Like. I don't know what this is. XD I have a habit of being SO weird when I write these oneshots. I have all these perfect plots in my head, then when I try to put it into words, it turns into ultimate crap and the NONE of it is what I originally planned it out to be. It's like my fingers have a mind of their own. Or I have, like, an entire different mind when I write. >.> LOL this is another one of my long (ish) oneshots where you're going to end up thinking "this was confusing. Please write a simplisitic one." and I will say probably not, because that's not how my oneshots work XDD

I Build Walls

I build walls:

Walls that protect,

Walls that shield,

Walls that say I shall not yield,

Or reveal,

Who I am or how I feel.

I build walls:

Walls that hide,

Walls that cover what’s inside,

Walls that stare or smile or look away,

Silent lies,

Walls that even block my eyes

From the tears I might have cried.

I build walls:

Walls that never let me

Truly touch

Those I love so very much.

Walls that need to fall!

Walls meant to be fortresses

Are prisons after all.

[A/N sorry, couldn’t figure out who this is by! :(]

There’s just this thing you learned in years of living, something that told you to keep your feelings shut.

               To fake having a low self-esteem because you wanted to be modest.

               To smile instead of cry because it made everybody else happy.

               To cry instead of smile because it let everybody think you had normal feelings.

               To laugh instead roll your eyes because you didn’t want to let anybody get hurt.

               To agree instead of disagree because you wanted to fit in.

               To fake being selfish so people would think you didn’t have them in mind constantly.

               To pretend to love because you weren’t allowed to hate.

               To pretend to hate because you weren’t allowed to love.

               To say you’re grateful for your life when you really want to toss everybody off of a cliff.

               They’re all simple things, really, but things that make up your life. You want to let everybody be pleased with who you are, not ashamed. So you keep your feelings shut. You build a wall – a wall that said “I’m normal. I’m like you guys. We’re all friends. Let’s not care about my problems right now, because we’ll always be caring about yours instead.”

               It worked. I figured, it really does work. It doesn’t hurt too much either, because it all goes towards a good deed: having friends. Sure, you have to say goodbye to some of the things you want the most, but hey, at the end it’s all worth it, right? Right.

“I hate my life.”

               I turned, just smiling at him. “Don’t hate it. It’s amazing, you know? Stop being so negative…”

               “Then stop being so optimistic,” Myungsoo snapped back at me. I kept my big smile on, ruffling his hair.

               “What happened now?”

               “I failed my math test,” he groaned. I watched as my best friend slammed his head on the desk, just looking down at the ground.

               “So? It’s just one. No big deal, right?”

               “That’s what you think! Why are you always like this?! Not everything has a bright side, hyung. Gosh. Stop telling me that.”

               …But I’ve never said that. Ever. In my entire life. But who cares? Everything should having a bright side, right? Right. “It’ll be fine, okay? Just do better on the next test or something.”

               Myungsoo’s eyes just wavered away from mines, and I went back to my desk.

               I’d be okay, right? Right.

If you’d taken an AP Bio test while you were in the 4^th grade, you’d still not get to how confusing Myungsoo was.

               One minute he’d be the most brightest person I knew, the next, he’d be the idiot that made me want to drown myself in a well of my own tears. It hurts, you know, knowing that your best friend had that affect on you.

               I bet you 100% he’s bipolar.

               …But then again, he doesn’t need to know that, right? Right. He’ll keep on asking me why nobody wants to be his friend, why only I’m stuck with him. I’ll just keep smiling and say that I don’t know – he seems normal and just fine to me.

               Because I can’t tell him that he’s totally insane, can I? He’ll hate me for life, right? Right.

If I’d thought that three years ago, I was an idiot.

               That nobody wanted to be Myungsoo’s friend, because I was completely wrong. Like, completely.

               By the time we were in high school, I barely saw him anymore. It’s partly my fault, because the school was seriously HUGE. I’d spend my snack in one corner of the place, then lunch at a completely different place, then the next day, I’d never see those two places ever again.

