The following morning things were hectic. All of us were up at 6am running around and getting ready before Andy came to pick us up. I had just scarfed down my bowl of cereal when Chunji called us from the door. “Andy’s here!” I hadn’t even had a chance to see Ricky yet much less talk to him about last night. He finally came out of his room as I walked out the kitchen. We froze, staring at each other in silence. Flashbacks of the previous night ran through my head. Just by remembering his lips on mine made me blush. I looked down shyly. I didn’t know what to say to him and I certainly had no idea how to act or what to do. Despite me being all confident around guys I really had never any experience with this before. I felt like an inexperienced fool and I actually got irritated with myself that I was acting this way. What the hell was wrong with me, I’m always the easy going, confident one who can always take control of the situation and now look at me. I almost felt ashamed of myself, but before I could open my insolent mouth and actually say something to Ricky, Chunji appeared at the door again. “What are you guys waiting for? We’re going to be late, come on.”

“Coming”, I mumbled, turning away from Ricky and striding out of the door. There wasn’t a chance to talk to him again for the rest of the day, which made me feel worse. I felt like I’d wasted an opportunity, luckily I could dance my bad mood away. Me and the girls went off to the dance studio and the guys had their own things to do. I sighed as I sat down for our 5minute break of practise. I was over my irritation, but I still regretted not saying anything. I didn’t even know when I would see him again. We finished early, not having much to do yet. It was strange to be going home instead of to their dorm, but I figured I needed alone time to think things through.

The rest of the week went pretty much the same. I’d get home from the studio at 5 everyday not even seeing them once at the company. Friday I took my time finishing up after practise. I was still in the studio after all the other dancers had left. It felt nice having the whole studio to myself. The room was rather big, a huge mirror made up the whole one wall and floor was pure hardwood. Perfect for dancing. I grabbed my phone and put some music on. I smiled as I danced around the big, empty room. There truly was nothing better than this.

“You’re really good.”

I gasped, my eyes snapping open at the sound of the voice, as I staggered backwards and fell onto the floor. Changjo was standing in the doorway of the studio, laughing at my shocked face. “Jeez Changjo you scared me!”

“Sorry”, he said still laughing. “I didn’t think anyone was still here and then I heard the music.”

“Oh yeah I decided to stay late and dance a little for fun. The studio is much better to dance in than at home so I waited till everyone left…. How long were you standing there?”

“A while”, he said grinning. I felt my cheeks flame as my eyes dropped to the floor.

“Don’t be embarrassed, you were great!”

“Thanks”, I said looking up again. “Hey want to dance with me?”

He grinned. “Sure, I’ve got a while until the others finish up with their recordings.”

We danced together for the next half hour, either doing cover dances or doing little dance battles of our own.

“We should really do this again.”, I said panting like a dog when we finally put the music off again.

 “Definitely…hey that reminds me, we haven’t seen you this whole week being so busy and everything, but we have the weekend off so why don’t you come over to our place?”

“What like sleep over? Like I did last weekend?”

“Yeah, why not. We’ve all missed you this past week and Ricky can’t stop whining that he wants to see you, he’s been sulking the last couple of days because of how he hadn’t even got to see you once again.”

I looked up sharply at the mention of Ricky’s name. My heart fluttered. He missed me! I thought it was just me and my over bearing emotions, but he missed me too. I couldn’t stop smiling after that.

“Really?!”, I asked excitedly “Does he really miss me?”

Changjo laughed at me like I was an innocent little girl asking about my first crush. Well I felt like that so no wonder. “Yes he does… a lot, so come on they’re probably wondering where I am.”

“Yay!”, I squealed as I quickly grabbed my things and followed him out of the door.

“Look who I found.”, Changjo announced when we found them sitting around the table in the dining hall. They all looked up in interest at the same time. They all smiled warmly, inviting me to sit. I felt like I was welcomed back by my family. My eyes feverently searched around the table for Ricky so I could sit next to him, but he wasn’t there. Chunji who was next to me could clearly see my face fall in disappointment. “Don’t worry; you’ll see him at home.”

I sighed in relief. “You noticed?”

“It was pretty obvious.”, Chunji said smiling and patting me on the head.

Crap I thought to myself, I’m becoming the next Ricky of the group, next thing you know they’ll be ordering me around and calling me the maknae.

I couldn’t sit still on the car ride to the dorm. I felt like such a child, but I didn’t care. I just couldn’t wait to see Ricky’s face again. His breathtaking smile just made me feel so… unexplainably happy.

I practically bounded through the front door. Ricky was in the midst of walking from the kitchen to the couch with a box of cookies in his arms and one stuffed in his mouth. “Summer!”, he exclaimed when he saw me, letting the cookie fall to the floor. It made me so happy just seeing him this excited to see me. I strided towards him and clasped my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly to me.

