Shin Hye wanted to do the person in, whoever he or she was, for waking her from much needed sleep.

Challenging the ringing doorbell, she had told herself, ‘If it’s still ringing after I have changed, and washed up, I’ll answer the door.’ However, if it stopped, and the person went away, it wasn’t important enough for her to bother.

The ringing began at 0605, and now it was 0615. She had indeed changed into something more appropriate, cleaned up, and the bell was still ringing. It couldn’t be Jun Oppa. He had her passcode, if it was urgent, he would’ve let himself in.

‘I should really get a peephole.’ Shin Hye muttered underneath her breath as she yanked the door wide open, not having to worry about Bongji and Norri rushing out as they were at her parents place.

Shin Hye looked at the visitor up and down. All except for his eyes, everything else was covered, ‘Oppa?’

‘I knew you were home.’ He said, his voice sounding a little more brusque than usual. Without waiting for an invitation, he pushed his way in, pulling his beanie off as he went.

She let the front door close behind her, ‘Yah! It’s six in the morning! What are you doing here? Did something happen?’

Silently, Min Ho dusted snow off the top of his beanie, and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. Then starting from the top of his nose, he began pulling the zipper of his winter jacket down, revealing more of his face as it went.

‘Yah!’ She said to his back as he continued to silently shrug out of the jacket, tossing it loosely over a chair.

When he finally turned to face her fully, Shin Hye was dumbfounded. His eyes were dark pools of rage…or was it desire? What has caused him to be so? At six in the morning no less! He began stepping towards her. Uncertain what to make of the situation, Shin Hye swiftly skirted past him, knowing that if she retreated, her back would hit the front door in three small steps.

‘What happened?’ Her own raspy voice surprised her. Was one’s voice supposed to get this hoarse when an arduous creature stood before them? She wasn’t sure. She was barely thinking straight. She could tell that he was in no mood for a chat, but what frustrated her more was that she couldn’t tell what he was in the mood for.

Min Ho simply traced her retreating steps, and for a second there, she was sure she caught a glint of mischief in his eyes. Shin Hye swerved her head around, she wanted to know how many more steps she had before she was cornered, ‘Ah…Perhaps you would like a cup of tea? Then you could tell me what has put you in this mood...?’

He stepped close against her, but he didn’t touch her yet. In fact, he stood so blooming close, Shin Hye could practically feel his body heat radiating off him.

‘No? Well, I guess you already had your morning tea…’ She felt her back finally hit the couch, ‘You don’t look like you’ve slept though…’

He nodded, but the way but he was looking at her made shivers shoot down her spine, and it had nothing to do with the temperature. He placed each of his hands on the back of the couch behind her, boxing her in.

Stupidly, she asked, ‘Do you want to nap here?’ It was better than this silent staring contest. He seemed fixated on not saying anything. Just standing there, looking all foreboding, brooding. ‘It’s a little bright in here isn’t it? You could use my room, I’ll make bre—’

He had inched his face forward while a hand shot up to the ends of her hair. With nowhere else to go, she leaned back towards the couch, ‘Yah! Wha—’

Her words effectively smothered.

He was kissing her, she realized dazedly. What…what…but her thoughts dissolved, and she stopped trying to make sense of the situation.

His mouth moved over hers, an invasive tongue pushing its way in. With back bent backwards into the couch, his arms encircled her tiny waist, drawing Shin Hye upwards, closer to him. The kiss was open-mouthed and deep. Her nose filled with the fresh scent of his aftershave and the muskiness of his cologne.

Twining her arms around his neck, she pressed against him, fitting her melting body to his firmer form. With one hand still steadfast around her waist, another hand slid up and laced its fingers through her hair, drawing her head back a notch, allowing him to deepen the kiss. Without further urging, Shin Hye parted her lips wider, causing Min Ho to groan. His expert tongue plunged in deep, searching with an almost desperate urgency.

With all his might, Min Ho tried to control his body, push back the fiery rise of desire. She offered more temptation than he could endure. When he kissed her, Shin Hye reacted with an innocent sensuality that bordered on the limits of his self-control.

Almost instantaneously, Shin Hye felt the kiss shift, where the kiss earlier was insisting, hurried, this kiss was slower, unhurried…sensual and exceedingly thorough—only causing the intense yearnings inside her to only rise further. He was assailing her very being with such throat-stopping languor…their tongues engaged in their own sensual dance. The hand that had held her head earlier brought chills to her spine when it trailed leisurely down her neck, just shy of her décolletage, and finally moved, stopping to hold her shoulder. His thumb absentmindedly stretched out, grazing the exposed neckline of her dress.

When he finally pulled his head back, Shin Hye protested, much to her own embarrassment—with a bewildered moan.

He dropped his hands quickly, and took a large, reluctant step back. Any longer and there’d be no stopping. She still looked so darn fetching with her eyes still closed, with her slightly parted lips swollen from the kiss, with her cheeks flushed cherry red, with her hair tousled, and her breath heavy. It took all the self-control to not just yank her back in his arms.

