deja vu.

With my cheeks flushed red, I backed away a little from him as I felt an inexplicable sensation overwhelmed inside my heart.

But on top of that, I felt like I was downright dumbfounded by the situation. Silent anger began to envelop around my senses, making my fingers curl into a fist.

"Aw, come on, baby girl... Don't look so surprised. It's not even our first kiss." Taehyung chuckled impishly as he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and gave me a quick peck on the lips—for the second time.

And I finally snapped.

So, without any hesitation, I channeled all the strengths that I had in my system into grabbing Taehyung's arm, throwing him over my shoulder and finally goal him out of the dressing room.

When I had brought my breathing rate to normal, I stepped out from the dressing room with one hand on my hips, and there... I saw the undeniably handsome victim of mine, whining out his pain on the ground with the instinctive martial art move I just did.

But when he took notice of my presence in front of him, the crease on his forehead instantly disappeared, and eventually, the corner of his lips rose as he burst out into laughter.

"Jinhee-ah... Goodness, you're feistyy." He drawled out in his laughter while rubbing his bottom, looking like he was genuinely entertained by the entire situation.

But at that moment, I could also tell that beyond his blithe expression, he was actually quite shocked by my audacity.

Despite it was the second time of throwing him over to the ground, I found myself silently huffed out a sigh of relief, because at least Taehyung didn't give me that one painful look—the one that actually broke my heart whenever the memory of hurting him on the night of Billboard flashed into my mind.

I was so afraid of witnessing such heartbreaking look on his face for the second time, so at this moment, when the plain shock that was displayed on his face was quickly replaced with his casual demeanor, I strangely felt relieved that I didn't carve another unintended scar in his heart.

And probably, that's the last thing that I ever wanted to happen in my life again.

I pushed my hair back and took another deep breath, attempt to compose my self-equilibrium before I looked at him with a stern gaze. "I swear, Taehyung. If you dare to do that again–"

"Jinhee, what's going on here?"

I turned to the worried voice of Namjoon as he was fast approaching us, his widened eyes shifted in between Taehyung and me alternately in confusion. When Taehyung let out another soft whimper, Namjoon quickly came to his aid and helped him up.

"Namjoon, Taehyung ki–" I immediately stopped myself from whining out when I had finally came back into my senses and realized where I was again.

PUMA photo shoot with BTS. First day of being BTS's stylist. And I had just smacked down one of the members out of annoyance. Oh God, what was I even doing?

The tips of my ears began to burn as I slowly took in the heavy scrutiny from every pair of eyes in the scene, and I found myself bowing my head at the inadvertent chaos that I had caused.

"Taehyung... what?" Namjoon raised a questioning brow at my abruptness.

But instead of explaining to the leader, I just bit my lip nervously as I didn't know how to clarify the situation. There's no way in hell that I'd whine out about Taehyung's mischievousness act. I knew I'd only dig my own grave by kissing and telling.

And so, I darted my eyes towards Taehyung, silently asking him to take responsibility to amend the situation. But I almost let out an incredulous scoff when I saw an innocent grin slowly crept up on his face, as though he tried to escape from any suspicion of guilt under the leader's eyes.

"Nothing, hyung. She was just helping me with my clothes... But Jinhee being her wild self, I kinda tripped over the door." Taehyung quickly covered up the awkwardness with a white lie, but his hand subconsciously ruffling his hot-toffee hair in an obvious manner.

A frown slowly formed on my face upon hearing his fake reasoning, because I truly did not appreciate how he just labelled me being wild with my hidden martial art. But seeing how he just gave out the most logical fib in the moment of crisis, I just rolled my eyes and decided to look past it.

"It's her first day. So go easy on her, you brat." Namjoon scolded Taehyung and smacked the back of his head with a 'I'm so done with you' look, as though he suspected Taehyung had done something to me.

I smirked internally, while it was Taehyung's turn to frown over the leader's treatment towards him.

Thank you for the smack, Namjoon.

"Hyung, I am going easy on her. In fact, I just gave her a welcome gift." Taehyung rubbed the slight pain that Namjoon had left on his head, his dark brows furrowed in frustration as he tried his best to defend himself.

"What kind of welcome gift?" Namjoon asked, genuinely curious as he crossed his arms over his wide chest, his voice sounded like he was still doubting Taehyung.

Welcome gift—the kiss.

