A few days later, Kai said we had a place to practice outside of school now.

He followed me to my locker after school that day after telling me. “What are you doing?” I asked, annoyed,” We set up the stupid corner for a reason. Stop following me.”

He leaned against the lockers near mine while I looked for what I needed. “Well my house is in the opposite direction of your house, so unless you want to take a round trip to the stupid corner and back, you should accept that the corner will be useless today.”

“Your house?”

“Yeah,” he said with a challenging tone.

“What does your house have to do with the dance studio you said you found?”

He shook his head. “You idiot. The dance studio is in my house,” he said pushing my forehead with his index finger.

I slapped his hand away and slammed my locker. I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to go to his place. I hadn’t been there in ages. Thinking about it made me realize that I never saw his room. It made me curious.

“Fine,” I said, “But stay behind me.”

He walked in front of me instead. I was about to follow him through the front doors of the school but a hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me back. It was Yoonhee. Naeun was standing next to her.

“Where are you going? We’re right here,” she said.

I brushed her hand off my wrist, “I’ll tell you guys later, I’m in a hurry.”

I walked away from them as fast as I could and saw Kai standing with his arms crossed.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said grabbing his arm.

“Well looks like someone’s eager to get to my place,” he said with a smirk.

I shot him a glare.

After about ten minutes of walking in silence, we saw a convenience store.

“Oh! Let’s get some food, I’m starving!” I said walking in.

“Fine but you’re paying,” he called.

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t have any money. But I was pretty sure he did. I didn’t tell him that I didn’t have money, not yet. If I did, he would have pulled me out.

“Let’s get these,” he said grabbing bags of different kinds of chips. I agreed and headed to where the ramen was. I grabbed a few packs and was about to turn back to the chip aisle when Naeun and Yoonhee walked in. Crap.

“Let’s get some chips!” I heard Naeun say. And then Yoonhee’s small gasp. She saw Kai. I peeked at them through the shelves of junk food. He didn’t even bother to look at her. He just turned away to walk to the counter.

“He’ll notice you next time,” I heard Naeun say reassuringly.

All of a sudden I felt a hot breath on my neck and a voice whispered, “What are you doing?”

I jumped and turned around. It was Kai. I slapped his arm and said,” Don’t do that again! Hurry, we have to get out of here.”

We dumped all our food onto the counter. The ajumma told us our total and Kai looked at me, expecting me to pay. I smiled as sweetly as I could to him and said, “I don’t have any money.”

He groaned and pulled out his wallet. He pulled out the last of his money slowly. We didn’t have enough.

The ajumma smiled kindly before saying, “It’s alright, I’ll let you go this time since you’re such a cute couple.”

I opened my mouth to deny but Kai put his arm around my waist and pulled me close to him. I don’t think I was able to breathe for a few seconds. I was probably going to drop dead while dancing Troublemaker if a small touch to my waist made me stop breathing. “Thanks,” was all he said.

“Why’d you say that?” I asked once we were out of the store, “We’re not a couple.”

“Are you sure? We have matching phone charms now.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. Luckily he kept on talking.

“Besides,” he continued,” Why did you get so much ramen for me? I don’t eat as much as you think men do.”

I laughed. “What, you think most of this ramen is for you? I’m getting most of this.”

“You eat so much for a girl. Aren’t you worried you’re going to get fat?” he asked.

“Of course not! I burn off everything dancing. And I can’t function without food so never expect me to do something unless I’m fed.”

He snorted. “What kind of girl are you?”

“A girl who’s going to attack you if you don’t shut it right now.”

“Oooh feisty. I like it.”

I elbowed him and left him behind, doubled over in pain.

We reached his house. The outside looked the same as I remembered it. It was a big, beautiful two-story house made of grayish-brown bricks. The shutters of the windows were painted white and the two garage doors were painted a cream color. The small lawn on the left side of the house was perfectly green, like always.

“You get amazed so easily.”

I glared at him. “It’s been like, five years since I’ve seen this place!”

He shrugged, “Whatever you say.”

We walked in and the first thing he did was plop on the couch and opened a bag of chips. I plopped down next to him and tried to grab some chips in the bag when he moved the bag away and stared at me.

“What?” I asked.

“There’s another couch right there. Why did you have to sit next to me?” he asked with a smug look on his face.

How dare he use my line? “Well you have the bag of chips,” I argued.

“Get your own,” he replied, sticking a chip into his mouth.

“I hate you.”

“I know. Love you too.”

My heart started thumping harder as a grabbed a different bag of chips and sat in a different couch. “Love you too…” Kai brought out so many feelings in me and it was all overwhelming and confusing. He annoyed me with his stupid smart comments. And then he melted my heart with the sweet ones.

Oh god, “melted my heart”? I was starting to sound like a helpless girl falling in love. Nope, definitely not me. Those “sweet” comments probably meant nothing to him. They shouldn’t mean anything to me either.

After we finished snacking, I followed him to the “studio”. I figured it would just be a room with mirrors on the closet doors and that he was exaggerating. As we walked through the house, childhood memories flooded my mind.

We walked past Suho’s room and the door was open. Then I remembered being in there when I was nine. He was seventeen at the time. It was the day I told him my biggest secret, something I could never admit to someone ever again.

FLASHBACK

“Hey,” said a voice. “Eunmi?”

Someone shook my arm. My eyes opened with tears and my heart was beating fast.

Suho’s face looked down at me. He placed his hand on the side of my face and brushed his thumb back and forth on my cheek. Usually I would brush his hand away if he tried to touch me. I hated affection. But right now, I was too shocked and scared to brush him away.

“Are you alright?”

I sat up with his help. “What happened?” I asked.

“You accidentally fell asleep on my bed,” he replied with a smile.

“So it wasn’t real…” I said with a distant voice.

“What?” he asked, “Did you have a nightmare?”

My lip quivered and I bit it to stop myself from crying but fresh tears filled my eyes anyways. Surprising myself, I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face into the crook of his neck so he wouldn’t see me crying. His arms wrapped around my small body making me feel safe and sound. He patted my back to calm me down.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

I don’t know what made me, but as soon as I opened my mouth I spilled everything. My voice was muffled since my face was still buried into the crook of his neck.

“It was in the future,” I started, “Me and my friends were all grown-ups. And then they all got married, one by one. Even Chen. And even Minjun. They all started having children and they looked so happy with their new families.”

I continued, my voice getting quieter,” I felt really happy for them but I wanted my own family too. So I waited. But it never happened. At the end, there was a mirror in front of me. And an old lady stared back at me.”