Alone at Last

(Okay, so this is after Zen has saved Hae from Unknown & the bomb and he's brought her back to his place. And I changed my mind how I ended the previous bit -- I'd had him jump into a taxi with her but I actually think he'd have ridden over to Rika's on his motorcycle, so that's how they'd have come back to his place. As a writer, I think that works better anyway for the scene as they would not have been able to talk while on the motorcycle + Hae would have been somewhat fearfully clinging to his back -- after all, he's just saved her from a kidnapper and they are careening through the streets and it's her first time on a motorcycle -- and Zen would have been equal parts fuming mad at the situation but also desperately aware of her holding on tight to him, her body pressed against him, wind rushing at them--pressure all around. All of that works better than a taxi ride, yeah? But I'm too lazy to go re-write that now, so I'll leave that here and maybe I'll re-do it later. And I also know that I'm not going to write out every little thing nor am I going to exactly follow what the chats/visual novels lay out because a) ain't nobody got time for that and b) I find it unrealistic that Zen would be more concerned with controlling his "beast" than comforting the MC. I mean, come on. If she's asking him to hold her, I think he'd do it. That doesn't mean they'd wind up in a more, er, shmexual situation or anything because that wouldn't necessarily be totally appropriate for their second in person meeting, but even though he's "a guy" as Cheritz keeps reminding us, I'm sure he'd be thinking more about comforting her than anything else. Freaking scary kidnappers & bombs, yo. But that's just me. You could write it a different way and go totally off the deep shmexy end and it could be a realistic way to go as many people respond to trauma in that way -- hey, the birth rate goes up 9 months after tragedies -- but I'm not personally gonna write this particular bit that way. And I do see why Cheritz played it the way they did with Zen getting all flustered and staying away...in the app, that serves to up the tension a bit and, in general, they stay pretty tame anyway. But I can do what I want here so...)

The sudden silence when Zen cut off the engine made Hae open her eyes. She'd been clinging to his back, her eyes shut tight, her cheek pressed against him and hadn't even noticed that they had arrived. She'd been trying not to think. The wind had helped, and the noise of the motorcycle, but now that was gone. She climbed off the back carefully and that was when she noticed, as her feet made a crunching sound, that she was still wearing her house slippers -- and that the bottoms of them were full of shards of glass. She stood for a moment, silent, staring down at them.

"Are you okay?" asked Zen. He noticed what she was looking at. "Oh..." he said. She took a step. Another crunch, some left behind glass. He swept her up in his arms and carried her the few steps to his door and set her down. "Just leave them here," he said. "We'll take care of getting your things later, okay?" He awkwardly patted her head. "Everything is going to be fine, Hae, I promise."

(One of the things that bugged me about the story in the app -- obviously, the MC wouldn't have any of her things. Or shoes. It's not like they would have stopped to grab her stuff while running from the bomb. So, while I'm not gonna write it up, I think there would be a chat sometime later, perhaps while Hae was taking a shower, where Zen asks Jaehee -- as the resident RFA lady -- to buy a few essentials for Hae until they can safely collect her things from Rika's. And Jumin might volunteer to buy her a dress for the party, which is where the nice dress comes from, though Jaehee might not tell Zen that the dress came from Jumin as their friendship is still pretty newly minted at this point. And Seven would, perhaps, go to Rika's to look for clues and get Hae's things then and send them over to Zen's, though he wouldn't bring them himself as he'd be too worried Zen might wallop him.)

She nodded, and slipped her feet out of the shoes, leaving them behind as she stepped into Zen's apartment. She took a few steps in and then stopped, waiting for him to lock the door behind them.

(in progress...more later...)