No one had ever walked with me to class before. Thinking about it, no one had ever walked to lunch with me before, either. I had never felt particularly lonely always walking by myself; I had actually enjoyed it most of the time. Walking to class with Kai, though, I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I was nervous and uncomfortable, which made it bad, but I had already come to the conclusion that I like Kai. As a person, that is, not romantically. Although I was still attracted to him.

"Sorry about them," Kai said was we were in the hallway away from his friends. "They like to joke around, but they don't mean anything by it."

"No, they seem fun," I said, and meaning it. At least about Baekhyun and Chanyeol. Kyungsoo and Suho seem nice, and maybe Tao too, but Sehun is hard to read for me. I don't think he likes me, but I feel he had made that decision before we even met. It's like he doesn't trust me, and I have no idea why. 

"Really?" He asked, giving me a concerned look.

"Yeah, I'm just not very good with big crowds, especially if I don't know the people well. But I liked them." With that last sentence I couldn't help but think back to Kai and me saying those same words, me meaning them in the same way, him not.

"That's good, then."

Silence crept up between us after he said this, so I decided to ask a question.

"Who's that girl from before? The one who had the papers for Suho? I saw her today and yesterday."

"Her name's Hye Rim, she's Suho's girlfriend," he answered. 

"And they're fighting?" I asked, feeling like I wasn't prying too much since it seemed kind of obvious something was wrong.

"Yeah," Kai said, a look of slight discomfort crossing his face, proving me wrong, "but they don't like to talk about it."

Taking that as an implication that he didn't want to talk about it either, I simply nodded my head and didn't say anything else. As a result the silence made its way between us again, but this time it was Kai who pushed it back.

"Do you want to hang out this weekend?"

"I actually already have plans with my friend," I said, suddenly nervous at the idea of hanging out with him. I had no clue how to act with him at school as his girlfriend, how was I supposed to handle a date? I was glad Ga In and I had already planned to hang out this weekend. For that, and for the fact that we hadn't seen each other in a while.

"So you're not free at all?" He asked, clearly disappointed.

"Well," I heard myself saying, my dislike of telling people "no" rearing its ugly head, "I won't be seeing her until Saturday night."

"So you're free in the afternoon?" He asked, looking at me hopefully, a small smile appearing.

"Yes."

Stupid smile.

Why did he have to be attractive?

"So we can meet in the afternoon, before you have to meet your friend?" His smile grew a little bit bigger as he asked me this.

"Yeah," the word came out without my permission, not caring about my fears of going out on a date with him. "We can do that."

When he heard my answer the small smile grew into a big one and I swear if this was an anime a pink background would appear behind him with flowers or hearts or something, his smile was that beautiful. 

I was so flustered by it that I didn't return it and instead looked away, embarrassed. It wound up being a good thing as we had come up to my classroom and if I had waited a few more seconds to look away from him we would have passed it, which would have been extremely embarrassing. 

I stopped and turned to him to say "good bye", but my words came up short. He was looking at me the same way he had yesterday when he told me he liked me. He still had his smile, but his eyes were focused, and I felt my stomach drop again in reaction. He then looked down and, wondering what he was looking at, I turned my eyes down too. 

I didn't see anything worth looking at, but then he took a step so he was right in front of me, and then slowly reached out his hand towards mine that was by my side. His fingers brushed against mine for a moment, and I felt butterflies where my stomach had been before, and my cheeks had definitely flushed. It was a small touch, but his fingers were warm, and it felt much nicer than something so small and simple had any right to.

But that was it. He pulled his hand back and we both looked up. His smile was gone, but his eyes were the same.

"Bye," he said quietly before turning and walking away. 

I suddenly realized my heart was pounding and my face turned completely red at this point. Then the shame set it. I can't believe I reacted so strongly to our fingers brushing because that was it. Nothing else happened. He didn't even hold my hand. The only part of us that came in contact was our fingers, and only for a moment or two.

Why in the world was I so affected?

I then realized that we had been standing in a hallway where other people would have been walking past us, but no one seemed to be looking at me. This wouldn't have surprised me if what had just happened hadn't felt so... intimate. It was weird to think of that term applying to me and him, but it was true. And, thinking about it, the reason was probably that look in his eyes. It was weirdly captivating, and I had found myself drawn in by it.

While all that happened as a result of the way he looked at me, I had the thought that I really could probably end up falling for him because of it. That look made me feel special, important, singular, and no one had ever looked at me like that before. It made me want to like him. It made me want to get to know him, to learn that he's nice and good and all the wonderful things so I could be with him more and he could look at me like that all the time.

I had to reel my mind back in to focus enough to walk into my class and get ready for it to start soon, and to think more logically about this situation. Should my opinion of him be so strongly affected just because of the way he looked at me? I wasn't sure, but considering he said he liked me and is now my boyfriend, it's not exactly something to count against him. If anything it makes me believe even more that he really does like me. I seriously doubt that's the kind of look you'd give to someone you disliked.

I pushed all of that from my brain as best I could as class started since it was one I really needed to focus in. I was nervous for the rest of the day, wondering what he would be like when it came to the last class. I seriously doubted it would be anything like a repeat of before, but I was still pretty shaken by it. 

When I got to that class, I saw I was the first of us there, as per usual, so I took my seat and began reading, also as per usual. I was still reading the same book as yesterday, and it was still really good, so I became engrossed in it quickly, despite my nerves. 

The next thing I knew, the teacher was calling for class to start. My head popped up and I looked over at Kai's seat, assuming I wouldn't see him there because I had expected him to greet me when he got to class. But he was there, pencil and paper out, ready for class. He had his elbows out on the desk, resting his chin in his palm, and he was looking at me. Not like before, it was a much gentler look. Still, I was surprised to see him.

"Why didn't you say 'hi'?" slipped out before I could think, and while that was kind of exactly what I meant, it probably wasn't the best way to ask the question. He didn't seem bothered by it, though, instead he smiled and bit his lip, like he was trying not to laugh.

"I didn't want to interrupt," he said, looking pointedly at my book before he sat up in his chair.

"Thanks," I mumbled as I put the book away and grabbed my own paper and pencil. 

I glanced back over at him to see him give me a final smile before turning to the teacher, who was already talking. I had to turn away from him to the other side of the room as a smile started breaking out on my face. As a reader, I really appreciated him respecting that I was reading and not interrupting me. More often than not, that's actually pretty annoying when people interrupt, especially when it's something that's not important. However, this had been one of the moments where I wouldn't have minded being interrupted. In fact, I had wanted to be.