“You want to go grab some food first?”

“Sure, I know this nice fast food place on the same floor as the cinema. We can go there first.” Hyejin spoke hurriedly, hopefully not showing how nervous she was.

They were walking side by side, with her carefully maintaining a distance so their hands wouldn’t brush. Her face was red enough; she didn’t need anything else to help make it redder. Junmyeon, however, looked actually quite relaxed, and even a bit confused at Hyejin’s actions. He didn’t comment on it though, only resorting to curious glances every now and then.

They found a nice table at the fast food place after ordering an American style burger and fries. He insisted on paying for her, not even letting her fish out her purse.

There were a lot of people around although it was a weekday. Granted, it was Friday so there was supposed to be a lot of schoolkids. She kept her eye out for anyone from their school, in case they would start a rumour or make bad remarks about them. Or perhaps, she was just shy.

Junmyeon sighed, causing Hyejin to snap her head at him in attention. “You know, this was supposed to be a date.”

“U-huh…” she nodded slowly, clueless and a tad nervous of where this conversation was going to go.

“So why do you look like you don’t want to be here? You keep looking around and you’re hardly talking to me!”

He was pouting now, and she had to stifle a laugh. “I do, I do. It’s just that… what if people from our school see us?”

“So what?” he asked, as if it was a very dumb question. “What does that have to do with anything?”

She blushed. “Well… Um, I-”

“You don’t want us to be seen together?”

“No! It’s not that! I mean, what if they get the wrong idea, you know? Like they might assume things about us and tell everyone.”

He let out a breath. “Wow, you really pull my confidence down.”

“W-what?”

“You see, I was going to ask you properly to be my girlfriend after the movie, but it seems like you don’t have any feelings for me. You don’t even want other people to know that were out together.”

Hyejin was stunned. She gaped at him for a few moments, to which he stared with a hint of amusement lurking behind his otherwise blank look. “You mean, you want me? To be with you? Like together?”

“I mean, you don’t want to, right, so,” he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Let’s just forget that even happened. We’ll just assume that this is an outing for friends.”

“What? No! That’s not what I meant,” she groaned, trying her best not to falter under his gaze. “Of course I’d love to be your girlfriend, like, am I not obvious enough? Seungwan says I’m really conspicuous. But the thing is, you? Why do you even like me?”

Junmyeon’s lips stretched slowly into a smile. “What do you mean?”

“Like why do you like me?” she asked, shying away at how he was reacting. “I don’t see anything special about me. That’s why no boys have really asked me out before, I think. And you’ve been the golden boy since you moved here. See the difference?”

He his lips, formulating an answer. “Hyejin, you’re plenty special. You’re fascinating to me. You have tons of good qualities that can attract anyone to you! Don’t you know why you have so many friends? Plus, those boys never asked you out because they probably assumed Jongdae was your boyfriend or something.”

She fake-gagged at the mere thought of it. They