t h i r t e e n ; yellow confessions 

The rain continues to pour mercilessly throughout the ride. The water surfacing the road makes it a hazard to drive within the speed limit. Instead of the highway, Vernon decides to take the regular road instead—a safer choice in this current weather. Thus, the trip back to Kai’s home is twice longer than the drive heading to the Murphy Trail. Conversation is muted. Kai sleeps in the backseat with his head resting on the window. He appears immersed in his nap, even when the car has slowed down to a stagnation as we’ve reached the destination. He must be exhausted due to staying up later than he should have been when he had hiking the next day.

Thankfully, rain begins to calm into a light sprinkling by the time Vernon turns into Kai’s driveway. Vernon is unexpectedly really good with directions, hence his earlier dismissal to my offer of using the GPS. He didn’t need Kai’s address either, which makes me wonder how often has Vernon been to Kai’s place before today. How close are they, really? Kai hardly ever mentions Vernon so I assume that they are merely swimmates. Same goes for Sehun and Kai’s past crushes, in which it was uncommon for him to discuss about them unless I brought them up. I thought we told each other everything but I guess . . . we don’t? This revelation slightly troubles me, and I try to extinguish it with a shake of my head. Exiting the car, I then open the door to the backside, maneuvering my way close to Kai and being careful not making contact with the leg lying across the seat. My hand closes around his shoulder, and I sway it, not too gingerly but with enough force to wake him up.

Still asleep, he removes his head from the window and moves to a closer position to the seat’s head cushion as though his neck finds the hard surface uncomfortable and seeks for a softer material. However, this changed location causes his face to be dangerously close to mine. I jerk away as soon as my brain registers how the distance from his lips from my lips is centimeters apart. I glance at Vernon, whose attention is luckily on his phone as he waits for me to ring Kai out of his sleep. I blow out a relieved breath though my heart has jumped up to my throat and hasn’t climbed down from its panic. I shake myself out of my frantic state and tries again. Unlike my previous futile attempt, Kai stirs awake, blinking a couple times as though an attempt to smother his sluggishness. “Oh, we’re here.” Sleep still coats his voice as the sentence croaks deeply. “Ouch,” he inhales sharply when he moves his ankle off the seat, “I was hoping that fall was all a dream.”

I laugh as I make my move out of the car. In spite of my efforts to act normal, the laugh itself is pitchy and fake. Luckily, Kai’s more focused on the throbbing pain of his ankle than how strange I am acting as if nothing’s happened seconds ago. To be clear, nothing did happen, so why am I affected all of the sudden? I think I’m just confused by my reaction to it all, but before I could properly analyze it all, Vernon passes by me and aids Kai to the walk to his door.

“Keys?” I ask Vernon since he has it for being our chauffeur and is preoccupied with assisting Kai. He reaches his back pocket and tosses them to me. The door unlocks in one swivel of the key I have memorized as the correct one to his door. Kai’s sister—Kayla—sits by the sofa and jumps in surprised to see my drenched appearance.

“Oh geez. You guys caught the rain?” she questions. Despite the obvious answer to that, I give her a sheepish smile of my own as affirmation. “Wait here, I’ll get you two towels.”

Kai and Vernon finally make it through the foyer.

Kayla pauses. “Three towels, got it.” Then, abruptly, as she just now sees the swollenness of his injury and notices the limp in his walk. “Holy , are you okay?”

“Yes, just a sprain. Make it four towels, please.” Kai adds, “Do you have spare clothes for Skylar?”

Kayla’s gaze lingers on his ankle but absentmindedly nods. “Be right back.”

Like an unwritten rule, all of us stand in one spot so we don’t wet the upholstery in the living room. The wooden floor can be mopped out later. A ring of the doorbell signals Sehun’s arrival, and seeing that Vernon is still assisting Kai so he doesn’t have to put weight on his sprained ankle, I dash to get the door.

“Hey,” greets Sehun with a boyish smile. I don’t think I’d ever get tired of seeing that.

“You’ve changed?” His clothes noticeably different than the sporting attire. Everything is exceptionally dry except for his hair.

“Yeah, I couldn’t handle how uncomfortable the clothes were clinging to me. Made a quick change and rushed here.”

My response is a mixture of concern chiding. “But safely right?”

“Of course. All my bones are intact,” he reassures me.

By the time both of us enter the living room, the other two is nowhere to be seen and Kayla is turning off the television. She points to set of clothes she has set down on the table. “Kai’s changing in the bathroom and Vernon is using the other bathroom. You can change in my room. Here are towels for the both of you.”

“Thank you,” I tell her, and I’ve never been so glad to change into fresh clothing. Behind me, as I leave, Sehun and Kayla introduce themselves to each other.

Kayla’s got me her sweatpants and a simple thick t-shirt. In her room, I face to a conflicting dilemma after peeling off the other layer of my clothes. Should I or should I not also take off my undergarments? Surprisingly, this feels like Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” minus the teenage angst of a Shakespearean boy. I truly debate being comfortable by tearing these soppy articles off but risking my s saying hi to the world or just leaving them on. After a thorough contemplation, I decided that anyone who is aware of the mounts poking under my t-shirt can get over themselves because I’m not going to let my sports bra make an embarrassing damp imprint of itself through my shirt. When I’m done with discarding my wet clothes in the plastic bag and wring the remaining water out of my hair, I tie it into a bun and leave the towel around my neck to shield away the peaks poking through. Despite my determined resolve, my self-consciousness wins over.

Out in the living, Vernon wears shorts and navy long sleeved shirt, I know they belong to Kai’s because I recognize the familiarness of them. Kai is settled on the couch with an icebag over his ankle that’s propped up in sofa pillows and grimaces—though I’m not sure if Vernon’s shameless flirting with Kayla is causing it or the pain.

“Can you not flirt with any girl who breathes?” Kai groans in distress but it doesn’t uncharms the spark in Vernon’s gaze at Kayla.

“You’re too young for me,” Kayla remarks, though friendly and teasing. With her more than average beauty, I’m not sure anyone can resist the temptation to ask for her numbers.

As usual, Vernon doesn’t coil away from a rejection. His eyes seem to gleam even more if that’s even possible. “There’s more energy to the youth.”

I don’t even fight the aggressive eyeroll from that response. Kai flings a pillow with so much strength that it bounces off the wall when Vernon dodges it in time. Kai hisses, “If I could walk right now, I would make sure you regret making me hear that disgusting line with my own ears!”

I scan around for Sehun, but he appears seconds later with a cup of hot tea. His disapproval shake of the head is directed at Vernon but he’s looking at me while doing the gesture. Sehun must have heard it from the kitchen, and it feels like our own inside joke, Vernon and his shameless nature again. As I begin to infer that the tea is for him, he passes me the mug.

Confused on what to do, I take the tea from him. The smoke floats in the air while its heat transfer out of the ceramic. “You want me to hold it?”

His eyebrows are upturned as he chuckles. “No that’s for you. Kayla said she made some tea, and I saw that you were shivering earlier.”

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