“I have some suspicions.”

“About what?”

“The letters, of course,” Krystal stated like a matter of fact to Jinri, who skeptically eyed the blonde.

“Ugh,” Jinri grunted, placing her utensils aside. “Drop it already. You have plenty on your plate already.”

Krystal wiped and waved a finger in front of her friend. “But I have a theory!”

“Alright, alright, you wannabe detective. Tell me what you came up with.”

Blondie enthusiastically tapped her fingers on the table. “You know whose café was giving me those letters. One time, I saw him flinch at the mention of the mysterious writer.”

“And you think its Luhan,” Jinri signed and leaned back on her seat, her arms crossed by her chest. Tilting her head, the brunette model indicated for her friend to continue with the theory.

“That’s possible, right?” Krystal widened her eyes. “He knows me well, so maybe he just wanted to chat without revealing himself or something…”

“Yeah, like you two don’t talk at all.”

“Hey, don’t interrupt me. Hm-hm. So the waiter giving me the letters, Chanyeol, said he can’t tell me the writer’s identity. And why is that? Because LuLu is his friend and boss!”

Jinri chuckled. “Why did you stop?”

“That’s all,” Krystal casted her eyes down from Jinri’s, to her cup of cappuccino. “That’s all I got.”

“Lame,” teasing started.

*

The next day Krystal tried to come up with other theories on her way to photo shoot. Arriving at her modeling company’s building, she went right away to the elevator. Elevator’s doors were closing right in front of her eyes so she stopped them forcefully open with her hands. When the doors fully opened for her to step in, Kai was already standing there, looking amused.

“A simple push of a button might have done the thing,” he commented.

Krystal snarled at him and stood at the front when the doors closed and the elevator started moving.

“Better tell me today’s concept.”

“A mystery, even to me.”

“You’re useless,” the girl smirked when she heard Kai grunt behind her, “and immature.”

They arrived at the set and were already placed to make-up tables with stylists waiting for them.

Krystal’s blonde locks caught a different reaction than the one from the last party.

“Are you mad?” the CEO started screaming at her, a young man in a grey suit that Krystal saw for a second time only, “If you decide to change your hair color of length, you need to inform the company!”

Krystal tried to keep her calm façade, the staff was wincing at the shouts and the CEO continued with lectures about how the rules were mentioned at her contract. Kai, dissatisfied, got up from his lounge and was about to retort to the young man in change when his own stylist interrupted the shouts instead.

“We can change the color, we still have time,” she said.

CEO was at loss for words. “Let’s do that, then. But quickly. Let it be red.”

“Red?!” Krystal jumped up, but CEO’s glare sat her down again. “Sorry for the trouble.”

"Maybe Kai should die his hair also? This blonde color constantly on him is getting quite boring," the main photographer suggested.

Darker color, huh? Maybe Krystal would like if I looked more natural? Kai’s train of thoughts took a full speed at, Hey, Kai, you’re changing it just out of professionalism. Not because of a girl. Nada.

*

Click.

“Turn to your partner a tad more, Krystal. You seem stiff.”

“Like this?”

“Follow my lead,” Kai brushed newly-red-headed girl’s palm. A warm feeling shot up her spine to her lips.

“Look at his face, or no, better yet, look somewhere else, but keep the head tilted towards him. Kai just keep doing a good job.”

Break time started after half an hour of non-stop picture taking, posing and make-up retouching.

“You worked hard,” Kai handed his partner a bottle of water, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“Getting praised only gets your head bigger, doesn’t it?”

“I was trying to be nice, and what do I get in return? Insults.” Signing, the boy shook his shoulder. “Let’s hangout today after work.”

Krystal almost spit her drink. “A date?”

Kai smirked, “If you want it to be like that, then yeah.”

The girl thought about it for a moment, debating with her new self. “No, not interested after all.”

“Don’t be like that,” he tapped his chin, “playing hard to get.”

“Maybe I am hard to get,” she smiled widely, feeling victorious of how the plan is going along so well.

“Nah,” Kai stepped into her comfort zone, “I stole kisses from you and you’re still talking to me. You’re a regular chick that thinks she could get me around her finger.”

That threw Krystal’s smile to the deepest ground underneath her and was replaced with a scary scowl on her beautiful face. Kai thought she looked adorable when angry.

“If no date, then dance practice.” Seeing the girl’s confused eyes, he explained, “You obviously haven’t forgotten that we have so little time to prepare for the upcoming talent show.”

“Right… We’re gonna have a hard time,” she signed.

CEO came back from his cabinet, shouting, “Back to work!”

