#012. // * 「 vincent. 」 replies.

[sadnightforus]

THE FATED STARS (PJS) | SMAU

012 - THE RECORD STORE HANGOUT

Park Jongseong harbors the biggest crush on one of the most popular girls on the campus, you. You, being dared by your friend group to tweet and made a boyfriend application, initially started out as a joke, thinking that no one would applied it. Upon the tweet going viral and many applications being sent in, he decided that he would shoot his shot, even if he doesn’t know a single shit about what is the sun, moon, rising in astronomy. 

WARNINGS: cuss words in the smau part

A/N: it took me days to write this

TAGLIST: @hoondiors

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WRITTEN PART OF THE STORY BELOW!

WORD COUNT: 2796

WARNINGS: none

Jay gets to the record store faster than you expect him to.

 You see him outside of the store, through the glass window that showcases the wide range of musical collections that they’re selling. You decide not to alert him that you’re here and so you push the door to get into the shop, swiftly. 

 Intuitively, he quickly turns his head to look at you and he is mesmerized by your appearance. You look close to perfection, no you’re the perfection. 

He feels his face getting hot in your presence. 

“Wow.. it’s like you’re Aphrodite.” 

 Your little smile that you give to Jay as soon as you enter the shop is now replaced by the biggest surprised face and in a way, that manages to flatter your heart. You certainly haven’t received this kind of compliment before, which shocked you.

 In a way, you like the way that Jay openly expresses his longing for you.

“Thank you. You look like a Greek god himself, handsome.”

 And his face has a hue of redness all over due to this. But that makeup hides it. 

 Or so he thinks.

“Y-yeah.” He turns to look at you. “Do you want to take a look at these vinyls?” 

“Sure.” You nod, eyes glistening at the collection in front of you. 

 Truthfully, you haven’t been to this particular store in years now. The last time you went was when you were full of hope and aspirations in middle school (9th grade). You don’t know how and when you turn into a person who becomes reluctant to meet new people when you used to be quite a social butterfly. 

 You supposed that you’ve grown up and changed, but something tells you that it’s not entirely the reasoning behind your change of character. 

“I love The Smiths.” You voice out, mischievously referencing one of your favorite movies, 500 days of summer. 

“Hmm?” Either Jay is clueless or he’s playing along too. 

“I said I love The Smiths.” You repeat your words, this time increasingly louder but not enough to catch the attention of other people. However; you’re skeptical of the man in front of you who seems to not know what you’re referencing. “Wait, do you really not know who The Smiths are?” You then question the absurdity, finding it hard to believe a bit. 

“I do. But aren’t we quoting Tom and Summer?” He has a small smile tugs on his face, with eyes glint of hope as he looks at you. 

“Umm hmm.” You hum, satisfied.

“Do you listen to St. Vincent?” He asks. 

“I think you’re gay.” You point out, squint your eyes to analyze him and he swears he’s falling in love all over again. You nod as you reply with a “But yeah, I do.” 

“If I am a gay man, I would still be crushing on you.” He sasses and you have to completely suppress the ugliest gasp laughing you could’ve made for the sake of proper manners with his statement. 

“No way did you just say that.” You reply. “That’s like, a free conversion therapy.” You pretend to be offended by his comment. 

“It might be one.” He teases you. “Because you turn me from someone who has never been in love with someone before to literally losing my shit when I meet you.” He heartily confesses and you swear you almost fall to the ground because of the way he says it and of course, the eye contact that shows he means what he says.

“And you’ve been stuttering like crazy all this time when you met me because of what?” You gasp, noticing he’s getting bolder with each flirtatious response he sends your way.

 You have to one up him. You absolutely cannot let him win. 

 Then you have your lightbulb moment. 

 You will play a sick game, the one where you know will get him in a trance.

 You step closer to him, instead, facing him as you were previously standing beside him. Your face plant with a wicked smile, begin your work as you decide to do this and let your instincts win. 

 You’ll probably regret it later with the way you’d ask god why Jay is suddenly becoming an unbearable man to be around with the man he’d cling around for your attention around the campus later.

 But you won’t ever try to overthink this much ahead, because it just seems ridiculous when explaining it. 

 It starts off innocently enough, with your delicate fingers suddenly making their way on his arm, then your fingertips make contact with his skin, barely making it, as if to leave him wanting for more.

And you render him speechless with the way you come with this bold approach as his brain is not only blank and in a hazy state due to the constant stimulation of the ghosting yet such addictive electrifying sensation that sends chills from his skin down to his very skeleton and processes itself to his consciousness. 

 He swears he died and went to heaven that moment.