He put the cookies down and wrapped me in his arms, squeezing me to him. I closed my eyes, breathing in his scent while he my hair. He felt so warm against me. Nothing had ever felt as comfortable and right than his embrace. We stood like that for a couple of minutes, until C.A.P finally cleared his throat and announced dinner was ready. We let go of each other and walked with the others to the table. Dinner was take out from a restaurant. None the less it was delicious and afterwards we all lounged around on the couch like the previous weekend and watched movies, talking and laughing in between. I laughed when I realized I was once again wedged between Ricky and Changjo. Somewhere in the midst of the second movie I had fallen asleep on Ricky’s chest, his steady heartbeat and rise and fall of his chest lulling me to sleep.

I hadn’t slept much when L.joe woke me up, shaking my arm to get my attention. “Huh?”, I asked disorientated. It was dark around us and I could only make out the shadows on his face.

“We fell asleep on the couch, I’ve just woken up myself. Come on lets go to bed.”

“Okay I’ll bring Ricky now.” L.Joe padded off to his room and I shifted around so I could wake Ricky. I had hardly moved when he woke up, trying to clutch me back to him. I giggled and hugged myself to him. “Hey we fell asleep on the couch, let’s get you to bed.”

“No wait.”, he said grabbing my hand and pulling me back. I looked at him questioningly. “I’m hungry.”

“How about a midnight snack?”, I said, laughing. I lead him by the hand to the kitchen, rather switching on the dim counter lights as not to hurt our eyes. “Ooh! You know what would be perfect right now?”

“What?”, he asked excitedly.

“Smores.”, I stated grinning. Giggling like two little kids, we gathered the ingredients and melted the marshmallow in the microwave. I had just turned from him to put something in the cupboard when I felt a hot, sticky liquid against my cheek. I gasped, jumping back and saw him attempting to smear melted marshmallow on my other cheek. “It’s hot!”, I protested.

“Sorry noona!”, he said truly apologetic.

“Oh don’t worry about apologizing.”, I said grabbing the bowl from him and smearing some on his nose. He jumped back, giggling trying to get away from yet trying to get me back at the same time. We tried unsuccessfully to be silent at our little game, but we only stopped when we realized there wasn’t much marshmallow left for the smores. I put the bowl down and went to stand next to him, a little out of breath. He reached towards me and I thought he was going to smear more one again but instead of doing that, he slowly took some off my cheek and his finger off. The tension spiked and our breathing immediately started to race. I could hear my heartbeat ringing in my ears. He slowly came closer and brought his lips to the only marshmallow free place on my face. He kissed softly, letting his lips linger for a while. He wanted to take my face in his hands, but only stuck with the sticky marshmallow.  We burst out laughing. “Everything is so sticky!”, I said with a disgruntled face; I felt rather icky. “I’m gonna go wash up.”

When I came back Ricky was on the couch, clean, with the two smores that actually made it with the leftover marshmallow. He patted the space next to him invitingly. I crawled in against him, melting into his familiar arms. We sat in silence for a while, his head resting next to mine and his hand absentmindedly brushing along my arm. “Noona..”, he said breaking the silence with his husky whisper. “I don’t know what to do… or what to say exactly… but I do know that I really like you…”

His voice was shaky and I could picture the nervous expression his face probably wore. I closed my eyes and smiled to myself, having a little freak out party inside my head. When I didn’t answer immediately, he grew tense next to me. “I… uhm well you now… we kissed… so…”

He fell silent again when I turned myself around in his arms so I could face him. I leant in towards him, my hair falling forward and tickling his cheek, and cradled his face in my hand. He opened his mouth to say something, but I put my finger to his lips to silence him. He watched me with soft, tentative eyes as I bent my head and kissed him. Our lips parted and I pulled back to look at him. “I really like you too”, I said smiling excitedly. His careful, unsure face immediately sparked back to its usual brightness. He grabbed my hands, bringing it to his face so I could squish his cheeks together. I giggled at his now chubby face and pouted lips. He gave a sudden gasp, letting my hands fall from his. “Wait does this mean we’re officially dating?”, he asked wide eyed.

“I guess so.”, I said bubbling with excitement.

“Eeee!!”, Ricky squealed, grabbing me and launching the both of us off the couch and onto the floor. He continued to clutch me to him as we rolled around on the floor, laughing hysterically.  We came to a halt, lying next to each other on the carpet, only smiling at one another like idiots. Happy idiots none the less. After about an hour our excitement wore off and we got sleepy again. It was in any case around about 2 in the morning. We both yawned and became more silent by the minute. Ricky nestled his face on my stomach, using it as a pillow, while I could happily his hair until we both fell asleep.