A Handful of Roses

A Handful of Roses (Valentines Day Oneshot)

Bae Rieun had wanted to sleep in on the first day of February. After a tiring day of running after beautiful young devils, she wanted a day of rest. Wednesday was the middle of the week, and one of the laziest in Rieun's schedule, so it the last thing she would have thought of when the doorbell woke her up. Groaning, she pulled herself out of bed, hoping it wasn't her friend Changmi who had come early just to annoy her. She opened the door groggily, ready to cut loose at Changmi, only to realise that it wasn't Changmi at all. It was blonde boy who she didn't recognise.

"You have a delivery," he said cheerily, his pink gums shining in her directing. Rieun mentally cursed herself for wearing her embarrassing SpongeBob pyjamas in front of the cute delivery guy.

"Thanks," she managed to say, wishing that the ground would open up and her in. She took the abnormally large box from his hands, squealing to herself when their hands brushed against each other lightly.

"Right then, have a good day!" the delivery boy said with a little wave before walking off.

Rieun sighed dramatically and closed the door. Despite its size, the box was very light. Wondering who could have sent her such a bizarre gift, she took the lid off and disappointment settled in when the box looked empty. That is until she saw the little rose tucked away into the corner, a small card placed beneath it. Confused, Rieun took the card out and was even more confused by the message. Only the word 'I'm' was written on it, and even that in its contracted form. She slowly took the rose out of the box and examined it. The stalk of the flower was incredibly short, nothing like the ones that you saw at the florist. "It must have been hand-picked," Rieun observed and a shy smile played on her lips. But who was it from?

The following morning, at the same time, Rieun received another delivery. "You must be popular," the boy with the gummy smile said...with a shining gummy smile, handing her a box identical to that of the previous day's.

Rieun shyly took the box and bowed when the gummy-smile boy left. The package's contents were also identical to that of yesterday's, except for the message on the card. 'Still' it said.

For a week, the ritual continued, with a perplexed gummy-smile boy delivering a package every day. 'Young', 'and', 'the', 'world' and 'is' were the next five words on the cards. Thoroughly perplexed, she took the cards with her to university to ask her friend Changmi's advice on the situation.

"It's the delivery boy," Changmi said as soon as Rieun had finished relating the story. Rieun gave Changmi a look. "Why not?" Changmi asked defensively, "How many delivery boys work seven days a week, at the exact same time shift, in the exact same area and never make you sign anything off?"

Rieun's eyes widened, and a shy smile flashed across her face again. "You really think so?" The smile was gone as soon as it came. "You idiot, half the deliveries these days don't require signatures, especially if they're private deliveries. Cute Gummy-Smile boy definitely wasn't wearing delivery-boy uniform."

"Oh yeah," Changmi realised, "Well, if it isn't the delivery boy, which it could still be, it must be some other secret admirer of yours."

Rieun rolled her eyes. "Wow Changmi, I never would have guessed."

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

"Hyung, does she suspect anything?" Zelo asked as soon as Yongguk walked through the door.

Yongguk shrugged. "She seemed to look at me a little strangely today. May be you should think about changing delivery boys."

Zelo nodded. She couldn't find out about the plan until the final phase. "Assa," he said, feeling reinvigorated, "Starting from tomorrow, who wants to be the new delivery boy?" Himchan immediately flattened himself on the wall and attempted to run away ninja style. Jongup's push-ups seemed to take him further and further away from Zelo. Youngjae suddenly took out his tenth grade maths textbook and became very interested in the workings of the parabola. Only Daehyun remained where he was, looking dramatically into the sky, blasting his headphones with hip-hop, blissfully unaware of the situation with Zelo. Zelo took Daehyun's inactivity as consent and a new delivery boy was born.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Rieun was rather upset when the delivery boy turned out to be another blonde with a frightening, studded black mask and not the usual delivery-boy. He unceremoniously dumped the delivery box into her hands and walked away. Rieun didn't bother with the formalities and shut the door in his face. 'Large' was her next world clue.

Rieun learnt to accept Daehyun's aloof attitude and kept her arms ready to catch the deliveries he threw at her. The following hints she received were 'but', 'my', 'feelings', 'remained' and 'the'. On Valentine's day, Rieun woke up early in anticipation.  If her hunch was correct, she would be able to find out who her secret admirer was. But no one came in the morning. Then it was midday, but still there was nothing. The afternoon flashed by and Rieun observed couples from her balcony, but there was still no sign of the delivery boys. So when the sun had set and the evening settled in, it was with great shock that she was greeted by both Gummy-Smile and Mask-Boy at the door.

"Hi I'm Bang Yongguk," Gummy-smile said with a gummy smile. Rieun eyes widened. Had Changmi really been right? "And this here is my friend, Jung Daehyun. We're special delivery boys. We have two deliveries for you today." Yongguk handed Rieun the box and Daehyun dumped a huge envelope on top of it and silently walked off. Yongguk shook his head at Daehyun and bowed to Rieun. "I hope my friend didn't do all this in vain," he said, indicating the deliveries.

