Kai’s POV

I don’t understand what is going on. What the hell is this feeling? Why does it feel as though I’m connected to her? Why, why, why? Why is it her and not Daeseul?

She turned to me and smiled, putting an apron on to cover her clothes.

I smiled back at her. Then I noticed we were almost finished with the dirty dishes for now. I should call Suho, ask him what this was all about. “I’ll be back,” I told her, taking my rubber gloves out. “I just need to make a quick phone call.”

She shrugged. “I won’t be going anywhere,” she said.

I stepped outside, in the back lane, and called Suho. He didn’t pick up. Damn, why? I tried to call over and over again. After, like, ten minutes, the call got through.

“Yeobosaeyo?” His face appeared on the once-blank screen.

“Hyung, what the hell?” I asked angrily.

“Whatever are you talking about?” Suho asked calmly.

“You know what I mean,” I hissed at him.

“Ah . . .” He knew he couldn’t avoid me.  He sighed. “What do you want to know?”

There was so many questions I wanted to ask, so many things I want to know. I didn’t know how to say it to him but one thing for sure: I was not happy about this. “You lied!”

“I did not lie,” he said, mollified.

“You told me that Daeseul was the girl for me!” I growled. “So why do I feel as though that girl I just met, that Eun Hae girl, is actually the right one?”

Suho shrugged. “Well, that means Daeseul was connected to her in some ways,” he explained.

“I figured that out, genius,” I snapped at my hyung. “The question is, why did you let me believe that I had found my girl?”

“I’m not allowed to give any information about the girl until you’ve found her,” he reminded me and I rolled my eyes. “It’s one of the rules.”

“Couldn’t you have bent it a little to give me hints? I mean, that’s why we have this stupid watch!” I cannot believe he was being so calm about this as if this was . . . not a big deal. “Do you want me to win or not?”

“Of course I want you to win, you great lump of idiocy!” he exclaimed exasperatedly, running a hand through his hair. “But rules are rules! Even the slightest bent would mean disqualification. How do you think I felt when you told me you found her even though I knew she wasn’t the girl?”

“And how do you think I feel about this whole situation?” Suho flinched. “I worked so hard just to try to get Daeseul, only to find out that she was never the girl I’m supposed to play with!” I fumed.

“All right, all right, keep your hairnet on,” my hyung grumbled. “Look, just win her heart, okay? And do it fast.” Without another word, the screen blanked out.

I screamed in frustration. “Ugh! this! I hate this stupid Game!” I kicked a ball of newspaper around before turning back inside the kitchen. The chefs all shouted, while waiters and waitresses called orders or took orders. I returned to sink and my face fell. We had a new hoard of dirty dishes to clean.

I walked back to her and put the gloves back on to help her wash the plates. “Sorry it took so long, I couldn't get through my friend,” I apologized.

She turned and smiled at me in a friendly way. “Gwaenchanha,” she replied. “Boss actually came in here and asked where you were.”

I frowned. “What did you tell him?” He’s not going to be happy that I thought a phone call was more important than the job.

“I told him that you got a call from your mom saying that your favourite aunt is sick in the hospital and wished to talk to you because apparently she was dying with some illness,” she replied nonchalantly. She turned to me. “But that’s definitely not the reason why you had to call, right?”

I raised an eyebrow. Did she seriously just help a stranger by lying to her boss? I shook my head. “Not even remotely close,” I replied.

“Ah, I thought so.”

I plunged my hands into the sink, grabbing dirty dishes. “Thanks, for lying for me,” I thanked her.

“No problem.”

We continued working in silence.

Occasionally I would turn to watch Eun Hae as she washed the dirty dishes in the sink next to mine. She hummed a little tune while she worked, bobbing her head at times. She glanced over and I quickly busied myself with my own dishes, hoping she didn’t realize that I’d been staring at her.

 “Are you okay?”

I jumped. I wasn’t expecting her to say anything. I turned to her and faked a smile. “N – Neh,” I told her. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“I caught you staring at me a couple of times.” How straightforward.

I fumbled with a correct question to ask her. “Well, it’s just . . . how can you be so happy to wash dirty dishes?” I held up a plate where the gravy stuck like glue to the plate. I grimaced and sighed.

She laughed. “I don’t know,” Eun Hae replied. “I guess I just like this, that’s all.”

I smiled, amused. “Strange.” I looked at her and eyed her school uniform. “Did you come right from school?”

She nodded. “Yeah,” she replied. “Boss said that he needed me to come early so I thought I’d come early after school. I didn’t have time to rush home and change, you see.”

“How old are you?” I asked curiously.

“I’m eighteen,” she replied, rinsing off the soap from the plate she was washing.

“So, you’re in your last year of school?”

