Chap 29

MinAh POV:

What the heck just happened back there.

With quick steps, I stiffly shuffled along the path towards my house, away from the cafe.  As much as I tried to shrug off the feeling, the moment in the storage room, where Jinyoung was so close to me I could feel his unsteady, warm breath against my cheek, would simply not escape my mind. My heart rate was at a constant of 600bpm my mind racing with confused thoughts.  What had even happened? Why was he so close? Why didn't I move away?  Did that really just happen??  My stomach squirmed from all these thoughts, knowing that my last question, was indeed true.  Yes, it did just happen.  Why? I have no clue.

Well. I have a hypothesis, but it just seems kind of unreal.  I mean, I'm such a plain, ordinary girl.  Does he....Why would he......like me?

But then again, now that I think about it, his actions do kind of make sense.  He went to pick me up after school even though its totally unecessary and not even on the same path to work.  Secondly, when he saw me with Junghwan, he did seem a little bit....jealous?  And in addition, earlier tonight, he was hugging me and trying to be very intimate with me.....

Before I knew it, I had reached the front door of my house, and I quickly fumbled with the keys to unlock it.

"I'm home!" I murmured

"Why are you so late?" My sister was sitting on the floor of the living room, wrapping presents.

"Mianhae, there were some...technicalities at work." I said, taking off my shoes.  I walked over to her and plopped onto the floor beside her.

"What are you doing? Who's birthday is coming up?" I asked, watching her skillfully wrapping the package in front of her.  I was responded with a "are-you-stupid" look, as she then continued to wrap.

"Its Christmas soon, did you forget??" she said, raising an eyebrow.

"Bwoh? But today is only the---"

Its the 21st. Of December.  Therefore, Christmas is in 4 days.  I swear my face changed from this: .__. to this: O________O when I realized I hadn't done any Christmas shopping, since I didn't even realize Christmas was almost here.

My dongsaeng beside me sighed, shaking her head. "You've been really out of it for the past couple of days..."

I quickly ran upstairs to my room, pulled out my calendar, checking to see on which day it is possible for me to squeeze in some christmas shopping time. I found a time slot that I could possibly do, but it was pretty slim, since it was after school and after that I had work.   But what can I do, I should have payed more attention to the days of the month.

Fortunately, shopping for Christmas presents wouldn't e too hard, since I don't really have anyone to buy them for.  It was mainly umma, dongsaeng,  perhaps manager Jung, and my two best friends Suzy and Fei.  Besides those five people, there wasn't really much to buy, unless I wanted to buy a gift for my colleagues at work.  -dokidoki- .....Like Jinyoung.   My mind blanked for a moment, my thoughts trailing back to the moment where our lips had almost touched. All of a sudden, butterflies started to appear in my stomach, my heart jumping a few quick beats. Should I get a present for Jinyoung? Although my brain was telling me it wasn't necessary, my heart seemed to be telling me otherwise. I almost had a heart attack when I heard a knock on the door.

"Unni."

"NE!" I almost shouted, as I swivelled around in my chair.

She gave me a strange look, before she spoke. "Well, I'm going to sleep now, good night......"

"NE! OF COURSE! YEA! GOOD NIGHT SWEET DREAMS!"

She gave me one last weird look before closing the door.  I spent a couple of seconds staring at the closed door, letting my heart regain a normal  speed. I slowly swivelled back around to face my desk, as I lay my hands on the cold surface.

Why was I so...so nervous, and so... jumpy?  All I was thinking about were presents.....and Jinyoung.

I shoved my calendar to the corner of my desk, making space for me to rest my elbows on the table (yes, i'm ADD and don't want to put my elbows on my calendar).  If I were to get him a Christmas present, what would I get him?  It has to be something that'll he like, but it also has to be within my (painstakingly small) budget. Wouldn't it be much easier to just not get him a present?  But if I did that, that would seem a bit heartless...right? Right?

I could cook something for him, like in all those asian dramas, but that'd be risky for my situation, since there's a chance that it'll taste like crap...because I'm not a very good cook.

I flailed around my room for a while, trying to think of good christmas presents, trying to think of all the possible presents I could get him. Why does this have to be so hard? I flopped onto my bed, burying my face into my covers. I glanced at the clock, feeling rushed for time.  My eyes widened.

HOW CAN IT ALREADY BE 1:30 AM?? I quickly jumped off my bed and quickly got ready.  As I did so, I realized that had a unit exam the next day--and I had not studied at ALL. I ruffled my hair in frustration, finally feeling the stress associated with christmas and the last week of school before winter break.

