The incessant vibration of Kyungsoo’s phone pulled her out from her sleep. Groaning, she reached over to the nightstand and fetched the device. Without looking at the screen, she pressed the accept button.

‘Hello?’ she muffled into the phone. She would really like to add and who the hell are you? Why are you calling me at this ungodly hour?.

‘Sorry. Did I wake you up?’

The voice startled her a little. Pulling the phone away from her ear, she looked at the name of the caller. Exhaustion washed over again as she saw that it was Jongin. Despite saying that she would let the issue go, she wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. Too early for this, she thought. Although she felt like hanging up, she got over the urge and replied. ‘Yeah. What is it?’

‘Can I see you now?’

‘No.’ She replied without skipping a beat. A sigh could be heard from the other side. ‘I really want to see you.’

Pursing her lips, she contemplated briefly then said, ‘Alright. Where do you want to meet up?’

‘My apartment. How about I come to pick you up?’

‘It’s too risky. I’ll catch a bus to your place. See you in thirty minutes.’ Kyungsoo didn’t wait to hear his reply as she promptly hung up. Throwing her phone on the bed, she sighed tiredly and got up, walking to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth then the tap and scooped water onto her face. The coldness shook her out of her sleepiness.

‘Let the issue go, Kyungsoo,’ she spoke to herself, staring into her reflection in the mirror. Lazily, she picked out a grey raglan shirt and a pair of jeans and left the house.

On the way to his apartment, Kyungsoo continued chanting the phrase which she had said while looking into the mirror earlier. She’d lost count of the number of times she repeat it by the time she arrived in front of the door, knocking it.

The door opened and she was greeted by distressed-looking Jongin. He gave her a slight smile but she couldn’t return it as she walked into the apartment.

‘Do you want to eat something? I know you haven’t eaten breakfast,’ he said. She shook her head, still standing up.

‘How about a drink? Do you want coffee?’

‘I don’t drink coffee on an empty stomach,’ she said, almost monotonous as she tried to sound casual.

An awkward silence began to occupy the room. The distance between where they were standing was quite long. Her gazes deliberately flickered between the two boring white walls of the room. Kyungsoo couldn’t look him into the eyes. After what felt like ten minutes, Jongin spoke up. ‘Can we talk?’

‘Isn’t that is why I am here for?’ She couldn’t stop the bite in her tone. Her eyes still wandered around.

Slightly thrown back by her tone, he looked surprised shortly before continuing. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that yesterday. Don’t stay angry at me, please.’

Hearing his words brought anger back into her. Kyungsoo remained silent for a few minutes, trying to will away her urge to yell at him for making her feel more insecure and lose her sleep last night. Finally, when she deemed that she had felt stable enough, she replied slowly. ‘Okay. Don’t do that again.’

‘I won’t,’ he said as he approached her, wanting to shorten the large distance between them. But to his dismay, she took a step back. ‘Uh…I haven’t taken a shower so…’

It wasn’t the main reason. She’d rejected his advances because she was still feeling angry at him despite having told him otherwise. He seemed to be buying her acting because he took another step ahead, dismissing her poor excuse. ‘I told you before, I don’t mind those things.’

She took more than one step back this time, steering to another direction of the room. ‘But I do.’ Her tone was adamant, leaving no room for a discussion. ‘I think I’ll leave now.’

The fact that she was being ridiculously serious about it gave away her acting to him. His brows furrowed as he looked at her.

‘You are still angry about it.’ It was more of a statement than a question. Upon being caught, she stammered, ‘No – I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are. If you aren’t then you wouldn’t have refused to let me be close to you.’

‘No, I just feel weird about being angry at you one moment and all lovey-dovey with you the next second,’ she lied. ‘I need some time to fall back into the pattern.’

This excuse seemed to be much better for the tension between his brows relaxed. ‘Okay, if I don’t ask you to cuddle or anything similar, will you stay?’

‘I’m really sleepy. I need to go home and sleep,’ she said honestly this time. Yesterday night had been almost a sleepless night for her. Pointing at her visible eye bags, she continued. ‘See this? I need to sleep in order to get rid of them.’

‘You can stay here and sleep,’ he suggested. She squinted her eyes. ‘Why?’

A sheepish smile crept onto his face as he replied, ‘I want to watch you sleep.’

