My Heart Skipped a Beat

A Kai Fanfic (Part 13)

*Kai’s POV*

Of course Kai couldn’t help but notice how cute Ree looked as she stared fixedly at the game board in front of her. He could almost see the thought processes in her mind as she contemplated her next move. The next move was a critical one if she was going to win and Kai had won all the past games, so this time he could tell she was determined to win. But Kai was determined to win too, and no matter how cute she looked with her eyebrows furrowed and no matter how hard she bit her bottom lip, he wasn’t going to give in. Of course she was innocent, not knowing that these actions were basically swaying him to give up his pride and let her win. It was all in his head. His infatuation with her had somehow blossomed intensely during his stay overseas. He had fallen for her, but still at the same time was unable to forget his past love. And it confused the ever living hell out of him. He didn’t really know what he wanted, but sitting right next to her during the train ride just felt right.

He watched as her delicate fingers lifted the game piece and placed it into a certain square that basically solidified her demise. She had miscalculated and now Kai was going to win. When it was his turn he picked up his game piece and placed it in the spot that earned him his victory. And he watched as Ree’s face automatically scowled as she finally learned that she had yet again lost to him.

“Noona, I told you I was good. We should have stopped after the fifth time that I had beaten you, but you’re the one who insisted that we should continue.”

Kai yelped as Ree slapped his arm and then she huffed as she crossed her own arms across her chest.

“Stop calling me noona! And you only won all of those games because I let you.”

Ree sank back into her chair with her arms crossed and a scowl still present on her face. He wanted to reach out and pinch her cheek at that moment, but he was positive that would be crossing a line. Then the train was starting to drastically slow down and he could feel the wheels starting to slow to a stop. Ree packed up the game quickly back into the box as this went on and put it all in her bag. When the train came to a full stop she stood up and grabbed Kai’s arm, Kai could feel she was rougher with her grip this time, and then started to walk towards the exit. He didn’t know where they were going, and he didn’t want to ask since she was probably still a little angry that she had lost, so he just followed her lead. They walked off the train platform and onto the busy road right next to it. Ree held her hand out to signal something or somebody and soon a taxi came up right to the both of them. She opened the door to the taxi and she shoved him in and then climbed in after him. He watched as she silently handed the driver a slip of paper and then they were setting off to someplace that Kai was not aware of.

It was quiet between the two of them in the car. It was a comfortable silence though, and Kai always managed to sneak a few side glances at Ree during the drive. Her fury had dissipated from her face and she just stared nonchalantly out the window. He traced the outline of her face with his eyes and committed the sight to memory. He would call upon the memory later if he had trouble sleeping again tonight. That was Kai’s bad habit now. If he had trouble sleeping, he always thought of Ree and then he would be able to finally rest. It was a habit he didn’t want to break, because if he did he would be left to restlessly lay in bed with his haunting thoughts of his ex, and he would just rather not put himself through that. The scenery changed to only trees and still Kai wondered where they were going. It took another ten minutes before the taxi stopped randomly at the side of the road. There was nothing in sight but trees and Kai was puzzled as to why they had stopped there. To his surprise, Ree pulled out some money from her purse and paid the taxi driver. She grabbed Kai’s arm and pulled the both of them out of the taxi. Right when they got out the taxi driver immediately left leaving them in the middle of nowhere.

“Are we supposed to be here?”

“Yes, now come on.”

Ree started dragging him again and this time they were heading straight into the forest near the road. It was a bit hard on them to walk because they had to dodge trees and branches everywhere, but soon enough they finally made it past it all that and ended up in a cleared part of the forest. In front of them was a medium sized waterfall that flowed quietly down and into a pool of clear blue water. The sight was beautiful and Kai was amazed by it all. How had Ree even known about this place? This place was definitely not easy to find on your own. She let go of his arm then and walked nearer to the waterfall. She stopped a few yards next to the pool of water and took out a blanket from her bag and laid it on the grass. Then she took out a digital camera and walked towards Kai.

“Here’s your assignment for today. I want you to walk around the waterfall and even the woods nearby and take pictures of beautiful things. Simple enough?”

Kai just nodded absently and then took the camera out of Ree’s outstretched hand. As he did so her fingers brushed lightly against his and he felt a quick current of warmth flow through his body from the contact. He tried not to make it obvious and so he stepped back and away from her and coughed into his fist.

“Alright then I guess I’ll go do that.”

“Good. I’ll be over there reading a book. You have about an hour.”

Ree then walked away from Kai and settled herself down onto the blanket she had just laid out. He watched her take out a tattered book and then started to read it, completely ignoring Kai’s presence. Kai looked awkwardly at the camera in his hands. He had never used this type of camera before. It was sort of high tech and it had a lot of different buttons that he didn’t know the uses for. But he sighed and walked a bit into the forest to the left of him and started fiddling with the camera.

It had been about 30 minutes since he had first begun taking pictures. He had already taken a few pictures here and there of the random wildlife that he spotted or an interesting plant, but his eyes kept drifting back towards where Ree was. Without really thinking about it he headed back near the waterfall where she was. When he was a few yards away from her he held the camera up to his face and focused the lens on Ree’s figure lying down on the blanket. Then he started snapping photos of her. The clicks of the shutter made Ree finally notice him and she quickly sat up and blocked her face with both of her arms.

“No, no pictures of me. I’m not beautiful. Go back over there and take pictures.”

She pointed back towards the wooded area where Kai had just come from.

“You’re beautiful to me.” Those were the words that Kai desperately wanted to tell Ree, but he didn’t have the courage or the will to do so. And much more was holding him back. The fact that she probably didn’t feel the same way or the fact that the relationship between them was supposed to be solely friendship, not romance. But still, he couldn’t help the creeping feelings from filling the crevices of his heart and rooting themselves into place. They wouldn’t disappear and Kai wasn’t going to pretend that they didn’t exist. So instead he chose to keep quiet and go back to his task. Back to taking pictures of ‘beautiful’ things as she had instructed him to do and she went back to laying down on the spread out blanket, reading the book she had brought along with her. He wandered to the right part of the forest this time and hid behind a tree. He poked his head out and made sure that Ree wasn’t paying attention to him and then he once again focused the camera on her. He used the camera’s zoom to perfectly catch a close up of her face and took many photos. When he was satisfied, he turned and went deeper into the forest to see if he could find anything more beautiful than Ree to take a picture of, but he highly doubted he would.