“Why do you want to know this?”

“Dad, you’ve told me these stories when I was younger, well, edited versions. But this time, tell the whole story with all the gory details. Please?”

“But Lana… You’re too young.”

“Dad. I’m sixteen fricking years old.”

“Then you shouldn’t be interested in bedtime stories at your age.”

“It’s not a bedtime story. It’s the story of your life. So shut up and tell me your ‘first love’ story.”

“Fine. Listen well.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first time I noticed this kid was around a month after the store has opened. I was just waiting for the lady to get her money out (Gawd, why did she have so much change?) when I saw him.

He was handsome. Handsome couldn’t cover it, he was absolutely gorgeous. His black hair looked so soft, his eyes were big and gentle, he had flawless pale skin. If I was alone, I would have been gushing over his looks (Yes, yes, I do gush. Rarely.). But as I wasn’t, I gritted my teeth and waited for the annoying lady to stop mumbling and give me the frigging money (“Wait, that’s thirty five cents. How much was it again? Sir, how much was the change part?” “Seventy cents, ma’am.” “Oh dear.”).

After she finally (finally!) left, I was left by myself, lazing around, occasionally taking a glimpse at the boy. He just sat there. Not eating. Not sleeping. Not reading. Just plain old lounging around. I looked up at the clock. 11:55. Time to close up.

Before I shut the door, a foot lodged its way in. I glanced up from the shoe, up to the handsome face of the boy that had been waiting outside. As I looked at him, a small crooked smile made its way onto his features.

“Can I still buy something?”

Dumbly, I nodded, letting him in. He spent a few minutes looking for something. He finally brought an iced coffee, my favorite Americano, up to the counter. My eyes gleamed at the sight. I hadn’t had coffee in a long time, because Sunggyu-hyung had forbidden me (something about me getting too hyper). I hope he drank that well.

He left as I stared after him. I locked up, checking everything. To my astonishment, the iced coffee had been left behind. In a hurry, I was going to chase after him, when I saw a sticky-note that had been left behind.

Enjoy the coffee, mister.

And boy, did I enjoy it.

~~~

This routine of him buying something and giving it to me, was practically a given now. He would enter the store at five minutes before closing, buy something (generally coffee but sometimes other snacks), and then hide it somewhere with a sticky note. The messages differed slightly by day.

You look like you’ve had a hard day. Drink and energize.

Hwaiting mister!

Don’t get dark circles.

^^

And so on.

I thought about how the boy could afford to buy him treats. Obviously, it didn’t cost too much money, but after a while, things like that piled up. The boy didn’t look rich either.

One day, he didn’t come. I wasn’t too worried. It was only one day, right?

Except it lasted longer than a day. I waited for about a week. Then, randomly he showed up again. I couldn’t recognize him at first. He was wearing dirtier, rumpled up clothes, had a few bruises (not that I really noticed). I shooed him off, not knowing who he was. Until I saw the gum he had left behind for me. There was no sticky note this time, and I felt a little disappointed. But still elated that he was back.

And so the routine went on again, exactly the same it was before. Aside from his bruises.

Every day, his bruises and cuts seemed to multiply, and by a lot. I didn’t like worrying about him. I don’t really worry about many people aside from family and friends, so the fact that he counts, just drove me insane.

All those bruises, cuts and scars, where were they from? I couldn’t stand seeing him get hurt anymore. On some occasions, it was so bad that he was still bleeding when he came to my counter. He shrugged them off. I didn’t think he even noticed anymore. How many times had he gotten hurt, that he stopped caring?

I asked my friends about him. Dongwoo-hyung liked to tease me (still does), saying the kid liked me. I remembered not to slug him in time, because Sungjong would have overreacted, Sunggyu-hyung would be pissed, Woohyun would be pissed because his boyfriend was and Hoya would become protective of Dongwoo-hyung (such a big chain reaction).

Yeah right. The kid barely knew me. I barely knew him.

Yet I worried. My heart worried along with my brain, except my heart tended to flutter nervously whenever I saw his hurt face. Fluttered like butterflies.

I damned Dongwoo-hyung (damn damn damn him). I blamed him for this feeling. For pointing it out to me. I was doing perfectly well to conceal it, but now it erupted when around him.

Sigh.

