The woman stared at him with piercing eyes, her mouth hanging open for a beat.
"Did…did you just say the…"
"Guess so." His tone flat, wasting no time to respond.
Her grin was gone, and her posture stiffened.
"You wanna get punched?" She curled one hand into a loose fist and let it rest on the table.
"Why would I?" he asked bluntly.
"Huh?"
She paused, eyebrows knitting.
"Wait… you don't mean you seriously don't see what's the problem here, right?" Her gaze locked onto his.
"Don't know. Can you tell?"
It came out sharper than he intended, as though he was daring her.
Well, it was good while it lasted. Guess the show is over then.
"You're gettin' on my nerves," she said, leaning back, furrowing her eyebrows. "I think you should stop right this second."
He didn't answer.
A few seconds passed. His eyes flicked away before returning to hers.
"You asked me if I'm scared… so… that-that was my answer," he said with a flicker of a frightened look on his face.
"You mean, you're showin' how courageous you are?"
"S-something like that."
Am I safe now?
Her face softened. Shoulders eased.
"Well, in that case, sorry. Maybe I took it a little too seriously."
She let out a sigh of relief.
"To your question, though," she began, looking at him with a wide smile as her eyes narrowed. "I'm older than you."
The boy picked his head up.
Huh? She's just… Why did she answer?
He must have found what she said a bit weird, given the expression on his face. Though he knew he couldn't press the matter with her any further, he decided to play along.
"How you know?" His eyes widened.
"I don't need to know anythin' beyond first glance," she giggled. "I mean, the moment you entered, you behaved like I didn't know you were there. I saw everythin' you know."
"I-I see."
I made it. I said the forbidden, and I'm still alive. This might have been my first ever accomplishment in this life, the boy thought as he felt the weight of his spine inside his body.
"Here, put this on." In her hand, an ice cube. "I would've done this anyway, after I played with you for a bit, though, you kinda messed it up."
"'I' did? It was your fault to begin with."
"Wow, much more talkative, aren't you?" the woman said, her eyebrows raising.
"No, it's not, I just… uh… I thought that I couldn't let you tremble over me, so I thought that I had to say my part."
"You're so cute when you're flustered," teased the woman, her lips curling.
"I'm not flustered!" countered the boy, sitting a little straighter, his back still touching the back of the seat.
"Tsundere as well. Hmm, I see." Her elbow rested on the table, chin cradled in her fist as her eyes fixed on him.
The boy ignored her last remark as he said, "And why are you like this with me?"
"Hm?"
"You know, like…" he paused.
For three seconds, the words refused to come out.
The woman, sensing that the boy needed some support, decided to lend a hand.
"Know what?" she asked, her tone warm and welcoming.
"I-it's not that important, really."
Even though he told her that they shouldn't make such a big deal out of that, the woman refused to settle down.
"No, no. We're not doin' that. Don't act like it's no biggie. I've seen guys like you a million times before, and I can clearly tell you want us to continue this conversation."
The boy shifted his head, looking at her chin.
"Well, I think that I might not match the expectations of what those people might be—"
He stopped.
Did what I just say even make any sense?
No, it didn't. But he already said it, and now he had to take responsibility for whatever was about to come because of that.
She giggled, holding her fingers to her lips.
"That reaction tells me everything I wanted to know."
The boy didn't say anything, only holding a confused look on his face.
She elaborated. "If you really didn't care about this, you'd not try this hard to defend your position on how unimportant it is." She made a brief pause and pulled out the boy's phone from her pocket, putting it in the corner of the table. "Which means…" The corners of her mouth began to curl up. "… You want me to do this. You're just communicatin' it in a pretty roundabout way."
Seeing how she wouldn't change her mind no matter what he did, he caved in. One of his lips distanced itself from the other until there was a big enough gap to squeeze something through.
"I-I…"
"Hm? I'm listenin'," said the woman, encouraging him to continue.
The boy attempted it for the second time.
"I-I… I" The results were oddly familiar to the first one.
He tried for the third time.
"I-I… I…I…"
When she heard small improvements compared to the previous attempts, her eyes lit up.
And then the boy finished it.
"I… I can't."
It would be an understatement to say that she was only disappointed. Her hands were crossed, and she had the look of a mother who had just found out that her son is actually terrible at academic endeavors. Though, unlike an actual mother, she didn't know when to quit.
"This won't do," she said, her tone sharp.
"I-I did my best—"
"You know…" She cut him off. "That coffee, the one you have there sitting on the table next to you. Do you know how something like that is possible, hm?"
The boy sat there, quiet. No muscle dared to twitch.
She continued. "See this?" she said, raising her hands and holding them in front of the boy as though she were about to get a manicure. "Do you see how the pink polish isn't as pink as it's supposed to be? Why is that, hm?"
The boy gulped. It was so loud that the entire cafe resonated.
"S-sorry?"
"No, no. No apology," she lowered her voice as she said. "A sorry won't do it."
A shiver went down his spine.
Does she really want me to…
He took a deep breath, preparing himself to say it. Three seconds of breathing exercises later, he was ready enough not to run away anymore.
"I hope you're happy with this," he said, taking another deep breath. "You called me… You called me… You called me… that." He jerked his head away.
Her eyes softened.
"'That'?" She looked at him with faint confusion, tilting her head. "Whatcha mean by 'that'?"
After a brief pause, he said, "Nothing."
She sighed.
