“I was thinking that maybe we should have another neighbourhood barbeque. It’s been a while since we last had one.” Youra’s dad said to his wife as he twisted his key in the main door and opened it.

“You’re gonna have to ask Raymond to fire up the grill then. Oh, I heard that the Youngs-” Youra’s mom stopped talking on seeing a pair of shoes she didn’t recognise. They looked like shoes for a guy but she knew her husband didn’t really like wearing Nike shoes so they couldn’t possibly be his.

She looked at her husband. “These aren’t yours, are they?”

“No, maybe one of the boys is over.”

She shrugged and removed her own shoes before walking upstairs. Youra’s parents had just gone out for grocery shopping but had met some old friends at the store so they had called to tell Youra that they would be a bit late at home.

Speaking of whom, I don’t hear any noise from her room. What’s she doing?

She opened the door to Youra’s room only to be met by the sight of her daughter practically entwined with Mark on her bed, fast asleep.

“What were you saying about the You-” Youra’s dad stopped as he came up to Ji-eun and saw what she was seeing. They looked at each other and back at them.

As children, it was normal to find Youra asleep in some or the other part of the house, usually wrapping her arms around her sister or on occasion, on top of Jackson who could no longer be bothered to remove the older girl off himself.

As grown adults however, it wasn’t right to be falling asleep like that unless they were dating but Youra hadn’t mentioned anything about dating, let alone dating Mark Tuan, who had only a few months ago run out of the house out of embarrassment after they had come home from their trip.

Their initial reaction was to immediately wake them up and ask them just what was going on, but on approaching the two young adults, Youra’s mom lost the will to wake them up.

They both looked so peaceful.

It was very rare to see Youra smiling in her sleep after You-Jin had passed. Ji-eun remembered checking on Youra late at night for almost a whole month, hoping for at least a small glance of a smile on her daughter’s face, hoping for some reassurance that would tell her that their daughter would be okay.

But months passed by and it was hard to get anything out of her. She would stay in her room all day, only coming down for food, avoiding her parents like the plague. She very rarely initiated conversations between them and it felt like things were going to be so, so much harder than they thought.

Looking at Youra’s face now though, Ji-eun couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. Perhaps her now only daughter would be alright after all.

And if her being alright meant dating Mark or being with him, then well she had no objections.

“What should we do?” Young-hyun whispered to his wife.

“Maybe we should let them sleep. Youra seems so peaceful.”

Young-hyun looked at his wife, confused. He was so sure that she was going to jolt Youra awake and accost her but the look on her face said otherwise. “Are you sure?”

She smiled at him. “I’m sure. We’ll just ask her what’s going on later.”

“I still think we should wake them up.” Young-hyun replied, unsure, just as Youra started to stir. She let out a little sigh and moved her hand from Mark’s waist to his chest.

“Mark?”

“Hmm?” He replied sleepily.

“Am I the only one hearing people whispering?”

He covered her ear and brought her closer, making her chuckle. “Probably the curtains or something, I don’t know.”

She moved closer and wrapped her arms around his neck. “My curtains don’t make noise, Tuan but alright.”

And with that, the two went back to sleeping as if nothing had happened. Youra’s parents looked at each other and were trying to hold in their chuckles. At the end of the day, even if they didn’t know what was going on between Mark and Youra, at least they made a cute couple.

They both quietly walked out of Youra’s room, trying not to make too much noise as they talked about their daughter. Ji-eun was feeling especially content as she told her husband about noticing how Youra was smiling in her sleep.

She took one last glance at her daughter and smiled before walking away to her room.

-

Youra blinked sleepily before rubbing her eyes open. She looked at the clock in her room and sighed. It was 6 o’clock already and she had spent all her time with Mark sleeping. She looked up to the face of her boyfriend and smiled.

Then again almost anything she did with him was time well spent.

“Mark.” She whispered, making him hum in response. “Wanna wake up?”

“No.” He whined quietly. “5 more minutes.”

She softly pinched his cheek. “Okay.” She slowly removed his arms from around her and turned around to get out of bed when she felt him pulling her back into his arms.

Mark nuzzled his nose into her neck. “5 more minutes with you.”

He could feel her shake with laughter and smiled against her skin.

On a general basis, of course he liked seeing people happy and laughing, but there was something just undefinable about what Youra’s laughter did to him. He wanted her smile, her laughter all around him, on him and permanently etched in his mind, which perhaps it already was.