‘For one whole hour? Really, Jongin?’

‘I don’t mind.’

Before she could try to convince him of how boring it would be to watch her sleep, he took her hand and led her into his bedroom.

‘Jongin…’ She looked at him, uncertain. He pulled up the blanket and motioned for her to get in. Under his seemingly pleading gaze, she gave in to his request, taking off her jacket and slipped inside.

‘I’ll go and put on a kettle. Sleep.’

In spite of being exhausted with sleepiness, Kyungsoo couldn’t fall asleep. Her eyes still remained wide open when Jongin returned from the kitchen. Lying down on the other unoccupied side of the bed, he looked at her fondly, resisting the urge to pat her.

‘Can’t sleep?’ She nodded in reply. With the sight of Jongin’s broad and sturdy chest in front of her, Kyungsoo subconsciously scooted closer and snuggled her face against his chest, stunning him in the process. Once he was back to himself, he wanted to about what she had said previously, but Jongin was smart enough to control himself from ruining the mood. Feeling his girlfriend’s steady puffs of breath on his chest, he pulled her closer and quickly fell asleep.

-----

School returned quickly, much to the students and Kyungsoo’s dismay as it was the final semester, which meant that there was more stress. It was the first day and already, everyone was running frantic with assessments and prep talk for the upcoming exams. Being given a permanent position placed more pressure on Kyungsoo. Even her senior grade twelve students looked more relaxed than her.

‘Why aren’t you all stressed out? Don’t you feel worry at all about your finals?’ she screamed to her class.

This was the first time the class saw their Biology teacher being like this. One of her rather cheeky students, Ilhoon, sighed at her. ‘Miss, you need to chill. It’s only the first day and you are already running like a chicken with its head chopped off.’

‘Jung Ilhoon, no one asks for your rudeness,’ she fumed, quite offended by the simile.

‘He’s right, Miss. Seriously, people would think that you are the one doing the finals and assessments instead of us,’ Luhan told her.

‘Be quiet. I don’t want to hear any more comments unless it’s related to Biology.’

Kibum raised his hand. ‘Yes, what is it?’ she asked eagerly.

‘How long can a headless chicken run around before it collapses?’

The whole class erupted into laughter for a few minutes. The sound quickly died down when they saw her face kept on getting darker by seconds.

‘Kim Kibum, I’ll tell you the answer and remind you during your five after school detention sessions for this week.’

For the rest of the lesson, no one dared to annoy her, knowing the consequences from the precedent case of their classmate, Kibum. They left the room quickly as soon as the bell went, trying to suppress their groan of frustration at the extra homework.

‘I’ll wait for you at the car park?’ Jongin had deliberately lagged behind, locking the door and making sure that no one was in sight before approaching her.

Without giving him a glance, she continued sorting out the documents and absentmindedly replied, ‘Yeah.’

He studied her shortly before taking the pile of documents from her hands and placed them onto the table.

‘What- ’ This effectively caught her attention as she turned her head to glare at him.

‘Shush.’ He turned her around so that she was no longer facing the table. ‘You need to take a break, Soo.’

His hands were sliding up and down her arms, trying to relax her. She twisted her upper body turning back to the table, protesting, ‘But I haven’t marked those assessments yet. I need to hand them in to the head teacher tomorrow. And -’

He kept her turned to face him. In a gentle yet firm tone, he said, ‘Soo, take a deep breath then exhale.’

She did as he said, then slumped forward, her face buried in his chest. His hands rubbed circles on her back. ‘I’m so tired and stressed out and it’s only been the first day. How am I going to survive the rest of this semester?’ she mumbled.

‘Why are you so worked up for? It can’t be just because of us students doing our finals.’

‘I’m afraid that if I don’t improve your marks then I might get transferred next year.’

‘You would get transferred in the future anyway,’ he said.

‘I know that. But I like this school and I just got offered a permanent position,’ she explained. ‘And tell me, are all of you seriously not worried about your exams?’

‘How could we not? It’s our big exams, of course we are worried about it. We just prefer to keep the stress under the surface. It’s no use going full stressed out about it,’ he answered. Pulling her up from the stool, he packed up her belongings and documents.

‘What are you doing? I haven’t finished, I need to stay here until five.’ She tried to stop him, but he was too fast.