               …And you actually expect me to be able to pinpoint where Myungsoo was? Yeah right. School would be half over before I managed to find him.

               So I really didn’t bother. For a while, I thought he’d be mad at me, because he really didn’t have any other friends. It’d hurt though, it really did, when I found out not only had he replaced me with one person – but with at least fourteen other different people.

               I finally found him, if you wanted to know. I found him, and also found out that we shared around three classes together. Except I never figured that out until we were about four weeks into school. I’m a ing genius.

               The classes were crowded, and I actually praised myself for being able to come in early and find a seat in the back, dark corner of the classroom where even Casper wouldn’t be able to find me. I could barely hear the teacher, but you know, I’d be able to catch up on my sleep.

               Don’t look at me like that.

               I tried to contact Myungsoo, I really did. To call him.

               But you know.

               Being the amazing best friend he was, he didn’t bother telling me that he’d changed his family plan because his parents divorced and now he lived with his mom only. No, no, I had to completely embarrass myself in front of the woman I considered my second mother, asking her why Myungsoo hadn’t been picking up his cell phone.

               Clap all you want. I still haven’t figured out if it’s because I’m a horrible friend or because I’m a neglected friend.

I really surprised myself to how well I fared without Myungsoo. For a good chunk of my life, I’d seriously thought that if I was left a loner, I’d go crazy and shoot myself.

               Seriously. Don’t look at me like that.

               I’ve tried making new friends – no, cross that, I actually have made new friends. Thing is, this school is just so ing crowded, I never see them again. I swear, I’ve met at least 100 new people that love me. It’s just impossible to find them.

               It wasn’t like I didn’t try to approach Myungsoo, I have. It’s just literally not possible, because when I did, I’d just find out that it was some guy that looked like him.

               I get it. I’m a ing genius. I don’t know how my best friend looks like…or ex-best friend, it doesn’t even matter anymore.

               …At least I hadn’t killed myself yet, right? Right.

A few months later I managed to break my wall.

               I gave up trying to make friends with people, because I seriously couldn’t keep up with them. It’s like they all had a thousand other best friends, and I had to wait a few years before I could spend three seconds with them. I’m not going to waste all that time when I could be doing my own things.

               I stopped going out – but hey, like I actually went out, right? I stayed stuck inside my house, watching drama after drama, stuffing my face with diet chocolate chip cookies (because, my mom figured, if I was going to kill myself eating, might as well eat things that won’t make me look fat), and doing homework. It wasn’t a horrible life, of course not. I didn’t mind it at all.

               I can’t remember the last time I talked, laughed, or smiled at school. There was just nobody to do those things with, besides the occasional freshman that needed directions to some place and made a joke about how stupid they were. They laughed, so I laughed, just to make them not feel alone.

               Now that I think about it, I stopped doing that, too, because it was all part of my wall. My stupid, idiotic wall.

               I’d never build a wall at home. That’s why, why my parents always asked me why I was so cheerful and happy and willing to do anything for my friends at school while with them, I just moped around and didn’t bother lifting a finger. Now, they weren’t able to use that excuse, because they never saw me being cheerful or happy or willing to do anything anymore.

I wasn’t sure whether or not to cry, smile, stand there stupefied, or jump around like a little kid.

               My senior project. I was paired up with Kim Myungsoo.

               I don’t know, but I actually had to think about who that was for the longest time. I had to dig through my memory and physically say “OH!” and remember that that guy was my best friend for ten years before I become a total loner (not that I really minded, though. Being a loner was fun, because you got to jump around and make friends with the most random people).

               “Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey, heyyyyyyyy.”

               I blinked a bit, staring before me. There was some crazy girl with two pigtails, grinning like I was the leprechaun at the end of the rainbow. “U-um, what do you want?”

               “You’re Lee Sungyeol, right? Right? Right?”