~~~

I was waiting for Sungjong to get out of school. It was my turn to take him home. I never really understood why he needed to be taken home; he was old enough to walk by himself. Probably, Sunggyu-hyung’s paranoid crazy self (Did I say crazy? I “meant” worried :P).

Waiting for that er took an hour. Taking him home took another hour. By the time I was on my way to the store (I got the night shift), it was around 11:00. When I got there, Woohyun, who was taking over at the time, told me that he would be able to do the rest and shooed me off. I was thankful for the time to myself.

So here I was, standing in front of a club. How’d I get here? No idea. I just felt like it, I guess. But when I saw Hoya and Dongwoo-hyung (those nubs came with me, so much for alone time) started sticking their tongues down each other’s throats and doing some other… let’s keep it to stuff, I felt the need to leave and give them privacy (and preserve my sanity).

It was a nice night, cool and the darkness was comforting for once. I usually didn’t like the color black, but tonight, it reminded me of that kid. He liked to wear black, either that or plaid. He looked nice in both (Shut up, Sungyeol. You don’t like this kid.).

My protests of denying that I liked him, seemed to get weaker day by day. I was so fed up with it. My brain and my heart were both idiots. Like Dongwoo-hyung.

So I’m outside, right? Just waiting until when I thought the ‘YaDong’ couple would be finished. I was starting to get worried that I might just spend the entire night out here, when I heard this faint sound of punches. Punches, kicks and whimpers. I wondered what was going on. Slowly, the noises were getting louder, so I walked over to where the noises were starting from, to tell the people off.

I wasn’t really expecting the kid to be the one getting beat up. Never. Didn’t cross my mind. The people who were hurting him (were going to die), kept yelling the same horrible things over again. That he’s a loser. A beggar. Doesn’t deserve to live.

Things like .

I’ve hated that word ever since I’ve heard it, which was the beginning of middle school. People called my friends, called me that, and I could not stand the thought of this kid having to go through that. The difference was, I never got beat up, aside from a couple scrapes, because everyone was scared of Hoya (Well, duh. He was an ex gang member). None of us in our group of friends got abused like this.

So naturally, it startled me when I saw the kid like this. Startled and angered me to the point where half of me wanted to kill them (Except more descriptively. Like smashing them. And other violent doings). My vision went red and ran to him.

I can’t really explain what happened in the next few minutes. I guess I wasn’t really concentrating on the guys I was attacking. All I knew was that after those minutes, when I yelled at them to leave, and they did. A bit too slowly (maybe they were crawling?), but they left.

The boy was still whimpering. I think he was trying to contain his cries, but while inspecting him, he started sobbing. Crying so hard. Not actual words but a bunch of jumbled things. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stayed there. Patting his head, whispering that it was okay, stuff like that.