‘We’re going to my place and you are going to take a nap,’ he spoke in a voice that left no room for protest. ‘I’m going to carry your things to the car park and wait for you in the alley.’

Ten minutes later, they were on their way to his apartment. Sitting behind him, she asked, ‘Why don’t you drive me home? I can sleep in my own house, you know?’

‘As if you are going to sleep,’ he scoffed. ‘You’ll probably continue working until late night. I know how you are with your work. I don’t trust you with this.’

‘How can you not trust me? I am deeply disappointed,’ she clicked her tongue.

‘I trust you for everything else except for when it’s work-related. I’ve seen you exhausted yourself to death before. I’m not going to let that happen again.’

His words warmed her heart and brought a smile to her face. This was what she liked best about him, his considerate gestures and actions that made her feel like a child being pampered with love. Tightening her embrace around his waist, she giggled to herself as they turned to corner to the familiar street.

Following Jongin into his apartment, Kyungsoo grimaced at the mess on the table that greeted her. She took off her jacket and placed it on the hook. The bedroom wasn’t much better with the dirty clothes lying everywhere. Sighing, she bent down to collect them and threw them into the basket. Lucky enough, the bed was pristine.

‘Get in. I’ll wake you up at four thirty.’

Kyungsoo climbed onto the bed and slept right away. When she woke up, the whole house was filled with the smell of noodles. She got out of bed and made her way to the kitchen, seeing Jongin fiddling with the pan. Spotting her, he said, ‘Are you feeling hungry? I made noodles.’

Giving him a nod, she opened the fridge to take out some of the kimchi that she had brought over last week. They sat down and began eating silently. After finishing her second bowl, Kyungsoo decided that she had enough.

‘Jongin.’ He lifted his head to look at her with his mouth full. She asked, ‘What are you going to do after you leave school?’

He didn’t answer her question. Instead, he finished off the remaining noodles then placed his chopsticks onto the table. Wiping his mouth, he said, ‘To be honest, I’m not sure.’

‘Didn’t you say you want to become a dancer?’

‘I did and still do,’ he replied. ‘The thing is, I don’t know how to break the news to my dad without being forced to come back home. Heck, he might even make me re-do my senior years.’

‘Why do you hate living with your dad so much?’ she asked. Numerous times he had mentioned about it, but he never really went into detail.

Without looking at her, he spoke, ‘I never told you how my mum died.’ A dejected sigh released from his mouth. ‘My dad cheated on my mum when I was nine. My mum knew about it, but she couldn’t divorce him because it would ruin his reputation and as well as the fact that she still loved him.’

His eyes were downcast. ‘The endurance eventually drove her into depression. I remembered the nights when she would hug me tightly in her room while crying. It lasted for more than a year, then that one day, my dad came home and told my mum that he would divorce her. You would think that yes, finally, she could be freed.’ 

The bitterness in his tone intensified at the last sentence. ‘But that wasn’t the case. She begged him not to make her leave. But he coldly said no and left. The next day, they found my mum dead on her bed. She committed suicide by overdosing her depression pills.’

Shocked by his story, Kyungsoo didn’t know how to respond. She wanted to stand up and walk over to him to hug him but her feet refused to listen to her. A dry, incredulous laugh emitted from Jongin as he continued, ‘You know what the worst thing was? He didn’t care. He moved that woman and their two year old son into the house two days after my mother’s funeral. Two days! They threw out all of my mother’s possession like it was trash.’

And he finally broke down as he hunched down on his chair. ‘That house is nothing but a hell hole for me. I don’t want to go back to living there.’

Kyungsoo went over cautiously and bent down, enveloping her arms around his trembling hunching form.

‘Don’t pity me,’ he said, but he didn’t push her away. She kissed him on his crown, whispering, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be,’ he said gravely.

For the first time, Kyungsoo was shown his fragile side, his fear and the fragments of his dark childhood. And the image of him breaking down made her want to protect him. With her arms still tightened around his shoulder, she whispered at a volume that was only audible to her, ‘You won’t have to live in that place ever again. I promise you.’

---

Kyungsoo could sense the growth in her feeling’s for Jongin after that day. It was the same for him because it was conveyed through the gaze of their eyes. It should be a good thing. However, Kyungsoo was torn between happiness and her fear of the growth of their relationship. This inner conflict was putting more stress on her, adding to the pressure from work.

