DAY 2

You wake up the next morning feeling as if the world was whispering in your ear, telling you to go back to sleep. But you know this is a new day and your friends have something planned. And, naturally, you'd have to go along with it.

It felt like an old topic now, but you still felt the heart-wrenching, crushing feeling of your oh-so recent break up. You feel heavy as you finally sit up and look around. Your roommate isn't in the room for some reason, but you hear voices outisde of the hotel room, so you assume that they must have started planning the schedule and didn't want to wake you up. 

You hurriedly get dressed and brush your hair. While you brush your teeth, you take a look at yourself in the mirror. At first glance, you look halfway decent. But looking closer, you see the dark cirlcles under your eyes, the dullness that seems to be constantly present as you stare back at yourself. You spit out the foamy toothpaste and wash your face. Even after that, you still seem a little unpresent. 

You turn to your right to leave the tiny bathroom and you almost have a heart attack. There's Kai, leaning against the doorway. You didn't even hear him come in. Well, you had heard the door open, but you assumed it was your roommate.

"Why...?" You say, and then push him lightly out of the way. You pull the hotel room door open and look outside. Typical. Your friends abandoned you with the hot guy. "Why did they let you in...?"

"Good morning." He says to you, and even bows slightly. "I told your friends that I would show you around today."

"Of course you did..." You mutter in English. Sometimes it was convenient to speak multiple languages. Then in your beginner Korean you ask, "So where are we going?" You said this in such a dismissive manner, which you regretted instantly.  You grab your purse, which had a conveniently long strap, (much like a messenger bag does) and you swing it around your shoulder. Right after this, Kai takes your hand and starts walking out the door.  You feel a moment of shock as you see your hand being held by Kai's. He gives you a warm smile and suddenly, you feel the warmth spread to you. He seemed to like to be in control of the situation, yet something was also very welcoming under that confident aura he gave out.

Outside the hotel, there's a car waiting. He opens the door for you, and you hop in. He goes in after you and once again, you ask him where he plans to take you. He tells you that you'll find out in a minute and so you wait. You feel a little uncomfortable since neither of you are saying a word, but when you take a peek at him from the corner of your eye, you see that he looks extremely relaxed.

When the car finally stops, you find that you're in a busy district and the car is parked in front of nice restaurant. You're about to ask him a question when suddenly, Kai shows you his watch. "Oh..." is all you can say as you see that it's well past noon.  "Lunch time." He says to you. "I'll pay." You, not knowing what to say, just nod slowly and mutter your thanks.

It turns out that he's already reserved a table. Which is utterly ridiculous, in your opinion. As you two sit down, the question seems to have more meaning.  "Why would you already have a table ready?" You ask him.

All he says is, "I...planned ahead."

You look at him with wide eyes. Then you simply shake your head and say "Oh..."

"I wanted to.... I, uh, thought I could get to know you a little more."

You feel extremely strange and a little uncomfortable and so you simply shake your head again. "I'm just some girl you saved yesterday. If anything, I'm a complete stranger. I barely know you and you barely know me."

He also looks a little shocked. He crosses his hands and props his chin up. "So why not try to get to know me?"

"Sure." This time, you smile at him. When the waitress comes by, she seems to recognize him, even asks for his autograph. He orders for the both of you. For the entire next half an hour or so, you both do exactly what you agreed to. You "get to know each other". You start off with basic introductions. You tell him about the trip your friends planned, and he tells you about work at SM. You find that you really want to keep hearing more. His life seems so much more interesting and harder than yours. 

At one point, near the end of your meal, Kai has already finished his food and you're just about finishing yours too. His elbow is on the table and he puts his head on his hand and looks at you. He seems to be blanking out a bit as he says something. It's a barely audible whisper, but you hear it. "Cute..." is what he says.

You look up at him. "What?"

He seems to snap out of a trance. As if he realizes what he just said, he looks at you and says, "Sorry. I... I didn't mean...I didn't want to imply something... I..."

"It's okay. Really." Both of you feel a little awkward. You've always known that you weren't exactly "pretty", but it felt so strange to receive a compliment like that. But then you look up and you find that he is looking up at you too. You show a silly grin and both you start to laugh. And then you ask him about his work again and the awkward moment passes.

Was it always this easy talking to people?

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HIS THOUGHTS:

She had shaken his very core and made him feel weak. He always felt confident, and always worked hard. But now his confidence was a facade. To everyone else, he was the cool, confident one. The one with a presence. But now he was just a guy. This feeling was so unsettling.

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To be honest, you really like Kai. You're naturally good at telling people's personalities, even if their hard to describe in words. But Kai...he seems a little over-confident, and he definitely has an "in control" kind of feeling to him. But he is very kind to you and very real. Down-to-earth. He seems like a realist, and from his progress in EXO-K, you can tell he worked hard. So when you get back to the hotel that night (for he had brought you to a department store in the afternoon, and had said that he would take you to more stores later on), you end up re-watching all those music videos of EXO-K that your friends had showed you. But you don't research any further. It wouldn't do to treat him like you were an obsessed fan. If anything, you really want to be friends with him and it would do best to learn what you could from him himself.

Your roommate asks you a bunch of questions about Kai and how your "date" went. You try telling her it wasn't a date, but she doesn't believe you. Even part of you doubts that that could have not been a date. But you didn't care. For the first time in a while, you feel truly happy. For the first time in a while, you smile and laugh genuinely as you tell your friend all about your day.

For the first time in a while, you can't wait until tomorrow.