Chapter 11
ELEVEN
HAPPY NOT KNOWING - CARLY RAE JEPSEN
“So you’re dating him.”
“Ha? I’m not.” Lia scoffed at her sister through her phone screen, where she’d left Frankie leaning against the cleansing balms. It was a couple of days later, when Cal was in between a show taping and heading back to the studio, and he found the time to go with Lia to go to the nearest Olive Young on their way to pick up acai smoothies for the boys—Soobin had been very particular.
“I’m literally shopping for you at an Olive Young. How is this a date?”
“Did you eat lunch together?”
“Yeah, did you know Koreans eat sushi with gochujang? It was pretty good.”
“So you’re not on a first date, you skipped like three years’ worth of dates and went straight into domesticity.
” Frankie sounded amused and very delighted, which only made Lia much more agitated and wave the sunblock angrily at the screen.
Lia was flabbergasted at her sister, who only laughed. Laughed!
“It’s not a first date!” Lia argued. “If anything, it’s the third?”
“What?”
“Hoy Ate, are you really going to test me while I hold the fate of your skincare in my hands?”
“Oo na.” Frankie waved a hand at her phone, slightly distracted by whatever she was doing on her laptop. Thankfully, she knew when it was time to back off when Lia was getting annoyed. Well, she knew all the time, but actually did it only some of the time. “Where is your bias now?”
“In the cosmetics section,” Lia said, looking vaguely in the direction of where Cal and his bucket hat (“just Gen Z things,” he’d captioned on his story) had just sped off to.
“Apparently, Siwan modeled for a makeup brand and Cal wanted to act like a proud uncle.” She laughed because it was so funny how Cal had described it, and—
“Oh wow. You really like him, huh,” Frankie observed, making Lia glare at her sister again, which would have been more effective if Frankie was actually looking at her, which she was not. “Congrats.”
“Congrats?” Lia exclaimed, which was probably the most flabbergasted she’d ever said that word. “Paanong congrats? We’re just friends, and I’m only here for what, a month and a half na lang, oh god.”
“You can just like him, Li. Doesn’t have to be a wedding at the end.”
“You just called us domestic.”
“And shockingly, it doesn’t change how you feel, does it?” Frankie asked, wise to the world as always. “I know I said for you not to lose your head over KPop boys, but you seem happy. This is a good thing. Just let yourself enjoy it, right?”
“I’m trying to,” she admitted, so softly she wondered if her sister had heard her.
She flipped her camera away from selfie mode in the guise of showing Frankie which products were on the shelf.
“And I am just trying to stay in the moment. It’s just…
” Visions of that warm little condo flooded her mind, and she pushed them aside again.
“I can feel it getting away from me sometimes. What if I like it too much, or I force a situation where we take it somewhere we’re not ready for? ”
“It takes two to tango,” Frankie reminded her.
“If you’re worried, you can talk to him, see where it leads.
But it does mean you know how you feel about it, so you know how to discuss how to proceed, or not.
” God, she didn’t know what she felt. She knew that the ‘not’ was currently unappealing to Lia. Even if it did feel inevitable.
“But he said—”
“This isn’t about him, yet. This is about you. Without thinking about what he will think, what he wants, what he doesn’t want…what do you want? Then you can talk to him about what he wants and make a mutual decision. That’s what we call ‘communicating.’”
Lia echoed her sister in a mocking tone, mostly because she didn’t know what to say to that. God, what did she want out of this? Sex and a memory? A fight for a future?
“Also, no matter what happens, your visa expires in a month. You’re not exactly out of options here.”
She was right, of course. And it wasn’t like what Lia had with Cal was going to be anything more than a vacation fling, city edition.
The band would finish the album, Lia and Teddy would go home, and Cal and Lia would part as friends at best, parasocial strangers at worst. Life would move on, and eventually, even she would forget that, even for a short time, she had been adored by Cal Ahn.
Maybe that was why he chose to tell her about the album. At least that would last longer than whatever this was. Anything more than this was out of Lia’s control.
“You’re right,” she told her sister. “I have options.”
“And here I thought that I was your one and only,” a voice beside her said, and she was sure the entire first floor of the damn Olive Young stopped for a second to decide whether her scream was a good or a bad thing.
Judging from the way her sister was telling her to calm the fuck down, what the fuck just happened, it was probably a bad thing. “Um, I am the only one, right?”
“Yes!” Lia exclaimed, feeling her cheeks grow hot at Cal’s nervous face. “Who else would I—“
“I don’t know. You had a bias wrecker, maybe—”
“Are you jealous?”
“Yes.”
“Kaloka ka.”
“Yes, that is my name.”
“I was right.” Frankie giggled from her side of the line. Oh god. Her Ate never giggled. “This is a date.”
