Kai puts his hand over her wrist as he leans in to her warmth.  He reaches out to wipe her tears gently with his thumb.  “Why are you crying?” He asks, bewildered.

“I am?” Haerin sniffles in surprise and rubs her face with her sleeve.  “I didn’t notice,”

Kai presses his lips onto her forehead and pulls her in for a hug.  “You’re not falling for me,” He sighs.  “I’m still a rebound for you, Haerin,”

His laughter vibrates throughout his body and Haerin struggles to pull away in protest.  “It’s my feelings, Jongin, you don’t-“

“I do,” He stops her and repeats himself.  “I do, I know,” He lets her go and takes her hand, guiding her to the sofa and making her sit down as he kneels down in front of her.  “Don’t even try to confess.  Let it be my own unrequited feelings.  Mine and mine alone,”

It wasn’t a command, coming out of his lips.  It was a wish.  A desperate request.  Haerin once again couldn’t find a way to understand what he’s trying to say.  What’s wrong with her? Why is it that when it comes to Kai, she can’t understand anything? “Do I really have to say yes to that?” Haerin asks.

“Yes, you do,”

“Then what choice do I have,” She sighs with finality.

“Good,” Kai grins.  He stands up to get them drinks, disregarding the fact that it was Haerin’s house instead of his.  When he settles back down beside her, he pops the can of soft drink he picked out of her fridge and sighs in satisfaction as he swallows his first gulp.  

He grabs the remote and switches the TV on, getting comfortable.

Haerin drinks her juice noisily and sets the empty carton on the desk before coming to rest her head on Kai’s lap.  “You know,” She starts.  “I think, somewhere along the way, I kind of dropped your glasses,”

Kai turns his head to look over his shoulder and chuckles quietly before looking down at the girl on his lap.  “Yup, it’s there on the floor,”

Haerin immediately sits up and jumps over her couch to retrieve Kai’s glasses and snugly returns to his lap as she plays with the accessory in her hands.  “We get really steamy when we’re alone with each other, don’t we?” Haerin muses.  “Don’t you wonder why?”

Nodding in agreement, Kai pushes a lock of hair away from Haerin’s face.  He grins when she tries the glasses on and scrunches her nose to hold it up.  “I don’t know if it’s just me or you become really desirable when we’re alone,” He says.  Haerin blows a wet raspberry on his face at his remark, giggling when he draws back in mock disgust.  As he wipes her spit from his face, he shakes his hair back into place.  “It’s like we have this no strings attached thing going on between us,” He shrugs.

Haerin lights up at the term.  “That’s the word I was looking for!”

Raising an eyebrow at her, Kai smirks.  “You do know that ‘no strings attached’ means that we’re literally friends?”

She immediately colours at Kai’s description.  “That, I did not know,”

Kai laughs at her sudden virtue.  “What am I gonna do with you?” He wonders rhetorically.  

“It’s because I spend too much time around you guys,” Haerin digs her head onto Kai’s lap in emphasis, taking off his glasses.  “Now I’ve become hormonal and erted,”

When she shifts her position to face the TV, Kai finds himself gazing down onto her side profile.  Why the heck was she crying, when he was the one doing all the talking and confessing? He shudders at the memory of losing his cool.  Haerin does that a lot to him; catching him off guard, that is, and he doesn’t think she’s even trying to.  He might be the one suggesting the ‘no strings attached’ status for their current relationship, but even he knows that they totally have strings attached, with what Haerin had went through and how he came in with his heart.  He tries putting himself in her shoes and admits to himself that it feels weird to fully lean on another when the other party doesn’t lean back.  It throws off the stability.  Maybe that’s why she was fussy over him hiding things from her.  Inwardly, he sighs.  Telling her a little bit wouldn’t hurt.

“I lost my mother to an illness when I was young,” He quietly starts.  

Judging from the way Haerin hesitantly sets a hand on his knee in a gesture of comfort, he knows that she’s listening, even if she wasn’t looking at him straight in the eyes.  “And I don’t like my dad.  That’s one of the reasons why I don’t wear glasses when I don’t need to, because people say I look like him,”

“Sorry,” Haerin softly says.

“No, it’s okay,” He absently her head.  

“Is losing your mom the reason why you want to be a doctor?”

“Yeah,”

Haerin glances up at his face, carefully treading through the lists of questions already popping up in her head.  “Do you- do you really want to be one?”

Kai hesitates at the question.  “Why do you ask?”

“Because you sounded like you’re forced to do it,”

Sighing as he is once again caught off guard, Kai plays with Haerin’s hair in an effort to distract him from what he’s going to say, just so that he wouldn’t back-off from telling her.  “Wanting to be a doctor is already a strain.  With having to keep up your scores and be completely overachieving.  It’s more of a strain when the people around you push you way past your limits.  When you’re born in a family of doctors, you have your fate determined for you and your path carved out for you.  It’s a check mate.  It isn’t that I’m forced to do it, I want to be a doctor, I really do, but sometimes, it just gets so damn tiring when I’m never good enough for them,”

Haerin finds Kai’s hand and takes it in hers, squeezing it tightly.  She turns her head to face him and runs her thumb over his knuckles as she expresses her thoughts.  “You can do it, Jongin-ah.  You’re going to be a great doctor,”

There it is again.  She just never fails at it, doesn’t she? Kai chuckles down at her face and kisses her hand in exchange.  “With my scores; of course I’m going to be a great doctor,” He grins.

“Show-off,” Haerin pulls her hand away from him and crosses her arms, returning her gaze towards the TV.  “You’re such a mood-ruiner,” She grumbles.  But she wasn’t finished.  She turns her head again and asks another question.  “What about dancing, though? Are you going to give it up?”

“Nah, it’s a hobby,” Kai shrugs.  “I’ll do it when I want to,”

“Good.  Don’t ever stop dancing because you look the happiest when you do.  And trust me; you’re really good at it.  Don’t dance in front of other girls.  It’s bad for their heart.” Satisfied, she gives him her last grin and shifts her attention to the TV once more.

“Thank you, Haerin-ah,” He softly says.

And he really meant that gratitude.