"It's okay, please let me pay for you," offered Belle. "You came with me and you didn't have to."

As she passed her card towards the cashier at the Mogu Mogu counter, Yuta tapped his card on the EFTPOS machine in front of her. As he did so, he flung his tote bag on his shoulder and ushered for her to follow him with a wave of his hand. 

"What, why did you pay?" asked Belle. He didn't answer her and she stared at his back questioningly. Was it a thing that he acted like a typical romance  character protagonist? Cool as a cucumber, mysterious, handsome but with dashings of machismo that she wasn't sure was appropriate in the current social climate. But seemed so alluring at the same time. 

As they exited the obanyaki shop with their treats in tow, Yuta pointed at a boba shop on Dixon St. "You want to go there? I heard they're OG with their brown sugar bobas."

Yuta walked a few paces ahead, and Belle felt she was slow and unsteady on her feet to keep up with him so she kept at her slower pace. As she walked behind him, she noticed several pairs of eyes glance his direction. Some flitted down towards her in passing but mostly they were absorbing Yuta. She couldn't blame them, he was next level pretty. 

"Belle, we're here," Yuta gently touched her arm. 

She had been so preoccupied in her own thoughts of Yuta that she had almost forgotten him. She had deduced that if she was more confident, she would be proud to walk next to him, to match his pace. She knew he was pretty, but that was definitely not why she wanted to walk next to him. He was a strange guy, but she felt he was kind somewhere underneath the bravado and there seemed to be so much more to him than he let others on. And somehow somewhere she wanted to be part of that.   

yuta
His mother always told him when he was a teenager, well, of age to date that guys should pay when they could. It wasn't a meaning of showing wealth, but letting the girl know that he's willing to take care of her. Finances was a means of taking care of someone. 

Yuta didn't expressly think he was dating Belle, but taking care of the bill was one of the only ways he felt he could care for her at this point. There was a high probability he wouldn't see her again so this was a stranger's way of regard. Like a Good Samaritan, that biblical parable. Yeah, that was more like what he was doing, maybe. 

belle
Belle had never felt as self-conscious as she did right now. Her feet were starting to hurt from the walking. Her mind was roasted from all the over-thinking she had done since lunchtime.

She had wanted to talk to Yuta before, but he wasn't really a talkative person to start. She had felt a bit saddened that they couldn't talk about much at all. It was almost like dating incompatability. Not that her mind should have even thought of that at all. She was 33, almost on the fringes of nanna-hood and she was thinking about a guy ten years her junior. She wanted to pinch her cheeks when the thought of even dating Yuta grazed her mind. He was like a kid, even if he didn't seem like one at times. 

She had so many questions about why he was wearing a school uniform - whether it was a fashion statement, about why he paid the bill for her, why he even bothered to spend a few hours with her and what the heck was he doing at all today.

Little did she know, he had so many questions about how she could possibly have retained her youth at 33, how come she never grew up properly like other thirty-somethings holding down careers or babies and what her skincare routine was. 

Oh, the irony of wondering about others is that more than likely they're thinking of you too.