Author’s POV:

The next morning came by and Jessica was already out, dragging Kris along with her. She wanted to go to the bookstore and not wanting a repeat of lovesick, depressed Kris from yesterday, she pulled him along, despite his sleepy state.

“I still don’t get why we’re going this way.” Kris commented as he drove in the direction Jessica had instructed him to go.

Jessica glanced at him as she sat in the passengers seat, cross-legged, on her phone. “Oppa, just follow directions.” She giggled. “Turn here and park in the parking lot.” She pointed out.

Kris’s eyebrows furrowed. “The mall?” he questioned but nevertheless, drove towards the parking spaces. “Where do you want me to park?” he drove slowly.

Pointing over in the middle section, he followed her instructions and parked. Slipping themselves out of the car, Kris then locked the car before interlocking his hand with Jessica’s as they walked towards the building. Swerving to the right, they walked away from the entrance of the mall, making Kris puzzled.

“Where are we going?” Kris inquired as he followed Jessica’s lead.

She gave him a smile and she kept pulling him along, “You’ll see~”

Kris’s face filled with confusion. “A bookstore?” He questioned when he walked in behind Jessica.

“Yup!” She smiled happily before looking at the aisle signs, trying to find the section of books she was looking for.

“Why are we here?” Kris completely bewildered.

Jessica turned around a put her index finger over her lips. Shushing him as people eyed him as his was voice had been emitted too loudly. Kris ducked his head apologetically before holding onto Jessica and quickly walking away with her. Heading up the stairs of the store, there were less people, making Kris less conscious of the volume of his voice.

“What are you looking for?” Kris asked, wanting to help.

Humming as she looked around, Jessica suddenly stopped and happily smiled. “Found it~” she skipped her way towards the language books.

“Language?” he mumbled as he walked after her. “Jess, why language?”

Jessica quickly scrolled the shelves for a certain language dictionary. “I want to learn a language.” She smiled shyly at him as her hand lingered on the spine of the books.

His face softened at her shy smile. “What language do you want to learn? I’ll help you look for it.” he started to eye the books carefully.

“Mandarin.” Jessica beamed.

Kris shifted his attention from the books to his girlfriend. His eyebrows were raised in surprise. “You want to learn mandarin?”

Receiving a nod from her, he chuckled. “Then what are we doing here? We should be at home. I can teach you.” He wrapped his arms around her waist before pecking her lips.

Jessica pouted, “You’ll probably teach me some wrong words and make me say something uncalled for.”

“You don’t trust me?” Kris faked a shocked expression, receiving a giggle from her.

“Of course I do, but I want to learn by myself. It’s going to be a hassle if I took up your time just to teach me a language I don’t know anything about.” Jessica started to look at the bookshelf again.

Kris held onto her. “You’re not a waste of time and you are absolutely not a hassle to me. I would give you all my time in the world if you asked.” He planted a kiss on her cheek. “Anytime, any day.”

Jessica grinned at his confession. “Thank you, Oppa.” She gave a reciprocating kiss on his lips. “But I want to learn this by myself. I’ll ask you if I don’t understand something, okay?”

He sighed but gave a nod. “If you want to have it this way. I have a feeling you won’t learn much from the book anyways.” He smirked. “My teaching skills are far more superior than a wimpy language dictionary.” He boasted with a playful smile.

She giggled and started to trail down the aisle, Kris hugging onto her from behind the entire time.

“Ah! Mandarin~” Jessica smiled when she found a section of Mandarin language.

Looking from the top shelf, she didn’t find the one she was searching for. All the researching she had done on her phone stated that there was a recommended Mandarin language dictionary that was sold in this bookstore. Skimming her eyes over the book titles, she made her way down to the middle shelf. Seeing no sign of the book she had looked up, she frowned before realizing there was a bottom shelf.

Kris stood behind her with his arms around her waist, glancing at other books with interest. Feeling Jessica move in his arms, his head whipped back in front of him to see her sliding down to crouch down to eye the bottom shelf. Kris’s eyes widened as her behind brush rather roughly onto his lower abdomen area where his jean zipper was located. Heat immediately flushed through his entire body, feeling it boil up, his eyes widened as big as saucers. His mouth was agape with astonishment as he stared at Jessica’s backside.

Running her index finger over the spine of the books, Jessica suddenly stopped when she found a familiar looking dictionary book. “I found it!” she smiled as she pulled the book from it’s place and stood up. “Oppa, look! I found it!” she looked up at Kris with a big grin before she tilted her head to the side. “Are you okay, Oppa?”

Snapping himself out of his daze, he blinked and smiled. “Hm?”

“I found the dictionary I was looking for!” she gave him an innocent smile before skimming through the actual book.

