“Okay, just a little more and… I’m done!” Yoomi smiled happily as a small, joyful laugh came out of her. “I can’t believe it. I’m finally done!”

She stared at her now-fixed time machine with a blank mind, not believing that it was actually finished. It took forever to fix the thing—months to be exact—and now that it was finished, she didn’t know what to do.

“But now that I’m done, this means that…” She paused before continuing the rest of her sentence in a small voice. “…I have to leave.”

“Yoomi!”

She jumped at the call of her name as it radiated through the silent house. She then turned around and saw a soaking wet Myungsoo standing at the front of her bedroom. “M-Myungsoo…” She examined him from head-to-toe, trying to process how he ended up looking like he just came out of a pool. “Why are you wet?”

“It’s raining outside,” he said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t have an umbrella.”

“Was it raining when you left the school building?” she asked. He nodded in response, but she happened to notice how weak it looked. “Why didn’t you tell me to bring you an umbrella?”

She went over to him and started pushing him towards the bathroom. “You have to go shower now or you’ll end up sick.”

Myungsoo stopped walking, causing for her to bump into his back from not expecting for him to stand still all of a sudden, and turned around. “Yoomi…”

She heard her name escaping his lips and looked up at him in confusion. She then saw how painful his expression looked as he stared down at her, which made her even more worried. “Myungsoo, are you okay? Are you already sick?”

He let out a sigh before wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into an embrace. “M-Myun—“

“Don’t leave me.”

She froze up after hearing those three words.

“Please, don’t leave me…”

His arms tightened around her as he buried his face in her hair. She could feel her heart clenching before hesitantly bringing a hand up and placing it on his back. It was a small way to comfort him from whatever was making him feel depressed at the moment, but her mind was too filled with worry and guesses as to what caused him to be like this for her to think of a better way to comfort him.

“Myungsoo...”

He continued hugging her and didn’t let go. It would probably take some time before he felt okay enough to pull away from her, but it was okay. She didn’t mind him hugging her, especially when he was feeling down and needed someone to be there for him.

“Is it just me or does it feel a little chilly in here,” Myungsoo asked while slightly shivering, even when fully covered with a blanket.

“Well maybe if you took a shower and changed out of the wet clothes that you were wearing when I told you to, then maybe you wouldn’t feel chilly.”

Yoomi brought over a mug of warm tea to the couch where he was sitting as his body was obviously shivering under the blanket she had given him, but he still tried to hide the fact that he was cold. “Drink this,” she said as she sat down next to him.

“Thanks,” he muttered. He took the cup and started sipping at it, nearly scalding his lips a few times.

“And now that you’re all warm with your blanket and tea,” she started, “would you mind if I ask what happened to you for you to get completely soaked?”

He stopped drinking from his cup and looked at her before quickly looking away. “Ahem,” he cleared his throat. “Yes, I would mind actually.” He then turned the opposite direction from her and started sipping on his tea again.

“Myungsoo,” she called. “Tell me what happened.”

“Like I said before, I got caught in the rain, was too lazy to call you for an umbrella, and ended up running home without one.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s it?”

He nodded in response. “Yup, that’s it.”

“Myungsoo, do you think that I believe that?”

He turned towards her and saw her eyes looking at him seriously, but even after seeing that he still refused to tell her everything. “What isn’t there to believe? It’s not like I’m saying that I got abducted by aliens on my way home and ended up having a pool party with the aliens that kidnapped me.”

“Myungsoo,” she called again. “Just tell me everything. Do you know how worried I was when you came home and I saw you in the state that you were in?”

He saw how her eyes were filled with worry, and the feeling of guilt started to grow in him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.” He then sighed. “I should’ve called you to bring an umbrella to me since if I did that then we could’ve had a very romantic walk in the rain under the umbrella. Man, I missed my chance for a romantic kiss under the rain.”

She looked at him with an ‘are you serious’ look as she shook her head. “I don’t even know what to do with you,” she said while shaking her head.

He chuckled after seeing her expression, but then stopped when he saw that she was standing up to leave. “Wait!” He caught her arm and stood up also, letting the blanket around him get pulled down by gravity and lay fallen on the floor.

“I’ll tell you,” he said. “Just… don’t leave.”

Her expression softened after hearing what he said. “Okay,” she agreed. “But sit down first. You’re a sick person, well, maybe. I’m not sure if you will continue to be like this tomorrow or be completely fine, but let’s both hope for the latter to happen.”

He sat down as he was told and watched her as she picked up his blanket on the ground and securely wrapped it around him, making sure that it would keep him warm. “So let’s start,” she said after finishing tucking him in and then sitting down.