               “Right.” I hadn’t said that word for the longest time, ever since my days of being unsure of my life were gone. “…How do you know?”

               “I’m in your History class,” she smiled. “We sat next to each other for an entire semester. You don’t remember?”

               …Is it bad that I didn’t? Because –

               Oh. Right.

               That was the class with the teacher that sounded like a nursery school teacher reading lullabies. The one with PowerPoints everyday, turned down to the lowest brightness-scale, lights always off.

               AKA my sleeping period.

               “Oh, sorry, memory lapse,” I replied, not bothering to smile back at her. Why should I? I didn’t know her. “Yes?”

               “Are you willing to exchange partners with me? Because I have some kid, a guy named Santa Clause, and I have no idea who he is. You have Kim Myungsoo, right? I know him. I figured it’d be better to do my project with somebody that I know, and since you don’t know him, you can make friends with Santa.”

               I thought about it for a second, then shrugged. A kid named Santa Clause should be pretty cool, right? (Here I was, saying ‘right’ again.) And if my calculations are correct, my friendship with Myungsoo was probably as thick as my friendship with Santa’s at the moment. “…I guess so.”

               “OMO, REALLY?!” Okay, now, I really was the leprechaun. “Thanks so much, Sungyeol-sshi! You’re the bestest person ever.”

               “No, it’s okay,” I said back. “Just do well on your project, alright? And tell M – wait, never mind, it’s okay. Just have fun on the project.”

               She gave me another big smile and nodded, then left, clutching her manila folder as if it were her life. Meanwhile, I just pushed myself against a wall and hit my forehead it utter disgust.

               My wall’s coming back.

“…Said I wasn’t allowed to switch.”

               I looked up at the voice and found the girl, now with her hair in a ponytail, looking down at me. “What?”

               “Teacher said I couldn’t switch,” she mumbled. From her back, she pulled out the manila folder that I had given her yesterday, the one saying that Kim Myungsoo was my partner. “Here.”

               “…Why can’t you switch?” I didn’t mean for my voice to come out so disappointed…I just wanted to meet Santa Clause. I thought he would be a pretty chill guy.

               “Stupid set rules,” the girl (surprise, surprise. I still haven’t figured out her name) told me. “We’re paired up by our rankings in the class.”

               “Rankings?”

               “Grades.”

               “Grades?”

               “Best with best, worst with worst, so that each person does equal work,” she explained.

               “…How is that equal?”

               “Because bad graded people don’t want to flunk, yet they’re both lazy. So you know. They’ll split up the work evenly and do just as much as the other person does. Best with best, because they both aim for their highest, so their project will be evenly cut. They’ll only let the other person do as much as them. Something about them not trusting the other person…I don’t know, I got bored after a while of listening.”

               I just nodded, and she gave me a smile. “Well, I have to go to class now. So…do good on your project? You’re lucky to get paired up with Myungsoo.”

               …Was I? Was I really?

“Sungyeol? Are you Sungyeol?”

               My head lifted up for the second time that day, and I stared at the boy in front of me. I kept my hands underneath the desk to keep myself from jumping up and hugging him.

               Wall, Sungyeol. Remember the wall.

               Don’t let others think you care too much about them. They’ll think you’re a creep.

               “Yeah, that’s me.”

               He smiled, a smile that I’ve never seen in my entire life, and stuck out his hand. “Hi, I’m Kim Myungsoo, your partner for the project. Let’s work well together, okay?”

               I blinked at his hand, then back at him. Lifting my hand up, I shook it, and took it away before he could realize how much I was sweating.

               “Yes, let’s. I don’t want to fail,” I joked. Despite how much I slept in class, I was probably still one of the top students. You know, benefits of going nowhere and studying all day after watching the daily episodes of Korean dramas.

               “So,” he started, sitting down next to me, “what do you want to do?”

               “I don’t really know,” I shrugged.

               “What do you like?”

               “…Nothing much.”

