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The revelation that she had been in love with Minho for a lot longer than she had even known was something that had struck her straight in the chest and carved its way into her heart, impeding itself there and relishing in her shock. She was utterly dumbfounded even though she had already confirmed her feelings by kissing him—well, on the cheek, but she still classified that as kissing someone. Even if they didn't know that themselves.
There was about 4 hours left of the flight and Min Ho was yet to wake up, continuing to sleep peacefully on her shoulder with his eyelids fluttering sometimes. She hadn't moved an inch, afraid to wake the sleeping boy up and disturb the peace she found in these moments of being alone with Min Ho next to her. At some point, he had latched his hands around her arm, hugging it to his chest as if it were a teddy bear and she couldn't contain the smile that spread itself across her face.
If Min Ho had done this a few weeks ago she would've bullied him for the rest of his life about it, now, she just watched him with content as she got some food for dinner from the flight attendants, who she had told to be quiet just for Min Ho.
Kitty was surprised Min Ho was still sleeping, considering he had been asleep for over 6 hours and had been laying on her shoulder for 5 while hugging her arm for she didn't know how long.
The dinner wasn't very good from what she had captured, bland and watery like usual. She had gotten used to it though, so she didn't throw up like she had once. She knew if Min Ho saw what she was eating he would be throwing up himself just from the sight of it. When she had finished she placed the food plate into a napkin and stuffed it into the pocket on the back of the seat in front of her, making sure no food made its way onto the actual seat.
She gave Min Ho one last fleeting gaze before she placed some earphones in and played music she had downloaded on her phone, and Kitty went right back to leaning on his head.
"You know you can get ear infections from wearing earphones for too long." Min Ho commented calmly, fiddling with the cuff of his shirt to smooth it out. Kitty wasn't seeing much of a difference when he finished, but apparently there was, so she didn't question it any longer.
Kitty laughed at his comment, shaking her head with laughter at the fact he even knew that.
"Only you would know that, Min Ho. Only you." Kitty said with amusement lacing her voice.
"What! It's true!" He defended jokingly but he still appeared to be serious about what he had said.
"I love the concern you're giving but I don't think I'll be taking your advice." Kitty replied, knowing she would forget about it by tomorrow and continue to use her earphones all the time when doing school work or anything really.
“Don’t blame me when you end up with an ear infection.” He said, peering down at his textbook with a begrudging expression enlightening his face. “I hate school. Why do we need to learn pointless science.” Min Ho complained, his face scrunching up as he started reading a long paragraph that was talking about genetics. Kitty had to agree with him, although she prided herself on getting A’s in everything, she found most of the school work to be useless when it came to real life.
“I don’t understand why you’re even studying, I’ve never seen you try and you somehow end up with perfect grades.” She said, finding his studying to be out of the ordinary. They were in the library in a secluded place at the back, surrounded by hundreds of books that held so much knowledge it was probably impossible to remember it all. Yet she wanted to know it all anyway.
“My father thinks my ‘grades are slipping’ like he cares anyway.” Min Ho sighed, already bored with the book and texting away at his phone with aggressive taps to the keys of the keyboard.
“Do you not see your dad much?” Kitty asks, thinking about herself in that scenario where she barely saw her dad, where she barely saw either or her parents. She hadn’t seen much of her mum, she hadn’t even known her mum, but the idea of them both alive and always away made her feel a type of sickness she hadn’t felt before, and one she would never experience herself.
“I haven’t seen my dad since I was like 14. I doubt he knows what I look like.” He mumbled the last part while continuing to type. " After the divorce everything got messy and he just left. I only know he has a third wife because I went to the wedding when I was 14. That was the last time I saw him.” He explained absently, as if it was fine, as if not having seen your parent for 2 year was okay. As if it was normal.
Kitty thought this was probably the point in time in which she started to fully understand Min Ho as a person. When she first met Min Ho her first thoughts were that he was rich, spoiled, had never had a hard experience in his life.
Kitty had been wrong. Kitty had learned a lot while at KISS, one of those things was that everyone had a hard life, even if the scale was different and the experience was different, no one knew of an easy life.
Kitty had known a hard life through the loss of her mother so young, Yuri knew it from her homophobic parents, Dae knew it from his family that was barely getting by, and Min Ho knew it from the neglect of a father and absence of a mother.
“I’m sorry.” She said, starting to feel a frown pull at her lips as she pulled her earphones out. This conversation had gotten sad very, very quickly.
“Meh, it’s whatever. He wasn’t fun anyway, always so serious.” He shrugged, peering up at her for a moment as if to check she was still there.
Kitty didn’t know what to reply with for the answer he gave her. The nonchalant answer had made her take a step back from the conversation.
“I give up on studying, and as much a i just love your company, I’m off to somewhere else. Later.” He said, pushing his chair back abruptly and standing up as he brushed his suit off. " Have fun.” He said before he was already off and out of the private space they had found.
Kitty sat there with an odd face and mixed feelings on what had just happened.
Thinking back on it, she could notice the way Min Ho was open about what had happened in his life, but refused to explain further than the basics. Min Ho was one of those people that found his bad experiences to be fine. To not really care what had happened and how wrong it was and not to realise how bad it really was. Min Ho had a humble side that wasn’t a very good time to be humble.
Kitty’s eyes remained closed as she listened to the steady breaths Min Ho took and the way they were so light sometimes it didn’t sound like he was even breathing at all.