Only when her lids slid open, and her slumberous eyes gazed back at him, did he finally speak, ‘I didn’t…uh—come here to…do this, but then I saw you, and then…I kind of…lost myse—’

With a curved lip, and tilted head, Shin Hye’s eye glittered with slight playfulness, ‘Took you long enough.’

‘Mwo?’ When all she offered was a cheeky grin, and a wink, Min Ho felt a smile growing on his lips, ‘You minx!’

‘Yah! It’s not like I planned for you to come over at six in the morning so that you could kiss me senseless…!’ He raised an eyebrow, ‘But I won’t complain that you did.’

Shin Hye crossed her arms, and then asked again, ‘Now, let’s try this again…What are you doing here at six in the morning?’

With his mind brought back to the reason why he was here, he gnarred, ‘You know.’

‘Do I? I honestly cannot figure out what would’ve possessed you to ring my doorbell like a persistent, crazy, lunatic at six in the morning! And then barge in, all brooding and dark…’

‘Yah! You should be the one getting scolded!’ Min Ho all but bit out, like a sulking elementary kid.

Shin Hye giggled, it amused her how Min Ho could go from a provocative 26-year old to a sulky 10-year old in mere seconds, ‘Pray tell, what did I do?’

From the twentieth time today, Min Ho dragged his phone out of his pocket, and clicked the cool metal button on the top, and stuck the phone in Shin Hye’s face. He had placed it far too close, and all she could see was double. Inching her head back a little, her eyes widened. She grabbed the phone out of his hands, and shrieked, ‘Why do you have this picture?...Why is it your lock screen image?!’

‘Do you want to play a game of twenty questions?’ He asked sardonically. When she looked at him with a slight scowl, he answered, ‘Where else could I have gotten it, Pabo-ya! It’s all over the internet! You’re the number one most searched Korean female celebrity today! As of last night, you became hot stuff!’

Shin Hye blinked, ‘From the Miu Miu event.’

‘Yesssssss’ He all but hissed. ‘Yah! I told you not to wear such a dress!’

‘Keunde, why does this image you have make it seem like the dress showed more than it actually did?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘It must be the hair…the shadow…the lighting!’ She spoke more to the phone than to him.

‘Yah! Didn’t we agree that you wouldn’t wear dresses like these anymore?’

She looked up at him, smiling now, finally understanding why he was here, and shook her head, ‘Ani, you did.’ When he frowned, she persisted, ‘Keunde, I didn’t really have a choice, Oppa. It was sponsored…you know that. I had not much say in the matter!’

‘Such dresses shouldn’t exist.’ He muttered, ‘I’m going to boycott Miu Miu from now on!’

‘Hul! Any other girl, and you would’ve just nodded in appreciation.’ She gave him back his phone, and tugged on his arm, pulling him towards the kitchen. On the bar stool she made him sit, ‘So, you came all the way from wherever you came from, skipped your precious sleep just to give me your two cents worth about the dress?’ She crooned sweetly.

‘That was the plan.’

‘Mmmm?’

‘Then I saw you in this blasted dress,’ He picked at the fabric of her dress, ‘Then I went from wanting to kill you to wanting to…well, you know the rest.’

Shin Hye looked down at her mint-coloured skater dress. Made of light chiffon, the fabric of the skirt danced around her thighs every time she moved. The collar of the dress showed only a slight hint of what it was hiding underneath. ‘This? What’s wrong with this dress?’

‘It made you look too appealing.’

‘Too appealing?’ She tilted her head back in laughter, ‘Am I allowed to wear any dresses, Oppa?’

‘Yes, as long as it makes you look like an old hag…’ He looked her up and down, and then groaned, ‘…and I think, even that won’t be possible.’

‘I’m flattered you think so.’ She held Min Ho’s hands in hers, leaned in and pecked him on the nose, ‘Good morning. Do you want breakfast?’

Min Ho grinned then, he had expected a preaching for his juvenile antics, but instead, he got a morning kiss and an offer for breakfast. Could he love this girl any more? ‘Yes, please.’

When she tried to leave, he pulled her back in, wrapping his legs around her waist, ‘Yah! Where are you going?’

‘Do you think breakfast magically makes itself?’

‘Aisssh!’ However, instead of letting her go, he looked squarely in the face, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘What do you mean what am I going to do? I’m going to cook!’ Bewildered by his question.

‘No. I meant about the pictures! Plural! The whole world has probably seen it by now!’

Shin Hye pondered the question for a while, ‘I’ll have to discuss that with Jun Oppa, but there’s nothing I can do about the pictures! They’re there to stay.’ She looked at him quizzically, ‘Speaking of which, when are you going to change your wallpaper?’

‘Wae?’

‘It’s the only picture I can control.’

