Stay? I thought, slightly confused. My mind was buzzing with a bunch of questions like Why does he want me to stay? What'll happen if I stay here? What'll happen if I don't? Why is this such a big deal to me? All of these thoughts were going through my head in a matter of seconds, much less coherent than they seemed to be, all while Jiyong's hand remained on my wrist and his big doe eyes stared right at me. Eventually I nodded and slid back onto the couch next to him where he wound his arms around me, though his body seemed tense.

What made you want me to stay all of a sudden?

Whenever you leave I try to go to sleep but just end up missing you.

I just grasped his hand and kissed his knuckles, smiling up at him while he blushed. I could tell he was a little nervous, and to be honest so was I, though I wasn't completely sure why. It's not that I was worried that something would happen - If so, great; If not, oh well- it's just that I was concerned about Jiyong. Taeyang really hurt him and, although I didn't know the whole story, from what I was told it was a really bad breakup. I just wanted him to feel comfortable around me, not pressured.

Some show was on the TV in front of us, something about zombies and dead people. I wasn't fond of it, nor did I really want to watch it, but Jiyong liked it so I took the half hour to think about some things. And by think, I mean look, or maybe stare, at Jiyong. I gushed about how cute he was all the time, and Bom was thoroughly annoyed with me about it, but every time I looked at him I saw something different, especially in his eyes. This time, they were darker than usual because he was tense, but I noticed a lot that when we were around each other for a long time they got a little darker around his pupils. And sometimes when he was tired they'd get cloudy, maybe a tiny bit gray. Of course, whenever I complimented him those deep brown orbs would brighten, though I almost never got to see that happen because he would tilt his head down and blush.

You're staring at me again.

You're just so interesting to look at.

I've never thought of myself like that before.

Well next time you've got the chance, look in the mirror until you see all of the amazing things I do when I look at you.

What if I can't?

Then I'll just explain all of them to you until you can.

He smiled halfheartedly and accepted my small kiss, the corners of his mouth lifting a little bit more. We watched the rest of the gross zombie show until Jiyong suggested we start getting ready for bed. When he pulled me by my hand to go to his bedroom, I noticed that his palms were unusually sweaty. He had nothing to be nervous or scared about…

Jiyong let me borrow a pair of his sweatpants and I was so tempted to put them on in front of him, just to see what he would do, but the likeliest reaction would be death by blushing, so I went to his bathroom instead. I stared at myself in his mirror for a while, trying to flatten out my hair a bit more. I didn't bother taking my makeup off, I didn't have that much on to begin with, so it wasn't like I'd get it all over his pillow.

When I came out of his bathroom, Jiyong had changed as well, into black bottoms and a looser shirt. He was standing in front of the mirror above his dresser, running a hand through his mussed up hair and looking into the infinite depths of his reflection, trying to see what I did.

I snuck up behind him and placed my hands on his hips, kissing his neck when he jumped. We were looking at each other in the mirror and I saw his eyes twinkle as they took on the darker shade I'd been waiting to see.

_____________________
 

I didn't push Jiyong into anything that night; I didn't even try to gently persuade him. That wasn't my intention, and I was totally content to just go along with whatever he was comfortable with. If that meant lying next to him for the rest of the night, painfully hard and uncomfortable, then I would just deal with it. At that moment however, at one in the morning, we were sitting on his bed playing Scrabble, completely clothed. And he was kicking my .

He was either really lucky or a boss at scrabble, but he was coming up with words like 'enzyme' and 'grouses' and 'binary' while I had amazing words such as 'cat' and 'pie'and of course 'to.' How he came up with such long, -kicking words was beyond me, but he was clearly winning no matter what I played. Either I was majorly ty at Scrabble or he was a wizard.

Right after Jiyong had spelled out 'quilt' I used his U to play 'cute.' He grinned and poured out the bag of tiles, not caring about rules anymore and putting 'perfect' on the board. I went along with the little game he was inventing and we went on to spell out lots of fantastic words- stunning, y, flawless, adorable, lovely, radiant, and beautiful. Jiyong even used a sideways V and a backwards E to make a heart, spelling out Jiyong (hearts) Seunghyun. I chuckled and leaned across our ed up Scrabble board to connect our lips.

It was inevitable that we ran out of letters by two thirty so I helped Jiyong put all of the tiles back in the bag. I wasn't that tired, though I knew I should've been, but I snuggled into his comfy bed anyways, opening my arms for him to crawl into after he clicked the lights off. Jiyong had become much more comfortable with me throughout the rest of the night, especially after I reassured him that I was willing to wait as long as he needed me to. He'd blushed his poor little head off but thanked me nonetheless.

He lied down so he was facing me and pressed his forehead to mine, our noses lightly touching and our arms around each other. Jiyong's breathing was matching up with mine yet I could still feel his heart beating faster than normal. Kissing him like there was no tomorrow probably wasn't the best way to help calm him down but I did it anyway, slipping my tongue into his mouth before he had time to react.

He didn't push me away, just melted into me, so I took the initiative to pull him closer to me. I sighed into his mouth, loving the way his lips made my heart flutter and letting my hands roam free. They slid underneath his shirt and up his torso, and I could feel his abdomen tighten and I glided my hand around his waist to the small of his back, even dipping down to cup his for a moment. There was still no resistance from Jiyong, which somewhat surprised me, but I didn't go any further than that; I simply kept my hands in place for a while.

The little noise he made that drove me crazy reached my ears and I pressed my body even closer to his. Jiyong's hands were under my shirt too, and I was close to ripping his off, if only to see the undoubtedly flawless skin beneath it. I promised him I would wait, I wouldn't push him into doing anything he wasn't comfortable with, and it seemed to me that I was pushing our barrier a little too far.

I painfully pulled away from him and stared into his eyes, trying to find any bit of fear. There was the smallest bit of apprehension but it was enough to make me realize that tonight wasn't the night, as sweet and sensual as it had been. I just took a deep breath and told Jiyong I loved him, smiling a bit when he returned the sign. He turned around so his back was towards me and I tried my best to sleep with my heart beating too fast.