It was seven in the morning when an earsplitting alarm sound panged my ears. “Mm,” I mumbled to myself before I realized my right arm was rested onto something. My eyebrows crumpled a bit as I placed both hands in front of my face. Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I couldn’t help but yawn.

In the process of fluttering my eyes open, my mouth was left agape, seeing Jessica lying next to me. Not to mention she was digging her head at the crook of my neck. It was sort of unusual, taking into account how y she acted towards me a few days ago, and that she was always looking at me cockily last night, special thanks to everything Krystal did. A joyous smile crept out of my lips accordingly, recalling last night.

She’s my girlfriend now.

“Jessica,” I silently called out while staring at her beautiful face. When she didn’t respond, I did nothing but simply watch—lie. I leaned in and planted a quick peck on her lips. Not that I was taking advantage of the sleeping beauty but—okay, maybe I was.

She’s my girlfriend anyway, so who minds? Oh, that’s right—her boyfriend. That bastard is so annoying!

“Jessica,” I tried to wake her up once more but to no avail. For that reason, I sneakily unclasped her hold on me. Not wanting to disturb her sleep any further, I softly treaded off the bed to go over to the nightstand and turn the alarm off.

To my unpleasant surprise, it wasn’t really an alarm tone but a phone call. I bit my lower lip in annoyance before puffing a stressed sigh the moment I saw the devil’s name on the screen. I held the phone in my hand, planning to hand it over to Jessica. Of course, dropping the call wouldn’t do any better. I had to be reasonable, not because I was jealous did it mean I should intrude Jessica’s privacy.

“Hey, your boyfriend is calling,” I said over an undertone as I laid back down on the bed, putting the handset loosely in her hand.

Finally, her eyes slowly unbolted. “Damn it,” she groaned upon recognizing the name before practically throwing the phone back to the nightstand, completely ignoring the caller. Afterwards, she went on cuddling me and trying to drift back to sleep. Her saccharine action made the melancholy subside. I wished we could be like that every hour. Cuddling—ignoring Nick.

Just when the thought popped into the back of my mind, Sunny’s soft voice reverberated inside my head. I should tell Jessica about Nick and me before it gets any worse. From then, I knew what I had to do. I swiftly locked her into a hug and gently kissed her cheeks. I needed to do that just in case she would shut me out once I tell her the truth. Because then, I would never have the chance to do those, like ever again.

Confidently, “Jessica, are you awake?” I queried. However, my confidence faltered as soon as I felt her head shake upwards. My throat perceptibly turned knots, I was tongue-tied. That, however, wouldn’t make me chicken out. “I have to tell you something important,” I trailed on and waited for her response, but no words were heard.

Is she asleep again?

It was a few seconds more when she spat, “Go on.” The velvety tone in her voice somehow made me feel brave and made me realize that doing something right would lead me to something good. So, I decided to persist.

I forced myself to gulp something out of my cottonmouth before frantically speaking, “Your boyfriend, Nick—he’s actually my ex-boyfriend.” I said the words overly fast, and I started to doubt she didn’t hear me. Disregarding that, I felt cold sweat prickling my forehead and neck. I suddenly felt so cold, as if I was going to get sick.

Surprisingly, “Okay,” slipped off , as if not having even the slightest concern.

In the mixture of shock and confusion, my eyebrows shot up as my jaw fell. Is she sane? Why didn’t she get shocked? I kept contemplating for a valid explanation but nothing landed on my fingertips. “That’s it, Jessica Jung. Wake up!” I demanded quite dominantly while shaking her by her shoulders to wake.

She kept shrugging and making unlikable sounds of disapproval using . Left with no other choice, I lightly tapped one side of her face. Regrettably, my action made her roll over the bed—and she painfully fell out of it. “Ouch!” A piercing cry of pain echoed in the tranquil room.

The tension that was once eating away at me was altered by concern. My head sneaked out the side of the bed only to find her rubbing her sore arm, which went first when she fell. After assuring she was alright, I couldn’t help but laugh at her expense.

