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Strangely enough, it wasn’t difficult for Kitty to come back to KISS after all the fiasco that was the previous year. She had messed up, but it wasn’t anywhere near embarrassing enough that she would hide from these people for the rest of her life.
In the year Kitty spent in KISS, she learned more about herself than she ever had. She grew up to accept that she may not be the matchmaker that she insists she is, and she understood that your first love is not necessarily going to be your last.
So, when she learned that her expulsion from KISS was revoked, she was happy to come back to school. Ecstatic even.
Her grades however, were very much not.
Kitty rocked school, at least when she was in her own comfort zone. But in KISS, with her options limited, and thousands of miles away from her comfort zone, Kitty very nearly failed all her classes.
Yeah. It was touch and go for a while.
She blamed the language as a barrier.
If she understood even half of the Korean spoken to and around her, she would surely pass all her courses, without a doubt.
Therefore, as it had been with Kitty since she was born, she decided she was going to learn the language of country.
The only problem, who would teach her?
There was Dae, her first love, the one for whom she flew those thousand miles for. But for all of Kitty knowing about love, she still wasn’t sure of what proper break-up culture was. Were they friends? Were they not? Are they talking? Was it weird that they talked even if the break up was just a couple months back?
She wasn’t sure.
Then there was Q, her best friend. He was her first choice, obviously, but he refused immediately after confessing it had taken him a long time to get a hold over the language and he still managed to botch it up, and it would be fruitless to learn it from him. Kitty was as good as rejected.
Her next thought was Yuri. But Yuri was Yuri. The perfect girl. The object of all her desires. The person she had sex dreams about. The perfect girl personally sent over for Kitty to have her sexual awakening. Yuri made Kitty make bad decisions and she wasn’t sure she could handle being in anywhere within her proximity, especially now that she was rooming with Yuri. And her girlfriend, Julianna. Who was perfect for her. And they were perfect for each other.
It was such a mishmash.
At the end of the day, Kitty could not ask from help from even one of her friends in this quest of conquering the language of Korea.
There is always Min-Ho, her mind uttered, and she quietened it down.
Min-Ho was not an option.
Mostly, because Min-Ho was, at least to some extent, responsible for her drive to learn the language. He’d used it one too many times to say things to and about her when she couldn’t understand them.
Majority of the time, people were around her to tell her what he said when he refused to translate for her, but that one time, she still remembered like it was yesterday, he’d said something to Dae when they fought because of Dae thinking Kitty’s feelings were for Min-Ho, and she hadn’t understood.
Dae wouldn’t tell her.
And after Min-Ho disclosed what he felt for her, the equation between them changed. Not too much, no. But enough.
It wasn’t like Kitty particularly shared all her thoughts with Min-Ho. She didn’t share even some of the things she thought of with him. They were what they were. Sometimes friends, most times enemies. They didn’t share feelings and they practiced annoying each other like they were contenders for a national sport, and they talked, but they argued more.
Nonetheless, Min-Ho became a person Kitty came to depend upon in the time she spent in Korea. Somewhere along the way Min-Ho became the person who would give it to her straight as it was, without any filters and merciless. Kitty had come to appreciate it that way, more than she realised.
What’s more is that she realised Min-Ho had a habit of saying something he didn’t want her to understand, and she stood there gaping at what he’d said, not understanding what he’d said and suddenly she knew how much she was suffering because of her lack of understanding of the language.
Relationships mayhem aside, Kitty had no actual and absolute understanding of the Korean language.
At the end of the day, without any options left to pursue her understanding and learning of the Korean Language, she ended up consulting her professor-slash-the-person-she-thought-was-her-brother-but-was-actually-not. Professor Alex Finnerty.
He set her up with a tutor and there she was, finally making head towards becoming well versed with the Korean language.
She couldn’t wait for the next chapter.
- Now You Know Too.
If Kitty was asked if she’d ever felt her heart being broken, she would have probably said that she suffered from heartbreak a million times the past year.
Only that Kitty hadn’t known the amount of heartbreak she would suffer in this year.
Kitty’s genuine happiness at being back at KISS lasted for all of eight hours. How could she be happy in view of the fact that she was now rooming with the girl she was in love with and her girlfriend. She couldn’t believe that KISS had done this to her for the third time. First setting her up in a dorm with boys, then with a creep who set her up on an online website that allowed creepers to watch her sleeping, and now with the literal girl of her dreams and her girlfriend.
Fate surely had to be messing with her for all the trouble she caused Lara Jean when she sent those letters.
Now, Kitty, along with learning the language of the country and passing all her classes, would be living with Yuri and Julianna.
She would rather die fast than a slow death.
She would rather have a major heartbreak, than the thousand little heartbreaks she suffered from daily due to her living conditions.
Alas, she was suffering and she was alone.
Only, she was not.
Q and her were finally on good terms again, and Dae was also on the way to accepting that even though they couldn’t be a couple, they could still be a couple of friends, and Min-Ho, Q and Dae were like a package deal of friendship. It would take a special kind of person to be friends with one of them and not be friends with all three of them.
Q, God bless the guy honestly, had seen her chemistry surprise test result and decided that he would tutor her so another surprise test would not end up defeating her. Dae, being the kind soul he was, and the perfect student, decided he would follow them and they could do a study group. Min-Ho had just followed to watch the train wreck.
Min-Ho and Kitty hadn’t really spoken about anything serious after the whole confession. They had spoken on the plane ride over and also when she came back to KISS, but nothing of significance, and nothing that would remind either of them of the impending conversation they had to have, sooner rather than later.
They were not talking about the elephant in the room, not unless the elephant squashed either one of them.
And it was all going okay.
It was perfect in the way it rarely was.
She was learning and she was with the very first friends she had made in Korea.
It wasn’t a train wreck that Min-Ho predicted.
Until it was.
It was really really hard to prove the guy wrong.
It was an ideal hang out, really, until Yuri and Julianna came back.