By Friday, Kyungsoo’s level of stress didn’t go down at all. In fact, it had increased. There were two meetings that week with the announcement of more extracurricular activities for the semester. Other teachers, including Kyungsoo, thought that it was stupid, considering the limited time they had to prepare their student for the final exams and assessments. Kyungsoo decided to sign up for the career interviews. While she would miss out on some lessons, at least she wouldn’t have to do much preparation for this activity.

She’d been so busy that she didn’t spend any time with Jongin, except for when he drove her home. He had been quite considerate and mature about it. Every day, he would bring her some sweet snacks and texted her to remind her about her meals. Kyungsoo was really touched by his gestures and felt guilty for various reasons.

Sometimes, she wanted to stop for a few hours and go to his house. But with the deadlines going red in her head she had to put that desire aside. That night, she stayed up until three to complete the work so that she could spend Saturday being with her boyfriend. Her inner conflict can be pushed aside; Jongin deserved a good surprise.

The next morning, Kyungsoo bought some groceries before coming to his house. He looked pleasantly surprised when he opened the door as he did not expect to see her, thinking that she would spend the weekend finishing her work.

Noticing his hair being all tussled, Kyungsoo asked as she went into the kitchen, ‘Were you sleeping?’

‘I thought you weren’t coming today so I slept in.’ He scratched his head as he sat on the bench, watching her working around the kitchen.

‘I wanted to surprise you,’ she said, grinning. ‘I’m making fried chicken for you. Go and brush your teeth.’

Jumping off the bench, he placed a kiss on her cheek before going to the bathroom. She pulled a face. ‘Ew. Morning breath.’

Jongin was visibly excited as he prepared the table, dancing some kind of celebratory movements. As soon as the plate was placed onto the table, he began devouring the chicken, swaying his body as he chewed.

‘Did I ever tell you how much I love you, Soo?’ he asked.

Her body went stiff slightly, but she quickly relaxed when she realised that he was joking. Snorting, she said, ‘I think you love chicken more than me. Tell me, where am I in the ranking?’

He pretended to think before replying, ‘Second?’

‘This is the last time I’d ever cook for you again,’ she sulked playfully. He merely laughed and continued eating. After they finished eating, Jongin washed the dishes while Kyungsoo did some light cleaning.

‘Don’t we look like a married couple living together?’ Jongin said, drying his hands then joining her on the couch.

‘Don’t joke like that,’ she almost snapped at him.

‘What?’ He was surprised by her reaction.

‘Nothing,’ she said in a softer tone this time. ‘What do you want to do now?’

‘How about watching a movie?’

‘I was hoping that you would say studying.’

He gave her an are-you-serious look.

‘Well, I can hope, can’t I?’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘What do you want to watch?’

‘You can choose,’ he said.

‘Anything?’ He nodded. She cackled as she sat down in front of his Mac. ‘You’re going to regret it.’

Five minutes later, she hopped back to the couch with an evil grin on her face. Jongin’s face fell as he looked at the screen. ‘Kung Fu Panda? How old are you again?’

‘It’s my all-time favourite. Animations are for everyone, regardless of age.’

‘I’m starting to regret my decision now.’

‘Told you,’ Kyungsoo lilted triumphantly as she snuggled to his side. By now, she had grown accustomed to cuddling, in fact, she really enjoyed it.

Despite his initial reaction, Jongin was immersed in the movie half an hour later. Kyungsoo, on the other hand, was out of it. Instead, she watched her boyfriend the entire time, stifling her laugh when she saw how concentrated he was. In her head, she traced his profile with her eyes then framed it to store away in her memory. She adored his laughing face, especially the wrinkles at the end of his eyes, they automatically put a smile on her face whenever they appeared.

After the movie, she tutored him Biology and Chemistry for two hours then made him dinner. At around three thirty, Jongin told her that he was going to take her somewhere.

‘Where?’ she impatiently asked for the fifth time as she climbed onto the bike.

‘Do you really want to know?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’

‘Too bad, I’m not going to tell you.’

‘Yah, Jongin –’ Her words were cut at the sudden movement of the bike, causing her to slammed against his back. He let out a jovial laugh as he sped off. 

(tbc.)