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Q was out with Jin and Dae was in a study group, so Min Ho and Kitty were the only ones in the dorm.
It was seven in the evening. The sky was dark, and the rain pattered against the windows.
Kitty was journaling on the common room sofa while Min Ho stirred a pan of rice. The day had been long. Kitty was annoyed that she had so much to do, and she needed a breath of fresh air, and Min Ho had said he had nothing to do, so he suggested they spend the evening together.
It wasn't romantic, Kitty reminded herself. After spending an entire summer with Min Ho, spending time with him alone was never really romantic. It had been a daily occurrence. Why would it be any different now?
"Oh, shit," Kitty muttered underneath her breath. She didn't say it loud, but he heard her anyways.
Min Ho's head snapped up from the food he was cooking. "What's wrong?"
Kitty sighed, setting her journal to the side. "The pen I was using stopped working, and I didn't bring any others with me."
"Ah, don't worry about it. I have plenty of extras. If you go into my room and open the desk drawer, you'll find as many as you can possibly imagine choosing from. Feel free to help yourself to any of them. I have multitudes more than I need," Min Ho offered with a kind smile.
Kitty flashed him a grateful smile as she hopped off the couch and padded into the room. It was strange, going in there without anyone else in there. She'd hardly even seen Min Ho's room before, much less gone in it alone. As she suspected, he had shelves of designer shoes and watches. She rolled her eyes at the thought, and she was sure that if Min Ho had caught her expression, he would've given her hell about it-- even if it was just their normal bickering.
She quietly made her way over to the wooden desk. Compared to hers, it was the most organized she had seen in years. After opening the drawer to quickly grab whichever pen she saw first, her eyes were suddenly drawn to something so eerily familiar she'd almost forgotten about it-- actually, them. There were four of them, all grouped together near the very back of the drawer.
Pens, the exact same ones Min Ho had said he was buying for Stella back in April.
Why did he still have them?
Kitty, being the chaos queen, let her curiosity get the better of her. She quickly snatched the pens into her hand, not caring to close the drawer before clomping back out into the common area. "You still have Stella's pens?" She asked with a frown. It wasn't jealousy; It was mere confusion.
Min Ho turned around with a gaping open mouth. "I--" He wasn't sure what to say for a moment. "Yeah, I do."
"Why?" Kitty asked, squinting her eyes suspiciously. If the girl had loved the place so much, and he'd been so passionate about buying the silly little things, why hadn't he ever bothered to gift them to her? After all, gifts were his love language.
Min Ho inhaled, avoiding her eyes as he let out a sigh. "Because I didn't buy them for her."
"Ohhhh, I see," Kitty nodded slowly with a teasing smirk. "Back at it with Lulu again, huh? I didn't know you guys were still talking."
Min Ho looked at her with the most dumbfounded expression on earth. She couldn't seriously think that, could she?
He couldn't even recall the last time he'd talked to Lulu, much less even thought about the girl.
"God, no, Covey. I haven't spoken to her in months."
Kitty raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so there's someone else? Gosh, Min Ho. How was I with you for like, what, literally two months and had no clue you were talking to someone else? I'm not that oblivious to my surroundings, so you're definitely bluffing. So, who'd you actually get them for?"
Min Ho didn't blink. He just stared at her in disbelief as he admitted, "You."
Kitty blinked repeatedly, trying to wrap her mind around what he'd just said. "What?"
"You. I bought them for you-- Well, because, at the time you were still reeling from everything that had happened at the cabin, and I was going to get something for you to cheer you up. But when I saw you there with the ping-pong boy, I couldn't very well tell you that," Min Ho calmly explained.
Kitty was on her heels, ready to lay into him with a great argument. "That's why you were acting so jealous of Peter? Because he bought me a pen and you were too scared to give them to me?"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, now. Who ever said I was afraid to give them to you?" Min Ho asked with a raised eyebrow. "How was I, exactly, supposed to gift them to you after claiming they were for Stella? That would be a diabolical move, Covey, even for me."
Kitty's face softened, mocking him a little as she chimed, "Awww, you really care that much about what I think of you. That's so cute."
Min Ho's face contorted into some sort of hybrid between the emotions of disgust and enamor. "Making bold moves tonight, now, are we?"
When Kitty heard that question, it all clicked.
If Min ho didn't care, why would he have gone out of his way to get her those pens when she was just feeling sad?
Especially when his love language was gift giving.
She knew Min Ho better than anyone else, and that wasn't just a regular occurrence for him.
All the time Kitty had been around him, he acted like did these big acts of service for everyone-- but he never did.
He hadn't been doing it because he cared about her as a friend.
He'd been doing it because it was her.
Echoes of their past flashed through her mind like lightening, one after another. Min Ho's confession on the plane, the way he'd whispered in her ear right after saying it was "just a crush", ruining his designer clothes to simply give her a hug, when he'd said she'd broken his heart, and the plane ride...
Kitty had never been so sure of herself in her entire life.
Min Ho still inevitably had feelings for her,
but he'd been-- what-- hiding them all this time?
Could he really not see how much her feelings for him had evolved.
"Care to share why you're making that face at me, Covey? You're acting as if you've just had the greatest epiphany known to mankind," Min Ho observed.
Kitty's expression then changed from wide, surprised eyes to a harsh glare. "You really couldn't say it this whole time?"
"Pardon?" Min Ho asked, a bit caught off guard.
She crossed her arms, staring at him expectantly. "That you still had feelings for me. Why didn't you just say so?"
Min Ho's eyebrows shot up like rockets, and the rest of his face looked blank. "Kitty, what on earth are you talking about?"
She shook her head, letting out a light sigh. "Min Ho, why do you think I asked to go on tour with you?"
"I--" He paused, frowning. "That's not a fair question, Covey. You never actually told me why. It was a last-minute decision."
Kitty closed her eyes, momentarily in disbelief he couldn't realize why she'd even asked to go with him. Maybe it wasn't fair to be annoyed with him about it because Stella had messed him up, but she wasn't thinking of it like that. She'd made her feelings as clear as day.
The amount of times they'd almost kissed on tour? The amount of times they'd cuddled? The depth of how they knew each other because of it? Those things wouldn't have happened if it weren't for...
"No, you big dummy. I asked to go with you because I'm in love with you," Kitty blatantly stated.
Min Ho's entire face went slack. He couldn't even blink. He couldn't think. He stared at her for three whole minutes before even being able to slightly speak up. Even when he did, his voice was softened so much that it was hardly a whisper. "What?"
"You heard me," Kitty repeated, her voice shaking a little as she tried to say it as confidently as she could. "I'm in love with you."
He took small steps away from the stove, around the island, right towards her until they stood only a few inches apart. "What did you just say?"
Kitty rolled her eyes. "Min Ho, are you really going to make me say it a third time? All you've said is 'what'. I mean, I know that sometimes you can be really hard of hearing and everything, but I really don't think that making me repeat what I said a third time would really--"
Her sentence was cut off with the feeling of his lips on hers. It was different than any other first kiss she'd had. It was, for both of them.
There was something greater.
It was like two asteroids colliding into each other in space and creating an entirely new planet.
No one would think it was possible, but it was, and there was no going back.
Their love was something new, and it was the most beautiful love to exist.