‘It’s the only picture you needn’t bother controlling! You’re my yeoja chingu! Why can’t I admire you?’

Shin Hye flushed a little, ‘You’re such a byeontae, do you know that?’

‘It’s your fault, ‘ He accused, ‘I told you the last time, you can’t fault me for doing certain things…when you wear things like this.’

Slyly, she responded, ‘I should probably wear that dress more often.’ Winking to let him know she was only joking.

He groaned inwardly, unhooking his legs from her, and pushing her back a little, ‘Yah! You still have that dress?’

‘It was a gift.’

‘Andwe! Burn it! Cut it into pieces! Use it as a mopping cloth!’

Scandalized, Shin Hye chided, ‘Oppa! Do you know how much that dress costs?’

‘There’s so little cloth, why does it cost so much?!’

‘Have you seen other dresses? The dress I wore was pretty decent! I saw a model wearing a dress that was entirely ed! You could see the girl’s smooth back from her nape to just before her—’

He turned his body away, propped his elbows on the kitchen counter, and covered his face, ‘There are three bears in a house, Father bear, Mother bea—’

‘Yah! What are you doing?’ Shin Hye snickered, ‘Nursery rhymes, really?’

‘Shhhh!...Mother bear, baby bear! Daddy bear is fat…’

Shin Hye made her way to the fridge, chuckling as she went.

~.~

‘While we’re on the topic of clothes and fashion…’ Min Ho pulled is phone out again, and unlocked his phone, making a face at his wallpaper.

‘Yah! If that picture upsets you so much, change it!’ Shin Hye admonished, biting a piece of sausage.

Min Ho glanced up at her, and groaned for the umpteenth time, his eyes dark.

‘What? I can’t eat sausages now?’ Shin Hye asked when she noticed the change in him.

Ignoring her, he looked back down at his glowing screen, flicking through images in his camera roll, finally finding the image; he tapped on it, and then slid his phone on the table over to Shin Hye. ‘This and the next few images.’

Shin Hye placed her fork down, and squinted at his screen, flicking through his gallery.

‘Don’t pose like that.’ He said to one image, ‘Don’t wear shorts.’ He said to another, ‘Don’t pose with men named Lee Jong Suk.’ He instructed for another.

Chuckling, Shin Hye glanced up, picking up her fork again, and waved it at her sulking boyfriend, ‘Did any of your girlfriends have a life when they were with you?’

‘Yes, they lived life very well, especially when they listened to me.’ He grinned like a Cheshire cat at the last few words.

Shin Hye rolled her eyes, and took another bite off her sausage.

‘Yah! Did you hear me?’ Min Ho badgered, waving the iPhone in her face.

Nonchalantly, Shin Hye replied, ‘I may pose like that again, I may wear shorts again, but I won’t be posing with men named Lee Jong Suk for awhile.’

‘Mwo? Wae?’ Asked a taken aback Min Ho, but stopped to clarify, ‘Not that I’m not pleased to hear!’

‘I’ll be posing with a man with a different name.’

‘Who?’

‘Ahn Jae Hyun.’

‘He’s in You Who Came From the Stars right?’

‘Mmmmm.’ Was all Shin Hye could managed with a mouthful of eggs.

‘Andwe! He’s too good looking!’

‘Omo!’

‘Wae?’

‘Who gave you permission to check him out?’ Shin Hye teased, ‘It makes me feel very insecure.’

Min Ho bit back a smile, he knew what Shin Hye was doing. ‘Yah! You know what I mean!’

‘Do I? It looks to me like you spend a considerable amount of time appreciating your own gender!’

‘Aisssh!’ He had forgotten how winning an argument with Shin Hye was close to impossible, especially when she always had to have the last word.  

‘Tired Oppa?’ She asked at the sight of him yawning, ‘I’d expect you to be. Practicing for your concert all day long yesterday, and then came barging in early this morning, ready to kick my , apparently.’ She was honestly amused by him. ‘Really, tell me, what had you originally intended to do? You came with such purpose.’

He huffed instead, not wanting to admit that when he came, he really had nothing in mind. Maybe give his two cents worth, but that would’ve lasted all but three seconds, ‘Are you trying to have me killed?!’ Was the only thing he could he come up with in the van on the way over. All he knew was he was mad, he was feeling much to hot, he wanted to blind all the men in the world, and he wanted to replace her entire wardrobe with black garbage bags.

She hooted at his lack of answer, ‘You didn’t have anything in mind did you? You basically stood outside my house for whole ten minutes, determined to wake me up to do absolutely nothing in particular!’

‘Oh hush!’

When she began laughing again, he hopped off his chair, and swooped in for another kiss, a hand lightly fiddling the soft material of the damned skater dress. He’d been thinking about it ever since the last kiss anyway. When their tongues met, he smiled slightly, he could taste the breakfast she had cooked, and it tasted much better this way.