"What do you think of our cute, sweet, innocent Jieun?" the girl with blonde hair and pigtails asked. What the hell? What kind of question is that? Too busy staring at the odd girls with a wtf expression, I don't notice Jieun sitting back down on the bed.

"So what you think of her?" the girl repeats.

"Zinger..." Jieun intervenes, glaring at her with daggers popping out of her eyes.

"Come on jieun, I'm just asking..."

I am pardoned from answering the question because Sunhwa pops in informing us, "The tea is ready!" 

She's standing in front of us, holding a tray that holds two matching mugs with red hearts on them. I have a double take. These mugs are unmistakably... couple mugs. What are they trying to imply?

"Here you go," she hands one of them to me.

"Thank you" I say, bowing my head a little.

"And here is yours," she hands the other mug to Jieun, who is red in the face. An uncontrollable smile creeps up onto my face.

 "Okay, enjoy your privacy, BYE!" the words rush out of Zinger's mouth. They all practically speed skip out the room and then shut the door, leaving both of us alone. What exactly are they trying to do? When I turn my attention back to Jieun, she's staring at me. She quickly looks away when she sees me.

 I watch her as she takes a sip of the beverage. A whole minute passes by with an awkward silence except for the sipping of tea.

 I speak up, not being able to bare it any longer, "How are you feeling?"

 "Better..." she responds, still looking down at the mug in her hands.

 "Do I scare you?"

 "Huh?" she looks up, a tad surprised by this sudden question. I know it's a weird question but... I really want to know why she keeps running away from me every time we meet.

 I repeat, "Do I scare you?"

 "No...?" she responds, bringing her head back down.

 "Then why do you keep avoiding my gaze?"

 With this, not only does she bring her head back up, but she fixes her irises upon mines, not letting go.

"What are you talking about?" she asks, still not removing her hold on me. Now I'm the one awkwardly looking away. When I glance back at her half a second later, she still has her eyes fixed upon mine. Why is she doing this? It's making me awkwardly FLABBERGASTED! She probably notices the effect that this has on me because she bends in forward and widens her eyes even more. I try to stare back but her sudden action has caught me off guard. The cat has caught my tongue, making me unable to form words. It's like a battle in which I'm losing to the swords that are plunging through my eyes from her own. Is she playing with me? I can't help but break out in a smile at the thought of this and have to look away, defeated. When I look back, she's also looking away, trying to hold in her smile.

Our "moment" is interrupted with the sound of a ringing. Still stunned, it takes a while for my brain to register that the sound is coming from my cell phone.

"Hello?" I say once I have picked up, still recovering from shock.

“Hello Mr.Bang"

"Mr.Jung?"

"Yes, we got a phone call from the nurse saying you guys left TS," he gets to the point.

"Oh, Sorry. I forgot to call."

"It's okay. We were just wondering about Ms. Jieun's condition. I heard she hit her forehead hard."

I glance to my right and see her looking up at me. "We treated her with some ice. But she's a little sick right now with a fever so I'm not sure if she can meet with us immediately tomorrow."

"No, I'm alright!" I can hear her protest in a loud whisper from my side. I ignore her pleas.

"There's no problem. We rather she gets better than worse of course," Mr Jung says.

"Thank you for understanding."

"Well, good night Mr.Guk. Please give Ms.Jieun my best wishes." I hear murmur in the background. "Oh and the same from Ms.Parks. She's very worried."

"Goodbye." I hang up.

"Why'd you tell him that? It's not that serious. I feel a lot better now," Jieun is now standing up with her arms crossed. 

"It'll get worse if you don't take care of yourself. Get into bed," I walk over to where she's standing, with a result of her stepping back until she can no longer move because of the bed blocking the way.

"Why? Just because you told me to?" she retorts, with her face high up. I can't help but break out into a smile. She's kind of cute when she's mad... But I cant let her get even more sick.

"Get in... Or I'll have to make you" I lower my head until our noses are barely an inch apart. Her determination starts to waver, making me smirk even more. The expression on her face changes into an expression of a mixture of confusion and terror. I'm satisfied but also slightly offended. Is my face really that scary? This time, I'm going to win the battle. My gaze drills through her irises, not backing down. I know I've won when her knees give in and she falls to the bed. Her eyes are unfocused with her jaw dangling. Why isn't she saying anything? Did I go too far?

"Jieun?"

"Huh" she comes back to Earth. "Oh uh - good night?" she responds without meeting my eyes and then pulls the covers over her head, keeping her back faced toward me. I should be happy now that she's in bed but I don't feel good about this.

"Jieun, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," but her weak sounding voice contradicts this statement. Is she really alright? Guilt finds me.

"You sure?"

"Yeah" her voice is muffled by the covers that are covering her.

I try to gently lower them but she's gripping them hard like she doesn't want me to.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just want to sleep." Her head doesn't rise her from the covers, preventing me from seeing her face.

"Oh, that's good." I reply. She's listening to me, but I still feel uneasy about this. Did I do something wrong? My watch beeps and I realize that it's already 12:00 AM. 

"Good night," I say and then try to tuck her in a bit. But she doesn't budge her head.

"Get better..." is the last thing I say to her before I switch off the light and close the door behind me. Regretfully, I don't even have the chance to check her forehead to see how warm it is.

I find the other girls in the living room watching something on television.

They look up in surprise when I make my entrance.

"Omo, you're leaving already? We didn't even get to feed you more food yet," Hyosung speaks up first.

"It's okay. I'm stuffed. Make sure to check Jieun's temperature when you get the chance. And give her some medicine before she falls asleep," I instruct them.

"AWW! You really care for our sweet Jieun!" Zinger exclaims, excitedly.

I can see Sunhwa giving her a look and then telling me, "Don't worry about that. We'll take care of Jieun."

"Yeah, come again!" Hyosung tells me before closing the door to their apartment.

As I walk home in the dark, chilly night, I don't understand why images of that girl's face keeps popping up in my head. Every time I try to shove them away, my mind finds it's way back to her puppy dog eyes. The scenes of her looking up at me keeps replaying in my head. The scene where I'm pressing ice on her, when she wakes up and sees me, when our faces are so close to one another... This strange girl who've I've only seen twice... Why is it so hard to stop thinking about her?