Leaning her head against the back of her dressing room door, Shin Hye let out a long breath. The last time she felt her stomach this knotted was back during the YAB days.

But why?

Pabo-ya! Isn’t it obvious?

Andwe! I promised myself I wouldn’t entangle myself with a co-star again!

Moving away from the door, she sat in front of the dressing mirror and traced the perimeters of her lips. She closed her eyes and remembered the light pressure of his lips on hers. She opened her eyes again and lifted her hand to massage her temples. The girl staring back at her was flushed in the face as she mimicked Shin Hye’s circular movements.

The last thing you need is feelings getting in the way, Shin Hye.

 How did this happen? Shin Hye asked herself, as she fiddled with a strand of hair. When did it happen? I thought my nervousness last night was because it was yet another kiss scene, not a department I’m particularly skilled in. Now it seems I have a whole different problem.

‘Yah, Shin Hye, what are you going to do?’ she said aloud to herself. After YAB, she had told herself to be more careful about where she let her interest lie. As a result, subsequent co-stars were always viewed as, “good friends” or “excellent colleagues” in her eyes. “Friend-zoned” if one preferred a more colloquial term. This was all due to the excellent wall she put up. But somehow, this time, she forgot to build the wall up…or perhaps, she didn’t know how to.

Min Ho had a way of getting through her barriers. While serious in nature, he had a charming, playful side to him…similar to Guen Suk Oppa you could say. To her, both men displayed a cool, shining, confident exterior that merely masked the more awkward, simple boy beneath. This is not to say that they put up images of themselves different from who they really were, but rather, it was nice to know that there was a side of them that was more normal. So was Min Ho Oppa her replacement for Guen Suk Oppa? Probably not. Her feelings for Guen Suk had long turned into feelings for that of a much loved, older brother. Therefore, there was no emptiness to fill whatsoever.

Rather, it’s possible that she was attracted to a particular type of men. Granted she did announce to the whole world that Yoon Shi-Yoon was her ideal type, but let’s be real, how often do we actually end up actually falling for our ideal type? Just take all the romantic comedies ever made for an example; the girl always falls for the guy she never imagined herself with in the first place. Be it because he’s out of her league, or be it because he didn’t fit into her ‘ideal boyfriend’ criteria. Whatever the case, Min Ho wasn’t who she was expecting.

She admired how dedicated he was to his craft, always having himself filmed on a handy-cam so he could pick out parts where he needed to improve. He was the first co-star that she worked with that acted with such ease and perfection, but still found the need to perfect it even more. Despite his perfectionistic nature, she liked that he wasn’t rigid to other people, or to changes. He always found a way to accommodate her, whenever possible, and was always attentive to her views on how they should perform a certain scene.

There was also something about the way he looked at her. Did he look at every girl like that? Not sure. Did his looking at her affect her? It made her heart skip far too many beats, if that was even possible. The way he leaned into her and looked at her right before they began running through the rooftop scene, made her stomach do all kinds of somersaults she didn’t know they could do. It embarrassed her to admit to herself that while he was trying to figure out how to carry out the scene, she was wondering if his lips were as soft as it looked.

Shin Hye smiled at the memory of her father, tucking strands of hair behind her ear.

She had gotten into another fight with one of her male classmates that day because he had tripped her during outdoor play. As she bent over her bruised knee, she swore she’d never get married. Admittedly, she was quite the drama queen back then. She was only 6-years old, but she could still recall her fathers words, ‘One day, a boy will look at you, and you heart will beat out of your chest,’

She had frowned then, ‘Out of my chest? Appa, is that how looks kill?’

Her father had laughed heartily and pulled her onto his lap, ‘Shin Hye-ah, when the time comes, you’ll understand.’ He placed his hand over her chest and continued, ‘Just being next to him will make you very happy. You will want to be with him all the time. You won’t stop thinking about him.’

‘I feel happy being with you, Appa’

Her Appa had chortled and sighed, ‘I love you too’.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy Min Ho’s company, even when he was teasing and poking fun at her. Try as she may, his presence made her feel giddy inside. It took all the acting skill, and self-control she’d accumulated in her lifetime to appear cool, calm, and collected before him.

However, her fear for her developing feelings may be stemmed in the fact that she already went through one complicated after-filming phase with a co-star, or it may be due to the knowledge that even if this feeling resulted into a possible relationship, it’d be shut down by both their managers. It didn’t help that he was such a big Hallyu star with a large fan base of loyal but hormonal, young girls.

Besides, he probably sees you as a dong-saeng anyway. Nothing worse than being placed in the little sister category. It’s miles beneath the “friend” category.

Shin Hye got up from the dressing table and leaned back on the chaise lounge, Appa, you didn’t tell me how to stop my heart from beating out of my chest…