It started off as one of the worst experiences of my life, but it got better when I realized people were actually enjoying my singing. I was stil jittery by the time I finished the song, but a lot of my nerves had died down. When Jong In proposed we do a song together, I was less apposed to the idea than I had been before.

He wanted to do another song after our duet, which wasn't really a duet because everyone else was singing with us, but when I realized it was going to be a sappy, ballad love song, I immediately handed the mic over to Suho and made a bee line exit for the door. I personally love a good ballad love song, but karaoke is where you sing fun songs with everyone. Plus, he was making like he was going to sing it to me, and for some reason I really didn't like that. I'm not sure why, but I've never liked the idea of someone serenading me or singing a romantic song to me. I was a little worried that I had offended him by it, but he seemed unperturbed by it as he followed me out.

"Feeling over whelmed?" Jong In asked me after we shut the door and began walking down the hall.

"A bit," I conceded. Sitting off to the sides on the couch outside of the group had been bad enough, but while we were singing we were right in the middle of everyone, with them being really close and all of their attention focused on us.

"Let's go outside for a bit," Jong In said, sliding his hand in mine, easily, like it was natural.

And it felt natural.

In fact, it felt more unnatual when he wasn't holding my hand, now.

"Sure," I said, not being able to hold in my smile and squeezing his hand, like he usually does to me when he's happy.

"Well, you're a much better dancer than you are singer," I teased as we made our way outside and sat down on a bench not too far from the entrance.

"Thank you," Jong In answered back, completely unphased by the taunt. "It's always nice when other people recognize my talents."

"That's not exactly what I was saying."

"What else would you be saying?" he asked as he folded his arms behind his head and reclined against the bench. "I'm the best dancer ever, so of course you're going to talk about it."

"Slow down there, Mr. Ego."

"It's not ego if it's true."

"That's not exactly right, but whatever."

"Come on, admit it," Jong said, sitting up. He nudged me with his elbow, looking at me half expectantly and half amused.

I smiled at him before turning my head away, putting on an exagerated bored expression, pretending I didn't even hear him.

"Soo Young," he said, nudging me with his shoulder now, which was pressed up against my own.

Instead of responding, I turned my head even further from him, keeping the bored expression, heaving a sigh.

"Soo Young," he said again, a bit of a whining sound in his voice this time.

I smiled and turned my head to him, prepared to respond, but his face was closer to me than I had expected it to be a I froze for a moment. He stared back at me for a moment as well, seeming to be suprised and frozen as well. Ours eyes locked together for that moment before his flashed down to my mouth, and I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking it too. What anyone would be thinking in either of our shoes. But instead of leaning towards me, he pulled back, his eyes returning to mine, a sort of resolution in them. At first I was slightly affronted by him pulling back, wondering if I had missunderstood, though it seemed very unlikely considering past experience with that look.

So why would he pull back?

And then I understood why; it was because not only were we in public, but so close to all of our friends where any of them could walk out and see us. Jong In knew how embarrassed I got about PDA, and probably assumed I didn't like it. In all fairness, I didn't like it most of the time, but there were a few exceptions to that.

Like now.

Still, I was touched by his consideration for my feelings, and I wanted to do or say something to show my appreciation, but I wasn't sure what.

Then I felt him put a warm hand on my knee and said in a low voice;

"You still haven't admitted it yet."

"Admitted what?"

"That I'm the best dancer," he clarified thoughtfully, a smirk playing across his lips now.

Showing my appreciation could wait.

"Isn't Micheal Jackson the King of Dance or something?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, he's the King of Pop. I'm a little ashamed to be dating a girl who doesn't know that," Jong In said, feigning concern and leaning back from me a fraction, but only a fraction.

"Well I know enough to know he was an amazing dancer. Are you saying you're better than Micheal Jackson?"

"Micheal Jackson is in a whole other category. You're not supposed to compare us," he said as he removed his hand from my knee, instead placing it on the spare space on the bench behind me, right behind me, so his arm was up against my back. He'd leaned closer to me when he did it, too, almost like he couldn't help it, so that my arm was pressed against his side.

I nodded, accepting his response, debating with myself over what my next words should be; do I give in or keep teasing him?

"Come on, Soo Young," he said, nudging me with his shoulder again, that was now behind mine.

