“Wow, you look really nice.”

 I must have blushed scarlet because his smile transformed into a blinding grin that dazzled me from head to toe. Nibbling on my bottom lip, I looked down at myself in a red and green matching elf costume that I thought was going to look stupid but from the way Jongin’s eyes were roaming  appreciatively over me I’m guessing it looked alright, or nice as he said.

 He was also in an elf costume which honestly made him look so young with his dark brown fluffed up hair that I was itching to run my fingers through.

 “Thank you, I got to say you don’t look so bad yourself.” I smiled back at him, trying to force the dazzle out of my eyes. What surprised was how quickly his smile dropped into a small shy one; he ruffled his untidy hair and gestured for me to follow him by nodding towards the photo shoot setting where the other EXO members were chatting amicably.

 We walked closely side by side trading shy glances; I knew I was attracted to him, incredibly so, both his on-stage personality and off-stage, in-fact I’ve never met anybody who could set my whole body on fire and the next moment make my skin tingle all the way from my toes to my finger tips with one of his beautiful smiles. All that was getting in the way was the fact I had no idea if he liked me that way, I’ve seen him act the same way with other girls, especially the older Korean ones.

 Jongin waved to me as he joined his friends which caught the eyes of some of the EXO members who looked over at me with suspicious looking smiles that set off another round of blushing. Casting Jongin a tiny wave I rushed over to the photographer – My Korean father’s brother, I was on an exchange programme so I could study in Korea for a year. My Korean father wasn’t actually my father; mine was very much English as well as my mother, as well as me.

 “Hyun joon oppa, I think they are ready.” I’ve only been in Korea for two months, so having to call the older men ‘oppa’ all the time felt strangely weird on my foreign tongue. I’m pretty sure once I go back to England I’ll be calling all my uncles by it.

 “Good Chloe” His Korean accent was a lot weaker than Jongin’s since he was a lot older and spent many years beforehand travelling back and forth to England, so he was a lot easier to understand. He was a chubby man and very dark, a thick goatee accentuated his rough features making his jaw look more defined despite being overweight. “Go get the other girls and prepare.”

 Doing as he asked, I rounded up the three other girls who had been chosen to appear in EXO’s Christmas magazine shoot. We were advertising for a local magazine who wanted the boys to interact with girls from different countries in order to bring light to the fact Christmas was an international holiday and everyone should celebrate together and since in Korea Christmas was traditionally a couple holiday it was supposed to be romantic.

 Unfortunately after reading the photo shoot plan handout, I wasn’t doing a one on one with Jongin, only in the whole group shoot which I was hoping I could be next to him. In fact, I was only shooting with three of the twelve members, kyungsoo, joon-myeon and min-seok, which honestly I wasn’t really fussed about, they were nice.

 Situating myself in front of the humungous wall mirror about ten feet from the set, I twiddled with my clothes making sure the hat sat neatly on my head and the elf costume wasn’t wrinkled. I think Hyun joon would skin me alive if he realised I had been sitting down in the cafeteria for the quarter of an hour before walking in here.

 Saddling beside Kyungsoo I watched quietly as Jongin posed with the girl from Paris, the shy guy had totally disappeared from his gorgeous face and now stood there was Kai, y and controlled as the French girl rested her palms to hover over his chest whilst he smirked down at her. He looked happy and in love which hurt my heart, I knew it wasn’t real but it was hard to ignore.

 Having to look away I stared at the wooden floor, tracing all the marks and listened to my foster uncle as he ordered the ‘couple’ to pose or un-pose. Lingering in the background was an orchestrated version of EXO’s new single which was playing on a loop, it sounded so sad yet so beautiful.

 My uncle said something in Korean so I finally looked up and Miss French was waving goodbye to Jongin – Kai – as he was replaced by one of the other members. After a moment I realised he was walking straight towards me with a look in his eye that set my blood running.

 I sensed Kyungsoo leave my side but I didn’t turn to check, I was too trapped in Jongin’s gaze to care. When he finally reached me, he didn’t touch me but it felt as if he was, my skin was burning, my head was spinning and It took all I had to breathe and he asked me to follow him outside.

 A blanket of snow covered each surface, the bench we had shared our lunch on the week before, the flat field I had watched Jongin and his friends enjoying their free time on and even all the cars. I had never seen anything so incredibly white and beautiful. Even the one single tree was blanketed in snow.

 Jongin led me underneath the tree and perched his back against the bark as he silently watched the snowflakes float to the ground. He seemed to be calculating something in his mind, his brows were knitted together into a frown and his hands buried into his elf bottoms pockets.

 Furrowing my brows, I shuffled myself in front of him, the snow crunching under my boots, and leaned down so my face was in his line of vision. “Are you alright?”

 His eyes focused on me and his smiled shyly. “Yes, I wanted to ask you something.”

 “You can ask me anything.” I smiled encouragingly.

 He blushed and reached out to take my hand. My breath hitched as his fingers curled over my palm, my heart was pounding so hard against my rib cage I had a scary feeling it was going to break through. “I wanted to ask if you would like to have a meal with me after . . .” He gestured with his hand towards the photo studio. I felt the blush forming before it appeared but I found it hard to look away from. With his other hand he traced his finger over my cheek. “Please don’t be shy.”

 Before I could stop myself, I raised myself on to my tiptoes and pressed my lips firmly to his, cupping his cheek with my free hand. His lips were cold yet so soft like rose petals, butterflies burst in my belly when he responded by cupping my head and taking a deep intake of air as he kissed me back. Our lips didn’t move once, they only pressed hard together keeping us connected and warm.

 Slowly we pulled away; the sound of air rushing back into our bodies was the only sound above my thrashing heart. “So is that a yes?” He asked with a perplexed smile.

 “Do I have to kiss you again?”