I fidgeted in uneasiness as I could feel a dim flush raced across my cheeks. It felt like suddenly I had a fever, so I took a soundless step back, desperately hoping that Taehyung wouldn't spill out anything to tease me any further.

"A warm one."

That three simple words from Taehyung shortened my breath. I looked up at Taehyung nervously, but when I saw his lips stretched into a playful smile, an eccentric rhythm pounded against my chest, cold sweat began to dot on my forehead.

"And how exactly did you welcome her with a warm gift?" Namjoon raised his crescent brow, taking turns to look at Taehyung and me like an inspector.

Taehyung let out a deep chuckle, his face dropped a little as he shook his head at the leader's inquiry. "Nah uh, wrong question, hyung."

Namjoon blinked in confusion upon hearing the mysterious utterance from Taehyung. But Taehyung didn't bother to look at the confused leader, because he only lifted his meaningful gaze to look at me through his dark fringe.

"The real question is..." He trailed off, taking the luxury of time to run through his tongue over his bottom lip and smirked at me, "Do you like the welcome gift, Jinhee?"

That sudden inquiry from him felt like a deafening bomb just exploded in my mind. I couldn't utter out a word as I stared at him with widened eyes. As the minute passed, I found myself biting onto my lip to suppress the unbearable embarrassment that was spreading inside my whole system.

How I wish the ground could just swallow me whole, because I know I was now blushing feverishly in front of all the staff. Some of them even looked like they were genuinely curious about the gift, and at this moment, they were greatly anticipating on my answer.

It seemed like Taehyung always had his way to get the things that he wanted. Because he looked like he only did this on purpose. Because he knew he would only be waiting in vain to hear the exact answer that he wanted, and so he decided to squeeze out the answer of 'Of course, I like your gift' from me in front of the public.

"Kim Taehyung. Be serious, would you? We are in the middle of photo shooting."

In the midst of contemplating how to save myself from the turmoil, a dark voice spoke from the corner. All eyes that were on me a second ago now shifted to the strong, husky voice. From confusion, the presence of that particular someone spiked up the tension in the room. I could almost feel everyone recoiling away from the very person.

"Namjoon, Tae, it's your turn!" Hoseok exclaimed in a bright tone as he wrapped one arm around Yoongi's shoulder, as though trying to calm down the annoyed-looking older guy that almost scared everyone away with his deep voice.

But at the same time, Hoseok's rounded eyes were signalling Namjoon and Taehyung to make their escape, as if he was telling everyone that Yoongi was not in a good mood, and no one should try to approach the beast now, unless they have a death wish.

"A-alright, hyung." Namjoon and Taehyung spoke at the same time in an almost nervous tone before they scampered their ways into the studio.

As the photo shooting session continued, I found myself walking towards the artist's chair named Min Yoongi, while the man himself stayed static on the chair, lazily scrolling down onto his phone.

"Thank you, Yoongi-ssi." I approached him from behind and gave him a sachet of red ginseng drink, because he looked like he really needed one to bring color to his pale features.

For a brief second, I could have sworn I saw his shoulders tensed up a little at my presence. Then he leaned back, slowly relaxing. With his expression a mask of stone, he took the sachet from me and held it up as a thanking sign before he used his teeth to sliver the top part.

"For what?" His deep voice muffled a little as he let the red ginger sachet hung down his mouth, sucking on it at times when he felt like it.

"For whatever good intentions that you had a moment ago," I told him, not sparing him a glance as well. I just silently stood beside him and watched how Namjoon and Taehyung were showing off their charms and elation in the set.

When silence followed after, I turned to look at Yoongi and saw that he was looking back at me. But his countenance was still immobile, and it was starting to get internally frustrating because I couldn't figure him out like an open book. I had to admit, Yoongi was indeed difficult.

What's he thinking about? Did he still holding a grudge against me for pushing him away in New York?

"I'm only telling Taehyung to act professional on doing his job. I didn't scold him for you. Don't try to make this into something else," He coldly spat, giving me a lazy glare before he looked away and busied himself with his phone again.

Yup, he's definitely holding a grudge.

I wasn't surprise to witness his impassive attitude once again. I was ready for whatever painful words that were thrown to me and cut through my heart without any mercy—just like how I really deserved it for hurting them.

"Sure, your highness." I drawled out in a casual tone, mocking a curtsy with my imaginary skirt.