“Hey!” Fully awake, Jessica rocketed off upon jerking straight up. “What a good-mannered person. That’s how you treat a girlfriend—you push her off the bed?” In a disdaining approach, her forefinger jutted to point at me. But that didn’t bother me much since I knew she wasn’t seriously angry.

I outwardly beamed, not because of what happened but because she mentioned the GF word. It felt beyond belief overwhelming to hear. How can that oh-so-effortless word sound as if winning the election when coming out from ? “For your information, I didn’t push you. You rolled over,” I briefly explained as I teasingly stuck my tongue out.

The fuming girl’s arms crossed over her chest, she rolled her eyes and asked, “Why are you waking me up so early anyway?”

The veracity that she was indeed half asleep during my confession slapped me hard. I didn’t know what to say, neither did I know what to do. Lying horizontally over the bed, I just gazed at her ever so intently, my eyes narrowed, and my lower lip vacuumed.

She looked back at me, imitating my demeanor. “Um, why are you staring at me so attentively? Is my morning face that ugly? But you’ve seen me with this face before,” she burbled vivaciously, as if nothing could stop her from talking. Her hands even slapped to cover her face. Cleverly, her fingers were giving space for her eyes to meet mine.

This girl is so damn cute.

“No, your morning face is actually very pretty—makes me want to kiss you,” I admitted, completely forgetting my plan to tell her about Nick and my real standing. Nevertheless, having a relaxed conversation with her could make the butterflies in my stomach go wild.

“Is that so?” Her eyebrows furrowed, her foot scarcely tapped the floor, and her arms crossed over her chest again. She didn’t seem that much convinced. But hey, I was telling the truth. She was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. Or was I being biased because I loved her? I didn’t know.

The bed wobbled in effect when I dragged my to shift into a sitting position, wherein my feet would dangle and rest on the floor. I enthusiastically nodded. “By the way, your boyfriend called a while ago. That’s the reason why I woke you up.” I struggled to speak without her noticing the disappointment and misery in my voice, but it didn’t seem to work. It was hard to fake feelings, especially in front of her.

Her eyeballs flicked to one side, as if internally debating. She took my hand and played with it by swaying our intertwined hands from side to side. There was a hint of fret in her voice, not wanting to hurt me with her forthcoming statement. “I’m meeting him later, will that be alright?”

Before she could let out another expression, I abruptly cut her off. “Will saying no change the fact that you’re seeing him?” I sounded demanding and immature. I mentally scolded myself after those words came out. My tongue just didn’t know how to stay in place.

She shook her head and shot me an apologetic look. “No, my bad.”

“It’s alright. It’s not like I’m forcing you to cut your connection with him in an instant.” The serious momentum was destroyed when my stomach growled. Awkward. Sure enough, that made her chuckle and smile smugly. “Let’s get some breakfast already.” I proposed. What else could I do?

Unfortunately, she shook her head for a reason unknown to me. I gave her a questioning look before mentally slapping myself when she said, “Krystal locked us up, remember? I’m pretty sure she isn’t awake yet. She wakes up at nine o’clock at least. We need to wait for an hour more.”

I almost had my tonsil spitted out upon hearing that. “I’m starving!” I whined, shaking my shoulders sideward, childishly.

“How cute is my girlfriend, maturity flying out the window,” she teased. She loved teasing me.

This gorgeous girl is making my heart race.

There was an awkward silence for almost a minute as we exchanged shy glances and smiles. Not until she decided to break it by saying, “Are you that hungry? You can always eat me, you know.” In a failed seductive manner, she winked.

I burst into mocking laughter as I watched her. She was too overjoyed, and it was written all over her face. I thought she was fooling around when she spat the conclusion, but man was I wrong when she basically dove beside me. She tightly wrapped both her arms around my waist only to spin me over so I was on top of her. My eyes unfurled in amusement. “You’re such a tease, you—” I tried to articulate, but her forefinger cut me off.