I stand outside in the cold as the winter air bites my cheeks with a dry chill. A gentle wind whistles past me, bringing sparkling snow along for the ride. I open my palm and try to catch some of the snowflakes that dance in the air. I can feel them melt on my hand. Their beauty is short-lived.

I take a few steps forward and get farther away from the school grounds to bask in the first snowfall of winter. Sights like this always captivate me. Other students were also outside to enjoy the snow and I could overhear their laughter in the distance.

Autumn had been memorable, but not in a good way. Today was a new season, a new day, a chance for me to start again.

Growing up, my mother always told me that the first snowfall was special and that if I made a wish in its presence, it would come true.

Closing my eyes and raising my chin up to the sky, I think about the one thing that I want the most. Usually, my wishes are incredibly specific. This time, I keep it general. Playing the wish over and over again in my head made it resonate through my lips in a faint whisper.

“I just want to be happy.”

It feels odd to wish for something so simple, but it seems appropriate as I think it over. Getting into a good school, enjoying my final year with friends that I may never see again, all of those things played in my head, until I arrived at the thing that was tormenting me the most. Seohyun.

Even now I could hear her voice playing in my head.

“Yoona?”

A sweet sound.

“Yoona?”

I can’t stop thinking about her.

“Unnie?”

I feel a gentle tug on my shoulder and turn to see Seohyun wearing a navy blue winter jacket with a fuzzy purple scarf wrapped around her neck. She waves to me with her matching purple mittens and seems happy to see me.

“What are you doing out here?” I ask in surprise.

She does a cute dance in the snow like a kid. “It’s the first snowfall,” she says, smiling. “I wanted to come out and enjoy it.”

I laugh at her ridiculousness. “Yah-what kind of future Harvard graduate goes around prancing in the snow?”

Giving a cute pout she returns to my side out of embarrassment. It was lunch time, so there were plenty of eyes watching her from the windows. “I didn’t get accepted yet unnie,” she says.

I smile, happy to hear her call me unnie again. It was nice bumping into her like this.

Seohyun takes off her mittens and grabs my bare hands and frowns upon feeling them. Putting her hand on my cheeks, she lectures, “Yoona, you need to wear more layers. How can you dress in a windbreaker in this weather?”

My cheeks grow warm from her touch. I wonder if she can feel the change in my temperature on her fingers. “You’re a little overdressed too don’t you think?”

Seohyun shakes her head. I know she hates the cold. She puts her mittens back on and comes closer to me so that we are nearly face-to-face. It startles me. So I back up a step. She comes closer, and I step back again.

Perhaps she was too innocent to realize that I didn’t want her to get too close to me. Did she think that I could just be her friend again that easily?

Taking off her scarf, Seohyun flings her purple garment over my shoulders and starts wrapping it around my neck to give me warmth. I see her shiver as a cold wind gusts past us. After tying the scarf into a cute knot, she smiles at me. The cold air around me somehow turns into a blaring heat. She did it again. Innocently penetrating my defences and causing my heart to race in adoration. It felt different because it was a sentimental act that was plucking away at my heart strings, not something physical.

I knew she was being her innocent and loving self, but it was killing me on the inside. How long could I let her do this to me? She was sending me all the wrong signals without knowing any better.

“I should go,” I say, trying to get back inside as she stands in front of me with glowing eyes. She was tempting me.

But Seohyun doesn’t want me to leave. She grabs my hand with her mitt. “Unnie, stay outside with me just a bit longer?”

“No, I need to go.”

I feel her grip loosen, allowing me to head back inside before I lose my sanity. I make my way with haste to the back hall of the school to cool off. Arriving through a set of doors, I sit myself down on the floor of a seemingly empty hallway, leaning on the row of lockers behind me. Closing my eyes, I just want to be alone.

“Yoona?”

I let out a groan as somebody calls for me after a few moments of peace and quiet. “What?”

I open my eyes and see Nichkhun standing there with a bunch of his friends who are also as tall as he is.

“Is everything okay?”

Running my hand through my long brown hair, I answer, “I’m fine.”

He doesn’t seem to buy it. Nichkhun whispers something to his friends and they leave us alone to talk. He takes a seat beside me, placing his knapsack in the space between us.

“Alright, spill it. What’s wrong?” He speaks with a sincere tone. We got closer over the past few weeks when I was ignoring Seohyun. Still, I didn’t want to tell him about my love life.

“It’s nothing.”

Nichkhun laughs and leans back mimicking my tired posture. He has a gentle smile on his face. “I’ve heard that before.” He waits, but I refuse to speak. “Alright, if you’re not in the mood to talk, I’ll start.”

I watch as he opens a small pocket in his knapsack and pulls out a yellow arm band. He shows me the piece of fabric that has a large black ‘C’ on it. He displays it proudly like a prized possession. He passes it to me to hold.

“You know Yoona, last year I was sitting in the same spot you’re in right now. With the same look on my face,” he says, looking at the armband. He laughs, “Well, maybe a little farther down the hall.”

I remain silent as he continues, realizing that he was opening up to me.

“It was during volleyball provincials, the tournament that we had last year.”

I nod, remembering that I had been sitting with my friends in the stands to watch a couple of games. All the girls were cheering for Nichkhun and the other cute jocks on the squad. “I remember a bit.”

He leans in closer, getting more comfortable. “It was a great tournament. We managed to make it all the way to the finals despite being underdogs. But we faced one last opponent before we could complete a miracle run at the championship.”

