Love is something everyone welcomes.

Love is radiant and beautiful, despite being utterly confusing at times.

Love is six feet tall with a deep-set pair of brown eyes.

And love… well, it screwed Moran’s life worse than ketchup did to white shirts.

It wasn’t her fault really. It was never her intention to get out of the comfort of her house and miss the Wednesday re-runs of a drama she was hyped for.

If anything, she should blame her lousy friend Kim Kibum for dragging her to an all-vegetarian friendly café; completely ignoring her undying hatred for soy milk. Being soft on him as always, he was able to lure her into his schedule by saying that it’s the new trend and he was not going to be left out.

Moran should have expected something like this to happen from him being such a hipster (although he denies it constantly).

As Kibum sat in his table prepping his camera lens for the food photo shoot, Moran was killing her legs while standing in line to order. Honestly, she begun to think that he only brought her over to boss her around.

Thinking that none of these food items matched Kibum’s blog aesthetic, Moran could only put blind faith into her friend’s photography skills.

Truly, it wasn’t her plan to get lost in her own thoughts as the staff called out her order and Kibum did not need to over-react by yelling over to her to ‘snap out of it’, successfully throwing her off and causing her to jump and unceremoniously hit her head onto someone’s shoulder.

“I think your boyfriend’s calling you.” She did not know a person’s voice could sound so warm and nice even after head-butting their shoulder. But hey, something new every day right?

Moran lifted her head up and immediately felt nauseous when she was met with the most strikingly gorgeous man she’s ever seen off-TV.  His smile itself could land him into beauty commercials and his eyes were wide-alert, crinkling into soft, barely noticeable lines at the thought of something amusing.

The thing is, she was too invested in imagining how the hot stranger’s puffy mess of soft looking, auburn hair would feel under her fingers to realize that he was still looking at her and that she was still supposed to give him a reply.

Right.

“Uh,” she avoided the man’s stare and felt heat crawling up her cheeks, “I… don’t.”

His eyebrows tugged down in slight confusion and she was internally panicking at how good he looks with that expression on. “Have a boyfriend, I mean…” her words stumbled over each other, “… I don’t.”

“Right.” The other gave out a light, bewildered laugh, “I see.”

Moran bit the insides of her cheeks to not freak out over the cute way his eyes lit up when he laughs, or how stupid she must’ve looked at the moment. But of course, before she stops herself and her clumsy mouth, she goes ahead and says “So… yeah. I don’t.”

“Good to know.” Hot stranger winked at her playfully before he proceeded to carry his tray of drinks away to his table. If not for Kibum’s annoyed threats, Moran would not have the energy to walk back to their table with her very wobbly legs.

As she arrived, Kibum gave her a once-over and smirked, demanding of her the details later and then focuses on snapping pictures with his DSLR in different angles.

Usually, Kim Kibum climbing up his chair for ‘better-lighting’ would cause her extreme second-hand embarrassment, but that day she was too distracted by the hot stranger’s reflection on the glass to even care.

“We’re stalking him!” she whispered in frustration as Kibum pulled her behind a tree for camouflage, “This is so wrong- even for you!”

Rolling his eyes in an attempt to ignore her, her so-called best friend shushed her when she was going near a full-out nagging mode. “We’re only trying to find out more about the handsome stud you were drooling over the past hour. Now shut up and just consider it a present of compensation from yours truly.”

“… That’s still called stalking.” She muttered under her breath but let Kibum tug her hands to follow him as they trailed behind the hot stranger in a safe distance.

It could only amount to Moran’s horror when she watched the hot stranger guy walk into a nearby gym in the corner of the street. She didn’t know if she was only imagining it, but Kibum’s hand started gripping her wrist tighter as he marched cheerfully on.

He did try to coax her into going to the gym with him to try out those yoga classes because he thought it would look so cool on his blog under the ‘lifestyle’ tag. Moran wiggled herself out of the offer every single time because the next scariest commitment anyone could throw themselves into other than marriage is to go to the gym.

With a single tear threatening to slip out of her eye, she struggled in Kibum’s hold, ready to sprint away as fast as possible as long as it’s not on a treadmill.

But being a natural weakling thrown into a survival of the fittest, Moran whined in defeat as Kibum pulled both their bodies into the entrance of the gym.

In a few minutes (curse good customer service), Moran and Kibum were official members of the gym and were given hand-outs of schedules alongside their assigned trainers.

Kibum was practically jumping while Moran stared emptily at the paper that was soon to be her will. The overwhelming dread was soon washed out, however, when she spotted the hot-stranger at a corner of the gym, watching over a young kid who was doing some bench-presses.

Her ears perked up at the sound of the hot stranger giving out commands and the reply of “Yes, coach!” the kid barked out.

Guessing he was probably a trainer here, Moran let herself smile despite the haunting Pilates classes printed on her schedule-paper.

The hot stranger’s name is Minho, she discovered one afternoon when she heard some people calling him over.

She couldn’t really pay attention to him though, since her muscles were strained just after 10 minutes of constant cardio. Her thighs were legit burning and her vision was starting to turn white if not for the joy of finally knowing his name.

Kibum was giving her a pitiful look as she slumped over, legs still running and breathing like she was having asthma. He silently handed her a bottle of water for encouragement but she shooed him off, feeling like she could throw up if she ingests anything at this point.

She almost stumbled and face-planted on the treadmill when a hand rested on her back. If she’d felt like she could throw up, now she was trying her best to keep it inside with her dignity because it was Minho staring down at her in concern, his forehead scrunching up most adorably and perspiration trailing the sides of his tanned skin and down the veins of his neck.

Moran could throw up.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice quieter than it should be, “Running with the wrong posture would only strain you more.”

“Good… ‘m good…” she wheezed out, “I… uh… meant to do that.”

She could hear Kibum face-palming himself in the background when Minho laughed, mirth lacing his eyes. Moran tried to not show obvious disappointment when the warmth of Minho’s hand left her back. She watched him cross his arms over, leaning on the side of the treadmill.

“You don’t do this often, do you?” he smiled before a flash of recognition went by his features. “Wait… you’re from that café, am I right?”

It took Moran all that was left of her strength to nod and smile as if everything was dandy and her feet wasn’t sore from the torture. Her only motivation was Minho’s little smiles, Minho’s calming voice, Minho in his tight gym clothing leaning over and showing of the toned muscles of his arms… Moran knew it was all too good to be true when he was called over by the kid he was training.

Just as he was turning back, he looked at her with a tilt of his head, his hair sweeping over his forehead softly. Moran felt a hiccup coming when he asked for her name and she did hiccup when she said it out loud, making her say “Mo- hic- Ran” instead.

Kibum groaned in pain at her people skills (or in lack thereof) while Minho nodded, a lop-sided smile on his face.

“Good to know,” he’d said.

Going to gym was becoming more and more exciting but that also comes with a lot of pain. Moran oft