I stood in front on the teashop Kai and I had met at before, feeling slightly uncomfortable. Usually, I'm pretty lazy in my choice of clothing, going for just jeans and a comfortable top. Dressing like that has pretty much become my uniform when I'm not in school, so I always feel weird when I wear something else, like heels, or a skirt, or make up, because I'm usually too lazy for that. So the fact that I was standing in public wearing all three of these items because my sister had talked me into it definitely brought out some awkward feelings for me.

I wasn't wearing anything particularly flashy. It was currently fall, and winter was coming up soon, so I was wearing leggings to keep my legs warm. I was also wearing a long sleeve shirt. The really wasn't much make up on me, either, just some eyeliner and mascara. The ensemble was more cute than y, which I woudn't have put past Jin Ri to try and make it that way, but thankfully she had taken my request seriously, and "y" is an image I don't really want to try, nor do I feel that I could pull off at all.

Still, compared to what I normally wear, if felt like I might be trying too hard to look nice. Then again, Kai didn't know what I normally wear and so couldn't compare it, which I kept trying to remind myself every time I started feeling foolish for how I had dressed.

Just as I was beginning to wonder what Kai would show up wearing, and if I was underdressed, or worse, in my opinion, over dressed, I saw him walking up the street toward me. He had on jeans, a button up sweater with a shirt underneath, and his hair was styled away from his face. Not too fancy, but not too casual. It made me feel better.

"Hey," he called, jogging the rest of the way when he saw me.

"Hey," I said back, nervous.

"You look really good," he said, glancing down at my clothes and scratching the side of his face, a smile appearing.

He smiles a lot more than I thought he did.

"Thanks," I said, feeling a blush beginning in my cheeks since the rational part of my brain had not expected him to pay much attention to my clothes, not unless I had dressed wrong. "You too."

He just smiled back, glancing down at the ground for a second, before looking back up at me.

"So where are we going?" I asked.

When he texted me about this last night, he hadn't really said what we were doing, just where to meet and when, and that was it. It was around lunchtime, so I figured we'd eat, but I didn't know what else we might do. What do couples on dates usually do besides eat? That's what Ga In and I usually do when we're together; eat. Thinking about it now, though, it's quite amazing we're not fat considering how much we eat when we're together.

"I figured we could grab some food and then walk around since the weather's still nice," he answered, and I was very thankful that Jin Ri had thought to put me in shorter, practical heels.

I nodded my head, and we began walking towards a restaurant. He tried making small talk, asking how I slept, if I finished my homework, stuff like that. I was so nervous, I could only give him short answers, and every time I thought I should ask him something back, my brain went blank. I realized I had forgotten how to make small talk. I used to be able to. While I was never an overtly friendly person, I could still hold my own in most any social situation, but after the past few years of not making friends and only talking to the same select few people I had lost these capabilities.

The conversation lulled after a while, and I could see Kai getting uncomfortable, no doubt because my conversation skills probably made it seem like I didn't want to be there, which wasn't true, but I was having trouble figuring out how to make it better. We reached the restaurant in silence and got seated with our drinks and put in our order before I thought of something to ask him, and I felt dumb for only just thinking of it then.

"How was karaoke?"

"It was good," he said, while he was leaning on the table with his arms folded. "We like to go sometimes, but it usually gets pretty crazy." He gave an embarrassed smile as he pushed away from the table, hands still gripping the edge with his arms straight. "You sure you were okay with me not inviting you? There was just a lot of people going and you don't seem like you'd like crowds."

My eyes widened at this, as I remembered he had said something similar yesterday for his reasons. I didn't know if it was normal for people like me who didn't socialize much to be bad with crowds or if it was just me, but I was still surprised it was something he had thought of, just as I had been surprised when my dad had mentioned it last night. It meant that he could understand me, figure me out, at least to a degree, where as I was still at a complete loss about him.

"No, it's okay. I'm really not good with crowds, not yet."

"Yet?" he asked, leaning against the table again.

"I just-" I started and then cut myself off, surprising myself by how embarrassed I was to admit that I wasn't good with people, and that my parents were now forcing me to fix that. Of course, I knew I had already shown how inept I could be with people, but if he hadn't figured out my problem yet, then I certainly didn't want to tell him about it. My brain started searching frantically for a reason that was true, but not too true, and still reasonable. "I'd like to not be." I said, lamely.

"So do you want to come next time?" 