My mind tries to remember the events and a name comes to mind. “Seoul Prep right?”

He nods. “Right the rich boy school. I swear every player on their team was taller than us, bigger than us, and could jump higher than us. But we had momentum, we were riding a high, and we felt like we could take them.”

Nichkhun stares down at the tiles on the floor. “We got all the way to the decisive third set. We battled hard and pushed it to sudden death. Let’s just say not a single one of us left the court without bruises that day.” He smiles wide, “We got to championship point against Seoul Prep, and we just needed one more point to win it all.”

Fidgeting with the scarf around my neck, I ask, “And?”

Nichkhun pauses momentarily, perhaps to recollect the story, but I can sense something in his body language. “The other team hadn’t seen me serve, and I wasn’t half bad. There was an element of surprise if I served, so the boys trusted me with the ball. I had been practicing a tough serve just for fun. It was high-risk, but it gave us the best shot to win right there with a single strike. I purposely shot the first serve long to give them a false sense of security. We were confident that I would only need one try.”

“So?” I ask, curious.

Nichkhun waves his muscular arms in the air, mimicking the motion of a serve. “I made the serve. I hit it right on the line between their backcourt players. It was just like I practiced.”

“Nice,” I say, giving his captain’s band back.

“But,” he says, holding the band in his hands, his gentle brown eyes showing regret. “We don’t get the point.”

“I thought you said it was in?”

“It was. The crowd knew it was, and even the other team thought that they had lost. But the referee on the sidelines said that it had just missed.”

“So you lost?”

“Yup, we never came back from that. The momentum went in Seoul Prep’s favour and they won. Just like everyone thought they would.”

I joke, “That’s not exactly a feel good story.”

He laughs again. “Yoona, it’s not supposed to be. That’s why I was here last year, upset just like you obviously are. I blamed the loss on me and me alone.”

“But why? The referee made the wrong call.”

Nichkhun leans his head back and keeps a calm tone. “He did, and I was pissed off. It bothered me for a month. That feeling of how I let everyone down was the worst. I was shocked at how unfair things could be and thought about quitting volleyball altogether. I even contemplated being a hermit.” Nichkhun smiles knowing that the thought was absurd.

“It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done. You did everything right.”

“That was exactly why I was so pissed off.”

I knew anyone would be upset in that particular circumstance, so who could blame him but why should he blame himself?

“Sitting here defeated, I learned something that was important. It took me a while, but it’s something I want to share with you.”

“What’d you learn?” I ask, intrigued.

He clears his throat. “That happiness is a choice.”

Laughing out loud, Nichkhun can tell that I didn’t buy it. But he doesn’t take offense too it.

“You see Yoona, everyone around school always thinks I’m this happy go-lucky guy, but I wasn’t always this way. There was a time when I would get bothered by the smallest thing.”

I find it hard to believe.

“Each of us,” he says with conviction, “We all have our hardships, our own waves to wade through. Some are able to handle it better than others. But what matters the most is our mindset.”

Nichkhun puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I choose to be happy, to think happily and live happily. That doesn’t mean I go through life like a delusional person, but I don’t let my own mind and heart beat myself up for stupid reasons. There’s no point being an emotional masochist.”

It makes some sense as I let it linger in my head. Seohyun was particularly good at controlling her emotions. Did she live by the same philosophy?

“Look, I’m not saying that someone should bottle in sadness. Call me an optimist, but there are times when you need to consciously choose happiness over sorrow, love over hate, and the good over the bad.”

Nichkhun waves his arm band proudly. “If I didn’t think like that I would’ve never worked hard and earned my stripes.”

I watch as he puts the yellow piece of cloth that he cherishes so dearly back into his knapsack. “Whatever’s troubling you Yoona. You’ll get over it. You’re a strong girl. Just remember, the person who decides how you feel is you. You’re the master of your own emotions. Don’t let what other people say or do, change who you are.”

I wasn’t so sure that it would apply to my situation, but maybe a more positive outlook would help me with my love life. “Thanks.”

He offers me his hand. “Come on, I’ll treat you to lunch, you’re probably hungry.”

I accept his offer as he pulls me up. His touch is rough and strong, very different from Seohyun’s hold earlier, but it was comforting in a way. We walk past a set of doors and make our way down some steps before coming across an unnerving sight.

I see Seohyun with Yonghwa, walking alone together, chatting happily.

“Hey Yonghwa,” says Nichkhun, “Seohyun.” The tall boy bows to the two. “What’s up?”

Seohyun notices my hand in Nichkhun’s and seems in awe of the sight. I quickly let go, realizing that I didn’t want to send the wrong signals.

Yonghwa gives the two of us his signature smile. “We’re just talking about plans for the semi-formal.”

“You guys are going together?” asks Nichkhun, surprised. “That’s sweet.”

I didn’t find it very sweet at all.

Seohyun stares at me, looking guilty. She knows that I didn’t like seeing them together.

I gently take off the purple scarf around my neck and hold it in my hands. It’s soft to touch, but the memory of Seohyun wrapping it around me was what made it special.

I approach her to return the garment to its owner. I hand it to her. “Thanks.”

Seohyun smiles weakly and accepts it, “No problem.”

I look at her with disappointment.

“It was nice while it lasted.” 

***

A/N: Wrote in a new present tense style. Please tell me if you prefer the old method or the new one.

- itchysocks