*

The first dance practice of the pair didn’t go as fluently as planned. To start making a routine, they had to decide on a song first. Krystal suggested many songs, but Kai wanted to stick with his favorite track. After an hour of heated discussion, they finally agreed on “Baby Don’t Cry” for part one and “Machine” for Kai’s impromptu solo part.

“I insist on this one!” Krystal nagged till Kai’s head begun hurting from the never ending noise of the girl’s loud voice.

“Fine! We can add this at the beginning for you to show off, but only a small segment of it.”

“I’m not thinking only about showing off like you,” she scowled at him and flicked Kai’s forehead.

“You’re going to begin the whole act with your short solo then we do the slow song and mine one.”

Krystal shook her head. “Not on my watch. It wouldn’t make sense if the last part would be all about you. We’re supposed to dance together, so we need to have the slow melody for the last part.”

The boy stifled a laugh, “Wow, you’re really heated right now. Want to chill out?” he winked.

It flew by the girl’s ears, or she just faked it. “Also if we added songs like first of all your solo, then mine and the couple dance, we could give our performance an actual story.”

Kai slid his arms on Krystal’s waist. “It would start off with my energetic dance, later you come up the stage and steal my attention.”

“Then something happens and I’m just, like, sad or something, and you start dancing to “Baby Don’t Cry” and I join you.”

“You get a phone call and out of shock, you fall to your knees,” Kai breathed on Krystal’s lips.

“That would do it!”

Krystal, maybe out of pumping adrenaline from all these ideas, gave Kai a sweet but short kiss.

Her lips on his lips, frozen in place, neither of them backing out. Only when they couldn’t catch any more air, they shortly distanced their faces, only to meet once again, this time with Kai’s initiative.

Krystal’s hands shot upwards Kai’s neck, up his hair that she started to mess with. Kiss’ warmth spread through their bodies and passion took over. Kai guided Krystal slowly to the dance floor, breaking apart for short breaths only.

“Wow,” he managed to whisper after his partner bit his lower lip. Krystal chuckled between follow-up kisses.

*

“Forget what happened,” red headed girl murmured when both of them were lying on the floor, their heads bumping slightly, only few minutes later. Eventually they got tired of fierce kissing séance and had to take a break. Well, Kai hoped it was just a break, but Krystal finally placed her mind together and knew this shouldn’t happen again. At least not now.

Kai turned to her. “How could I. You made an impression,” he joked. Krystal locked eyes with him and Kai inwardly gulped. Something’s definitely off about him, he thought. He shouldn’t act like that with her.

With Krystal’s strong gaze lingering on him, Kai kept quiet for a long time. He thought about everything he had discussed with Lay, about every magazine and book he has read that had a mention of such a feeling that was burning inside him. Although he didn’t want to recognize it, Krystal’s eyes got the truth out from his swollen lips.

“I like you.”

Krystal flinched, but didn’t break the eye contact. “Sincerely?”

“I think so.”

“That’s not a good answer,” she whispered and closed her eyes. Kai’s glistening gaze followed the girl’s body that was standing up; he couldn’t take his eyes away from her pink tinted cheeks that were turned towards him. Kai once again caught the view of Krystal’s lips and smirked once his mind registered how pursed and tired they looked from intense kissing.

“Let’s go back to dancing. Now comes the hardest part. Dance moves.”

“You play the music and I’ll show you my idea of our main dance.”

*

“Mom, I’m afraid. I think I found someone amazing, but I’m really scarred. I might destroy her heart like I usually do, or get mine hurt. Just like that time.”

.

Kai placed the bouquet on his late mother’s grave.

 I’m blabbering nonsense to a ghost. I’m seriously going insane. Is it because of Krystal?

The boy ruffled his already messy hair and sat on the cold dirty ground.

I’m both happy and confused. Is this how it feels to be in love?

Wait, did I just thought of ‘love’?

“Mom, is it love?”

No, I’m just attracted to her. She put a spell on me. Yeah, that’s what it is. Just a simple ‘like’. Mhm.

“Aagh, I’m so angry at myself. How did I fall?”

So I did fall in love with her after all. It’s no use lying to myself anymore.

“Who am I kidding, asking ghost these questions. I should talk to someone experienced. But not dad. He treated you wrong, mom.”

I would never treat Krystal badly. Did I treat her badly? I’m an idiot.

That’s it, I’m going crazy.

Kai got up and started walking away from the grave.

I decided to treat Krystal right, mom, so look after me and my heart.

To not let the past repeat itself, keep my big brother out of it.

*

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If you're interested, when writing about the dance routine, I thought of these videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EOT4OcYVCk Kai

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe1CpNETevs Krystal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQyjKBz0tG8 For both

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