"Sure," I answered, a little scared of the idea but feeling like I had just backed myself into a corner where I couldn't turn him down.

Maybe it'll be good for me. Or at least that's what I'll keep telling myself.

"Can you sing?" he asked, an easy smile on his face. Relief flushed through me as I saw that I was actually fixing my earlier mistake.

"I'm actually a little tone deaf..." I answered sheepishly, rubbing my hands together in my lap. "Can you?"

"I'm okay, but the others are really good. Even Kyungsoo, when he comes."

At this point our food arrived, and we both started eating.

"Kyungsoo's an upper classman, right?" I asked, and Kai nodded.

"So are Chanyeol and Baekhyun."

"How did you meet them, then?" I had enough issues making friends with people in my own grade who I was forced to spend time with almost everyday. I had no idea how to make friends with upperclassmen.

"Kyungsoo lived next door to me when we were younger, and Chanyeol and Baekhyun were his friends, even though it doesn't always seem like it, and then we just kind of became one big group," he answered.

I looked down for a second thinking about that. While I had met a lot of Ga In's friends, I had never actually thought about becoming friends with them. They were her friends from a part of her life that I wasn't included in, from her school. Ga In and I were far from similar, and while that worked for us, it didn't work very well with her friends. Not that I didn't get along with any of them, just that a big group of people who all act the same and think the same and talk the same can make a person who's different in all those ways feel locked out. The thing with Ga In was that we had a lot of one-on-one interaction, a lot of it forced at first because we didn't really get along. No one was forcing our hands, though, Ga In’s friends or mine, so neither of us tried.

Thinking about it, I probably should try more, since I get along so well with Ga In. It might not work out, but I don't really have a choice anymore since my parents are now forcing me. Plus, some of Ga In's friends are girls. If I just stick with trying to make friends in Kai's group, I'd probably only have guy friends, which there's nothing wrong with, but I'd like to have more female friends as well.

I glanced back up at Kai, and saw that his head was tilted slightly to the side, a soft smile on his face. I realized as our eyes met that he had been studying my face, and I quickly dropped my eyes down to my food, suddenly feeling very exposed. I jumped slightly in my seat when I felt his leg next to mine. He was tall, and this table was pretty small, so I figured that, despite my shortness, it was a mistake, and that he'd eventually move his leg. At least if it bothered him. Maybe legs touching didn't bother him. It wasn't like our skin was touching.

I looked back up at him to see he wasn't eating anymore, just holding hip cup up to his mouth, which was smiling still, as he looked at me with a similar intensity to yesterday when we were outside the classroom. I felt him move his leg, sliding down mine, not slow or sensually or anything like that, but still touching, and I was at a complete loss as to what was happening. He kept his eyes one me, his upper half not hardly moving, giving no indication to what his leg was doing, but at the same time making it clear it was on purpose.

I didn't move, couldn't. My mind was blank and I just stared back at him, waiting to find out what his goal was. I felt his other leg come up next to the same leg and sit there for a second while he watched me. Then he wrapped his legs behind mine, pulling it forward before crossing his feet, locking his ankles, with my leg between it. I felt my heart beating fast in my chest as I stared back at him, still not knowing what to do.

Then, he smirked.

He smirked.

He looked down into his cup and then he freaking smirked.

Lost somewhere between the shock of the moment and my irritation flaring from that smirk, both because it felt like I was being laughed at now and that I found it so stupidly attractive, I still couldn't reign in my brain to make a coherent thought, much less an actually sentence to say to him. Honestly, as much as I was now angry to admit, I was just happy my brain was beginning to work again.

When he looked back up, I was sure my irritation was showing on my face, but he smiled like he was trying to hold back a laugh and then looked away for a second.

"Sorry," he said when he looked back at me. I raised an eyebrow, not believing him, so he continued, setting his cup down, still smiling. "I didn't think you would let me."

I looked away, thoroughly annoyed with the situation.

"Should I not have?"

"It's not that," he said. "I'm glad you did." His arms were folded in front of him again as he used them to lean against the table. "It's just, when you said you liked me back, I wasn't sure how much you meant."

I looked back at him to see the smile had faded a little, to see that he was being serious. As I looked at him, I wondered for a second if he had actually known what I had meant when I said I liked him, that I meant I liked him as a person, that it wasn't romantic, and that I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I wondered if he knew I hadn't meant it the same way he had.