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To Have Trust AgainI saw him at school because he was sitting under a tree. It was a tree where I ususally sat with Sungmin. It was the only tree with shade during lunch, and now it was occupied by him. I wanted to walk over to him, but I realized he was an underclassmen. Once again, I was alone.
I saw him again in the hallway. He ran into me and knocked my project down. I had worked on it for hours last night, and it was all gone. I yelled at him because I was angry. Then I remembered Sungmin made me promise not to get angry anymore, so I apologized to him. He was very confused and offered to fix it for me, but I refused. I noticed he cut his hand with the cardboard, so I took him to the nurse.
He told me his name that day, Kyuhyun. He was a year younger than me. A Junior. He was surprised that I was a Senior. I a bit while I bandaged his hand. He asked me why I apologized for getting mad at him when he broke my project, so I told him it was a promise. He asked me more, but I didn't say. He noticed I got upset at the memory of Sungmin, and he stopped asking. He did ask for my name.
"Jongwoon... It sounds nice."
"Yah, I'm your hyung."
Kyuhyun didn't like using honorifics. I noticed that when I met with him in the cafeteria. We had trays and he asked for me to sit with him by the tree. We had different colored ties, so it was obvious we were different ages.
"Kim Jongwoon can't make friends his age! No one respects him!"
"Kim Jongwoon lost the only friend his age! He even died to get away from him!"
I looked down at my tray, wanting to drown in my tears to avoid everyone. Suddenly, Kyuhyun pulled me by my wrist outside to the tree I first saw him at. We sat down, but I didn't eat. He took a piece of my potatoes and tried to feed me. I sighed and brought my knees to my chest.
"Jongwoon... What happened in there?"
I shook my head. I didn't want to tell him. I didn't think I could trust him with my life like this.
"Hyung..." He said. He wrapped his arms around me and leaned his head on top of mine. He was embarrasingly taller than me and made me feel... Not great. But at the same time, I felt safe... Which was strange because I barely knew the kid. But something... Felt right.
"I... He was my best friend..."
Kyuhyun looked at me with a surprised glance. He didn't expect me to speak? But he rubbed my back, expecting me to continue.
"Lee Sungmin. He was my only friend throughout High School..." I didn't want to tell him. I was getting too far.
"It's okay. I'm here," he said, never letting go of me.
"He was diagnosed with cancer early last school year. No one else knew but me at school. He missed a lot that year, so I got lonely. He got depressed... Just like I did, but he had more of a reason. He was stage V and almost close to death..."
I looked at Kyuhyun's hands that were firmly around me. I held on to his arm for comfort, the pain from the memories was getting to me, "so... He commited suicide. He left me a letter that begged for forgiveness... He couldn't bear the pain of treatments... But I was selfish and didn't want the pain of letting him go..." I didn't realize I was crying until Kyuhyun was drying my face with his sleeve.
"Okay... It's okay, hyung..." He brought my head to his shoulder and held me close, "I'm sorry... He's watching over you, making sure you're fine."
We sat there under the tree for a while. He never let go of me. He said he wouldn't. The bell rang to go to math class. I hate math class. He had art. We didn't move from that spot.
The next day, we sat by the tree at lunch. I brought him a sandwich with chicken to eat instead of the lousy tray food for that day. He asked me why I didn't bring one for myself. Then he scolded me for not caring for myself.
"Hyung, let's split the sandwich."
"No."
"Yes!" He stood up and tackled me, pusing me up against the tree and pointing the sandwich at me, "JongwoonHyung eat! You're skinny!"
I sighed and smiled. He just seemed adorable trying to get me to eat. Kyuhyun acted like a child a lot.
"Don't stop."
I looked up at him, confused, "what?"
"Your smile," he said, "it's cute." He pinched my cheek as if I were a child. I glared at him, making him chuckle and say that I can't play angry. We finally sat down and ate, splitting the damn sandwich. We were comfortably quiet until he spoke again.
"Hyung, will you come over to my house, today?"
I looked at his face, confused as to what was happening, but a bit happy. I hadn't gone to a friend's house since Sungmin passed away. Maybe it would be nice to move on. That was his last wish. For me to find someone I love.
So I went. We walked together to his house. It started to rain. I cursed because I didn't have an umbrella, but he did. He put his arm around my shoulder as we walked under the umbrella, in the rain. I felt my heart pounding. I kinda hated how nervous I could get around him. I didn't want to fall in love with him. I was scared.
We got to his appartment and hung around. We both lived alone because our parents were in another town. We both had extensive music libraries and books, but his room was quite messy. We had ramen for dinner and talked. A lot. More than ever.
Kyuhyun was a genius who won a math olympiad twice and was the top of his class. He had dreams of going to Neul Paran University for Music, just like me. I, however, was horrible at math and was 30th in my class. Out of 50.
"I could tutor you! You have SATs in a few months, right?" I nodded, "I'll help you! I could help you with writing, reading, math, anything! I can help you get into Neul Paran!"
I smiled and poked his squishy cheeks, "why do you want to try so hard?"
"Because you're my best friend! And we're going to Neul Paran together!"
And that's when I knew, I could trust someone again.
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