It's four in the morning. 

They're sleeping now. 

Or at least lying down, trying not to sleep, hoping that their time together could stretch out infinitely. 

Taehyung's head is bandaged, one of his eyes is snapped shut and he's three feet away from her. The lights are out except for the little red light of the television, but it's enough for So-Hee to see Taehyung's face, and it's beautiful. He's like a little child, a lost one.

'You can sleep,' says So-Hee.

'I can't stop thinking of your ex-boyfriend.'

'Is it?'

'What else would I think about lying three feet from you?' asks Taehyung and So-Hee blushes.

The more she sees Taehyung in pain, the more So-Hee falls in love with him; there is something deeply romantic about a hurt singer, or writer, or painter. Not so much a hurt engineer or a hurt investment banker. Every few seconds she panics thinking Taehyung's asleep but settles down when she realizes that he's still all ears and looking at her.

'You have your flight in four hours,' says Taehyung.

'You didn't have to remind me of that.'So-Hee wants to hold his hand, wrap her fingers around his, and stay in bed and watch him sleep.

' You're beautiful.'So-Hee blushes.

'You're just saying that.' So-Hee doesn't know why she just said that. She has always known that she's beautiful and every time someone repeated that, it was just a validation, not a discovery, but this time it was. She feels beautiful.

' I'm sure you get that a lot.'

'But somehow it never meant so much,' says So-Hee. And just like that, they fall asleep. 

It's one hour from her call-time when she wakes up and finds Taehyung sleeping. He's curled up in a ball and his face is smiling. 

So-Hee has always hated mornings, and her job as a model has only made her hate mornings more, but this morning she loves. Only she knows how hard she has to restrain herself from not running her fingers over his face.

She's late. She jumps off the bed, quickly puts some water to boil in the kettle, stuffs all her clothes in her suitcase, and forces it shut. She needs a bath but for that, she will have to leave Taehyung's side. She spends a few minutes looking at him, not wanting to go, but then decides to take a quick shower.

 In the shower, she burns herself. She wipes herself and rushes out, already missing him, knowing that she would regret the few minutes she didn't spend with him. She's in a towel and she wets the wooden flooring.

 Taehyung is awake and he's looking for something in his printed boxers. So-Hee laughs seeing those boxers and Taehyung is startled. He turns and looks at her.

'I was looking for my jeans,' he says. He's trying hard not to look at So-Hee, who's wrapped in a towel, somehow feeling sexy now. He's still looking at her, blushing, trying to tear his eyes away but failing.

 And it only makes So-Hee feel better about herself.

'Oh,' says So-Hee and then points to where his jeans are lying on the floor. She keeps standing there, hoping Taehyung would look at her again, and he does, sort of a stolen glance, and So-Hee feels strangely turned on knowing that Taehyung's looking at her. It makes her feel beautiful, wanted. 

She doesn't want to go, instead, she wants Taehyung to look at her, fantasize about her. 

How can you be so dirty in your head?! Han So-Hee is asking herself. Embarrassed and blushing at her own thoughts, she walks back to the washroom with her clothes, replaying the moment in her head when Taehyung looked at her.

She changes into her dress and puts on her make-up, trying to perfect it. She finds Taehyung on the table, drinking coffee, reading a newspaper, and for a moment is thrown two decades in the future when the hotel room would be a house and Taehyung would be a grumpy forty-year-old man with failed dreams of being a musician, and she will be an old, yet slim, irritating wife. 

'Perfect,' she thinks. 

Taehyung turns to her. His eyes are on her for a few seconds too long before he says anything. So-Hee wonders if he's still imagining her in a towel and she feels a little more alive.

'You look great,' says Taehyung.

'I refuse to believe that.'So-Hee believes in every word Taehyung says. Although she tries to refute them and contest them, inside she hangs on to every word he's saying. And today, now that he has said it, she feels different, beautiful, and amazing.

'Do you want to eat something?' asks So-Hee.

'Sure.'

 'Let's order? There's a free breakfast buffet downstairs.'

'I LOVE free food,' says Taehyung and jumps from his chair.

' That's some enthusiasm.'

'Why shouldn't there be?' asks Taehyung

 'When there is free food in buffets I feel like I'm ripping off somebody even though I'm not. So today we will try to feel good about ourselves while we try to make the hotel go bankrupt due to our demonic early morning hunger.'

'As you say, sir.'

'I like that.'

' What?'

' Sir.'

They smile. So-Hee lines up her suitcases near the door, do last-minute checks on the room, take out the hotel key card from the slot and they leave for the breakfast buffet. It's lavish and there's food for the entire world, from the entire world, and more.

'I don't want to sound greedy, but this might be the best day of my life!' says Taehyung who piles his plate up with sushi, something he had only had once in his life and never again because it's too expensive.

' I'm glad I can help,' says So-Hee.

 She doesn't eat much. The Towel and the Stolen Glance incident is still weighing heavily in her mind. 

The next time it happens, if there's a next time, she has to be at her fittest. She's already searching Hotel-Gym-Routines on Naver. Her plate only has small pieces of pineapple and watermelon, both of which she's sure to have more water than anything else.

'I think I'm full,' says Taehyung. His plate is still full and he has hardly eaten. 'I'm not used to food.'

'As in?'

' I'm used to cigarettes.'

'You haven't smoked one since you met me.'

'I figured you wouldn't like it,' says Taehyung.

'You can have one if you want to.'

'I don't want to.' Taehyung's looking at So-Hee and, frankly, it's too much for her to take. In the past twelve hours, So-Hee has realized that Taehyung isn't too fond of eye contact and she's happy about that because every time he looks straight at her, she's a molten mess of nerves. They eat in silence for Han So-Hee doesn't want to break it to him that she needs to go and it's slowly killing her inside.

'You need to go?' asks Taehyung.

So-Hee nods.

'Right now?'So-Hee nods. 

'I have five more minutes to check out.'

Taehyung and So-Hee look in the direction of the check-in counter where a few models from the same agency are checking out of their own rooms.

'When will you be back?' asks Taehyung, playing with food, not eating.

'Not this month for sure. I don't have any day free. Pretty busy month.Probably next month.'

' Cool.'

' Cool.'

The conversation is depressing. 

So-Hee feels like a mom leaving on a business trip, and Taehyung's acting like a little child who's sad but he's mature enough to understand and can throw a fit and cry and lunge at So-Hee's feet.

'I think you should leave,' says Taehyung. 'You will be late.'

They both get up from their chairs and drag their feet towards the check-in counter. They look away from each other and shift in their places uncomfortably.

'I will see you next month then,' says So-Hee, more to herself than to Taehyung.

' Cool.'

They exchange numbers, the color of their faces gone.

'You can join them. I will leave,' says Taehyung.

 So-Hee nods and they don't hug. They awkwardly shake hands and Taehyung heads towards the door. So-Hee looks at him disappears down the stairs, into a cab, and onto the streets of Daegu. 

She can't help but cry.

Word Count;1350

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