I looked down, trying to hide my frown and desperately hoping that he hadn't seen it. I also took a step back from him, making him finally drop his hands from my waist. Maybe now I could clear my head. Here I was, thinking that he might be an okay person to be forced to marry, and the whole time, he was thinking about how to get out of it.

I'm an idiot.

He reached for my arm, but I had stepped just far enough away to be out of his reach.

"Hey," he said. "Wait, a second, please."

"I don't know how to get out of it," I told him, picking at one of my cuticles, then reaching up to tug on my ear. Both were anxiety ticks that I did often. "I tried to talk some sense into my father before you got here, but apparently, he has none."

"Eloise..." he said, taking a step towards me and reaching his arm out to just barely graze his fingertips down my forearm. "I didn't mean that the way that it came out."

"No, it's fine," I said, trying hard not to shiver at his touch, and taking another step backwards to get away from it. "You're right. We should be looking for a way out of this."

"Would you stop? Please?" He said, a note of begging in his voice. "Just listen to me. And look at me. Please."

I sighed and lifted my eyes to his.

"Thank you," he said, then tilted his head to the side, watching my face. "You seem like a really nice person, and I would like to get to know you. We could maybe see what happens. But I don't want to get married just because my parents say that I have to. If I'm going to get married, then it's going to be to someone that I love."

"I understand what you mean," I said, looking back down at my hands, and using my pointer finger to pick at the cuticle on my thumb. "That's how I feel, too."

"If you agree, then why won't you look at me?" he asked. "I...I like your eyes. They're pretty. And I can't really see them right now."

"I just feel...stupid," I told him.

"Why?"

"Because I was over here thinking that maybe you wouldn't be too bad of a person to be forced to marry," I told him. "And you were just thinking of ways to get out of it."

"If it helps, I wasn't thinking that hard," he told me with a small smile on his perfect lips. "I didn't even come up with any ideas."

I looked up again just in time to see him shrug.

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," he said, stepping a little closer to me. "That is absolutely not how I meant it. As I said, I would like to get to know you and see what happens. Actually, I think that I would really like that. But if we get married, then it's going to be our decision. Not theirs." He lifted his arm towards the doorway that led to the living room, where all of the parents were.

I listened to his words and thought over them for a moment, then gave him a small smile and nodded my head.

"Yeah. Okay."

"Okay?" he asked. "Okay we can get to know each other?"

I just nodded my head at his question, but it made him smile.

"Good," he said, taking the last step until he was right in front of me like before. "Now that we're in agreement on that, I have a question for you."

I tilted my head back a little to look up at him. He wasn't much taller than me, but just a little bit. Maybe an inch...Actually, our height difference was the perfect amount, in my opinion.

"What question is that?" I asked him.

"I was wondering if you might want to go to a museum with me tomorrow," he said. "I love art of any kind, and I want to see as much of it as I can, because I've haven't gotten many chances to  do it when I've been in the US before."

"How many times have you been here?" I asked him. "And what do you usually do?"

"Kind of a lot," he said, laughing softly. We were close enough that I could feel his warm breath wash over my face when he laughed like that. "My Appa does a lot of business here. However, that's all it ever is. Business. I've spent a lot of time in hotel rooms and outside of conference rooms, just waiting for him or my Eomma to be done."

"That sounds really boring, dude," I said.

"Dude?" he questioned me. "I think that I've heard that in movies before, but I didn't realize that people said it in normal conversation."

"I'm sorry," I told him. "I kind of say it a lot. I call everybody that, even my dog. Or, sometimes, I say bro, I guess." 

His eyes widened in excitement. "You have a dog?"

"Yeah. A really cute one. He's my best buddy," I told him.

"I've always wanted a dog," he said. "My parents said that we were never home long enough to have one. They said that it wouldn't be fair to the dog."

"That's sad," I pouted at him. "I couldn't imagine life without my pup pup. We've always had a dog or two in our house. But this one...he's my sidekick. He goes everywhere with me that he's allowed."

"Is he a little dog?" he asked me, genuinely curious.