He was pouting, beginning to look like he was genuinely a little hurt that I wasn't saying what he wanted me to say. My eyes snapped down to his pouting mouth of their own volition, and I was somewhere between thinking the expression was incredibly endearing and also really wanting to kiss him, and I wasn't sure what that said about me. I forced my eyes back up to his as I said;

"You're the best dancer in the world."

I wasn't sure he had particularly cared about the words anymore by that point, because the look in his eyes told me that he had seen what mine had just done. And how could he not have? His face was so close to mine, I noticed when he did it to me, so of course he would notice when I did it to him. His expression showed that he had been much more affected by that than I would have thought. His eyes were hooded now, and he had pulled in his bottom lip, biting on it.

And I really wanted to kiss him again.

Is it a hormone thing that made me want to kiss him so much all the time or is this normal?

But then he pulled away again, and I felt a spark of irritation. I really did appreciate his consideration, but it also really wasn't necessary right now. I wanted him to kiss me now, despite the fact that we were currently in public and that one of our friends could come out here looking for us at any moment for any reason. So his consideration was really getting in my way.

I made a split second decision and didn't even take the time to scrounge up any courage for fear that I would back out of my decision given any extra time. I lifted my hand up and placed it on his face, to which he reacted to by turning as still as a statue. He was watching me carefully, suprise clearly on his face as he waited for me to either continue or back out of what I was doing.

It was here that I allowed myself the few seconds to gather up some courage, now that I had already started it. I told myself that I had to finish it.

So I did.

I leaned forward slowly, feeling insecure and unsure not having instigated many kisses yet. It was still mostly him kissing me, when we did it. I didn't want to mess it up, so I moved slowly until I had his top lip between mine and tentatively kissed him. I was a little ashamed by how excited I was when he returned the kiss, only realizing then that I had some weird nagging fear that at any moment he could just drop all of this, drop me, saying he doesn't like me anymore, or that he never did, or something like that. That he could not want me anymore. That he could leave me.

The fear was so suprising since it wasn't something that I had really been concerned about before, and stronger than I cared to admit, too, that I slid my fingers into his hair, gripping tightly as I kissed him harder. When I realized that I was literally clinging onto him, I relaxed my grip only to feel his arms sliding around me, pulling me closer as he kissed me back harder, moving his lips more forcefully than usual, but still pretty gentle.

I pulled back then, feeling like the kiss was about to start escalating more towards something like that day in the park when we ran into Kris and Luhan, and that was very much a kind of kissing that I would definitely not do in public. The exceptions to my banning of PDA were the more innocent, peck like kisses rather than something like that.

When I pulled back, Jong In let me, not putting up any resistance to try and keep me in place or follow my lips like he had before. I still didn't make it far, thanks to his arms still being around me, but I was able to lean back enough to see his face, and notice he was smiling at me, but there was something a bit strange about it.

"What?" I asked. 

"That's the first time you've ever kissed me," he explained, leaning back in towards me, our noses brushing, but he didn't try to kiss me again.

"I've kissed you before," I said, then blushed a bit at the boldness of my statement.

"Well, yeah," he conceaded, "but you've never instigated it. I always have to kiss you first before you'll do anything."

"Well," I began, not sure where I was going in order to explain, or if I even really wanted to.

But he shook his head slightly, but enough for me to know what he was doing, and continued speaking before I could make up my mind.

"It makes me happy that you did it," he said, meaning I had apparently seemed concerned a second ago when I'd had the flash of a thought that he hadn't liked that I'd done that when he mentioned it. "Since I'm always the one that has to do it, it feels like you don't want to, and that you only let me because you know I want to."

"That's not true at all," I said, suprised that he had come to that conclusion. I pulled back again to see his face better, and so that he could see mine better and see that I was being serious and speaking the truth.

"I find that more believable now than I would have before," he said, but he was smiling, so I knew he wasn't really upset. "Besides, I didn't think you'd let me do anything you didn't want me to, and that you'd have stopped me if I was overstepping my boundaries," here he shrugged, "it's just a thought to pops into my head sometimes."

"It's not true," I confirmed, wanting him to fully understand that he hadn't done anything wrong, that I had wanted him to kiss me all those times, and more, even. "You're completely right in saying I wouldn't let you do something if I didn't want you to do it."

"All right," he said, looking down for a moment. Then his eyes snapped back up to me and he smirked like he had just had an idea. "Then you're going to have to keep proving it to me."

My entire face turned a lovely shade of red at that statement.