“What about this colour of nail polish?” Yoona asked in a squealing voice, bringing her hand up to her face and examining them with pride. They were all at Taeyeon's huge house for a girly sleepover, which Seo Ah was forced to attend.

All the other 8 girls laughed and nodded their heads while Seo Ah merely nodded her head with a small, forced smile. She didn't give a damn about what colour nail-polish they wore, even though they were her close friends she wasn't into girly stuff like they thought she was.

“Seo Ah, gweanchana?” Sooyoung asked, putting the nail polish down and looking at her with concern. Seo Ah looked up abruptly and nodded excessively.

“Neh, everything's fine, unnie.”

All the rest of the girls turned towards her with skeptical looks and she bit her lips in nervousness.

Suddenly, the sound of a doorbell ringing could be heard from downstairs. Seo Ah thanked the gods for getting her out of that awkward situation and ran to see who'd come.

She ran as fast as she could down the stairs until she could hear them start to talk about nails again. She rolled her eyes and opened the door.

'This is a pointless sleepover...what were we even talking about?'

“Seo Ah!” a voice exclaimed. Before Seo Ah could look up to look at the person, she found herself trapped in a warm embrace. She was frozen and stiff as a lamp post, not even sure who was hugging her.

“Awww!!!” came the voices of 9 squealing girls behind her.

Seo Ah quickly pushed the person away and looked at them in surprise.

“Jeongmin?!” she exclaimed, doing a double take as she saw him. “Wh-why are you here?”

“I invited him!” Yuri said, smiling at him warmly. Seo Ah eyed him as he smiled back politely.

“Why?” she asked with a curious look, looking back and forth between Yuri and Jeongmin.

“Stop thinking of bad things!” Yuri exclaimed, suddenly flustered.

“We thought we'd get hungry so we called Jeongmin to cook for us,” Jessica explained, giving Yuri a look to calm down.

“And so he could talk to you...” Tiffany added quietly, making all the girls laugh apart from Sunny who rolled her eyes and said,

“Come on guys, lets go up and leave them alone.”

All the girls nodded and scrambled up the stairs, but not before Yoona shot a wink at Seo Ah, who only rolled her eyes in amusement. When she was sure they were out of sight and ear shot, she spun on her heel and looked at Jeongmin with a sharp glare.

“Wae?” he said in a whining voice, unfazed by her deathly gaze. He'd gotten used to it.

“Why are you here?” she demanded, crossing her arms. Jeongmin smiled and walked towards her slowly and but his hands on her arms. Seo Ah held her breath and found herself wanting to pull away. They hadn't been going out for very long and he suddenly started doing lots of skinship, she was used to it when they were friends, but when they're dating it had a whole different level of...intimacy.

“To cook,” he said simply. He noticed the awkward air around them and pulled away, feeling slightly hurt. He walked into the kitchen without another word and opened the fridge.

“B-but you can't cook!” she protested, chasing after him. Jeongmin smile at her as he closed the fridge. Seo Ah looked down at his hands and gasped at what he'd taken out the fridge.

“Cho-chocolate?! And beef?!”

He looked down at the 'ingredients' and looked back at her innocently as if there was nothing wrong with it. Seo Ah bit her lip in anxiety as he walked towards the counter silently and got out a huge butchers knife from the knife rack and...started chopping the chocolate bar with it.

“YAH! BABO!” she bellowed, running up to the counter and snatching the knife out his hands.

“Wae? What's wrong with it?” he asked with a pout, earning himself a disbelieving look as his girlfriend face-palmed herself.

“Eottokhae?? What do I do with you?” she muttered to herself, trying to think of reasons for him to leave. He would embarrass in front of her 'friends' and maybe make her lose her cool and blow her cover!

She was so lost in her own world, she didn't notice when he pressed his chest against her back and wrapped her up in a back hug.

“Then...let's cook together...” he whispered in her ear, surprising her as the hairs of the back of her neck stood on end.

“M-mwo?”

“You're good at cooking, help me,” he said, squeezing her waist slightly.

“Jeongmin, can you-omo!” Hyoyeon came in and stopped mid-sentence when she saw them. She was surprised at first, then a huge grin was spread across her face.

Seo Ah's face began heating up and she abruptly pushed Jeongmin away in embarrassment, not even noticing the hurt expression that was on his face.

“I'll leave you guys alone now...” Hyoyeon said teasingly, back out the room slowly before running squealing up the stairs, prepared to tell the girls everything.

“Seo Ah...” he muttered quietly, his every emotion displayed on his face, which Seo Ah didn't notice.

“Palli, let's cook,” she said, not meeting his gaze. Jeongmin sighed and nodded solemnly.

-

About 30 minutes later, Jeongmin was concentrating on his cooking, so Seo Ah could be proud of him, but she was too busy worrying whether he'd mess something up. She was cutting the tomatoes, but she couldn't stop thinking.

'It's so nerve wracking! What if he makes me blow me cover...what if he embarrasses me? Urgh...why did Yuri have to call him over? It's already awkward as it is...why does he know Yuri so well...?

“OW!” her sudden exclamation made both of them look up. She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts, she'd accidently cut herself with the knife.

“Gweanchana?!” Jeongmin asked, looking over her in concern. He instinctively grabbed her hand and examined the cut.

“Gweanchana!” she exclaimed, flustered by the sudden skinship, she pulled her hand abruptly out of his. She looked away from his gaze and he could only stare at her in concern, even though his expression was contorted with hurt.

“Seo Ah...” his soft, hurt voice made her heart hurt with guilt. “Why aren't you looking at me?”

Seo Ah opened , but no sound came out. She felt guilty that all she could think of was herself and she caused Jeongmin to be this hurt, and the fact that she couldn't make herself meet his gaze made everything even worse.

“Seo Ah...what am I to you?” he asked after a long sigh. The shock made her look up at him with enlarged eyes. He was relieved that she'd at least looked at him.

“You're m-my...” her sentence stopped when she realised she couldn't get the word out.

“Boyfriend. I'm your boyfriend, but why can't you even say that? Do you still think of me as your best friend?”

“It's not like that...”

“Then do you not want to date me?”

“M-Mwo?! Why would you say that?”

With every accusing sentence, she only got more anxious and flustered.

“It just seems like that...you can't even look at me properly right now, you always avoid my skinship and you seem really distant from me. You went to Sungjong's house even when I told you not to... We've haven't even been out on our first date yet...”

Seo Ah's gaze dropped to the ground again as she realized all those 'accusations' were true.

“Jeongmin ah...” she said quietly. “Mianhae...”

Jeongmin could only sigh as he looked down at her sad face, he felt all the anger melt away.

“I'll try to be better. I'll try to be a better girlfriend...We can do skinship, we can become even closer than we were...we can go on a date...jeongmal mianhae...”

“Yah, why are you apologizing?” he tutted, suddenly feeling guilty for making her upset. He slowly wrapped his arms around her and brought her into a hug, which she didn't reject this time.

'Let's hope those weren't empty promises...'