I smiled at her tiredly and nodded. "Yes, songsaenim". I had been having vocal lessons from 7am until 10pm. My throat was kinda sore at the end of the lesson, so the trainer decided to call it a day. 

 

"Your singing voice is naturally high, so you need to be careful with those low notes. With a bit more practice, I'm sure you can nail it," she squeezed my shoulder lightly and continued, "I know you really want this. You got the best voice out of all the trainees in your batch, don't worry too much. SM would be crazy if they don't debut you." She smiled reassuringly at me.

 

I laughed softly at her words. She was one of the coolest vocal trainer, she never raised her voice at the trainee or lost her patience. She taught us all the important things in becoming not just an idol singer, but a true capable singer.

 

"Gomawo, songsaenim." I briefly hugged her before she walked out of the practice room. God, I'm tired.. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Joongso was right, I did looked horrible. Tsk, that ungrateful boy. How could he said that to a girl? I felt my self-esteem had reached its lowest point when I saw Minyoung unnie earlier. Did she wake up looking that pretty? Again, I wonder why she's still single.

 

I reached for a bottle of water and drank it in one gulped. I flinched a little when I felt how sore my throat is. Haaah, I needed to take a good care of my asset here. In our last meeting, the CEO told me that if they chose to debut me sometimes in the future, I would be the lead vocal of the group and possibly the visual. I remembered how I starred at the CEO like he was out of his mind or something. Had I gone deaf? Visual? I told him there were many other more beatutiful girls than me. But he told me that I had exactly all the things that a visual needed. And the eyes, it would be the main thing they would promote about me. I mentally rolled my eyes. Again with the eye thing... Well, whatever. I bet they were going to change their mind once they saw me in this state. 

 

I didn't feel like going home. Joongso and Minyoung unnie had left earlier after they finished their respective practices.

 

"Aaaaarghh, why winter, whyyyyy???" I yelled at nothing as I laid myself on the floor. I hated walking home alone in this freezing weather.  But a frown formed in my face once I remembered I still got early dance practice tomorrow morning followed by classes and a quiz. Ugh, I needed to go home that moment and caught some rest. So I stood from the floor and decided to put a little bit of powder and lip-gloss. There, much better.

 

I put on my coat and think to myself, Joongso was right. Ugh, I hated to admit it, but that boy was always right. I needed to work on my low self-esteem. I looked at my reflection one last time before I headed out the practice room. And there stood a petite girl with long dark-brown hair and big eyes looking right back at me. I smiled to myself  and said, "Be confident. You're actually kinda pretty, Nara-ah."

---

I closed the door to the practice room after making sure that the room was clean and the light was switched off. I was about to start walking down the corridor when I noticed someone was leaning against the wall not far from where I stood and starred at the ceiling. I recognized him right away, but I hesitated for a while whether to say 'Hi' to him or not. Well, he did said he wanted us to start over. So...

 

"Kyuhyun sunbaenim, you almost gave me a heart attack." I smiled while approaching him carefully.

 

He turned his head towards me and smiled cheerfully. God, How could someone be that adorable...

 

"I was actually on my way to grab some dinner when I passed this hallway and heard you sing," He said while straightening his back and walked towards me. We met in the middle and just stood there for a while, looking at each other.

 

"You got a really nice voice." He continued after a while.

 

I blushed a little after hearing it and laughed softly. "Don't mock me, sunbaenim." 

 

He laughed at my word and said, "Hey, I don't say that often. So you should take it as a compliment."

 

My face was getting redder and I decided to change the subject. "So what brings you to stop, sunbaenim? I thought you wanted to grab some dinner?"

 

"I did. But then I thought it would be no fun to have dinner all by myself. So I decided to wait up for you and see if you're free," He said it in one breath and a little too fast. Huh, it almost seemed that he was nervous.

 

"Huh? You're talking way too fast, sunbaenim. Hahaha," I laughed at him when I saw his face was getting red, "I'm free by the way, but I already got ramyun waiting for me at home." We walked down the corridor side by side and didn't say anything else untill we reached the main hall.

 

He suddenly turned to me and said, "Come on, how could you let me eat dinner by myself? I'll drive you home after." A small smile played on his handsome face.

 

He could see the hesitation in my face and quickly added, "My treat! Just consider this as my birthday treat."

