“Should we go back or continue our talk noona? I think we can still make it to our place without getting too wet if we go now. The rain isn’t heavy yet.” 

“We could stay a little bit longer if you want to.”

“I want to.” 

He agreed to stay. It’s better than dying alone in the cold apartment, he thought. For now he only think that way, but soon he would be craving for this kind of moment with his noona, cherishing every second they’d spent together.

******

“So, Joong Ki-yah, don’t you have a girlfriend? It’s Valentine’s Day, you know.” Out of nowhere Ji Hyo asked the question.

“Nope. Lots of girls flirt with me but none has the courage to actually come near me.”

“Yah, you’re a man. You should be the one who make the first move! Listen, I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to be single for the rest of your entire life. People are saying these things about modern age where woman should be more honest about their feelings and start to make the first moves. That’s just bull. All the emotional dramas are just pure bull.”

Joong Ki heard a lot about this noona’s habit of using harsh words, especially from other actors and actresses, but that was the first time he heard the words coming straight from . She seemed so honest and comfortable talking in casual language. It was almost like her default language. He laughed inside his head, thinking that there was something wrong but somehow right with the girl beside him.

“Men are cunning, really. You see, in dramas, when the woman confesses her love, the man would brightly smile and they would end up kissing each other romantically, or actually more like brutally—in fact they could make their costars’ lips bleeding.” She said with an enthusiasm that normal people don’t usually have.

“Hey, you’re an actress too, noona. How could you say that? Don’t tell me it happened to you?!”

“Well… It actually almost happen to my costar…” She avoided eye contact, as if too embarrassed to look at Joong Ki.

“Oh my, please noona please, don’t tell me you’re the one who kissed him too hard!” He couldn’t believe the probability.

Ji Hyo blushingly denied, “Yah, it’s not me! My costar almost did that to my other costar!!”

“Liar!!”

“Yaah Song Joong Ki!!”

It was clear that Ji Hyo lied. Her denial was a pure fail. Funny wasn’t it, as a well-known actress she couldn’t even lie about one silly simple thing. And that was adorable, especially to a boy who wanted to be seen as a man.

There is always that moment when you realize you fall in love with the person in front of you. Sometimes it happens when you’re looking in her eyes. Or sometimes it happens when you’re not even looking at her. But the crazy thing is that you always realize it too late. You never capture the moment. Instead, you keep it deep in your heart and let life goes by. Before you know it, you love her for too long to be able to go back to the starting point. Love is funny. It makes your heart flutters regardless the time. Now it flutters because you’re just so happy to be in love and then it flutters again because you just can’t take it anymore. Love for a young man like Joong Ki is indefinable.

Looking at Ji Hyo’s blushing face covered with her hair, Joong Ki couldn’t help but smiling. In his head, her every movement was in slow motion, beautifully cinematic.

“Anyway, that’s not the point!” She said suddenly, brushing her hair back, trying to be serious again. After getting Joong Ki’s attention, she continued, “the point is that drama lovers all around the world did a campaign about how women should approach men first. They call it emancipation. But—hear this carefully, a big but—men hate it! Men lose interest in women who confess their feelings.”

“But I don’t.”

“You don’t?” There was a glimpse of surprised in Ji Hyo’s voice.

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s bad to be honest regardless the gender. I’ll surely appreciate women who give their best and say they love me. It’s kind of sweet actually, noona. Love isn’t something you can keep to yourself forever, right?”

“Hmm, really...” She kept her words hanging.

The enthusiasm in Joong Ki sensed earlier was so different from the atmosphere he felt now. Someway he realized there was something behind all Ji Hyo’s words.

“Did a man break your heart before?”

Not a word.

Still not a word.

The rain was still falling, but this time lighter.

Joong Ki started to question himself, whether it was too harsh for him to ask such question to his senior. They were not that close afterall. Quietly he stared at her, then at his feet. Just wait a little longer and she’ll surely answer. But then the only thing could be heard is the sound of the rain falling on the gazebo’s rooftop.

Still not a word.

“Yeah, one guy.” After a long moment of silence she finally answered briefly.

“May I guess? A senior back in your high school days?”

“Nope,” without a hint of sadness in her voice she started to tell him, “actually it happens yesterday. We met in the elevator right? It happened just a couple of minutes before that. He drove me back to my place after we had dinner together last night.”

Trying to remember the detail, she frowned throughout the whole story.

“He’s actually my ex-boyfriend from a couple of years ago—I don’t remember the exact time. I honestly never moved on since then. We’re still good friends and lately he’s been acting weird. After my first appearance in Running Man he started to call me over to his house again. I don’t know why, had no idea at all. I said yes anyway. Why wouldn’t I? I love him too much I can’t let the opportunity slip away.”

Looking at his shoes again, Joong Ki tried to keep himself together since a part of him feels like it’s going to fall apart. Why? He didn’t know why. However, during this moment of confusion, he managed to let out a sentence,“To me it seems that he has the same feelings for you.”

 “Yesterday morning I found out that he’s going to go abroad, probably for a long time. I couldn’t lose my chance. I don’t want to make the same mistake I did back when we broke up. So out of nowhere it just came out.” She stopped for awhile to take a deep breath.

“You should see the look on his face. Damn that guy! He flatly said, ‘Oh mianhe Ji Hyo-ya, I don’t feel the same way’. He’s not sorry at all I bet. In fact, I bet he still loves me. But just because of his conservative way of thinking, he thinks man should be the one who make the first move. It’s illogical! He’s just being a jerk as always. He thinks I’m disgusting. I even heard him whispering ‘woman like a man’. Jeez, stupid.”

For Joong Ki, Ji Hyo looked more angry than sad. She was pissed off and it was written clearly on her expression. He could calm her up with so many words, but there he was, saying the thing that came first to his mind.

“Well, I actually really like to do a kissing scene. That’s my favorite part of filming. Sometimes I get too excited, the director has to cut it in the middle. They said it’s too sensual for a drama. I really don’t know why, but I think the real world is more dramatic than dramas. If someone declares her love for me, I’ll surely be happy about it. I wouldn’t think of her as disgusting. The person who thinks she’s disgusting is the one who’s disgusting!”

Soon after he let out his long words, he realized that he didn’t make any sense. Too late to regret though.

“I actually don’t understand half of it, but I maybe—just a little bit though—quite get it. But what’s with the kissing part? You sound like a maniac, Joong Ki-ya.” Ji Hyo laughingly patted Joong Ki’s back.

“Ah, yes, I know I’m talking nonsense. Mianhe, noona.”

For a moment he was afraid to look at his noona’s eyes. Perhaps he had made a big mistake by saying what he said earlier. However, when he finally had the courage to turn his head and look at her, he found two bright eyes already staring at him. The intensity was something he never felt in real life before. It had the same atmosphere as the one he usually felt in his dramas—when he’s really into it.

“Thanks,” She said with her soft voice, almost like a whisper, “I know you’re trying to comfort me—especially with your obsession of kissing people, hahaha!!” Quickly the seriousness turned into a light joke again. But Joong Ki was left unspoken, almost like he had been struck by something.

Observing their surroundings, Ji Hyo came to notice that the rain had stopped. Softly she pulled the end of Joong Ki’s long sleeve and brought him to stand outside the gazebo.

“I came to like you even more than before, Song Joong Ki.”

And the boy who wanted to be seen as a man once again was left unspoken. 

A/N: a short chapter after a really long period of abandoning this story