I just love Playful Kiss and I adore Seung Jo and Ha Ni together. When I decided to try my hand at writing Fanfiction, this was the story I started with but I got stuck on it and ended up writing two other stories first before I could go back and finish this one. It's my favourite so far and I really hope you like it. Secret Kiss will be three chapters and I will post the others as soon as I can. I really hope you like reading it as much as I liked writing it.
Cheers!
I do not own anything related to Playful Kiss, except my own words.
Oh Ha Ni had a secret admirer.
She wasn't sure at first. Random things kept showing up in her back pack or her purse, simple, innocuous things that didn't scream romance.
First it was a water bottle.
Ha Ni was getting so much better at tennis, she no longer had to pick up balls off the court or clean up after the real players – she was one of the real players now! Her game had improved by leaps and bounds once she stopped being nervous about what a certain cold-hearted genius would say to her, or being self-conscious about being compared to a certain tall beauty always to be found in company with said genius. Baek Seung Jo was now a very busy man. Since his father's heart attack, Seung Jo took over the management of the family's gaming business and between classes, work, and dating Yoon He Ra, he had very little time for tennis.
With more confidence and more of Kwang Kyung-soo's training Ha Ni discovered she actually had natural talent on the court. She was now in the regular game rotation and had played and won her first tournament.
One day, after a particularly gruelling practice session a very sweaty Ha Ni and her partner flopped down onto the bench and reaching into her bag to retrieve her towel, Ha Ni's hand found something she wasn't expecting. A bottle of water.
It was odd because she recalled that they were out of bottled water at home and she'd forgotten to buy one in the cafeteria at lunch. Oh well, maybe Min-Ah or Joo Ri, her best friends, put it in there while she was getting her food, knowing she'd probably forget. She took a long refreshing pull from the bottle and told herself that she would have to remember to thank them later.
The following week Ha Ni was sitting on the grass in the dappled shade of a stand of cherry trees along with Min-Ah, Joo Ri and their other friend Bong Joon-Gu. One of Ha Ni's classes got cancelled and it was a free period for her two friends and since Joon-Gu worked in the cafeteria and lunch was long since finished, he had some time to kill before heading over for his shift at Ha Ni's dad's noodle shop. The friends took the rare opportunity to spend some time together, catching up on their lives and plans for the upcoming break.
Ha Ni was smiling at something funny Min-Ah said when out of the corner of her eye she spotted Baek Seung Jo walking with Yoon He Ra on a path that would pass directly in front of the happy group. Ha Ni lowered her head and tried to make herself look smaller hoping that he wouldn't notice her – she'd been trying to avoid him ever since he started dating He Ra. She even stopped attending the class they had in common.
Ha Ni had been so focused on not bringing attention to herself that she didn't realize she'd been nervously tugging on her charm bracelet until it broke open, flinging all its charms all over the grass just as Seung Jo and He Ra got to them. The bracelet, one of the few things that Ha Ni had that once belonged to her mother, was precious to her and she gasped aloud as the charms went flying everywhere. The ensuing panic and scramble after her friends realized what happened was loud and naturally caught the attention of the passersby. He Ra even bent over and half-heartedly pretended to help search. When Ha Ni glanced up at Seung Jo he was shaking his head at her and she could hear him mutter "Pabo". She quickly looked away and thanked He Ra for her help but didn't want to keep them from what they were doing, effectively dismissing both He Ra and Seung Jo.
Ha Ni and her friends managed to find six out of the seven charms and she smiled and thanked them over and over again for managing to find as many as they did, assuring them it was ok that they couldn't find the last one. They had to go back to class and Joon-Gu had to go to work so they all split up, only Ha Ni was determined to come back after class and keep looking. That thought was the only thing that kept her from crying for the next hour and a half while she was stuck in class not able to focus on anything the professor said.
After class, she spent over an hour crawling around under the trees looking for the charm but finally had to give up when the shadows started to lengthen on the ground and it got too dark to keep looking. Ha Ni had no appetite for dinner that night and silently cried herself to sleep. It didn't help that she kept seeing Seung Jo's cold stern face looking down on her every time she closed her eyes.