Youra stayed still for a while but very quickly got bored now that she was awake and had nothing to do. She looked around for her phone but figured it would be downstairs with her things so she stretched her hand backward and patted Mark’s legs upwards, looking for his pockets to get his phone.

On feeling her hand on his legs, he grabbed her hand before bringing it to her chest and hugging her tighter. “Whatcha doing, baobei?”

“Looking for your phone. Also, why is it that Jackson calls me a skin-ship monster when you’re far worse than me?”

He blinked his eyes open, he had pretty much lost his sleep after she had asked him to wake up anyway. “He calls me Markie pooh, I think it’s safe to say you’ve gotten the better nickname.”

She chuckled. “You have a point, Mr. Pooh.”

“What does that make you then? Christopher Robin?”

“I want to be Pooh though. Can we exchange?”

Mark pretended to think. “Hmm, you’re gonna have to ask Jackson.”

Youra turned around to face Mark. “Psh, that’s easy. He wouldn’t even ask why, he’d just say okay.”

“But what if I say that I want something in return for giving you Pooh Bear?”

“Then I’d probably hit you until you surrender, as simple as that, Markie Pooh.”

Mark sighed. “Great, now you’re calling me that. It was bad enough when Jackson did.”

“Fine, how about this? You be Christopher Robin and I’ll be Pooh Bear. There, now we’re all happy.” She said as a matter-of-factly.

 “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” He said with a smile as he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. She blew upwards and wisps of her hair floated around for a while, making the two of them laugh.

“Of course I am. You remember my Pooh Bear lunch bag in kindergarten? I’ve been obsessed with that silly old bear for forever.”

“Does that mean you get to be my silly old bear?”

She shrugged and smiled at him. “If you’ll have me, then yeah.”

He moved forward and gently caught her lips in his. The idea of Youra being his ‘silly old bear’ although childish sounding was perhaps one of the softest, most Youra like ideas he had ever heard. He could feel his heart almost soften as he heard her answer.

She smiled as she kissed him back for a while before pulling apart. “Maybe we should try that again after rinsing our mouths.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, not the best of ideas, kissing after sleeping.”

-

“We look pretty good together, don’t you think?” Youra asked as she stepped back and looked at the reflection of her and Mark in her bathroom mirror.

“We do.” He replied as he poked her in the stomach, making her squirm.

“What is it with you two and poking me? Don’t you get enough amusement out of annoying me verbally?”

“Well, you were the one who said that I can’t keep my hands off you. Maybe you were right after all.” He quipped before poking her again. She expected it this time though so she was able to catch his finger and push him against the bathroom door.

“Ha! Pinned ya!”

Mark rolled his eyes but couldn’t help laughing. “You love ruining my build ups, don’t you?”

She made a buzzer noise. “Your line was ‘Let me up’ but I’ll let it slide if you buy me ice cream tomorrow.”

He grabbed her waist and pulled her close. “We could go right now if you want. Why tomorrow?”

She put her hands on his shoulders. “Oh! That’s right, I forgot to tell you. Key’s coming over tomorrow!”

He let go of her. “Key? Why?”

“I called him over, that reminds me I should probably ask the boys if they can come.”

He blinked and just stared at her. “You’re calling GOT7 over tomorrow too? Wait, I’m confused.”

“No, I’m calling SHINee over. At lunch today, Key and I were talking and I ended up inviting him over. Of cour-”

He furrowed his brows. “I still don’t get it, why are you calling over noona’s friends? You’ve known each other only for a month.”

“I called Key over so I thought it would make sense to call the rest over. They’re coming for lunch. But you didn’t let me finis-”

“Youra, you’ve known GOT7 longer than you have SHINee and yet you’ve never called them over. I’m just struggling to see the logic here.”

“What does GOT7 have to do with anything? The reason Key and I became friends is because we both bonded over noona and as much I love GOT7, they’re not noona’s friends. They barely knew her.” She insisted to make her point.

She had no idea why Mark was reacting so weirdly.

“Fine, you guys bonded. But have you thought about how huge of a step this is? You’re calling them over after having known them only for a month, Youra!” He gently moved her aside and opened the door to go outside.

He ran a hand through his hair. It wasn’t like he had anything against Key or the rest of his friends, it was more of a natural instinct to question why they were being invited over. Youra hadn’t really explained why Key was coming over, and he didn’t know why but it was making him antsy. She had never talked about bringing him or the boys home, so where was this coming from?

Youra followed him out the bathroom. “Don’t you raise your tone at me, Tua