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[Masterpost][AO3]
[Buy Me a Coffee]
She’s sitting on a picnic table at the park with Darryl when she pulls her phone out. The big dog whines at her and she shrugs. “I know, stop judging me.”
Yoosung is alone in the chat when she enters and they’ve barely said hello when Jihyun shows up. V she corrects herself, if she kept thinking of him as Jihyun she would say something and the big secret would be revealed.
Big secret, what was 707 worried about, what could this charity group have that anyone really dangerous would want. Yet as stupid as she thought the whole situation was, it was an adventure and she was kind of eating it up. She had no doubt that, whatever his real name was, 707 was definitely more than a hacker. The surveillance on the apartment was impressive; she’d counted four cameras, found 7 different bugs not to mention a number of sensors she couldn’t identify.
Noelle barely paid attention to the chat, she should be watching it closer but that nagging feeling about V pulled at her chest and her mind begin to drift. She answered in short curt sentences, sometimes he would say something and she would think he knew and she would curse the way her heart leapt at that thought that he was thinking of her.
Throwing the party in a week didn’t seem like such a big deal but Yoosung was obviously upset, the sudden switch in his mood caught her eye and she immediately starts to mediate the chat. It’s not a big deal she tries to impart. She’s had worse deadlines, it’s not a big deal.
He knows, she hears her seventeen year old self cry again and her chest tightens watching the chat, waiting for her phone to ring, a text to sing out. Of course he knows, 707 did a background check, 707 knows about Jumin, he’d know about Jihyun.
V is gone as quickly as he arrived, barely a goodbye. She lingers at the table and tries to calm Yoosung down. Something about him resonates with the person she was and she doesn’t want to ignore him. There’s something so strange about the way they talk about this woman, even Jihyun. The reverence, more than just that she’d died, or that she’d taken her own life.
She can’t stand here with her phone out any longer, she takes Darryl back to the apartment and changes, if she’s going to start training with Nina again she’ll need to start working out.
He’s eating lunch with his father when his phone rings. Jumin excuses himself and lets his phone softly vibrate in his pocket while he finds a place where he won’t be intruding on anyone’s peace. It also brings him no small joy to make her wait.
“You’ve decided to return my calls then.”
“What?” He can clearly picture the way she would curl her lip with that tone.
“I have left you a number of voicemails,” he scolds her.
“Why wouldn’t you just call my cell phone.”
“I was concerned,” he says sardonically.
“The ringer is off,” she says. “You should have called my cell phone if you were worried.”
“It was not,” he states, “I stood outside your apartment this morning and I could hear it ringing.”
“You’re being really weird, Jumin. Why are you loitering in my building on a Sunday morning?”
“I was not loitering, I had to retrieve some paperwork from Assistant Kang.”
“God Jumin can’t she even get one day a week, doesn’t she go to church on Sundays? Leave her alone.”
He chuckles. “You’re obviously not going to tell me what you’re doing—”
“Bringing shame to the family name,” she interrupts.
He ignores her. “I assume you had a reason to interrupt my lunch.”
“Tell the old man I say Hello,” she chirps.
“The gym in your building, do I need some kind of fancy ID to use it? My membership expired like months ago and I don’t want to dip into my savings so some noodle arm asshole can try to explain an inversion table to me.”
“It is not out of the question, I could have security let you in for today, and have a new keycard made for you.”
“Everything I’ve ever said to your assistant was a lie, you truly are a caring and compassionate person,” she laughs.
“I will choose to ignore that,” he tries to sound unimpressed but he’s smiling too. “However isn’t my building out of the way?”
“It’s on the way to rehearsal, not a big deal. Some of us drive, you know? Besides it’s worth it to be totally alone.”
“When do you plan to go, should I have someone ready to let you in?”
Standing in the shower room in the gym she was torn, it looked clean, and there was almost never anyone in the gym as far as she’s ever seen. That didn’t mean that it didn’t get used and this still was basically a public shower stall. On the other hand she still had the temporary key that should work the elevator to her brother’s penthouse; she could use his shower, his huge shower with the multiple shower heads and temperature presets. She shoulders her gym bag and chances the elevator, after a short moment where she almost turns around the ground shifts and the elevator starts to move.
She finger guns one of Jumin’s security bulldogs on her way to his door, she’s sure the stern looking man is phoning Jumin as she checks her key to his door. Jumin’s cat weaves between her feet as she closes the door behind her. She kneels down in front of the cat and scratches behind her ears.
“Don’t tell your husband, alright Libby?”
Elizabeth III meows softly in response and saunters away.
She hadn’t even realized that her phone had connected to the Bluetooth in Jumin’s penthouse until she was rinsing her hair and the little display in the shower started chirping at her. Of course he’d be wired to answer calls in the shower, he barely slept, and he lived and breathed his work. It was probably Jumin anyway, wondering what she was doing in his house.
The display reads out Zen’s number however and she freezes, hesitating for a moment before she hit the answer button.
“Hey Babe, you weren’t busy were you?”
“N-nope,” she stammers, there seems a strange intimacy to answering the phone in the shower.
“Are you ok?” he asks. “Is it raining where you are?”