He let out a breath. “Alright, I’ll start from the beginning,” he said. “So remember when I told you that you should go home first since there was something that I had to do before leaving?” He waited for her to nod before continuing. “Well, the ‘something’ that I had to do was to actually talk to Heajung about what happened between her and you on the rooftop earlier today.”

Yoomi widened her eyes. “You asked her?”

“Yeah,” he answered with a nod. “And she told me everything.”

 “You tried to attack her?” Myungsoo raised an eyebrow at Heajung.

“No! No I swear that I didn’t!”

“Then why did she put you in a headlock out of defense?”

“I just…” Heajung looked down at her hands. “…reached out for her. I swear that I wasn’t trying to attack her though! She just misunderstood!”

“Why did you reach out for her?” he continued questioning.

“I…”

“Remember that I won’t believe you if you say something like you just wanted to pet her or something,” he said. “Tell me the truth or I’ll keep pestering you.”

Heajung let out a sigh and bit her lip. “Alright, fine,” she said. “I reached for her hair.”

“You what?”

“I reached for her hair!” she said in a louder voice. “She was just… so annoying to look at.”

He scoffed at her. “She was annoying to look at so you wanted to pull her hair out?”

“It wasn’t completely because of that,” she said. She glanced up at him before looking down again. “I also did it because… I was mad. I was mad at her for taking you away from me.”

“Since when was I yours in the first place?” he asked in disbelief.

“You were going to be mine! I could have made you mine!” she shouted. “But she got in the way!”

Myungsoo let out a sigh as he ruffled his hair in frustration. “I told you before that I will never fall for you!” he said. “I don’t even know what you see in me. Sure, I’m handsome, but that’s the only thing that I’ve got. Have you seen my grades? They’re horrible! They only improved after Yoomi helped me study!”

“No, you’re more than that. You’re more than just handsome,” she said.

“Like what?” he questioned. “I know that you only like me for my looks, and I know that a lot of girls in school do the same, only liking me for my appearance even though they barely know what kind of person I am.”

Heajung was speechless for a moment. “I might not know that much about you, but… I could get to know you! If you only gave me a chance then I can know you better than anyone!”

“No, you lost that chance. You lost it a long time ago when you first bullied Yoomi,” he said. “I don’t give second chances.”

Heajung looked down and bit her lip again. “But you know what, Yoomi said something weird.”

“What now?” he asked, unknowingly getting more irritated by the second.

“She said that she would leave soon,” she replied. “She said that she didn’t even know why she agreed to be your girlfriend in the first place since one day in the near future, she would have to leave you.”

Myungsoo was taken aback. The truth dawned on him with Yoomi and her time machine. He had already known beforehand that she would leave, but even with that knowledge he still confessed to her. He did so with the feeling that he would regret it if he didn’t. Somewhere in the back of his mind, there was a plan to spend as much time with her as possible and be happy before sending her away with a smile.

But now that he thought about it, he didn’t know if he could follow through with the last part of his plan. He didn’t know if he could watch her leave without breaking down. He didn’t know if he could even just let her leave, since he might just try to stop her.

“I don’t understand why you chose her to be your girlfriend,” Heajung said. “She’s just going to leave you anyway. What kind of girlfriend is that? I could be a way better girlfriend. I’ll never leave you, Myungsoo.”

“I don’t care if you leave me,” he said. “I don’t want you to be my girlfriend; I don’t even want to get to know you, so I don’t care if you leave. Leave if you want to since it won’t affect me. Actually, it might even make me happy if you finally left.”

Heajung was utterly shocked by his words. She then let out a scoff in disbelief. “Fine, but don’t say that I didn’t warn you,” she said. “She’s a bad girlfriend, so it’s best if you break up with her before she ends up leaving and breaking your heart.”

“I should do that, shouldn’t I?” Myungsoo weakly laughed as he stared at the ground. “But I can’t, and I won’t. I already knew that she would leave me before I confessed to her, but I still did it anyway. And since I did it even with the knowledge of that fact, I have to take full responsibility.”

“B-but… aren’t you mad that she’s going to leave you?”

“No, I’m not,” he answered. “I know the reason why she has to leave me, so I’m not mad at all. Even though I am a little heartbroken, I was the one who went for her anyway. I have no right to be mad about her leaving.”

He stared at the wall in front of him with a sad smile as Heajung tried to understand what he was talking about.

“So would you do me a favor and just not bother her?” he asked. “Like you said, she’s going to leave soon, so I don’t want her to leave with more sad memories. So Heajung…” He looked at her with pleading eyes. “…please stop bothering her. I don’t want to see her hurt anymore.”

Heajung felt a prick at her heart after looking at his eyes full of sadness and desperation. The feeling of guilt flooded into her body as the memories of what she did to Yoomi emerged into her head. Myungsoo looked up and saw the clock, hanging on the wall, and was shocked to see how much time had passed. 

