.

Who on earth would say cute to me when I was looking like a little match girl? Rather than me feeling ashamed of myself, I wanted to protect Yeo Dan oppa’s eyes. And that was when I tried to take his hands off me.

Yeo Dan oppa tilted his head while placing both hands on the towel around my head. The bright light that was flowing from the veranda disappeared as he blocked the sight.

It was still such a slow-motion as if buds were sprouting. After blinking swiftly, I slightly closed my eyes. A light and warm touch swept my cheek as if someone had gently pressed it with his thumb. There was soon another kiss right under my cheekbone close to my ear.

Suddenly, Yeo Dan oppa rubbed my hair again with the towel. A lock of my yet undried hair fell over my forehead. That was when I opened my eyes and slightly frowned.

I already looked seriously messy with a puffy face in the morning and the little match girl’s appearance. Even my hair was disheveled now.

“I’m such a mess right now.”

“Not in my eyes,” replied Yeo Dan oppa while looking at me from a close distance. I was at a loss of words. While I felt bemused for a moment, he uttered, “Why did you avoid me?”

“Huh?”

“Like a while ago?”

Recalling what had happened just an hour ago, my face reddened all of a sudden. ‘Right! That was why I tried to run away from him so much.’

Yeo Dan oppa’s face was still close to mine. The shampoo fragrances from my hair and his hair were mingled in the air in a flash and were filling my nose. That was what happened at all; however, his face, which I had seen over the last four years, suddenly felt so unfamiliar.

I held my hands stealthily which were put down to the couch.

Birds were chirping outside the window. The house was piled with silence. The flow of air on the holiday morning made me somewhat lose my mind.

I opened my mouth hesitantly.

“I mean, I avoided you because…”

“Uh-huh.”

“Because…”

I dropped my gaze on the floor. ‘Should I just kneel down on the floor and wait for his punishment?’ Having that thought in my head, I was looking at the right timing.

A small voice came from the front yard, which made both of us turn frozen up.

“Are they done?”

That whispering voice belonged to Ruda. When I switched my gaze to the floor-to-ceiling window at the veranda, Ruda came into view. He was turning his head away from us with his face shoved into his hands. Beside him, there stood Lucas. Looking at us nonchalantly, he soon flaunted a grin when our eyes met.

Lucas said, “Uh-huh, all done. You can now open your eyes.”

“Are you sure?”

Speaking that way, Ruda diverted his eyes onto us, who were both staring in his direction. He then remained wordless.

Only the sound of the birds chirping resonated around us.

Once we finished having breakfast in a more awkward atmosphere than the other day, only our peers left at the table. Lucas then blurted out as if he was making an excuse, “But I can’t just go to Jenny and say, ‘They were busy making out, so I just returned without them. I think they can just skip breakfast though,’ something like that.”

“Oh my god, you’re going too far!”

While I slapped his arm in bewilderment, Yeo Ryung showed an expression as if she was saying, ‘A-ha, that’s what happened,’ beside me. I felt so embarrassed.

I turned my head to look at Ruda. He was blushing up to the root of his hair ever since he brought up the topic again. When our eyes met, he averted his eyes from me in astonishment. However, all I could do was just keeping my mouth shut since I showed him such an embarrassing sight.

While I just pouted my dried out lips, Lucas babbled nonchalantly from beside me, “You know that this place is a house, not an apartment, right? I mean, I just said that since you aren’t aware of it.”

‘A house is an independent dwelling set on its own property right on the ground,’ added Lucas.

I made a gesture of zipping up my mouth at him to imply, ‘Please shut up.’ Thankfully, Yeo Dan oppa also scowled at him wordlessly from behind, which stopped Lucas from teasing me. That was when I could pause for breath.

We then began to discuss what we would be doing for the day. From some time ago, it seemed like we had planned to hang out in Gapyeong and have fun instead of being here for a New Year’s holiday.

“Come to think of it, aren’t you guys visiting your ancestral graves or performing New Year’s bow?”

“We did the New Year’s bow this morning, but we don’t visit our ancestral graves,” replied Ruda.

‘Ah, I see.’ While I nodded at his response, Ruda pointed at Lucas and continued, “We aren’t actually taking New Year’s Day seriously though, but this year, we’re having a reunion to introduce Lucas and so on.”

“I get it.”

Thinking for a moment, I soon shouted, ‘Ah, hold on!’ I looked at Lucas and asked, “Then yesterday, have Ruda’s grandmother and Lucas met for the first time?”

“Um, yeah. Why?”

“He looked so chill as if he was in his house,” murmured Yeo Ryung.

Lucas giggled at her remark and responded, ‘That comes from the wisdom of age!’

Well, Lucas was indeed seven years older than us; however, he was only twenty-five. Besides, rather than the wisdom of age, he was just a brazen-face.

Keep talking in the house seemed to be disturbing Ruda’s other family, so we went outside to take a walk around the neighborhood and further our discussion about what we were gonna do today.

Ruda told us that there was a place to ski around here, but it was too excessive for us to engage in the activity, so his suggestion was rejected. However, what scared me was that none of us except for me cared about the muscle pain we would go through the next day after skiing.

‘This combination of people is going against me for sure…’ While I tinged pale with that thought in my head, Yeo Ryung suggested grilling outside in the deck. I thought, ‘Hmm, that sounds cool.’

Lucas uttered, “No, but that’s not what we can do right now.”

“What about playing a paintball survival game?”

Geez, why was our conversation all heading toward extreme sports? The moment I tried to ask them to count me out of such activities, Yeo Ryung pointed at somewhere. Switching my gaze in that direction, I found an outdoor field for the paintball games. Well, that would have been made to aim at those coming to Gapyeong for an active getaway.

Believing that there was still a chance of avoiding the game, I flung a question.

“Come on, it’s New Year’s holiday. They won’t be open, will they?”

* * *

After a few minutes, I changed my clothes, received the protection gears and guns, and were listening to the explanation while sitting on the warehouse of the survival game spot.

Since Ruda and Lucas were veterans of this kind of game, I expected that they would be on another level. And just as I thought, they were shooting only the centers of the target boards while saying that they were just testing out a few things.

Watching that sight, the manager of the paintball game place kept emitting a whoop light-heartedly.

“Wow, you two are fantastic~”

Looking at the guy reproachfully, I asked, “You guys are open even on New Year’s Day, huh?”

The manager smiled clumsily and replied while scratching the back of his head, “Haha, this neighborhood is my hometown…!”

‘So, why is this place your hometown of all occasions?’ I murmured with a sinking heart, but there was nothing I could do.

The game spot was full of covers such as tires and temporary walls. The team, who was winning twice out of three rounds, would be the final winner. We were using paintball bullets, but they were quite firm and dangerous that we should never aim at people’s heads. If someone was shot at the body triple times, then the person was out.

Before playing the game, we split into two teams, which Ruda and Lucas chose to be the opposite teams.

“If both of us team up, that’s out of balance,” said Lucas in a calm attitude, which looked different from his usual, bragging character.

I was aware that what he just said was true, so I just nodded my head. No matter how athletic the Bans were, they would be incomparable to these professionally trained dudes.