...ch 6 and 7 will be edited still...

            This damn routine carried on for some time longer.  Hyun Joong and I met so often, we actually finished our project nearly a month before the end of the semester.  The ball was coming up fast.  Thankfully though, he hadn’t mentioned my not having date again.

            Yet.

            We finished on a Friday and Hyun Joong said we should hang out to celebrate.  He offered to buy me dinner.  And I said yes because I can’t say no to him and his sweet smile and I hadn’t been able to get a hold of Kyung for a week.  A week.  A bleeping week!  We keep leaving messages for each other and that is just not cutting it anymore for me.  Especially considering before the week we spent not speaking to each other, we barely sent text messages to each other for a month.  Barely speaking for a few minutes on the phone.

            I don’t even want to count how long it’s been since I’d seen him.

            Although at this point, I’d take ‘barely’ speaking to not speaking at all.

            So Hyun Joong and I had dinner.  Just dinner.  Food.  Good food.  Talk.  Comfortable talk.  Laughter.  He knew just what to say to make me laugh.  Flirting.  One attempt at footsie on his part.  I was so shocked when he rubbed his foot up my shin, I jumped, and knocked over my water glass.

            After dinner, which he paid for, but I convinced my delusional self that it was because dinner was his idea, he mentioned that we should go to the roof of the building that held the restaurant because it was a surprisingly clear Seoul night.  We could look at the stars.  Stars.  He wanted to go star gazing.

            And what did my stupid self say?  “Ok, yeah, let’s go!”

            So there we were.  Lying side by side on the floor of the roof, staring up at the night sky.  Night sky full of stars.  So romantic.  I told myself, though, that it was a good sign that the first thing I thought of when I first glanced up to see the black velvet sky sprinkled with bright stars was that I wished Kyung were here.

            Until Hyun Joong started speaking.

            “You know, I kind of hated that project,” he began folding his arms behind his head still staring up at the sky.  I giggled.  “But I’m almost sad it’s over.”

            “Sad?  Are you nuts?” I teased.  “My brain was beginning to hurt.”

            He laughed in reply and added, “Well, yeah, I’m not sad about the project being over, but now that it is, we have no reason to meet anymore.”

            Kill me.  “Well…” For some reason, I couldn’t get the giggle right.  “We, uh, could…I mean, we-we can still hang out sometimes…as f-friends.”  Madison.  Comes from the Latin for ‘stuttering idiot.’

            I sighed and drummed my fingers on my stomach, trying to appear casual even though Hyun Joong had flipped onto his side and was staring at me.  He was so close.  I could smell his cologne.  The elbow that was propping up his head was barely brushing my shoulder.  It was a chilly night, but it suddenly felt like my scalp was beginning to sweat.

            “Maddie, did you ever get a date to the ball?  It’s coming up,” he mentioned.  I could feel his eyes on me as I continued to look at the sky, but couldn’t focus on anything.

            My bag was by my feet.  I wouldn’t be able to reach my phone.

            Sort of.  “Yes.”  Good girl, Madison.  Kyung said he’d call and try to make it late so that kind of counts as having a date.  Kind of, sort of.

            “Oh,” he sighed, still watching me.  I felt kind of bad at hearing him sound so disappointed.  I almost wanted to take it back and tell him I didn’t have a date at all.  I also wanted to throw up.  “I don’t have one, but I can’t get out of it, so I’m still going to go,” he replied.  He added a chuckle at the end.  Then he sighed and plucked a piece of hair that had blown over my face.  His fingers brushed the side of my nose as he moved the hairs away.  I was glad for the darkness.  He couldn’t see my blush.  “I know I’m probably out of line here, but I really like you, Maddie.  I’ve wanted to tell you for a while now, but…”  He paused to laugh a little.  “I don’t know, but I really do.”

            “Hyun Joong…”  Was his face closer?  I couldn’t turn to look at him.  In my peripheral vision, his face was more blurry than before.

            I almost exploded right out of my skin when I felt him place his fingers on my chin and turn my face to his.  “Yes?” he breathed.

            Too close.  Too close.  Not ok.  Move.  Move.  Move…

            I could feel his breath on me.  He leaned his weight forward, still on one elbow and braced himself up on the hand he put on the floor on the other side of my head.  Too close.  Much too close.  He his lips.  His tongue barely touched my bottom lip.