"No, sir," I told him. "He's a lab and golden retriever mix. I'm not a big fan of the little yappy dogs. They're mean."

"I don't....know what that means," he said, laughing at himself. "But, can I see him? I mean, meet him?" He cutely cocks his head to the side, his eyes and nose all scrunched up. "I'm not sure which word is correct here."

I laughed softly at him and touched his arm. "I think that either one is right in this case," I told him. "I'm sure that you're always worried that you're saying something wrong or using the wrong word, but please don't worry about that with me. I'm not here to judge, and maybe I can help."

He gave me a bright smile, turning his whole mouth into a heart. Wow....he really was cute. Handsome, even. I had to blink a couple of times to clear my head so that I would stop staring at him like that.

"And...Ummm...Yeah." I said. "Yeah, of course you can meet him."

He pulled his eyebrows together and looked a little concerned. "Are you alright?"

I nodded my head. "Mmhmm."

"You sure?"

"Yes. I'm sure," you told him. "Positive. It's just..." I shook my head at him. "Never mind. I'm good."

Hoseok reached for my hand and lightly squeezed my fingers with his. "Tell me, please. Did I say or do something weird?"

I shook my head at him again. "No, you didn't. Not at all. Your smile is just..." I paused for a moment and took a deep breath before finishing. "Your smile is just kind of beautiful."

He cocked his head to the side again. The more he did it, the more that he looked like a cute puppy who was trying to figure out what its owner was saying.

 "You think that my smile is beautiful?" he asked me and I nodded. "Why was that hard to say?"

I lifted up the hand that he wasn't still holding onto and shrugged at him. "I don't know. We don't really know each other, and it's a weird compliment to give an absolute stranger."

"I'm not an absolute stranger," he told me. "We're supposed to be getting married, right?"

I laughed at him. "Yeah. Except...not."

"Right..." he said, nodding his head. "The more time that I spend with you, the harder it's getting to remember that part."

Now it was my turn to tilt my head like a puppy. "What?"

He shook his head at me and chewed at the corner of his bottom lip. "I said nothing. Let's go meet your dog."

I stared at him for a moment, before deciding to let it go. I tugged on the hand he was holding and pulled him along behind me. "Come on. Let's go find him. He's probably in my closet."

Hoseok chuckled softly as he followed along, letting me drag him behind me. Well....'drag' wasn't really the correct word, since he was going with me willingly.

"Why would he be in your closet?" he asked me as we passed through the living room where all three parents were sitting and talking.

"Where are you two going?" his mother asked as we passed by. 

In hindsight, I probably should have taken him up the main stairway. But after falling down the steps, it felt like bad mojo, so I decided to lead him to the back stairway, instead. It was closer to my room, anyways. 

He replied to his mother in Korean, so I had no idea what his answer actually was, but she didn't stop us, so you guessed it got the point across.

When we got to the stairs, I asked him what he had told her.

Hoseok shrugged his shoulders. "I told her that you were taking me to find your dog," he said. "Though I am curious why he would be in a closet."

I chuckled softly. "Oh, that's one of his favorite places for some reason," I told him. "We joke around about it being 'Rizzo's room.' And by 'we', I mean that I joke with Rizzo about it being his room." I laughed. "I sound crazy, don't I?"

He laughed with me. "Not even a little. I think that it's cute that you have full conversations with your dog."

"Well Rizzo is basically just a furry person."

"That's his name?" he asked as we got to the top of the stairs. "Rizzo?"

"Yeah. I named him after my favorite baseball player," I explained to him. "Although my team traded him this year, but he's still my favorite."

"You like baseball?" he asked me, seeming a little surprised.

"Oh, yeah. Love it," I told him. "My dad used to take me to games all of the time."

"Used to?" he asked, shooting me a curious look.

"Umm....when my mom left, he kinda lost interest," I told him, looking down at the floor. "In everything. Baseball. Work. Life. Me."

I was surprised when I felt a finger under my chin, lifting it up. He had stopped walking, just outside of my bedroom door, and he was looking at me.

