#asc jae

The lap of your apartment seemed largely unsuccessful, as nothing had spawned to grab your interests and offer you relief from this mind numbing boredom and so, you flopped onto your bed and stared at the ceiling. You rolled onto your side with a huff and that was when you saw it. Jae’s acoustic guitar sat idly by his side of the bed, practically begging you to pick it up. You had wanted to learn to play having seen Jae’s incredible talents but you worried that, given Jae was so good, he would just laugh at you and therefore destroy your confidence before it had been there to begin with. Of course he would never do it to upset you, you two had basically built a relationship on taking the piss out of each other and so you were sure this would be no exception.

Regardless of the voices in your head advising you this probably wouldn’t end well, you picked up the guitar and plucked the strings haphazardly, sending an odd buzzing noise you had never heard a guitar make when Jae’s fingers caressed them. You took his guitar pick from his nightstand and ran it across the strings, the guitar humming more cooperatively this time round. Feeling braver, you placed your fingers on the frets like you had seen your boyfriend do so often and ran the pick across the strings again, making a higher pitched noise. You heard a cough from the doorway and almost jumped out of your skin when you saw your boyfriend, smug as you can imagine, leaning against the doorway.

‘Evening Hendrix’ he said with a glint in his eye as he pushed himself away from the doorway to stand above you.

‘Sorry, I got bored waiting for you to come home’ you said, offering up his guitar feeling like a puppy caught tearing apart the family cushions. He chuckled lightly and pushed the guitar back into your lap before sitting next to you on the edge of the bed.

‘You want me to teach you a few chords?’ he asked, shifting his weight so he was slightly behind you. You turned to him, eyebrows raised and ready to hear the catch.

‘You promise you won’t laugh at me?’ you said, reading his expression carefully.

‘Everyone starts somewhere. Okay we’ll start off with an A chord. So you want to put this finger here...’ he said, scooting closer to you so his chest was slightly against your back while his fingers intertwined with yours and placed them where you needed to be. His other arm wrapped around your body to rest his hand on top of yours, his mouth dangerously close to your ear as he pulled your hand down to make the guitar let out a seamless note.

‘See? It’s not that hard, now try without me.’ he said, removing his hands from yours leaving cold, unfulfilling air where his gentle touch had once been. You placed your fingers where he had instructed you just moments before and strummed a couple of times, each time getting a little better and cleaner.

‘There you go.’ Jae said and you swore you could see the pride bursting from his smile. ‘I didn’t even know you wanted to learn...’ he whispered, almost so quiet you didn’t hear it. ‘I guess I was just nervous because you’re so good and I didn’t want you to laugh at me.’ You suddenly realized how silly you sounded, like a 5 year old not wanting to go to ballet practice. 

‘I would never.’ he said lowly, kissing your forehead tenderly, before pulling away with a glint of mischief in his eye. 

‘I tell you what’ he started, suddenly brimming with energy at the idea of his new proposition: ‘If you promise me you’re serious about this and you’ll practice regularly, I will teach you as best as I can and you can have this guitar to practice with for now, okay?’ and he swore he could see your face light up with every word.

You threw your arms around his neck as you heard the guitar clang while you just repeated ‘thank you’ over and over and over again.

‘Hey, be careful with her’ Jae said, patting the guitar gently, ‘she’s precious’ he whispered, eyes never leaving yours as his lips ghosted over yours before pulling you in for a slow and deep kiss, his hand resting at the back of your head.