Holidays came a week after the athletic carnival. On the night of the first weekend, Kyungsoo decided that she couldn’t stay at home because her thoughts were driving her insane. So, she called Yixing and asked for a week of sleepover.

Her best friend couldn’t be more excited at the idea of having someone to spend the holiday with as her boyfriend was currently in Canada, visiting his mother. Not to mention, they hadn’t been spending a lot of time together since graduation. Yixing began to count the possible fun things that her and Kyungsoo could do.

However, when Kyungsoo arrived at her door with bags under downcast eyes, Yixing realised that her friend hadn’t really meant sleepover. 

‘Something wrong happened,’ she stated from a glance at Kyungsoo’s face.

Kyungsoo gave a slight nod as she stepped into her friend’s apartment. ‘Don’t ask me anything now, Xing.’

‘Alright, I won’t probe.’ Yixing plopped down beside Kyungsoo on the couch. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘Anything. As long as it keeps my mind occupied.’

‘Let’s get going then. I’ve already prepared a list of places that we can go.’

They headed to the museum, wandering around and looking at artefacts for half of the day. Then they went to ice skating. It was spontaneous. Yixing made the first choice and Kyungsoo decided the next.

On the third day of their spontaneous trip, Kyungsoo realised that it wasn’t working. Despite laughing and constantly concentrating on different things, at the end of the day, all that stayed on her mind was Jongin. She’d missed him so much. She just wanted to see him.

They were on their way to see a movie. Yixing continued to gush over the lead actor when she found that her friend had fallen behind and stood still with a blank expression.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s not working, Xing. I am going crazy,’ she mumbled.

Yixing patted her friend’s back sympathetically. Kyungsoo said in a trembling voice, ‘What do I do?’

Yixing paused brieftly before saying, ‘You know what? Let’s go home and change our clothes. I’m taking you to this place that I’m sure will definitely help to take your mind off him for a while.’

They went back to Yixing’s apartment. Giving Kyungsoo a black mini dress, she applied make up onto her friend’s face. Initially, Kyungsoo protested but then allowed Yixing to do whatever she wanted when the latter insisted that it was necessary.

Around nine, they left the apartment and drove to the place. Once arriving at the destination, Kyungsoo looked at her friend, dubious. ‘Taking me to a club? Serious, Xing?’

‘Trust me. It’s the best place for your situation. First-hand experience myself,’ Yixing said. ‘Go crazy tonight. I’ll look after you.’

Obnoxious music bombarded her ear drums the moment she stepped inside. Twitching her face a little at the volume, she followed Yixing to their booth.

‘What do you want, Soo?’ Yixing asked after she gave the waiter her order. Kyungsoo replied, ‘Just beer.’

After Yixing’s first cocktail and Kyungsoo’s first bottle, they headed to the dance floor. Under the effect of alcohol, Kyungsoo giggled at everything, her mind buzzed and numb. Her body swayed to the rhythm, losing herself amongst the crowd.

They ordered another drink as they returned to the booth. Kyungsoo was heavily intoxicated by the fourth bottle, slurring nonsense to a slightly tipsy Yixing, who merely sat there and listened to her friend’s incoherent, inaudible blabbering. Yixing thought she heard Jongin’s name being mentioned one or two times, but she threw away idea away. With the deafening music attacking her ears, it must have been a mistake.

‘Don’t go anywhere. I need to go to the bathroom for a sec.’ She ran to the toilet, leaving her drunken friend alone in the booth.

As soon as Yixing left, a man slid down next to Kyungsoo. ‘Hey there cutie, why are you all alone?’

His words passed into one of her ear and out the other. A wicked smirk pulled on his face, seeing how drunken she was. He s an arm around her waist and leaned into her ear, lips ghosting closely over it while whispering. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.’

Her body gave a slight jerk to the hot puff in her ear but she did little to push him away, unaware of the danger in her current state. The man took her lack of protest as assent. His hand slid down further to her lower body, giving her a light squeeze.

‘Leave her alone, you scumbag.’ Someone turned the man around and gave him a blow in the face, sending him down onto the floor. The man cursed at his assailant, getting up to punch him but only to receive another punch.

