#03 the realisation

“                                        

I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways
Maybe it's all part of a plan
I'll just keep on making the same mistakes
Hoping that you'll understand

”                                

“Sorry guys, something came up. Could we reschedule?”

“Sure. But Hyeran, that’s quite unusual of you to do so. Did something serious happen?”

“Something cropped up last minute, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you guys another day!”

I came to realise that Byun Baekhyun was a very simple guy, despite being blessed with good looks and having a horde of fangirls who would willingly do anything to get his attention. He was also a man of values, something that I found to be extremely attractive when I came to know of this trait. It was clear he had been brought up well by his family, and that he didn’t stray from his parents’ teachings even with all the attention he got. It seemed that after knowing of his presence in school, I had begun to notice him more.

Byun Baekhyun charmed girls without even trying or noticing. He would send cute, shy smiles in gratitude when they lent him things – ‘they’ being mostly girls of course, and ‘things’ being mostly stationery because it seemed like he couldn’t be bothered to bring his own. He would smirk when a girl accidentally bumped into him in the hallways – the girl’s cheeks would be pink as she apologized for not looking at where she was going. There were many other examples of how easily Byun Baekhyun could make the entire female population fall for him, and I wasn’t blind to his charms. I was a girl after all.

However, it led me to wonder just how Ji Soo handled all these. From dealing with having 2000 girls check her boyfriend out every day to worrying whether such an attractive man would find someone prettier and leave her – these were concerns I had on my best friend’s behalf. I’m sure she too had similar thoughts, but she seemed pretty chill about it when I brought it up one Friday. Between us, Jisoo was the one who was constantly in a relationship. She would get a boyfriend and they would break up, and she would have another about a month later. It wasn’t that they would date for a short period of time, the longest of her relationships lasted for 3 months, but what I didn’t understand was how she could move on from one partner so quickly and invest her time and feelings into someone new in that short time span. I never understood how she could date this way, but I wasn’t in any position to question her when I didn’t even have anyone to begin with.

When we met up, she would spend most of the time talking about her current boyfriend. To hear ‘Minho was so sweet! He asked me out in front of the class today!’ or ‘Jongsuk declared his love for me through our weekly song dedication activity in class. He was sooo dreamy!’ was normal, but at times I couldn’t help but feel a little hurt that she couldn’t spare some time to talk about other things, and not just boys, boys and more boys. I never voiced out my thoughts though, for fear that she would take it badly, and a little afraid that I was thinking too much into things. I didn’t want to ruin the precious times we had to meet up as well, thus I learnt to push those thoughts away and be happy that she took the effort to catch up with me.

Of course, this practice continued even when she was with Baekhyun. Every moment I spent with her would be about her boyfriend. Baekhyun did this, Baekhyun did that. I had always minded when she spent hours talking about her relationship, but strangely, I found myself wanting to hear more this time. Baekhyun hates cucumbers, it’s cute the way he pouts when he can’t avoid them. Baekhyun likes to listen to ballads, 80% of his song library were ballads. Baekhyun always orders the tiramisu cake when we come here, it’s his favourite thing. Baekhyun, Baekhyun, Baekhyun.

I had met up with the guy one day when I ran into him during lunch hour. He had thrown me a wink and proceeded to drag me to a quiet corner in the garden, producing two hamburgers when we were seated on the grass. We had been quietly munching on them when he suddenly brought up the topic of his girlfriend.

“She talks about you all the time you know.”

I paused on my chewing to look at him. “Huh? She talks about me when she’s with you?”

He nodded, busying himself with trying to remove the cucumbers from his burger. “Yeah. She tells me a lot of things about you. What you like, what you don’t like, her times with you in school. Many things.”

I felt a little ashamed at his statement. How could I ever have thought that she didn’t care about our friendship? I had to admit it weirded me out that she talked to her boyfriend about me and talked to me about her boyfriend, but perhaps it was her way of showing that she cared? Somehow, this revelation made me feel bad about doubting her, even though something at the back of my mind was telling me that I was accepting this as an excuse no matter how much the logical side of my brain was saying that it didn’t make sense.

“Weird.” I frowned. “She only talks about you when she’s with me.”

This statement brought him to a complete halt. His hand paused mid-air and his eyes darted confusedly from me to the ground.

“Jisoo talks about me to you,” he pointed at himself, “and talks about you to me.” He pointed at me. I nodded enthusiastically, muttering a ‘yes’ with my mouth full of food. He looked a little confused, and I was half glad to see that we were on the same page regarding this revelation. I tilted my head to the side and leaned closer to his face curiously when he didn’t react for the next ten seconds, to which he blinked in surprise and laughed. He took a second glance at my face, reaching out for the stack of serviettes beside him.

“Aigoo~” Baekhyun cooed, leaning forward with a tissue in one hand and helping to wipe off the mayonnaise that I had accidentally smeared on the corner of my mouth. “Focus on eating. What a mess you’ve made.” He tutted, grabbing the burger from me and situating it properly in its wrapper so I could consume it easily. “Here, it’ll be easier now.”

I playfully glared at him. “I can take care of myself, Mr. Byun.”

He only grinned. “I’m sure you can.”

At that moment, I felt myself fall a little deeper into my pit of doom that was the man seating before me, giving me playful and light shoves against the shoulder while we bantered about random topics. I couldn’t miss the way he glowed so beautifully under the afternoon sun, the way he would close his pretty eyes when enjoying the gentle breeze blowing against his cheeks, or the glint of mischief in his eyes when thought of a good prank.

It wasn’t difficult to fall in love with Byun Baekhyun, I realized. He made it simple and so, so easy. Falling in love with him was as easy as reading the weather forecast. I didn’t know if he knew – perhaps he knew, perhaps he didn’t. It didn’t really matter though, it wasn’t like that would make the mushy feelings for him that was growing within me go away.

I was having an inner conflict with myself. Let Byun Baekhyun into my life, or walk away from him completely? The jealous part of me tempted me so much to let him into my life, however, I couldn’t betray my best friend like this, it wouldn’t be fair to her at all. I wasn’t willing to lose a friend just because of some stupid one-sided crush.

“What are you thinking about? You’ve been stoning for the last five minutes.” He chastised gently with a grin, waving his pretty hands in front of my face as if to break me out of my state of mind.

You. I’m thinking about you.

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