He let go of her wrist, letting it softly settle against the smooth, dark leather of the couch where she sat.

"Are you still not going to talk to me?" he asked her, touching her cheek tenderly.

He came to sit next to her on the couch as she shook her head.  He sighed, slightly disappointed, partly agreeing with the response.  He had known the answer before he had begun asking.  She hadn't spoken to him ever, but she wrote him small notes on slips of paper she had found around the house.  He could remember the time she had left a napkin on the table for him.  On it in dainty, delicate, and neat but mistake-filled script, she had written:

"I'm at the market to get some more notepads. 
I made youu lunch ^^. 
It's in the kimchi frig refridg refrigerator. 
When I get back, tell me if it was any good, OK?"

He laughed now, thinking about all the markings on that note as she corrected her spelling.  He could remember the days, after finally getting her comfortable in the house, that he had sat across from her on the tall cherry-wood stools at the onyx marbled-granite kitchen island, neatly writing the Hangul letters with a thick, felt-tipped black marker for her to trace.  He had slid the notepad back to her and watched as she had carefully studied the letter, analyzing it silently.  She had cautiously picked up a pencil and touched it carefully to the ivory sheet of paper.  He had watched as her brow knit together as she concentrated, her pink tongue appearing at the corner of as she spent minutes on a simple curve.

"It doesn't have to be perfect, you know." he remembered telling her with a chuckle and an accompanying smile.  That had brought her out of her concentration.  He could easily recall the exact expression on her face--curiosity.  It doesn't have to be perfect? she must have been thinking.  He could remember the feeling of guilt when he realized that something as simple as a first-year education had been taken for granted in his life and was something she hadn't experienced.

He had gotten up from his stool at that time, approaching her slowly as not to scare her.  It was the first time he had gotten within a meter of her without her squirming away in unneeded self-protection.  He had remembered the instant he stepped within that mystic, invisible boundary; she had frozen instantly, the pencil held limply between her fingers.  Her back tensed and she was as still as the stillest of statues, her eyes glued to the piece of paper, but she had not moved away.

He had inched a small amount closer, watching her reactions carefully.  He had heard her in a breath, the sound reverberating in the otherwise quiet house.  He had reached out, feeling her hand.  As his fingers lightly grazed her skin, he had noticed a shiver wrack her body, breathing a line of goosebumps onto her arms.  He had heard the soft hiss of a sharp intake of air.  He had swallowed, guiding his fingers over the soft, thin flesh her hand's back.  He had stood behind her, his chest almost touching her thin, too-bony spine as he guided her wrist over the letters written on the note page.

"Like this," he had whispered into her ear, even he couldn't deny the husky note his voice had suddenly taken.  Her scent was intoxicating--sugary vanilla, sweet and tangy like candy, flowery and fresh like a drive through the countryside on a clear day in early Summer.  Her hair was always simple--brushed down in the morning, tied up when she cooked or cleaned; straight as a pin, black as coal; long but well-cared for.  Her eyes were almond-shaped, dark.  No make-up, no frills.

She had dropped the pencil, slipping her hand out of his.  She was enclosed by his arm on her right, but not on her left.  She had quickly maneuvered her way around him.

"Mindeulle-yah?" he had called quietly, stopping her with his voice.  She had refused to turn as did he.  He had remained facing the island, she had remained facing the hall. "Mindeulle-yah," --he had swallowed, his grip on the counter top tightening. "Mianhae."

She had slowly turned to face his back at that time, timidly approaching him.  She had moved slowly, cautiously, towards his hunched back.  She had come to a stop at his right, had reached out apprehensively before gently his hand with her thin fingers.  He had loosened his grip on the marbled granite minutely as she lightly traced the veins on the back of his hand that ran up his forearm and bicep with her fingertip.  She had followed the line-like blood vessel up to where his short-sleeved v-necked white shirt ended before looking up just as he did; his eyes had locked with hers.  Chocolate had met cappuccino, melting with each other instantaneously.  He had leaned closer to her face, had stared deeply into her eyes.  Her eyes had never diverted from his, only widening as he pressed his lips to hers.  It had been a chaste kiss--nothing too scary for her, nothing too alien for her to handle.

"What are thinking about?"

The writing on the notepad had shaken him out of his daydream.  It was written in that same delicately dainty and neat writing but now it went without the previous error.  He looked across the couch at her, his dark, chocolaty eyes suddenly blank as the after-effects of the daydream washed over him.  She gave him a small, encouraging smile.  Suddenly closing the gap between them, he stopped mere inches from her face.  For what seemed like hours but what was really only a few seconds, he gazed into her lighter-than-his brown eyes.

"Minwoo-yah...Is everything OK?" The notepad asked, blocking his view of her angelic face.

"Better than okay," he responded, pulling the notepad from her grasp and setting it carefully on the clear, clutter-free glass coffee table. His eyes did not waver from hers for even a second as he pulled her to him, pressing his lips to hers.