 And god, the eye contact you held with him was strong and intense. Your eyes never once divert to any other place other than directly into him, to thoroughly read his soul. To make him give his soul to you. 

 And that pretty smirk you have, knowing you win over him with this trick alone. 

“Do you like it?” You ask in a whispery tone, knowing it’ll get his head spinning. 

 This is nothing like other people had described, you turned his brain into a puddle of thoughtlessness, where the only thing he knows and aware of is you. 

 You. 

 You. 

 You. 

 You. 

 You who drive him insane and got him into this stupid mess. 

 He’s doomed from the start and with this heaven on earth experience too? How would he recover? 

“You okay?” 

 You taunt him, with a smirk on your face just as you pull away. And now he’s back to normal and he doesn’t know how to feel about that. 

“Um- uhm-…” He is wide eyed, shocked when things go back to normal. 

“I’m fine. Let’s continue looking for CDs.” 

 He considers slapping himself but that would make it too obvious. He eventually resorts to pinching himself on his arm just to make sure he’s not too far gone. 

 You both take a walk around the store, often stopping to talk about the artists you both enjoy. It’s evident that he enjoys music a lot, but so more of an rnb guy, while you’re more of a pop girl who occasionally enjoys everything in between. 

“Do you know Carly Rae Jepsen?” 

“I know her from ‘Call Me Maybe’ song. Maybe you should hit up my line.” He smirks. 

“Hey! Who told you to be that smooth?” You playfully slap his arm in a lighter way so it doesn’t hurt him. 

“But seriously, you should give her a try. Like ‘Want You In My Room’ is great.” You explain to him, pointing at the ‘Dedicated’ album. Truthfully, you’ve seen Mariah Carey’s album and you’ve been wanting to buy some as you haven’t had ‘Mariah Carey’, her debut album and some of her earlier works. 

“If I didn’t know any further, I’d say you’re flirting with me.”

“What if I really do, Park Jongseong?” 

“Then I wouldn’t mind.” 

“I’m gonna be honest with you right now, but I run out of pickup line responses. Let’s stick to talking about music.” You say, trying to avoid flirting with him because your heart is violently beating in your chest and you don’t like how he makes you blush so easily and so often. 

 It’s so infuriating that he gets the upperhand today. 

“You got that pickup generator installed in you?” He teases, aware of your awkwardness when stuck in or encounters romantic situations for way too long. 

“You make it sound like I got no bitches because all of my flirting tactics came from Reddit.” You pout, pretending to be offended by what he says. 

“I did not say that— Hold up…? You went on Reddit for love advice?” 

“Can you leave me and my lack of romance knowledge alone?” You beg for him to drop this because the more you talk, the more loser you seem to be. “I’m not a loser, I just haven’t dated in awhile.” You clarify, to sound less pathetic than you do. 

 He chuckles as he thinks to himself, you’re so fucking cute. 

“Okay, okay fine.” 

 Thank god that he decided to drop that. You don’t know when your breaking point will be if this is who you are dealing with today. 

 And you both didn’t talk much after that, only looking at the vinyls and albums that they display around the room. You came to discover that he does in fact, also listen to Kpop songs like you too, although you both are more heavily focused on the pop music scene. 

You pick up a vinyl from After Hours by The Weeknd. You don’t say anything as you walk to the counter, leaving Jay scandalized and afraid that you’re gonna walk out on him. You place the item for them to check it out, which brings you to a total of 50$.

 You quietly pay as you say your ‘thank you's' to the store owner then return back to your spot earlier, which now has some more people coming in and they seem to be a music lover too.

 You give it to Jay, monotonously saying “This is for you.” trying to hide the fact you thought of him when you listen to Abel Tesfaye. He looks shocked, at first, trying to refuse but initially gave up after a while and he utters out ‘Thank you’ so many times that you think you broke the poor man. And what’s wrong with spoiling a pretty boy like him anyway?

 He doesn’t need to know that you think of him in ways that would make your friends slam your head into the wall to knock back your senses.

 Then you look at the time on your phone.

 It’s now 7 pm and you suddenly realize how many hours you have been there. You both are so engrossed by the conversation you both are having that you didn’t check the time at all. 

 There’s no sunset that shines through the store’s glass window, but there’s a moon rising in the sky that flaunts its beauty for the world to see. 

 You’re almost starstruck until Jay taps your shoulder to get you out of your trance after he had noticed that you’ve been staring at the outside view for a good 5 minutes. 

“Hey Y/N.” His voice snaps you back to reality. “Do you wanna go to the restaurant nearby?” 

At the mention of the restaurant, your stomach quietly growls and you realize that you’re indeed, more hungrier than you realize. 