‘Piss off or I’ll kill you.’ Reluctantly, the man walked away, not forgetting to cuss aloud.

Oblivious to everything that occurred, Kyungsoo leaned against the table with her face down, feeling quite sleepy.

‘Did that bastard do anything to you, Kyungsoo?’ A familiar voice shook her shoulders violently. She lifted up her face, squinting at the person.

‘Hey, you look like Jongin!’ she exclaimed happily.

‘I am Jongin.’ He held her up by the arms. ‘Why are you here?’

She giggled. ‘I don’t know.’ Stumbling against his chest, her eyes travelled to his lips. ‘I like your lips. They’re like Jongin’s.’ As she finished her sentence, she wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled him down, connecting their lips together.

Jongin’s eyes widened at her boldness. A drunken Kyungsoo was always honest. He definitely liked drunken Kyungsoo better than sober Kyungsoo.

She leaned against his chest as they disconnected their lips. Hugging her close to his body, he asked, ‘I’m going to take you back to my house, okay?’

Instead of replying, she simply tightened her embrace. Grabbing her bag, he led her to his booth where Sehun was sitting. ‘Sorry, I’ll have to ditch you tonight.’

Giving his friend a knowing smirk, Sehun said, ‘Go and enjoy your night.’

‘I’m taking your car. Use my bike to get home later. Don’t let me see any scratches or I chop off your balls.’

Sehun rolled his eyes at the overused threat. ‘Sure.’

Jongin carried her to the car, occasionally stopping for her to throw up. He placed her into the front seat and strapped her seat-belt. His eyes constantly flickered between her and the road as he drove.

‘Jongin-ah,’ she murmured in her sleep. ‘I miss you.’

A smile stretched across his face, realising that she was sleep-talking. ‘I miss you, too.’

------

Rays of sunshine shone onto Kyungsoo’s eyelids, slowly waking her up. A groan emitted from as she felt her head aching, as though it was going to explode. She turned her body so her face was in the pillow, nursing her headache and inhaling the musky scent of the pillow. That was when she jerked up in mortification, almost completely sober.

Horror ran deep in her blood when she found herself sitting on a king-sized bed that was definitely not hers. The thought of losing her first time to a stranger made her mind go numb. Looking underneath the blanket, she sighed in relief when she found that the mini black dress was still on.

Her eyes scanned the unfamiliar room. Articles of clothing scattered in small piles on the wooden floor even though there was a basket close to them. She got out of the bed and walked out to the main room, wincing as the headache of the hangover returned.

The black curtains were drawn. The table lamp was still on, providing enough light for Kyungsoo to make out of the room. Similar to the bed room, the main room was decorated in the theme of minimalism with scarce furniture. There was a book shelf on the right side of the room, a television on the far end opposite to where she was facing, two long couches and a simple black table where her bag was lying amidst the mess that consists of stacks of books, a coffee cup, and a Mac.

She stepped cautiously to the table to collect her bag when she saw someone lying on a couch. Leaning down to get a better look, she recognised the person as Jongin, who was still in a deep slumber. Questions of why and how popped up in her head as she walked around to the front of the couch and knelt down, observing his face. Her eyes were immediately drawn to his plush lips. Very kissable. She wondered bitterly how many times did Soojung get the pleasure to kiss them.

The thought of Soojung snapped out her of the short trance. She stood up and picked up her bag, accidently causing a clashing sound as the piece of metal on her bag hit the surface of the table. A groan emitted from Jongin’s mouth as he squeezed his eyes, trying to get used to the brightness.

‘Good morning,’ he said, rubbing his eyes and throwing the blanket away from his body. Kyungsoo turned away at the sight of his boxer, cheeks reddened. ‘Good morning,’ she muttered.

‘Do you feel dizzy or hurt anywhere?’ He slipped on a shirt and a pair of black pyjamas pants.

She pursed her lips. ‘Just a mild headache.’

‘I’ll go and get you some aspirins.’ He headed into the kitchen and came back with a glass of water. ‘Take it, it’ll relieve the headache.’

She took the pill and then asked, ‘Why am I in your house? Where is Yixing?’

