Seunghyun ~~ Apparently, I’m not a man

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Something woke me from my sleep as head jerks up suddenly. I groan. My head feels heavy and I let it fall back down. Hard. My face comes in contact with soft leather. Oh, why am I in my couch? I’m supposed to be at the villa today. I open one eye and then the other. I think back on what happened last night. Oh, right. I went to a friend’s birthday celebration and I drank too much so I asked Jjangme to send me here instead.

Which brings me back … I was woken up by something … or should I say someone? I crawl on my elbows to get to the arm rest of the couch and rested my chin on it. With bleary vision I see a shirt flying … wait, I rub my eyes with the back of a hand and looked again. It’s Park. She’s wearing an old gray t-shirt that looks to be too big since it’s slipping off one shoulder. I squint my eyes; she doesn’t appear to be wearing pants. I grin almost immediately. She is wearing socks though, almost knee-length, pink with white hearts.

What is she doing? Is she pretending to be bird? Or is she having epilepsy? I see her flapping her arms and around back and forth, coming and going from the hallway nears our bedrooms to the kitchen. Back and forth with the occasional jumping and leaping. She has huge white Beats on her ears and she’s humming. She suddenly pirouettes and almost tumbles down. She tries again and this time, with one foot bended and almost resting on the other leg’s knee. This time, she falls face flat on the floor.

I couldn’t help it; I sat up laughing my heart out.

She finally notices me as she rubs on her jaw and elbow. Her eyes grew wide and her face flamed from embarrassment. “What are you doing here?” she splutters, taking the huge earphones off her ears and letting them rest round her neck.

“Last time I checked, I live here. And what were you doing? I was debating whether you were either having a seizure and I’ll have to take you to the hospital or you were possessed and I’d take you to the church and have an exorcism.”

“Bom and I watched a ballet performance last night.” she snaps, and then “I thought you were spending the weekend with your family …”

Yeah, about that. I figure Mom will not be too happy about me bailing out. I’ll just have to call her later. “I got too much to drink last night …” I say massaging my temple. “Have pity on me and massage my head please?” I give her a puppy dog look. “My head is killing me.”

She huffs but comes nearer. “I told you yesterday didn’t I? I told you not to drink and to just go home and rest.”

“But we’ve been filming for two months straight” I complain. “I needed a break -” I let out a satisfied groan. Park is now digging her fingers at my scalp and is gently massaging my head from my nape, upwards. My body relaxes and I lean back to rest my back against her as she stands behind me while I sit cross legged on the couch.

“You reek of alcohol” she says.

“But I’m still hot.”

“Tch! So full of yourself aren’t you?”

“Just stating a fact, Park.”

After about 15 more minutes and a quick back massage, Park moves away and tells me to take a shower and she’ll cook breakfast.

“Move your or I won’t serve you any food” she warns when I protested and wanted her to continue with her massage. “I am planning to do some general cleaning today so the earlier to hide in your bat cave the better. I am going to clean the whole house except your room.”

“Meanie.” I grudgingly get up and walk to my bedroom but not before I call out, “Is that why you’re just wearing that?” I made a show of running my eyes all the way down to the length of her. “Is it a no bra and no pants day today?”

Her eyes widen in horror as she realizes what I said. She swiftly crosses her arms around her chest hugging herself but then, her shirt rides up so she uses one hand to tug it down. It must have slipped her mind what she’s wearing. For the second time this morning, her face turns red and she shrieks at me as she scampers to her bedroom. “Jerk! ert!”

I laugh all the way to the shower.

Brunch was a silent affair. Park was silent and was still feeling prickly and when I attempted to make a joke out of her change of outfit which consists of a tracksuit which is zipped all the way up.

She glared at me with murderous eyes. “If you don’t shut it, I will make you clean the house yourself, Choi!”

I mimed zipping my lips, locking them, and throwing away the key.

Park remained stoic.

When I emerged from my room hours later, my nose was immediately assailed with the smell of oranges. I look around and everything looks shiny and clean. The whole house smells clean.

I see Park lying face down on the couch. Her hair is till damp. She must have taken a bath after cleaning and fell asleep watching TV. I look for the remote and turn it off. Next, I get the afghan sprawled on the back of the couch and bends down to cover Park with it. I smile to myself as I notice slightly open, her steady breathing a sign of deep slumber.  Unconsciously, my fingers tuck some stray strands of hair away from her face to the back of her ear.

Park smiles and I thought for a moment that she woke up but she didn’t. “Ice cream” she softly mutters.

I stifle a laugh and shake my head. What do I do with this girl?

I wake her up a couple of hours later with my foot shaking her calf. “Hey, wake up. Park! Wake up!”

“Ugh! What’s your problem?” her face is all scrunched up as she slowly sits up.

“I want to eat.”

“Then eat. Why did you wake me up?”

“Let’s go to the night market.”

Her eyebrows rise. “What?”

“C’mon” I pull her arm to make her stand up. “I’ve been waiting for hours. It’s almost 10PM!”

She looks confused.

“You slept for hours” I say.

“I’m tired. You go alone.”

“How could you? What if I get mobbed out there?”

“Wear your wig and a face mask. You’ve done it before…”

“Yeah … but not alone.”

“Don’t be such a baby …”

“I’ll buy you some ice cream if you come with me plus you can eat all the street food you want.” There, I laid down my bait. And sure enough, we were out of the house within minutes. No one loves ice cream and street food more like she does.

When we got back home, it was almost 2AM. After putting away the groceries, we decided to watch some movies and settled on the couch. We did rock, paper, scissors to decide who will choose the movie and Park wins. 50 First Dates it is.

As soon as the film starts, Park places both feet on my thighs. She wants a massage. We always do this and take turns after a long shooting day. 

She’s munching on some microwaved popcorn as watch the movie.

“Aren’t you full yet?” I ask. I can’t believe her tiny frame can handle that much food. I mean, where does it all go?

“Movie nights can never be without popcorn.” She mumbles in between munching. “Here, have some …” She reaches over and shoves kernels in my mouth.

And she continued to feed me since I was busy massaging her feet and calves throughout the movie.

The next day, Park helped me read over some of scripts for some TV dramas being offered to me for review.

I looked over one and it’s a medical drama. I read the synopsis and toss it back on the pile. Seungri is already doing a medical drama. I don’t want him to come and offer acting advices just because he did one first. That guy is so over himself sometimes.

I pick another. It’s a spy drama. Hmmm … maybe this one would be more interesting. I motioned for Park who is already reading one script, to move over and make room for me on the couch. We take up the opposite sides but shared the afghan to cover our feet.

After a while, I hear her chuckling. I raise an eyebrow in curiosity.

“This is funny” she chuckles again. “I think you should do this …”

I went back to my reading.

In a few minutes, she’s laughing out loud. She’s even slapping the couch with her hand as if she couldn’t contain her mirth.

“What’s so funny?” I lower down the spy script and reach out to get the one she’s reading. She avoided my attempt and hides it behind her back.

“Hey, I’m not done reading. This is supposed to be for the first 5 episodes and so far, the four I’ve read are hilarious. I’ve one more left to go …”

I tried to be patient and instead of pouting, I get up to fetch tetra packs of orange juice.

“Thanks” Park absentmindedly tells me and goes back to reading. I picked up the spy drama again.

When she’s done, she’s all smiles. “I really think you should do this” she declares, holding up the book-binded script.

“Judging from your reaction, I take it its comedy” I tell her. “I can’t do comedy.”

“It’s rom-com” she says.

“There’s still comedy.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m telling you, this script will hit daebak! I can completely see you doing this