4. Of potato chips and mango cake

We move a couple forward ahead, when they already finish the high school. She managed to become one of the trainee in Kim Entertainment, one of the biggest company in showbiz in Korea that already produced a lot of idols, singers and actors after struggling so hard in the interview, compete with hundreds of other applicants. But getting a lot of support, soothing words and cuddling session from that certain llama, she finally succeed. While he got an offer from one of the best university in Japan but of course, he declined it. How can he leave the ice princess? The answer is never can do. Can’t watch her smile, listening to her giggles, the icy glare, and her sleeping mumble, is not worth for it. Nothing can be compared to that, his one and only princess. He finally decides to goes with the Cung-Anh University, one of the best university in Korea. He took the course of photography and related media. Besides Taeng also went there a year before him.

 They maybe will not be as near as they used to be in high school but at least they stayed in the same place, Seoul, Korea. Somehow they’ll find a way to spend their time together even they were apart about 30 miles and it takes 35 minutes for them to reach each other using the subway with their tight schedule. He managed to rent a small flat near to his campus and how lucky he is, he get a part time job at one of the top studio in Seoul that belong to one of the well-known photographer in Korea, Jean Sung, not to mention that the payment also good, better than his previous job. His colleague, Yoona also one of the student in Cung-Anh, both of them becomes best friend since they work and studying together.

Back to our couple, the ice princess want to surprised the stupid llama by waiting for him in his flat. Usually, they’ll set up a place to meet each other or he’ll pick her up and went to his flat during the weekend but since she got one day off after the hard training that been given by her instructor, so she decides to come to his flat one day earlier. She waiting for him behind the door wearing the skull mask on her face. Meanwhile, he was walking to his flat after finishing his job at the studio. He reach  the door of his flat and opened it. But before he could switch on the lamp, something jumped in front of him with terrifying look that scared him to death. Then, everything turned dark.

Thud!

He fainted on the floor. She look at him that lying down. She’s terrified. This isn’t what she planned before. She quickly take off the skull mask and switch on the lamp. She shake his body, try to wake him up.

“B…B….wake up…” She keep calling his name.

“I’m sorry…I don’t know you’ll shocked like this…B…wake up..please,” But his body still stiff, unmoving. Her body trembles, she doesn’t know that her jokes will turn up like this. She’s on verge of tears now. A lot of speculations played in her head and most of it were bad.

“B…please…wake up….” She’s sniffing. A  single drop of her tears rolled down on her cheek. She keep shaking his body. Her imagination becomes more and more worst. What if he’s never going to wake up? No, she can’t face that.

“B…please…don’t scared me….” She want to put her head on his chest, tried to hear his heart beat to confirm that whether he still there or not. Her face becomes nearer and closer to his chest but before that….

Chup!

A kiss had been planted on her cheek. She’s startled and looked at the person that did it. A dorky smile plastered on his face.

“B!!” She hit him on his chest, arm, head and everywhere that her hand can reach. He shrieked in pain between his chuckles.

“Ouch!...Ouch!...that hurts, princess,”   

“Serve you right!” Then, she stopped and looking down.

“Oh, come on, princess. It just a joke. Besides, you’re the one who want to play prank on me first,” He said while rubbed his body that been hit by the ice princess but she didn’t replied to him, only look down. Her hair falling covering her face.

“Princess…” He called her again. He tried to take a look on her face. He hold up her chin then he saw it. Her tears were pouring down on her cheek. She look at him, tried to hold her tears but failed. She’s sobbing now. She push herself to him and hugged him tightly.

“You stupid! Don’t you know how scared I am . I thought I’ll never meet you again,” She said between her tears. He’s smiling and hugged her back. He kissed her hair, inhaling the strawberry candied scent. Next, he broke the hug and cupped her cheek with his hand.

“It take more than that ugly mask to take my life,” Then, he kiss her right eye. She’s sniffing.

“Besides I already told you that my heart only beats for you,” He kiss her left eye.

“And only you can make it stop,” He kiss her lips, long and deep. She replied back and broke it not long after that. He wiped the staining tears on her face.

“Now, please smile again, princess,” He said that but she shook her head.

“You don’t want to smile, princess?” She shook her head again.

“Even for me?” She turned her face from him. He feel strange and hold his chin with his hand, thinking.

“What if I give you a piggyback ride, will you smile for me then?” He asked her. She turned her face, her eyes lit up, and a smile plastered on her face while she nodded. He turned his back toward her and she climbed on it. He only can shook his head looking at her antics. The ice princess never changed.

“What do you want to eat for dinner, princess?” He asked her while walked to the kitchen, still piggyback ride her.

“Mango cake! You promised me before,” She said it excitedly.

“But that’s not a proper meal, princess,” He try to reasoning her.

“It can be our dessert. Please….I want to eat mango cake. Besides, I already bought the ingredients for the cake,”

“Sometimes I thought, you came here because you want to make me cook for you, not because you want to meet me. And I never make a cake before, princess. What if it tastes bad, I don’t want you to get sick because of my cake,” He try to reasoning her again while he put her on one of the chair when they reach the kitchen. She pouted, her hands crossed on her chest and she turned her face from him, showing a protest. He rubbed his temple. Since when he becomes this weak? And the only answer is, it’s all because of her. That ice princess certainly already conquer all of his heart.

“Alright, I’ll make it even I don’t know how it’s going to turn up but you have to promise me, no snack before dinner,” He said to her. A smile plastered on her face. He started making the cake and dinner, she only watching him doing all the job. She wanted to help but her knowledge about cooking was zero.  So, she decides not to since she doesn’t want his boyfriend’s flat be on fire. But after half an hour, she started to feel boring of waiting.

