“Kimbab, what in God’s name are you wearing?” I didn’t even bother to look up form my laptop screen before replying.

“It’s a romper Auntie.” I breathed out before reaching to the coffee table beside me to grab my drink.

“Well, don’t you think the shorts are a little short?” she asked, I peered over the top of my laptop screen to see her staring at me pointedly over her glasses with her eye brows raised.

“It’s my day off, I’m not going anywhere. Plus; I’m a boy – who the hell is going to be looking at my legs?” I mumbled, bringing my glass to my lips to take a sip, only to discover it was empty. I looked up at my aunt, “Want to go back inside and get me another lemonade?” She only re-raised a brow at me.

“Get off your lazy and come help me in the garden.” I gaped at her.

“But it’s my day off!” I whined, yet still moving my laptop away to stand up.

“Exactly why you should be helping me.” She gave me a victory smile, and then proceeded to walk down the patio stairs to begin digging out tools from underneath them. I sighed; giving up.

“Fine – but there better not be any heavy lifting!”

---

“Okay Kimbab, can you just finish lining up rows for where we’re going to plant? I’m going to go make your uncle some lunch; I’ll bring us out a snack once I’m done, okay?” I didn’t even turn to look at her; I only nodded and continued raking out some dirt.

For some reason, since I was here she thought it would be a great time to re-plant her entire veggie-garden. She said she hasn’t done it for two seasons, but now that I’m here to help out; it’s a great time to get back into it. Yes, because the city-boy loves to garden.

“That snack better include lemonade and Pocky, that’s all I’m saying.” I mumbled under my breath as I leaned the rake against the fence. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw some movement through my neighbor’s window; I turned my head to get a better look and saw a seemingly-attractive guy doing the dishes or something through his over-sink window. He looked up then and I quickly looked away. It would extremely awkward to be caught looking at someone you haven’t even met yet. I didn’t even know guys were living in that house. I’ve only seen a teen and her mom go in and out.

I looked down at the scattered rocks that were supposed to line the garden instead – then at the pile of seed packets and the little tool that was used to poke holes into the dirt, and then back to the rocks, then at the never-ending amount of weeds that were sprouting everywhere.

“Okay, let’s see what I can do here.” I said to myself. I rubbed my hands together and squatted down to examine what I had to work with. Not much to be honest. God, what has she been doing to this poor garden?

I tip-toed my way through to the back of the garden to start pulling the weeds out. One by one I got closer to the front again, and the weeds seemed to want to cooperate less and less. I was almost done, only a few more, but the one I was working on just wouldn’t budge.

“Come on you stupid weed,” I grumbled, pulling a bit harder. I stood up straight and stared down at it, wiping my forehead.

“Listen, , you’re going to come out whether you like it or not.” I bent down again and braced my feet by digging my heels into the dirt and grabbing the thing as close to its base as I could. I pulled a few more times, but again nothing was happening.

“Oh, for ’s sakes!” I yelled, tugging once again – but I pulled maybe a bit too hard; I lost my footing and fell backwards landing hard on my .

“Okay, ow?” I hissed as I forced myself up, bending down again to brush the dirt off the tops of my shoes.

“You know, your legs are astoundingly beautiful.” I heard someone call from behind me. “Nice too.”  I froze for a moment before snapping upwards again and quickly tugging the bottom of my romper down a little farther. I turned my head slowly to see who had commented on my ‘nice ’.

“I’m sorry, can I help you?” I replied, trying to sound annoyed to hide my probably-evident embarrassment. He just chuckled as a response. I moved my hand over my eyes like a visor to get a better look at him. It was the guy from the window before. He was leaning over his back deck railing. His house was right behind ours and our back yards ran into each others, separated by a fence I’m assuming the city issued.

I just stood there taking him in; he was in plaid pajama bottoms, topped with a plain white t-shirt. One that showed his actually impressive muscles; I stared at them longer than I should have – okay ogled at them more like it. Eventually I moved up to his face. His hair was messily tousled as if he’d just woke up – which would explain the pants – I moved my gaze down to his lips, which were curved into a smirk, and when I look up at his eyes I knew why. He was watching me pretty much check him out.

Great first impression Kibum. Good job.

“Like what you see?” he asked teasingly. I quickly looked away, feeling a blush hit my cheeks anyway. Great first impression.

“What’s your name, cutie?” He asked, raising an eyebrow teasingly. I scoffed – feeling my cheeks heat up even more.

“I hardly see how that’s any of your business.” I said stiffly, turning my head away. When he made no move to walk away, or make another comment, I gave him a side glance, seeing his expression hadn’t changed much, besides now the smirk was back.

“Kim Kibum.” I said, giving in.

“Well, Kibum, would you like some help?” I looked up at him properly now, narrowing my eyes.

“Uh, no. Thank you. I’m fully capable of pulling out a few more weeds.” I said curtly. He chuckled, changing his smirk to a smile.

            “You sure about that?”

            “Yes, you cocky bast-”

“Jonghyun! Jonghyun, is that you? I thought you went back to Seoul!” I heard my aunt yell from behind me; I turned to look at her with a horrified expression. She knew him? And judging by her smile, she liked him too. I turned back to him once he started to reply, his tone completely different.