               A soft, unfamiliar chuckle. “Nothing much?”

               “…Yeah. What do you like?”

               “A lot of things, really. Black…”

               “Black?”

               “OH! How about we do our project on how many students would wear black if I told them to? Like, peer pressure!”

               “…No. That’s stupid.”

               He pouted, then sat back down in his seat. “Fine. Then what do you have in mind?”

               What did I have in mind?

               What did I really have in mind? Did he really want to know? I don’t think so.

               Because if I had a choice, my project would be on how short it would take for somebody to forget their best friend.

“You’re such a ing idiot!” Myungsoo screamed, rolling his eyes. “WHAT THE FREAK IS THAT?!”

               I forgot.

               How could I forget? How bipolar Myungsoo was.

               Two minutes ago, he was complimenting me on how well I was doing. Now, he just hated it. Like I said…bipolar.

               I remembered, though. I don’t know how I remembered, but I did.

               From my backpack, I handed him water bottle. “Take this and shut up.”

               He stared at me as if I was crazy (I probably was, but let’s not talk about that right now), and took the water. After drinking down nearly half in two seconds, he handed it back to me. “Thanks.”

               I just nodded and didn’t say anything, because yay, I have Kim Myungsoo’s DNA on my water bottle. Maybe I could clone him into something that didn’t explode on me when I made one little mistake.

“…Sungyeol?”

               I didn’t know what to say, I just waved. Myungsoo’s mom kept staring at me, her eyes beginning to tear up.

               “Oh, Sungyeol…I never thought I’d see you again!”

               Sorry, second Umma. Sorry I disappointed you. Didn’t really have a choice, did I?

               “I only came to finish a project with Myungsoo,” I clarified after she let me go from the hug. “We got picked to be partners, if you were wondering.”

               The way her eyes looked at me, I know what she was got to what I was aiming at. Myungsoo didn’t voluntarily choose me to be his partner.

               “Umma? Who’s there?”

               She didn’t say a word, just backed away when Myungsoo came into the doorway. His face brightened up and he walked towards us.

               “Sungyeol! Did I introduce you to my Umma yet?”

               I turned to Myungsoo’s mom, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Wait, what –“

               “We already met,” I intervened quickly. “She’s a nice woman.”

               “Oh. Alright then, let’s go to my room now, okay?”

               Nodding, I followed him, only turning back to catch the apologetic look from my forced friend’s mom.

Nothing changed. Everything, from the hallways, to the picture frames, to the smell, nothing.

               I remember this place. The place I spent 6/7 of my week at for three hours a day. But I couldn’t say that anymore, right? Right.

               “You should at least call me if you’re going to come,” he said, dragging me into his room.

               “We planned it, don’t you remember?” My voice came out on its own as I looked around the place that used to be my favorite time-waster.

               “Well you still should’ve called me ahead of time,” he shrugged. “I have a lot of people over – I don’t remember them all.”

               “Of course you don’t,” I muttered before my mind got the best of me. I started freaking, thinking that he’d heard me, but instead…he was rummaging through my bag.

               “You don’t have my number, right? Here, I’ll put it –“ he paused for a second, staring at my phone. “I’m already in here?”

               Light bulbbbbbbbbbb.

               Myungsoo’s old number was still in my phone. Why. Why. I am a ing g-e-n-i-u-s, that’s why.

               “This number,” he said aloud, “it’s –“

               “A pizza parlor!” I shouted, grabbing the phone from him. “I’ve tried. It’s an effing pizza place.”

               The sad thing was, I actually have tried. To call that number, a while after Myungsoo’s mom told me about the phone change.

               It was a pizza parlor.

               I’m a genius, I’ve told you that already, alright?

               “No, that’s…” Um, alright, his light bulb time. “That’s my old number. How do you have it? And why’s it under my name?”

               I just stood there, not bothering to say a word because I was seriously freaked out.

