“No way.”

“What?”

“There’s no way.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You. Did. Not.”

“Just say it already!”

“There’s no ing way you asked her if you could be her boyfriend!”

It was the Wednesday after Mina and I became, well, official. Tzuyu and I were the only one with a free period at the time, needless to say we would spend it together. It allowed us to get more personal since there wasn’t a bigger group around us.

“I did, and what about it? Weren’t you the one telling me I had to do it sooner or later before we lost the opportunity to be in a relationship?”

Tzuyu facepalmed and shook her head, “I’m talking about how you asked her. Of course only you would ask a girl if you could be her boyfriend instead of asking what you guys are or talk about your current situation, like normal people would.”

“I really don’t see the problem with my question, it worked out!”

We were walking to the small mall in front of our school. Whenever one of us had a free period, we’d text everyone to ask if anyone wants to eat or drink anything, then we’ll go to the mall and buy whatever was asked for. We were like their ordering service. Sometimes the costs piled up to 30 dollars.

Throughout the months, my friendship with Tzuyu developed into something deeper. Whenever we were in a group, our friendship was just like it was between any of the others. It wasn’t until we were left on our own that we started realizing that we have a lot more in common than we initially assumed we had. I could talk to her about anything and she would do the same to me. Aside from having someone as great as Mina in my life, it was nice to have someone, a friend, to rely on every now and then. My friendship with Tzuyu somewhat reminded me of the one I had with Jinhwan before he graduated. Maybe that’s why I had such a hard time letting go of Tzuyu once the time came, but I’ll save that part of the story for another time.

When Jinhwan, Jiwon and Yunhyeong graduated, we spent our entire summer together. You have to understand that the seven of us were inseparable. We had the kind of friendship everyone wished to have. Even if all of us were close, I was undeniably the closest to Jinhwan out of everyone. He felt like a brother instead of a friend to me. At the beginning of the year all of us would still hang out occasionally. I would still meet Jinhwan at least three times a week. However, over the months it became less and less. When Mina and I got closer, it was cut down to visiting Jinhwan at work once a week. A few weeks before Mina and I started dating, Jinhwan quit his job because he found a better one. It was closer to his university, he said. I would meet him once every two weeks, if I was lucky. Once Mina and I became a thing, Jinhwan and I would barely see each other anymore.

It hurt me to lose a friendship so precious to me. No, wait, that came out wrong. It hurt me to lose the connection I had with Jinhwan. For the first time in years, we would treat each other like just another friend. And even later, we would turn into people who once went to high school together.

“That’s life,” Mina told me when I opened up about my regrets. If I had only invested a little more time in our friendship.

“The people once closest to you can become so distant within what feels like seconds.”

I wondered if it was too soon to wish that Mina and I would never experience a fall out like that.
//
 

That same day Chanwoo and I went out to have lunch together. School was dismissed for the following two days due to heavy snowfall. After my conversation with Mina, I had decided to put more effort in my friendships.

Chanwoo and I had been friends since we were twelve. Once upon a time, he was the new kid in town. He seemed to be shy, he didn’t talk much and he never approached anyone. I, for one, surely was not someone who would approach anyone either. Somehow we still became friends through a group assignment and everything took off from there. Chanwoo wasn’t the timid kid everyone thought he was. He was sly and playful.

My parents really liked him from the get go. They believed he had a good influence on me, like Jinhwan did, too. According to my mom, Jinhwan helped me mature, Chanwoo helped me open up and enjoy myself, Donghyuk taught me to study well and,

“I like the girl, Mina. I’m happy that she’s the one you brought home. She will teach you how to love and care for someone other than yourself!”

Mother always knows best.

“What are you ordering, June?”

“I’m still looking at the menu.”

For some reason, I felt uncomfortable to be alone with Chanwoo. It had been a long while since we last hung out with just the two of us and I couldn’t help but notice the painfully awkward silences in between sentences while we tried to keep up a decent conversation.

“So,” I started,

“My parents told me to invite you over next week for dinner. They miss having you around in the house.”

Chanwoo took another spoon full of his soup and snickered, “Yeah, the last time either one of us came over to play videogames feels like a century ago. Or maybe since Mina became the one to spend every day at your place.”

My spoon slipped from my fingers and I sat there, trying to figure out whether he meant it the way I thought he did, or if it was just a misunderstanding. Chanwoo looked up and smiled when our eyes met, “Chill, I didn’t mean anything by saying that. As for the invite to have dinner together, tell your mom I’ll come. Let me know the details.”

His words rung in my mind even days after.

//

Hanbin and Hayi had been dating for almost two years when I approached Hanbin the day before my family dinner with Chanwoo.

Unlike my friendship with the others, Hanbin was someone I could never become awkward with. He was one of those friends who you could talk to at any time and it would feel like you never grew apart. Hanbin was one of those friends who was still in my life, years after we graduated and left high school.

