In the end, Joseph decided to follow the girls out on their trip after all.Partly because it wasn"t just going to be a day trip and he knew he had a responsibility to be with his sister - even though he knew that she was well protected with Kay.
He glanced around and saw the stern-looking bodyguards that were just within range but not so close that it was annoying.
His gaze naturally landed on Kay, who was walking with a smile as she talked to his sister.
Joseph sighed, continuing to be bedazzled by that image, his heart making the normal thump-thump-toing beat which made him gulp the lump in his throat.
That line "Heaven must be missing an Angel, because you"re with me right now" came through his mind. He had always thought it was cheesy but right now, he felt nothing was more accurate to describe Kay.
Urgh.
He"s so lame.
Joseph was sure that Kay had received much more suave and sophisticated pick-up lines, and she wasn"t even interested.
So he just said the words in his heart.
Right now, they were headed towards an amus.e.m.e.nt park.
Initially, Joseph had been a bit puzzled at that. Didn"t Lianne say that she wanted to view their school and some photo studio or something?
So why an amus.e.m.e.nt park?
"Why not have some fun first before sightseeing?" Kay had answered when he asked that question, "Wouldn"t it be exciting?"
Kay had looked so excited over the fact that Joseph swallowed his grievances. He felt that Kay had chosen this activity while thinking about their young ages.
You know, kind of like how you"d take a kid to the playground.
Granted, the playground that Kay was bringing them was huge and there were adults around.
"Why are you so grumpy about this?" Lianne asked him when they had reached the entrance. Kay had gone ahead to buy the tickets, so Lianne took this opportunity to approach her brother.
Though he wasn"t really throwing a tantrum or anything, one could feel the dark clouds that seemed to hover above his head.
"Don"t you think this is all childish?" Joseph mumbled, feeling a bit peeved at having being caught for his bad mood. He thought he had covered it well enough.
Lianne gave him "the look" that essentially screamed, "are you stupid"?
"What?" Joseph asked indignantly.
Lianne pointed at the rollercoaster that had a double-loop in the distance.
"Does THAT really look like something a kid would ride?" Lianne asked while rolling her eyes, "For your information, Kay has never been to an amus.e.m.e.nt park before."
"Huh?"
"When they were younger, it was too dangerous as they are potential kidnapping targets," Lianne explained, "As they got older, they just didn"t have time to do something as "childish" like this."
Liane emphasised the word "childish" but using two fingers from both hands to create an imaginary quotation mark.
"She thought it would be fun, and spending it with us was supposed to be something nice and relaxing," Lianne said, staring at her brother with a frown, "Until *someone* is ruining the mood with his grumpiness."
Joseph gulped.
"Kay is as honest as you can get and you"re getting all upset because you think she"s treating you like a kid? You forget, you ARE a kid. We are. There is nothing wrong with what she"s doing or thinking," Lianne said, hitting him right where it hurts.
"Stop thinking everything is about you," Lianne hissed under her breath as Kay got closer, "And get your head screwed back properly. Don"t spoil this for her."
Joseph looked up at Kay"s face, and saw the slight hesitation and worry in them before she hid them behind a bright smile.
Joseph was appalled. He felt terrible.
Immediately, he pushed aside all his negative feelings and thoughts of resentment. He was so caught up with his sense of inferiority about their age gap that he had started resenting her for treating him … like a kid.
Lianne was right.
Nothing could change the fact that he is a kid at that moment.
Kay wasn"t looking down on him and he could hardly expect her to treat him like he was an adult, right?
He wished he could kick himself.
He wanted so much for her to see him as a man that he had forgotten the most basic fact.
He wasn"t a man. Well, not yet anyway.
Nothing could change that.
Only time would.
He had been so confused, really.
Swinging one way to the other.
On the one hand, he wanted to forget her and be out of her hair. On the other hand, he wanted her to notice him and view him as a man.
But he had been looking at this the wrong way all this time.
With that change in mindset, he found a huge burden being lifted off his shoulders. It wasn"t that he stopped feeling nervous or self-conscious around Kay, but he found that he could act more naturally around her now.
He could be himself, albeit, a goofy-star-struck teen boy crus.h.i.+ng over a G.o.ddess … but at least, he wasn"t so wooden or weirded out most of the time.
He finally could accept the fact that he had feelings for Kay. Feelings that grew due to her loving, kind and sweet nature when he was going through the deepest grief ever.
However, he also knew that there could not be any real relations.h.i.+p born out of intense experiences. Sandra Bullock said it herself, in the movie Speed with Keanu Reaves. He thought that was rather true, too - more so at this moment.
Accepting his feelings and knowing that nothing would come out of it also gave him a sense of relief, even if it did make him sad.
Shaking the last of the negative thoughts out of his mind, he could finally smile brightly at Kay who had reached them.
Kay, who was at the receiving end of that suddenly bright smile, found her throat extremely dry.
Is this what other girls felt whenever Kyle hit them with his Million-Dollar-Watt-Smile?
She had never been affected before and had even pitied the girls who were so bedazzled by her brother.
Now, that was biting her in the b.u.t.t.
It was true what they say.
When you make fun of someone for something that they did, then sooner or later, you would make the mistake, too.
When you fail to be empathetic towards someone and how they act, you may very well be in the same situation and make the same "mistake", making you finally realise why it could happen or why that choice was made.
And right now, her heart was making somersaults just because he smiled.
d.a.m.n, but that smile was lethal.
They spent the whole day at the amus.e.m.e.nt park.
Kay was glad that whatever it was that made Joseph rather moody earlier, was gone. He was being the sweet, wonderful boy that she had gotten to know back in Country M.
He was polite and attentive, catering to their needs like a gentleman.
He laughed a lot, his eyes sparkling as he saw things that made him excited.
The thing that surprised her the most, however, was what he had been doing since coming to Country Tz.
He hadn"t been joking when he said that his TokTik was popular.
When she found his TokTik account, she was amazed at the amount of followers that he had - which was still growing.
Kay knew that it wasn"t easy to get followers in TokTik.
Joseph"s videos were basically just him exercising and then finis.h.i.+ng it with a dance move while exercising.
Each of his videos had the hashtag dancercizejoey. It was basically a combination of exercise and dancing. He would also give some tips and warnings edited in a fun way in the video.
It is said that to get a lot of followers, a few things were needed such as original content, to update daily and so forth. In fact, a video was just uploaded even though he had been spending the entire day here.
He was really that dedicated to ensuring daily updates?
He must have created several in advance just so he could post one video a day even though he was away. Just how long had he taken to do all of that, and the editing?
Kay didn"t ask him, though.
If she did, he would know that she was following him and viewing his videos. Somehow, she just didn"t want him to know.
Let it be her little secret … guilty pleasure, so to speak.
Since they would be separating in the future, having this little piece of him for her to see all the time made her feel better.
She could understand the need Kyle"s fans had for his Insta account. She knew it was important to them then, and she had helped in putting it up but she couldn"t really understand why they needed it.
Now, she did.