“Yes. That will be nice.” You nod. 

“I see you have been glancing over at that Daydream and Emotions vinyl.” He points out. “Give me that.” 

 You did just that without questioning why. 

“Wait, are you gonna pay-” 

 He’s faster than you as he’s already at the counter, checking both vinyls out as 60$ just casually rolling out. You didn’t forget that you saw multiple ONE OK ROCK’s albums too. That would make at least a total of 130$. 

 You don’t say anything as you observe him buying you vinyls. Once he’s done, you walk to him, not satisfied that he spends money on you. It almost makes you feel guilty because you want to pay for your own stuff too, but of course, he has to be such a douchebag about it by buying the missing thing from your collection. 

 Safe to say you’d be thinking of him when looking at the bought vinyls now. 

 That’s so annoying. 

 UGH. 

 You want to scream and kiss him but you mainly want to punch him, at least that’s what you think. 

“Here’s yours.” He hands you the vinyls and you shamefully accept it. You feel like a gold digger in the worst way possible and you want to flick the perfect forehead of his for that. “Let’s go to the restaurant.” 

 You chuckle then you put out your hand for him to hold as you say “Lead the way, Taurus boy.” 

 And he happily holds your hands as he searches for the restaurant nearby to occupy both your stomachs and minds on the busy street in Seoul city tonight. 

“I think I look totally out of place from this place.” You comment just as you sit down at the table, facing Jay. 

 You feel a bit intimidated because of this place but truthfully, you also love it if you happen to go there alone or with friends. Unfortunately, the place looks too elite for a broke college student like you. Everything in there is luxurious and you begin to think that you can’t afford this place even if you work hard your entire life. 

 You’re just being dramatic, it’s not too high class if you’re being realistic, but it’s expensive for a regular worker like you, especially if you don’t come from family who has too much money to spend on useless stuff. 

 You shrug, annoyed by your own train of thoughts as you look at Jay, flabbergasted that he chooses such an expensive place. 

“You don’t.” He shakes his head, disagreeing with you. He then hands you the menu on the table and you bow your head a bit as a gesture of saying ‘thank you’. 

“Call whatever food you want to.” He asks and you purposely pick the cheapest one off the menu because seeing the price kills your appetite. 

 A waiter approaches you both and she quickly takes notes of the food you both are ordering. It wasn’t long before she walks away in a fast paced to alert the chef, signaling that a new food has to be made again. 

 You didn’t forget to observe the way he treated her too and you’re almost impressed that he treats her nicer than your ex would when it comes to service workers. 

 Maybe it’s not a bad idea to go on a date with him at all.

“Do you know there’s a duck crossing the streets of Seattle right now?” He asks, trying to humor you a bit. You’re so shocked that you can’t help but laugh at the random question that is seemingly out of the blue.

“There’s no ducks.” You say. “But there’s butterflies roaming around someone’s house in Seattle.”

“Hey.” He disagrees. “It was in 2018 when some ducks were crossing the streets in west seattle. Are you calling me a liar?” He says it accusingly in a joking manner.

“I won’t believe that until there’s evidence to backup the statement.”

 And boy, did he pull out his phone to show you a video that his longtime friend sent to him about ducks being on the road from the westside of Seattle. And you can’t get mad at that, honestly.

“I always think of us, being ducks holding hands, crossing the street of Arizona- WAIT! I mean Seattle.”

 This time you hysterically laugh, trying to hold back your tears as he messes up his own new invented pickup line.

“Stop laughing! I’m kinda embarrassed!” He says, his ears flushed red and he can’t even look straight in the eyes.

“NOOO!!!” You disagree, shaking your head aggressively as your body rocking from laughing so much and your hand covers your mouth due to the infectious laughter you let out. “You’re funny when you’re a loser.”

“I think I’m cool!” He pouts slightly, tone sulking.

“You were cool, like totally out of kdrama cool in the bookstore and now you go back to say embarrassing things.” You shoot back. “But I like it.” You whisper, hoping he doesn’t catch that.

 He does. 

 He chooses not to comment on it.

 You both continuously showed each other cat reels until the food arrived and the first thing he did after the waiter had finished placing the meal onto the table was to be your personal photographer. You can’t reject the offer, after all, who’s nice enough to take a picture of a fRiEnD that you’re hanging out with?

And you snapped a few of his pictures back too, as a gesture of gratitude in return.

 Then, after the pictures taking session is over, you both enjoy your meal together, while having a conversation about everything that relates to yourselves personally.

 You can’t say you don’t like it when he makes you laugh from his pickup lines that he always messes it up along the way and the witty remarks that he suddenly feels confident to shoot back at you sometimes.