:::Heartstrings OST - Going To Meet You:::

After towing YoungMin out by the back of his shirt, JeongMin dusted his hands off proudly. He seemed to have forgotten the reason why he crashed into your room in the first place.

You flipped over to your stomach again, and simply looked at him with your head propped up on your hands.

His vision strolled around your room, with a satisfied expression, muttering, "that punk.." every now and then. Eventually his gaze landed on the bed and his eyes widened, remembering you.

"Oh right," he realized. Immediately, he moved to sit on the floor close to your bed. "It's my turn now," he announced cheerfully.

Sighing, you laid your head on the bed wearily. Time to deal with the weird one, you thought to yourself, trying to find a bright side to this mess.

JeongMin pouted. He nudged your arm gently, whining, "Give me a chance." Slowly, you raised your head. "Mm," you agreed hesitantly. "What do you have?"

He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. "Your application," he grinned brightly."My application?" you raised an eyebrow.

Without any further explanations, he leaned back on your bed proceeded to read it intently. You didn't even know you had an application. Curiously, you positioned yourself behind him and read over his shoulder.

The Triple S must have sent it in, you nodded to yourself. You quickly skimmed over the paper and found nothing of interest. All that was stated there was your basic personal information.

However, JeongMin found something rather fascinating. He turned to you and asked, "You do mixed martial arts?"

You shrugged casually, seeing no point in his question. Out of pure courtesy, you offered, "Kung Fu's better. It's a way of life. Mixed martial arts sounds so brutal, don't you think?"

JeongMin blinked. And he thought he was the weird one. "Well then," he folded your application and placed it back in his pocket. "Now I know that there is one thing I can do for you." Snapping his eyes shut, he braced himself. In a small voice, he squeaked, "You can punch me if you want."

For a few seconds you stared at him, dumbfounded. Did he just say what you think he said? "Jeong-" you began.

Instantly, he let out a bloodcurdling shriek.

"What?!" you yelled back, alarmed. "I didn't hit you!"

Tentatively, he opened an eye to take a peek at you. Seeing that you were still on the bed, lying down far too casually to have been capable of striking him, he straightened up and got back to position. "I- I was just practicing," he protested weakly. "You know, because you can hit me if you want."

Smiling, you shook your head. "JeongMin, I'm not going to hit you," you laughed. "Why would I?"

"It's okay!" he insisted. Determination was practically radiating off of him. "I'll be fine," he rubbed his own arms, as if to comfort himself. "I'm a man. Real men can take a beating."

"Now you're just being silly," you laughed. He looked at you and sighed. Noticing his discouraged expression, you turned to him seriously. "Why would you want me to hit you?"

"If you like this combat stuff then you must hit punching bags a lot," he explained. "I just thought-"

"That you'd make a good punching bag?" you finished with a grin.

He pouted. "I don't seem to understand your feelings and I don't know what to do for you. I guess this wasn't a good idea," he frowned unhappily.

You measured the look on his face. Two questions popped into your head. But you only spoke out one. "Why do you want to please me so bad?"

Naturally, the second question was: When is serving as a live punching bag ever a good idea? However, you figured he'll just be even more upset if you asked that as well.

JeongMin hugged his knees and rocked gently back and forth while explaining himself, "You're our company's trainee and we're supposed to take care of you. It's our job to protect you. How can we take care of you if you don't even like us? We won't be doing a very good job then."

But technically, it's my job to protect you, you mused silently, trying not to ruin the moment with an unexplainable chuckle. "I see," you replied. "In that case, brace yourself."

His eyes widened before he closed them tightly once again. Still hugging his knees, he mumbled a barely comprehensible, "I'm ready."

You smiled and rolled your eyes. He's so childish, you thought to yourself. You placed a finger on his forehead and pushed lightly.

He immediately toppled over. "Ow," he grumbled with a pout and massaged the back of his neck.

You laughed at his reaction. He wasn't a scrawny guy, but he sure was fragile. "There, I hit you," you said with an accomplished grin. "Are you happy now?"

"That depends." He sat back up and looked at you hopefully. "Do you like me now?"

"Well that depends too," you told him. "What was the bread knife for?" You just couldn't let it go. Who greets people with a bread knife?

"The bread knife!" he remembered with big eyes. "That! That, that was for! Because you were- I wanted to-" He stumbled over his words in a hurry to get them out.

You waited patiently.

"I wanted to make you something," he explained quickly. "I thought you'd like food. I mean, who doesn't like food? So I went to the kitchen, but I'm not really good at cooking. I thought I'd just give you bread then. That's why I had the bread knife. I wanted to cut it prettily, and do it nicely, but then you came early so I ran to the door and forgot about the bread knife. But then you thought of me as some crazy armed man. Then MinWoo and his chainsaws and guns and then.. and then.. and then.. You didn't like me," he concluded with a frown.

You listened to his story with an amused expression. "So where's the bread that you were preparing so prettily and nicely?" you wanted to know.

"I'll go get it!" he promised and made a motion to get up, but he stopped halfway. "KwangMin's in the kitchen," he remembered. "And HyunSeong probably ate it by now," he sighed.

To his surprise, you started laughing. "Wh- what?" he asked, clearly confused.

"Nothing, it's just," you paused to steady yourself from all the laughter. "You talk a lot, you know?"

He blinked. Was that supposed to be a good thing?

"And I like you. A lot," you added sincerely. He tried really hard, you observed.

"Seriously?!" he confirmed. You nodded and he instantly ran out the room and yelled to the first person he met, "HA! I TOLD YOU SHE WAS GOING TO LIKE ME A LOT."

A confused HyunSeong stared at him. "You said she was going to like you best."

But JeongMin wasn't listening. "She likes me a lot, RinMi likes me a lot," he sang to himself on the way to go yell the news to the other members.