Until The End of Time | Wonho [√]

25: LIBEROSIS

That's why the night guard gave him a pass. Wonho might have dropped by here more often than I'd thought. And I still had no idea what we were doing here, yet, strangely I felt calm and collected. All I did was look at him with my peripheral vision carefully. I'd never seen him so excited. Was this a good thing for where his fate led to? Shouldn't it be?

The answer to why we were here landed upon me when we finally arrived at the eleventh floor, but I still couldn't grasp it fully. It was a gaming arena and we stopped right before a wooden wall of merely three feet, and beyond that the floors were white in hardwood, reflecting under the dimmed purple and azure neon lights.

It was a rollerskating rink.

Before I could open my mouth again and leave another awestruck comment, or a question, a guy in pajamas and casual tee, and flip-flops, a blanket draped loosely on his head approached us. His eyes puffy and not bemused at all gave us a quick once over.

"Hi," Jooheon said as he peered his blanket draped head at me. Under my questioning stare, he answered for himself, "I work part-time here."

"And sometimes sleeps here too," Wonho said with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Yeah when your sister, her two kids, AND her unemployed husband stay in your house along with your parents and grandparents, sometimes you just have to make your workplace your home," Jooheon said matter-of-factly, he wasn't amused at all and nor did he show any other expression on his sleepy and swelled face.

Suddenly I remembered Hyungwon once told me he had to sleep in a mall often when working along with Jooheon. This was what he meant.

"You arrived late. I'll alarm you guys before the manager shows up, till then this place is yours." Jooheon retreated back inside the ticketing office just like he came out there a moment ago.

When Wonho was about to drag me along again I pulled on his hand instead and made him stop. "I see what you're doing." I couldn't help but cackle as I uttered my next sentence, "but I can't skate."

His jaw almost dropped on the floor. "When you said you wanted to skate, I assumed you knew how to."

When I shook my head to the sides, still laughing and then I told him I madly wanted to, but never even tried before, he eagerly said it didn't matter, that it was easy and I only needed to hold him if I found myself losing my balance.

I didn't have one clue about skating as he had to help me with the skate shoes too. He didn't seem to mind at all. Finally, I was starting to feel the thrill coursing through my veins. No longer was I sleepy but the reality was fixing upon me. I had really wanted to try this for a long time, and now here I was, with him.

Though as soon as I'd try to stand up, I immediately plopped back down on the bench with a loud thud, the wheels under my shoes feeling like they had a life of their own when they rolled ahead deliberately and made me fall flat on my back. But I laughed and Wonho was giggling hard with me. He took me by my arm, his strong hold carefully propping me back up. This was not going to be easy.

Hand in hand, arm in arm, with me almost in his embrace and with my head brushing on his broad chest, I whimpered and cried, and closed my eyes shut whenever I found myself falling again, but I didn't, he was already holding onto me. Even amidst this fright, I couldn't help but laugh nonstop too.

The floor was slippery as glass and ice, it made me tense thinking how much it would hurt if I crashed on the hard ground but that didn't intimidate me as much as I thought it would. We teetered along the edges of the walls before he finally took me to the middle ground.