 

I burst out laughing at his statement, "Hahaha, that was so random! Your birthday was 10 months ago, sunbaenim, hahaha." I covered my mouth, trying to suppress my laughter.

 

"Donghae's hyung birthday then, or whoever! C'mon, I'm starving." He said while clutching at his stomach.

 

That just made me laughed even harder. "Hahaha, you're so absurd sunbaenim!" My stomach hurt from too much laughing and I finally said as we walked out of the building and headed to the parking lot, "Okay then. Just stop throwing random excuses."

 

He opened the passenger door for me and gave me his infamous smirk, "I can't promise you anything."

---

It was about 20 minutes trip from SM building to our 'destination'. Kyuhyun wouldn't tell me where we were heading. We didn't talk much during the trip with me occasionally stole some glances at him. It was indeed a good decision to start over, I mean, look at us. We were going to grab dinner together and we hadn't said bad things toward each other since we met earlier. 

 

I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn't realize Kyuhyun had already parked his car. "We're here," He smiled while unbuckling his seatbelt.

 

I stepped out of the car and immediately regretted not wearing thicker clothes. "Eh? A park? Am I missing something sunbaenim?" I asked, obviously confused with our surrounding.

 

"We're not eating here. We need to walk a bit to get there. Are you okay with that?" He smiled while fixing his scarf.

 

"Of course!" Tsk, I sounded a little too excited for my own liking. "Ehem, I mean, sure. I'm used to walking anyway." I tried to sound cool this time. He laughed hearing me and started walking out of the park.

 

After about 5 minutes of walking Kyuhyun suddenly stopped in front of a street food stall. "I hope you don't mind eating street food." He smiled at me sheepishly.

 

I beamed seeing all the street foods that lied before my eyes. I shooked my head excitedly, "Not at all, sunbaenim. I love street food!"  

 

He smiled widely as we took a seat inside the food stall. "What do you like the most?"

 

"Uum.. Ddeokbokki!" I said as I clapped my hand excitedly.

 

"Ddeobokki? Okay, we'll order two of that," He smiled seeing me so excited.

 

Soon I found the two of us already busy munching our foods. I never imagined that one day I would be eating with a super junior member. In a food stall, people. Food stall. Wew...

 

After ordering another 2 rounds of foods, we decided to call it a night. I waited outside the food stall while Kyuhyun took care of the payment. God, I was literally freezing and shaking because of the cold weather. I started to do small jumps just to ignore the coldness of winter. Then suddenly I heard someone chuckled from behind.

 

"What are you doing, Nara-ssi?" Kyuhyun seemed amuse seeing me jumping up and down in place, "are you cold?"

 

Damn, he caught me! Why cann't I be a lillte graceful everytime he saw me, tsk. "Just a little, sunbaenim." I walked beside him towards the park and shoved my hands in my pocket. Suddenly I felt something landed on my shoulder, I realized it was Kyuhyun's scarf. I looked at him with a questioning look.

 

He turned me to face him and fixed his scarf on me. "Now you have double scarfs. Just to keep you warm."

 

I blushed madly at his words. I could only muttered a small thank you at him before hiding my face under the scarfs. I could inhale his scent from the scarf and it drove me crazy. Thank you God, I take back my words. I love winter, please make it winter through out the year.

---

 We didn't say much through out our way home. And I blamed my spontaneous action for creating this rather awkward atmosphere. Man, what was I thinking? It was just... She seemed so cute jumping up and down and I just couldn't see her freezing like that. Wait, did I just think that she's cute? What are you doing Kyuhyun? Aaargh, I ruffled my hair out of frustration.

"Are you okay, sunbaenim?" She suddenly asked, obviously shocked with my sudden action.

"Eh? Oh, yeah. I'm fine. It's nothing." I couldn't find a decent excuse so I just mumbled incoherent words. I saw her smiled and turned her head back to the window. I just realized, she smiled at me. In fact, she had been smiling at me lots of time. Ow yeah, take that Hyukjae hyung! Huh, I smirked at the tought that Hyukjae hyung wasn't the only one who could make her smile.

"Oh, it's your dorm, isn't it, sunbaenim?" She excitedly pointed out at the building outside the window on my side.

This is a new side of her I had never seen before. She got excited easily, just like a little girl. I smiled at the thought and said, "Yeah. It only took 10 minutes by car and about 20 minutes by foot from our dorm to your apartment." I suddenly realized, we almost reached her apartment and the atmosphere was still rather awkward, no thanks to my genius brain.

