Perfect Boyfriend

"Have a nice bath~"

Rose winked at Ryan before closing the door of the bathroom behind her, leaving him alone with the steaming hot bath that she personally prepared for him. Instead of a bathtub, it would be more precise to call it a jacuzzi. It had more than sufficient capacity to fit two or three people inside.

"Well, I guess I have no choice now," Ryan muttered to himself as he checked the temperature of the water. A bit too hot for his liking but bearable.

Honestly, he preferred a quick shower. One thing he knew for sure though, he would never admit that now—not after seeing how happy she looked. Just her adorable smile was more than enough to convince him to shut his mouth.

Although this was only Rose's personal bathroom, one that is connected directly to her room, its size was not dwarfed by the other rooms in the villa. In fact, it was only slightly smaller than his own dorm room.

While appreciating the elegant white tiles with his bare feet, he began removing his shirt. He was just about to take off his sweatpants when he heard someone knocking on the bathroom door.

"Ryan, are you, uhm, undressed already?" he heard Rose asked cautiously.

He subconsciously looked down and realized that only his shirt was off, he replied, "No, why?" As he still had his sweatpants on, in theory, he wasn't undressed yet. He was… half-naked.

Rose seemed to have heard something in his voice, not fully believing him. The bathroom door cracked open ever so slightly, barely enough to fit her small hand that was gripping a fluffy white towel. "I-I forgot there are no fresh towels left in there so I got you a new one…"

Ryan found her bashful innocence adorably silly, unknowingly bringing a soft smile to his face. He had been living inside the boy's dorm ever since he entered university. There wasn't anything he had not seen in the last four years. Over something as basic as this, his shame had already long disappeared, and it was downright impossible for him to not find this pretty girl's embarrassment as amusing.

He walked up to the door, deciding to tease her a little. As he grabbed the white towel with his left hand, he simultaneously opened the doors wider with the other, exposing his half-naked body to the red-hooded beauty.

Startled, her blue eyes widened as her gaze fell on his naked chest, before traveling down to his well-defined abs. She released the towel as if she had been bitten by a

snake and took a step back, scolding him with a red face. "Why are you naked?! You said you aren't—"

Despite her furious blushing, Rose neither turned her face away from him nor covered her eyes like the shy conservative girl she appeared to be in front of her family. Her gaze lingered on each defined line of his upper body muscles.

Ryan flashed her an innocent smile, pretending not to notice her reaction and walked back to the bathtub-slash-jacuzzi. When he turned away from her, Rose's eyes could not help but ogle the firm muscles on his back moving with each step of his.

"Well, why are you standing there?" his laughing voice broke her from her reverie. "Don't tell me that you want to join me and scrub my back?"

Rose had to blink twice to completely wake up from the spell his body casted on her. She could not help but counter his teasing, pretending to be upset. "O-Of course not! Since you like to flaunt your body like this, I'm just being kind enough to appreciate that pitiful-looking body so you don't feel bad! Stupid!"

She was flustered, but it wasn't that bad—it's not like she had never seen the bare chest of a man. However, it was a completely different story since this is her personal bathroom… then what if he was completely naked…?

Embarrassed by the sudden turn of her thoughts, Rose slammed the door shut afterward, leaving Ryan shaking in laughter. He undressed fully and entered the hot bath, slowly submerging until even his head disappeared under the surface of the water.

"Despite the cons, I guess having her as a girlfriend isn't so bad," Ryan mused with a chuckle, swiftly recalling all of the beauty's silly reactions when he poked fun at her. "Even though we are only pretending to be in love, maybe I should act and treat her like a real boyfriend?"

Being a person who was raised by a loving family—and given his own mother's temperament—Ryan was actually the type of guy who put his time and effort in matters relating to love. After all, wasn't it unfair to not even try to be the best boyfriend possible? Especially when the two people could potentially develop real feelings for each other?

In the past, his relationships did not end well due to his condition, but at very least, he was sincere and tried his best to make things work out.

Splash!

Water sprayed in the air as Ryan suddenly resurfaced. It was a short moment of intense thinking but he got an idea of what he wanted to do.

He did not want to stay in the hot water for too long, knowing he needed to maximize the time left before lunch to talk to Rose. As there were many bottles laying around the bathtub, he took one randomly with a shampoo on the label and quickly washed himself.