‘A bastard was molesting you while Yixing wasn’t there. I thought you came alone so I took you home. Yixing called your phone yesterday night and I told her that you were at my place.’

‘Thanks a lot. Sorry for taking your bed. You should have given me the couch,’ she said softly.

He replied, ‘Don’t worry. I could never allow you to sleep on the couch.’ As soon as he said that, his stomach growled.

Stifled a laugh, she said, ‘I’ll make your breakfast as a way of saying thank you. That is, if you don’t mind me using your kitchen.’

Abashed, he walked into the kitchen and fished out some ingredients. ‘I don’t mind. But I only got eggs and ham.’

‘You got bread?’ She took the pan and put it on the oven. ‘Nope.’ He stood leaning against the bench, watching her. ‘Then, fried rice it is. Might take some time to cook the rice though.’

He shrugged. Under his intense gaze, Kyungsoo grew nervous, evident from how her hands was shaking. There were many questions floating in her mind, waiting to be asked, but she decided against it since she didn’t trust the function of her brain-to-mouth filter very much at that moment.

‘Kyungsoo,’ He called her name, breaking the awkward silence. She looked at him. ‘Why did you drink so much last night? You were pretty wasted.’

Because of you was what she wanted to say. But instead, she replied, ‘I was feeling a little down so Yixing told me to drink. I guess I just lost count of the number of bottles.’

‘What’s bothering you?’ Genuine concern was written on his face. ‘Just some stuffs.’ She shrugged, hoping that he wouldn’t press it. ‘How have your holidays been?’

‘Nothing much, just going to work in the afternoon and practice at Kris’ place during night.’

She nodded, opting to return to the silence, which did stayed for a while until Jongin decided to break it again.

‘Do you miss me?’ Despite having known the answer during the drive home yesterday, he still wanted to hear it from her in her sober state.

Her hands stilled as she was taken completely surprised by the bold question. ‘Why are you asking such question? You – ’

He cut her mid-sentence. ‘Do you? Because I really miss you.’

‘You can’t do this, Jongin. It’s not fair for her,’ she said, turning away.

‘Who is ‘her’?’ He gave her a puzzled look. She scoffed angrily. ‘You’re playing dumb right now?’

‘I seriously don’t know who you’re talking about.’ Kyungsoo wanted to punch him in the face right there. ‘Soojung. Your girlfriend. Remember?’

‘Soojung? I broke up with her a few weeks ago already. What are you on about?’

It was her turn to be confused. ‘But everyone was saying how you and her were progressing so much from your one-nightstand. And I saw you hugging her last week after the carnival.’

‘They’re just gossips. I didn’t sleep with her. And hugging doesn’t mean we’re dating,’ he said. ‘She was having some difficult family issues. I was merely comforting her. And since when did you start to have so much interest in students’ gossips? Most importantly, were you stalking me?’

A sense of relief and hope washed over her. Shaking her head, she denied, embarrassed. ‘No. I didn’t stalk you. I just happened to hear the girls gossiping. I swear I wasn’t doing it on purpose. They were really loud.’ Then she remembered about his several one-nightstands and her embarrassment quickly faded away with hot anger replacing its place. ‘You’re not denying the fact that you did sleep around?’

‘I didn’t sleep around,’ he said. ‘That, too, was just a rumour.’

‘Why would someone make up rumours like that? There must have been something to instigate it.’

Sighing, he explained. ‘A friend of mine thought that it would be a good idea to make you jealous because then you would make you realise how much you want to be with me, so that person went around and began spreading the rumour.’

The idea clearly worked but Kyungsoo wasn’t going to reveal it to him. And for this friend, she had a pretty good guess of who it might be.

‘It was Luhan, wasn’t it?’ she asked, fury evident in her tone. ‘And how dare you play with my emotions?’

All those weeks of remorse and hopelessness just because he wanted to play with her feelings?

‘I’m not going to sell out my friend,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gone along with the idea. But, I wasn’t playing with your feelings. I was just trying to make you understand your feelings better,’ he said. ‘It didn’t work anyway.’ He let out a bitter chuckle.

‘You played with Soojung’s feelings.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Yes, you did. You agreed to go out with her and involved her in your game, only to dump her afterward,’ she said with disgust. ‘I can’t believe it, I thought you were better than this.’

