"Why do I need to climb up the tree again?" he shouts from the bottom of my window with a fed up look on his face. "Your parents aren't even home yet."
"Because it's romantic."
"Breaking my neck is romantic?"
"You won't fall. You've done this so many times before."
"Only because I had to. Can you just let me in through the front door, Seong Jin?"
I fold my arms over my chest, unwilling to budge on this.
After rolling his eyes, he begins to make his skillful climb up the tree outside my room and I have to purse my lips so that I do not break out laughing at the indignant expression he's wearing. Once he makes it to the top, he leisurely climbs in through my window.
"The things I do for you, I swear," he mutters, brushing any twigs and leaves off his clothing.
After tiptoeing to ruffle a hand through his hair, I jump onto my bed and open my laptop to continue writing my email to the administrator at the University of Oxford. The clicking noises fill the otherwise silence in my bedroom.
When I hear some scrummaging going on, I curiously glance up through my peripheral vision and see Kai walking around my room, observing everything as if this is the first time he has been in here. Fortunately, I cleaned up before he could come up here so it isn't as messy as it normally is.
"This is a really good picture," he says to himself and then he turns around to show me the photo which was previously stuck onto the column of my bookshelf. It's a picture of him, the one I took when we were outside the diner.
"Are you only saying that because you're in it?"
"No, it's a good picture. Compliments to the photographer." He places it back on the column and then crawls onto my bed with me, laying down beside me with his head resting on his palm.
My fingers dance across the keyboard quickly with my brows furrowed in concentration as I carefully craft the email. The entire time, I can feel his eyes watching me fervently.
Moving closer to rest his chin on my shoulder, he whispers, "What are you working on?"
I try to ignore the warmth of his breath on my neck, the way my heart fluttered at the familiar scent of his old spice cologne. "I am just quickly typing out an email to the administration to relay to them that I'm going to have to wait to send them proof of my extracurricular activity."
He hums lowly, the sound reverberating through my core.
For a nanosecond, my fingers stop expertly moving across the keyboard as my breathing hitches. Then I shake my head to try to refocus my attention and continue to type up the email.
"Oh, wait, what was that?" he suddenly asks me and I turn to look at him with a furrowed brow.
"What was what?"
"You have a message from my old email address."
"I do?" I glance back at the left side of the screen. "Which one?"
He reaches over my shoulder and uses the cursor to click on the email. When I read the messages, my eyes widen in shock and I turn around to regard him in bewilderment. "You're the same Kai I was talking to all those months ago? The one I gave advice to about coming out to their family? That was you?"
"I guess." He looks just as surprised. "And you are... SJ?"
"Holy shit."
"Yeah... holy shit is right."
"What a coincidence."
With a smile playing on the corner of his lip, he says, "I'd like to think it was fate."
I burst out laughing, shaking my head. "Why did you change your email?"
His face falls. "My laptop was accessed by some dumbass scammers so I had to change everything. It was my fault really for falling for it. In hindsight, it was pretty obvious that the guy was trying to scam me but in the moment, I didn't stop to think."
"Did you lose money?"
"Fortunately not."
I nod before turning back around to finish my email to the university. "I can't believe you're the same Kai I was talking to."
"And I can't believe you're SJ." His fingers distractedly slide down my arm as if to draw something invisible on there. I try to concentrate on what I am writing but the words are escaping my brain. His being this close to me, breathing on me, is too much of a distraction.
Not being able to cope, I question him quietly, "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," he murmurs while simultaneously pressing a featherlight kiss to the crook of my neck.
My breath catches in my throat and I pause, eyes drifting shut for a moment. "Kai, I really need to focus."
"I know," he breathes, his lips brushing my earlobe and then he nuzzles my neck, trailing kisses along my jaw. "Continue."
I can feel the last of my willpower slipping away.
With a soft sigh, I turn my head to meet his jade-brown eyes. As it does whenever our eyes connect in this manner, everything immediately slows, locked in a moment suspended in time. He blinks up at me to feign innocence but underneath his playfulness I still manage to catch the searing desire burning in his gaze. The tension between us grows thick in the room and my eyes flicker around his soft features with a mixture of anticipation and curiosity.
"You're so annoying," I whisper before capturing his lips in a tender kiss, tasting the remnants of the strawberry frappuccino he had earlier on his mouth.
My eyelids flutter closed as I move my lips against his where I feel a proud simper curling through the kiss.
Emboldened, he slides his hand down my neck and when he closes the distance between us I almost feel the rapid beat of his pulse through his chest. He carefully guides my body down onto the bed, his body straddling mine. Our bodies flush against each other and his hands come to rest on my hips, fingers digging in ever so slightly. He deepens the kiss, drawing a timid noise from me which only serves to encourage him to carry on.
Everything around us fades away, the thought of the email slipping into the foggiest parts of my brain.