I took him home.

~~~

At my shared house, I instructed him to take a shower and then gave him clothes to wear. I half destroyed the living room, searching high and low for the first-aid kit. I glowered at the state of the room. I lived with Woohyun, who was a total slob, so this was all his fault. Luckily, he was staying with Sunggyu-hyung tonight. The last thing I needed was a headache from his questions.

I sat waiting for this boy to come out. I could hear muffled cries and small pants through the door, as the water stung at his cuts. I started worrying. How bad were they?

They were pretty (very) bad. As soon as he came out of the shower, I couldn’t take my eyes off of his wounds. They were everywhere. Faded scars and bruises littered his entire body (well, what I could see of it). I spent the rest of the night, bandaging him up and murmuring comforting words to him. I think he almost cried again, but held them back. I let him sleep in my room, and he protested against sleeping on the bed. After glaring at him, we agreed to both sleep on the bed. Did you know that the boy had a tendency to latch on to the nearest thing (or person) in his sleep? Neither did I (he smelled really nice ^^).

In the morning (or afternoon), I woke up to a nice smell. For a second, I lay there thinking that it smelled very pleasant. Then, I thought it was a dream because our house never smelled exactly like what people would define as “nice”. I stepped out of my room, still dazed, to find a handsome boy cooking.

I was confused at first, definitely. Who was he again? After my lazy brain remembered, I noticed that I’ve never asked for his name. Or actually held a decent conversation with him. I cleared my throat.

He turned around and gawd, I think my heart just died right then and there. My shirt was big on him, exposing his pale collarbone. My pants were also a bit large on him, and they hung dangerously on his hips. His dark (so dark) eyes were open in child innocence, and he had the beloved shy smile with blushing cheeks at being caught. When I tried to talk, it almost came out garbled.

“Hello.” Hello? Well that was lame, Sungyeol.

He flashed me another smile. “Hi.”

“So, what’s your name?”

“Uh… You can call me L.”

“L? What does that stand for?” L, like Death Note’s L?

“Lots of things.” He shrugged his shoulders like the name ‘L’ was the most common thing in the world and resumed cooking. For now, I watched him as he busied himself.

It was delicious. The whole time, I knew I had a goofy smile on my face while shoveling breakfast (lunch, he said I woke up late) down my throat. L winced a few times while he moved around, in which I made sure he wasn’t bleeding of any sort. After the meal, we lay on my (our) bed.

“L?”

“Yes sir?”

I frowned. “Don’t call me sir. I’m not that old.”

“I bet you are.” Okay, now he was just out to provoke me.

“Yeah right. How old are you?”

“17.”

“See! I’m only two years older than you.”

He stuck his tongue out cheekily at me. Then he turned serious. “Thank you for saving me.”

“That reminds me. Why were you getting beat up anyway?”

L tensed up, and I waited for him to calm down. With closed eyes, he replied, “Because I’m homo. And poor. But mostly because of the gay part.”

“I’m gay too and never got beat up. Wait, (Hoya) oh.” I felt bad instantly. L had gotten beat up while I just took Hoya’s security for granted. Was that the result of all the other people? That must have been terrible.

“Are you better?” He really didn’t look any better. His skin was still covered with cuts (deeper this time), he was still stick skinny and had those heavy dark circles.

But his response was a cheerful “Yep!” as the doorbell rang. L looked at the door in confusion. I did too. Who was h-?

Woohyun. Aw, crap. I’d have to explain why L was here and how’d he get here and Woohyun would be teasing me about and tell Dongwoo-hyung, who’d tease me more and tell Sungjong, and Sungjong would tell the world and……

Eh, what the heck. Why not? I opened the door (in my state, I had been walking towards it). Woohyun entered, took a double take at L, gave me a sly grin and then came the chaos.

It took awhile to answer all of his questions. They ranged from “Is this your boyfriend?” to “What color underwear is he wearing?” and so forth. L was the most uncomfortable, being cornered by Woohyun, who had this stupid grin/smirk on.

After his rant, he just stared at me with a full on smirk on his lips. , he would tell Sungjong and Dongwoo-hyung. Or say something stupid.

“Your boyfriend’s hot.” Okay, something stupid it was. But as soon as he said that, I glared at him, feeling (what was it?) jealous (only a little). I couldn’t really argue with him. L was (very) hot.

L tried to leave halfway through, saying that he found it rude to stay at our house, and that he felt apologetic. I stopped him when I asked if he had a place to stay. He said yes. I asked if he was lying. He hesitated, and said yes.

He stayed.

~~~

During the span of three months, we became (a lot) closer. We’ve talked about our pasts, about what we like, what we dislike, everything.

I’ve found out that L’s parents abandoned him when he was a kid, and that’s he’s stayed in an orphanage until he was fifteen, when he ran away. He said that there was nothing really bad about the orphanage (mostly), but it felt like a prison at times. He loves the color black, wearing plaid shirts, photography, bananas, likes to read manga, etc. (And promptly after I found out all this, L started to find new clothes, a new camera, manga series, lots of bananas around the house. Was it me? Maybe).

Since he told me things, I talked to him a lot too. About my friends (Sunggyu-hyung, Woohyun, Dongwoo-hyung, Hoya, Sungjong) and how although they drove me up the wall, I loved them. About my older sister, younger brother and dad, and how my mom had died from cancer when I was still young. How I liked being tall, was a bit childish (“A bit?” he remarked. Grr.), and was obsessed with coffee (coffee coffee coffee coffee J). He found me cute and pinched my cheeks often. In retaliation, I scoffed at his height (he actually was the perfect size to hug and hold).