The only sound that was to be heard in the dorm room was that of laughter coming from them. Otherwise, it was a pin drop silence.
Kitty clammed up, Q followed her lead, and by the time Dae looked up from his book in inquiry as to why no one was talking and whose laughing rang through the living room, Min-Ho was already smirking because Min-Ho was getting exactly what he was there for.
Yuri and Julianna reached the living room, unable to see anyone from the hallway to the door, and not aware of anyone’s presence because of the silence. The thing was, they were kissing, oblivious of audience they had. Not until Julianna let go and opened her eyes and jumped back when she saw the four of them.
Julianna hissed at her girlfriend when she followed her to kiss her again, “We have company.”
That, and the deer in headlights look in Julianna’s eyes was what made Yuri turn around to face them, only to let go a sigh of relief, turning back and assuring her girlfriend, “It’s okay, they know.”
Julianna’s eyebrows raised in question as Yuri went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, grabbing a bottle of water, closing it before coming back to living room. Julianna asked as soon as her girlfriend came back in sight, “What do you mean they know? I thought Kitty and Dae knew, because you didn’t want to get between whatever they had.”
Q winced at Julianna’s tone and Kitty backhanded him in the stomach for that, getting up to answer when Yuri nonchalantly added, “Yeah. Kitty and Dae were living with Q and Min-Ho when I told them, and when I went to live with them, I told them too.”
Julianna nodded, still a bit unconvinced and unsure on how to take the news. Kitty didn’t know what she was supposed to say in a situation like this, but she was timely saved by Min-Ho, “Oh don’t worry Julianna. We have absolutely no business in what goes around in this dorm room. In fact, we have enough practice as it is in keeping what happens in the dorm room in the dorm room. Last year we had another campus couple living together as roommates. It’s alright really.”
And the thing was Yuri and Julianna may not get it, but Min-Ho's words had quite the bit of sarcastic undertone to them, of which, Kitty had no idea to make of. Neither did Dae and Q, it would seem.
Thankfully, before any of them had to say anything, Julianna sat down in front of them, meeting her friends for the first time. After all of them were introduced, the first thing Julianna asked was, “So Dae, you were the fake boyfriend of my real girlfriend last year.”
Dae looked at Julianna and then turned to look at Yuri, who just shrugged, which led to Dae nodding, “Yes. Yes, I was.”
Julianna continued, “And now you are in a real relationship with Kitty.”
Kitty wanted to say something, she did, but Dae beat her to it, “No. We actually broke up before the break.”
Kitty knew what the next question was going to be, she knew, and she was mentally preparing for it, but it never came. Instead, she heard Min-Ho, who had interrupted Julianna to say, “Yeah. It’s a whole sordid tale, and we are, frankly, done with it. So, moving on, Julianna, Han Yuri, tell us how it is, being a secret couple?”
Just as Julianna and Yuri began rehashing their tale of forbidden love, Kitty slumped over where she was sitting. Relief palpable in her body language. Q held her hand and she looked up to find him looking at her, silently conveying he was there for her.
Following that, she witnessed how Q and Min-Ho started and ended a conversation wordlessly, one completely incomprehensible to Kitty, and at the end of which Min-Ho glanced at her, only to look away.
It was later, much later, when the boys had to leave when Kitty stopped Min-Ho to talk to him.
Q smiled at them and Dae looked unsure, but they both left them alone outside Kitty’s dorm room.
As Kitty’s fingers wringed, Min-Ho looked at her, and they both didn’t utter one single word.
“Min-Ho”- began Kitty.
“Kitty”- started Min-Ho.
They both stopped and Min-Ho waved his hand asking her to speak first.
She started again, “I just wanted to thank you for what you did inside.”
Min-Ho shook his head, “It was nothing, really--”, only to be interrupted by Kitty, “It really was not nothing, okay.”
Min-Ho raised both his hands up, accepting defeat, and smiled sheepishly.
Kitty smiled too.
Just as she was about to say goodbye, Min-Ho said, in a language she had little to no understanding of, and putting a stray strand of hair behind her ear, “I know. I know how it is to watch someone you love, love someone else.”
He chuckled, removing his hands from the space between them, like he was afraid they would do something he didn’t want them to, before continuing, “Now you know too.”
Kitty, perplexed, was just about to ask him to translate when he started towards the exit, his hand moving in a mock salute, “Later, Sasaeng.”
And just like that, annoying her to no end, he gave her a reason to hate him more.
- You Make Me Lose My Mind.
The thing was Kitty was not a child anymore. She could not get away with things children did anymore. And Kitty was well aware that no one would consider her a child in this country. She had come here all alone now, hadn’t she?
What Kitty couldn’t stop being however, was childish.
Kitty should be mature, she should be a grown up, she should definitely not be a child and on her good days she was all the things she should be and not things she shouldn’t be. But on bad days, bad days brought out the inner child within her to the surface, so much that she couldn’t control herself from doing the shit she shouldn’t do.
She was awfully reminded of that time she raced Yuri during that hike. That day she had discovered things, no doubt, but the childishness in that whole competition sometimes made her cringe.
Her pride at her victory was a consequence she was never proud of.
The point of the matter was that what she had done was extremely childish.
And she had no idea if she could ever get back to from where she had started.
Kitty was lost.
On another one of the school trips that seemed the norm for KISS, she had went to blow off some steam after witnessing yet another display of affection between Yuri and Julianna. She wasn’t sure she could witness any other moments between them without feeling miserable for herself.
Kitty, had taken one look at the happy couple playing on the beach and left towards the patch of trees she could see before she could convince herself that it was an undeniably horrible idea, that it was unknown territory and she could come to some serious harm in those woods. She wasn’t thinking beyond the fact that she wanted to get away from Yuri otherwise she would end doing something she regretted in her jealous haze.
Voila, she was now lost.
Her phone wasn’t any help in the woods. Her feet hurt. She was hot. She was thirsty.
