Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

She flinched with every sound of Luhan munching the unnamable snack. The man in his mid twenties seemed to have an obsession with those damn crackers contained in purple bag with Chinese characters written on it. Jinri knew it because he had been eating the same cursed thing for the last few weeks. It was already the middle of her fourth month of studying Mandarin with Luhan; she felt her skill in the language hadn’t gone much further from the month before. Luhan mere existence in her room is already a distraction for her and the loud sound he produce as he masticated the crackers was disturbing her concentration. Not to mention the possible mess he made on her spotless desk since Luhan was a rather sloppy eater.

“Oppa,” she called him without looking up at him from her workbook that Luhan assigned her to do, “what is so great about those crackers?”

“Hmm? Ah, it’s really delicious. And it felt like home. This is something you could only find in Beijing.”

“But you bought that in Seoul, right?”

Luhan chuckled gleefully. Damn, his chuckle was sending shivers down her spine.

“Yeah. I’m just trying to be sentimental, okay? Do you want to try it?”

She shook her head. Luhan loved the crackers too much—the offer he made to her was only out of politeness—and she didn’t want any crumbs on her workbook too.

“It’s just… I couldn’t really concentrate. I’m sorry, Oppa.”

Luhan immediately stopped crunching; the sudden absent of the familiar cracking noise made her felt that she was the one at fault.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry, Jinri-ah. Have you been bothered by this all these days?”

She was tempted to say ‘yes’ right away—she was the honest kind of person after all—but when she dealt with Luhan everything became different. She couldn’t say what she want freely, as if something was straining her. So she only shook her head feebly.

“You can still eat it here,” she said weakly, “just… please don’t be too loud.”

Luhan’s clean hand reached for the top of her head and ruffled her hair.

“You’re such a kind hearted girl.”

She could almost hear a smile in his compliment. She felt warmth blanketed her all of a sudden—her cheeks probably had gained a couple shades of red. Oh, how much she hated Luhan for his careless compliments. Luhan sweet words had always made her felt special and thus raising her hope of getting the older man’s heart.

After finishing the practice and getting Luhan to mark it (“You only got 2 mistakes! Great!”), she was asked to read aloud a story in Mandarin. A crease formed on her forehead as she skimmed through the text. Those were probably the most complicated paragraphs she had ever read; spiced with many characters she didn’t remember she had ever learnt.

“Are you sure I have to read this?”

“Yes,” Luhan answered cheerfully, as always, “I’ll help you.”

Jinri rolled her eyes. Of course he had to help her. He was the teacher here. Nevertheless, she complied and started to read the story. It was something about a couple and a kiss, she presumed; she didn’t really care. She had been struggling to read it—Luhan corrected her pronunciation every once in a while—and she couldn’t believe her ears when he told her to re-tell the story in Korean.

“What?” She asked him incredulously.

“I told you to retell the story in Korean. To make sure that you understand what you read.” Luhan calmly explained.

It wasn’t that she didn’t hear him because she did listen to him—she always did attentively; she was surprised that Luhan had asked her to explain a story he knew she could barely understand. However, it was Luhan—the teacher—who asked her so she didn’t had any other choice but to do it. She scratched the back of her head out of uneasiness. She glanced at Luhan who looked at her expectantly, arms crossed in front of his black-plaid-shirt clad chest. She gulped nervously.

She spent the last 30 minutes of their session trying hard to find suitable words for the story; fortunately Luhan helped along (he should have, he was the teacher). However, the story left a side effect on her. Besides growing her Mandarin vocabulary, it increased her consciousness about the kissable rosy lips that belonged to the man in front of her. As Luhan gathered his stuffs while getting ready to go home, her eyes couldn’t help but followed those pair of lovely lips. She couldn’t be blamed; they had been mentioning a kiss for at least a dozen times while she was struggling to retell the narration.

She could tell that Luhan realized her attention to him as he raised his head to meet her eyes. She quickly looked away when he caught her, cheeks as red as tomato. However, she mustered her courage and asked him innocently, or at least she tried to sound innocent, “Oppa, have you ever kissed before?”

“Of course.” He answered without missing a beat. “What is with the sudden interest?” He smiled playfully at her, sending her heart to accelerate into a rate she believed to be harmful for her health.

“We have been talking about it for the past, I don’t know, one hour? I’m just curious. What does it feel like?” She asked him, ignoring her erratic heartbeats that were deafening her ears.

Luhan stopped collecting his books for a while, musing about his answer.

“Well… I suppose it depends on who you kiss. I think it is nothing really special, though.“

“Will you kiss me, Oppa?”

Luhan expressions hardened for a split second before he threw her another pleasant smile. Traces of astonishment were gone from his handsome face.

“Although I said that it is nothing, I believe that a first kiss should be shared with someone you love. You’ll regret it later.” He calmly answered, a smile never left his lips.

“But I like you, Oppa,” she blurted out. Jinri felt that her heart was about to explode when she confessed. It was something that she had wanted to tell Luhan since a long time ago but never had the right moment to say it. Her heart was going at a crazy speed as she waited for his response.

Luhan’s smile fell at her sudden exclamation. His hand that was taking his bag from the table stopped in the mid air. He averted his gaze from her, bit his lower lip, and stayed quiet for a couple seconds before he cleared his throat.

“Jinri, you’re not supposed to be joking about things like this,” he told her firmly as he stared back at her, sternness was clear on those beautiful eyes.

She raised her head and looked directly at his the eyes—she knew that Luhan was too smart to miss the fact that she had liked him for a long time. She stared earnestly at those sparkling orbs; her eyes told him that she wasn’t joking about her confession.

 “But I’m not. I’m serious.”

An uncomfortable silence blanketed them. Luhan seemed to be uneasy but Jinri couldn’t blame herself for confessing. Jinri had known that Luhan liked Sehun thus eliminating the chance of Luhan liking her back. She had known that she was going to face a definite rejection. She had known that she would only get her heart broken but she just had to say it.  She really needed to let it out of her chest because the feelings had suffocated her for too long.

Luhan finally broke the quietness between them.

“Jinri, I’m sorry.”

There was a hint of sympathy in his soft voice, a tinge of genuine worry on his troubled eyes. She hated Luhan so much for being too gentle and caring while in reality he was breaking her heart. She already knew what kind of answer Luhan would give but hearing it directly from him still made her heart ached and his natural kindness was worsening the pain. She nodded wordlessly.

“But you should stop pretending to be oblivious to my feeling as well. It’s not like you don’t know it now.” She blurted out before she could stop it, leaving the older man speechless.

TBC

AN: Thank you for the new subbies and the comments. ^^

Here comes a new chapter! I hope you'll enjoy it.

Please tell me how you feel about this. :)

Oh, and I got a new poster and background, yay!