A habit he had was that he said ‘Thank You’ at least five times a day. No matter what I did, whether it was small or big, he would always respond with that phrase. When he made me breakfast and I wasn’t awake, he would leave a sticky note with “Thank You” written on it. Made no sense whatsoever. But it was one of those things I got used to (it perked me up on tiring days).

Somewhere along the way, I think I fell in love. I knew that I harbored a slight crush on L before, but now, I was certain I was in love. But he gave no signal that he felt the same way, so I kept it to myself.

The first time we kissed was unexpected. We were watching a movie together on the couch. Somehow, L had ended up with his head in my lap while I was his hair. It was near the end when he kissed me.

It was a chaste kiss. Sweet, and foreign. I was thoroughly surprised and then he started mumbling about how he was sorry that he kissed me, and he was okay if I didn’t like him back-

Our second kiss was when I interrupted him by kissing him deeply. His reaction was adorable, as he half squeaked in shock. When we pulled away, his lips were bruised, swollen and he was flushed a dark red that contrasted sharply against his pale skin. The first thing he said was his phrase of ‘Thank You’. I asked if he would be my boyfriend. He blushed harder and whispered a small yes.

Kim Myungsoo. That was his official name. It slipped out of his mouth on some random day,while I was kissing his neck. He liked his name, just never found the need to use it because most people knew him by L. I promised to call him Myungsoo from then on, and he blushed adorably again.

One day, he bought couple rings for us. They were simple black rings that fit perfectly. He had been worried about getting the black, thinking I wouldn’t like it. I was just too in shock at the beauty of it, that I just pulled him down and kissed him. Myungsoo (See? No more ‘L’) said that when he had more money, he would buy prettier and more expensive ones for us, because I was worth more than that (he was starting to sound like Namgrease). I rolled my eyes, told him to spend his spare money on his studies, and kept on kissing him.

When I introduced him to my friends, everybody went nuts. Myungsoo just stood next to me, being all shy again while Dongwoo-hyung, Sungjong and Woohyun started singing ‘I knew it!’ in a random off-key tune. Sunggyu-hyung teared up at the news (he’s so old), Hoya said congrats and went back to reading. By the end of the night, Myungsoo had become friends with all of them and commented that my friends were so cool and how he wished he had friends to introduce to me as well.

I felt proud when I showed him off to my family. My sister giggled for the most part, my brother called him an ulzzang and my dad nearly cried saying he could finally die in peace (shows how old Sunggyu-hyung was acting). We visited my mom’s grave together and I swore I could hear her voice, cooing over Myungsoo.