At that moment, I could almost feel his movement halted in air, and the veins on his temple threatened to pop out. Probably he didn't expect of my daring attempt, and now he was annoyed by my nonchalance of the situation. I mentally smiled in triumph.

"Okay boys, group photo!" The director called out from the distance once he was done taking good shots of Namjoon and Taehyung.

Jin, Hoseok, Jimin and Jungkook who were leisurely hanging out at the buffet heard the director, and so they quickly shoved the remaining foods on their hands and walked into the set with sheepish smiles.

The make-up stylist shook their heads, as though they were so used with the situation that they always needed to fix the boys' makeup whenever they decorated their faces artistically with food crumbs.

"Mia, can you help me add some accessories on Yoongi? He looks 'naked' somehow." Haejong unnie who was busy fixing Jimin's shirt pouted her lips a little, looking bothered with Yoongi's appearance.

Then she looked at me with a hopeful gaze, as though asking me to cast a magical spell on Yoongi so that he'd look amazing in the photos.

Upon hearing the small favor from Haejong unnie, Yoongi stood up and hastily took away the sachet off his mouth.

"Noona, I don't need–"

"Now, now, Yoongi-ssi. Didn't we just discuss about professionalism?" I cut Yoongi off and reminded him of his own words when he was about to do his little whining. A wide, winning smile slowly spread across my face as I raised an eyebrow at him.

In that second, Yoongi looked quite taken aback by my words, but after a while, he just rolled his eyes and stood still in front of me, his gaze looking at anywhere else but me.

Once again, I smiled at him. I reached for the accessories box and trailed my hands over the cold surface of the silver accessories. It wouldn't look good to add a big piece of accessories now that he was in a sportswear, so I chose a small piece of feather-shaped silver earring that would be good enough to compliment Yoongi's features.

When I stepped closer towards him, I noticed how Yoongi looked away and rubbed his neck awkwardly. I couldn't read his expression, but he somehow looked nervous with the close proximity, and at such sight, it made me hold back a smile.

"What happened between you and Jinhee?" I asked quietly as I carefully studded the earring on his earlobe.

When I looked at him again, I saw a hint of surprise flickered across his dark eyes, as though he couldn't believe that I'd be the first one to bring up the topic of Kim Jinhee.

"I mean, you wrote something at the back of the picture... About your mother..." I continued explaining in a meek voice when his gaze was piercing into mine the whole minute I was speaking. The air around us was starting to feel heavy on my shoulders.

"Why do you want to know?" He retorted in a defensive voice that made me flinch a little, a shiver coursed down my spine when he brought his face closer to mine.

When I had done putting the earring on him, I took a step back in urgent. A tinge of regret blemished over my heart for mentioning about Jinhee, because right now, Yoongi looked like he wouldn't let me get away so easily until he got the answers that he had hopefully wish for.

"Since you wrote it and sent it to me, I figured it's something that I should know," I answered him in a pretend calm. I couldn't even understand why, but we were now staring at each other with so much intensity.

"Do you have any intention of going back to be Jinhee?" 

I froze upon hearing his sudden inquiry. For a whole minute, I looked at him with widened eyes, didn't expect that he'd straight out questioning about my identity.

I silently gulped down the lump that formed in my throat. The turmoil in my stomach insisted when I saw Yoongi arched his brow dangerously, waiting for my reply, but when I couldn't come up with anything, he chuckled bitterly, taking my silence as an answer.

"If no, then it's better for you not to know anything. It wouldn't change the fact that you are going to leave us someday." His expression was so dark, that I noticed how his jaw tightened in repressed pain.

"Jinhee meant something to us. Do not mention her name if you are just going to snoop around and hurt us again." Yoongi planted that long, meaningful look on me before he threw the sachet into the trash can and walked away into the set.

I silently watched him walked away and unknowingly clutched onto my heart. It felt like a massive weight was crushing my heart all at once, but at the same time, I couldn't fathom why I was tongue-tied at the mere question.

Was it because Yoongi looked so adamant on blocking me out as long as I refused to be the Jinhee that he wanted? Or was it because I wasn't ready to shed the skin of being Kwon Mia?

With a huff of helpless sigh, I turned around and hid my face in the shadowed space of the place, knowing that...

The restrained pool of crystal tears finally cascaded down my cheeks.

A U T H O R ' S  N O T E

Thank you for the support, always.
🌹

~*~

T E A S E R

"Stop treating me like I can't handle myself. I'm not weak."

"That sounds like something Kim Jinhee would say."