“No,” she says, “I’m fine, I’m just,” she freezes, does she just say it? Tell him she’s in the shower? Is that weird? “I’m in the shower.”
“Babe,” he chuckles but his voice cracks a little. “You’ll ruin your phone, call me when you’re done.”
“No,” she laughs, listening to the way he’s straining to control his voice, “I don’t have the phone in here with me dummy. My brother has Bluetooth in his shower.”
“You have a brother?” He asks, distracted for a moment.
“Yeah,” she says, of all the things for him to focus on right now.
“Do you live there?” he asks.
She smiles to herself. There’s an obvious tension in his voice. “Nope,” she shuts the water off and steps out of the shower. “He’s out, but it’s closer to the gym than my apartment,” like in the building, she thinks, “and on the way to work.”
“You work on Sundays?” He asks.
“Is something funny?” he asks.
“It’s just,” she pauses a moment to make sure she’s removed her call from the Bluetooth system, but she leaves it on speaker phone, “You started out so strong.”
“What?” He chokes a little.
“I mean you called to flirt right?” She pulls on her underwear and glances between her bra and binder, deciding on the bra before starting to braid her hair.
“Hah, you caught me,” she can almost hear him blushing.
“You sound really cute when you’re flustered,” she smiles at her reflection in the mirror. “Like a puppy.”
“Babe,” he says with an edge to his voice. “I am not a puppy, if I was there you’d see I’m a wolf.”
She snorts and covers the phone, she hopes he didn’t hear that. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” but she can hear him swallow hard.
“You couldn’t even handle talking to me on the phone while I was showering, how much of a wolf can you be?”
“It’s not,” he stammers again, “it’s just that I’m a gentleman.”
“I’d rather the wolf,” she laughs, but he was cute when he was flustered. It had only been a few days like this but she wondered if he was starting to actually like her.
She was starting to think that she might like him. Would she think that if she only knew the aloof but kind actor or if she only knew this flirting mess of a man on the other end of the phone? She hadn’t even been interested in him the few times they’d been in shows together. He was never more than professional and kind to the casts and crews he worked with but he’d always distanced himself. She’d thought it was arrogance but after the last few days and the way he’d smiled down at her that night on the stairs. Had that been the moment?
“Then what are you wearing?” He asks.
“uh-what,” she stammers caught off guard, “oh!” She smirks in the mirror. “Well I haven’t gotten dressed yet—”
“Oh,” his voice is quiet.
“Boyshorts,” she whispers “Purple boyshorts.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath and then nothing and she starts to get dressed, tanktop and bicycle shorts under a high-waisted skirt, she’d decided to go femme tonight to help her get into character, she wasn’t reading for Viola after all.
“What about,” his breath catches and she smiles to herself. As confident as he came off he was still human. It made her like him more, “your uh, your bra,” he whispers.
God how was she going to go to rehearsal and pretend like she hadn’t just had this conversation with him? She glances in the mirror and then into her shirt. “Blue I guess, it doesn’t match I hadn’t planned to wear it.”
It sounds like he’s coughing, and then she hears him apologise to someone.
“Uh, Zen, where are you right now?” She asks and she can hear the soft pad of Elizabeth jumping down from something before the door to Jumin’s penthouse opened.
“The, hmm, the train,” he admits.
She can’t help it, she bursts into cackling laughter. “I am so sorry,” she practically snorts through gasping breaths.
“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s ok. I’m sorry.”
She tries to control her laughter.
“Noelle?” Jumin calls from somewhere closer.
“I have to go Zen,” she says, still chuckling, “my brother just got back.” She doesn’t wait for him to hang up, she has to close the messenger before Jumin finds her.
She brushes past him as he makes to knock on the bathroom door.
“You look very nice,” he says following her out, “but could you explain why you were in my bathroom.”
“Your shower is a religious experience. Compared to a lukewarm possibility of foot fungus? Seems pretty obvious.” She crouches down and pats Elizabeth III again. “Who ratted on me, was it the grumpy looking guy?”
“No one ratted on you Noelle, I could hear you cackling like Doctor Frankenstein.”
“My Father is well, you know that you saw him last week.”
“I’m being polite Jumin.”
“You look uncommonly feminine,” he says gesturing to her skirt and waving his hand dismissively at her chest.
“Jesus, Jumin,” she shakes her head.
“I thought you said you weren’t in love with him.”
“What? Jumin I’m rehearsing, I’m just trying to be in character.”
He narrows his eyes at her unconvinced. “Is that so?”
“Yeah it is,” she raises an eyebrow at him, “what are you so concerned about? You’ve been weird.”
Jumin hangs his jacket over the back of a chair. “Have I?” he considers and he loosens his tie. “The same could be said of you.”
She smiles. “I’m erratic; I have mental illness, what’s your excuse.”
Jumin snorts. “Fine, we don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.”
“Jumin, I’m going to be late, I didn’t mean to take so long but—”
“Religious experience,” he says and waves her off. “It has been a long time since we’ve had dinner together, when you’ve finished this project we should do that again.”
“You’ll have to invite the old man,” she smiles.
Jumin takes her hand and she kisses his cheek before she leaves.
He frowns at her back as she closes the door and when he hears her laughing in the hallway he touches his cheek, his fingers come away covered in her dark red lipstick.