"Your friend?" Rieun asked, "So then...that masked-guy…"

"No!" Yongguk quickly corrected himself, "Another friend of mine. Please be there." With that said he gave Rieun a small wave and left.

Rieun opened the box and immediately took out the rose. She placed the rose with the other thirteen she had received in a wide bowl where they looked like bright red water lilies. She then picked out the last hint and read it out loud, "Same." Rieun placed all the cards together and suddenly the words leaped out at her. "I'm still young and the world is large but my feelings remained the same," she read out. She immediately knew who it was. "Zelo," she said breathlessly and opened the large card that Daehyun had dumped on her.

"Noona," it said, "It's been a while hasn't it? When you told me that I was young and my feelings would change, I was determined to prove you wrong. Two years down the track, my feelings from high school still linger. I even bought a rose bush so I could grow my own flowers for you. Unfortunately, because it's winter the tree only gives me a flower a day so all I could give you was a handful of roses. But today, two flowers bloomed and I was really happy. Will you come the place where I last confessed to you to accept my final rose?"

Rieun' heart skipped a beat and she reread the letter several times to make sure she wasn't dreaming. She still remembered Zelo's confession. She still had his card. But she had been scared. Scared of falling for a high school boy she feared was immature and leave her as quickly as he had come. She was older and more mature but found herself feeling childish in the moments after her rejection of his confession. Would a mature person really have run away from their feelings for fear of being hurt? Zelo had proven his maturity by sticking with his feelings even this far down the track. Rieun didn't waste another moment. She raced to the park swings next to the pre-school kindergarten she worked at.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Zelo paced around the swings, mentally preparing himself for his speech. It was exactly 132 words longs. He knew it all by heart. His timing was perfect. His pronunciation was great. His -

"Stop running around Zelo if you want me to shower the rose petals down on time," Himchan griped, feeling particularly bitter after receiving a record of an amazing zero number of valentine's presents.

"Neh hyung," Zelo called up to the tree where his hyungs were hiding, too nervous to even fight back. Zelo turned back to face the empty park, blowing on his cold hands, trying to get himself warm in the chill of winter. That was when Rieun slowly emerged onto the pathway before him. "You remember your speech. You remember your speech," Zelo repeated to himself nervously.

Rieun stepped towards Zelo unsurely, wondering why there were ten legs dangling from the trees around Zelo. But when she saw him, her heart skipped a beat. There Zelo was, waiting for her at the end of her road. She broke out into a run; it was slow at first but she got faster and faster until she was right in front of Zelo. Zelo opened his mouth to speak but Rieun cut him off with a kiss. Himchan tried to tone down his jealousy but ended up throwing his rose petals at the couple angrily.

Rieun was the first to break away. "So," she said rather shyly, "Where's that last rose? I need one more to consider what I got a 'handful'."

Zelo took it out of his pocket. "Here you go noona. A handful of roses to commemorate our first day together." The other four took their cue and rained petals down on Rieun and Zelo as they kissed again to celebrate this special Valentine's day.

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JelaKhin
#1
Chapter 1: O...I forgot 2 mention-I'm severely allergic 2 roses :( I wish I weren'tㅠ.ㅠmain(2 젤로오빠)ㅋㅋㅋ
JelaKhin
#2
Chapter 1: Awwwn~how cute~^^too bad I'm not his noona ): neway luved it a lot...SOME CRAZY STORY LINES^^
Matocian #3
AWWWWWWW~ SO CUTE! I LIKE IT! BUAHAHAHA random legs hanging from the tree x)
NinjasAndKpop #4
OMG SO FREAKING CUTE AND SWEET I LOVED IT. XD I even forgot all of my punctuation! Guess I got too excited over this adorableness. :D
scarletfire63
#5
T^T so cuteeee
iera_jun
#6
perfect valentine confession ;AAAAAAA;
randomsparadise
#7
NAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
ITS SO CUTE
AND HIMCHAN AND HIS JELLY PETAL CHUCKING XDD
.....Changmi....ARE YOU IMPLYING THAT I ANNOY YOU? D: /CUT
xDD this was so cute sdchbgdnhsa
i could wrap it up in a fluffy bow and pink glitter and dfvmnfmdj
xmissdiazx #8
awwww so cute!
"a record of an amazing zero number of valentine's presents." awesome line HAHAHAH
i loved it <3 lucky noona :P
saranghaae-
#9
Too cute~ AND HIMCHAN LOLOLOLOL
Awesome ^^
liliamarvel
#10
You most likely fear a comment from me. Directing?? HAPPY LATE VALENTINES. Interesting take. When I saw preschool I was all PS MAAAAAAN!!!! HEHE.