He shook his head. ‘I only said yes because I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the whole class, and I explained to her when we were alone.’

‘How about when you guys came to class with her arms clinging to yours?’ Kyungsoo was aware of the growing bitterness and jealousy in her voice.

‘That was when I thought that maybe I should just try to forget you, so I gave her a chance. But I realised that it was futile. We broke up after two days and decided to stay as friends.’

The words lifted the heaviness on her heart at once, relieving her. Her anger was subsiding significantly too. Jongin turned to her and asked in a solemn yet hopeful tone. ‘Kyungsoo, you didn’t answer my first question. Do you miss me?’

I miss you so much were the words, but they refused to leave . She had been waiting for this moment all this time and now that it arrived, she couldn’t say it. The disclosure of everything jumbled her emotions; a sense of distrust, disappointment and anger was playing a tug-war with her hopefulness and joy. She was at a loss of words because of it.

‘I – I…’

He took her stammering as rejection. Deflated, he turned and was about to walk out of the kitchen when he felt a pair of arms wrapped tightly around his waist. A wide smile stretched on his face. He held her hands to loosen it in order to turn around but the grip was tightened.

‘Don’t turn around.’

He obliged, merely squeezing her small hands under his big palms, feeling the warmth of her front radiating to his body. Her nose took in the familiar fragrance of his cologne, channelling it around her body, easing her mind.

‘What you did was dumb,’ she said. ‘It makes me lose my trust in you.’

He replied, ‘I’m sorry. I know what I did was stupid but give me a chance to make it up to you. Don’t push me away again because I miss being around you.’

With her forehead leaning against his back, Kyungsoo let out a sigh as she mustered up her courage. ‘I miss you, too. A lot.’ The rest of her words were muffled by his shirt, barely audible, but Jongin caught them all.

Happiness bloomed in his heart at her admission. However, he also felt uncertain. The last time he heard something similar, it didn’t turn out to be what he had expected and he was afraid that it would be the same this time. In a slightly trembling voice, he asked, ‘Then will you give me a chance?’

Bracing himself for the unwanted answer, he waited for her to consider everything.

Kyungsoo mulled over the consequences of being with him, balancing them on the same scale with the negative outweighing the positives. By convention, Kyungsoo should choose to listen to her head rather than her heart. But then she recalled the two months of misery and regret, Kyungsoo decided to forego her logic process. She didn’t want to lose her second chance.

‘Having a relationship with a student is unprofessional and unethical,’ she began after a few minutes of silence. Sensing the tension of his body, she continued quickly, ‘But I’ll give it a try.’

‘I understand,’ he said before finally registering her latter words. ‘Wait. What? What do you mean?’ Immediately, he spun around and grabbed her, eyebrows furrowed together. She looked up at him, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes at his dramatic reaction. ‘I’m not going to repeat what I’ve said.’

‘You mean you want to go out with me?’

She nodded steadily as if she was trying to convince herself.

‘You’re mine,’ he stated to himself. Uncontrollably, her smile widened.

‘But Jongin, you know that being with me means that you will be on abstinence for a really long time, right?’ she said. ‘It’s not too late if you want to back out.’

‘I know,’ he answered, looking at her lovingly. ‘Don’t try to take back your words. I’m not going to leave you just because we won’t doing it.’

‘I just don’t want you to regret later.’

Using one hand to lift up her chin while the other going around her waist, he stared fondly into her large brown eyes. Tilting her head a little, he leaned down and crouched his back a little, going slow unlike the previous times. Kyungsoo closed her eyes and tip-toed the moment their lips touched.

It started as a peck then quickly progressed into a passionate kiss. His teeth nibbled on her lower lip, causing to open, gasping. They pulled away and leaned in again, brushing their noses against each other affectionately with a blissful smile on their faces.

‘Are you still going or staying for a cuddle session and a bonus of mint ice cream?’ He asked while peppering her face with little kisses.

Pulling him back into the kitchen, she replied, ‘I think I’ll stay.’

(tbc)

Sorry for the late update, I was busy last week.

Thank you for the comments. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter.