A mess. That’s what it had become:  one large mess. When she used to think about becoming a trainee the image came to her so easily. Working hard, being good, friends, a boyfriend the whole experience came together is a perfect little package. Unfortunately, living something through your minds-eye is much easier than actually experiencing it. She never imagined any conflicts, nothing that would make her uncomfortable or upset. But here she was, in a different country than the one she is used to, with problems.

It has been easily weeks since Kymin had even seen Yeji. Although that would be something incredibly difficult to do since they were roommates, she hadn’t realized till now. Every morning she was pulled from her bed by the thought that she needed to talk to Hyunsoo. He was so busy that she never could get an opportunity to talk to him without actively seeking him out.

Kymin frowned at the text on her phone. “Are you mad at me?” She still hadn’t answered that question. She still hadn’t spoken to Hyunsoo at all since she freaked out and ran out of the practice room. She knew the answer to the question, and she went out to talk to him every day, but she just couldn’t. She would always wind up standing outside his practice room watching him every night. Opening the door and walking in always proved to be too much for her, so she just watched. When he and would turn for the door she would run off, hiding where they couldn’t see her.

She felt like such a stalker. Every day she did this, and he never saw her. Kymin was sure she knew more about what he was doing than he knew about anything that was going on outside of huMEN. Recently she had been noticing that Hyunsoo and weren’t getting along. When she would watch through the window she would see one or both yelling, there were even a few times where it looked like a fight would break out. Beneath her desire to talk to him, she was worried. Things didn’t look too good.

Kymin shifted her body off of the couch and stretched her arms above her head. Yeji wasn’t home (she didn’t know why, but she wasn’t) and today was a day off. Kymin had briefly considered calling her brother to see if he was busy but decided against it, choosing to go find Hynsoo instead.

It didn’t take long for Kymin to ready herself in jeans and a sweater and leave the dorm to go off to huMEN’s practice room.

Closing in on the door she could only manage to peek through the window at Hyunsoo before continuing down the hall to a bench around a corner. She sighed and hung her head. There was that feeling again. Every time she would come around her stomach would twist and her muscles would tighten. She had to fight the urge to turn around and run when that door came into view. She was a stalker, she reminded herself. It’s creepy by nature.

A door slamming caught her attention, and she stood in search of the location. She peeked around the corner to find the familiar shape of Hyunsoo’s back standing outside the practice room. Kymin quickly threw herself back around the corner in fear of being seen but her leg caught on the bench sending her tumbling loudly to the ground.

“oh.”

Hyunsoo stood, torso peeking out behind the wall. His left eye and the flesh around it was a bit red, and he had what looked to be a bleeding cut in the corner of his mouth. Kymin scurried to her feet, ignoring the throbbing coming from her hip and thigh where she had landed. Her eyes widened, he was here. She was standing right in front of him.

She had so much to say, and even more to apologize for, but the words wouldn’t come out, instead creating a strong pressure in her chest.

“Hyunsoo! I-“ She stopped, her eyes finally taking in his appearance. She lifted up a hand, and he turned his head, hiding his red eye from her view. She took a hold of his wrist and pulled him around the corner.

“Sit down” she ordered, pushing him onto the bench.

Hyunsoo only stared at her, trying to make sense out of her presence. It had been so long since he had even spoken to her. He was sure she was just done with him, but she was here, strangely close to his practice room. He pondered over this and Kymin stood, uncomfortably shifting from one foot to the other, unsure of what to do or say, once again.

“Are you okay?” Kymin averted her eyes from his face after asking. What else could she say? I was a weird situation, part of her wanted to confess, but Hyunsoo was in a state with a soon-to-be-bruised eye and a split lip.

Hyunsoo smiled brightly, surprising Kymin when she finally turned her gaze to meet his.

“Are you hungry?” He asked, standing from the bench. Kymin narrowed her eyes at him, all feelings of nervousness being drained from her body.

“I want to know why you look like you were in a fight.”

Slowly the smile slid off of Hyunsoo’s face and he turned his body sideways, glancing in the direction of his practice room. He responded without looking back at Kymin.

“Please come eat with me.”

Kymin didn’t respond, only watched the expression on his face. There was really something going on with him. He didn’t look good. She knew that he and had been fighting, but she didn’t think it would be this bad. Suddenly her woories seemed insignificant right now. He didn’t seem to be mad at her for being creepy around the corner from his space.

“I’ll pay.” Hyunsoo pleaded, now looking at Kymin again.

She sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. Opening them she kept her eyes to the ground and reached forward, taking a hold of his hand. Turning she walked quietly in the opposite direction of the practice room, Hyunsoo following her without as much as a tug on his hand.

He stayed slightly behind her as she led them a round-about way to the exit of the building. Suddenly the air seemed much thicker, pushing into his lungs like honey. She wasn’t mad at him, and for some reason that made him completely forget everything that had happened over the past month. When she had stormed out of the room after he he thought she was mad. For a while, recently, he had been thinking she didn’t want to be his friend anymore. He almost wanted to laugh as he realized he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Hyunsoo watched her face as they walked. Her eyes were set straight forward, and was closed tightly, even though it would occasionally twitch upward in the beginnings of a smile before it would fall back and her jaw would clench. Hyunsoo felt a smile begin to spread on his face, his eye twinging in protest. Glancing down at their hands he considered shifting his into a more comfortable position, as her palm was currently pressed against the top of his hand rather than his palm.

With another glance at her face, he decided against it, sure that she would probably panic and withdraw her hand if he moved at all. Hyunsoo continued to study her as they walked, now outside, through the streets toward somewhere.