Three days later, in the library, searching for her library card, Ha Ni's fingers scraped the bottom of her purse and felt something odd. Pushing things aside and peering down into her bag Ha Ni's breath caught and she couldn't believe what she saw. Something was glinting up at her nestled between her extra pen and a packet of tissues. Could it be? She reached in and pulled it out. "Oh My God!" She squealed out loud, causing several students to turn their glaring eyes in her direction. It was her missing charm! But how was it possible? Did it land in her bag that day when the bracelet broke, she wondered. But then the how and why was not important at all. She had her mother's charm back and her heart was so light it could have flown straight up to heaven all on its own.
Next came the hair ribbons.
Ha Ni's favourite colour was red. It also happened to be the colour that best suited her happy, outgoing personality and looked really good on her. One night shortly after the incident with the charm bracelet, Ha Ni was in the library, working on her science homework, which she normally would have gone home to do, but having found out that Yoon He Ra was coming to dinner at the Baek house tonight, she decided it would be best for her to be elsewhere.
Instead she left Geum Hee a message that she would be home late, brought snacks and water and prepared herself a comfortable cubicle hidden away almost at the back of the library. She pulled out a small stack of books she was using to research for her biology paper, and got right down to work. Ha Ni was so much better now at studying compared to how she was in high school; now spending a few hours poring over a bunch of science books didn't leave her trying to rip her own hair out in frustration and feeling stupid. It was, in fact, quite the opposite. She had made many notes on her topic and was almost ready to start putting it all together when she decided she needed a break and a fresh cup of coffee.
After standing and stretching out her limbs, cramped from sitting so long, Ha Ni went to the vending machine at the opposite side of the library. When she got back to her cubicle with her steaming cup of coffee, she pulled another book out from her bag, just to check something, but she didn't grab it right and it fell from her fingers, the pages splaying out on the floor at her feet. When Ha Ni went to lift the book, a set bright red, lace hair ribbons wrapped in plastic fell out from between the pages.
She picked it up and looking closely at it realized the ribbons were brand new and really cute – just her style. She wondered if someone had maybe put them in the book as a bookmark and had forgotten about them so she went to the information desk to find out who was the last person to take out the book with vague thoughts of maybe trying to return the ribbons to them, but the search results were not helpful. The last person to borrow that book had been the professor who taught her class who was old, unmarried and red was definitely not his colour. I guess it's my lucky day, Ha Ni thought with a smile as she tucked the ribbons back into her bag. The next day she wore her hair up in a cute bun at the top of her head, tied with pretty red lace ribbons.
The first time Ha Ni thought that perhaps something odd was happening was the day she found the flower. It was dried, pressed flat, and laminated and she knew darn well that she hadn't put it in her locker. Ha Ni even recognized the flower and clearly remembered when it had first been given to her by none other than Baek Seung Jo.
It was during her high school graduation, just after taking a picture with Seung Jo, one of the blossoms in the bouquet Guem Hee had given her, a pretty delicate white blossom with pink along the edges, fell out but before it hit the ground, Seung Jo swiftly bent down and grabbed it and then stuffed in Ha Ni's hair, tucking the stem behind her ear. He laughed that at least the flower looked good on her and then turned away to speak with some classmates. Ha Ni had been shocked and excited when he put the flower in her hair thinking perhaps she had finally managed to make it through that thick skin of his into his heart, but she was then dismayed by the distance he immediately put between them.
She wore the lovely blossom in her hair for the rest of the celebrations and didn't notice when or where it had fallen out, she just saw that it was gone when she finally went home to change. She didn't cry at the loss but Ha Ni couldn't help thinking that it was just like her relationship with Seung Jo. A brief burst of beautiful colour for a short time and then it was gone and life with him was once again cold and colourless.
And here it was again. Only it was dried out, pressed flat, and laminated and it showed up in her locker after tennis practice. She tried to think of who could have put it there but was drawing a blank. She asked her teammates if they had seen anyone hanging around the locker room during practice but no one had and this didn't help to narrow anything down because the locker rooms were not secure and anyone could have walked in at any time and snuck the flower into her locker. The only thing she knew for sure was that it had to be someone she had known in high school who had attended graduation and many of those students were now roaming around Parang University without restraint.
Ha Ni briefly considered the possibility that Seung Jo had put it in her bag, but then dismissed the idea as ridiculous. Imagine the high and mighty genius of Parang High school stooping so low as to pick up a fallen flower and keeping it, much less to actually making sure to preserve it in such a way and then present it to her as a gift. Especially now that he had a girlfriend. The idea was laughable, she told herself, ignoring the disappointing pang of longing that accompanied that thought. It really seemed like something Bong Joon-Gu would do. That made much more sense, although that thought didn't really make her happy.