               “Are you stalking me or something? Because you know those yellow pages aren’t that reliable.”

               That unfamiliar laugh again. I couldn’t figure out if that was his true laugh now, or a wall-ed one. I would know too well.

               “Sorry,” I said, trying to make my voice quiet, yet audible. It didn’t work out too well, because Myungsoo made a point to ignore me and walk over to his bed.

               Also forgetting to put his new number in my phone.

I can remember the first best friend he made. Or replacement of me, I didn’t really know.

               It was a boy, a boy named Lee Sungjong. I still remember trying to kid myself that he might’ve been his stupid old self and mixed up Lee Sungyeol with Lee Sungjong, thus blossoming his accidental friendship with the guy.

               Yeah. I think when my wall broke, everything came crashing down on me, and I realized: maybe Myungsoo was capable of making friends, friends that actually stuck by him even if they couldn’t find each other in the school.

               Or maybe that was because they actually had Myungsoo’s number, I really don’t even know. It didn’t make sense to me, though, why Myungsoo hadn’t bothered to at least text me his new number. Said anything. Maybe then we’d be able to coordinate our whereabouts and….and…and…I don’t even know. I don’t.

               I knew something: Sungjong pissed the heck out of me. He just…I can’t stand him. At all. It’s a stupid thing, really, but I can’t.

               There’s this thing, you know, that one momentary time when I just look at him and think “oh, he’s so pretty. I wish I had a friend like him, a friend that would always smile and look at me like I was the best thing on Earth” and a few minutes later, I’d remember that that, once upon a million years ago, had been me. And I went back to hating the guy for the stupidest reason.

               I told you, if you actually bothered to read the top portion, that Myungsoo had a lot of friends. A new best friend by his side each day, taking turns standing in my old spot, his right hand side.

               One little, itsy-bitsy detail I might’ve forgotten: Lee Sungjong had stayed in that one spot, Myungsoo’s left side spot, but the duration of years I was missing. He stayed clammed on him for the longest time.

               Then one day, I didn’t see Sungjong anymore. I didn’t see him at school, during snack, during lunch, during classes, anything. I didn’t see him at all.

               I overheard, though, some girls talking about how he was in the hospital getting his appendix taken out. At the same time, I caught on to a little fact.

               Myungsoo hadn’t been at school, either. I was too busy caught up with why Sungjong was gone to realize that Myungsoo hadn’t been there, either. Then I learned he was hanging out at the hospital, keeping his new bestie company.

               It’s funny how when you’re so caught up with your enemy, you don’t even notice your target begin to slowly walk away.

“Sungyeol.”

               An unfamiliar voice. High. Not a teacher. Probably a student. That knew my name.

               My head stayed on the desk, trying to keep up with my sleep. “Yes?”

               “Look at me.”

               “Sorry, I’m tired. Can you just tell me what’s going on?”

               “Lee Sungyeol.”

               “Who’re you?”

               “If you’d look at me, you’d know who I was.”

               When I finally did look up, I wasn’t too surprised. I was expecting this guy to come around the corner sometime. “Ah. I know you…you’re in my Science class, right? Right.”

               Dammit. Wasn’t supposed to say that out loud.

               Sungjong’s smile ceased to existence as he just sat down on the desk in front of me, then turned around to face me. “You’re paired up with L for the senior project.”

               L? Pet names already? I managed to catch on quickly, but I still kept my distance. It’s a wall that was broken down, but back in reconstruction. “Yes, with Myungsoo.”

               “What’d you do?”

               “What’d I do?”

               “Yes. What’d you do?”

               “I didn’t do anything.”

               “You did something.”

               “…No, I didn’t do anything.”

               “Don’t lie to me.”

               “I’m not lying to you.”

               He kept staring at me, like I was some wanted criminal or something. In my defense, I’m just a normal, socially deprived teenager that loves the internet. Big whoop.

               “L’s been acting weird lately.”

               “…And that’s my problem because…?”