She was dying.
And she was a tad bit over dramatic.
She sat down, her back leaning against a tree, tired as fuck, and sure that someone would realise she was missing and they would come looking for her. Her adventures in Korea were not going to end in death. If she died, Margot and Lara Jean would kill her.
She smiled, at least Lara Jean and Margot now knew how she was doing. She took out her phone and brought up the picture of them her father had taken of them over the break. Last year she had been stupid and tried to keep things from them, and they had set her straight over the winter break. Kitty was happy that they had sat down and talked all about Kitty’s adventures.
As soon as she swiped right on her phone, another picture of her and Peter came up. She chuckled as he made faces at the camera and then her.
It was at this moment someone sat beside her and she literally had a heart attack.
“Here I thought you would be crying, all lost in the woods, only to find you going through the memory lane of another of your boyfriends, who, by the way, looks way too old for you.”, smirked Min-Ho, the jackass, scaring her to shit.
Kitty pushed him away, punching him in the arm, her other on her heart, “Thanks for scaring me, jerk.”
Min-Ho just laughed, evilly, and bowed, “You’re welcome. Lost Princess.”
Kitty huffed. She looked at him and asked, “How come you are the one who found me?”
Min-Ho, with sarcasm dripping from his tone, as it usually did, answered, “Really? Who did you expect? The boyfriend you broke up with before break or the girl who you are in love with but who loves someone else and hadn’t even noticed you were gone?”
Kitty snapped, “Certainly not the guy who confessed that he might be in love with me and then never talked about it.”
Min-Ho opened his mouth, and then promptly closed it. Kitty crossed her arms, defensive and looked at him. He turned away from her, running his fingers through his hair, snapping in the language of his choice once again, “You are lucky you are so pretty and I feel the way I do about you.”
Kitty remained clueless, her Korean still limited to the basic words and polite things to say.
She got up from her position, looking at Min-Ho, asking him to lead the way back, not even trying to ask him to translate because she knew he never would. He did get up and started the hike towards what she hope was the camp they had set up for the night.
Following him, apprehensively, she asked again, “Seriously, what are you doing here? I was expecting Q, or even Alex.”
Min-Ho looked back, “Yes, more guys to collect for you. Not only Korean guys, you collect all kinds of guys like Pokémon.”
Kitty retorted, “What? Are you jealous?”
When no answer came, Kitty knew that was it. A huff of laughter left her, she asked, disbelief all over her features, and visible on her face if Min-Ho just turned to look at her, “You do know Q is gay, and that Alex is my professor?”
Min-Ho grunted, “Was not talking about them.”
Kitty growled, “Then what is this about?”
Min-Ho turned around to finally look at her, only to look back again, moving forward, muttering, “Forget it.”
Kitty sighed, following him silently, tired and hungry, thirsty and hot. It was as she was thinking of water she realised what Min-Ho was about. “Is this about Peter?” she asked, almost sure it was.
Min-Ho snapped, “Who now?”
Kitty grinned, “The guy from my phone?”
Min-Ho just grunted, without looking at her, and Kitty was sure.
Kitty shared, even when he hadn’t asked, “Peter is Lara Jean’s boyfriend. I single handedly got them together. He is practically my brother.”
Min-Ho turned back, facing her once again, and replied, annoyed, “I didn’t ask.”
Kitty shrugged, “Well, it seemed like you were curious. And jealous.”
Min-Ho retorted, “I, was not, jealous.”
Kitty smirked, “Sure you weren’t.”
Min-Ho, irritated beyond belief, switching to Korean as he did when he didn’t want her to understand what he was saying, “I seriously don’t know why I like you. You make me lose my damn mind, Covey.”
Saying his piece he lead away again, and Kitty shouted, “You sure you don’t wanna talk about it?”
She laughed when he yelled in negative.
She didn’t know how long she could hold onto her sanity with all of Yuri and Julianna shoved down her throat. And she wasn’t certain how long this, whatever this was between her and Min-Ho would last, but she could depend on it.
Not forever. No, absolutely not.
But, at least, for now.
- You Are Driving Me Crazy.
As most relationships during college, it seemed like Yuri and Julianna’s relationship too had hit a bit of a rough patch. A bit bigger than a bit of a rough patch.
They were broken up.
It all came to head last week, when she was coming back from dinner with the guys, and she heard yelling. A lot of yelling. Switching from English to Korean in a speed that made it difficult for her understand even the English part of the argument.
If only Kitty took her Korean classes as seriously as she did her pining.
It all ended with Yuri moving from the room she shared with Julianna and Kitty to the penthouse.
And Kitty couldn’t do anything to stop it.
She did try to talk to both of them, catching Julianna before she left for her classes the next day to ask her if everything was okay, only for her to grab a water bottle and proceed back to her room, her make-up from last night still ruined on her face, and the tear tracks still visible.
When Kitty left for school, with more questions than answers, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to catch Yuri in school, and decided to leave her a message asking about her.
She was surprised to see Yuri at school, indifferent to what had happened the previous night, as perfect as ever and mask firmly in place.
And Kitty tried, she tried to talk to Yuri, about anything, Julianna, school, anything really, but all she got was a cold shoulder. It was like last year all over again. Yuri was cold and mean and ruthless, and Kitty was caught off-guard.
When she got a notification for a party, she was almost relieved, even if the party was being thrown by Min-Ho.
They still hadn’t talked about the elephant.
When she told Julianna after she returned to their dorm, Julianna hummed and went back to eating the ice-cream and watching whatever she had on the television.
And see, Kitty was not the kind to come between true love, she wasn’t, but how true could their love be if they were broken up.
Kitty knew that Yuri wasn’t speaking to her, and she knew Julianna had no plans whatsoever of going to that party, and she also knew that Yuri would never miss a school party, and therefore, Kitty had to at least try to tell Yuri about her feelings which led to Kitty getting ready to go to that party.
