Hate That I Love You - Epilogue

It's a cold, February night in Seoul. A boy with shaggy brown hair sits by a window in a small coffee shop. As he tiredly rests his head against the window, he notices that his breath has fogged up the glass. Using his forefinger, he draws a sloppy, mis-shapened heart. Some of the female patrons in the coffee shop seem to have noticed him, and are sending him sympathetic glances. A few even look like they are going to come over and comfort him. Perhaps it's just how women are wired but there seem to be very few who can resist a lonely, cute guy on a day like this.

"I'm know I'm late but isn't the "pitiful-guy-alone-on-Valentine's-Day" act a little too much Cho?" someone says behind him.

Looking up, he sees a girl warmly bundled up in a red sweater and scarf, the snow from outside still clinging to her hair, making it glimmer a little underneath the lights. A snow angel.

"But that's what I am, wouldn't you agree?"

She rolls her eyes and plops down in the chair across from him.

"Five minutes. My bus was delayed five minutes getting here." She insists. Looking around the cozy little shop, she asks, "So why this place? It's pretty far from the high school."

Kyuhyun fixes her with a flirtatous look, "Come on Seo, ever hear about a little something called ambiance?"

She responds with a nonplussed, "Ambiance?"

He sighs, "You know romance, amour, passion. These emotions should be something you're familiar with on a day like this."

Seohyun gasps in mock realization. Lifting one finger in the air, she indicates to him to give her one second. She then takes out her bag and proceeds to dump the contents out. A rainbow of colorfully wrapped packages of various sizes litter the table, some heart-shaped and most likely indicating the presence of assorted chocolates, and some in just small envelopes.

"Let's see...be mine, will you meet me tonight, you're beautiful, you light up my life," she starts reading them out-loud. Kyuhyun's brows furrow, grabbing some of the presents she is carlessly discarding. "Oh interesting, this one says 'hey babe, are you religious? cuz you're the answer to all my prayers.'"

At this, her infuriated seatmate lunges across the table, and rips the note from her hand, throwing the rest on the floor.

"Who wrote this one? Cha Hakyeon?! Isn't that the junior in the newspaper club? Why that little-"

She laughes softly, "See Cho, this is why there's no such thing as 'ambiance'. Valentine's Day is just a waste of time. The candy manufacturers created this so-called holiday to the money out of poor kids like these fools."

He narrows his eyes at her. "I forgot you have the romantic sensibilities of an ant."

She takes his hand and gently removes from it the crumpled love letter written by poor, aforementioned Cha Hakeyon. "I'm just telling it like it is. Romance is dead."

He crosses his arms and sulks, refusing to acknowledge her depressing version of reality. She decides to let him be, and cleans up the mess they made. After she is done, he still has not budged, so she simply shrugs and takes out some homework she wanted to get a head start on. She's midway through her essay on Marxism when he suddenly stands up.

"Something wrong?" she asks.

He leans forwards, invading her personal space without warning. Surprised, she tries to back away, but he grabs her hands and pulls her up.

"What are you doing? Wait!" She exclaims as he physically drags her outside without a single word. He ignores her protests and the stares of the other customers until they are standing in the cold, under a street light. The snow has created a lovely white wonderland around them.

Perplexed, she looks into his eyes and notices for the first time the fire burning in them. Gone is the boy with the impish grin and flippant attitude she is so used to, replaced by a frustrated, earnest young man. Although they have been unoffically "dating" for the last four months, she's completely caught off guard.

"You know, when I first met you, I instinctively felt there was something different about you. I'm not talking love-at-first-sight or some other sort of nonsense. Just that to me, you stood out. You make everyday more interesting."

Seohyun supresses the urge to drop his gaze. For some reason, hearing this from him made it especially embarrasing. Nonetheless, he continues.

"Seo Joo Hyun, you can deny the credibility of Valentine's Day as a holiday, you can mock the idiots who dare ask for your affection, but do not discredit what the two of us have."

For once she has no rebuttal, and so, stays silent. He wants to grab her shoulders and shake her until she finally shows some emotion, anything to tell him that she's even heard him. He waits impatiently for a few moments before he shrugs off any inhibitions he has left and kisses her.

In one kiss he tries to convey his raw emotions and get her to finally open up to him on a physical level. She has to realize that all he wants is to know her better, and that he craves being with her.  

Panting so that their breaths appear in the chilled air, they finally part.

She struggles to compose herself. Debate team speeches, running for school president, 20 page essays on philosophy - these she could practically do in her sleep. Kissing a boy and confessing her feelings? A completely foreign concept. 

"I would love to have your eloquence and ..." she's at a loss for words already.

"Guts" he supplies, helpfully.

"Yes, guts, I guess. I suppose I never realized that 127 days into a relationship means we have basically committed to something. I don't know what this is, I mean I like it - I like our conversations about random things and I even like our when we fight about stupid stuff like if alients on the moon-"

"Definitely did exist" he interjects

"Shakespeare -"

"Definitely did not write his own plays" he interjects once more.

"and hamburgers."

"Definitely delicious."

She stops and glares at him. He plays innocent and motions for her to finish.

"Anyways," she continues, "I just don't want to dive in head first only to find myself lost at sea. We have college entrance exams soon, and then what? We could end up in completely different schools! If we miraculously do choose the same university, will we still want to see each other? Will we even have time for any of that?"

"I'll be honest Seo, I didn't plan this either, but I think we need to give this a chance. I know we have all sorts of so-called 'life choices' ahead of us, but let's promise to tackle those together. You never know, it could all work out in the end. We're both smart kids (although I know you have your doubts about me, but I did get you to date me did I not?), and we'll do our best." His hands rub against hers to keep hers warm. 

She nods, soothed by his words. "Sorry for the giant overreaction."

Kyuhyun finally gives her his usual smirk. "Not a problem. You know, you are damn y when you rant, " he teases.

She smacks him hard on the chest. "That wasn't for your enjoyment! I swear you deliberately make me mad sometimes"

He laughs, "It's not my fault you get riled up so easily."

"Ha! Well, how's this for 'riled up'" she retorts, and quickly throws an impressively large snowball his way. Her aim is surprisingly accurate and it hits his chest dead center. 

His shock is evident and she giggles, pointing at his face childishly.

"Hey! Watch it Seo, you don't want to start something you can't finish!" 

"Ooohh is that supposed to scare me Cho?" she taunts, running off.

He grins, "You wait and see what's going to happen when I catch you woman!" 

Laughing, the couple chase each other around the park, forgetting all about the cold.

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Author's Note: *Bows head in shame* 

I may have partly written this a while ago... for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to finish it. But I looked over it recently, and thought it was not too bad. So here it is, cleaned up a bit - very sorry for the tardiness. -_-'

I'm not sure how I feel about the rest of the stories on the list - I haven't abandoned them completely though.