“I have to go now,” he said as he got up. “I hope that you at least think about this for a few days. Yoomi won’t bother you, so please… just don’t bother her.”

He took one last glance at Heajung before slinging his backpack over his shoulder and walking out the door.

“So… I guess you found out what happened,” Yoomi said.

Myungsoo nodded as he stared at his now lukewarm tea that he was holding. Yoomi looked away from him and didn’t know what to say. She was sad to hear that he was thinking about her leaving, but the truth was the truth. She was going to leave, no matter how much she wanted to stay with him. She still had her father who she has to get back to, and her time machine was even finished.

All she had to do was to get in, operate the thing, and then finally go back home. It sounded easy, but it wasn’t. The sound of leaving Myungsoo was heartbreaking to her, and it made doing those three simple steps so much harder.

“Myungsoo…” she started. Myungsoo looked up at her, anticipating what she was about to say. “I regret accepting your confession.”

Myungsoo was crestfallen after hearing her words, and ended up looking at his mug again. “It’s not because I don’t like you… it’s because I do,” she continued.

He looked up at her again. “What do you mean?”

She let out a sigh while fiddling with her hands. “I should have rejected you and then maybe… maybe you wouldn’t be so sad when I leave.” She let out another sigh. “But I didn’t. I should’ve thought more about it before doing what I did.”

Myungsoo stared at her before placing his mug down on a table and pulling her in for an embrace. “Don’t say that you made the wrong decision,” he said. “The decision that you thought was wrong, actually made me feel like the happiest man alive. It doesn’t matter if you leave in the end. As long as I know that you love me, not even the pain of you leaving would take away the happiness from knowing that.”

Yoomi could feel the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. His words were so sweet, yet so sad that it gave her a series of mixed feelings.

“So answer me this…” He pulled away from her to get a good look at her face. “Do you… love me?”

Yoomi stared into his eyes for a moment before bringing her face closer to his and giving him a peck on the lips. She then pulled away and nodded. “Yes,” she answered. “I do.”

Myungsoo sat there with his eyes wide, staring at her, before the corner of his lips started to tug upwards. He couldn’t be more happy to hear her say that, and not to mention that she actually kissed him first.

“But I just realized that I kissed you when you might be sick,” she said. She then pouted as she started wiping her lips. “I should have thought about that before kissing you.”

“Hey, you should be happy to kiss me. Even my germs are overly handsome like me, you know?” he said. “But do you know whose fault it was that I even got caught in the rain in the first place?”

She looked up at the ceiling to think before looking back at him. “Yourself?” she guessed.

Myungsoo shook his head. “Nope,” he replied. “It’s you.”

She looked at him with a puzzled expression. “What did I do?” she asked.

“You caused for me to not be able to pay attention to my surroundings by clouding my head with only thoughts about you,” he stated. “Do you know how much I thought about you after my conversation with Heajung?”

“Not enough to remember to call me for an umbrella,” she mumbled.

Myungsoo easily was able to catch onto what she said and was about to retort when she suddenly stood up. “I’m going to go wash my lips,” she said.

Myungsoo watched as she turned to leave. “Oh no you don’t,” he muttered as grabbed onto her arm and pulled her towards him. He then wrapped his arms and legs around her, using her like some sort of pillow.

Yoomi was shocked to find herself suddenly in his arms again. “Myungsoo, let go,” she said as she struggled to get free.

“You’re not going to wash off my kiss from your lips,” he said. “You already kissed me, you can’t take it back!”

“I’m not taking it back. I’m just going to wash it off,” she retorted. She started squirming to get out of his grip. “Now let go.”

“Never!”

“Let go!”

“I won’t let go!”

“Come on, please?”

“No, don’t give me the puppy eyes. You know how weak I am against it!”

“If you seriously don’t let go then I’ll tickle you.”

“Then I’ll tickle you back.”

“Aish, Kim Myungsoo!”

“Just cuddle with me for a little longer. Be my pillow for another 5 minutes, and then I’ll let you go do whatever you want.”

“Are you telling the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Then pinky promise me.”

“Alright, I pinky promise. Now the timer has started, so stop squirming.”

And after 12 minutes had passed with Myungsoo not letting her go, she found out that Myungsoo lied.

“Kim Myungsoo,” she called.

“What?”

“You broke your pinky promise.”

“Yup.”

“You lied to me.”

“Yup.”

“So you won’t let go?”

“Nope.”

“Yah!”

So I finally updated! It's summer now, so I bet that I now have a lot of time on my hands. With this larger amount of time, I'm going to spend it trying to come up with ideas for the next chapter and hopefully write them faster so that I can update faster than I have been recently. Also, I'm really sorry that I haven't been updating quickly, but I'll try harder to update faster now.^^

And finally, thank you guys for continuing to read this story, and also remember to have a great week!