Just like she had last year, she got ready to kill. She got ready and garnered all her confidence and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked hot. Unlike last time, this time the dress she wore was hot pink rather than the black, a halter for a neck, and though it had no cut outs, it was entirely backless. A smokey eyed look and a dark lipstick along with a high ponytail and high heels completed her look. There was no reason to be nervous. She could do it. She would do it.
At least she hoped she would.
As she reached the venue, she was hit with a sense of Déjà Vu, because there she was, Yuri, looking like the devil in her red and black outfit, DJing, and absolutely glorious.
She wasn’t sure how she had managed to keep her feelings to herself all this time.
Han Yuri was perfect and Kitty was undoubtedly, unquestionably and undeniably in love with her.
“You know you are drooling.” She heard Q ask from beside her.
She turned, startled, and asked, “What? Oh! No. What?”
Q chuckled at her flustering and said, “Don’t worry, you aren’t the only one.”
At that Kitty asked, this time a little bit more coherent than the previous time, “What?”
She followed Q’s gaze only to find Min-Ho looking away as she looked at him before turning away entirely from her, still flustered.
She chuckled.
She totally got the guy.
Q asked her again, “So, heard they broke up?”
Kitty looked away, guilty, “Yeah, they did.”
Q caught on, he did know her pretty well, and asked, “You sure you wanna do this?”
Kitty looked at him, and then at Yuri, and assured him, or herself, “Yes. If I don’t do this today, I might never do it.”
Q, however, not really assured, shrugged, “It’s your funeral.”
Kitty sighed, “Thanks, really, for the vote of confidence.”
Q shrugged again, almost mocking, “Hey! Just telling it as I see it.”
Kitty scoffed, “Okay. Stop now. I’m nervous as it is.”
Q waved his hands before saying, “See. That’s a sign.”
“No, it’s not.” Kitty reassured.
“It is.” Q persuaded.
Kitty huffed, “It’s not. Now she is coming off the stage. Let me go find her.”
Q moved away, towards the bar, but not before silently mouthing “your funeral” to her.
She chuckled at her friend’s antics before looking at the steps leading to the stage, only to find Yuri nowhere.
Cursing at herself for missing her she started searching around for Yuri. Moving around the front of the stage before heading towards backstage. She looked around backstage for some time before she came in front of room labelled “Employees only”. She opened the door slowly, looking inside and just when she was about to close the door, she heard voices.
“---rry for being a bitch.” She heard Julianna say.
Kitty then heard Yuri scoff, “Is that what you think was this about?”
Julianna inhaled, and her voice seemed to echo through the room when she replied, “I’m sorry for being jealous about Kitty.”
Kitty froze when she heard her name. They were fighting because of her?
Yuri asked, “And?”
Julianna continued, “And there is definitely nothing going on between you and Kitty.”
Kitty heard, still frozen in spot, when Yuri murmured, “Okay.”
Kitty could hear the frustration in Julianna’s voice when she continued again, “But I see the way she looks at you and that is definitely not nothing.”
Yuri sighed, “Babe. Please. Kitty doesn’t look at me. Also, Kitty is straight. This fight is going nowhere. Let’s just be together again. I miss you.”
Julianna, clearly unsatisfied, even from where Kitty was standing, hummed before replying, “I missed you too.”
But Kitty stopped listening. She was the reason they had fought. She was the reason two people in love had almost broken up. She was the reason Julianna felt jealous. She was the reason Yuri hadn’t spoken to her for almost a week.
In all the mess that is her feelings, she hadn’t even considered how she was ruining someone’s relationship. Kitty couldn’t stay there and she didn’t want to because Yuri and Julianna, as much as Kitty could figure out, were making out.
Backing away from the room as slowly as she can, she ran in the opposite direction.
She couldn’t believe what she had almost done.
As soon as the breeze hit her face and she could finally breathe, Kitty looked around her, the haze that had settled around her evaporating and making her realise she was outside the house.
She found a bench and sat down on it, her thoughts running haywire.
Katherine Song Covey, the match maker, had almost turned match breaker today.
She inhaled some of the fresh air, not letting the beats of K-Pop affect her.
It was almost laughable, she being so obvious that Julianna could see right through her.
Kitty needed to get over herself.
“You need to get over yourself.”, announced the bane of her existence.
She turned her gaze away from the night sky for it to land straight on Min-Ho.
There he was, the well dressed, well groomed, handsome asshole speaking what she was thinking.
Min-Ho sat down beside her, without her permission, causing Kitty to snap sarcastically, “No, no, sit right down. Would you like something, my liege?”
Min-Ho replied, smug beyond belief, “You do realise that this house is mine, don’t you?”
Kitty retorted, “Hence, my liege.”
Min-Ho snapped his mouth shut at that, muttering under his breath, “Someone’s in a mood.”
Kitty just glared at him, as if her glaring would ever affect Min-Ho. It never had, and it most probably never will.
Before she could even ask to be left alone, he beat her to it and asked, “So, what goes on in the Kitty Saga?”
Kitty scowled, “What do you mean?”
Min-Ho raised a single eyebrow, “You are sitting here, alone, in the dark, and I can see something is going on with you. So, spill.”
Kitty groaned, asking, “Am I that obvious?”
Min-Ho, answered, “Sometimes you are, and sometimes you aren’t.”
Kitty looked away before she whispered, “Julianna thinks I like Yuri.”
Min-Ho acknowledged, “And you do like Yuri.”
Kitty countered, “But she isn’t supposed to know that. No one is supposed to know that.”
Min-Ho scoffed, “I know that, Q knows that, hell Dae knows that.”
Kitty glowered, “You guys are my friends, Julianna is someone who isn’t supposed to know that.”
Min-Ho looked away, and Kitty was once again clueless.
Min-Ho started speaking then, about the elephant in the room, “Dae knew I liked you before I told you. He almost beat me up because of that.”
Kitty replied, “That’s different.”
Min-Ho shook his head, chuckling, “It’s really not.”
