What Do I Swim For?

Chapter 5

Haru's POV

I woke up the next morning and the first thing I saw was the beautiful face of my sleeping girlfriend. Erica, how do I describe her? She is breathtaking. Her skin is soft and smooth to the touch, it was pale as porcelain except for the slight blush pink tint in her cheeks. I lifted my hand to gently trace the lines of her face.

Her lips weren't too full or too thin and yet they were tantalizing. They were a beautiful shade of rose. Those lips were as soft and smooth as silk and held a gentle warmth. I loved them. They were comforting and encouraging, seductive and playful, loving and kind. She had always used those lips to cheer me on, to comfort me when I was feeling upset, and now that I had finally told her how I felt, she uses those lips to kiss me. I let my fingertips gently follow the curve of her lips as I thought about her dimpled smile that makes me feel as if everything will be okay, that anything is possible.

I looked at her long beautiful hair. When I was younger I had dreams about running my fingers through those wavy reddish caramel tresses which she would occasionally streak with hair chalk in various colors, but usually it would be in various shades of blue, red or purple. I asked her once why she uses hair chalk and she told me with a beautiful smile that it made her feel beautiful, more confident. With her anxiety and depression, I thought that it was good for her to feel better about herself. My hand wandered from her lips up into her silken locks to run my fingers through them. Her hair had tangled slightly while she slept, giving her the most adorable case of bedhead I have ever seen in my life.

She looked so much more peaceful and younger in her sleep that I almost didn't want her to wake up. The downside to her not waking up would be that I wouldn't get to see those gorgeous hypnotic multicolored eyes that made me fall in love with her in grade school when we met.

It was about 5 minutes until 7:00 so I decided to let her sleep until 7:30. Just to let her sleep a little longer.

However, once the clock hit 7:00, my plans to let her sleep longer were ruined. I heard a ding coming from Erica's phone and I have never seen Erica wake up so fast in my life, and she has never been a morning person...

Erica got up and shot across the room to her phone.

"Wow, Erica. I don't think I've ever seen you move that fast in the morning when you first wake up. Why are you up?" I ask her.

"Seven, did you fix the bomb?"  Erica said to her phone in English after unlocking her phone and tapping the screen, but I wasn't sure I was translating it correctly in my head but I heard the voice of a man reply in Korean, which I don't understand.

"Erica, who's that?" I ask.

"It's a new otome game I downloaded on my phone. I've been playing it for a few days. I'm talking to Seven." She told me, switching back to Japanese which I did understand.

"Who is Seven?" I ask, confused.

"He's a character in the game. I found out I was in danger yesterday so Seven is trying to fix it."

"What kind of danger?" I ask, not sure I wanted to know. I didn't like that she played otome games because I felt a bit jealous that she wanted to go on dates with pixelated fictional men.

"Well, there was a bomb... and a hacker named Unknown trying to kill me..."

"Which one of these guys are you trying to date?" I ask reluctantly, just wanting to know which one of them I should be jealous of.

"Jumin Han, he seems cold at first but he's really a big dork." She says with her beautiful smile and I feel a pang of jealousy. " However, I didn't realize that I couldn't play Jumin's route in casual mode so I'm in Yoosung's route."