Nara was calmly sipping her coffee, reading a book (yeah, that’s so not her, but hey, she’s trying to be a better person and Haerin recommended that book to her so she’s reading it, okay?) when her phone buzzed on the table.  Somewhat absorbed into the book, she picks up without looking at the caller ID.

“Hello?” She mumbles.

And her recognition of the caller’s voice made her regret ever picking up the call.

‘Remember that last date we had?’

Nara’s focus breaks from her book and she curls her lip.  “, where did you get my number?”

‘Fro—‘

“No, don’t tell me, I’m supposed to be hanging up on—“

‘Why don’t we do it again?’

Her curiosity got the best of her.  “Do what again?” She clears .

‘That last date,’ She could hear the hint of a smile in his voice.

“And why should I?”

‘Because you’ve been reading non-stop and you need a break.  Oh, and because I’m waiting,’

Nara’s head snaps up to glance around the coffee shop and she jumps in her seat when someone knocks on the glass window beside her.  There, stands Kyungsoo in a bleached denim shirt and jeans, waving at her with his phone to his ear.

With a loud groan, she sets her forehead on the table.  Why was she so eager to avoid him one moment and the other, he appears, and her heart just seems to contradict all that?

“Hi,” Kyungsoo says from above her, throwing her a sheepish grin.  “May I?” He gestures towards the seat across from her and before she could even say anything, plops down and leans forward on the table, making Nara draw back in surprise.

“How did you even know I was here?” She scowls at him.

“Gut feeling,” Kyungsoo shrugs, taking her book and reading the synopsis.  “Mitch Albom,” He nods approvingly.  “I thought you’d be reading Fifty Shades of Grey or something,”

“Don’t be an ,” Nara snatches the book back and hugs it protectively over her chest.  “I’ve got enough around me, I don’t need to read about it too,”

Chuckling, Kyungsoo glances at her cup of coffee.  “Still hazelnut frap, huh?”

Nara stumbles over her words, flustered at how he could possibly remember something so little from so long ago.  “Ugh,” She glares at him.  “Don’t use your charming guy trick on me.  It doesn’t work,”

“It sure doesn’t, Nara, it sure doesn’t,” Kyungsoo leans back amusedly onto his chair.  “So, what do you say about that date?”

Nara gives him a look.  “You’re going to force me off of my to go, whatever my answer is, right?”

“Bingo,”

“So what’s the use of refusing?”

Kyungsoo’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.  “I thought you’d give me more of a fight, Nara-ssi,”

“Shut up,” Nara stands from her seat and places a tip by her empty cup.  “I’m out, manager!” She salutes the man standing at the counter.

“Go carefully!” He calls back and Nara waves a hand over her shoulder in response.  She walks ahead of Kyungsoo but stops in her tracks as she remembered that he’s the one taking her out on a—ahem—date—and he hasn’t exactly told her where they’re going.  Reluctantly, she turns to face him.  “Where are we going?”

Kyungsoo was pulling out his keys from his pocket when she asked.  “Where do you think?” He smirks.  “Don’t deny that you remember,”

“I don’t know,” Haerin snaps.  “You’re the one asking me out, aren’t you?”

“You do know,” Kyungsoo sighs, leaning onto his car in a laid-back manner.  “We’re not going until your face lights up with the memory of our last date,”

“Wha—“

“Where it was, what I gave you, and what you left me with,”

In a flash, the memory flies through her mind in colours.  The amusement park, the doll and his broken heart.  She blinks back into reality and see Kyungsoo opening her side of the car.  “There we are,” He smiles.  “Let’s go,” His hand gestures for her to come in.  

“This doesn’t change the fact that I hate you,” She looks up at him as she walks into the car.

“Watch your head,” He simply says before shutting the door.  

When he comes in behind the wheels, Nara finds herself staring at his side profile.  It’s like deja vu.  She’s been in this position with him for millions of times way back in the past, and she doesn’t think anything regarding her heart had changed since then.

“Your seatbelt, love,” Kyungsoo pipes up.

Nara freezes at the nickname.  He called her that in the past.  And the way it rolls off of his tongue two years after still sounded the same; filled with the very word.  She still freezes when he reaches across her face to put her seatbelt on for her, her state only thawing when he taps her nose with his finger.  She swats at him unsuccessfully and scowls at the streets.

“Ready?” Kyungsoo chuckles and receiving no answer at all, steps on the gas anyways.

This is going to be a long, long day.

***

She had only realised that she had been smiling all day long when her cheeks started to hurt.  The sun was setting and here she was; a silly pair of cat ears on her head, her eyes and cheeks painted with a cat’s eyes and whiskers, dragging Kyungsoo around by the hand.

Wait; by the hand??

As if touching hot iron, Nara drops Kyungsoo’s hand with a quiet ‘sorry,’ and trudges ahead towards the closest food stall.

“One—er, two—corn dogs, please,” She smiles up at the old man in the uniform.  “No mustard,”

“I thought it was just me,” Kyungsoo says from beside her and she jumped at his sudden closeness.

“What?” She clears , her voice ungraciously cracking.

He chuckles, skimming through the menu while they waited.  “I thought I was the only one who remembered how you liked your coffee,”

Nara’s eyebrows shot up when she realises that she had ordered the corn dogs out of memory.  She was coincidentally—or, not, maybe—drawn to the stall and had ordered two corn dogs without mustard.  That was how they would order it back in the old days.  Her cheeks flushed and she looks away, grunting irritatedly.  He did that countless times that day.  Catching her defenceless, tearing down her defences, flawing her defence, and almost every minute catching her by surprise as she lost track of the angry pre tense she was supposed to keep up.