Kymin just walked, using her energy towards putting one foot on the ground before the other one so she could ignore Hyunsoo. She could feel him to her side as if his chest were pushed up against the back of her right shoulder, but she was sure he wasn’t that close. Looking back would mean to acknowledge that she had completely botched an attempt at holding his hand. Speaking of, it felt like his hand was searing her palm it was so hot. She had trouble focusing on anything else (especially walking) if she thought about it. They were going to eat, she was going to walk both of them into a restaurant and they would eat. She wouldn’t talk about holding his hand. She wouldn’t even acknowledge the feelings she suddenly sure about. He is hurt, that’s what’s important.

A convenience store caught her eye on her left and just like that she was in complete sensory overload. His hand became too much in her, his presence became suffocating. Kymin turned sharply to her left, dropping his hand once they were inside. Without a word or glance she took off down an aisle, grabbing the first edible thing she saw.

The smile still hadn’t left Hyunsoo’s face, even after entering the convenience store and having his hand thrown away like a dead fish. He kept his distance as he followed Kymin through the aisles, grabbing a can of coffee as he passed. When she reached the counter with what he saw was kimbap and a bottle of water, he came up next to her, quickly putting down his coffee and paying for both of their items.

It was easily minutes after they had sat down outside the store before Kymin spoke. She had been glaring down at her food, unsure of how to start talking after being silent for so long. Hyunsoo only watched her, smiling as he waited for her to say something.

“Why are you staring at me?” Kymin finally lifted her eyes from the food she wasn’t going to eat to look at Hyunsoo. This wasn’t the kind of first words she wanted to say…but they were the ones that came out of , so she was just going to go with it. Hyunsoo only smiled more.

“Thank you.” He answered.

“For what?” Her eyebrows knitted together, eyes examining the out of place smile below his rapidly bruising eye.

“Eating with me.” He responded.

“I took you to a convenience store” she scoffed. Hyunsoo let out  a short chuckle and reached for Kymin’s food, opening it once it was in his grasp.

“You did. And you’re not eating.” He smiled again, meeting her eyes.

Kymin sighed continuing to eye the smile and the bruising skin above it. She picked up her water bottle, shifting her body so she could place it against his face.

“Why do you have a black eye and a bleeding lip, Hyunsoo?”

She removed her hand when his reached the water bottle, the smile gone from his face.

“Ah. That?”

Kymin her teeth, rolling her eyes. Was he really going to try to avoid it? She opened to reprimand him, but he started speaking again.

“I got in a fight.”

“Yeah. I gathered that. Your member, right?”

“How would you know that?”

Kymin froze. She said the wrong thing. Her eyes darted about the table searching her mind for something to say that didn’t scream ‘I’ve been stalking you’. Hyunsoo sighed as he watched the look of panic flash on her face.

“I’ll just tell you. Yeah. Haeri, my member. We don’t exactly get along. He looks worse though. I am a blackbelt, you know.” He smiled again. It was Kymin’s turn to sigh.

They wouldn’t be able to talk to each other comfortably if she remained so uncomfortable. She took another breath before she met his eyes.

“Look, don’t joke around. I’m really worried that you are hurt.” Her eyes fell to the table, unable to look at him the longer she talked. “I know that you two haven’t been getting along. I just didn’t think it would come to an actual fist fight.”

“Noona.” Hyunsoo tried to interrupt, but Kymin kept talking.

“I should have walked into the room and talked to you sooner, I just couldn’t. Every time I dried I’d have a mental breakdown. Because of the way I freaked out, you know?” She looked back up at him and froze again.

This was ridiculous. One second she is doing everything she can to not tell him that she has been watching him for weeks, the next she is just saying it. This would be a good time to just stand up and go back to the dorm, crawl under the covers and not come out until her class tomorrow.

“Do you want to be my girlfriend, noona?” That smile was back on Hyunsoo’s face. Kymin opened to respond, but didn’t find the words. Just as she pushed he seat back to stand up, Hyunsoo spoke again.

“Would it make you feel better?”

She looked up at him again, still wanting to talk, but still completely lost on what to say. These weren’t questions she didn’t know the answer to, but the answer wasn’t something she could bring herself to say out loud. She just stared at Hyunsoo with her hands on the arms of the plastic chair, poised to stand up and run away from this uncomfortable situation. Hyunsoo removed the water bottle from his face and put it down, scanning Kymin’s face quickly before speaking again. The smile had dropped from his face again and he watched her seriously.

He had been having such an upsetting and tiring few weeks, living with constant tension between him and Haeri. They were supposed to work out their differences and come together so they would be successful, but instead they just get into a fist fight over a look. Their tensions had finally turned so high that Hyunsoo looking at Haeri “the wrong way” resulted in violence. Being at this convenience store with one of his favorite people gave him such a good feeling. Even more, the multiple expressions that crossed her face since he seen her in the hallway were completely mesmerizing. He had seen a lot of the expressions she made on other girls faces, but it’s never looked as genuine as Kymin has. The part that got him the most was the concern, he could see it clearly in her that she developed feeling for him in their time apart, but the concern in her face seemed just as strong, if not stronger.

“I’m confident it would solve my problems.” Hyunsoo smiled at her again.

Kymin remained stiff in her seat, eyes wide and mouth open slightly, twitching from time to time with words she couldn’t get a hold on. Hyunsoo sighed and stood out of his chair, approaching hers.

“I’ll try again.”

 Pulling out her chair he took hold of her arms and pulled her into a standing position wasting no time in wrapping his arms around her shoulders. He rested his nose lightly against her temple.

“I like you, noona. Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

Woah, guys!

Check it out! I updated after being lazy for nearly a year, I think? Woah man. I hopt you guys like it.

I was actually pretty difficult to write because of not working on this is such a long time.