               “You’re the only new kid that he’s actually talked to in weeks! Do you know how bad that is for L’s popularity?!”

               “…No…” And I really don’t want to, either.

               But wait.

               Since when has Myungsoo been popular? That dorky, two-faced kid with the heart of an angel and the mind of a devil?

               …Since when? What’d I miss sitting on my chair at home with no friends?

               “Well basically, you’ve done something. Maybe you’ve been acting weird and now he’s scared of making new friends. That’s probably it.”

               Oh. Really, now? I’ll have you know that I have not traumatized anybody in my days at high school. I don’t have enough confidence to do that.

               “…Oh…I’m sorry for that, then. The project will be over soon, so you don’t really have to worry about it anymore.”

               I don’t know what the just came out of my mouth.

               Sungjong just nodded a little too fast, stood up a little too quickly, and walked out a little too dazed.

               You know. Might as well stick with the wall if you’re going to rebuild it anyways, right? Right.

How’d Myungsoo forget me, it’s anybody’s guess.

               I sure as heck didn’t know. I didn’t really want to find out either, because that didn’t seem to important to me at the time. Maybe he gained too many friends and his memory meter went overboard. I don’t know. Don’t ask me.

               It was like our friendship was even that memorable. In fact, in a very unbiased way, I couldn’t recall one moment that was kept between the two of us. I really don’t – it’s just a whole mish-mash of playdates and laughing and talking. No days good enough to remember.

               We were stuck together more by force than by fate, to be honest. He had nobody, I had nobody. In the end, we just became each other’s friends. Somehow, I managed to catch on that Myungsoo didn’t understand this. He didn’t know that I was his only friend because I could keep up with his attitude and his occasional silent treatments. So I had to do all I could to show him that he wasn’t alone, that he didn’t have to undergo a 360 degree change like I did to please everybody else.

               Of course, it was because I didn’t mind. But you know, Myungsoo would. That’s why I didn’t let him. Myungsoo couldn’t build a wall. I refuse to let him.

               Because his wall wouldn’t even be all wall anymore. It’d be a façade. One that could never be broken. Me, I just had a wall. A nice, thin wall that could be broken and rebuilt infinite amount of times without me losing my sanity.

The next day felt like a hurricane for me. A hurricane that would just break everything down until nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing was left.

               Imagine a house. A house, with nothing else surrounding it, by itself. Four walls and a nice, flat roof. Empty inside, but heavily decorated on the outside.

               Then imagine a nice, big tornado coming and wrecking everything. From its beauty to its vacancy.

               Now, now, I know. I said hurricane, not tornado.

               So now imagine a hurricane. A hurricane coming to realize that nothing else was there for it to wreck. Oh – but there is.

               Inside the so-called ‘empty’ house, there’s a nice, little table, with a pot of flowers on it. The pot is just as decorated as the outside of the house once was.

               The hurricane wants to ruin it. Wants to just crush it to pieces, but it can’t.

               It feels pity for it. Feels pity for the beautiful house that was always ignored, and gone like a flash. The only thing left remaining for people to remember this house is that table, and that pot, and those flowers.

               Should it destroy it? It’s its job to, isn’t it? But it’s so pitiful to the point of absolutely no return.

               Think about it. If you were the hurricane…would you destroy it?

“I’m done with it. Here.”

               I was cautious, so, so cautious not to talk to Myungsoo. If I did, he’d start building a wall, and once Kim Myungsoo built a wall, there would be no going back.

               He took the portfolio from my hands without looking at me, then let out a meek, “Thank you.”

               I just nodded, knowing that he couldn’t see me, and begin to leave the door.

               Notice how I said “begin”.

               Because just then, Myungsoo decided to call aloud, “Sungyeol.”

               There I was, completely scared, so freaking confused as to whether I was supposed to listen to yesterday’s Mr. Tornado and leave, or just walk back and help out the conflicted Hurricane.

