Eyes Full Of Stars || Park Sunghoon

11 ¦ Let's Play

With her eyes wide open, Elle stands in front of me, visibly shocked, holding a hand over her mouth as she stares at the bruises on my body.

"What are you looking at?", I confront her, raising an eyebrow to unsettle her. I don't want Sunghoon to know about any of this, because I don't even want to know how he'll react when he sees what my father did to me.

Either he won't care, or he'll go completely crazy and in the worst-case scenario, he'll dissolve the contract with my father, which would mean for my mother and especially for me, that we're no longer safe at home.

"Nothing at all..." the young saleswoman replies, shaking her head, and finally averts her gaze from my body to help me into the wedding dress instead.

It takes a few minutes for everything to really fit the way it's supposed to. "The dress really does look fabulous on you," Elle notes as she tampers with the flowing fabric of the skirt. "We should definitely shorten the dress a bit at the bottom, but otherwise it fits like it was created just for you."

"I want to see it too!" exclaims Sunghoon impatiently from the other side of the curtain, and Elle gives me a quick, questioning look, as if to make sure it's okay with me. But what she doesn't know is that it doesn't matter what's okay for me and what's not, because if it were up to me, we wouldn't be here at all. So I nod and watch as Elle pulls open the curtain.

Carefully, so as not to step on the too-long fabric, I take a few steps towards Sunghoon, who immediately rises from the small sofa on which he had been sitting until just now. His golden eyes scrutinize me intently, not letting me know if he likes what he sees or not.

"So what do you think?", I want to know. If the decision were mine alone, I wouldn't ask Sunghoon at all, I'd take it on the spot. But the decision isn't mine. And I'm probably only here anyway so that the dress I end up wearing to our wedding will fit.

"What do you think?", Sunghoon returns the question to me. "Honestly-", I mumble, looking at myself in one of the mirrors that are all over the room. This dress is exactly what I always dreamed of wearing at my wedding when I was a little girl. It's beautiful and I would love to never take it off.

"I like it."

"We'll take the dress," Sunghoon says to Elle, who looks at him differently after seeing the bruises on my body. Of course, she can't know that Sunghoon had nothing to do with it.

"Good choice," Elle says, smiling enthusiastically. "I would then measure again how much the dress needs to be shortened and have our seamstress do it. However, she won't be in until Saturday..."

"That's absolutely no problem," Sunghoon replies with a wave of his hand and looks at me. "We have time."

He keeps eyeing me and, although he doesn't say it out loud, I imagine he likes the dress too. "Great," the saleswoman says after measuring and noting the too-long piece of the dress and claps her hands.

"Then I'll help you out of the dress once and then we'd be done for the day." Elle disappears with me behind the curtain again, where she helps me out of the wedding dress and I finally slip back into my own dress.

We then come out from behind the curtain and she accompanies Sunghoon and I even to the store door, where we stop for a moment.

"I will call you as soon as the dress is ready. Then you can come by for a final fitting, where we'll check again to make sure everything fits well now and make any further alterations if necessary," she tells Sunghoon, with whom she also made today's appointment.

" Perfect, thank you very much," Sunghoon says kindly. "Thank you for the advice," I also thank her and smile politely.

Sunghoon then grabs my hand again so that I don't even get the idea of running away and we leave the bridal fashion store. He stops at the display window with the wedding rings and gives me a quick glance, which I don't return.

Sadly, I look at the rings lying in the shop window. One of them is a ring made of white gold with a small, plain main stone. The only extravagant thing is the ring band set up to halfway with even smaller stones.

"Let's go," Sunghoon suggests. I nod in agreement. I'll never get an engagement ring anyway, since I'll never be proposed to or refused. I have merely been told that and when I will marry Sunghoon.

When we arrive at Sunghoon's black Bentley, he first checks to make sure everything is still intact. And see there, everything is fine.

Shaking my head, I walk around to the passenger side and wait for Sunghoon to unlock the car so I can get in.

"Are you hungry?" the latter finally wants to know as we've already left the parking garage and drive past the bridal fashion store. "No," I claim, whereupon my stomach growls and speaks up. I clear my throat and lower my gaze.

"What do you want to eat?" asks Sunghoon, having heard my stomach. "Today's way too nice a day for me to drive you home right now, where you'll just sit in your room all day."

"I don't know," I say, shrugging my shoulders. "You decide what we eat. I could eat anything right now." Again, my stomach growls.

"I have an idea about that," Sunghoon says, his eyes remaining fixed on the road ahead. I enjoy the time I don't have to spend under the same roof as my father. Even if I have to spend that time with Sunghoon instead.

So far, Sunghoon has always behaved respectfully toward me for the most part. If I didn't have to marry him, I might even enjoy spending time with him.

"Do you like what you see?", Sunghoon wants to know as he catches me staring at him. As he does, his lips form into a mischievous smile.

With heated cheeks, I turn my face to the side. "So?" asks Sunghoon still waiting for an answer. "Is that a serious question?", I want to know and swallow hard.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Sunghoon stops at a railroad crossing whose gates have just gone down. Oh great...

With my lips pressed together, I look at Sunghoon. Suddenly he approaches my face and I feel my breath catch as the tips of our noses almost touch.

Sunghoon seems to be enjoying the effect he has on me to the fullest. At the same time, he obviously doesn't shy away from provoking it further by wrapping a strand of my hair around his finger and tucking it behind my ear. I open my lips to say something, but no sound comes out.

"Excuse me?" asks Sunghoon with raised eyebrows. He puts one hand behind his ear and tilts his head so that his ear is directly in front of my face. So Sunghoon wants to play with me? Okay, let's play then.

Carefully, I approach his ear so that my breath brushes his skin. "If you only knew," I gently breathe into his ear and run the finger of my other hand over his tanned arm in small circular motions.

I observe that I, too, am having an effect on Sunghoon, for the mischievous smile on his lips dies, and instead he opens them slightly as goose bumps form on his skin.

Sunghoon turns his face toward mine. Frozen, I look into my counterpart's golden eyes, which return my gaze intensely.

"That was not the answer I want to hear," he breathes. "I'll put it in your words...", I breathe back softly as I remember what Sunghoon once said to me. "You wouldn't have been my first choice either."

At that, I break free of my torpor and turn my gaze to the railroad gates, which are opening again, with a gleeful smirk. The car starts moving and neither of us says another word.

It's 1:1 now Sunghoon, what you can... i can do too.