#p;firsts

starter for @chaewonrk !

eric sits with his knees curled to his chest on the couch beside chaewon, his attention split between the cartoon playing on his laptop on the coffee table and the conversation they’re having, as he can’t simply sit and watch a tv show without doing something else at the same time. he’s mindlessly chewing on gummy candy, head leant against the back of the couch. the conversation, somehow, had shifted to kisses, and what kissing is like, and when they had their first kisses. 

“i’ve... never kissed anyone.” eric admits, his cheeks reddening slightly. sure, it’s not something really to be embarrassed about (even if some people would say it very much is at his big age), but he can’t help but be a little shy about it. he’s nineteen (nearly twenty, he’d say) and yet he’s never even had his first kiss. most people have at least had their first kiss before they’ve graduated high school, and here eric having absolutely zero experience in anything romantic. 

it’s not like he never wanted to kiss anyone, or sought out the opportunity, he’d just, somehow, never managed to be in the right situation to kiss someone, or be kissed himself. no one has ever had a crush on him, to his knowledge at least, and everyone he’d ever had a crush on was far out of his league, so kissing them was very much out of the question. 

if anything, the general entity of ‘life’ has laughed at the both of them since they’ve started dating. not only was kibum quickly becoming more tied up in training (rachel swears she’s not going to complain about that- maybe only the timing of it), and the opening of rhythm nation taking up her own time outside of teaching. it was hard, genuinely- but kibum had promised, and made her promise in return, to have just one evening free so that they could go out to eat somewhere.

(she couldn’t complain about that either, they were both getting tired of her own attempts at cooking)

it’s really silly to get so worked up and anxious about going out to get food; they’ve gone before and had no trouble, but something about the knowledge they were actually together and going out now made the whole event seem that much more intimidating. (should she dress a little more nicely? the usual? she doesn’t recall ever stressing so much before.) in the end, she settles for her usual style- right now they both couldn’t really afford somewhere that was more expensive, not after splitting the bill for jaehyun’s celebratory dinner and the tip that inho nearly demanded just for having to put up with them. 

kibum picks the restaurant at her request, simply because rachel still doesn’t know how to navigate the district well enough to, and thankfully it’s not extremely far. she has to stifle a laugh at where they end of being seated, though, as it seems just a little more tucked away than the other tables. she’s tempted to point that out to kibum, but instead wonders if he’s just as conscious as she is of their surroundings (then again, she’s always been more conscious of that in general), but settles instead to gaze at the menu, because god knows it would take her ten minutes just to read the first two pages of entrees and options.