"You still solo for today?"

"Hi Jack! Thank God you're finally here, gotta go"
She pats her sister's shoulder and skeedaddles her way out of the shop

"Wha-- Okay, bye..."

Was she wearing perfume? That's new...

"Evening Mrs. Lau. Is Henry still sick?"

"Yes, dear. Sorry he hasn't been training for two days now." The woman's voice was calming but Amber was giddy to go up his room and see him.

Feelings she can no longer deny from herself. But at the same time she can't admit to herself just yet.

"Hi!" She greets him with the brightest smile she didn't know she had on.

"A-amber... Hi" Henry was surprised, of course because this Amber was smiling at him at first contact.
she was wearing that apple scented perfume again. Her donut scent, gone. He liked that scent.

"So... I'm still sick" he says as he lets her enter

"It's okay. I understand."

"Really?"

Her eyes were wide as if she can't believe that Henry can't believe her

"What? Can't I be considerate?"

"Didn't know you were."

She just smiles at him and beckons him to sit beside her so they can begin their studying.

Henry was no longer listening to her, 10 minutes into their session

Here he is, distracted by her pleasant smiling face because she was such in a good mood.

Why is it whenever she smells like apples she's in a good mood?

He then concludes that she should wear this perfume more often

"Did you get that?" She looks up at him after she scribbles a few solutions on his notebook

He was now staring at her smiling lips.
They were chapped and he figures they should be on the rough side.
She kept her lips earlier which only worsened the chapping.

"Henry?"

A blink and Henry leans over and he seizes her lips with his for a lingering peck

Amber doesn't kiss back because she was still registering the fact that Henry has his arms on her waist and his hot lips on hers for a few seconds.

The army in her chest are off for a jog again and the butterflies in her stomach were in a rampage. Her eyes wide, seeking for answers and her hands gripping the pen she was using a few seconds before.

I'm awake, right?

She pulls away and just stares at his weakly smiling face

"I-I think you still need to rest. I gotta go"
She stands up and dashes her way out his room

Why can't I be angry about what just happened? He took all over my personal space! I should be furious!

Amber was in her room, sitting on her bed. Phone in hand. She has been staring at his text and has typed over a dozen responses but still ends up deleting them

What should I say?

From: Henry :)               

Sorry if I took you by surprise. I wasn't able to get a hold of myself. It won't happen again.
P.s.
You could use a chapstick.

She gives up and plops on her bed, sighing.

She feels for her lips. They really were dry.
How embarrassing! He had to kiss me today!

She looks out her window, the sun hasn't set yet.
She takes her skateboard and heads to the nearby convenience store

"Last week you put on your hood the whole day. Now you put on a hood and a face mask?"
Qian walks up to her to get some books from her locker

"I don't wanna catch a cold" Amber's muffled response

"Or she's hiding from someone" Soojung was skipping her way beside Amber

"Psh. No I'm not." She avoids eye contact

"Hmm right. Oh! The someone you're not hiding from is approaching"

"Amber!" Henry's voice booms from behind her

"Oops! Gotta go. Come on, Qian eonnie, we're gonna be late for classes" Soojung smiles a sly smile, takes Song Qian's hand and drag her away

True friends, indeed. They don't even have classes anymore! It's dismissal!

"Amber. Hey..." Henry grabs her shoulder so he can turn her to face him

"What do you want?" Her eyes still averting his because dammit, what happened last night was still fresh in her mind.

Not that her mind hasn't been replaying that moment over and over again

"Look, I'm sorry about last night. Since you haven't replied I figured you got mad--"

She pulls down her mask
"Of course-- I mean..." she grits her teeth and lowers her voice "I don't think whatever you did last night was necessary"

Henry was having a dilemma whether he should just play along her game of running around and avoiding each other or approach her about what happened

Of course he can't bear to stay away from her and it most definitely is inevitable for them to run into each other because of the "job" he has at their shop and the contest wherein she's his tutor. Though he did purposefully choose her because of this reason. Because he still liked her even after all those years. And the fact that she's avoiding him hurt but he tries to be positive and still keeps his hopes up that one day she'd stop running away from him and finally appreciate his presence. Right now he can't help but feel that Amber only comes to him because he is a priority, not because she wants to.

"I'm really sorry."

She puts her mask back on and tells him
"I gotta go"
She tries to walk past him but he stops her by the hand and the books she had held and the items on top of the books scattered all over the floor

Henry helps in picking them up and there, by his foot, a pink tube of chapstick rolled its way.

"Th-that's mine!" Amber is quick to grab it before he does and she immediately shoves it into her pants' pocket.
She finishes picking up her things and grabs the ones in Henry's hands and immediately runs away like she was in a hundred meter dash

Henry smiles, touching his lips again for the nth time of the day while watching her fade into the sea of students

"Oh! Amber! Hey how's the preparation for the contest coming along?" Amber bumped into Ailee in the middle of squeezing her way through the throng of people crowding by the bulletin board

"Preparation on what?"

"The contest, of course!"

"I'm still training He-Hen...ry..."

"I thought you were gonna represent the school..."

"Oh haha no no."

"Oh... I must have forgotten."

You always forget things

"Anyway, congratulations again." She points Amber's name on top of the ranking list and she shakes the younger's hand

"Thanks... I guess..."