“Thank you!” The corn dog man said, handing her the food.

With a smile, Nara settles down on the closest bench and hands Kyungsoo his corn dog.  “I still hate you,”

“Why, thank you, Nara-ssi,” Kyungsoo—adorably—shakes his hair into place and takes the food from her.

The two munches, side by side, no words exchanged.  But Nara sure could feel Kyungsoo’s eyes boring holes onto the side of her head.  It’s been only 5 minutes, but it felt like hours.  “What?” She snaps, swallowing the last bit of her food.

“What, what?” Kyungsoo grins.

“Ugh, never mind,” She rolls her eyes and at her periphery, catches the things wading in the amusement park’s small lake.  Her focus turns and she delightedly points at them.  “Duck boats!”

Dropping her stick to the trash, she—again—grabs Kyungsoo’s hand and drags him towards the station that sold the tickets to the boats.

“One couple boat coming up,” The girl in the booth glances at their joint hands knowingly.

Nara drops his hand again and digs the heels of her hands into her eyes, but could not contain the excitement of riding a duck boat after so long.

“Enjoy,” Boat girl waves at them as they paddle away slowly.

The cramped space made it hard for Nara to stay away from the press of Kyungsoo’s arm.  Her whole body tenses as she paddles, still unable to let go and give in to him.

“Hey, Nara?” He quietly says her name and as she turned her head to respond, she could see polite curiosity gleaming in his eyes.  “Why do you like duck boats so much?”

She hesitates at the question, eyes drawing away from his scrutiny.  Her feet slows down and she let a long moment of silence stretch between them before letting out a quiet whisper.

“I used to ride it with Jane and the girls,” The wisp of a smile hints at her lips as she remembered them.  “We used to take the huge ones and we would all be squeezed together, going in circles,” She chuckles sadly.  “It was the one of the little happiness we could find among all the sins we were committing.  They were the closest to a family I could have had.  And unknowingly, aside from our work, we shared one thing in common,”

“What was that?”

“Our love,” She locks eyes with Kyungsoo and tears her gaze away quickly from his tenderness.  “Our love for each other.  But sometimes, love overwhelms you.  That’s why the moment Jane died, that moment by her grave; that was the last time we ever saw each other. We did not console each other, but we did not console ourselves either.  We cried, sobbing, at the loss of who had been our mother for years.  And then we drifted apart; our relationship the mere bittersweet memory, buried deeply in our hearts.  Because seeing each other would bring too much pain,” Nara had unconsciously let the words loose and she couldn’t take them back.  She tries to smile, but grimaces instead.  “And because it’s silly and fun,” She chuckles.  “Gives me back the childhood I mi—“

Abruptly, Kyungsoo took her head in his hands and pressed her forehead to his.  From the distance, the familiar boom and crackle of a firework sounded but it was a mere sound in the background to the press of his skin against hers.  Her ears were blocked by his hand and she realised that he was blocking the sound of the explosions.  

He also remembered that she was frightened by fireworks.  

But he really didn’t need to, because the rush of blood and the loud pumping of her heart was all she could hear anyways.  Kyungsoo’s lips moved in soundless words after a moment and Nara had to pull his hands away from her ears to hear him.  “What did you say?” She asks, her breath shaking for no reason.

Nara noted his hesitation before he answered.  “I said, we shouldn’t have gone to the amusement park,” He glances outside the boat, wondering if there would be more explosions.  “I should have known there was going to be fireworks,”

“You didn’t say that,” She glances down at their hands, interlaced together and this time, without her urge to pull away.  “That wasn’t what you said,”

Kyungsoo slowly lifts his eyes and meets hers, his gaze flickering to her lips.  “Why don’t you tell me what I actually said?”

It wasn’t only her lips that was drawing him; his lips were drawing hers as well.  “‘I really want to kiss you, but that would defeat the whole purpose of this date’,” Her words faded out as he leans in, excruciatingly slowly.  

A loud boom overhead rattled her skull and she flinches, the shock turning her body rigid.  

“,” Kyungsoo curses and puts his arms around her, tucking her head into the space between his neck and his shoulder, gently blocking her ear.  She could still hear the soothing noises he was making to calm her down and she could feel his thumb gently caressing her knuckles.  Her shaking slowly, but surely subsided.  Even as he pulled his hand away from her ear and the two of them realised that the fireworks show was over; Nara didn’t pull away.  Nor did Kyungsoo.  

As the two dismounted the boat, they walked hand in hand.

“Hey Kyungsoo?” Nara peers at his face.

“Yeah?” He turns, meeting her eyes.

“Why did you take me out on this date?”

A knowing smile spread his lips and he squeezes her hand tightly as he answers.  “I wanted to take your heart back.  Without skinship,”

The flush of red washed over her cheeks and her neck, deepening when Kyungsoo chuckles and touches her cheek with gentleness.

“Hey Kyungsoo?” She calls out again.

“Hm?” He patiently responds.

Nara lifts his hand to her lips and places a kiss on the back of his hand.  “You didn’t have to take it back,” She smiles sheepishly.  “You’ve had it all along,”

KAI-HAERIN KYUNGSOO-NARA IN A ROW

SHABLAM

BABABOOM

yea

luv u guys

IM SORRY ive been really busy, but yknow, i made time for u guys

DONT U KNOW HOW MUCH I LUV U GUYS

JUST ok.