"We've gone through this, haven't we?" She made a short pause before continuing. "Unless you enjoy playing this little game with me, I don't understand why you don't just say it already."
The boy swiftly wiped his hand across his forehead.
"I would rather not," he answered.
She cocked her head to the side, as though she didn't understand.
"Weren't you the one who brought this up?"
"Yes," he said, scratching the top of his forehead. "That's why I'm choosing not to continue it."
She rolled her eyes.
"We went over this. As much as you try to act like you don't want to bring it up, I can clearly see that you do."
Her hand moved to her chin as her elbow lay on the table, resting her chin with her head tilted. "Trust me. You'll feel better once you say it. I'm a good listening partner. Your secret is safe with me. Not that it matters anyway."
The boy picked his head up.
"Matter?" he asked. "What do you mean by not matter?"
The smile on the woman's face weakened.
She pulled her head away as she said, "We have a different pending matter at hand, don't we?" Her mouth began to curl up. "Don't worry about stuff like that when we have our own to take care of. Instead of thinking about silly problems like that, we should focus on the present moment. Which, for us, is an urgent issue we must take care of as soon as possible. You understand that, right?"
Information. Information. Information. There were so many, he could only squeeze out the words, "Y-yeah… I guess."
After five seconds of deep thinking, though…
"Probably. Maybe… No. Actually, I have no idea what you want me to do."
She smiled.
"Put your thoughts into words. That's all I'm askin'."
"I've already tried. And it failed."
"Aha! I knew it," said the woman as she pointed up with her index finger. "So you did care about expressin' yourself after all."
"What makes you think that?"
She looked straight into the boy's eyes, not meeting his.
"Shush it. Just say the damn thing already."
His posture stiffened.
"What thing?" he asked.
She sighed heavily.
"I'm talkin' about the thing you refuse to say!" she said, raising her voice a little.
The boy darted his head and said, "I'm not refus—"
She cut in.
"I don't care why. We've spent enough time here circlin' around this. So just be a good kid and say it, ok?"
Kid? She called him a kid, right? Well, even he had something to say about that.
"I'm not a child!" he protested. Though, his voice barely rose.
She didn't even wait a second before she said. "You are."
A second passed. She continued. "In my eyes, you're an adorable little child. Someone who's ventured out into the woods and is now totally lost inside. And I am the pretty woman who grabs the hand of that little child and guides him out."
The boy looked down, turning his head to the white table as he locked his fingers together.
"…But I like it here in the forest," he mumbled.
"What was that?"
"Nothing," he sighed.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, so deep that it beat all the previous ones.
Looking up, he glanced at the lower lip of the woman, then averted his eyes.
He cleared his throat.
"So, the… the thing I am forced—I mean, wanted to express was, uh… the word that I don't like, I guess."
She raised an eyebrow.
"The word… ? What word are you talkin' about?"
"You know, the… the 'c' word."
"The 'c' word?" She paused, brows knitting as she searched her memory. When she couldn't find anything, she continued. "I give up. Tell me what I said that made you offended."
Offended? He wasn't quite fond of the wording. His mouth opened, and as usual, nothing got resolved.
"I-I…"
He went back to stuttering, and instead of trying even harder, he decided it wouldn't be worth the effort.
"Actually, Nevermind—"
But the woman across from him was too pushy for that to work out.
"Ah-ah-ah." She lifted her finger, rhythmically wagging it. "You won't escape this time around."
Only her words were there to keep him captive, but it was enough for him to feel the weight of it. Not knowing how to escape, he surrendered.
After a brief moment, he said, "Fine then. I'll tell you."
He looked directly at her.
"The thing you said about my face."
She raised an eyebrow, slightly curving her mouth.
"I don't think I follow you."
The boy raked his fingers through his hair.
"Why can't you understand? It's not that hard."
"Maybe if you could say whatcha mean, then all this would be so much simpler." She spread her hands in a small shrug, then grabbed the ice from the table and put it back inside the bucket.
"I can't. If I could, I would've done it already."
"Isn't this something that 'I' said? If that's the case, why can't you?"
"Because it's impossible," he said, shaking his head.
"Is it though?"
"Are you implying that I'm lying?"
"Instead of sayin' you can't, why dontcha tell me what is really going on?"
"But I am," said the boy, tension rising from his throat.
"It's impossible, you say, but… really? Or it's somethin—"
"I would've said it, ok—"
"Yeah, right," she cut him off, leaning closer. "Don't give me that. We both know you can say it. You just don't want to."
"What do you actually know about me?" His voice rose half a notch.
"Not much."
"Then how can you claim that you do?"
"I never said that. All I said was that I know you enough to see you can say it."
The boy stopped.
His hand covered half of his face, then it came back to the table.
"As if you could know me in this short amount of time," he said, his voice calming down.
"Well, I know you enough to see you can say it. There's just something that makes it difficult, isn't it?" She tilted her head slightly.
"No, there isn't. There's nothing that makes it hard. I just can't. That's it," he said, curling his fingers, then loosening them as he placed his palm back on the table.
"So you really can't say it, can you?" She raised her brows, blinking several times a second.
"You are doing this on purpose."
She responded in a low voice. "What? I'm not the one who can't be honest here."
The boy paused.
In his mind, he evaluated how much longer he could push the conversation before it would lose its essence. A few seconds later, he concluded he had to stop right then and there. Even if he didn't agree, he could no longer continue that meaningless chatter.
Letting out a deep breath, he prepared himself to say what was stuck inside.
"You said I was… that I was c-cute!"