Ice: Thaw the Frozen Heart [EDITING]

Chapter 70

This chapter is rated [M]. Nothing explicit though.
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The temperature outside had been dropping lower. Winter had come since last month, but only with this drastic change of temperature did everyone finally really realize the change of season. Likewise, a new season of life was upon the high school senior students soon to be graduating.

As he stirred the hot chocolate drink in the cup, Kris silenlty watched Yeojin who had been busy in front of the laptop since after dinner. His eyes then traveled to her pony tail, exposed neck, then down to her boatneck sweater. He bit down his lip and averted his gaze.

Seriously! It's freezing outside, and she chose to wore that inside the house. The weather had been taunting him enough, but now she just had to make it harder for him to keep his thoughts in check.

"You've been closing and reopening that site for fifteen minutes!" Kris spoke up as he took a seat beside Yeojin on the island counter. "Here." He handed her a cup of hot chocolate while sipping his.

"I-I did?"

Kris nodded and peered at her laptop screen. "LSE, huh? Isn't that in London?"

Yeojin quickly closed the mentioned university site again and cleared her throat. "I was just checking it out of curiosity." Placing down her cup, she averted her attention back to the Seoul University application she needed to fill.

Kris sighed then smiled. "You can always apply to more than one university, you know?"

"I know. But I've made my decision. And I want to stay here in Seoul."

Loving, being loved, and being left— those were her fears since the passing away of her dad. She had faced the first two pretty well these past months, but not the latter, he noted.

"Alright. It's your choice. But know that whatever you choose, I'm not leaving you." He patted her head and she turned to look at him with a sigh.

"You better not!"

"I still think you should go for LSE though." He grinned to which she pouted. "Look, I know you're deciding on this because you're already hating the fact that you won't be able to see Sunhee or your friends that much anymore." His hand moved to rub her back. "But Jin, wherever you decide to go, Sunhee, Lin, your mom, Jinho, me—we'll stay in your life."

Yeojin softly groaned while rubbing her face. "I just can't lie to you, huh?"

Kris gave her a lopsided smile. It's true that Yeojin was like a reopened book to him the moment he gave up on hating her. Until now, he still regretted ever hating her just because he didn't want to admit that she had his heart from the start.

Lifting his cup of hot chocolate to his lips, he turned his attention back to his laptop whose screen showed the new hotel business plan. "If you choose LSE, I can go to London and live there with you."

"You're a chairman," Yeojin reminded. "You need to be here for the company."

"Exactly why I can do what I want. Even if I can't, I can always take an annual leave. Or I can come back here every now and then." Kris nonchalantly shrugged then glanced at her with a playful glint in his eyes. "You're already reconsidering your choice of university, I see."

Yeojin quickly turned away from him with a fake cough. "Am not!"

Abandoning his attention on his work, Kris snorted and twisted his body to face her while propping his head on his hand. He placed the other hand on her exposed nape gently rubbing it with his thumb. "I just want you to face your fear. You can never win over your fear if you stay in your comfort zone." His hand moved to play with her pony tail, twirling it in his hand. "Besides, if we do live there. There'll be just us two. We can have all the time we want to ourselves."