When Jinri met Luhan again on the next lesson, she was disappointed that her previous confession didn’t seem to have any impact on him at all. He taught her casually and lightheartedly like he had always done before. However, she noticed that Luhan seemed to be more self conscious and less touchy than before. Maybe he had realized that his small touches—the hair ruffling, the shoulder tapping, and the cheeks pinching — had encouraged her to think that she had a chance with him. It didn’t bother her at all; in fact, it helped her to be able to concentrate more on her Mandarin study since there was less heart-accelerating-moments in their sessions. The topic about kissing nor confession wasn’t brought up until a week later when she did an exercise with the word kiss in it.

“You like to write about kissing a lot in the text book.” She commented thoughtlessly as she put her workbook back to it place in the bookshelf. They had just finished another mind-exhausting session of private Mandarin lesson.

Luhan eyes didn’t move away from his tablet that he typing on.

 “I’m not the one who wrote it.”

She shook her head quickly.

“No, I mean you in the sense of your people, Oppa, the Chinese people.”

He tilted his head, no longer paying attention to his tablet.

“First, you’re being racist. And secondly, it is only the second time it is written in the book and we have gone through, what, 4 other books?”

“You don’t have to be so worked-up about it, Oppa.” She peeled her eyes from the shelf and looked back at him.

He smiled placidly.  It was one of those warm smiles that always made her heart fluttered.

“I’m not.”

He stood up from her bed and shuffled his tablet into his brown leather messenger bag, preparing to go home.

“I still wonder what it feels like, though, Oppa.”

She heard him chuckling gently while zipping his bag.

“You will know in time, Jinri. You’re pretty, someone will definitely kiss you. Just wait for the right person.”

Jinri blushed at his compliment. After all, he was the only person—besides her relatives because that just didn’t count—who had called her beautiful. Not even Sehun had ever complimented her like that. Oh, how much she despised Luhan for always flattering her. It always made her heart thumped harder although she knew that he had clearly rejected her.

She felt like saying ‘you are that right person’ to him but she knew that he wouldn’t be delighted to hear it. So she just slumped herself on her chair in front of her study desk and mindlessly rotating it while she pondered what it probably feel to kiss Luhan. It was an impossible wish—she knew—but she couldn’t stop her imagination.

 “I’m leaving, okay?”

 Luhan’s hand was already reaching for the door knob when she instinctively caught his arm. He looked down at her and sent her a questioning look. Jinri wasn’t sure why she dared to stop him so she only gazed back at him from under her eyelashes without saying anything. They stared at each other silently; no words were needed as her eyes sent him a subconscious request that her rational mind refused to ask. Luhan sighed in defeat when he had successfully encrypted her message.

“Listen, Jinri. I’ve told you before; you’re going to regret asking me for this,” he mumbled as he left the door closed.

 “This kind of thing is nothing special, really,” he muttered while pushing the chair—along with Jinri on it—nearing her desk. Then, he placed his right hand on the desk behind her, trapping her between the chair and him. Their proximity  resulted in her smelling his dizziness-inducing cologne. She looked up at him and caught his brilliant eyes, making her heart skipped a beat.

“It’s really simple, actually. I’ll just lean down and kiss you and that’s pretty much all of it.” He explained to her matter-of-factly, as if it was part of his usual Mandarin tutorial. She nodded nervously. Her heart had sped up into a crazy rate that it hurt her ribcage. She couldn’t believe what was going to happen; she couldn’t even comprehend how on earth Luhan agreed on her ridiculous demand. She knew one thing for sure, though: Luhan was going to kiss her.

He leaned down and Jinri felt her heart accelerated into inhuman speed. She could see his sharp nose coming closer to hers, his long eyelashes fluttering close, and…

“Oppa, should I close my eyes too?”

Luhan eyes snapped open. He was clearly taken aback. He blinked a couple times while retracting himself from Jinri before he finally answered.

“If you want to. It’s all natural, Jinri. Just go with the flow.”

She nodded wordlessly; anxiety had hindered her from saying anything.

“Got it.”