“Are you in love with her?”

Hanbin looked at me as if I was insane, “Of course I am. Would I have stayed in a relationship for this long if I wasn’t?”

“Fair point.”

“Why? Are things going bad with you and Mina?”

I quickly shook my head because no, there was nothing wrong between Mina and I. It was something between Chanwoo and I.

“Then what’s wrong?”

I took a deep breath, “Do you feel like I spend too much time with her compared to the amount of time I spend with you guys?”

Hanbin laughed and took a sip from his water bottle. He seemed to be thinking of something, but didn’t react until minutes had passed.

“Junhoe, if Mina is someone you see a future with-” I cut him off, “Hold on there, that’s a lot to say and big decision to make.”

“Let me finish,” Hanbin told me, “If she is someone you see yourself being with even just a year later, then you’re not spending too much time with her. You enjoy her presence, right?”

“Right.”

“See? You’re not doing anything wrong.”

It wasn’t the answer I was expecting and it wasn’t the answer I accepted. Maybe I just liked making things more complicated than they were, or maybe Hanbin was just simply wrong.

“Don’t you think it’s bad to be spending more time with your girlfriend than with your friends? Your friends were there first.”

“Your girlfriend is also a friend to you, a friend who will have a much bigger part in your life than your other friends. Think about it. Who do you share your every day with? She’s your best friend. I'm not saying you should neglect your friends entirely but it’s okay, especially at the beginning of a relationship, to be wanting to spend as much time as possible together. Which one of the boys said it wasn’t?”

“Chanwoo.”

“Well, Chanwoo has never been in love, has he?”

“No…”

“Exactly. He just doesn’t understand what it’s like. The way I see it, you and I are very lucky to have found love at such a young age. It’s unfair towards the others, not because we don’t spend enough time with them, but because they haven’t found love that will make them want to do the same.”

I decided to take Hanbin’s word and wanted to spend the evening with Chanwoo as if nothing had ever changed. Dinner with my parents went well. It was mostly my parents asking
Chanwoo questions to catch up with his life. At one moment, my mother brought up Mina, asking whether I treated her well or not.

Chanwoo answered, “Don’t worry, Mina is living her best life dating Junhoe. It’s shocking to me, too, to see Junhoe like this but he’s truly a good guy to her.”

I didn’t think that such simple words could mean so much to me.

Afterwards we were in my room talking about basketball, games and our future.

“Do you know what you’re enrolling for?” He asked me.

I thought about it a lot. Every night I would lay in bed thinking about my future and what I wanted to study after high school. For Mina it was an easy decision to make, she was going to enrol into a special arts university. Lately she had been busy with her audition for it. I knew she was going to make it, though. It was Mina; when she sets her mind on something, nothing will be able to change that for her. Her priority at that moment was passing the auditions and being a step closer to making her dreams come true.

But for me, the future was still a blur. The ages sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen were ages where nothing was sure, everything was just a possibility and you were stuck in the middle, making important decisions and carrying responsibilities you were too young for to understand.

“I already applied for computer engineering.” Chanwoo told me.

It made sense. Chanwoo was good at physics and his favourite class was ICT.

“When did you decide?”

“I just felt like it was the right choice. I went to a few open houses, in every university this course is what caught my attention the most. I’ll probably stay in Seoul, I hope they accept me here.”

I nodded, agreeing that it was probably the best decision to make.

“It that the others aside from Hanbin won’t be staying in Seoul, though.”

My head shot up and I looked at him with bewildered eyes.

“What? When did they say that? Where are they going?”

“Oh, you didn’t know yet? Donghyuk got offered a scholarship. He’s going to Yale to study biomedical engineering. Sana and Momo are going back to Japan, wouldn’t it only make sense for Mina to go, too?”

I frowned and shook my head, “Mina already applied for K-Arts.”

Chanwoo shrugged, “Then I guess she’ll be staying, too.”

I stayed silent counting the people in my mind, who else was left?

“What about Tzuyu?”

I was almost scared to ask it, even more scared to know the answer.

“Tzuyu…” I saw the hesitation in Chanwoo’s face, “I don’t know if it’s my place to tell you. I thought she had already told you.”

Truthfully, I was hurt. Why wouldn’t she tell me if she has told the others? And why had nobody mentioned it before? Did Mina know?

I could see that Chanwoo noticed my worries,

“Hey man, don’t think about it too much. Just ask her.”
 
--

My friends, I realized, helped me become the man I am today. Each and every single one of them has influenced my life in a way that I’ll always be grateful for.

My friends, I realized, were a part of me, and I assumed that I was a part of them. We were the same people, but very different individuals, if that makes sense.