She sighs. She wanted to talk but she looked at him that too absorbed with his cooking so she decides to watch the television. But there’s one more thing troubled her, that’s when she watch something, she needs to munch on something. That wasn’t a real problem, the real problem is she already promised with that stupid llama not to eat snack before dinner. To be honest, he already banned her from all of the junk food that already been her favourites for years but she manage to coax him to let her eat it once a while so he agree with that but of course, without he knew it that ice princess sneak out to eat it sometime when he wasn’t there. And tonight, just the same since he was in the kitchen and she’s somewhere in front of the television so she took out the potato chips from her bagg and eat it. When she finish it, she went back to the kitchen.

“B, are you finish?”

“Just a little bit more, princess. I just wanna put the icing on the cake,” He said to her. She come closer to him and looked at the cake.

“Emm…looks good. Put it a lot,” She said while smiling at him and point at the icing. He’s grinning but then he feels something was off when he saw her face. Ehm…what’s that? He mumbled to himself.

“Princess, what’re you doing before you came here?”

“I was watching the tv. Why?” She asked him back.

“Just watching the tv? Nothing more?” She only replied with shook her head. He still feel strange.

“Princess, come closer,” He asked her to get closer to him. He saw her puzzling face but still she moved closer to him. He cupped her face and kissed her and she startled since that was unplanned

“Princess, you ate the potato chips, right,” He said directly at her face when he broke the kiss. Her eyes gone wide. She looks at everywhere but not him.

“I…I didn’t not,” She stuttered a little.

“Don’t lie to me, princess. I can taste it when I kiss you,”

“Fine! I ate it but you know that I need to munch on something while watching,”

“Princess, you really need to get rid of that habit or at least change it. Those junk food wasn’t good for you,” She pouted.

“And since you didn’t listen to me, no mango cake for you tonight,” Her jaw dropped when she heard that. He only smirked at her.

“Noo…you can’t do that. That’s crime, not fair,” She protested.

“It’s fair and square. You already ate potato chips and you’re going to have dinner which is to skip it wasn’t an option. I don’t think you need dessert anymore,” He said to her while putting the cake into the fridge.

“You’re meanie,” She push his shoulder with her hands and stomped her feet when she walked out from the kitchen. He only can shook his head. No doubt that the ice princess was a big baby.

The dinner went just fine accept her continuing of sighs and whining about her mango cake. He tried his best not to fall for her tricks and puppy eyes plead. He can saw that she keep pushing her food and played with her chopstick. Not so much for eating. He thought. Later on, they watch the movie  and then went straight to bed but the ice princess got another plan. She wait till he was asleep before she proceed it but first, she need to change her clothes. This is reserved for the emergency.

A few minutes later, he’s awake when he feels nothing in his arm and the familiar warmth also gone. She wasn’t there. He get up from the bed and started looking for her. When he look at the kitchen, the lights was on, something was suspicious. He went to the kitchen and there he saw it. Half of her body was inside the fridge.

“Princess, what’re you doing?” He asked her while crossing his arm on his chest and raising his brows looking at her. She’s shocked and slowly turned her body toward him. He doesn’t know how to react whether he should be mad or laughing. Her hands were full with icing and her face got some frost on the nose, cheek and around . You’re really a messy eater, princess. Looks like someone enjoying her time eating the mango cake. She smiling shyly while bit her lower lips, tried to look innocent.

But the main point is, he never can be mad when she looked so endearing mostly in what she wearing right now. She’s wearing a shirt that’s way too big for her petite body with short pants that been covered by the oversized shirt. She’s wearing his shirt and now she’s her fingers giddily like the cake was the most delicious thing she ever tastes. If there’s a way for someone to die because of too much sweetness, adorable, and cutest. He might die right now. He sighs and step closer to the ice princess.

“Are you mad at me?” She asked him while putting her best pity face.

“You really know how to distract me, princess. How can I be mad if you’re looking like this,” She smiling widely when she heard that. She knew that he going to fall for this trick. He always have that kind of soft spot when she wearing his shirt. So, the emergency plan was succeed.  

“But you need to stop eating the cake now and we have to clean your face, what a mess that you got,” She frowned a little when she heard that but then, she got an idea.

“B…” She called him softly. She tip toeing a bit and wrapped her hands around his neck, doesn’t care about some spot on her fingers that still got icing on it. She looked at him dearly and tilted her head a little. He doesn’t know what to do or react. He’s flabbergasted for a while and that butterfly in his stomach keep fluttering.

“Why don’t you clean it like how you taste the potato chips?” She suggested to him. He looking confused but then, he grin a little. He put his arm around her waist and pull her closer to him.

“You really like to tease me, don’t you? Don’t you think you’re quite bold tonight,” He said to her while looking straight to her face.

“I’m just want to clean my face faster,” She said it nonchalantly.

“If you insist it, princess,” He started to clean it with giving her the sloppy kiss on her nose, cheek, around her jaw and mouth and more, all around her face while she giggling a little feeling ticklish. When, he kiss her nape, she whispered near his ear.

“B, can I have the cake after this?”

“As you wish, princess,” She’s smirking while still hugging him. Oh, yeah, she knew it going to be like this. Stupid llama-0, ice princess-2. That stupid llama never going to win against the ice princess. But that stupid llama also got his reward later on, the ice princess just be kind enough toward him that night.