“You’re smashing your cheeks,” Seonwoo stated, pulling her hands away from her face, the drinks successfully lifting off her cheeks, “it’s making your face all squished.”

He had a giant grin on his face, and she wanted to hand him the drinks and squeeze that natural smile off of him, and put it on herself. How easy it was for him to smile, and have a good time. She was jealous. He did things so easily, she could only wish that she could do things as simply, and without a doubt as he did. His hands were rough in comparison to her own, and yet, they felt strong, and comforting over hers. They weren’t squeezing her, like her ex’s had done, they were gentle.

“Calming.” she muttered, before realizing she said the word out loud, and wanted to retreat back into the garden, but she was stuck.

He let go of her hands, and the drinks still remained in the spot he pulled them, she was too scared, and nervous of his reaction to move. “If it makes you feel that way, I guess.” he shrugged, “but I thought you said it was too hot? Is that calming for you?”

She lowered her extended arms, so the drinks rested in front of her, “No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh, okay,” he grabbed his drink from her hand, “So what did you mean?”

That you are the calming one, she wanted to say, but knew she shouldn’t, she wouldn’t. How dare she? She only just met him, saying something like that would be ridiculous, and absurd, and there’s no doubt he’d think she’s some sort of stalker. She took a deep breath, before sighing, “It doesn’t matter, what is it that you have a contract here for?”

“I wanted to know…” he pouted, and brought his drink to his lips.

“So, what’s your contract for?” she repeated.

“You don’t know?” he asked, his pout suddenly vacant from his face, “I thought you talked to Mira about it.”

“No, she only mentioned that you had an interview.” Sua admitted, sighing, “I guess I was hoping I could get a sense at how general these contracts this company sends out are.”

“That interview was the worst three hours of my life.” Seonwoo fumed, his glass shaking, “I’ll burn the place up if I have to go back there!”

“Burn the pla…” Sua trailed off, before snapping back, “So, wait, what is it you do?”

“Well, I think…” he brought the glass to his lips, and took a large drink. “...but I suppose that’s what I do now.” he smiled.

“I didn’t catch any of that.”

“Seonwoo!” Alleah cheered, running up to him, holding a tray of chicken in her hands, “I heated up the food you had in the fridge!”

“Woah!” he smiled, placing his drink on the nearby table, and kneeling down to her, “That’s a whole bunch! Are we sharin’ it with Sua?”

“Yep! You can’t eat all of it!” the little girl commanded.

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighed, picking up the tray from her and placing it beside his drink, “What were you askin’, Sua?”

“What is it that you do?” she repeated.

“Oh,” he grabbed a chicken leg from the tray, and bit into it, “Mfter Mmmngsun had gone I thimk thet the Mmster had found me, but now I do a mot of sfff wif fire, so mmbe thets it. I mean, mming mble to meat fire mnd all.”

I didn’t understand a word he said, but I suppose it’s too hard to just ask again. Sua sighed, “Fire, huh?”

He swallowed, “Yeah, pretty cool, huh! I really like the way it flickers, and the smell it has when burning on different types of wood. I just want to bite into campfires with that hint of marshmallow.”

“Bite into… what?” Sua asked, nearly spitting out her drink.

“The campfire,” Seonwoo replied, grabbing another leg of chicken.

***

Sua stared up at her ceiling trying to recall exactly what he had said. Did he mean he bit into the campfire, or he liked the smell of burning wood so much that he wondered what it’d taste like. Most likely the latter, unless he was just a child. She sighed, and rolled over onto her side, staring at the starlit night outside her window. Her hair sprawled out behind her, but she didn’t mind. It was probably getting so many tangles, but what could she do, other than brush it out when she woke up the next day, to write some more?

He was different, that was pretty clear. A little crazy, and yet, out of all of the men she had met in her life, why was he the only one she wanted to see again? Was it because of the way he talked to her? How he didn’t act as if she were just a body? As if she had no will or mind of her own? Was it because he didn’t look at her with lust in his eyes? Whatever the reason, she had thought of their last conversation in the depths of her mind for a week after she had seen him.

Absently, her hand reached over to grab the phone that was lying on her bed-side-table, and opened her contact list. Her finger scrolled down the whole list, before letting go of the phone and letting it rest on the mattress beside her pillow. His contact wasn’t there. She didn’t have it. Of course she didn’t have his number, she never asked for it. Why would she ask for his phone number? That didn’t make much sense. Most of the time, guys were either asking for hers, or giving her theirs. As much as she hated to admit that she wanted a guy’s number, she wanted his. She wanted to talk to him, and see if he was just using her, or if he really was genuinely different than all the other lustful guys who found no purpose in her, other than the curvature of her body.

