Yoona is clearly annoyed when Kyuhyun tugs at her arms and tells her he wants to take her out on a date at a mall. It’s not the fact that her boyfriend’s (she still hasn’t gotten used to calling him that but Yoona thinks she’s getting the hang of it) mere existence bothers her. No, it’s the fact that she’s just received her monthly present today and ‘pleased’ isn’t exactly a word that would describe her mood right now.

If Kyuhyun thinks he’s already seen Yoona at her worst, then he hasn’t seen her when she gets cramps during her period because she is a raging bull when they get to her.

“Yoong,” he whines in an annoying manner with his baritone voice and wrinkles his face in dismay because of her reluctance to get off the couch. “I just want to spend some time with you!” he exclaims loudly.

“But I don’t want to spend time with you so let go off me!” Yoona retracts her hand and kicks his head using her foot.

“You’re violent,” he cries and soothes himself. He always seems to receive hits and bruises whenever he’s around Yoona, he realizes.

“You’re dumb,” she childishly retorts.

“That’s because you always hit my head! You’re making me lose my brain cells.”

Yoona purses her lips and tries to kick him again but this time Kyuhyun catches on early and traps her foot between his chest and arms, drags her off the couch and does an armbar on her when she’s caught off guard.

“Are you going to come with me to the mall or not?” he threatens her with a smug smile on his face when he sees her flailing helplessly like a fish out of water.

Yoona, not pleased with the turn of situation, tries to loosen his hold but ends up inflicting more pain on herself. “You’ve been watching too much wrestling shows,” she remarks snarkily when she realizes she can’t get out of his hold.

“I am John Cena, you can’t see me!” he does an imitation and reaches over to wave his hand in front of her face to taunt her. Yoona, taking this as her chance, lifts her head up and bites his fingers. Kyuhyun jumps but he knows better than to release his grip. Instead, he applies more weight on Yoona and retracts his hand from .

“Is this how you treat a girl?” she huffs, out of breath from their little wrestling session  -because that’s what couples usually do.

“Are you going to go on a date with me or not?”

Seconds pass until Yoona realizes that he isn’t going to give up due to his childish frame of mind and after much contemplation, agrees to his vicious proposal for a date.

“This is boring,” she states while waiting in line for their movie tickets. She taps her feet impatiently when the youngest child of the family in front of her starts throwing a tantrum and cries out loud. The shrill noise reaches her ears and she visibly flinches at the high frequency.

Is this little girl half dolphin?

Her eyes curiously shift to Kyuhyun, who seems to be unfazed by it all and is talking excitedly about what kind of movie he wants to watch.

“So, I was thinking horror but I thought you’d get scared out of your wits so I decided against it,” he shares his thoughts and then adds, “although I wouldn’t mind you coming to me for a little protection.”

Yoona snorts. “Oh, I am well aware of the amount of unused protection with you. I’m pretty sure you have one in your wallet right now,” she smirks at her own joke.

“What?” he asks, his dark brown eyes swirling with confusion.

The female just shakes her head at his dense brain and encourages him to go on about the movie, settling for anything to keep her mind off the crying baby in front of her. “So, what movie do you want to watch then?”

“I was thinking action, but then I thought you might get bored so I decided to go with romance.”

Yoona raises her left eyebrow –because she’s always encountered difficulty lifting her other eyebrow up- and asks him, “How does one get bored watching an action movie? It’s action. And what makes you think I like watching romance movies?”

“I guessed..?” He smiles sheepishly and rubs his nape because he feels slightly embarrassed at the way she’s looking at him. “What kind of movie do you want to watch then?”

“I want to watch a horror movie,” she declares and proceeds to close her eyes shut when the wails from the crying child increases in volume. “Somebody shut that kid up.”

When Yoona opens her eyes, she sees that the mother of the family is glaring at her and inadvertently rolls her eyes. Because she turned away, she fails to notice the change of expression in the male’s face after telling him what kind of movie she wanted.

Kyuhyun jolts in his seat when the trailers of the upcoming movies begin playing before the film starts. His companion laughs at him and he just shrinks down in his seat and leans over to whisper to her over the tray of nachos lying between them, “whose genius idea was it to sit right in front of the speakers?”

“Yours,” she quips.

His face falls at the realization, “oh, right.”

Yoona just shakes her head at his stupidity.

Halfway through the movie, Yoona swears that she has gotten more heart attacks from Kyuhyun than the horror movie. 

All the big talk about Yoona getting scared out of her wits?

Yeah right, she scoffs at his false confidence.