"That must have been hard," he said. His eyes looked back and forth between mine. "Your mom leaving and your dad kinda checking out."

I shrugged one shoulder at him. "It is what it is. That was a long time ago."

"Maybe," he said, still searching my face. "But I can tell that it still bothers you."

"It's bothering me a lot at the moment," I told him. "Because if she hadn't taken most of his money and left, and if he hadn't stopped working hard, then I wouldn't be in this situation. He wouldn't need to make this deal with your parents to try and save his business. You wouldn't be stuck with me. I wouldn't be left to feel like a loser who's dad has to arrange her marriage at 32-years-old. And I wou-"

"You're 32?" he interrupted to ask.

"Umm...yes," I said, surprised that he didn't already know that. "Your parents didn't tell you that I'm older than you?"

He shook his head, staring down at me. I could see the surprise in his weirdly beautiful grayish-brown eyes. I once again found myself wondering how much of it was the contacts, and what his actual eye color was.

"I'm sorry," I said, looking down at the floor again.

"I'm going to need for you to stop doing that," he said, using his finger to tilt my head back up again.

"Doing what?"

"Looking at the ground like you think I'm about to reject you or something," he said.

"You're not?" I asked him. Now it was my turn to look surprised. "Even though I'm 5 years older than you? It doesn't bother you?"

"Does it bother you?" he asked.

I gave him a small smile and shook my head no.

"Well it doesn't bother me, either," he told me. "Actually, I find it kinda..." he paused and looked to the side for a moment.

"What?" I asked him.

He held up a finger to me. "Hold on, I'm trying to remember the correct word..."

"Weird?" I offered. "Strange? Abnormal? Indecent?"

"Hot," he said matter-of-factly, looking back into my eyes. "Very, very hot."

I blinked up at him a couple of times, not sure that I had heard him correctly.

"Hot?" I asked him. My surprise was evident in the way that I repeated it back to him. "Are you sure that you're using the right word?"

He laughed and nodded his head. "Yes. I am. It's like saying that something is sexy, right?"

"You know the word sexy?"

He laughed again as he nodded his head. I really liked his laugh. It made his mouth turn into that adorable heart again.

"Yes, I do" he said. He reached a hand up and slowly ran his fingertip down the side of my neck. "It's one of the first English words that I learned, for some reason. Sexy and 'appreciate'. Which I always feel weird saying. Like it's coming out wrong, though I've been told that I'm saying it right." The whole time he talked, he kept moving his fingers up and down my neck, then around the shell of my ear and back down my neck again.

You shivered under his touch. "What're you doing?"

Hoseok shrugged his shoulders, but didn't move his hand away, his thumb now brushing over my collarbone. "I don't know. Do you want me to stop?"

I quickly shook my head. "No. I don't. Just..." I reached behind me and turned the knob on my bedroom door, then pulled him in with the hand that he still hadn't let go of. "Prying eyes," I told him. "I don't want to let them think that they won this whole 'arrangement' argument."

He laughed at that. "What if they have?" He cocked his head to the side again and gave me a really cute smirk.

I tilted my head to the opposite side that he did, and stared at his handsome face. "Have they?"

He swapped his smirk for an adorable smile and shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe."

"Well, if that's the case," I told him, moving my head back to its normal position. "Then I'd say that this escalated very, very quickly."

"Escalated?" He asked me, looking a little confused. "I don't know that word."

I squinted one eye and quirked the corner of my mouth up on the same side as I tried to figure out how to explain this saying to him.

"It's more of a saying with the way that I'm using it," you told him. "Umm...it means that it moved up faster than expected. Like an escalator being faster than taking the stairs."

Hoseok nodded his head in understanding. "Ohhh...I see." He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth as he watched my face. "Is that a bad thing?" 

"Not necessarily," I said. "Just a big difference compared to the conversation that we were having about 20 minutes ago."

"What can I say?" he asked, his free hand reaching up to touch my cheek again. "I find myself being easily....charmed by you."

