Dates are also an excuse for people that like each other to spend time together. This is more Hye-jin's experience with dates, and what she thinks of instead of getting to know each other.

"Oh? Well, I'll be happy to follow your date plan. Should I ask or let it be a surprise?"

"Um. Surprise, if, um, if that's okay? A-and also. Um. If you'd like. I also have. Cake. That we could eat together."

Jaeha was the one who made Tae-gun understand on a visceral level the appeal of this kind of silly tradition and Hye-jin will be the first person he eats cake on Christmas with and, and that basically means they're dating, right? Basically? And then after the cake he had something he wanted to ask her and then he can officially ask her out even though last time she said she wasn't ready to be in a relationship even though they basically already are but also it's been months so maybe she's okay now, right?

"A surprise sounds good," she replies immediately, before the rest of his statement sinks in -

- and she is overcome by shyness.

Oh no. Oh no it's scary. She likes what they have right now, what if - being official and eating cake together - messes it up?? Is that possible??? That seems like it's possible! She doesn't want it to be possible! Being Officially A Couple is scary, and a lot, and she wants to be really really sure she wants to date him instead of settling again because he's her partner and it's easy. Because that's what happened last time. She doesn't want it to happen again.

But also she hasn't been asked to spend Christmas together - she had with Hideyoshi but they'd already been dating at that point and it was assumed and. ... She likes being asked. Likes being special to him, likes being invited to a date and treated like a princess and having someone she can just - know and trust and be okay around. It seems silly, to flinch away from the - established terms and tasks for couples when they're... basically already kind of a couple.

Okay. Okay. Stop. Does it sound more fun to eat fried chicken alone on Christmas, or cake with Tae-gun?

"........ cake does too," she murmurs, after a pause that probably went on for too long, blushing.

Tae-gun was absolutely never going to let her eat fried chicken alone on Christmas even if she refused the cake, is she absolutely nuts.

"O-okay. Um. I've already paid for—everything—so—"

He gets a message from Woo-young marked urgent on his commscreen.

hyung, open the news right now

...Woo-young really does have a gift for saying the most concerningly vague things possible, doesn't he.

Fine, he'll open the news.

?????? Hye-jin notices his distraction and is, predictably, now extremely concerned about what the latest disaster is.

He turns his screen to show her the news.

A woman was teleported into the Quasar HQ just now, tied up and gagged and unconscious. She had a note attached to her claiming that she was the person who shot Hye-jin, including some more undisclosed stuff that (Quasar claims) is actually pretty damningly solid evidence of such.

There was also, apparently a box with cake next to her, with a separate note attached to it, its contents also undisclosed.

But Woo-young sent a new message after his first one with a picture of the note.

It says "Happy Christmas, Tae-gun-ah."

It's not signed, but it's handwritten in a script Tae-gun is very personally familiar with.

Ah.

Okay. Well.

She guesses this holiday and date is ruined now, probably, and - man she'd literally just worked up the courage to do the cake eating tradition thing with Tae-gun and now it's also probably ruined, and, and, fucking hell why is Kang Jaeha like this. How can he just keep finding new and exciting ways to insert himself back into her life somehow and make everything about him and his obsession with Tae-gun. Even catching the person who fucking shot her.

Time to go back to being less important than Kang Jaeha to Tae-gun, like always, she guesses...

"I," he declares, opening a message to Si-yeon, "do not want to think about this."

LeeTae-gun: Hyung, are you on top of this?
LeeTae-gun: I can't deal with it right now.
LeeTae-gun: Please don't make me.

He replies instantly.

🪁freefall: i gotchu fam enjoy your date
🪁freefall: before u panic abt how it is that i know about it it's fucking obvious is how

...okay.

"Can we get out of here and pretend that fucking guy doesn't exist."

Blink blink.

It - would be more strategically smart to in fact immediately try to figure out how to respond to, apparently, Kang Jaeha fucking dropping the assassin off, and how that has probably absolutely ruined the entire trail for how he was definitely the fucker who hired them, and -

- but yeah, she doesn't want to deal with it right now, either.

"Yeah," she agrees, nodding and. Trying not to cry.

Okay. Cool. Good. He takes her hand and they teleport.

It's night, where they arrive, and far away from city lights, so it will take a moment for her eyes to get accustomed to the darkness. Once they do, though, she will find herself on a plateau overlooking very, very extensive canyons. The view is...

...grand.

Tae-gun isn't going to wait for that, though; as soon as they arrive he's hugging her.

Oh. Good. Hugs.

... Sniffle.

"He's such a dick," she mumbles into his shoulder, even though Tae-gun said he wants to pretend he doesn't exist, and Hye-jin does too, just. Just. What a dick. What an entitled dick, even!!

Yeah. "Fuck him. Fuck him very much. I don't—Hye-jin-ah, I don't want him to ruin this for us. I want to—I want you to look at the sky, for me."

"I - yeah." Sniffle. "Give me like a minute or two to stop crying so I can see it properly, I'd be ruining it if I looked now. Um. And - thanks?"

"...yeah." He can keep hugging her and petting her soothingly and—that's also soothing him, honestly, he's not feeling like crying but he's feeling angry and he doesn't want to feel angry, he wants to feel in love. Hugging her close, feeling her warmth against his body. That's what he wants to feel right now. "You're my top priority. Not him."