He had no one really to introduce me to, so we just went to his old orphanage. He had a lot of kids who liked him and was now jealous that he had a boyfriend. Myungsoo laughed it off, but I made sure to stick my tongue out at every single one of them and wrap my arm around his shoulders for good measure. Call me immature, Myungsoo was mine.

~~~

It was a bleak day. Our fight had taken place when my sister got in a car accident and he had no reaction to this. I was already in a foul mood that day and he sparked me off. Looking back on it, he was being reasonable. Myungsoo had never had an actual family. Therefore, he wouldn’t know what pain like that felt. I had been acting stupid and while we were arguing, I yelled that Myungsoo had been abandoned, so what did he know? His parents didn’t even care about him.

I’ve roped that off as the biggest mistake of my life.

He cut his talking and just gaped at me in disbelief. For a moment, I felt proud that I beat him (childish, I know). That feeling disappeared as he ran out the door, not responding to anything I yelled after him.

Being my stubborn self, I refused to go after him and thought that he should come to me. Woohyun was practically begging me to stop being a moron, but I stayed firm. It wasn’t until Woohyun mentioned Myungsoo’s past thought of suicide, did I chase after him.

I remembered what Myungsoo had told me while I was looking for him. He said that he had never had a point in living in life, just living because he was. The day he met me, was the day he was going to let the bullies kill him to get it over with. I don’t know why he stopped himself, but when Myungsoo told me this, I told him that I was so glad he didn’t.

What if he decided to? That was my biggest worry. Or what if the bullies found him again? I finally found (heard) him while running. There were whimpers, the same as when I took him home. But this time, the had a gun. I was in such a stupor, that I didn’t absorb how the bully was raising the hand that held the gun, up to Myungsoo. I ran towards him, feeling like the whole world was going in slow-motion as I saw the bullet leave his gun and pierce my boyfriend’s body.

I was too late. The attacker had already shot at Myungsoo. Noticing that he had an audience (me), he ran away. I was about to run after him (to kill that motherer and enjoy his pain), but a voice stopped me.

“Don’t.” His voice came out soft (too soft) and weak, and it was probably the only thing that could have stopped me then. I knelt beside Myungsoo. And I couldn’t repeat anything besides the words “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t exactly saying it; I was more crying them out.

He was struggling to breathe when I held his hand. Instead of normal breathing, his breaths came out as pants and huffs. A tear fell from his eyes.

“Sungyeol?”

“Don’t talk.” It looked like it hurt him to do anything, let alone breathe. Stay alive Myungsoo, I prayed. Stay alive for me (for us).

“I-“ He had to pause to fight and take another breath. “I don’t want to die.” He looked at me with those deep eyes and they were filled with tears (don’t cry and waste your precious tears).

I got angry, despite the tears flowing from my eyes as well. “You’re not going to die. I’ll call the ambulance right now.” I started to stand up and make a grab for my phone (which had fallen out somehow), but he pulled me down, begging me to stay. So I did.

I was forced to do nothing as Myungsoo got weaker and weaker, blood flowing out too (too) quickly. I placed his head on my lap and combed my fingers through his hair, which made him smile.

“Hyung. D-Did you know th-a-at the only thing keeping me a-alive was you?” He started rambling. “I wanted to die, hyung. I really did. But when I saw y-you, I just couldn’t. Thank you.”

“Shut up!” I was sick of his ‘thank you’s. He shouldn’t thank me. I should thank him. For coming into my life. For keeping me happy. “Don’t thank me. I don’t want to hear that anymore.”

“Sorry, hyung.” Another tear fell gently from his eyes. The light in his eyes were dulling slowly and they started closing. “Can… can you kiss me?”

Nodding, I reached over and kissed him hard. Tongue met tongue, teeth met teeth, and I took over his mouth. His lips were sweet (so very so), and the taste of Myungsoo, that I could never forget. When I let go of our kiss, he looked at me with those eyes again.

“I love you.” He mustered out as his eyes settled shut. There was a smile still etched onto his beautiful face.

“Myungsoo?” He didn’t move. “KIM MYUNGSOO?!” I desperately shook his oddly cold body and wept. He couldn’t die. He just couldn’t…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Oh my gosh, it’s already one! Go to sleep Lana.”

My daughter’s mouth fell open. “You can’t just stop there, Dad! Tell me the end!”

I ruffled her hair, and kissed her forehead. “Maybe tomorrow. You have school.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Will Mom get jealous if I talk about this?”

I chuckled. “He knows. And don’t call him ‘Mom’. It’s inaccurate.”

“You are so telling me tomorrow.”

“Love you and goodnight.”

~~~

I sat, staring at the simple black ring on my left hand. All the memories I had with him, they washed over me, making me smile softly and a bit sadly.

“What did you talk about tonight?” My husband appeared suddenly, looking at me expectantly.

I waved it off. “Stuff. Stories from when I was younger. Those that I told her when she was a kid.”

“You mean that ‘first love’ story that she enjoys so much?”

“Yeah. By the way, you and I are going on that vacation tomorrow. Excited?”

“Very.” He walked over to me and sat on my lap, wrapping his thin pale arms around me.

His warmth settled around me, making me relax into him. I took his hand in mine, interlinked our fingers together and bit back a laugh at his blushing face. After the whole marriage (more importantly, honeymoon) and kid adoption process, he was still so self conscious.

“Thank you, hyung.” His eyes crinkled as he smiled that shy smile I loved.

“No, thank you. And I love you, Myungsoo-ah.”

Kya~!!!!!! I hopw everyone likes this, and I feel so proud of it! 10 pages worth of love <3