*DING DING DING*

Kris grumbled as he slammed the top of his alarm clock. It immediately shut up and he closed his eyes again. It was a cold morning, and he didn’t want to wake up, but then the thought of all the patients he was going to see today gave him the energy to sit up.

Rubbing his eyes, he reached for his ball point pen and crossed out the date on his calendar. Then he folded his doonas neatly, placing them at the end of the bed before fluffing up his pillow. When he was finished, he stepped off his bed and walked into the bathroom.

 Kris had never been the loud type of person. He was always the person who would sit at the corner of the room and watch all the other people chat away. When he was in high school, he only had 5 other friends, and besides them, he never spoke to anyone else. But as he grew up, he realised that being a doctor meant that he had to start talking, whether he liked it or not. It was strange because ever since he met Hye Mi, he suddenly wanted to be loud, seeing her braveness made him want to be brave like that. He wanted to be able to smile freely like her, especially since she was supposed to hate on the world right now.

When he was done getting ready, he came out to the kitchen and poured cereal his cereal into a bowl. He had grown so used to the emptiness of his home, ever since he moved to Korea, it had been him verses the world.

After eating, he popped on his blazer and headed for the door. Just as he was slipping into his shoes, a familiar shiny thing caught his attention. Curious, Kris walked into the living room and picked up the silver box. He remembered leaving it here as soon as he got home and haven’t touched it ever since. Carefully, he picked up the keychain and stared at it. There were 500 keys, which meant that he had more than half the chance of opening it. He picked the fanciest key he could find and poked it into the keyhole. As expected, it didn’t work.

Kris heaved a sigh, placed it down and left the house.

------

Meanwhile, Hye Mi was sitting impatiently at the airport. She was tapping on her watch and mumbling incoherent words.

“Aish where is he…” She muttered as she stood on her tip toes to see over the heads of all the other people. She was standing at the airport, waiting for a particular person to come out. It was almost noon now, which meant that she had been waiting here for a whole 2 hours. Urgh I swear, if this is one of his stupid pranks again I am going to-

“Hye Mi-ah~” A cheerful voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

A smile immediately formed on her lips but she decided to be immature. “Took you long enough,” she stated as she walked over to the taller figure.

He chuckled, dropped his luggage and wrapped his arms around her. “Well you certainly seem excited to see me.”

“No Aron.” Hye Mi rolled her eyes but wrapped her arms around his waist. “I did not miss you at all.”

Aron laughed, he bent down to her eye level and tapped her nose, “Silly. I missed you too.”

She stared at him for a while before breaking into a huge grin and playfully punched his stomach. “What took you so long!?”

“Sorry, my plane was delayed, and I had some problems with my luggage.” Aron admitted with a smile.

Hye Mi stared at the small suitcase on the floor and raised her eyebrows. “So how long did you say you were staying here for again?”

“3 months,” he replied as he picked up the suitcase. He wrapped his other arm around her shoulder and dragged her away.

“3 months? So long, aren’t you scared your ‘girlfriends’ are going to dump you?” Hye Mi snickered and created fake quotation marks in the air.

“Puh lease,” Aron rolled his eyes. “No girl would dare break up with me, Aron Kwak.”

She rolled her eyes at his conceitedness and walked over to the first taxi she saw. “Of course no one would break up with you.” She smirked and opened the door, “They wouldn’t date you in the first place~”

“YAH!” Aron frowned as he threw his luggage into the boot and hopped on next to her. “I didn’t come back all the way from California so you could bully me again!” Hye Mi ignored him and told the driver her address. The taxi drove off and she leaned further back into her seat. “Are you even listening to me?!” He yelped.

“Nope.”

“Urgh,” he scowled and sat back into his seat with a small ‘hmph’. “Knew I shouldn’t have come back to see you.”

A tingling smile came on Hye Mi’s lips as she closed her eyes and turned to face the window. Of course I missed you, idiot. Slowly, her hand moved towards Aron’s, and she laced her pinky finger through his.

Aron softened at her actions and turned to her with a smile. “So you still remember that, huh?”

“Of course!” Hye Mi beamed and stared at him. “Who wouldn’t remember? You pranked me and rubbed super glue all over your pinky so when I pinky promised with you, it took me 30 minutes to break away.” Her face scrunched up at the horrible memory.

He let out a hearty laugh and ruffled her hair. “Hey it wasn’t my fault a certain 6 year old girl kept crying and ing about, making it impossible for me to wash off the glue with warm water.”

She rolled her eyes and fixed her hair. “Yeah yeah, blame it all on me.”

Aron shook his head with a smile, he watched as she closed her eyes again and then closed his own. It’s nice to be back, Hye Mi-ah. It’s even better to see your smile again.