His number! Sua nearly leaped out of her bed, as she sat upright. I do have it! He gave me that card when we first met. She flipped her blankets off of her body, and swung her legs over the side of her bed. Her hands reached for her purse, before realizing that it wasn’t her purse that she had placed the card in, but her computer bag. The bag she had lying on the loveseat in her office room. Without thinking, she sprung to her feet, and quickly made her way down the hall to the room that held the bag with the card bearing the number she desperately wanted to add into her phone.

Sitting against the loveseat, she held the card shakily in her hand, staring down at it, as she wished she had her phone with her to dial it. But did she want him to have her number? That was a little risky. She didn’t know much about him, and she couldn’t understand what he was saying when he explained his job to her, but upon looking at the card, one that must have been handed out from the company, he was some sort of magician-model-wrestler guy. She should have grabbed her phone, because now she had to go back, though she had to anyway, she needed to go to bed.

Lazily getting up, with the card, she made her way back to her room, where she eyed her phone on the bed, and directly made her way over to it. Her light was still off, so she could just go to sleep once she put his number into her contact list. She needed a photo. She hated having a contact without one, though, she didn’t have many contacts to base that from, mostly from publishers she had tried to partner with, and Levy. She had her father’s number, but she hadn’t made contact with him in ages, so she decided to ignore its existence on a daily basis, to the point where he no longer had a name to his contact.

Crap! She thought to herself as she watched the screen change to it’s calling mode. After putting Seonwoo’s contact in, she had accidentally called him. She hesitated in ending the call, and right before she did, it was answered.

“Hello?” Seonwoo’s voice sounded through the speakers of her phone. She held her breath. It wasn’t on speaker, but the volume was loud enough without it. “Hello?” he repeated, “Anyone there?”

“Hi?” she meekly answered.

“Oh! Someone is there!” his voice exclaimed, a little too happy for her liking, “Who is this? How do you have my number?”

“Um, you had giv-” she didn’t even finish her sentence when he cut her off.

“Sua? Is that you? You’re the only person I’ve given my number in the past month, I think, why’d you call me now? Is something wrong? Are you okay?”

“Hah,” she sighed, “and if I’m not?”

“Well, I can recognize your voice now, but…” he hummed, “I think I’d have to block you, and burn your house, if you're not Sua, but you are! So that solves that.” he chuckled.

“Over a phone number?”

“It’s not like I want to. Though, fire is pretty cool.”

“Over a phone number? You’d really burn down someone’s house over a phone number?”

“It could be someone pretending to be my brother, I don’t want that.”

“You care about your brother that much?”

“What? No? What’d I say?”

“That the person could be someone pretending to be your brother?”

“Oh! No! I meant it could be my brother pretending to be someone else. I don’t want that.”

“Do you hate your brother that much?”

“Hate?” he repeated, “I guess… Anyway, what’d you want to call me for?”

“Oh, I was just adding you into my contacts…” she mumbled.

“I see! Why’d you take so long to do that? I thought you’d call right away or something? I couldn’t add you because of that.”

“Why didn’t you ask for my number?” Sua asked, half hoping she could lure him into admitting he was like all the other guys.

“I could do that?” he seemed more shocked than she would have thought, “Man, I would have asked sooner, then. So what’s your number?”

Is he an idiot? “I’m calling you with it,” Sua sighed.

“What’s wrong?”

“What?”

“You just sighed, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Seonwoo.”

“O...kay.” Seonwoo answered, “So if nothing’s wrong, why’d you call me so late?”

“I was just adding you into my contacts.” Sua defended herself.

“It’s two in the morning.” Seonwoo reasoned.

“Why are you up so late?”

“Eh, Bunny wanted food, and I was hungry. What about you? Were you hungry, too?”

“What? No, I just…” she mumbled, “couldn’t sleep.”

“You couldn’t sleep?” Seonwoo repeated, louder than she had hoped he would, “That’s not fun. Sleep is great! You should sleep.”

“I can’t if you're on the phone.”

“Sure, you can.” Seonwoo replied, “I’ve done that with Liza before.”

He is like all the other guys, then “I see.”

“Yeah, she was pretty mad when she realized I slept through what she was saying, but it was just so boring!”

“Wait, what?”

“It was boring.”

“I thought you said that you had…” she trailed off, “she called you?”

“Yeah, she said she wanted to talk about something important, but I don’t remember what it was. Sleep was just the better option, I guess.”

“Oh,” so he isn’t like the other guys? I don’t understand him.

“Anyway, you should go to sleep. It’s good for you. Wait! No! Bunny! You can’t eat that, it’s mine!”

He actually did get up because he was hungry, she laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“You get up at two o’clock cause you're hungry. It’s adorable.”

“Adorable?”

“Yeah,” she giggled.

“Huh, never would have thought that. You’re so weird.”

“Weird?” Sua repeated, slightly taken aback by his words, though at the same time, accepting it as reality. After all, no one wanted to be with her, unless she complied with their wishes.