JUNSU’S POV

     I swear, that girl just keeps getting cuter all the time. Even on the phone, she’s cute!

“You called!”

Like she never dreamed I would really call when she was the one who gave me her phone number.

I laughed at her. “Are you always going to be surprised when I do what I said I’d do?” I asked her teasingly.

She paused, and then asked, “So…did you talk to your manager yet?”

“That is why I called.” I tried to sound somber. My news wasn’t bad, but I wanted to see what she would do if I played around with her a bit. “He wasn’t too happy about me going out last night without asking first. So, understandably he wasn’t too enthusiastic about the idea of our relationship at first.” I was sure by now she was expecting the worse. “So, you know, I was pretty sure he’d say ‘no’ and guess what?” She made no sound and I wondered if she was holding her breath. “He said it would be ok!”

“What? Kim Junsu, don’t you ever do that to me again! You had me worried sick!”

I laughed. “Aw, you were that worried that we wouldn’t be able to be together?”

“Of course I was! You made it sound like your manager hated the idea of my being your girlfriend! He holds the fate of our relationship in his hands.”

Then my voice turned serious. I wanted her to know something. “Never. Even if he had said ‘no’ I would still continue loving you. And that’s exactly what I told him-er-almost exactly. I said it very politely. And he said, “Well, I can’t stop you from loving forever. What kind of life would that be? I might as well condone this relationship you’re wanting. But keep it low key, you know how the fans could get.””

“I can do that.” She sounded like she was smiling now. “Keeping low key is my best thing!”

“Great! Then, as much as I want to declare my love for you to whole world, I guess we’ll have to keep this a secret.”

“It’s not really a secret if more than one person knows about it.” She reasoned.

“Why, did you tell someone?” Not that I would have minded if she did.

“No, not yet, but I can’t keep anything a secret from my roommate, Kyung-sook. And you live with five other guys. How can they not know?”

“Well, that’s true. And I did promise them something…?” Without asking her first, although I was sure she’d go along with it.

“What?”

“That I would introduce you to them.”

“Oh, of course! Any friends of yours are friends of mine!”

I smiled. The other members would love that. “Same goes for me.”

“Then I guess you’ll want to meet my friends?”

“Sure. Why don’t we all get together at the same time then?”

“Oh my gosh, Kyung-sook would go nuts!”

I chuckled. “Then I guess that’s a ‘yes’?”

“Of course it’s a yes! When? What time?”

I thought about it, then said, “I picked our first date. You pick this time.”

“Oh, ok, um… How about Sunday? That’s my day off and Kyung-sook get’s off of work at 4:00. She usually goes to the library after that and Eun Hye usually studies in the park, but I don’t think they’ll mind changing their schedules for this.”

“Sounds good.” Then, because I couldn’t think of anything better to say, I said, “See you Sunday, then.”

“Ya, see you…” Don’t hang up…please don’t hang up!

“Hey Ara?”

“Ya?”

“I love you.” Click!

Ok, so I was the one who ended up hanging up, but I’d run out of things to say and I wanted the conversation to end on a good note. Besides, I was sure we were headed for an awkward silence, and that just would’ve been…awkward. I smiled at phone as if she were still there. I’d finally said it out loud. “I love you.” I hadn’t even really meant to, it just came out and then I hung up. I didn’t even get to see her reaction. But I could imagine her face. She would look surprised first. Then she’d smile and maybe she’d have tears in her eyes, like when I sang to her last night. And she’d probably hug me…