            Scrambling away from him, I almost knocked him over as I stumbled to my feet.  It took me three tries to pick up my bag.

            “I-I-I…”  I didn’t even know what I was going to say.  Oh, how about ‘I have a boyfriend’ for starters?  “I have to go now.”

            He was standing in front of me now.  “Maddie,” he cleared his throat, “Madison, I’m sorry.  That was inconsiderate of me.”

            “No, no.  It’s not that, it’s just…”  I. Have. A. Boyfriend.  “I’m not…I like you, but I just…I really have to go.”

            He nodded and stuffed his hands into his pockets after shouldering his back pack.  “Let me walk you back then.  It’s late.  Not safe for you to go alone.”

            The small talk we made on the walk back to my dorm was forced.  He was chattering a mile a minute and I knew he was uncomfortable.  I felt bad.  He seemed to be ok.  Or at least was really good at hiding it by the time we reached my dorm.  He smiled and said goodnight.  I did the same and then bolted into my building without looking back.

            I wasn’t in the mood to sit around with my friends who were hanging out in the living room.  I told them I was tired and went straight to bed.  I was having a hard time keeping Hyun Joong from my friends, but I didn’t want them to know.  There was something very wrong with me and I was almost ashamed.  I shut the door and put my iPod headphones on, setting my ‘all songs Block b’ playlist on repeat, I hopped up into bed.

            I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know, someone is whispering words to me I couldn’t understand in my sleepy state and leaving light kisses on my face.

            “No…” I murmured.  If this is Hyun Joong, I’m going to be pissed.  How did he get into my room?  My mind began to wander with that.  Hmm, Hyun Joong in my room…

            Kiss.  Kiss.  “Baby, it’s me.  Wake up,” a voice whispered before another kiss was pressed to my temple.  Warm breath rolled over my cheek as the person laughed quietly.  “You must be exhausted.  I’m sorry, but wake up.”

            My eyes snapped open and I sat up.  I could faintly hear my iPod still playing in the background.  Frantically, I looked around, but the room was darker than dark.  A familiar silhouette was sitting next to me.  “Kyung!” I blurted out.  My hands automatically went to his face as if I needed physical reassurance that it was him even though I knew.  “Kyung.”  I could feel myself breaking down.  My fingers roamed over his face, remembering what it felt like to touch him.  I wrapped my arms around him, clinging to him, before I lost it completely and lunged at him.  I was possessed.  My hands found their way under his shirt and up his abs to his chest.  I kissed him hungrily, unable to stop myself.  Not that he seemed to want to stop me. 

            I felt guilty and he had no idea.  I should tell him what happened tonight.  I met his eyes and I almost shuddered.  I couldn’t tell him.  There’s nothing to tell, I told myself.  I didn’t kiss him.  He almost kissed me, but he didn’t and that was the important part!

            “I missed you, too,” he laughed, hugging me back once I pulled my face away from his neck.  I sat up and away from him to flick on the light on my night table.  I could still hear my iPod.  He must have pulled the earbuds out of my ears because they lay off to the side on my bed.

            “What are you doing here?  How did you get in?  What time is it?”  I gasped.  “Where’s Jordan?!”

            “I’m here for you.  Beki let me in.  It’s a little after one in the morning and Jordan is with Zico, of course,” he laughed.  “All four of us had enough of this not seeing our girlfriends business, so we snuck out.  Plus, I needed to see you tonight.  I got your text about you finishing your project.  You’ve been working so hard and so much on that thing.  I’m proud of you for finishing it so early!  I wanted to take you out to celebrate, but well I couldn’t…”  He looked away shyly.  “So the guys and I started talking about missing you girls.  Our plan was to kidnap you and take you back to the dorm, but you took so long to wake up, we’re the last ones here.  All alone.  Want to stay here?” he asked, his voice growing husky.  His eyes smoldering as he looked back to meet mine.

            “You’re going to stay here with me?” I asked, grabbing onto his shoulders.

            “Of course.”

            “But, tomorrow, don’t you have-”

            “Shh, be quiet…” he interrupted.  He leaned in closer and kissed me lightly on the mouth.  “Because your body talks louder when you’re silent,” he whispered against my lips.

            I shifted back to look at him oddly.  He cracked up and held one of my earbuds to me.  “I didn’t know you had this song.  Jordan gave it to you, didn’t she?”