Out of all my friends, I realized, Hanbin and I were the most alike. Maybe that’s why our stories turned out to be so alike, and maybe that’s why now, years later, I feel like nothing has changed between us since before.

My friends are people who I will hold dear for a lifetime.

The thought of Tzuyu leaving for her studies kept haunting me for days. Yet I still hadn't asked her about it. I told myself I was waiting for her to tell me herself, but truthfully I was just scared of the confirmation. I tried imagining what my life would look like a year away from now. I pictured Mina and I in the same apartment. I saw myself still falling in love with her. I couldn't imagine it in any other way.

I pictured Chanwoo coming over to play games, I pictured Hanbin and I catching a movie together, I pictured Tzuyu laughing at me while putting face masks on me – I pictured Tzuyu still being around.

I decided that I wouldn’t ask her about it. If she didn’t tell me, it have been for a good reason.

I was glad Chanwoo told me. I took it as a sign to appreciate the times shared with my friends even more. I already had the gut feeling, and this just gave me that little extra nudge I needed to become fully invested.
 

 
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Mina told me over the phone that night, “she asked me to keep it to myself for the time being. I’m pretty sure only Chanwoo and the girls know.”

“That’s alright. Please do me a favour by not telling her I know.”

“Hmm,” a long pause followed, “But if I do you a favour, what’s in it for me?”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “With all due respect, Mina, but don’t expect too much from me.”

Within 2 seconds she hung up on me, I panicked a little and immediately called her back.

No answer.

I called her again, still no answer.

I texted her,

IM SORRY please pick up

She left it on read.

I texted her a few more messages until she finally replied with a voice memo: “Oh my GOD, Junhoe, you made my phone glitch I can’t even type a sentence without a new message popping up how do you even send 130 messages within 2 minutes? Are you for real?”

I smiled while listening to her memo, I could hear her talking through her smile, too. I felt giddy from teasing her, I loved the reactions she would give. I loved how she would tease me back, I just loved how well we went together.

We kept texting that night, faking our argument and constantly telling each other to go sleep. Even thinking about it now brings a wide smile on my face that I remember having plastered all over my face that night, and nearly every other day during that time. Eventually, my body gave up and I fell asleep allowing her to do the same.

I woke up in the morning and the first thought on my mind was Mina. I wondered whether she’s awake yet, whether she’s mad I fell asleep while texting her and whether it was appropriate of me to want to talk to her again as soon as I woke up.

Isn’t that crazy? I spent most of my time with her and it still was never enough. Every day I woke up with the excitement of getting to spend another day with Mina and every night I fell asleep with my heart fluttering the same way it did when I woke up.

I know what you’re thinking right now and you’re right,

I am so in love with this girl. God, I’m so in love with her.

If you have ever been in love, you know what I’m talking about. It’s that feeling you get thinking about what your life used to be like before they became such a huge part of it. I thought I was happy before, and I was, but I was the happiest when I was with Mina. The rush of excitement seemed endless. There was never a dull day with her.

 
I went over to her place that Saturday. The temperature kept dropping, but it was the last week until Christmas break arrived, so that was much to all of our comfort. I was welcomed with a warm hug.

You know that feeling when you’re with someone and they radiate the exact same energy as you? That’s what it was like for Mina and I. I felt so much love and adoration, I showed it in my affection towards her but I never told her verbally. It felt like it was all too soon to be going through all of these emotions. I had been in a relationship before, but what I felt for Mina was something completely new to me. I didn’t want to scare her off so I kept it to myself, though my actions gave it away most of the time.

“None of us are spending the night here so you guys...” Nayeon said while putting on her shoes and walking towards the door, “Have fun!” she smirked and let out a giggle before slamming the door behind her.

Right, I forgot to mention that before. Our ‘argument’ last night on doing each other favours resulted into this. I headed over to Mina’s place with a backpack full of clothes and other essentials for a sleep over (I told my mom I was sleeping at Donghyuk’s). You can see how this was a double win situation for me.

It was only 4 in the afternoon when I got there and we were left alone.

When you’re intentionally left alone with your girlfriend in her house, you can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen.

“Have you eaten yet?” Mina asked me.

“Yeah, I had a late lunch with Chanwoo, Donghyuk and Hanbin just before I came. Why? Are you eager to show me your cooking skills?”

Mina snorted, “In case you want to be hospitalized due to food poisoning, then sure, but I prefer take away for dinner tonight.”

I mocked her words and let my body fall onto the couch letting out a groan out of exhaustion, “Fine, wake me up when it’s time for dinner.”

Mina walked over to me and threw my legs off the couch, “Get your up!”, I ignored her and put my feet back on the couch, “Up. Now.”

“Jesus, chill,” I rolled my eyes in an exaggerated manner and stood up, looking down at a cutely smiling Mina who said thank you and grabbed my hand to drag me to the kitchen.

