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"You know," Kitty said, "when I asked to come with you on Joonho's tour, I didn't think that would end up leading to me hauling my dating life over to Japan."
Minho smirked. He looked weirdly peaceful, Kitty thought, for a man who had spent the entire day running around with his brother's fiancee in an effort to find the smoke machine that he needed for his opening act. "What, you just thought you could hop on a plane with me, confess your love to me, and kiss me without me planning a date in destination number one?" He ticked off each point on his fingers, and Kitty rolled her eyes. "Come on, Covey," he continued. "You know me better than that."
"Mmm. Well, if you'd told me a couple of months ago that I'd be following the Poopy Baby abroad..."
"I'd totally have believed you," Minho shrugged. "Portland Stalker."
Kitty smacked Minho's shoulder lightly, but she was laughing. His eyes shone with joy, too, and she slowly slipped her hand inside his. It was much warmer than Kitty would have ever thought it would be - he was much warmer than she would have expected once - and she instantly felt a sense of calmness sweep over her. Minho tilted his head back and grinned.
"You have some Nutella," he said. "On your mouth, from the crepe you snarfed down in like 30 seconds. Let me get it?"
"Fine," Kitty said. "Though I'll have you know that I was always the neatest eater out of all my sisters."
"Having met Margot, I can say with the utmost confidence that you are totally lying."
"I-" Kitty began to protest, but Minho slipped a hand around her waist. He pulled her close, and she turned to face him. "What?"
"The chocolate, Kitty. God, it's like you don't listen to a word I say."
"That's because I don't," Kitty said, and Minho rolled his eyes. With that, he swiped the pad of his finger by Kitty's mouth - his hands were rough, but his touch was gentle as he flicked the wayward Nutella onto the street.
"There you go," he told her. "Now that you're presentable, I guess we can go into GiGo."
"Finally," Kitty sniped, but she was smiling. "I feel like I've been waiting to go to the claw game store all day."
"I've been waiting all day for dinner, and since you wouldn't let me cook for you-"
"In the tour trailer?"
"In a hotel that I would have totally rented for... exclusively cooking purposes," he said, and Kitty blushed. "But anyway. That was annoying of you, by the way. But hey. You didn't let me cook, so now you're going to have to pay a toll."
Kitty stood on her tip-toes and kissed Minho's cheek sweetly.
"Smooth. Where did you get to be so romantic?"
"I'm a matchmaker." Kitty shrugged. "I understand romance. Pretty thoroughly, if I do say so myself."
"So you know that if we go to GiGo before dinner, we're basically obligated to stay until I win you something?" Minho's hair fell over his eyes; he reached a hand upward to push it back, and Kitty felt her face warm.
Kitty snorted. "Like you'd miss our dinner reservations."
"For you? I would. Don't test me." Minho laughed, and Kitty couldn't help herself - she chuckled, too.
Minho's hand was strong, his gait steady, as he pulled her into the shop next to them. He fed a 5,000 yen bill into a little machine, and for a second Kitty felt a spark of confusion. But it quickly spit out a bunch of 100-yen coins, scattering them at the floor by her feet, and Minho moved toward them and picked him up. He looked upward and smiled radiantly, and Kitty's stomach twisted itself into knots.
"Here," he said, handing her the coins. "Hold them. And don't complain; my favorite trousers touched the ground to get you these coins. Oh, how the mighty fall when they fall in love."
It had only been a week. One week, since Kitty had abruptly and impulsively asked Minho if she could come with him on his brother's big tour. One week, one plane ride from Seoul to Tokyo, one -
"In love?" Kitty blinked. "Minho, in love?"
Minho looked up at Kitty, and his panicked eyes met hers. "I... well... I said it on the plane before, didn't I? And it's not like we haven't been stupidly good friends this semester, so this can't come as a big shock." He gave her a cocky grin and stood up. "Don't act all surprised, Covey. It's unbecoming."
Kitty blinked once, twice, three times.
Then, in a voice that did not sound like her own:
"I love you too, Minho."
Minho rolled his shoulders and smiled. "There," he said. "Good. That settles that." And he kissed her, hard, pushing her back against the wall outside the GiGo that they had stumbled from with pockets full of coins. His mouth was as hard as his lips were soft, and she threaded her hands through his hair.
"Um," he pulled back. "Mind the Kérastase?"
"Can I take back the I love you?"
"No," Minho said, kissing her again.
An older woman walked by and clicked her tongue, mumbling something in Japanese that sounded judgmental to Kitty. She couldn't understand it - her Korean had been improving, but Japanese was beyond her - but she knew it was judgey.
She didn't care. She laughed, and Minho did, too.
"Now," he said, "I'm going to see about getting you the most obnoxious thing in that shop."
-
Love. Minho hadn't meant to say it, but he didn't regret it, either.
He had fallen in love with Kitty. A little. Or a lot.
And the fact that she'd fallen for him too...
It was a lot of emotion, more than Minho was comfortable with. So instead of saying something sappy and unlike him - because, really, he was smooth, not saccharine - he hauled Kitty through the aisles of the GiGo, laughing. "I could totally get you an Anpanman," he said.
"I don't even know what that is."
"That little bread guy you keep seeing everywhere. Do you live under a rock?"
Kitty rolled her eyes.
"How about a seal? Those seals are terrifying-"
"Yeah, that one's eyes are falling off. Wonder how that happened."
Minho clicked his tongue. "Look. Cats." He settled in front of the machine. "I think we have a winner. A kitty for my Kitty."
"I know you think you're smooth, but you're actually a terrible flirt," Kitty said, scrunching her face up adorably. "Like, absolutely awful. The things you say make no sense."
"They do," Minho argued, looking scandalized. "That's it. I'm going to win you that cat. The orange one, because I think you have an orange cat personality-"
"Hey."
"And also because that cat has cute whiskers, and you're cute. It's called 'logical associations.'"
"That," Kitty said magnanimously, "is not a word I associate with you."
"What, cute? Come on, Covey, I'm adorable."
"Yes, you are." Kitty poked his nose. "I meant logical."
Minho, unable to think of a response, made a face at her. Then, he stuck the 100-yen coin into the machine and watched it light up.
-
That night, after 10,000 yen worth of claw-machine attempts and a ridiculously ostentatious dinner at a Wagyu beef shopped owned by Minho's dad's college friend, Kitty lay in her bed. Minho was long gone, but the ghost of his kiss was still a comforting warmth on her lips.
When had she fallen so deeply in love with him?
It didn't happen all at once - it was slow. A gradual vine, creeping around her ankles and making their way up her body until flowers bloomed in her chest.
She held the cat up in the air. Moonho, she had named it teasingly, and he had huffed.
A gift from Minho. Maybe she could ask him to sleep with it for a few nights so it'd smell like him, like Peter did with LJ's shirts.
She stroked Moonho's head lightly.
Yeah, she thought, that'd be perfect.