Kitty finally gazed at him, and he continued, “I just think, if someone likes someone you like, you just know.”
Kitty shivered as his words hit home. She had known Yuri dint like Dae when they were pretending to be in a relationship. Dae had known Min-Ho liked Kitty when they were in a relationship. It was bound to happen, Julianna realising Kitty liked Yuri, or at least thinking she did.
Kitty shuddered, hugging her bare arms, shaky, of her realisations or the cold, she didn’t know.
“You are driving me crazy, seriously.” She heard from beside her before she was being enveloped in the softest fabric she had ever felt in her life.
Min-Ho had lent Kitty his jacket.
It was typical of him, really, switching to Korean as per his convenience. But this time Kitty understood one word, and like a dog with a bone she ran with it, “Hey! Who you calling crazy?”
And the thing was that Kitty quite enjoyed the bewildered expression on Min-Ho’s face, and she looked back at him, smug at having caught him off-guard for once.
Min-Ho asked, still surprised, “Since when do you understand Korean?”
Kitty replied, “Since I started taking lessons for it. Pretty soon I won’t have to ask for translations about what you say to me.”
Min-Ho raised his eyebrows, “You aim high, Covey. Too bad you are still way off the mark.”
With that he got up from beside her, holding the ends of his jacket, covering her up a bit more. A tremor ran through her when he brushed his knuckles against her jaw, stroking her face before taking a step back.
She followed his steps with her eyes as they moved away, unable to look in his, only looking up when he turned around.
Holding the jacket closer to her body, she heard him once again, “Night, Covey.”
All she could think of after that was how her heart had skipped a beat when he’d touched her.
- I Like The Look Of Jealousy On You.
Kitty yelled as she woke up. Disbelief. Incredulity.
What was that dream?
Oh no, she hadn’t.
Yes she had.
No she hadn’t.
Oh yes she had.
Fuck. Fuckity fuck fucker fuck. Fuck.
What the fuck?
Had she just had a sex dream? About Min-Ho?
This was a nightmare.
She cackled.
Min-Ho had once described having a sex dream about her being a sex nightmare.
Only it wasn’t.
It so wasn’t.
She could still feel how his breathe touched her skin, how she had felt as if she was on fire. His fingertips, brushing, so gently on her forearms, cupping her elbows, pulling her in. His hand that had sneaked up behind her, pulling her to him by her waist, close enough that even air couldn’t pass between them. His nose, inhaling her scent as it followed the line from her neck to her ear. His lips that had whispered in her ear, his words ravaging her insides, making her shudder.
It really wasn’t a nightmare.
It was all because of him. Annoying her, making her hate him, helping her, talking to her, listening to her, supporting her, and being all she wanted a guy to be with her. She was bound to end up liking him.
Now, it was all a big mess.
Kitty knew, objectively, Min-Ho was hot. He was the kind of guy that made girls drool, the typical rich guy, the bad boy, the arrogant one, the one who was all mush inside his tough exterior, the kind of guy that girls fell in love with, and then got their heart broken by.
Kitty knew all about guys like that.
She couldn’t believe that one of them was making her heart flutter like this.
And the heart fluttering, the sex dream, the realisation of him being hot, it was a classic Kitty Crush-Starter-Pack.
Kitty had a crush.
Again.
She grabbed her comforter and fell back on the bed, covering herself from the world, hiding once again.
At least until she could talk to Q about the new object of her dreams.
Seoul wasn’t good for Kitty’s love life. Her life had turned to a regular K-Drama since she had stepped foot in Korea.
She groaned at the thought of facing Min-Ho today.
The only reason Kitty got up from her bed was because she was reminded of how atrocious her grades were and how her absence from classes would eviscerate any chances she had of passing the semester. Her life, after all, was not all about the guys and gals she found hot and developed crushes on.
No.
So Kitty got ready for school, and she pulled herself together. She mentally prepared herself to see Min-Ho and not think about the dream she had had about him. She steeled herself so that no one could figure that out she liked Min-Ho.
She wasn’t sure why. She just did.
Her wall shattered as soon as she entered the chemistry lab and saw Min-Ho standing over Eunice, looking at her notebook and pointing something on it. She turned around, only to smash into Q who held her shoulders before turning her back and moving her to her desk.
She wish she could correct him when he muttered, “We cannot run away from chemistry. And we will not.”
If only he knew what she was running away from.
The entire class she was distracted, stealing glances at Min-Ho’s table, cursing herself for putting them together that first day of class. It wasn’t like she could do anything else.
As it would be, luck was on her side, and no one noticed her distracted self before chemistry was done. It would be better in other classes, Kitty thought.
News flash.
It wasn’t.
Min-Ho had a veritable fan base, and that meant he had girls surrounding him in every single class.
Seriously. How had she not noticed this? How did she not notice Min-Ho flirt through all of his classes?
Because you weren’t paying attention, Kitty’s mind retorted, sarcastic, and sounding a lot like Min-Ho.
She didn’t know how she got to lunch that day, but it was a battle. She wasn’t spared from Min-Ho flirting with his Hoes even at lunch because lo and behold, there was the object of her dreams, sex dreams no less, talking to his ex-girlfriend, totally unmindful of the concept of personal space.
It was easily discernible that Kitty was beyond annoyed.
Something which did not escape Q’s notice.
As Kitty stabbed her lunch into a million little pieces, Q asked her, cautiously, “Okay. Spill. What is up with the attitude today?”
Kitty denied, almost vehemently, “What? Nothing. What are you talking about?”
She couldn’t resist looking at Min-Ho and Madison once again before averting her gaze back to her lunch again.
She wasn’t fast enough and Q wasn’t stupid enough to buy that bullshit, so he asked again, “Did he say something? Did you fight with Min-Ho again?”
Kitty shook her head, “No. NO! We would have to talk to fight. And Min-Ho has no time to talk to me, what with his Min-Hoes.”