"Charmed? I'm not sure that I even have any charms." I tell him in surprise. "I mean...I'm not even doing anything. Just being me."

"I think that's the point," he said. "Eloise, you're not trying to wow me or get my attention or anything overly annoying like girls have done to me in the past. You're just being you. Talking about baseball and your dog, and teaching me new sayings like 'that escalated quickly." He winked at me. "It's undeniably charming to me. I like it. I like you."

"You haven't seen the bad sides of me yet," I told him. "You're just seeing this one side that is only here about 3 percent of the time."

"I need examples of these 'bad sides'" he told me with a small chuckle.

I dropped his hand and moved farther into my room, sighing softly.

"Well, for starters, I don't dress like this most of the time." I motioned to the lacy, hi-low, mint green dress I was wearing. "Most of the time, I'm a hoodie and jeans kind of girl."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Most of the time, I'm a hoodie and jeans kind of guy. Though your dress is one of my favorite colors." he told you. "And it matches your eyes perfectly." He moved away from the door and walked over to where I was standing in the middle of the room. "I have no problem with that side of you, and I can't wait to see it. What other problems do you want to try and throw my way?"

"Well, I don't live here, for one thing," I told him. "My dad has this antiquated notion that since your parents are Asian, they probably think that women should live at home until they get married." I covered my face with my hands. "Oh God. I am what you said. I'm one of those girls who's just trying to get your attention. Parading around here in this dress, pretending like I live here to seem more respectable."

Hoseok laughed and reached for my hands, pulling them away from my face so that he could look at me. "No, Eloise, you're really not," he told me. "You have no idea what those girls are really like. They only act that way once they find out that I...I mean...my family... has money. Also...I didn't actually expect you to live with your father. I was a little surprised when it seemed like you did." He looks around. "But then, who's bedroom is this?"

I laughed softly and looked around with him. "It's mine. It was mine when I was a kid. Sometimes my dad has rough nights and needs somebody here, so I stay here. But I do have my own apartment, which I usually live in."

"Your father...is it because of your mom?" he asks me.

I nod my head to answer his question. "He hasn't really let anybody else in since she left. He has a hard time trusting people. I'm kind of all that he has."

"That's really sweet of you, Eloise" he told me. "You're a devoted daughter. It's rare to see that anymore."

"At least in the US, it is," I told him.

"True," he agreed. "In Korea, you often see children taking care of their aging parents. It makes me have a lot of respect for you that you do that for your father."

I took a deep breath and let it out as I looked up at him, finally starting to relax in his presence.

"Thank you, Hoseok," I told him.

"You can call me Hobi, if you'd like," he said.

"Hobi?"

"Yeah," he said. "It's what most of my friends call me."

"How do you get 'Hobi' from Hoseok?" I asked him.

"There is this ongoing joke with my group of friends," he explains. "That I am like sunshine and always hopeful. They started calling me 'Hopey' but what sounds like the P sound in English has more of a B sound in Korean, so it sounds more like...Hobi."

"It's cute," I said with a smile. "I like it. It fits you."

"It fits me because I'm cute?" he asked, with a look on his face that could only be described as...well... 'hopeful.' I could see why his friends gave him that nickname.

"Yes," I said. "You're cute. Actually....no."

"I'm not cute?"

"I'm sure that when you're 'hoodie and jeans' Hobi," I told him with a smile, "That you're cute. But this version of you...this perfectly-tailored-suit, I-look-like-I-should-run-a-small-country Hoseok....You're..." I paused and blushed as I looked away from him.

"Tell me," he pleaded.

I turned my eyes back to his, a heated blush still covering my cheeks. "I feel like you already know that you're sexy, and I shouldn't have to explain that to you."

"You think I'm sexy?" There was so much surprise in his voice. Like nobody had ever told him this before. 

I nodded in answer to his question.

"And cute?" That hint of surprise was still there. 

I nodded again.

He smiled as he wrapped one of his arms around my waist and pulled me up against his lean body. "Likewise," he said, then he dipped his head down the short distance to press his beautiful lips to mine.