“Ate!” Lia exclaimed, quickly turning the camera back to selfie mode. But what it managed to do was give her Ate a perfectly clear view of Ahn Cal holding an iced Americano (what was the slang word for it? A-a?) and waving at the camera.
“Annyeong haseyo, Ahn Yongjin imnida!” he said enthusiastically, and really, it was worth it seeing Frankie’s jaw drop.
“Oh my god, mas gwapo sa personal,” Frankie gasped, her eyes wide as if Cal couldn’t see her.
He certainly couldn’t hear her, because Lia was smart enough to wear wireless earphones when she was video-calling in public.
Because it was Cal, wearing a bucket hat and not sweating in the Olive Young, smiling in a way that made his cheeks look like little pieces of bread and Lia’s heart melt.
Cal leaned close to Lia so he was eye level to her phone, bending a little so their heads were equal in height.
While it was effective, it also made it so that Cal was practically resting his head on Lia’s shoulder, and she could feel him.
The solid warmth of his existence, the comforting look of him.
She could smell his perfume, and while she had no idea what it was, it made her want to lean in closer, press her nose against his neck.
She wondered what perfume he was wearing, and could she get it for herself?
“Lia!” Frankie’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts.
“Ate, this is Cal.”
“Her bias,” Cal announced.
“Teddy’s client,” Lia glared at him. “He’s hosting us for the trip, and really shouldn’t be sneaking up on people all the time.” Lia quickly explained, shaking her head to stop her meditations on Cal’s perfume (gah) and focusing on the task at hand.
“Hi po, Ate. Are you virtually shopping?”
“Hala, nag-po siya.” Frankie’s blush was unmistakable even through the phone. “I mean, he’s much hotter now than he was in your closet, Li.”
“Sunblock! Ate was asking me to pasabuy sunblock,” Lia said quickly. “Er. Pasa buy is—“
“Pass the thing you buy.” Cal nodded. “Although what was that other word you used? Sun…what?”
“Sunblock?”
That clearly confused him, but he understood after a second.
“Aah, ahh. Sun cream.” He clapped his hands together and scanned the shelves with a fingertip, stopping at a seemingly random blue box.
He held it up for Frankie to see. “This one is a popular choice. Good brand, two for one, plus a travel pack.” Then he turned to Lia again.
“Also I like surprising you whenever I show up. People usually see me coming.”
“That’s the one I was looking for!” Frankie looked legitimately delighted, as she always was with fine skincare products. “You think I should get that?”
“She’s asking if the sunblock is Cal Ahn-approved,” Lia said out loud. And she tried to hide the little smile on her face when she saw how focused Cal seemed— a celebrity endorsement was something he was literally paid for, and it was so cute how seriously he took it.
“It’s not bad.” Cal nodded, looking at the box and reading what it said. “But my stylist noona recently recommended this one.” He held up a completely different blue box. “You could get both, try them out? I’ll pay for this one, and you can get your one.”
“Hala, he doesn’t have to pay for it!” Frankie exclaimed through the video call.
“Cal!” Lia exclaimed in equal amounts disbelief and the Asian need to have the last word when someone already said it. “You are not paying for the sunblock.”
“I insist.” Cal shook his head, burying the box under his arm as if it closed the issue. “Sun cream is really important.”
“Tell him I agree, but don’t let him buy it!”
“I don’t think I can fit two in my suitcase,” Lia said, quickly coming up with something.
“I’ve seen your suitcase. You’re right. I guess it means we’re getting you a bag.” Cal shrugged, as if he bought bags for women all the time.
“You are not buying me a bag.”
“Okay, I’ll buy you dinner instead.” Cal was absolutely flirting with her, and unfortunately, it was absolutely working on Lia, and god, who turned up the heat in this store? No wonder her cheeks were so hot! Her glasses were practically fogging up! “Come on now, Lianardo!”
“That’s not my name!”
“Oh wow.” Lia could hear her older sister laughing through the video call. “Ang cute. Very domestic. You are so fucked, Leandra.”
“Exactly, Francis Mae!” Lia’s voice was a little shrill, but god help her she was not okay! “I’ll call you later.”
story post by @CoboltCal (verified)
[A photo of Siwan’s photoshoot for a prominent local cosmetics brand. In the photo, set in a sweeping Italian villa, Siwan is holding up a compact mirror. In the mirror, Cal had clearly edited in a photo of himself making a funny face.] Love you, @Siwan (verified)!
story post by @Siwan
[a photo of debut (pre-debut?) era Cal in a forest, looking menacing as he stares at a camera with bright blue eyes, wearing vampire fangs, biting into an apple. Siwan has become the apple] Love you too @CoboltCal !