I didn’t mean to abruptly push Kikwang’s arm away from me, but once the door opened, I quickly ran out and jumped around in glee; ecstatic to finally be on the ground. Kikwang stumbled behind me, and seemed to be staring at me with a, 'what-is-wrong-with-this-person' kind of look. Seeing as how my little squeals had caused a few heads to turn here and there, Kikwang began to shift his scarf around his face a little, as if wanting to hide it.

He then grabbed my hand, "Kaja."

I stopped bouncing, and then gave him a sheepish smile when I noticed a few people staring, "Sorry, I didn't mean to make people look..."

He waved it off, and then began to lead the way, "You’re alright; its fine."

Even though I couldn't see his mouth due to the scarf covering it, I knew that he was smiling, because of the way his eyes were crinkled. Looking back, I noticed that one or two girls were staring at us, and would occasionally whisper to one another. They looked confused, and seeing that made me feel even more confused. Even though I had my head now facing the front, I could still feel their curious eyes on my back.

———————————————

Kikwang told me to go away when he saw me take out a few notes from my wallet.

We had to pay for our entrance to the garden, and he wasn't letting me pay. I waved the note into his face, telling him to take it, but he just effortlessly blocked me out when he was speaking to the ticket lady. At first, the way she blinked, and somewhat stuttered made me think that she was star struck or something. She was smiling at him the whole time, but it wasn’t one of those usual polite smiles. It seemed to disappear and was replaced with a slightly disappointed one when she handed him the tickets.

As Kikwang handed me the piece of paper, I could feel her uneasy eyes on me.

My thoughts on her temporarily disappeared when I took a proper look at the ticket, "'Couple?' You bought us a COUPLE ticket!? Yah, why did you buy us a couple ticket?!"

"It was cheaper," replied the dark haired boy innocently.

"If that’s the case, you should have let me pay! Anyway, now the ticket lady probably thinks we're going out." I then quickly tilted my head into her direction, "And because of that, she won't stop staring at me."

Kikwang's eyes followed the path of where my head had quickly pointed at, before looking back at me, "Oh well, that's too bad for her, because I'm already interested in someone else."

Hearing this, my ears perked up, "Ooooh, really? Who is she? Do I know her? Eh? Eh? Ehhh?"

I nudged him playfully as I questioned him some more, and he shyly smiled, "She doesn't exactly know that I have a slight interest in her, just yet. For now, I'll just see how things go before I actually tell her...heh, I'll probably introduce you to her one day."

Smiling, I made a fist pump action to show him my support, "I think she'll definitely like you back!"

"I hope so..." he then quickly changed the topic, "Lets go inside and see how many koi fishes there are!"       

———————————————

“Don’t you just...want to step all over them?” I asked, as we stared intently at the koi fishes in the pond.

The different coloured warm shades of red, orange, yellow were gently overlapping each other, with an occasional white fish, here and there. The way that the fishes were swarming all over at our corner, was quite mesmerizing.

“STEP on them?!” questioned Kikwang, who sounded bewildered.

I looked up at him and shrugged, “Well I don’t know, they all look so big and juicy, I kind of want to...step on them, or something. Don’t you want to step on them too?”

A nervous laugh could be heard from the male, as he began to drag me away.

As we walked through the maze-like garden together, we were greeted with different types of trees, shrubs, and plants. The impressive dragon design on the wall that was made out of a jade-like material definitely gave the place a ‘Chinese’ like atmosphere. Lily pads of all different sizes sat nicely on the different ponds, along with a few colossal stones that were big enough for people to sit on, if they wanted a closer look at a few of the statues that were situated further in.

I decided to take out my phone to take a few photos, because it was such a lovely place. Kikwang, being the silly person that he is, kept trying to make me take photos of him, instead of the actual scenery around us. He would pose like ‘Adam’ in Michelangelo’s famous ‘Creation of Adam’ painting on a few of the big rocks nearby, and then try to photo-bomb every other shot that I was trying to take, by doing this really weird ‘dramatic surprise’ pose right at the last minute.

No matter how many times I tried to shoo him away, he kept coming back and insisted on taking a few photos together. Instead of doing that, I ended up getting distracted by a fairly large lizard that was resting on the rocks of the nearby waterfall. Seeing this, Kikwang asked me to take a photo of him pointing at the lizard, and I laughed at the very enthusiastic face that he pulled. I then sent the photo to his phone so that he would have a copy of it also, before we wondered off into the bamboo forest.

It wasn’t so much a ‘forest’, considering how it was much smaller than I thought it would have been. The bamboos were really high up, and there was just enough light for you to make out where everything was, and see some of the things and writings that other people had carved onto the tall grass. After that, we went and sat on the stone seats that situated near the vast pond, and just took in the surrounding.

Right at that moment, Kikwang reached into his pocket and pulled out his buzzing phone, “Hello?”

As he spoke to the other person, his frown naturally caught my attention.

“Yes, I’ll be there soon...okay Hyung...bye.”

When he placed his phone back into his pocket, he sighed, “I’m sorry, but I have to go now; my Hyungs need me for something...”

I gave him a reassuring smile, “Oh, it’s fine; I had fun!”

The frown on his face then turned into a slight smile, “That’s good to hear.”

———————————————

When we exited the garden, we said our goodbyes again.

“Get home quickly, and safely, okay? This morning when I was checking the weather, they said that there was going to be a storm in the afternoon,” said Kikwang.

I nodded, taking in his thoughtfulness, “Yes, and the same goes to you.”

After having him ruffle up my hair, and me shooing him away, we then parted ways at the opposite direction. On my way back home, a cute cake store had caught my attention, which made me stare at the delectable treats sitting at the glass window. The sudden buzz from my phone snapped me out of my trance, and when I went to check what it was, a frown made its way onto my face.

“Hey, are you busy today? Do you...want to hang to out, or something?”

Closing Keito’s text message with a somewhat violent jab from my finger, I then tucked my phone back into my pocket, “Tsk, so you suddenly remember that I exist?”

My sour mood was suddenly replaced by my heart on the verge of wanting to leap out of my body, and then run off somewhere, when I heard a, “I am, your father,” being huskily whispered into my ear.

Considering how big my eyes became, I think they would have liked to join my heart in running away together. Slowly turning my head slightly to the right, I was met with that copper haired boy with his stupid playful grin, who was softly resting his chin onto my shoulder.

I swear, he will be the death of me someday.

“YAH! SON DONGWOON! YOU SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME!”

He instantly leaped back when I turned around, and was smart enough to keep a specific distance between us. Him apologizing, and me trying to slap the stuffing out of him went on for a while, which had caused a few stares from the people walking by. I eventually stopped when the stares began to make me feel a little uneasy. Dongwoon noticed this as well, and I could see his eyes roaming around, as if searching for a more secluded spot.

I was about to open my mouth and say something, when he all of a sudden grabbed my hand and began pulling me away, "Lets go somewhere else."

"O-okay...?" was all that came out of my mouth.

I noticed how he was pulling his scarf a little higher, while looking around rather cautiously. Turning around to where we were standing before, I noticed that a few people were still staring. Some were whispering things to each other, while others were pointing at us. In the corner of my eyes, I could see a few teenage girls who happened to be following us. Their expressions ranged from surprise, to curious, to unhappy. On top of that, one or two of them looked rather frustrated, and that made me feel kind of nervous.

"Oppa!" called out one of the girls.

I looked at Dongwoon, assuming that it was him who they were trying to talk to, but he just ignored it and kept dragging me.

"Dongwoon oppa!" they cried louder, sounding fiercer this time.

And before you knew it, I was forced to break out into a run, and sprint my heart out.