章 5: The Kiss, Interrupted

Nivritti was unable to think. She was swept up in the moment. She was kissing a stranger which was unlike her. Why was she kissing him back, she had no answer to that. She was not only kissing him but was matching his pace.

Kyung-Soo was kissing her with urgency as if his life depended on it. He was drowning and she was like a breath to him. He didn't want the kiss to stop. The sensation he was feeling all over was overwhelming.

His tongue was inside her mouth, exploring every single inch. Even her taste was amazing. The most enticing part was her smell, her sweet lavender smell. Kyung-Soo wanted more. He had her in his arms. He moved forward and softly placed her back against the wall without breaking the kiss. His hands were inside her braided hair, her soft braided hair. The hair, the kiss, the taste, the smell were driving him crazy.

He was about to move his hand along her lower waist when everything stopped. All the feelings were halted by a sudden sound, a musical sound. For a second he didn't recognise the music, but that music brought Nivritti from kiss land. She immediately pushed him away and landed on the floor.

She realised that she just kissed the biggest name in K-pop which was a huge mistake. She again racked her brain about what just happened. Wait! She didn't initiate the kiss, he kissed her first. But all her thought process was being disturbed by the sound.

She was grateful for the sound as that brought her back and helped her to avoid making any more mistakes. Who knows what had happened if they didn't hear that sound?

Kyung-Soo looked at her frustrated. He wanted to kiss her more, but he was forced to stop. She too pushed him away after hearing the music. He closed his eyes and reached inside his pocket. He took out his phone which was ringing loudly. Now Nivritti understood what that music was.

Then the gravity of the situation hit her. She kissed Kyung-Soo, she kissed The King. If anyone comes to know what happened in the stair corridor her life would be over. She ran away from her past and tried starting a new life, but the new life was tainted on the very first day.

Her heart sank. Would she have to look for another job? Would she have to shift again? Would she have to run again? Well, she was an expert in running. Give her a problem, and she would provide one with a solution but when it came to her life, instead of facing a problem, she always preferred to run away from it.

Her heart was racing fast. She could not tell if that was after being breathless because of the kiss or because of fear. Kyung-Soo kept glancing at her and then at his phone. He wanted to talk to her but his phone kept ringing.

The ring had brought both of them back to reality and both had no idea how to deal with that. Kyung-Soo looked at the phone. The display read 'Young'. He knew he had to take the call.

"Why... why did you do that? Why did you do that?" asked Nivritti, shocked and nervous. When he hugged her, she calmed down, but she was back again being afraid after he kissed her.

He wanted to answer her, talk to her, ask everything about her as he wanted to learn everything about her but before he could open his mouth, she looked at him, opened the door and ran away.

"Hey! Stop!" He called after her, but she was gone. "Please, listen to me," he shouted after her but had to keep his voice down as he didn't want anyone to know what happened there. It was already her first day, Thae scolded her, then he himself kissed her, and he didn't want to pile up on that anymore.

His annoying phone kept ringing. He was already frustrated as he did not get to continue the kiss and he was getting angrier and angrier after hearing his phone ring.

He rolled his eyes and picked up the phone. "What?" he barked on the phone.

"Are you ok?" asked Young-Chul over the phone.

"Why wouldn't I be?" gritted Kyung-Soo.

"Well, you sound angry," replied Young-Chul.

Kyung-Soo took a deep breath and calmed himself down. He knew it was no one fault that he had to stop kissing her. But all he could think about was the kiss. "Everything's fine. Why did you call?" asked Kyung-Soo.

"We have dance practice, and you went to get the scripts ages ago. Are you really, ok?" inquired Young-Chul, worried.

"Yeah, I'm ok. I am on my way," replied Kyung-Soo.

"Come fast, Johan is getting impatient," warned Young-Chul.

"I'll be there in a minute," replied Kyung-Soo and disconnected the call. He closed his eyes, hung his head low and took a few deep breaths. "What have I done?" he murmured and exhaled loudly.

He then looked around and found the script all around his feet. He placed his phone back in his pocket and started picking up the papers. He arranged them according to the page number and exited the stairs.

He pondered over if he should go talk to her and decided for it. He went back to the script department and looked for her. She was nowhere to be found. His head hung with disappointment. He thought he could talk to her and reassure her that she had nothing to be afraid of. But her seat was empty, she was nowhere on the floor.

Disappointed, he was about to leave the script department when Chung-Ho noticed him.

"What are you still doing here, King?" asked Chung-Ho. Everyone looked at him. The girls smiled as they loved looking at him whenever he used to come to get the script. ASD members always made a point to collect their scripts by themselves as they didn't want anyone to go through the trouble for them. They were humble that way.

"Oh, nothing. I thought I missed a page and wanted to look in the copier room but now I looked, and everything is in order," he lied.

"Oh!" exclaimed Chung-Ho.

"I will take your leave, Choi-ssi. See you tomorrow," Kyung-Soo bowed down.

"Okay, bye."

He again looked around, but he could not find her. With a heavy heart, he went towards the lift and went to the practice room on the ground floor. All the time lift kept climbing down he kept thinking about her. He noticed in the mirror that his hair was dishevelled. He ran his fingers through his hair to tame it. But all he could think about was her fingers caressing his hair while they were kissing.

Suddenly the lift pinged, and the doors opened. He was on the ground floor. He went to room no. 5. Everyone was waiting for him.

"You are late," chimed Him-Chan as soon as he saw Kyung-Soo.

"I know. The script fell from my hand and flew everywhere. I was gathering it," replied Kyung-Soo.

"Hmm…" groaned Him-Chan. "Shall we start?"

"Let me put this down first," said Kyung-Soo. Him-Chan just nodded. Kyung-Soo placed the script on a table, and they all started getting ready for dance practice. All their phones and wallets were placed on a table, and they lined up before the mirror. The choreographer played the music and the rigorous dance practice started.

Meanwhile, Nivritti exited the stairs and ran to the washroom. She looked around and found that the washroom was empty. She ran to a stall and locked it. She kept breathing heavily for minutes. Her heart was ready to jump out of her chest.

"You utter idiot! Stupid! Stupid!! Stupid!!! Oh, what if he tells someone? My life would be ruined. No one will hire me. They will call me a slut. You idiot!" she kept screaming at herself. "Wait! Why would he tell anyone? He has more to lose. For me, it will be a firing offence but for him, it will be a scandal. Oh, I hope so. Please, God, give him sense to not talk to anyone."

Her heart was thumping hard, her mouth was dry. She wanted to cry but there were no tears. This was a great opportunity for her, she didn't want to lose it because of a single mistake.

She rubbed her temple to soothe herself. She exhaled and inhaled a few times to control her heartbeat. When she no longer could her heartbeat, she knew it was okay to come out of the stall. She decided to wait a day and see if he babbles about the kiss to anyone. If he did, she would have to find a new job away from the east part of the world.

She came out and saw herself. She gasped. Her hair was all over the place. Her face had multiple lines of tears, her eyes were a little swollen, and her nose was red. She was looking hideous.

"Wait! He kissed me when I was looking like this. He must be blind," she thought. "Or maybe a playboy."

She turned the tap on and splashed water all over her face. The cold water was soothing. Her face was hot after crying and kissing and water brought the temperature down. She dried her face with tissue paper and then started working on her hair. She unbraided her hair, ran her fingers through it to control them, used water to tame rouge hair and then braided it again.

She took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror. The eyes were a little swollen, and the nose was slightly red. No matter what, she had to return to work. She was away from her station for a long time. She cannot be tardy on her first day.

She was already a part of an unfortunate event of the day, she didn't want to draw any more attention to herself.