As I slipped under the covers, being the nerd I am, I attempted to run through the facts for the unit exam in chemistry I had tomorrow.  But sadly, it failed. You know those times at night, where you just lay there, and all the events from the day come to your mind? Well yea.  It was one of those nights--and I'm pretty sure you know which "event" I'm referring to.  And if you do (which you should), it was pretty damn distracting.  I let out a tiny scream, muffled by my blanket, thinking why I should even be stressed over something like this.  Besides, something in the back of my head told me I was overreacting about this whole thing.  I doubt Jinyoung was even worried about any of this.  I tried my best to fall asleep, not wanting to fall asleep during the test because I was too busy thinking about something that probably was just a waste of my time.

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The next day, as I walked out of Chemistry class, an ominous feeling arose in my stomach.  I did not have a good feeling about this.  I felt like a walking corpse as i trudged out of class to the cafeteria.  I could have cared less about the swarm of girls behind me and their whispers behind my back.  I was tired of their childish behavior and decided to just ignore them instead of running away from them.  As I walked into the cafeteria, I instantly spotted Suzy and Fei, sitting at the regular table we usually sit at.  And besides, its pretty hard not to notice where they were when Suzy was wearing a big red bow for a headband.

Fei saw me from the corner of her eye and frantically waved in my direction.  I waved back with not even 1/100th the amount of enthusiasm she used, still feeling slightly nauseous from the Chemistry test I clearly failed.  As I neared the table, Fei's excited smile turned into a concerned frown.

"MinAh....why do you look so pale? Did something happen?" she asked, lending me a hand to sit down.

"Nothing, nothing, just Chem," I said unemotionally.

They both rolled their eyes.

"Aish, MinAh, the worst that you can possibly get is a 99....... .5%"

Suzy spoke up before I would rant on about how that wasn't true and that I did actually fail this test.

"Did you do your Christmas shopping yet?" she asked cheerfully.

"Ani...." I replied, feeling terribly guilty. But her response was opposite to what I had expected.

"Great!" she clapped.

"Bwoh...?"

"Suzy and I were discussing right before you came," Fei said,"that we should just go shopping together and buy each other the presents we want, since we've all been pretty busy with school.  We were thinking of going Thursday after school."

Suddenly, it felt like a thousand tons were lifted off my shoulders.  This way, I did not have to fret about what to get for my friends, and even better, they planned the day that I was free.

"Sure that sounds great!  But it'll have to be quick, since I have work afterwards."

They looked at each other with cheeky smiles as I got out my lunch.

"What...."

"Oh you know~" Suzy teased, giving me a push on the shoulder

"Oh you know~" Fei followed, giving me another nudge to my other shoulder.

"No, I don't know," I said, then stuffed my mouth with food.

I, in fact, was very clear what they meant.  They meant Jinyoung.  I did not want to think about him, since I knew very well that if I did, it would be linked to what happened at work last night.  And the chain reaction would begin: My face would turn red, Fei and Suzy would become curious, bug me about it, and I will one way or another spill something about what happened.  Thus, we at in silence (or at least I did), trying not to participate in any discussion, trying not to think of Jinyoung and his actions.

But you can guess that that was impossible.

In reality, I was thinking about him, and only him, but just to myself.   All the things we had did together from the time I knew him flooded in my head, as my brain replayed the ones that made my heart explode whether I wanted it to or not.   I remembered the time when I bumped into him at the train station, and later on at the amusement park, an ulzaang before my eyes.  Never would I have imagined that that I had known that "ulzzang for a very long time already. I remembered his voice through my speakers, when I did not know that Jinyoung was actually "Jin".  I remembered his smooth, clear, voice in my ears, like he was actually singing to me as we speak.  remembered his face during tutoring, how it was so calm while doing even the hardest question on the page, which he finished in a mere couple of seconds. I remembered the feeling of his presence when I had made the kimchi fried rice for him after tutoring, which was unexpectedly interrupted by his umma. The list went on and on, like my brain could only think of him, and only wanted to wanted to think of him.  It was amazing how it remembered every single detail, to the slightest movement of his, to the closest touch (yes, I'm aware this sounds extremely creepy).  It was almost as if I could not do anything about it, and my mind was seperated from the rest of my body.

"Yah."

"Yah."

"Yah."

"YAH."

"Eh?"

I quickly snapped out of my own world, seeing Fei and Suzy staring at me with weird looks.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"That's what we should be asking you," Fei said.

"Why?"

"The bell rang, pabo."

"EH?"

I looked around frantically, seeing that the people were slowly exiting the cafeteria.  The noise had evidently diminished, everyone starting to head to their classes.

"We should go!!" I panicked, never wanting to be late for class.  I patted my two friends on the back, rushing them off to their own class.

As we parted ways, I sighed, hitting myself on the head.  They were right.  I was really out of it today.  I am thinking about him too much for my own good, and its starting to show some negative results on my life.  This is just the beginning, I can't let it go even further.  I shook my head, trying to rid my head of the remaining thoughts about him, and scurried to my next class.

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Part 2 coming soon! <3 sorry for the wait ^ ^;