Chapter 4 – Mouth-to-Mouth

I step into the bathroom with a towel and sigh with relief as soon as I lock the door. It’s been a really hectic morning to say the least. I take my clothes off and step into the shower. I turn the shower on and revel in the feeling of having water flow all over me. Water makes me feel right at home and I feel all the tension in me ebb away as the water runs in rivulets down my skin.

I hesitate a little as I pump the bath gel onto my scrub. Sica’s scary tone rings in my head.

“Don’t touch or do anything you don’t need to do while you’re bathing. And make sure that you clean my body properly. Is. That. Clear?”

I gulp and begin cleaning my body from neck to toe. It gets a little awkward at certain areas but I grit my teeth and get it done. At long last, I’m all squeaky clean and I rinse the strawberry-scented shampoo out of my hair. I enjoy running my fingers through my hair although it’s technically hers and not mine. I wonder how she maintains her hair so well. It’s very smooth and silky even though it’s dyed brown. I don’t really bother with hair colour so I’ve never dyed my own hair before. It’s always been a solid black colour.

As I step out of the shower, I hear a knock on the door.

“Are you done? What’s taking you so long?”

“I’m almost done! Just one minute!” I panic a little and wrap the towel around myself in a hurry. I wring the water out of my hair and flick it behind me before opening the door. Sica is standing at the door, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Did you do anything weird to my body?”

I furrow my eyebrows. What does she mean by that?

“No…all I did was to scrub myself clean and wash my hair.”

“Well, you could have taken a quicker bath. I was so bored waiting for you to be done.”

“Sorry,” I apologize in a hurry.

She sighs. “It’s alright. I’m sorry too.”

“Eh?” I am surprised to hear her apologize to me. “What for…?”

“I tend to say things I don’t really mean when I’m stressed out.”

“Oh…” I smile warmly. “It’s no problem. Don’t worry about it.”

She smiles a little. “You’re quite a nice person, huh?”

And I grin sheepishly at her compliment.

She laughs very suddenly and smacks my arm violently before clapping her hands together repeatedly.

“Oww!” I wince as my arm smarts from her violent smack.

“HAHAHAHAHA!” She goes on laughing till she’s red in the face. I notice how she sounds as though she can’t breathe at the end of each laugh. It freaks me out a little but I find it cute all the same.

“What are you laughing about?” I feel the urge to laugh as well; her laughter is so infectious.

She tries to tell me but her incessant bouts of laughter stop her from doing so properly. At long last, after waiting for her to stop laughing, we sit on the bed to discuss our next step.

“Yuri, can you put some clothes on? I hope you don’t do this all the time. It’s my body you’re showing off now, not yours. I don’t want the whole world gawking at my body.”

“But there’s nobody else here but you and you’ve certainly seen your own body before.”

She rolls her eyes at me and I sigh. “Fine, I’ll put some clothes on.”

Feeling a little irritated by her, I rebel by shedding the towel on the floor and walk to my closet . She shrieks and I turn to look at her instinctively only to see her running towards me with the towel in hand. She wraps the towel around me and holds it fast.

“Seriously, can you be a little less of an exhibitionist?” she hisses at me angrily but all I notice is how close we are and how her arms are wrapped around me. I don’t know about you but some people actually call this a hug. My body stills and tenses. This is a little awkward I feel. She seems to realize the sort of position she’s put herself in and steps away from me with a flushing face.

The towel drops onto the floor once again as I turn away and I hear her admonishing me. “Tsk, Yuri!”

I ignore her as I pull out a bra and a pair of from the drawer she opened and put them on. Feeling naughty, I turn around and present myself to her.

“Tadaa! Better now?”

“Tsk! Clothes! Clothes!” She waggles her hands in annoyance.

I laugh as I put on a t-shirt and a pair of shorts—albeit a little too tight-fitting for my liking. “Alright, I’m clothed now. Happy?”

“Yes.”

“So what’s next?”

“We plan.”

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We fill each other in on the demands of our jobs. It sounds extremely daunting to me but I know that Sica has her work cut out for her. Being a lifeguard was by no means an easy task. The good thing about her job as a writer, however, is that it is a fairly flexible one; I would not need to be in the office all day so I can easily help her out at the beach.

We exchange our cellphones. I now have hers and she, mine.

“Try not to answer any calls. Get them to text you. Same goes for me as well. That way, it’s less likely for us to land ourselves in trouble.”

I nod earnestly at her instructions. She certainly is brainy.

We also agree to use my own apartment as a meeting point, since I live alone.

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One of the perks of being Sica is definitely being able to drive this awesome BMW. After I’m dressed up suitably to leave the house—Sica insisted on me being dressed properly to uphold her image—I am tasked to drive her back to my apartment.

Once we are there, I show her where my clothes are and she changes into a set of more comfortable clothes. I get out a set of first aid supplies while she is changing to prepare for the crash course that I’m about to put her through.

When she re-emerges from my bedroom with fitting clothes, we begin.

“Right, so basically, being a lifeguard isn’t only about saving drowning people. We get lots of accidents that happen on the beach and we have to help with that too.”

I start off by showing her the correct way to treat and bandage wounds. That goes relatively well and she’s a fast learner.

Next up…cardiopulmonary resuscitation…or better known as CPR. I don’t have a dummy to use so I look at her helplessly.

