Chapter 17 - Morning After

HER

The blaring, unpleasant sound of my alarm pulled me out of sleep a mere two hours later.

I was usually a fast riser, but this morning, I could only muster enough energy to open my eyes, and even that small action was painful enough. As I mentally prepared myself to raise my arm to turn it off, the annoying beeping stopped all by itself. I looked up to see Minseok smiling down at me, his hand on the small electronic clock.

“I guess this is the life of a school teacher, huh?”

I stared at him, blinking, hardly believing that he was still there and this hadn’t all been just a dream.

“Seokie….” I mumbled sleepily, rolling over so I could snuggle in his arms a little more.

He chuckled, raising his arm over my head to pull me closer, and I nestled my face in his chest, inhaling the scent of him. He brought a hand up to my head and started my hair. I didn’t want to move at all.

“Do we have time for…” he started saying, with a drowsy smirk, and I tapped him on the nose with a finger as I cut him off, saying “no.”

He made such a cute disappointed puppy face at me and I let out a small laugh.

“Not that I don’t want to… but no.” I answered, before dragging myself out of bed, away from his warm, comfortable (and surprisingly muscular) arms.

He flopped back down on the bed in mock defeat and I chuckled.

“I gotta get ready…” I told him, “I’ll make some coffee, but you can just go back to sleep if you want to.” I called out from the hallway.

“No… I should probably get a move-on too…” I heard him call out behind me, and then a moment later he appeared in the kitchen, wearing only his pants and a very sleepy expression on his childlike face.

“You can sleep,” I told him, fussing around in the pantry to hide my blushing cheeks at the sight of his bare chest and cute disheveled hair, “I don’t mind if you stay here while I’m gone.”

 “No, I should go… people are gonna be pretty pissed off and start asking questions if they notice I’ve spent the night out…” he said, walking over a little closer and watching me as I the coffee maker.

“Oh? And what are you gonna say when you get caught?” I asked him, a little smile creeping on my lips as I poured some coffee into the machine.

“That I was with my new girlfriend?” he replied, making it a question, slipping his arms around me from behind.

“Am I your new girlfriend?” I asked lightly, not turning my head to look at him as he rested his face in the crook of my neck.

“My new-old girlfriend?” he suggested, and I laughed.

“You haven’t even asked me out properly.” I scolded, an eye still on the machine, waiting for the light to turn green.

“Oh, but I thought, last night…” he started, turning me around so I’d look him in the eye and then cut himself of as he saw the flat look I was giving him, going, “fine, fine…”

He got down on one knee in front of me, holding my hand as I stared down at him with a worried look, then seemed to decide that two knees where better, so he put both legs on the floor, and looked up at me expectantly, like a child. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Cheon Sora,” he intoned, solemnly, “Will you do me the honor of going out with me?” he asked as I bit my lip to refrain from laughing, “Please? Again?”

I laughed and nodded.

“Come here, you silly baby.” I added, pulling him up and planting a big kiss on his lips, after which he just stood there, grinning at me like the biggest idiot on the planet.

I couldn’t help laughing again, and he swept me in his arms to shut me up.

The coffee maker beeped, but we were a little too busy to go turn it off at the moment.

Much, much later, we parted ways outside my apartment and I ran towards the train station. I was almost late to work for the first time in two years.

HIM

It was barely 7am when I snuck back into the dorm. I was hoping that everyone else would still be sleeping, but D.O. nearly gave me a heart attack, walking in less than a minute after me, covered in sweat from his morning run.

“Oh, Minseok!” he exclaimed, “You’re up early!”

“Hum, yeah! I went for a walk.” I answered, trying to sound natural as I grinned back at him.

He looked me up and down, probably taking in my disheveled appearance and odd choice of workout gear, gaving me a flat look that said he didn’t believe a word I was saying, but at least he had the decency not to pry, and he simply shrugged, making his way towards the bathroom.

I exhaled a sigh of relief and made my way to my own room, which was luckily empty since Lay was in China at the moment, shooting a movie.

I let my whole body fall backwards on the bed and stared at the ceiling, grinning stupidly. Then I fished my phone out of my pocket, wanting to look at some of the pictures Sora and I had taken together last night and was delighted to see that there was a message from her, informing me that she’d made it to work on time and was really happy I had decided to come over last night. I chuckled. It was so typical of her to not even say the words. Yet I knew what it meant. I smiled and brought the phone to my chest, closing my eyes.

I’d intended to just rest for a moment but ended up passing out completely, only to be woken up nearly an hour later, by my panicked manager yelling at me that I needed to be in the van 5 minutes ago. I didn’t even bother changing and followed him out the door.

HER

I didn’t even see the rest of the week go by. Between grading the rest of my finals and preparing for summer vacation, everything went by in a blur.

As for my relationship with Minseok, I was giddy with happiness. Even though we couldn’t see each other much, he texted me every time he had a minute to spare, and I was constantly thinking about him as well. He’d suggested coming over  again a few times but I’d asked him to hold off on that until summer vacation, because unlike him, I couldn’t handle several days of barely sleeping in a row, and he’d agreed. We’d made a date for Saturday night though. And I was positively giddy with anticipation.