Q looked at her, and then back at Min-Ho, suspicious, he asked, “Okay. Kitty, now please don’t kill me for asking this, but are you jealous?”
Kitty’s gaze snapped back at him, before a ringing denial left her mouth, almost alerting the entire canteen, “NO!”
Q and Kitty both looked around them, Kitty even glanced at Min-Ho before looking at Q, noticing he hadn’t noticed the commotion, “No. I am not jealous. No way. I hate Min-Ho.”
Q just looked at her, before saying, “Min-Ho hated you too.”
Kitty gasped, “Oh my God he told you?”
Q shrugged, “No. But I have eyes.”
Kitty pointed a finger at him, “You don’t know anything.”
Q looked at her smugly, “But you clearly know something.”
Kitty hesitated, “I don’t know if it’s my place to say if he hasn’t told you himself.”
Q nodded, “That’s fair.”
Kitty continued, “And I am not jealous.”
Q smirked, “You so are.”
Kitty dismissed, “Whatever.”
Q, suddenly serious, asked, “You know you guys have to talk one day.”
Kitty refused, “Well that day isn’t today, because clearly he has other appointments.”
They were both interrupted when Min-Ho sat beside Q, asking, “Who has other appointments?”
Before Q could even get a word in Kitty screeched, “No one!”
Min-Ho looked at her, his eyebrows raised, and Kitty seriously could not, because that face right there, that face was too reminiscent of the face that had started the whole scenario of her sex dream, that sexy face and the sexy challenge it had issued.
Kitty trembled, pulling herself together.
Min-Ho went back to his food.
It couldn’t have been more than a minute before they were joined by another girl, this one’s name unknown to Kitty, who then began asking questions to Min-Ho, taking away his attention from her.
Kitty was done. She was absolutely done. She had seen a half a dozen women flirt with Min-Ho since she walked into school and she had seen him flirt back with all of them. Frankly, it was now getting on her nerves.
She stabbed her fork again, too loudly, which caused the conversation to halt, and when she felt eyes on her, Q’s smug, Min-Ho’s concerned and unnamed girl’s irritated, she muttered an apology.
Her polite stabbing, or moving around her food in the plate stopped when she heard Min-Ho switch to Korean, “Really, what is the matter with you Covey. See I think you are jealous, but I don’t want to be too happy too soon, but I can’t make out any other reason for you glaring daggers at me and the girls I’ve talked with today. So really, it could only be jealousy.”
Q stared at Min-Ho with his mouth open, and Kitty remained entirely clueless because he had spoken too much too soon for her to even begin to put anything coherently.
“That was hot. I didn’t get it, but that was hot.”, exclaimed the unknown girl. Well at least Kitty wasn’t alone in her cluelessness.
What she was was alone in her jealousy. And in that moment, Kitty didn’t care what anyone thought of her, so she glared at the girl and then got up from the table, bidding goodbye to anyone who was listening.
Just as she was about to walk away, Min-Ho managed to say one more thing, something from which she could understand one single word, a word that made her blush like she was on fire, a word that made her reddened her entirely. A word that meant he figured out what she was feeling.
“I think, no, I know. I know I like the look of jealousy on you, Covey.”, he said, his lips playing at the infuriating smirk of his.
Jealousy. He knew.
Oh God he knew.
Kitty couldn’t run away faster.
- When I Feel Something, I Give My Everything.
Kitty knew school parties. She’d attended her fair share of middle school and high school parties to know what went around in them.
But there were Parties and then there were parties. She’d been to two Parties since she’d begin school in Seoul. It was high time she attended one of the parties too.
Now the former Parties were all the rage, there was DJ, there was beer, people danced and it went on all night. And the latter parties were more subdued, intended for secrets and drama, were there was vodka, and people got drunk and admitted their fantasies and slowly everyone ended up with someone.
This party, definitely the second kind.
How, you may ask?
Well they were a group of maybe ten people, they were sitting in a circle, there were three opened Vodka bottles, and four Soju bottles in the middle of the circle and Julianna was asking Madison Truth or Dare.
Kitty still wasn’t sure how she had ended up here. Maybe because the party was in her dorm room. Or maybe because she was having fun.
It didn’t matter.
What mattered was she had missed Julianna’s dare to Madison and Madison was now taking a shot from one of the Vodka bottles. The punishment of not being able to complete a dare.
Kitty shook herself out of her thoughts, finally concentrating on the game, and Madison who was asking Dae, “Dae! Truth or Dare?”
Dae answered to booing, “Truth.”
Madison, unperturbed, asked, “Why did you and Kitty broke up?”
Kitty noticed Julianna nodding to the question, as if she too wanted to know. Kitty looked up when Dae answered, “She liked someone else.”
Kitty sighed as the mocking gasps and awes sounded around the room. She laughed nervously.
Since it was Dae’s turn, he asked Yuri, “Yuri. Truth or Dare?”
Yuri responded, “Truth.”
Dae asked, “Have you ever liked anyone in this room, except Julianna?”
Yuri’s eyebrows raised, and Kitty wasn’t sure who Dae wanted to hurt, Yuri herself or Kitty.
Yuri shrugged, “No, not really.”
Kitty let out a breath she was holding at her answer, her heart hurting in the aftermath of her crush on Yuri. It hurt to hear that she had never even been on Yuri’s radar.
She felt a knee bump into hers, and there he was, Min-Ho, comforting her, smiling at her like it would be all okay.
She smiled back at him.
It was now Yuri’s turn and she asked Q, “Q, truth or dare?”
Q answered enthusiastically, “Dare baby, gotta shake things up a little.”
Yuri snickered before daring, “I dare you to give any girl of your choice, a lap dance.”
Kitty’s eyebrows rose at Yuri’s request and the excited response surrounding them was somewhat overwhelming. Amidst all this, Q eyes met hers, and before she could even utter a word of rebuttal, he used two of his fingers and beckoned her in a come hither motion.