“Hi Seojin-noona. Nope, decided I liked the scenery here a lot better than the city skyline. And I’m beginning to like the view I have right here a lot more too.” He gave me a pointed look with that last sentence. I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms and shifting my weight to pop my hip out slightly, turning my head away from him. , please, you are so not my type. I glanced back at him slightly to see he had that annoying smile back on his face, blatantly staring at me. Okay, maybe he was kind of my type.  Kind of.

“Well, I see you’ve met Kibum,” my aunt said, walking up beside me, patting me on the back. I looked over at her with a mixed expression – one of slight shock, and slight disgust. She only smiled at me, “Getting along well I assume?” I formed my mouth into a small smile and nodded.

“Oh yeah, of course.” I replied over enthusiastically. She narrowed her eyes at me slightly, catching my tone.

“Be nice Kibum.” I stuck my tongue out at her before turning away from both of them, about to walk away when Jonghyun spoke up.

“So, what are you guys doing?” I sighed and turned back around.

“Gardening, what does it look like?” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Well, we were gardening. I see not much got done while I was gone though,”

“What? I did work!” I said defensively, pointing behind me at the now cleared garden, “Look! I pulled out all the weeds!” I looked between the two of them frantically, sending Jonghyun silent signals for back up.

“Kimbab here’s from a big city, don’t mind him.”

“Hey! I can here you! There is nothing wrong with coming from a big city! Was that supposed to be an insult? You’re being unfair!” I kept rambling on until I noticed the shocked look on Jonghyun’s face and the bored one on my aunt’s.

“Stop speaking English Kimbab, I can’t understand you.” I quickly covered my mouth with my hand, ducking my head down a bit.

“Sorry,” I said quietly.

“Whenever Kimbab gets flustered he tends to revert back to English. He lived in the States for a long time.” My aunt explained, I looked up through my fringe to see Jonghyun smiling at me again. I quickly ducked my head farther down.

“I’ll just go make us some drinks…” I said quietly before removing my hand and snapping my head up, “Since someone forgot too.” My aunt only rolled her eyes before walking over to the side gate, unlocking its hinge. I my heels and walked back to the stairs. I grabbed my laptop on the patio couch in passing and walked through the sliding doors. I placed my laptop down on the kitchen island before stepping over to the cupboard and pulling out three tall glasses, then bending down to the drawer under the counter to grab a tray.

I padded my way over to the fridge and quickly decided on a drink to make, going with a simple blue-berry infused lemonade. I grabbed some blue berries and the carton of lemonade, putting those on the island behind me, then turned back and grabbed two lemons and a lime. I brought those over to the counter where I’d placed the glasses. I opened and closed umpteen drawers until I found a strainer – usually used for crushing garlic, but oh well – then grabbed a spoon out of another drawer. I filled each glass half way with lemonade then took a hand full of blueberries and dropped a few into the strainer. I squeezed some blueberry juice into each glass then took out a cutting board, dumping some more blueberries onto it. I took the spoon and squished them against it before scooping the now-blueberry-mush into it and stirring it into each glass. I took the lemons and cut them in half squeezing each slice into a separate glass, taking the lime and cutting it in half as well, only this time I used one half for all the glasses.

I realized there wouldn’t be enough to top off all the glasses with the lemonade that was left in the carton. I moved back over to the fridge and grabbed a ginger-ale out of the bottom drawer and tapped against the lid to keep it from foaming once I opened it. I cracked the can open, holding it away from me just in case,  then slowly poured a tiny bit into each glass, then used the remaining lemonade to fill them just a bit more. I took the spoon I’d used before and gave them all a quick stir before putting them onto the tray and heading back outside.

I walked down the porch stairs – tray still in hand – looking around for my aunt and Jonghyun.

“Hey I hope you guys don’t mind lemonade with…” I stopped in the middle of the yard looking up at Jonghyun, “what the are you doing?”

“Coming over to help?” he said, giving me a confused look, as if that was the most obvious reason he was sitting on the top of our fence.

“But… We have a gate you know.” I said, giving him an incredulous look and pointing over to my right. He smiled and nodded.

“Yeah I know, I’m the one who put the latches on it. It’s just easier this way then walking all around the side on my house over to the gate.”

“So you just jump the fence whenever you want to come over.” I dead panned, watching closely as he shimmed over to his left a bit to avoid some decorative rocks below him.

“Pretty much – but don’t tell Seojin, she’ll have a heart attack.” I nodded absentmindedly, walking over to the gazebo to put the drinks down out of the sun. When I came back out he was standing in the garden lining the fence, brushing off his pants.

“Don’t you think it would’ve been smarter to change first?” I asked, walking up to him. He straightened up then – I nearly choked on my own spit trying to hold back a laugh. He was shorter than me, even when he was standing in the garden, which was raised. He rolled his eyes at me.

“Well someone’s mature.” I nodded, still biting my lip, trying to compose myself. He held a hand out towards me, “I’m Jonghyun, nice to meet you.” I swallowed my last few remaining giggles, and put a business expression on my face, taking his hand.

“Kibum. Pleasure’s mine.” His dumb- smile returned as he let go of my hand to walk past me.

“Come on now, let’s get to work.” I turned around to follow him, he looked over his shoulder at me with a smirk on his face, “don’t worry though, I’ll get those last few weeds for you.” I gaped at him.

This .