Chaekyung's head bobbed uncomfortably and she snuggled closer to her source of warmth, yawning tiredly. L.Joe laughed softly as he looked over his shoulder at his faux girlfriend, feeling her arms curl tighter around him.

He drove his motorbike slowly into the school compound, careful to go over the bumps as gently as possible. Chaekyung mumbled incoherently against his back, sniffing in his familiar smell and squeezing her eyes tighter. It was always difficult for her to wake up every morning but that morning was exceptionally bad because she had stayed up really late practicing for the math test that day.

L.Joe parked his bike and shut off the engine, chuckling softly to himself when the girl behind him still hadn't stirred. He peered over his shoulder and watched her sleep, a soft smile on his face.

The realization that he loved her made only one change to what L.Joe felt, and that was the striking awareness of how attracted he was to her. He thought she looked exceptionally adorable when she slept, and though Chaekyung was to some extent adorable as some of her fanboys might agree, she wasn't exactly adorable when was slightly opened and she was unfortunately drooling lightly in her sleep.

However that was another one thing about love L.Joe realized, it was that whatever flaws or shortcomings the other person had, he loved and embraced every one of them.

L.Joe slipped his arm through both the loops of his bag and hers and after some struggle, managed to loosen Chaekyung's grip around his waist and instead wrapped his arms around his neck. He smirked to himself when he noticed Chaekyung wearing shorts instead of skirts or dresses, remembering the argument they got into a few days back when she complained that she never got to wear dresses because he drove a bike.

L.Joe had told her that she had to make do because her boyfriend drove a motorbike. He added that he didn't mind if she still wore skirts while riding his bike, sending her a sly wink and earning slaps on his arm in return.

He fixed his expression, reminding himself not to smile so cheesily all the time because it looked creepy. With swag only L.Joe would have, he somehow managed to get off his bike AND also grab onto Chaekyung's thighs, propping her onto his back.

People whispered as L.Joe passed them while piggy-backing Chaekyung as if it was a common everyday sight. Chaekyung slept on against L.Joe's shoulder and L.Joe made it a point to glare at anyone who spoke a tad too loudly near him lest they woke her up. 

The entire female population was swooning in appreciation at L.Joe's romantic gestures and every single one of them wished fervently that they were Chaekyung instead. The said girl had no idea what was going on and was still sleeping soundly.

It was amazing how Chaekyung could still continue sleeping the entire journey towards the classroom, and it wasn't until the bell rang for five minutes before the start of class that jerked her out of her slumber.

She blinked and rubbed her eyes in confusion, especially at her sudden bird's eye view. She blinked at the back of the red head, unable to figure out what the mass of red hair was. "Finally awake?" the red head turned around to reveal the handsome face she had been dreaming about just few moments ago.

"Huh." she blinked. Her eyes widened when she looked around her and saw that people were staring and hiding their giggles at the couple's adorable interaction. It finally registered that she was in school and on the back of her faux boyfriend as he carried her to class.

"LEE BYUNGHUN! PUT ME DOWN!" Chaekyung buried her face in embarrassment, her face growing red rapidly. What in the world was he doing! She never realized she was that tired to have fallen asleep on his bike, but she never would have expected him to carry her to class instead of waking her up with sharp, rude comments.

"We're already reaching." L.Joe muttered, not at all bothered. He strode calmly into their class, ignoring Chaekyung's peltering soft punches and finally let her down in her own seat. Her face was bright red by that time and she immediately buried her face in her hands. "Lee Byunghun!!!" she whined. "Why didn't you wake me up!"

L.Joe laughed softly and plopped her bag down beside her. "Hey, I was being nice because I thought you needed the sleep." he pulled her hands from her face. "Look at your panda eyes." he poked her cheek.

"I could've spent these five minutes memorizing the math formulas!" Chaekyung pouted, getting anxious now because she realized there was only five minutes to the start of the day, which also meant five minutes to the start of her dreaded math test. She forgot about being mad at L.Joe for the embarrassing entrance and began freaking out, grabbing at her hair frantically. "Eotteohke Ariel? The test starts in 5 minutes, and my mind is completely empty right now!"

L.Joe pulled a chair to sit beside her and cupped both her cheeks, forcing her to look at him. The girls in the class swooned once more. Gawd, could a boyfriend get any hotter than this?

"Hey." he gazed at her softly. "Haven't you been practising the past two weeks and getting better exponentially? I've been there with you and you're improving. I never sweet-coated my words before have I? So trust me okay? You're going to do fine." he raised his brows, searching her eyes.

