Amber had once accidentally electrocuted herself.
She'd accidentally touched live open-wire while trying to fix the wiring of a desktop in school. It had been a moment of sheer stupidity and absolute idiocy. Her mind, addled by the lack of sleep and tinged with the onset of a cold, was incapable of making good decisions at that point of time.
It was absolutely frightening and Amber had been powerless against the tremors that tore through her body. Her muscles had clenched and spasmed in protest. The reactions were an oddly painful sensation that sent her nerves into shock and turned her body stiff from the sudden attack. It was a buzzing sensation that she never wanted to experience again.
This was nothing like that.
This was a sudden jerk to her senses. It was like a burst of pleasant energy across her skin. Kind of like the sudden gush of vigour one would receive after a brief amount of exercise. It was as if she had always been underwater, submerged in beds of cotton drenched in sweet chloroform, and she had finally resurfaced.
It lighted an inner warmth that she'd never known needed to be ignited. It was a soothing heat that quelled all her anxiety and took away all her worries, all her fears. It was like taking a sip of hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire after hours outside in a blizzard. It warmed her inside, making her cheeks pink and her body tingle pleasantly.
It was sweet, warm and comforting electricity.
That was the only way she could describe the feeling that coursed up her body at his touch.
Electricity.
She was feeling all that within mere seconds of their brief touch and it elicited a gasp from her lips, which was mirrored by a sharp intake of breath from him. In her moment of shock, her eyes automatically snapped up to meet his, and what met her eyes was a familiar face that she had only seen on TV screens.
He was bare-faced with soft white-blonde locks, slightly wet and frizzy from a recent shower.
Droplets of water hung on his messy head of hair and they continued to drip onto the floor. The tiny beads of water were like a shimmery veil of gemstones on his hair. His fringe lightly dusted over well-shaped brows that were larger and thicker than most Asian men.
His brows drew her line of sight down towards one of the most aesthetically shaped faces Amber had ever seen in her short, pathetic life.
Beguiling eyes were on her own. Eyes that were a deep shade of chocolate that was just light enough for her to have a brief glimpse of pupils that dilated slowly.
They bored into hers, those eyes, flickering with a wide array of emotions that hardened his jaw and created a wrinkle between his thick brows. He was staring at her with such burning intensity that she was sure she might combust.
At that moment Amber was noticing things she'd never known before. Like his left eye that had more creasing than the other. Like the tiny little pink scars of hyperpigmentation from his adolescence on his left cheek. Like the beauty mark under his right eye—a soft hazel colour that brought out the brown in that eye.
Then she was noticing more than just that.
The closeness of their faces. The soft exhale of his breath that drifted to her in minty wafts. The slight flush of pink on his cheeks that stained the pale beige hue into a pretty cherry.
His rosy lips parted to reveal pearly squared teeth, and his tongue darted out quickly to wet drying lips that soon became sleek with saliva. The action forced her eyes to draw towards the movement on reflex, locking in on his mouth.
Her body was steadily turning hypersensitive. The need that soared in her chest was moving to settle between her thighs, right down there. Oh, God.
She licked her lips in her nervousness and then he was looking at them. His eyes were on her mouth. Then they were meandering down her body in a deliberately sluggish descend. They stayed for far too long on the drenched swell of her breasts, moving to the stretch of her legs before darting back up to her eyes.
Did he just check her out? Her heart lurched at the thought. Impossible. He couldn't have, he mustn't have. This was after all— her heart pounded in a staccato rhythm in her chest—Kim Sieon.
The baritone singer of IDOL.
He inhaled, moving closer and all those thoughts in her mind disappeared into nothingness. What was he doing? His lips quirked upwards at the corners. What was he thinking? His eyes flickered with his mirth. He was close, too close. So close that her eyes fluttered wanting to squeeze shut and accept his kis—
The spell was broken by the sudden rush of cold icy water on their palms, as the sensor finally decided to work at the shittiest of timings. They jerked away from each other.
Her mind jolted awake, suddenly aware of how impossibly close they were. Of how her hips were just centimetres away from his, and how their legs were entangled with one another's. If she just moved a little closer, just a little closer, her breasts would be pressed flush against his.
And her nipples tingled at that thought.
She flinched, taking one huge awkward step away from him. Her legs stretched so far back that her inner thighs burned in protest. It was one huge step that elicited a smirk from him, a smile that turned her legs to absolute jelly and made her heart beat so fast she feared it might just escape from her chest.
It was the smile that killed her nerve and reminded her of the current situation. The situation that involved her, a girl, in the male toilet, with a celebrity. In her rising panic, her fingers flew away from his.
The sudden loss of that pleasant electricity was like a cold slap to the face. It was that abrupt replacement of cold emptiness that made her long for more and she resisted the urge to reach for his hands again.
Then she was turning and dashing away as fast as her little legs could carry her. She pushed open the door of the toilet, tearing across the hallway. She swerved, spotting the open elevator doors at the lobby and Miri was directing their chauffeur in with their luggage--hers looking battered and peeling pink while Miri's was a bright polished lime.
She was hurtling through, pulling Miri along. And as she watched the elevator door close, she sank to her knees right onto the carpeted floors of the elevator.
Miri was alarmed, shaking her repeatedly, but Amber didn't even register her words in her mind because her mind was filled with a single name.
His name.
Kim Sieon.