Kitty was so wrapped in a state of serene, a state of just her and Min Ho that she didn’t pay attention to anything else. Not her music or the people in front, or the flight attendants. She found solace in the fact that Min Ho, someone she thought could never love someone and would forever stick to making girls fawn, had fallen in love with her.
She found serenity in Min Ho.
She had realised she had liked Min Ho for awhile now, she was only now realising that Min Ho had brought out her anger, her disgust, her annoyance, her smile, her laughter and had managed to pull out every other one under the sun in a matter of months and she was dumbstruck at how he had done it.
How Min Ho, of all people she had met at KISS, was the one to make her feel everything. She was grateful he had done it.
“Why are you hiding away in the bus?” She questioned, seeing Min Ho propped against the window and swiping through his phone that was illuminating his face. His stupidly perfect bloody face.
“There’s no Wifi in the tents.” He answered blandly, not sparing her a glance and continuing to swipe.
Kitty had come back to the bus because she thought she had left her hairbrush on it when they had gotten off. She had been so excited that she hadn’t even checked behind her and now her hairbrush was gone.
“Okayyyy then.” She muttered, moving to the seat where she had been and inspecting the floor and seat for any sign of a pink hairbrush. Sadly, she did not find one. " You haven’t seen a pink hairbrush, have you?” She squinted her eyes at him, knowing for a fact that if anyone were to steal her brush it would be Min Ho. Only to annoy her, obviously.
“ I don’t know, Kitty. Have I?” He teased, easing his neck up and making eye contact with her. His eyes looked pitch black in the lighting of the night.
“Do you have my brush?” She asked as she made her way towards the end of the bus where Min Ho was lounging.
“Maybe.” He shrugged and she could see the start of a grin spreading across his face.
She wanted to see the whole thing.
“Min Ho, give me my brush.” She demanded a sage reach her destination right in front of Min ago and his fancy clothes. His legs were crossed over each other and his jackets lay on top, somehow looking perfect even in that position.
“You mean this one?” He said as he pulled a pink hair brush from the floor and placed his finger in the hole, ‘causing it to dangle on his finger.
“Yes, now give… it.” She grumbled as she tried reaching over to grab it only for his arm to swiftly move away from her and to the other side did his body.
“Nah, uh, uh.” He chuckled, his grin now spread across his face in a contagious manner.
She wanted to see his grin all the time.
“You…” her voice trailed off, trying to find some sort of leverage that would aid her in getting her dear hairbrush back. Kitty found leverage just by looking at Min Ho's clear skin. “You brought your skin care with you, right?” She asked almost rhetorically and Min Ho gave her a ‘duh’ look.
“What would happen if your skin care suddenly ended up in a fire?” Kitty hummed innocently, now wanting to see Min Ho’s face if she did ever do it. It would be priceless.
“You wouldn’t dare.” He said with confidence, Kitty, however, could see the way he seemed to question himself on whether she would do it. His grin was slowly easing itself away, replaced with caution.
“You're sure?” She hummed again, giving him a toothless smile and about to walk off when he shouted at her to wait.
“Fine, here’s your… Pink hairbrush.” He said, holding it out for her with a pissed off look and she gave her the grin he had given her.
“Why thank you. I’ll leave you to your antisocial activities.” She said and she was gone, Min Ho watching her retreating figure until she was out of sight.
When Kitty woke up, she yawned, checking the time to see that it had converted back to her time which mean't there was less than an hour more of the flight. Which also mean't she would have to say goodbye to the boy she had only just realised she loved, a little bit, or a lot.
When the plane finally arrived at the airport, somehow, someway, Min Ho was still asleep as if the landing hadn't been rough and bumpy.
Kitty was the one to wake him up.
"Min Ho, wake up, the plane just landed." She whispered, giving him a small shove to get him started. His eyes fluttered as he groaned from exhaustion and sleepiness, stretching out while removing his head from her shoulder. Her shoulder suddenly felt cold.
"Where are we again?" He muttered, rubbing his eyes and peering around to see people starting to get out of their seats and grab their luggage.
"We just arrived." She explained and he gave her an absent nod, watching as people hoarded themselves in the passage way and they all slowly descended off the plane. It looked a massive mess of people and he groaned, knowing he would either have to push his way into the crowd and make contact with people or wait till most people had cleared.
"I hate coach." He declared.
Goodbye's were never Kitty's thing. Hello's were her thing. Goodbye's felt like what you would say when you were never going to see something again, and she hated that feeling and that drop of her stomach when people said it.
So, when it came to Min Ho say goodbye, she almost pleaded for him to go with her, to stay with her, to be with her the whole break. She refrained from so however, knowing that Min Ho visiting his mum was 1. Much more important than her feelings, and 2. This was an important time for Min Ho, considering he almost never saw his mum, or his dad for that matter.
"I'll see if I can meet with you at the end of the break, okay?" He said as they strolled through the airport and they spotted Min Ho's designated Drivers holding his sign up.
"How will I contact you?" She asked, knowing for a fact she didn't have his number in her phone.
"I'll contact you, Kitty." He said and she smiled brightly at him, forgetting for a second that he was saying goodbye. He waved at the drivers before turning around one last time and giving her a hug. Min Ho was giving her a hug. The Min Ho, giving her a hug. It was rather awkward, considering Min Ho wasn't fully going in for it, she appreciated it nonetheless.
Her heart fluttered violently in her chest, threatening to explode
"Goodbye, Covey." He murmured into her ear and then he was gone