The next day at breakfast Seung Jo looked at Ha Ni and said, "I heard someone left you a dead flower in your locker", without even shifting his glance from the newspaper in his hands.
"Where did you hear about that?" Ha Ni asked and then she remembered He Ra's younger sister was dating one of the tennis players and she happened to be visiting him when Ha Ni found the flower.
"How is it that you only attract weirdos? Do you have a stalker now?"
Guem Hee overheard he son's comments and was immediately worried. "You will have to leave work early to attend Ha Ni's practices Seung Jo, to make sure our beloved daughter is safe."
"Please mom, that's really not necessary. Besides it's hardly a stalker. I mean it's not like he left me a rotting plant" she said pulling the flower out of her bag, showing it to Guem Hee in an effort to calm her down. "See? It's lovely. It's been dried and laminated and will look beautiful forever. This is not something a stalker would leave."
"That's right," said Eun Jo, Seung Jo's younger brother. "It's more like a gift from a secret admirer, although given that it's Ha Ni we're talking about, it's probably a perverted stalker."
"Yah" Guem hee yelled at him. "Be nice to Ha Ni you little brat. I'm sure I raised you better than to be so rude." She swatted at the back of his head and then gave him a quick hug to lessen the impact. "Now hurry up and get ready for school. Your brother will drive you so you're not late."
All the while Ha Ni had been surreptitiously studying Seung Jo's face for any sign of recognition or any emotion at all really. After all, he was the one who put it in her hair. But his stoic expression betrayed nothing. No, she thought, it couldn't possibly be him – that's absurd. She would have to pay more attention to Bong Joon-Gu, it was probably him anyway.
Then Ha Ni decided it wasn't worth worrying about any more. She now had a pretty keepsake from her graduation that had been given to her in a rare and beautiful moment by the love of her life and she wanted to remember it only that way. The rest wasn't important.
The first two had been so easy. She constantly left her stuff lying around, where anybody could get into it. She probably didn't even think twice about the water bottle, but he knew that she needed to stay hydrated when she played tennis, otherwise she would end up sick. He watched her leaving the cafeteria that day without grabbing an extra bottle so he was quite pleased when he'd seen her bag lying under the bench next to the fence at the edge of the tennis courts. All he had to do was reach over and drop the bottle into her bag and then watch it roll down over a folded towel into the bottom. They were all too busy watching Ha Ni's tiny tennis skirt flip up when she squatted or bent down to notice him. He wasn't sure if he was pleased or annoyed that so many eyes were glued to her backside at that moment, but he figured he'd have time to deal with that later.
The charm had been a bit more of a challenge because he actually had to spend time looking for it. He knew what the bracelet meant to her so he waited until everyone had all gone their separate ways to sneak back and comb through the grass at the foot of the cherry tree and he got lucky. Once he had the charm, it was only a matter of finding the right opportunity to sneak it into somewhere that Ha Ni would find it. It took a few days but the opportunity presented itself and he was able to slip it into her purse without her or anyone else being the wiser. She found it the next day – he knew because she was back to her bubbly, smiling self after three days of sad faced Ha Ni. He felt a strange warmth spread through his chest as he watched her constantly fingering the charms on her mother's bracelet and saw the beautiful smile that lit up her big chocolate brown eyes and made her look even more adorable than usual.
The ribbons took some finesse, but he had some mad skills and was quite proud of how he was able to sneak them into her book while she had left to get some coffee. When he saw them in her hair the next day he had to stop himself from taking too many pictures of her, from a distance, from behind some bushes – nope. Not creepy at all!
He was getting a little frustrated though. Shouldn't she be gushing to her friends about how she had a secret admirer leaving her little gifts all over the place? Maybe he was too good at being sneaky about it and she hadn't caught on yet. He would make sure his next offering would get her attention and smiled to himself as he planned out the next phase of his masterplan.
He recalled when he picked the flower up off the ground near the front of the school where everyone had been taking pictures. He'd pressed it a giant atlas he had at home and then had it laminated to hold onto as a keepsake from that wonderful, special night. Their graduation night, where he had watched her all night long, first while being serenaded and then being laughed at by the other half of the class. He'd watched the spark of indignation light up her face and put a mischievous glint in her eyes. She was absolutely magnificent and he had never loved her more than at that moment.
Slipping the precious memento into her locker in the unsupervised locker room had been a piece of cake, his only worry was that she might figure it out too fast and he wasn't done yet.