She nodded.

I’m nineteen, in Earth age (don’t ask me how old I am in Exo because you would not believe it). So that means that she is one year younger than me. But, wow, she seemed so much younger, like maybe fifteen or sixteen.

She is so . . . short.

She glanced over at me and groaned, covering her face. “Don’t tell me you think I’m fifteen,” she moaned.

I raised an eyebrow. “How did you guess?”

She sighed, waving her hand offhandedly. “A lot of people think that. So, no surprises.”

“Well . . . your height —”

“That’s sensitive issue, dude.”

Dude?

She dipped her hands in the sink filled with dirty and soapy water. Then she brought them back out and flicked them at me.

I stared at her. “Did you just do that?”

She giggled. Her giggle is so cute. “Maybe,” she said slyly.

I shook my head as I dipped my fingers into my sink filled with dirty and soapy water. “Oh, this is so war.” I flicked at her.

But she was ready.

She used a plate to block it. I quickly dipped again. When she brought the plate down, I grabbed the opportunity and flicked her face.

“Aiiiee!” she cried, nearly dropping the plate. But it was plastic, anyway, so even if it fell, it would have just made a loud clatter. She laughed, kneeling over. Then she straightened up and placed the plate down on the counter. “It’s payback time!”

I dodged out of her way. I smirked. “Not so fast, Shorts,” I said.

She paused. “Shorts?” she repeated.

I nodded. “Well, you are short,” I pointed out.

“So what do I get to call you?” she asked, playing along.

I smiled. “Handsome.”

“Pfft.” She rolled her eyes and cupped her hands into the sink before throwing the water in her hands at me. Some got on my apron while the little droplets as it was coming toward me sloshed on the floor.

I looked up at Eun Hae. “You are so wiping that.”

She thought about it, tapping her chin, a hand on her hip. “Bend over,” she said.

I stepped back and eyed her suspiciously. “Waeyo?”

She shrugged. “So I can wipe the water off the floor with your face.” Eun Hae cracked up laughing.

“But that’ll ruin my good looks,” I protested, pretending to be offended.

She grinned back. “Exactly.” Then suddenly her eyes went wide and she quickly turned to her work.

I frowned. “Wha —?”

“Boss just entered the kitchen.”

I quickly glanced at the door. But it was shut. The other workers were doing their own job, not paying attention to us. And the boss wasn’t anywhere in the kitchen. I turned to Eun Hae. “No, he’s —”

I should’ve realized that this was a trap.

Eun Hae had crept up toward me, her gloves soapy and wet. When I turned, she smeared the dirty water all over my face and hair. Laughing gleefully, she skidded away from me as I cried out in alarm and began wiping my face.

Uck.

“Gotcha!” she giggled.

I held my hand up. “All right, I surrender. Let’s get back to work before the boss really comes in here and fire our asses.”

She giggled and pointed shyly at my head. “Um, you got soap bubbles there,” she said. “It must have gotten there when I creamed your face just now.”

I reached up to touch my hair and realized she was right. I shook my head in amusement. “For a girl, you sure are pretty cunning,” I said in admiration.

She shrugged. “I guess I’m not your average kind of girl,” she replied. She gave a small smile before returning to her work, humming that tune again.

“What song is that?” I asked curiously, putting a clean plate aside.

“Oh, it’s a latest Taylor Swift’s song. The title is called Safe and Sound,” she replied. “It’s the theme song for theThe Hunger Games’ show.”

I pursed my lips. “Ah, that show.”

In Exo, whenever we don’t have to go for training, we take Earth studies where we learn about the latest technologies or interest so that when we come down to Earth for the Games, we don’t end up looking like a complete idiot. You’d be surprised to know how time changes so much since the first Game until now, the 71^st Game. The people here on Earth had produced so many new and different kinds of inventions and gadgets, along with movies and songs.

A major huge different, I’ll tell you that.

Just then one of the staff came up to us. “Business slowed down,” he announced and we looked up to him, “so the two of you can take a break.”

“All right,” I said. When I turned to Eun Hae, she was taking her gloves off. I smiled at her. “Want to hang just outside at the back on the stairs? We’ll leave the door open so we’ll know when we have to get back to work.”

She nodded. “Sure.”

The two of us headed over there. I smiled. Maybe this is what I should do. Maybe I should at first just be friend. Joke about with her; get her comfortable with me before I ask her out on dates. I looked back at her.

Yea, that’s what I’m doing to do.

Eun Hae’s POV

Kai-sshi seems like a fun person to hang around with. I wouldn’t mind having him as a friend. I smiled to myself.

I got a new friend.

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Hehehe, so they finally met at last xD okok, off to update I'm Engaged to a BEAST??? @@