Since I knew that I would drive myself crazy if I spent the whole day by myself, waiting for midnight to come, I’d called up Woojin asking if she wanted to have a girls date and she had happily agreed; scolding me for not hanging out more often.

I met up with her in a little café in Apujeong around 3pm on Saturday.

“Heeey,” I said, breezing in and making her look up from her phone and smile, “sorry I’m late,” I apologized, leaning in for a hug, I got distracted along the way…” I said, pointing at the shopping bag in my hand with a guilty smile.

“Oooh, what did you get?” she asked excitedly, not even the tiniest bit mad.

“Feel free to peek” I told her, “I’m gonna go get my drink.” I added before heading towards the counter.

When I came back, latte in hand, and finally sat down on the couch in front of her, she was looking at me with the weirdest expression, like she was trying to figure something out.

“You got a hot date or something?”

“No!” I replied, perhaps a tad too quickly, on the defensive. Then more casually, why would you say that?”

“Well the clothes you just bought… they’re not really your style…”

“What,” I retorted, pulling the tiny soft little black dress out of the bag, “ok, maybe it’s a bit short…”

“A bit?” she laughed.

I narrowed my eyes at her and scrunched up my nose, replying, “It was on sale.”

“Sure, sure…” she waved a hand in the air, as if she totally didn’t buy my bull explanation and took a sip from her coffee. “I guess if you’d have a hot date you wouldn’t be hanging out with me right now though…” she reasoned.

I looked at her, nodding eagerly and she cracked up.

“So you haven’t hooked up with Mr. Hot-Math-teacher?” she asked, hopefully?

I nearly choked on my coffee.

“What?!?! Of course not!!!!”

“Your mystery salaryman then?”

“What?” I asked cluelessly, wondering what she was referring to and only belatedly remembering that I’d let her believe Minseok was actually a salaryman, when she’d caught me texting him a few weeks back.

She narrowed her eyes at me then sighed, adding “shame…”

I clucked my tongue at her and she just looked up at me with a puppy face.

“What? A girl can dream… my love life is so boring at the moment I thought I could live vicariously through you…” she retorted in a half-joke, making me chuckle.

HIM

We were in the waiting room for Music Bank on Saturday afternoon, waiting for our turn to go on air. We’d already done our mini-interview so now we were pretty much just waiting around, waiting to be called for our performance.

I was so excited about finally seeing Sora again tonight, I couldn’t sit still. I paced the room back and forth, nervously, occasionally peeking at my phone to see if Sora had read my latest message, but she hadn’t. She’d told me she was meeting her friend for a girls’ date today, so I guess they were busy shopping or something. I shoved it back in my pocket sulkily, only to fish it out again a few minutes later to repeat the motions.

“Yah!” a voice shouted from behind and I looked up to see Baekkhyun making an annoyed face at me, “Will you just sit already? Just looking at you is making me tired.”

I stopped my pacing and gave him a sheepish smile.

“Yeah, what’s up with you?” added Chen, who was sitting next to him, “we’ve haven’t had a full night’s sleep in days and you’re pipping with energy… did someone slip you Red Bull again?” he joked, making Baek crack up.

I smiled good-naturedly at their teasing but refrained from answering as I took a seat across from them.

“You guys are so innoncent…” said Suho, appearing behind me and checking that his mic-piece was properly set in the back of his pants, “this kind of energy can only come from one thing” he said, waving his finger knowingly.

“Aaaaah…” Baekhyun and Chen both said at the same time, then turned to grin at each other.

“What?” asked Kai, cluelessly.

“He got laid.” said D.O. matter-of-factly, smacking him softly behind the head as he walked past to take a seat on the couch.

“What?!?” exclaimed my dongsaeng, “did you hook-up with hot-teacher girl??” he asked me with wide eyes.

“Please don’t call her that…” I whined, a pained expression on my face.

The other two tisked at him and Baekhyun shook his head. But then he turned to me and asked, “did you?”

Chen was also looking at me with this eager expression on his face and I just shook my head; not in negation of the fact, but in annoyance. I looked at them all in turn, my mouth hanging open as I searched for the right words.

“Don’t even try denying it,” said the fluffy-haired boy, pointing at me, “You’ve been way too happy all week. I’m surprised it even took us this long to figure it out.”

“I guess that’s why he was out all night the other day.” stated D.O. from the back of the room, not even looking up as he hammered the nails into my coffin.

They both gasped, looking at him, then back at me. I hung my head down, defeated, and then looked back up, grinning awkwardly as I rubbed the back of my head, then shrugged.

“It’s ok man,” said Suho, patting my shoulder from behind, “we won’t tell the boss.”

I looked up to see him smile at me in a brotherly kinda way and returned his smile. Then he walked over to one of the coordi-noona who wanted to fix something on his outfit.

“Just don’t get caught though. Trust me, you don’t wanna go through that…” added Baekkhyun, giving me a knowing look. I nodded back.

Kai sighed deeply and we both turned to look at him.

“How is it you get two chicks back to back and I can’t even get a girlfriend??” he whined.

Baekhyun and I both burst out laughing.