Kitty gasped, but it was all useless. He was already moving towards her, perfectly in rhythm with the music someone had eagerly put on. She covered her face with her hands when she felt his above her, gyrating his hips in the most obscene way Kitty had ever seen. Not allowing her to hide, Q grabbed her hands and pulled them to rest on his shoulders.
Those two and a half minutes were the most horrifying two and a half minutes of Kitty’s life. Her best friend, her very gay, very guy, best friend gave her a lap dance, pulling all his moves into it, and she took it.
She wouldn’t mind if the earth swallowed her in now.
She would even welcome it.
Q laughed at her misery, and pressed a light kiss on her cheek before moving away from her. Laughter surrounded them and her mortification over getting a lap dance reduced slowly.
Q however, still in the mood to shake things up a little bit, asked, “Min-Ho. Truth or dare?”
Min-Ho replied, “You even have to ask? It’s obviously dare!”
Q, sniggering as if he already knew what it was going to be, dare, “I dare you to kiss Kitty.”
Dae exclaimed, “What?”, which was followed by cackling from Madison and nervous laughter from Eunice and Yuri and Julianna staring at Min-Ho, or Kitty, it wasn’t clear as they sat beside each other.
But what really mattered was Min-Ho, whose face was expressing a refusal before his mouth ever did, and as he leant over, taking two shots of Soju, and Kitty wasn’t sure what was happening.
Kitty couldn’t think over the chatter.
Unable to face the humiliation of a rejection of one kiss from the guy she had a crush on, from a guy who had confessed he loved her, Kitty ran away.
She ran away to her room.
Min-Ho would rather drink than kiss her.
Min-Ho, the guy she liked, wouldn’t kiss her.
Elsewhere, Q spoke over everyone, “Just what are you doing?”
Everyone grew silent at the fury behind Q’s question. Everyone looked between Q and Min-Ho when Min-Ho scoffed, “Just what am I doing? What are you trying to pull?”
Q scowled, “I was hoping to speed up the process a little bit.”
Min-Ho glared, “Speed up the process. We haven’t even talked about it.”
Everyone’s heads ping-ponged between the two when Q replied, “And I was giving you the perfect opportunity to talk to her and you---”
Min-Ho barked, “And I what? Ruined it? She doesn’t like me. She never did. All you are doing is ruining a perfectly comfortable friendship---”
Q retorted, “Oh please, stop it. You haven’t even talked to her and you know she doesn’t like you. If you had you would have known, and you would have kissed, and then you would have been together---”
Min-Ho laughed in derision, “No way was I kissing her the first time on a dare and what---”
Q cracked up, “That’s what this is about? You didn’t want your first kiss to be a dare. That’s why you drank?”
Min-Ho responded, “Obviously, why else would she think I drank? Apart from the bit where I respect her enough to not kiss her when she doesn’t even like me.”
Q guffawed, “You are an idiot. She probably feels humiliated and you don’t even have an idea.”
Min-Ho was confused, “Why would she feel--- Oh Shite!”
Q nodded, “Now you get it?”
But Min-Ho wasn’t listening, no, he was getting up and following Kitty to her room, opening it without knocking and closing it before locking it.
Yuri, finally gathering what she could out of the commotion, began, “Kitty and?”, only for Dae to continue, “Min-Ho. Yeah! Came out of nowhere. Really.”
Only for Q to chuckle, “You guys, you are blind.”
On the other side of the door, Min-Ho saw the figure under the blanket on the bed, knowing from the sounds that he had royally messed up and he had to make it right before he ruined any chance he could have with Kitty.
Slowly, as if approaching a spooked prey, Min-Ho whispered, “Kitty?”
Her only response was a pillow thrown in his direction with the instruction, “Go away.”
Not to be deterred, Min-Ho tried again, “Look Kitty, I didn’t mean to---”
Kitty took down the blanket, snapping, “What did you mean to do? Humiliate me? Show me that you would rather drink than kiss me? That you are repulsed by me? Seriously Min-Ho, just leave me alone.”
Min-Ho tried, “I was just---”
Kitty interrupted him again, “You were just what Min-Ho?”
Min-Ho took a deep breath, answered, “I just didn’t want our first kiss to be because of a stupid game.”
Kitty looked up then, exclaiming, “What?”
Min-Ho remained steadfast, “You know I like you. I am in love with you. How could I kiss you on a stupid dare? I don’t even know whether you like me or not.”
Kitty gaped at him, his reasoning making total sense, but also not. Looking down once again, she mumbled, “I thought you didn’t like me anymore.”
Min-Ho sighed when he sat down beside her bed, making her look at him again by putting a finger under her chin. He looked at her, just like he had that day in the plane and said, switching to a language Kitty persevered to understand more of everyday, “When I feel something, I give my everything, and I feel a whole lot for you Covey.”
And it may have not contain words that were classic in love confessions in Korean, she has come to understand enough of it to know that it wasn’t any less than a confession.
He leaned forward, his hand cupped her cheek and a storm of butterflies raged in her stomach as his lips touched her forehead in softest of kisses.
He moved back, and she followed him.
He smiled, and her heartbeat fluttered.
He mock saluted, and she remained.
She remembered she hadn’t said anything only when he left the room, leaving her amidst lips that were gentle as the wind, and butterflies that raged a storm unbridled.
+1. Kitty
At the beginning of the year, Kitty was determined to learn the Korean Language to make her surroundings easy for her. She’d begun classes to learn Korean because it was the language of the nation and it would help her to stay here.
Somewhere along the way Kitty’s motives of learning the Korean Language turned to understanding what Min-Ho said to her when he thought she couldn’t understand him.
Min-Ho had influenced her decision greatly and now she was armed with enough knowledge of the language that she could tell him what she felt in it.
The only problem was she didn’t know how.
Kitty had had three loves in her life.
The first , Dae, for whom she confessed her feeling through the letters she wrote.