Kris eyed her, realizing that she was unaware of what she had just done. His eyes widened before he glanced down to check on his jeans sneakily. He let out a relaxed breath when he saw that nothing had moved out of place, so to speak.

“A-Are you going to purchase that?” He cleared his throat before pointing to the dictionary in her hands.

Jessica continued to browse through the book for a short moment before nodding. “Yep. Let’s go.”

Kris’s arms reached forward to encircle around her waist again but retracted quickly when he reflected on what had just happened seconds ago. He entwined his hands into hers instead as they walked to the till, quickly purchasing the dictionary. Only Jessica was capable of making Kris’s mind flood with heat and other thoughts, but quickly brush them all away with her innocence.

As soon as they got back into the car, Jessica opened up the dictionary. “Oppa, start a conversation with me.” she smiled.

A smile broke out on his face. “You barely even started to read through the dictionary.” He reached over her to grab the seatbelt and buckle her.

“Please?” she pleaded with her shining eyes.

Kris buckled her seatbelt in before sighing. “Fine. Would you like to start the conversation or would you want to me to start?” he slipped his own seatbelt on before igniting the engine.

“Mm…you start.” Jessica smiled as she prepared to look through the newly purchased dictionary.

Kris nodded as he proceeded to reverse the car. “Nǐ hǎo, xiǎojiě. Nǐ hěn piàoliang.”

He grinned as he held onto the back of the passengers seat, looking back to see if there are any cars as he backed the car up.

Jessica eyed him as he spoke. Her eyebrows furrowed as she quickly repeated his sentence in her head as she flipped through the dictionary. “I know you said ‘hello’ right?” she glanced up at him for reassurance.

He nodded as he drove out of the parking lot. “What else did I say?” Kris questioned with an undying smile playing on his lips.

“Let me look that up…” Jessica spoke as she flipped through the dictionary. “Can you repeat that again, Oppa?”

“Nǐ hǎo, xiǎojiě. Nǐ hěn piàoliang.” Kris repeated slowly.

Jessica flipped through the pages at a fast pace. “Miss? Ah! ‘Hello, Miss!’”

Receiving an approving nod from him, she continued looking through the dictionary. “You…” pages flipped rapidly. “Are…” more pages were flipped. “Beautiful.” A huge smile appeared on Jessica face. “Oppa!” she giggled as a tint of red appeared on her face.

Kris chuckled as he continued driving. “You look adorable, looking diligently into the dictionary.”

She gave him an adorable smile before flipping to the back of the dictionary where they had greetings with pronunciations. “Oppa, correct me if I’m wrong okay?” she glanced up at him before continuing to read the sentence. “…Nǐ hǎo. Wǒ… shì Jessica.” She read carefully as she eyed the pronunciations. She started to giggle in embarrassment and shyness.

Hearing a chortle of small laughter, her head shot up to see Kris smiling widely. “You’re mandarin is so adorable!” he pinched her cheek softly as he kept one foot on the brake pedal.

Jessica hit him lightly on the arm. “Keep the conversation going!”

Kris chuckled before clearing his throat. “Jīntiān nǐ gǎnjué zěnme yàng? Nǐ xǐhuan hé wǒ yīqǐ chūqù chī wǔfàn ma?”

Immediately, Jessica’s face fell. “Oppa! That’s too long! I didn’t catch a single phrase or word! You spoke to fast!”

Kris’s laughter broke out. “Okay~ I’ll speak slower. Nǐ xǐhuan hé wǒ yīqǐ chūqù chī wǔfàn ma?”

Being speedy with the dictionary, Jessica checked the back of the book to see if the same phrase he said was there. “Ah!” she pointed to a sentence that sounded much like Kris has just said. “Would you like to go out to lunch with me?” she read the translation of the pinyin on the page.

Staring at her, Kris gave her a happy smile and nodded. “Nǐ xiǎng hé wǒ yīqǐ qù ma?”

Jessica’s eyebrows creased before she was about to search up his phrase in the dictionary.

“Jess, just answer me. Do you want to go to lunch with me? I’m hungry~” Kris whined, dropping his mandarin and reverting back to Korean.

She shot him a look and dropped the book down onto her lap. “Fine. I’m hungry too.” She pouted.

~~

“Oppa, since when did you start to speak mandarin?” Jessica asked curiously as they walked up the stairs of the house.

Kris thought about it. “Ever since I was young? I don’t really remember. I’m multilingual though.” He smiled.

“I already know about that!” Jessica giggled. “Don’t you get confused with the languages?” she questioned as they reached the top of the stairs.

Before Kris could answer, a voice did it for him. “He mumbles in different languages when he’s asleep! It’s really weird and bothersome!”

Jessica and Kris whipped their heads back to see Lay walking up the stairs with a cup of water. Jessica looked at him questioningly as he has on a natural calm face and walked past them. Following him diligently, Kris and Jes