 Yoona starts to think that Kyuhyun was actually talking about himself that time because she cannot count on her ten fingers how many times he has screamed, shrieked, and covered his eyes using her as a shield. She also cannot count how many times she’s accidentally dipped her fingers in nacho cheese because the grown up male couldn’t stay still and kept grabbing her arm whenever a slight scary part would come up.

When the move was finally over and the lights came on, Kyuhyun cautiously places his foot back on the floor. His legs were folded and his feet were on the chair the whole time, afraid that a creature would grab his leg from under the cinema seats.

“Alright. The movie is over, let’s go scaredy cat,” she teases. Yoona stands up, picks up her bag and walks toward the exit without waiting for the scared male.

“Wait for me,” he cries as he scrambles to get off his seat and chase after her. He constantly looks back while walking, afraid that something is going to pop out of nowhere and take him away.

“Stop being so paranoid, nothing is going to come at you,” she assures him and rolls her eyes because of how embarrassing he’s being right now. People are starting to stare and attention is something she has always tried to steer herself away from.

“How do you know that?” he asks while looking back and mindlessly tries to catch up with her fast pace.

“It’s a movie for goodness sake. It’s not real.”

“It seemed pretty real to me,” he mumbles lowly to himself but she still hears him.

“Well, it’s not,” she says and slaps his face softly when he turns his head once again. “So get over it, and stop being this weirdo because people are staring.”

Kyuhyun blinks a few times and suddenly blurts, “I need to pee. I think I drank too much of that strawberry slushy.”

“Okay, no need to go around broadcasting it. Go ahead, I’ll wait by the bench,” she says. But then he’s still there and Yoona sees the hesitation through his awkward body language so she asks him, “What is it?”

“Can you go with me to the bathroom? I’m scared.”

Dumbfounded by his outrageous request and not having enough patience, she pushes him and commands him to just go or else she will be the one who will kill him and force him to live with other ghosts.

The statement itself is enough to scare Kyuhyun and make him scramble to the restroom. On his way there, he accidentally enters the female restroom but fortunately, he doesn’t see anything.

“So how was today?” he asks, trying to spark up a conversation while driving her home after watching a movie and a few strolls around the mall. One hand is on the steering wheel while the other lies restlessly under his thigh. He’s contemplating if he should make a move to hold her hand or not. His hand is itching to just place his hand on top of hers and feel her warmth, but once he does, what happens next? Will she slap him? Will she warmly entwine her slim fingers with his? Kyuhyun doesn’t know. Hence, the reason why his sweaty palm is still hidden underneath his thigh.

“It was alright. Seeing you act like a little girl was the highlight of my day, though,” she laughs softly, the corners of curling up into a child-like grin.

Kyuhyun narrows his eyes and glares at her through the rearview mirror, which she ignores and instead continues teasing. “What was it you said about me getting scared out of my wits again?” the female, clueless to the battlefield taking place in his mind, mocks.

“Yeah, yeah,” he rolls his eyes and doesn’t defend himself because he wants to concentrate on the road. Moreover, he likes seeing her smile like this –even though the main reason for her smile was his misery.

But still, he liked it. It was as if Yoona gave him the disease and the medicine.

“You should’ve seen your face and heard yourself, the way you jumped out of your seat even though there was no one on the screen,” she claps her hand together and smiles fondly as she thinks a few hours back. Kyuhyun’s face turns bright red at the memory, and decides to change his mind on how he thought he liked her smile when she .

“A couple of high school girls sitting in front of us were even laughing at yo-“ Yoona stops her playful teasing when she feels something warm and honestly, a bit sweaty on top of her hand. Her laughter ceases and faces sideways to look at him.

“What are you doing?”

The right corner of his mouth pulls up into a smug smirk when he hears nothing but her stunned silence. Yoona subtly tries pulling her hand away, but how subtle can she actually get until Kyuhyun realizes that the hand he’s holding is missing?

He grips her hand tighter and looks straight ahead while Yoona tries to pull her hand away.

“Just stay still,” he says, tightening his grip, and just like that, she stops resisting. Gone is the little girl demeanor he had on earlier. As she looks at him from the side, she realizes his sharp profile and his side view had given him a… much more manly and mature look?  She’s starting to unravel and discover a new side to him.

“Your hands are sweaty,” she comments but deep down, she knows she doesn’t mind. She likes the feeling of her hand being enveloped by his large warm ones. It transfers a sense of tenderness and security to her.

Kyuhyun grins crookedly, “Well, better get used to it because you’ll be holding my hand more often in the future.”