I didn't want to end the night with this kind of atmosphere. I meant what I said when I told her I wanted us to start over. It wasn't like I wanted to have a romantic relationship with her or somethimg like that. I just wanted to be a good friend and a good sunbaenim to her. Nothing more and nothing less... Right? Aaaaah, all these self-doubtings were driving me insane.

I parked my car by the han-river and just sat still until she broke the silence.

"Um... sunbaenim, do you want to get back to your dorm? I can just walk from here," Her voice sounded hesitant.

I looked at her, confused. Then I realized what she meant by her question. "No, no no! I didn't mean to throw you out or anything like that. Don't misunderstand, I just... I don't feel like going home just yet." Lame. That was just extremely lame, Cho Kyuhyun. Go and drown yourself in the river.

She just starred blankly at me and I didn't know what to do. God, it was getting more awkward than before.I needed to change the subject. "So, it's only been a week since I last saw you yet you seem to be thinner than I remember."

She chuckled at my question. "I actually lost a couple of pounds since last week." She seemed somewhat shy to admit it.

I frowned hearing her answer. "I know how it's like to be a trainee. You only eat ramyun to keep up with all those practices and school. No wonder you're loosing weight." I was seriously worried for this girl, "You're so small already, don't lose anymore weight."

She laughed hearing my long speech. "You sound like my mother, sunbaenim."

"Hey..." I was about to protest when she cut me.

"But I know she said it because she cares about me." She smiled at me, indirectly implying that I also cared about her. I turned red at the realization. Aish, lately my feelings always over-powered my logics. I said things without thinking twice.

"I have a new mission then. I'll make sure you gain 10 pounds and get the nutritions that you need!" I grinned mischievously at her.

"What? 10 pounds?? That's too much, sunbaenim!" She laughed and shoved my arm playfully. 

The atmosphere was getting more comfortable at that moment. "Do you always wanted to be a dance singer, sunbaenim?" She suddenly asked me while playing with her fingers.

I thought about my answer for a while. "Actually, no. I always thought that SM would debut me as a ballad singer. At least, that's what I wanted. But fate said the otherwise, they put me in Super Junior."

She was then looking at me right in the eyes. "Do you ever regret being put in Super Junior?" She asked me with small voice.

I smiled hearing her question. She looked so cute looking at me curiously with those big round eyes. "No, not one bit. I'm actually grateful that they gave me 12 older brothers who care so much about me. They're part of who I am now."

"That's good to hear, sunbaenim." She smiled sweetly at me and my heart skipped a beat.

I could feel my cheeks were getting hot. "It's, It's late. We should head home." I silently cursed myself for stuttering and started the engine right away.

---

We arrived in front of my apartment building about 5 minutes later. I would love to invite him up to my room again, but it was really late. I didn't wanna bother him, and I was afraid that I would cross the line.

"Thank you for the dinner, sunbaenim." I said with a small voice. I didn't dare to look at him. There were just too many events happened that night that made my heart skipped a beat.

"You're welcome, Nara-ssi," then suddenly I felt his hand brushed the hair that covered the side of my face and tucked it behind my ear, "I've never talked to anyone else about what Super Junior means to me and how I felt about them..." He purposely hung his words and looked at me right in the eyes.

I felt butterflies in my stomach and I could feel his gaze burnt me on the inside. I didn't know how to act or respond to his words. "I, I believe you have early schedule in the morning, sunbaenim." I broke our gaze and quickly put on my coat before I opened the passenger door. I couldn't be in that car much longer, somehow I found it hard to breathe.

Kyuhyun stopped me before I could close the door, "Good night, Nara-ssi." He wasn't smiling like what he had been doing all night long.

"Good night, Kyuhyun sunbaenim." I said as I closed the door and headed inside my apartment. He waited until I was inside the building before he left.

I put my hand in my chest and felt that my heart was pounding like crazy. That was when I realized I still had his scarf. I unconciously inhaled his scent and my cheeks turned beet red. 

God, what just happened?

---

 

You understand more about Nara's peronality from this chapter, right? And, it's just going to be more complicated from here. With her up-coming debut, eunhyuk, and jinyoung. And nope, I won't reveal what is her past realtionship with jinyoung just yet. All I can tell is that it holds a great role and impact in this story. Bare with me, okaay? ;)