prologue: kiss; word count: 906

"Umma," Kyunghwa tapped her mother's shoulder softly. "What's it like to kiss someone?" Kyunghwa was eleven now, and she had started to become fascinated with the idea of falling in love.

"You're too young sweetheart," her mother said softly. "You'll find out when you're older."

But that wasn't good enough for Kyunghwa. She was too persistent.
"Oppa?" she stood in the doorway of her older brother's bedroom. Kyungsoo was sixteen, surely he would know all about kissing, right?

"Hmm?" Kyungsoo looked up from the algebra problem he was currently contemplating. "What is it Hwannie?"

"Well, I asked umma what it's like to kiss someone; but she said I'm too young."

"Well she's right you know. You're eleven you shouldn't be wondering about kissing anyone." Kyungsoo sighed, shaking his head as he returned to his algebra.

"But oppa, I'm curious" a pout graced Kyunghwa's countenance and she refused to leave until she got an answer.

"Why do you think I know anything about kissing anyway?" Kyungsoo asked. "What makes you think I've ever even kissed anyone?"

"Don't you learn all about that kind of stuff in high school?"

"Not necessarily. You only learn about that stuff when you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend."

"And you don't?"

At this point Kyungsoo's face was burning with an amalgam of annoyance and embarrassment. He was sixteen years old and he'd never been in a relationship. Most of the girls in his class were cheerleaders anyway; and he felt they were far too stuck up and full of themselves, thinking they were princesses when they actually behaved more like the ugly stepsisters. But of course, those kinds of girls were certainly the perfect fit for a place where the male population was primarily sweaty, smelly jocks who took any and every opportunity to rub it in your face that they're better than you because they play sports and have all the girls drooling over them.

"Ugh, those stupid boys are so primitive" Kyungsoo grumbled under his breath. "And all those girls act like sluts."

"What?"

"Huh?" Kyungsoo had forgotten that his little sister was standing there. "Nothing. I was just saying that nobody I go to school with is really my type." Translation: I'm what they refer to as a "nerd" and none of them even bother to take a second look at me, he thought. So I try to convince myself that I don't even like any of them anyway. He sighed, staring down at the notebook in his lap.

"So you don't have a boyfriend or a girlfriend?"
"No! Now can you please leave me alone? I'm trying to finish this, I have a test on it tomorrow and I'd like to pass it."
"You're a smarty pants you don't need to study," Kyunghwa still refused to leave. She didn't care how, she just wanted an answer to her question.

"Ugh, fine!" Kyungsoo huffed and threw his notebook down on the bed beside him. "You wanna know what it's like to kiss someone?!"

He didn't think about what he did next, it was really just an attempt to get his sister out of his hair. He softly cupped her face in his hands and pressed a light kiss to her lips.

"There, now can I please finish my homework?"

Kyunghwa stared at him, her mouth agape and her cheeks painted red.

"OUT!" Kyungsoo slammed the door in Kyunghwa's face, then flopped on his bed and stared at his still unfinished algebra homework. But he couldn't focus on it anymore. Instead, he moved his gaze to the ceiling and thought about the irrationality of what he had just done. He just kissed his little sister, and that was strange. But what was stranger was that no matter how strange he tried to convince himself it was, he didn't feel strange at all. In fact, as soon as their lips had met, Kyungsoo had felt his heart begin to race. But she's my sister... he thought, shaking his head. She's my sister, I can't have those kinds of feelings for her. That's... that's so wrong. So very very wrong."

But he couldn't stop his heart or his mind from racing. He continued to stare at the ceiling, surrounded by the homework that he was too distracted to finish. He fell asleep with the taste of Kyunghwa's lips still lingering on his own, and the sound of his heart thumping so loud in his ears that he was sure everyone in the house could hear it.

"So that's what it feels like to kiss someone" Kyunghwa said to herself as she too stared at the ceiling in her bedroom. She didn't really let it sink in too deeply that the boy she had kissed was her brother, she was too focused on the fact that she had finally learned what it felt like to kiss someone.

She touched her lips softly with the tip of her index finger. "I like it," she said, a soft grin finding its way to her face. "It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside." And those were the last words she allowed to escape before she fell asleep in a completely different world than the one her brother was sleeping in across the hall. Both of them slept with the taste of each other on their lips, but only one of them slept with the lingering feeling of, well, he had no idea what.