Winter Hearts

Perspectives

It was at a very particular point that N realised that Min had had some strange change of heart.

When he had turned to her to tell her that little bit about himself that he had always found curious, that part of him that never seemed to feel anything more than a detached attraction towards another individual, he had not expected her to stare at him so openly in surprise.

What had he said that had elicited such a reaction? Something about not having the soul for falling in love at first sight.

She had given him new words, and somehow, had gone too far for her own comfort, and made herself go hot around the collar.

He cast his mind back to when Hyuk and Hongbin had teased them about being unchaperoned, at the start of their quiet conversation, and wondered why someone like Min would find any of their spoken thoughts after that to be unnerving.

Unless she was having other thoughts that didn't make it to the conversation.

N suppressed his surprise.

Min had all but declared what kind of girl she was, right from the moment they met. And she had done it with her eyes on Hongbin, her tongue behind her teeth as she half-ignored his own attention to her. He had gotten the impression that she was a hunter with her eyes on her prey, enough to pique his interest as she seemed so different from Siana.

Their conversation at breakfast had served to clarify that, while she was determined, outspoken and upfront about herself, she didn't lack compassion and had a sense of humour. And in the few moments he had watched her with Siana on their tour, he could see that the assertive sexuality and the forthrightedness from the night before were not nearly as natural to her as her warmth and effusiveness.

He also liked that she was very observant, and often found himself locking eyes with her as they checked their common situation out.

After the train ride with Kkomae, after speaking to Hyuk, and then now seeing Leo and Siana find some sort of liberation from their worries, he had found himself feeling free to indulge himself in the rhetorics of attraction. He felt no weight on his conscience, or vulnerability, as he brought up the subject wtih Min.

Which was why her burdened reaction took him by surprise. Min? Flustered?

With some satisfaction, he believed that he was part of the cause of it. But he also knew that if she had been on her own and thinking those thoughts, she would have been the same, except in private. There was some thing that he had said, or that she had thought, that had triggered this reaction - and it made him overwhelmingly curious.

Perhaps she had thought he was making a confession. This would imply she believed him to be more attached to the notion of keeping things together than he really was, and that she suddenly felt exposed by his admission.

What did I say? N blinked, thinking back rapidly. That he had not the soul for relationships or something. He thought he had been trying to say that, whilst he could feel attraction, even desire for someone, he had yet to want them, mind, body and soul. In other words, he had yet to fall in love with anyone.

And Min had reiterated what he had said, with other words.

N felt the clarification and the different words didn't matter as much as what the implications were to Min - and those implications had thrown her for a loop.

Min, getting flustered by the implication that there was attraction between them? Why would she be, even if true. He would have thought she would be in her element, finding opportunity to flirt, suggest, move forward. Of reject, if she wasn't interested. Perhaps she thought there was no moving forward with someone like him - and he had all but said that he had never fallen into further than an intellectual or physical attraction with anyone.