            Frowning, I listened to the faint music still coming from my iPod.  It was Hanhae’s song Take it Off.  I laughed and shook my head.  “Her boy Zico is featured on that song, of course I got it from her.”

            “You girls have all our music?  Even our underground stuff?”

            “Of course!  We have everything Block b.”

            He smirked and listened to a little more of the song.  “…got your eyes saying ‘yes’ and your mouth saying ‘more,’” he said in time with the Hanhae in the song.

            I laughed and with a roll of my eyes, said, “My eyes might be saying ‘yes’ to you, but I didn’t say ‘more.’”

            His smirk still in place, he sat up on his legs and yanked his shirt off.  I managed to refrain from drooling as I caught site of his perfect abs.  “Give me a minute and you’ll be , I mean saying it.”  He nodded at me, biting his lower lip.  I almost had a .

            I suddenly had other things in mind than telling him about a kiss that didn’t even happen.

            I suddenly had other things in mind than telling him about a kiss that didn’t even happen.

            Finally, I sighed to myself.  The day of the ball arrived.  Jordan was doing my make up in the living area of our dorm while Beki and Amelia watched the weekly top ten music videos on TV.  We always watched it.  Block b had been on it for ten or so weeks.  Number one for three of them.

            I still wasn’t sure if Kyung was going to be able to make it, but when my mom took me shopping for the gown I’d wear for tonight, I was sure to pick out a backless one with a huge slit.  Just in case.

            “Hey, guys, have you ever…”  I trailed off.  I wasn’t sure I really wanted to do this now, but I was really in the need of some girl talk.  My friends were the ones who could help me with my dilemma.  I just still wasn’t sure I wanted them to know the inner workings of my mind.  It wasn’t pretty in there.

            “Ate a bug?  Gotten drunk and fell out of a car?  Drank an entire six pack of Coke?  What?  Have we ever what?” Beki demanded, hugging the pillow in her lap tighter.

           “Shut up, Beki,” Jordan laughed as she brushed some more eye shadow on the part below my eyebrow.

            “Let the girl talk,” Amelia added.  “Have we ever what, Maddie?”

            I sighed.  Jordan poked my cheek and gestured for me to look down so she could continue her work on my eye.  “Have you ever looked at another guy and…felt something?  Like chemistry?”

            “Yeah, Ji Ho,” Jordan answered, using her pointer finger to tilt my face up by my chin.  Immediately gathering more powder on her brush and going to work on my other eye.

            I laughed.  “No, I mean besides the guys.”

            “Every guy I look at makes me think of Yu Kwon,” Beki replied casually.  “I feel chemistry with him.”  I couldn’t see her, but I knew she was smirking when she added, “Among other things.”  The others giggled.  “Does that count?”

            “No,” I retorted.

            Jordan blew on my cheek lightly and rubbed at a spot on my cheek.  “Done.  Wait,” she said in the same breath as she pulled lip gloss out of her make up case that was tucked under her arm.  She stretched her lips into a thin line and looked at me, waiting for me to do the same.  I did and she began painting my lips with a shimmery pink gloss.  “And me either.  I’m so busy fantasizing about doing things to Ji Ho that I barely see other guys let alone feel anything with them.”  She shrugged and sat down in the chair opposite me.

            “Jae Hyo’s enough for me,” Amelia added with a shy giggle.  “I’m glad I don’t feel anything with anyone else.”  Wow.  Some help you girls were, I thought bitterly.

            I smiled as I watched the boy band’s music video on TV.  Number 3.  I didn’t know this band.

            “Smack your lips together to even it out,” Jordan ordered.  I obeyed.  “What’s this about, Maddie?” she then asked curiously.  “Don’t you feel all giggly and obsessive over Kyung?”

            I swallowed the sigh creeping up my throat.  Nodding, I faced my friends.  “No, yeah, I do.  I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only one,” I lied smoothly.  As my friends laughed, I mumbled something about needing to get my shoes.  Hurrying to my bedroom, I flopped into my desk chair, too weak to hoist myself up onto my bed.

            My head leaned back and I closed my eyes. 

            “Maddie?” a voice called softly from the doorway. 

            “What’s up, Amelia?” I smiled tiredly.

            “I want to change my answer,” she said as she tiptoed into my room.  She bounced up onto my bed and rested her chin in her hands as she stretched out on my bed and looked down at me.  “About other guys.”  Her voice was quiet.