The second, Yuri, for whom she never confessed her feelings for.
And third, Min-Ho, for whom she would have to actually confess her feelings out loud.
Kitty didn’t know what to do.
Not everyone was brave enough to just say they were in love, certainly not Kitty.
It wasn’t like Kitty didn’t try to make plans. She did. It was just that they never came to head.
She planned a dinner, good food, good alcohol, a confession. But then they all had to serve detention that day because some idiot decided that it would be a great idea to paint graffiti on the library wall and not confess, so everyone from their class had to be in detention.
Then she planned a walk in the park, fresh air, romantic atmosphere, a confession. Only Min-Ho hurt his ankle during football and was incapacitated.
She also ended up planning so that they would go on a movie, and after, on the walk back home she would tell him how she felt. The idiot bought Dae and Q with him.
It was like the universe was against her or something.
In the end it was rather anticlimactic.
They ended up fighting because of a girl.
A girl visiting from another school on some Inter-College competition, a pretty girl, and a girl that was very much Kitty’s type. Smart, scary, hot and scary hot. She annihilated every student in that competition and didn’t mind taking names too. She fought the students fiercely, and won the Inter-College Debate Competition and was awarded a scholarship and she accepted it with a grace that came from knowing that she could not be defeated.
Honestly, Kitty ended up having a bit of a crush.
Nothing like those sex-dreams-inducing crush, neither was it a crush that she thought would lead anywhere, nor did it matter because she came with a perfect boyfriend that looked at her like she hung the moon.
It was Q’s teasing that even made Min-Ho look at her to realise that she had another crush.
She wanted to kill when Q sat between her and Min-Ho and pointed at the corner of her lips before teasing, “You got a bit of drool over there.”
Kitty rolled her eyes and spat, “Oh, shut up!”
Q just laughed and she tried to kill him with her glare before she felt another glare in her direction. Min-Ho glared at her from beside Q and huffed before getting up and exiting the auditorium. Her eyes followed as he walked away, like that day on the airport, only then he was walking towards her.
She felt Q nudge her, wiggling his eyebrows mockingly, he teased again, “You are drooling again.”
Kitty, now irritated, smiled bitterly at him before getting up to follow Min-Ho.
When she exited the auditorium, the hallway was empty. Min-Ho wasn’t around. She didn’t know why she expected to find him there. He clearly left the auditorium to get away from her. She ran to the end of the hallway, hoping to catch his silhouette to follow, but no such luck.
Hesitant, but determined, she advanced towards the library, knowing that, with the amount of students in that auditorium, the library would be empty. She could find the quite she seeked over there.
She was also perceptive enough to know that Min-Ho would also likely try and find some place quite, as he did when he was irritated, or overwhelmed, or angry, or just sad.
Alas, the library was empty.
It was also quite.
And she couldn’t see anyone.
She smiled, reminiscent of the day they had to serve their detention there. How all of it revealed more and more about her mom and her life there at KISS. She smiled when she passed the rack with the old schoolbooks of KISS, her fingers grazing the spine of those albums.
Kitty was startled to a jump when she heard someone behind her, “Did you talk to her?”
She turned around to look at Min-Ho, who stood there, leaning against the bookshelf, his face inexpressive of what he was feeling. Kitty sighed, her hand still above her heart, answered with a question, “You scared me. What are you talking about?”
Min-Ho shrugged, not a hint of emotion on his face, but his eyes thundering, “The girl you were drooling over. Kang Mi-Rae. Did you end up talking to her?”
Kitty chuckled hesitantly, and asked, “Why would I talk to her?”
Min-Ho scoffed, rage colouring his features, “Why wouldn’t you talk to her? You like her.”
The switch to Korean did not deter Kitty to make her understand what Min-Ho said. Kitty took a step forward, her hands between them, trying to calm him down, “Min-Ho, it’s not like that. She was just amazing on stage, and did you look at her, I mean, would you seriously not consider dating her? Moreover, she has a boyfriend. That guy, Do Kyunk-Seok. Anyway, that’s not what I wanted---”
Min-Ho seethed, “Well, no one knows what you want, ha, Covey? It’s not like you to clearly state what you want. You make me go round and round, in circles and I just cannot figure out what it is that I should do that could finally lead to---”
Kitty decided that she had had enough. That this was it. He could not possibly think she didn’t want him. How could she be any clearer? So she made a decision, split second, totally mad, and an entirely uncertain decision. She cupped his cheeks and kissed him.
Her lips met his and his complaints abruptly turned into a gasp before his hands found her waist and he was returning the kiss with as much vigour as Kitty.
Kitty stopped for a moment, unable to move even a step further from him, her lips finding his again in milliseconds, and then she stopped again.
She mumbled, in between kisses, “I like the look of jealousy on you.”
Min-Ho stopped kissing her for a moment, and looked into her eyes as she confessed in the language he wielded as a weapon when with her, his eyes powerless to hide his surprise at her speaking Korean.
She smiled, kissing him again, before continuing, “Now you know too, how I feel about you.”
He chuckled, unable to believe her, kissing her again, his hands moving to cup her cheeks. Kitty was never more proud of herself for her idea to start learning the Korean language.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down, whispering, “You make me lose my damn mind, you drive me absolutely crazy, and I feel so much for you.”
He turned serious at her confession, knowing it was a big deal for the both of them. She continued, “I will give my everything, as long as you want to try too.”
Min-Ho pecked her, softly, and promised, “I want to. So much.”
Kitty smiled, before pulling him for another kiss.
A kiss sealing them together, for as long as they wanted to be.
They both smiled.
It was a beginning.
Then they jumped apart when they heard a throat being cleared.
They both turned to look at Professor Lee, watching them, with disapproval in his eyes.
He smiled, uncomfortable, and punished, “How about detention? Be here on Saturday at 11 in the morning.”
With that he turned away and left.
Kitty looked at Min-Ho.
Min-Ho looked at Kitty.
They both burst out in laughter.