Chaekyung was slightly startled by L.Joe's sudden gentleness but mostly, she was touched. She closed her eyes took three deep breaths, calming herself. Yes, L.Joe was right, she was going to be fine.

She had no idea that the other guy was instead focusing on very different things instead. L.Joe watched Chaekyung as she suddenly closed her eyes while taking deep breaths, obviously trying to calm herself but all L.Joe could focus on was the pretty face of the girl he loved, just inches in front of him. His eyes fell to her lips involuntarily and he his own in response.

He never realized it but gawd, had he been so hormonal before? All he could think of was how much he wanted to pull her lips to his and how his heart was pounding against his chest so hard that he was certain she could hear it.

He didn't even realize when Chaekyung already opened her eyes and was looking at him with a smile. "Yep, it's going to be fine." she nodded firmly. L.Joe gave her a smile, not catching a single word she said while trying to tear his eyes away from her lips. He patted her head and dragged his chair away from her, sitting far away at his seat to clear his mind.

He eyed her from the corner of his eye and let out a short breath. “But I don’t think I’ll be.” He muttered, his lips once more.

“Why do you look so happy?” Jaekyung smiled at her sister, watching the younger one skip around the house while doing her chores. Chaekyung grinned up at her sister while wiping the table and did a short impromptu happy dance. “I think I did well in today’s math test!” she squealed. “This is the first time I’ve felt this! I have a good feeling about it!”

Jaekyung chuckled in amusement. “Well I’m glad, this is the first time I’ve heard you saying this too.” She observed with a soft smile. “I guess this has to do with L.Joe’s persistent help these two weeks?” she hinted in a teasing voice.

Chaekyung harrumphed but didn’t reply, knowing that L.Joe’s mentoring had been monumental in her leaps of improvement. She was also secretly amused by how he hid his intellectual abilities in order to attain his badass delinquent image, of which she found rather cute and endearing now.

Jaekyung watched her sister from afar, laughing quietly to herself, no doubt remembering the inside jokes between L.Joe and her. The former felt a warm fuzzy feeling from the bottom of her chest, genuinely happy when she saw that her sister was happy.

“I guess you really do like L.Joe a lot huh, Chae?” Jaekyung murmured wistfully. “I’m so glad he transferred to our school Chae. You’ve been a whole lot brighter and more cheerful ever since he came.” She gave Chaekyung a smile before moving towards the stairs. “Guess love works wonders huh?”

With that, Jaekyung disappeared around the corner.

Chaekyung stared at where her sister was and choked on her saliva, pounding her chest with her fist. “Love?” she croaked. “Who said anything about love?!” she shook her head, wrinkling her nose. She DID NOT loveeee L.Joe, the one she loved was L.

Or did she still?

As if an answer to her question, the doorbell rang at that instant and disrupted all her thoughts as Chaekyung rushed to open the door. L beamed down at her and ruffled her hair affectionately. “Hey Chaekyung! How was your math test today?”

“Good!” Chaekyung smiled back distractedly, her own eyes widening in realization. L didn’t notice anything as he made his way to the stairs. “That’s good to hear. I’ll go find Jae now, I think she’ll be surprised.” He disappeared as well.

Chaekyung nodded half-heartedly as she leaned against the wall. Her hand came up to her heart as she took note of how regular her heart beats were. This was...well, completely different from how she reacted in the past. She could hardly bear watching L and Jaekyung together last time, but now they didn’t bother her as much anymore.

In fact, she never even wrote about L in the scrapbook for ages. She was so preoccupied with L.Joe and his silly business all the time that L rarely popped into her mind anymore.

So okay, perhaps she didn’t like L anymore. That was a relief to be finally free of feelings that could only bring hurt. However what she was more concerned over was her new possible feelings for L.Joe.

Just because she didn’t like L anymore didn’t mean she liked L.Joe right?

...

A sudden scene of L.Joe carrying her on his back earlier that day popped into her mind and Chaekyung involuntarily blushed once more. She remembered the numerous times when she wished she was his girlfriend for real so that all he did was directed to her and not an act.

L.Joe, with his demanding stubborn ways had somehow barged into her life making a permanent presence and...and...she could no longer picture the future without him in it. She could hardly picture the future if they stopped this fake girlfriend boyfriend thing.

The reminder that they weren’t dating for real stabbed right in her heart and that was when Chaekyung knew: she liked him. Damn.

------

It's been...2 months? I'M ASHAMED T.T

I'm so sorry for such slow updates life has been tough and unforgiving :/ Finals were crazy and I'm just glad it all ended. I will be updating my ongoing stories more regularly from now on! :)

Thank you for sticking with me and....happy holidays? >.< hehehe