               That’s right. Look at Lee Sungyeol, using figurative language and personification.

               I backed away slowly, then stood in front of Myungsoo. “Yeah?”

               “…Can you answer my question for me?”

               “Why wouldn’t I?”

               Silence. Then… “Do I know you?”

               No , Sherlock. We’re doing the last project of our high school days together. Of course you know me.

               But I stayed silent, and he got what I was getting at.

               “I mean before. Before this.”

               “Before the project, you mean?”

               “Yeah. That.”

               “You were in a few of my classes.” That was all I was able to come up with. Otherwise, I stayed shut tight.

               “…Before.”

               “…We were in middle school together.”

               “That’s it?”

               He was so unsure of himself, like a little lost kitty. I wanted to just tell him not to think too hard, that he would never get it right.

               But you know what I hate more than anything? To be truly honest, it’s when you try to comfort somebody and all they end up doing is saying “D’aww, look at that, Sungyeol trying to be a good person and ”. Seriously. It pisses me off to no end. Why do you think I try not to be considerate of others anymore?

               “Elementary school, too.” I didn’t want to say anything else. Right now, I just felt like Aibileen talking to Skeeter about Constantine in The Help. Keep it refrained, but try to give some information.

               “Myungsoo!”

               I turned around, not all too surprised.

               Why hello there, Mr. Tornado. It’s nice to see you again. Had fun killing my reputation that was already nearly nonexistent yesterday?

               Sunggyu gave me a small wave before settling down next to Myungsoo. I tried not to spit at his face and blame him for every little insecure feeling I had yesterday, so I stayed shut. I just smiled instead.

               “What’re you guys talking about?” he asked, taking his bag off of his shoulders and laying it on the ground.

               “Nothing much, hyung,” Myungsoo replied. I knew, I knew what he was thinking. The entire scene in from yesterday was playing in his head, and if I knew Myungsoo as well as I thought I did (key word: did. Not so much anymore), then guilt would be eating him down this very moment.

               “I just finished my portion of the report,” I clarified, backing up. In all honesty, Sunggyu freaked me out. But not as much as his boyfriend, Woohyun did. Not that Woohyun had ever done anything bad to me, not as bad as Sunggyu had done yesterday, but if I had my choice, Woohyun still scared me more. He just did. There’s no way of explaining it.

               “Well, then you can go now, right?”

               Sunggyu’s voice was like an ax cutting through my skull. I nodded hurriedly, then walked out the door without thinking.

What Sunggyu told me yesterday was killing me. It made me realize something, something that I should’ve realized ages ago.

               It wasn’t Sungjong’s fault that I hated him. No, no, no, no. It was Myungsoo’s fault for leaving me for other friends. And since Sungjong was the first one, he was automatically the one that I hated the most.

               But it wasn’t Myungsoo’s fault either. It was my fault for being a lazy bum and not wanting to travel miles around the school for days looking for him. But hey, I really don’t want to be late for class. I really don’t.

               That day after school, just when I was walking home, Myungsoo caught up to me. He told me that he wanted to talk to me, but I had to make sure his little minions weren’t around as I did so.

               “What…what did Sunggyu do yesterday?”

               Um, what? When he said ‘talk’, I didn’t think he’d meant talk about this.

               “Let’s not converse about it, alright? It’s not a subject I want to get into,” I told him. My walking pace quickened, but he just followed me. Look at me. Using my vocabulary words.

               “Please tell me,” he begged quietly. “I want to know.”

               “Well you would’ve known if you’d actually come help me, wouldn’t you?” I said impulsively.

               He was quiet, because he knew that I was right. If he’d come, maybe he could’ve stopped Sunggyu from making me run into the boy’s bathroom crying.

               Shh…don’t give me that “tell-me-the-freak-that-happened” look. Because it’s embarrassing as shiz. So no, I’d rather not tell it.

               “But Sungyeol –“

               “You like black, right?” I asked him, closing my eyes and stopping.