Rose said she will prepare clean clothes for him so he wrapped the towel around his waist after drying his hair with it and left the bathroom holding onto his dirty clothes. However, there was no sight of the girl inside her room, giving him the opportunity to look around.

Although it was bigger than an average girl's room, it was relatively standard in its appearance: a queen-sized bed with about a dozen fluffy pillows and various stuffed animals around it, tens of drawers and a cabinet, and a study table in the form of a spacious desk with a laptop, cute notebooks and a number of business-related books.

She also had a not-so-small collection of fiction books and magazines, filling every space of the huge shelf that took up one side of the wall. Based on the book covers and their titles, he guessed they were all modern romances.

Just as he picked one of the books to check the content, he heard the sound of a door being unlocked. He quickly placed the book back on its place and pretended he didn't touch anything just before Rose entered the room. To his confusion, she did not come in from the main door but from another door he did not notice on the side, one that looked like a walk-in closet.

Rose flinched when she saw him, probably not expecting him to come out of the bath so soon and closed the door in panic, locking it afterward. When she faced him again, there was a forced smile on her face as she tried to casually hide the key in her pocket.

"You already finished your bath? Did you enjoy it?" Rose asked as she approached him, doing her best to keep the fake smile on her face. Unfortunately, it was too easy to figure out that she was hiding something.

She had changed out of his red hoodie and her school uniform and was now wearing a much more comfortable set of red shorts and a tight white blouse which underlined her ample chest. She also carried a bunch of clothes with her, affirming Ryan's initial guess of the side door being her walk-in closet.

"I did enjoy it, thank you for asking." Ryan nodded, reassuring her with a smile. "Don't worry, I'm not going to ask what you are hiding. You can tell me later if you want to."

"It's nothing much…" Rose replied as she scratched her head embarrassingly. "It's just my hobby that I would rather keep a secret for now…"

"Everyone has secrets. It's okay. Are those clothes for me?" Ryan asked to change the topic, pointing at the outfit she was holding.

"Oh!" Rose exclaimed, remembering she meant to give him clothes. "Yes. I found the largest unisex shirt I have. We are not that different in height so the length should be alright. Not sure about the cut of the sleeve though. And the pants are not mine. They're from Dad in his younger years…"

She was casually putting all the pieces on top of her bed when she suddenly froze. On her peripheral vision, she saw a white towel being held by a man's hand. It was the towel that was supposedly wrapped around his waist.

Rose covered her eyes and turned around, her entire body heating up.

"Why didn't you wait in the bathroom?! You could change your clothes there!" she scolded, shaking her head as if trying to stop her whatever is in her imagination from going any further.

Instead of a reply, she was hit with a sound of the towel dropping to the ground. It would be strange for a young adult like her to prevent her mind from thinking lewd stuff.

"You are changing here?!" she whispered harshly, trying to keep her voice down in order to not alert her parents downstairs.

Ryan understood why she was making such a scene, but he could not help but tease her one more time. "Just don't look and you will be fine."

Ryan wore his own boxers first. He got a pair of black pants and a plain white V-neck shirt. Although Rose said that it was her largest shirt, it was a bit tight around his chest. He looked much more ripped than he actually was.

"I'm done. You can turn around," Ryan said as he patted her on the shoulder. She turned, but she was still covering her face just in case he was going to poke fun at her again. It made him laugh.

"Why would I lie?" Ryan grabbed her hands, uncovering her eyes. "See?"

"I hate you..." Rose replied while pouting. "First day and you already teased me so much…"

"Is it my fault? You are just so easy and fun to tease," Ryan said honestly. He stared at her puffed up cheeks, wanting to squeeze and check how soft they were.

As if his mind was just waiting for that very thought, a switch inside of him seemingly flipped and his hands that were initially holding hers moved upwards. Before he realized what was happening, he was already cupping her face, tenderly rubbing her cheeks with his thumbs. The look in his eyes seemed to change, sharpening and focusing on her lips as if he wanted nothing else in the world other than to kiss her.

Rose got surprised by the sudden change but before he could do anything further, his eyelids trembled and the clarity in his eyes returned.

He did not release her face and instead confessed with the most honest smile he could muster, "Rose, for me it doesn't matter if it's a week, a month or a year. I will do my best to be your perfect boyfriend so please take good care of me."

He released her cheeks and casually entwined his hand with her own.

"Shall we go help your parents make lunch?"