i wonder about you
i wonder about you
i wonder about you
(another drabble)
Minseok,
is your first name, and I know because it says so on your nametag. But, even if it weren't, I would have known anyways because I know you.
I wonder if you know me.
I wonder if you would be scared to know that for last few months, I have promptly woken myself every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 7am to ready myself for the day, to stop by the campus coffee place by 7:15am because that's when you come to open up shop and that I would stay for all of an hour and a half before my first class so that my eyes, disguised behind the glare of a laptop screen, can follow your movements as you brew a cup of joe, a shot of espresso, a malt of milk or bubble tea.
The first chance I get, I head up to the granite counters where you busily stand when no one else is lined up or going to, so that there's no other entity to vie for your attention but me, and I say hello, and you glance up at me with a surprised smile. My voice almost falters when you do that because it's as if your smile can just instantly steal my breath away.
"Hello, dear sir," you say, and smile again as you tilt your head sweetly, "the usual?" and the sound of your voice is like the breeze on a perfect autumn afternoon (that I wish could bask in for all eternity) and I wonder if I asked you to speak something more if that would be strange, and by the time that I've decided I do so, you're gazing back at me and again, nothing more can be said.
After a smooth regain of composure and light cough, "Yes, please," I would reply, and, as if you know perfectly well that I understand the cost of seeing your sweet smile every Tuesday and Thursday morning, you wait patiently as I flip through my wallet, and somehow, the pettiness inside me envies that you're glancing over my fingers peeling back a leather fold rather than at me or my face.
How I wish you would look at me.
Because I look at you.
For these few fleeting moments, I feel as if we're the only two people in the world, and as sad as it sounds, my only wish is for you to so much as want to see me, see who I am, what I do, and why I care so damn much for you when I know perfectly well that you don't. I wonder if I even exist in your world as something more profound than just 'the student who is always there waiting every morning I come to open shop.'
For me, you are the sun of earth, the light of day, the motivation of life to rise each morning so that I may once again treat my senses to your tiny, breeze-like smile that sweeps my feet from the ground, that has my heart racing in an irregular rhythm, in a hypnotic trance that seems to beat as the syllables of your name, Min-seok, Min-seok, Min-seok...
(With my eyes closed lightly, I pray to the wind, that an opportunity might arise for us to share something more than just our everyday colloquy.)
And the irrational entitlement that I seem to think I have, to utter your name, as you pass me my order of milk tea with pearls, takes over, and I bid you goodbye, the hardest parting of my life that crescendoes in difficulty each time, "Thank you, Minseok-ah." (Because for that moment, your name plays upon my lips, and the sound of it flows too effortlessly, too quickly, and I wish I could say it again and again.)
The few words shared between us are merely superficial to the point that they are not needed―are simply formalities that an employee and a customer seem obligated to share due to the nature of profession, and I wish I had the courage to ask for your time, for your number, for anything that might maybe prolong our painfully brief exchange of words.
They would be simple words like, "Are you free after this?" or "Would you mind if I asked for your number?" Something so simple, and yet so complex―such simple, easy questions that could maybe get us rolling, but I―can't―seem to speak any of that when I so desperately want to speak with you, because a part of me is afraid―so very afraid, that if I say anything more, then everything I've ever wanted to tell you would spill out at once (how I long for you, how I wait for you, how I need for you to see). But I do want to, Minseok. I want to ask of you, your time, your attention, your anything that gives me a sign that you, even if for a breath's moment, may be thinking of me.
And, I wonder, if you would think, if that is too much to ask.
i just wanted to write this. and another one related to this that i will post later. lu han sounds like a creeper, but like, he is, when it comes to baozi, no joke.
lololol okay fixed the major mistakes i found as i read through... should have done that before posting.
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