“Er…I’m going to have to demonstrate on you.” I avert my eyes from her, fearing another icy glare from her.

To my utmost surprise, however, she doesn’t make a big fuss of it.

“Alright, let’s just get this over and done with. Should I lie down?”

“Uh…yes. On the floor, please. Before doing CPR, always ensure that the person is lying on a hard and flat surface.”

She lies down on the floor and looks at me. I swallow the lump in my throat and kneel down next to her. I’ve never felt this awkward doing CPR before and this certainly isn’t my first time doing it.

“I didn’t think you’d be so receptive of this,” I blurt out my inner thoughts.

“This?”

“Yeah…this...you know, letting me do CPR on you.”

“Oh.” She looks pensive for a moment. “You saved me with CPR, didn’t you?”

Ah, so that’s why. “Yes, I did.” I smile at her warmly, returning her warm smile. I wonder fleetingly whether she is bipolar. She can be so nice and warm at times, yet so cold and scary at other times.

“Step one, tilt the chin upwards and try to feel for a pulse. Right…here.” I place my fingers on her jugular and interestingly, her pulse is rather quick. Is she nervous or something?

“If there is no pulse and breathing, locate the meeting point of your ribs. It is at the meeting point of the lines running from to and down the middle of your body.”

All these terms are pretty commonplace to me, due to the nature of my job but I swear I can see her blushing at the mention of ‘ to ’. I suppress my giggle and continue with my demonstration. I show her where the spot is and she wriggles uncomfortably. I maintain a solemn expression as I place the base of my palm on that spot between her s and lock my elbows straight. I can tell that she is uncomfortable with me touching her in that area but to her credit, she tolerates it very well.

I merely show her the proper posture and position before moving on to the mouth-to-mouth part of CPR. I don’t need to feel her pulse to know that it is speeding up by the second.

“Pinch the nose like this. Pull the mouth open like this.”

I sound calm and professional as I say all these things but deep inside me, my heart is thumping faster and faster for no apparent reason. Okay, maybe there is a reason. Maybe it’s because I’m about to put my mouth on hers when she’s perfectly conscious.

Be professional, Yuri ah. Be professional. You can do it!

“Place your mouth over the mouth and cover it completely, like this.”

As I bend down with my mouth wide open, I notice that her eyes are squeezed shut as her body stiffens from the tension. I place my wide open mouth over hers, covering it completely.

OH MY MOUSE. I’m kissing her!

I think I stayed still a little too long because her arms push me away gently and she sits up, red-faced.

I silently applaud myself for being able to stay this calm. I’m a pro alright. I run my fingers through my hair and resist the temptation to for blushing. I don’t want another taste of Sica’s snow storm. Oh no, I don’t.

“Right, if you have no further questions for me, it’s your turn to demonstrate.”

She gapes at me while I nonchalantly lay myself down on the floor.

“What’s the first thing you need to do?” I ask her once I am flat on the floor.

“Check your pulse and breathing.”

“Good.” I try desperately to slow my heartbeat down as I ask her to feel for my pulse.

She finds the spot and feels my pulse. I sincerely hope that she doesn’t realize how fast my pulse actually is.

“Great job Sica. Now…the pumping position.”

She freezes a little and hesitates.

“Come on, show me where your palms should rest,” I encourage her kindly.

Her face is considerably redder as she gets on her knees just like I did and I silently applaud her for learning this so quickly. Then, my breathing hitches suddenly as I feel her soft palm leaning gently on that spot between my s. She locks her elbows just like I showed her. Oh…now I know why she was blushing when I did that.

“Good,” I manage to say, thank Mickey. Next up on the list…the mouth-to-mouth.”

I can see her visibly swallowing her saliva as she pinches my nose and pulls my mouth open. My heart is in my mouth as she bends down towards me but I keep my eyes open. I have to be as professional about it as I can.

Bull, whom am I kidding?

Even my inner voice scoffs at me. Then, is on mine, covering it completely.

OH MY MOUSE. She’s kissing me!

All my blood rushes to my head and there’s a loud roar in my ears but even that isn’t enough to block out the very loud and surprised exclamations of my dear friends whom I totally forgot are visiting today.

“YURI UNNIE!!!”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

Sica springs upright in an instant, red-faced and pinkish ears and spins around to look at the source of the voices. Her jaw drops when she sees two pretty girls standing over us, wide-eyed in curiosity.

OH CRAP! I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT YOONA AND SEOHYUN COMING OVER TODAY!!!

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Hyoyeon snorts with laughter and falls off her chair as she laughs out loud at Yuri and Jessica’s predicament.

“YulSic, YulSic…what would I do without the two of you?”

She bends over in stitches, from laughing too hard at the look on their faces.

“Hyoyeon ah, why are you laughing so hard?” A deep, booming voice kills all of her laughter in an instant and she hurriedly swipes off the ‘live’ video footage of Yuri and Jessica.

“Nothing Dad, I’m just watching over Yuri and Jessica as I promised.” Hyoyeon smiles innocently at her father as he approaches her.

He looks at her suspiciously through narrowed eyes. “Hyoyeon, I can tell when you are lying. Now, get back down there and help them out!”

“Yes Dad! Right now! Right now!” And Hyoyeon scurries off before her dad can rebuke her anymore.

“Hyoyeon ah…when will you learn…?” Her father can only shake his head wistfully.

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