               I didn’t have to have my eyes open to know that he was confused. His footsteps stopped, and he just stared at me. “Yeah?”

               “Well here’s a quote by Yohji Yamamoto that I just happened to memorize for you.” Happened to memorize? No.

               More like forced to memorize by him in the second grade, before we had uniforms, when I was mad at him for always wearing black.

               I opened my eyes, staring at him blank in the face. “’Black is a modest and arrogant at the same time. Black is lazy and easy – but mysterious. But above all black says this: ‘I don’t bother you – don’t bother me’.’”

The next day Myungsoo came to school, he wasn’t wearing his uniform. Instead, he was wearing all black and looked pretty hot.

               Yeah. He got dress-coded. But there was another reason he had worn that.

               A reason that only I knew.

He didn’t come to school after that. Everybody tried figuring out why, and so the teacher dug in his desk at homeroom.

               Inside there, in front of everybody, the teacher managed to pull out a nice, long piece of paper. As he read it aloud, the class shut their mouths and glanced at each other.

               Then they understood. Myungsoo didn’t want anybody to bother him.

               Nobody, not even Sungjong could figure out what the quote meant. I nearly had a laughing fit watching my best friend’s posse try to figure out how on earth it connected to him.

               Like I said…it was a reason that only I knew. And this time, I wasn’t planning on sharing it (or him) with anybody else.

I was at home by myself, streaming a live concert on my computer, waiting for it to load. Life was boring, but I could still live with it.

               From the right, I heard my phone ring. Probably my mom, now telling me that dog food was the new healthy human food and she’d bought an entire new package of it for me to eat.

               No, instead, it was somebody else. A number that I always had but ventured useless, but I’d always kept for some idiotic reason.

               Myungsoo1

               The pizza parlor?

               I picked up, answering with nothing but a simple “Hello?”

               “I figured out where it was. It’s a place in downtown Seoul. Ordered some of your favorite. Care to join me?”

               I couldn’t help but laugh. “Seriously, now? Don’t you think it’s a little too late for pizza?”

               “Hey. I’m paying. Remember, when you get home, your mom’s probably going to make you eat organic earthworms or something. You should be thanking me right now.”

               “…I think earthworms are already organic, dumbo.”

               “Hey, my ears aren’t as big as yours. In fact, they’re pretty handsome –“

               “Oh God, shut up. I’m so tired of hearing you blab on and on and on about how handsome your awkward body parts are.”

               “Well at least I’m not talking about my armpits and toes, right?”

               “You are so embarrassing…”

               “So you’re coming, then?”

               I rolled my eyes, knowing that he couldn’t see me. “Yes, Myungsoo, I am.”

               “It’s a date?”

               “It’s a date.”

               “Good, then you’re paying the bill for drinks.”

               “Wait what? You said –“

               “Neither of us are girls, so we’re splitting the bill equally. You get the drinks, I’ll pay for the pizza.”

               “…I’m thinking you ordered half a slice of pizza for the both of us and about fifty gallons of boba.”

               A chuckle. A real, Myungsoo-wise chuckle. “How’d you know?”

               “…I forgot how much I hated you for a second there.”

               “I’m glad you still remembered, then.” His voice came out a little muffled, but I knew he was grateful for me.

               “I remember? More like you wouldn’t remember.”

               “Black always works.”

               “Yes, Myungsoo,” I agreed sarcastically. “Black always works.”

THAT QUOTE.

I LOVE IT, SO, SO, SO MUCH. ♥ I really do. I wanted to write a fic based on the 'I Build Walls' poem (I absolutely love it) and that quote by Yohji Yamamoto. I'm probably going to end up writing a better one than this (because it was influenced when I found my kindergarten friend on FB and she forgot who I was D': *cries*) because this is so weird. LOL. WELL THEN. BYEBYE~♥ I'LL DO BETTER, GUYS. T.T somewhat promise it.~♥ woohoo!