"ARF!" Hoseok's lips had barely touched mine before there was a loud bark and we both jumped back from each other in surprise. Hoseok even yelped a little bit, which made me giggle.

"Rizzo!" I exclaimed, and crouched down to open my arms as my dog ran to me and snuggled into my chest. "Hi little baby. How's my boy?"

"Little baby?" Hoseok asks, staring at your dog. "How is he little?"

"He's a puppy! OKay, well...he's 4-years-old, but he'll always be my puppy," I say and look up at him, then laugh. "Hobi...are you scared of my dog?"

"What?" he asks, still standing away from me and the dog. "No. I'm not. Really."

"Then come here, dude," I tell him and hold my hand out to him.

He shakes his head and stays where he's at.

"Nah. I'm good. Cute dog."

I stood up and walked over to him, holding out my hand again. "Jung Hoseok, you take my hand right now and come pet my dog." I look up into his eyes. "If you even maybe, and I'm not saying that you do, but if you want any kind of chance with me, my dog is the way to my heart."

I dropped my hand and went to hop up on my bed, then patted it for Rizzo to jump up there with me. "Come on, pup pup." I watched as he jumped up on the bed next to me, then smiled when he snuggled his nose into my leg. "You're such a scary monster," I giggled at him, lightly scratching his side.

I was petting his head when I felt another hand next to mine. I watched as long, slender fingers hesitantly slid over his fur. I looked up at the man standing next to my bed and smiled at him.

He gave me a cute shrug. "I want a chance."

I smiled brightly up at him, then tugged on his arm until he moved up against the bed and my leg that was hanging over the side. I leaned my head on his free arm as he continued to pet Rizzo with the other hand.

"I think that he likes you," I told him, as Rizzo leaned his head into Hoseok's palm. "I mean...He kinda likes everybody. He thinks that everybody is his best friend. But still, I'm glad that he likes you."

"Why is that?" he asked, looking down at me.

"Because," I said, tilting my head back to look up at him from my seated position. "I want a chance with you too, Hobi. If you want to give it to me, that is."

He did that cute puppy thing where he tilts his head again, then he leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. It was just a short peck of a kiss, but it had goosebumps running clear down my arms.

When he pulled back, I smiled up at him. "I'm going to take that as your way of saying 'yes'?" I said. I meant it as a statement, but it came out more like a question.

"That's exactly how you should take it," he told me, moving his free hand to brush his knuckles down my cheek. "I wonder if our parents would mind if we let them eat just them, and I took you out to dinner."

"Oh please," I told him. "Please find a way to make that happen. My dad asked our cook to make ya'll the most American meal they could think of, and I'm pretty sure that he made meatloaf, which is my absolute least favorite food." I made a face as I finished your sentence. "Yuck."

"I don't know what meatloaf is," he said with a chuckle, "but judging by your attitude towards it, and the fact that it sounds like a loaf of bread made out of meat, I don't think that I want to find out. Let me see what I can do."

"It basically is that," I told him, laughing. "With ketchup."

He stepped away and headed for the door, then paused and turned back to me. "If this loaf made of meat is your 'absolute least favorite food,' then what is your absolute favorite food?"

"Sushi."

He chuckled. "Change your clothes, if you'd like. I'll be back in a minute." He turned to leave the room. 

"Hey, Hobi?" I called out as he was opening the door. 

"Hmmmm?" 

"You can call me Ellie," I told him, then repeated his own words back to him. "If you'd like." 

"Ellie?" He questioned, then he whispered it a couple of times. "Ellie. I like it." He graced me with one of his dazzling smiles, then he left the room, closing the door softly behind him. 

I leaned down to kiss Rizzo on the top of his head. "What do we think, buddy? Do you like him? Because, surprisingly, I really do." 

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A/N: I am reworking this story into an OC story instead of a reader story. So be prepared, because some chapters may still be in reader format. I'm trying to get them edited as quickly as I can. 

And yes, I do have a dog, and his name is Rizzo. Here are some pictures of him, so that you can both see how adorable he is, and have a visual to see in your head as you read.