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❝001 -- The Flavor of a Busan Kiss❞

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“You sound a little funny.”

“H’well, excuse me, Wooly Brows.”

“I wasn’t making fun of you,” Nichkhun murmurs, his heel digging into the mulch beneath his feet, “It’s just different from the people around here.”

He brings a finger to his right eyebrow, brushing it back and forth in dejection. It was supposed to play out better than this, Nichkhun thought. They were to chuckle lightly at his comical efforts and yet there he stood flabbergasted and unsure of attempting anything anymore. ‘Ugh.’

Nichkhun quickly shakes off his feelings of sorrow as he races past the sandbox and towards the other playground equipment. The sun follows him as he runs blissfully, whether it had been sprinting past the merry-go-round or rocking back and forth on the spring rider. He soon drops down from the monkey bars, his adolescent hands reaching up toward the white speckled blue. He tilts his head up as his index fingers and thumbs connect to form a Photographer’s Rectangle, capturing the heart–welcoming scene before him. As he relaxes, a loud exhale is heard from the child, his fragile little fingers wiggling in glee from the stretch.

Wooyoung watches the boy play in envy. Guilt hits him straight on, regretting the cruel words that escaped his lips. He didn’t really mean to say them; it just slipped. Unlike Nichkhun, the other kids in the neighborhood threw meaner comments at him and Wooyoung had already grown accustom to defending himself—even if it meant stooping down to their level. 

Still a tad bit hesitant, Wooyoung drags himself toward the other fellow, his shoes slightly scrapping against the pavement of the basketball court. His eyes shift a little to the left; Nichkhun was only about four more feet away. He was so close—his body resting against the basketball pole and the basket–less hoop almost looking as if a halo from high above.

Wooyoung nods his head with assurance.

‘I’s time to make friends Wooyoung’, He muses supportively to himself, ‘Le’s try to be nice tis time!’

 

 

 

 

Wooyoung gulps.

“H–Hey,” Wooyoung musters half–heartedly, grabbing a lonely stick and poking it at Nichkhun’s shoulder, “Ya really don’t think i’s weird?”

At the sight of Nichkhun’s back turning, Wooyoung drops everything in his grasp. His hands are pocketed deep in his jeans, just as his heart had dug far into the pit of his stomach. In his seven years of existence he had never felt so nervous. No, neither moving away from Busan nor sleeping without his night–light could compare. He was a kid of dignity because—even without being said—one who obtains high dignity obtains diligence so why; why was it that Wooyoung couldn’t seem to find his composure around this round-eyed, baby faced fellow?

On the other hand, Nichkhun smiles; he smiles the smiliest smile a kid could smile. He grasps Wooyoung’s hand and shakes it vigorously, talking so fast his tongue had tied to untie.

“It’s y!” Nichkhun nods, his adolescent hands slapping against Wooyoung’s palm, “I really do lik—no, no, no—I really do love it!”

Wooyoung’s eyes squint in disbelief, his mouth crescent from the humor he found in the boy’s  words. “P–Pfft, you’re kiddin’. Do ya’ even know what that means?”

Nichkhun placed a finger under his chin in thought, “Mom says it means cool—I think. Something like that.”

Wooyoung bites his lower lip, desperately fighting back the snickers eager to spill. “I’s nothin’ like that. Your mum lied.”

Nichkhun frowns, “What does it mean then?” He walks over to Wooyoung, pulls him over to the nearest swing set, and places his hands around the chains above his head. He watches as the thin seven year old boy slouches in the seat of the swing, grinning at the color in his pudgy cheeks. He greets the form below him with a dolly expression, each round almond eye filled with curiosity.

Though, of course, curiosity wasn’t the only thing that filled Nichkhun’s eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

Wooyoung awes at Nichkhun stupidly, muttering under his breath about how boys shouldn’t have long eyelashes and pink puffy lips. Afraid to look up any further at the suddenly shiny visage of Nichkhun, his eyes gaze downward, latching themselves onto a fabricated scarlet-webbed Spiderman.

He breaths stagger in discomfort. His eyes start to dilate the shorter the distance between them became. Shorter. Shorter. Shorter. Suddenly, he looks up—right square into his eyes. Those large deceiving eyes being the last thing he saw. They seem so glassy, the gleam almost resembling the blueberry snow cone he just had before coming to the playground.

‘Stupid blueberry...snow cones...’

 

 

 

 

“Say,”

“Hm?”

“Your lips taste different than I thought.”

“How?”

“Like—I'm not sure. It didn’t taste funny at all. If it did, I guess it was a good funny.”

“Well...”

“Well what?”

“Why don’t you taste them again just to make sure?”