He leaned down again but Jinri didn’t see much as she had closed her eyes. Her heartbeat increased steadily. She could feel Luhan’s warmth nearing her, his breath fanning her face, his hand slowly caressing her cheek, and…

“Oppa, where should I put my hands?”

She felt his breath was getting further from her and slowly opened her eyes. A bewildered Luhan who was awkwardly scratching the back of his neck with his free hand came into focus. When he realized that she had opened her eyes, he answered her, “Anywhere, actually. Some people like to put it on the back of the other’s neck,” he motioned the back of his neck, “some like to entangle their fingers on the other’s hair,” he touched his own blonde hair, “some other like to caress the other person, like me.” He then added, “You must have seen other people kissing, right? It isn’t much different.”

She nodded calmly yet her heart was anything but calm. She was nervous as hell that she couldn’t mutter a single comprehensible word.

Luhan nodded as well, a gentle smile formed was on his thin lips.

He leaned down again, although it was his third time it still made her heart jumped. She put her hand on his shoulder, loosely encircling his neck. Her cheeks reddened at the contact between their skins. She closed her eyes as she felt Luhan tilted her head toward him, his breath nearing her face—making her heart raced both excitedly and nervously—and…

“Oppa, what …”

“Damn it, Jinri!”

She snapped her eyes open as she heard him groaned in frustration. She saw a flustered Luhan—which was quite a new sight since he had always been collected—a bit of red tinged his white cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she quickly apologized when she saw him ran his fingers through his golden locks—clearly irritated. His eyes, however, was showing a mix of emotions that she couldn’t decipher. It was only a while, though, since his eyes quickly crinkled as he smiled, erasing his previous exasperation.

“It’s alright,” he said, “I was right, I’m not supposed to be your first kiss.”

The impulsive kiss still left her dazed on the next day. She wasn’t sure if it could be categorized as a kiss since it was much more of a quick contact of the lips. Yet the brief contact had sent tingling sensation to her whole body. She remembered Luhan’s baffled stare and wondered if she should apologize to him.

He was the one who agreed to kiss me in the first place, right? She defended her action mentally, trying to make herself felt less guilty.

But I was the one who pushed him into it, she heard her conscience blamed herself.

However, there was an even bigger question in her mind.

Why did I even do it?

She knew that she liked him—very much, in fact—but Choi Jinri is a sensible girl; she wasn’t supposed to act irrational and reckless like that.

 “Ya! Earth to Jinri!”

She was startled when Sehun pinched her arm to get her attention. They were walking on their usual road to school. She rubbed the sore spot: Sehun was always merciless.

“What were you thinking about?” Sehun asked her, concern was clear in his voice.

“Nothing,” she mumbled, looking down to the paved road. Her fingers idly played with the hem of her skirts. However, after a few minutes of silence, she decided to ask him.

“Sehun, you have kissed before, right?”

Sehun halted his steps for a while, obviously flabbergasted by the sudden question. However, he recovered and continued his walk while putting his hands on his pants pockets.

“Do you really need to ask?” He muttered uncomfortably.

Although Sehun currently had a crush on her, it didn’t mean that he hadn’t liked anyone else or dated before. Sehun was a popular boy, after all, and he had people confessing to him right and left. She remembered that he had been in a relationship at least 4 times since elementary school—yes, the brat had dated since he that young—until high school and that was without counting the many one-time dates he had.

“I’m just curious about the reason. Why do people kiss, Sehun?”

Sehun was quiet for a while, undoubtedly contemplating about the answer as well.

“Just because, I think. I don’t know,” he slowly spoke while shrugging his shoulder. He glanced at her and saw her looking pensive, triggering him to try cheering up the solemn atmosphere.

“You wouldn’t understand though. You’ve never done it, right?” he remarked mockingly with an annoying smug smirk on his pale face.

“I have. But I still don’t understand why I did it.”

TBC

AN: Wohoo! Another chapter is out.

Thank you for all the subscribers and comments. I really-really appreciate them. T_T

This chapter is dedicated to you all.

With many-many thankful love,

himalayancat

PS: Vote me, maybe? It's the arrow on the left, if you don't mind. No? Oh, okay. >_<