When we got to the kitchen, my mouth fell open. The entire kitchen counter was filled with snacks and drinks,
“MOVIE NIGHT!” Mina jumped up and down and I couldn’t help but do the same.

Can you picture me and Mina jumping up and down, smiling like two idiots in her kitchen? Yeah, that happened.

I stopped jumping and my face turned serious making her stop as well, “What? What’s wrong?”

I put my hand in my chin and tilted my head, “That doesn’t sound right, though.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Movie night, it sounds a little… Outdated. Old school.”

Mina shook her head, “Movie night, Netflix & Chill; call it however you want but we’re doing this so help me carry all these snacks to the table in the living room and
we can start binge watching FRIENDS.”

“Yes ma’am.” I said and followed her orders.

Knowing us, we should’ve guessed that something as simple as that would take us more than an hour. It was almost six when we finally cuddled up on the couch, in comfortable sweats and a blanked wrapped around us.

“This isn’t right,” Mina said, “This will either lead up to diarrhea or vomiting the next day. We should eat real food and then get to the late night snacking.”

It took a half hour before our Chinese order arrived. Mina forced me to get up and take it.

7 PM.

Just like that, doing barely anything, we spent 3 of our sleepover hours. But this time we were ready to dive right into our movie night.

We were once again cuddled up on the couch with a blanket wrapped around our bodies, going through movies and series to watch since I disagreed to watching FRIENDS.

“Junhoe, how can you say no to FRIENDS out of all shows?”

“We can watch if you start at season 7 but you want to start at the beginning and I don’t want to deal with any Rachel and Ross fuelled headache.” I said and took the remote from her, typing Rick & Morty on the search bar,

“If we’re not watching FRIENDS then we’re sure as hell not watching any of your cartoons.”

I snickered and backspaced.

“Oh, click on the bottom left!” Mina pointed towards the TV screen, “That 70’s Show?”

“Yes!”

“But I don’t want to…”

“Too bad, we’re watching!”

“But…“

She took the remote back, “We’re watching!”

“No we’re not.”

“Really? Because I just clicked–“ I gently grabbed Mina’s face, my left palm on her right cheek pushing her towards face me. I shot a quick smile before leaning in to kiss her. I could sense that in the second before our lips met she was confused on what was happening. We sat there, sharing an innocent kiss that led to a make out session on her couch with That 70’s Show playing on the background.

Somewhere in between our kiss I pulled away a little, with my eyes fixated on her lips. I smiled at how she didn’t pull away yet. After a few seconds she opened her eyes, still not pulling away. I was still smiling at her when she leaned in to kiss me again. It was fun watching her want more. She put her hand behind my neck and pulled me back in to kiss her. I wrapped my arm around her waist and brought her on my lap. Our hands were traveling all over each other’s body and it was starting to feel a lot hotter than you would expect on a winter day.

After a while we pulled away. Mina was still on my lap, one hand on my face, the other sliding down my chest. Our breathing became heavier and she said softly,

“Let’s go to my room.”

I didn’t need any other words to pick her up and walk towards her room. She let out a squeal and giggled with her arms and legs wrapped around me.
I laid her down on her bed and got on top of her, getting back to kissing her. My body’s reaction was automatic. Every movement I made, happened naturally. Her hands got underneath my shirt and I pulled away when she tried taking off my shirt.

“Mina,” I said,

“Keep going.” She told me.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked her. In the midst of it all, I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was okay for this all to happen. Nothing needed to happen. There’s no such thing as too early or too late when you’re in love – I just needed to be sure whether she really wanted this or not.

Mina closed her eyes and let out a sigh before smiling at me,

“To be honest, I don’t know. But it feels right. I just want to go along with how I feel. It doesn’t necessarily have to result into anything, right?”

I smiled at her and gave her a quick peck on her lips, “Of course it doesn’t.”, and another peck on her nose, and one on her cheek, jaw, neck – I kept around her neck a little longer.

“Thank you, Junhoe.” She said and I laughed, “Why so suddenly?”

“For taking care of me and for being so considerate.”

“Now you’re just being weird.” I commented and we laughed.

I laid down next to her and she put her head on my shoulder, kissing my cheek. I turned my face to look at her.
Mina was beautiful. It was almost unfair how her personality, qualities and beauty were all sky rocketing. I had never felt more blessed before in my life. I leaned in to kiss her again for the so-maniest time that night, but this time it was more passionately. While everything before set off the butterflies over our entire bodies, this made my heart race even more.

We stayed busy that night and fell asleep when the sky was already getting lighter. I’ll spare you the rest of the details.

///

hola amigas guess what your good sis suburbia (me) fell in love for the first time in the year that she disappeared into thin air and how have u guys been?

junmina b gettin freaky hmmMMmm ok but can u blame them what teenagers arent like that tbh