The rest of the students turned around because Ailee was being loud as usual and they congratulated Amber

Her eyes become watery.
It was the first time other students acknowledged her spot and actually congratulated her about it.

It feels so good

Wait.

She notices something.

She sends her friends messages, congratulating them for being in the top 50

Quite an achievment, those idiots

She smiles as she puts her phone back in her pocket.
She feels the tube of lipbalm, takes it out and stares at it.

Amber was making her way home and she decides on putting some on.
She smiles as she does so.

A mental slap comes after. When she realizes she finds herself looking forward for another kiss and to impress him with how soft her lips would have  become.

She rushes to her bedroom and screams at the top of her lungs into her pillow.

This was all too much to take in for herself and she needs an outlet to release all of those pent up emotions in her chest that manage to give her headaches now.

Especially because he kissed her.

he kissed me

Plus he likes her

He likes me

She realizes she hasn't told anyone about any of these yet.
And she has no plans of telling Soojung because she would be another level of drama if ever she told Soojung about what has been happening

A minute ago she feels nothing but happiness now she feels guilty because she made Henry believe she's mad at him.

I have to at least loosen the tension...

To: Henry :)        
Hey. What u up 2?

Meanwhile Henry was in his office with the rest of his gang and he was discussing about his own issues

"Maybe you went too fast" Kyuhyun, the third in the rankings, said before he gave Henry a piece of paper he scribbled on

"Yeah. Most girls may like that but Amber is a different kind of girl... maybe." Eunhyuk grabs the paper before it reaches Henry

"She's a tomboy, alright. But she's still a woman deep inside. Keep it at a slow pace. " it was Donghae's turn to check the paper and he flips it, checking what's so interesting about it

"But no, you went too far and harass her! Give me that!" Leeteuk snatches the paper from his immature friends' hands and finally hands it to Henry

Henry was already sulking in his desk, recieving the paper

"One moment she's mad, the next she's happy to talk to me and then she becomes angry again and the cycle goes on and on" he blankly says staring at nothing in particular

"He's got it bad!" Eunhyuk just laughs which earned him a slap behind his neck courtesy of Leeteuk.

"Anyway, those are the plans for the upcoming prom. You guys going?"

"Aye"

"Of course"

"Amber's not going. What's the point?"

The other boys just became silent until Henry spoke again

"She's bipolar I tell you!"

"There. There." Leeteuk rubs the youngest one's back

"I think what she has for you is a love-hate thing. Don't you guys think?" Kyuhyun laughs

Donghae and Eunhyuk just nod eventhough they really haven't fully grasped what was goin on at the moment.

"Anyway, let's let go of this for now. Let's begin planning for the prom. Where's Ailee by the way?"

"She must have forgotten there's a meeting tonight"

His phone vibrates and a smile spreads across his lips.

From: My Amnerd     
Hey. What u up 2?

To: My Amnerd          
nothing much. You?

"Hyung Henry is smiling like an idiot now..."

"Hey"

"Hey..."

Henry had steps out of his office once Amber finally picked up his call
a stupid dorky smile plastered across his lips

A simple text just isn't enough and he just has to call her
He missed her voice through those days they were playing hide and seek

"Hey... what are you up to?"
Amber's voice quivers and she clears because she can't let him know she's smiling on the other side of the line as well

"Planning stuff for the prom... Which you're not going to attend, right?"

"Haha... yeah. I'm not attending. Look..." she takes a deep breath
"about the past few days..."

"Oh... Hey, don't worry about it. I should be the one sorry. I went too fast and you weren't prepared. I totally understand."

"I just want us to break the barrier of awkward between us. Mostly from me, because goddamit Lau! Why did you kiss me?"

Henry's smile was wider than ever. How he loved the sound of her voice, may she be angry or not. The flashbacks of that night weren't helping AT ALL.

"Do you want me to answer that, Liu?"

"...."

"no."

With that, she hangs up on him. Another scream into her pillow and she stands up, walks to her dresser's mirror to observe her warm face

Keep it together, Liu

"Ailee's here, Henry!" Kyuhyun calls from the office, making Henry snap out of the trance he was in.

"Yeah, coming!"

From: My Amnerd    
Let's be normal tomorrow, ok?

"Eonni..."

Sunyoung snaps her fingers and Amber's attention was finally caught

"O-oh!"

"Guess what.." Sunyoung excitedly sits across her table

"You're spitting all over my food" she drags the tray to her side

"Yah, that's not it. Jinki oppa asked me to prom" she was already squirming in her seat but Amber found it as no surprise anymore.

"Swag."

Sunyoung gives her a disappointed look
"Plus Qian eonni and Zhoumi oppa are kind of a thing now and then Jinri and Minho oppa are going together as well"
She enumerates

"So you and Jinri are going out with the fashionistas... About Qian eonni, I kinda figured that out. She's been eyeing on him the past few cheersquad practice. And she told me she specifically trusts him in doing her lifts"

"Yeah yeah also, Soojung and Henry are going together, too!"

What

"You're gonna be with Kibum right? Yay! We all got dates for the prom this saturday!" She hugs her from across the table as she stood up and happily skips away

What the actual--

a/n: don't kill me please *covers eyes* i'm also hoping i'm not gonna regret making this happen haha

currently not updating the next chapter bc i'm too lazy fo dat. *basks in HenBer's interactions on ig*