He kissed me last night. Kissed me. Me. Last night.

“Yah, Hyemi!”

Snapping out of my groundless reminiscing, I squawked a little, awkwardly gaping at his brown eyes. I am still angry. At you.

“What flavour do you want?”

“Uh… just the usual pistachio, please.” I was struggling to get a grip on myself. I took my cone and we walked to the table closest to the counter. The door chime was gently rocked by the breeze, and I breathed in autumn. The shop felt peaceful, yet the serenity scarcely calmed my thoughts down. Snapshots from last night were still bombarding my head.

Kyungsoo sat across me and rested his right leg on his left thigh and shook it back and forth. I remained still and slumping down, slowly eating my ice cream.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Clearing his throat, he looked me straight in the eye for the third time today, and I succumbed into another emotional quicksand.

You should be.

“It’s alright.”

I knew my endless feigning wasn’t going to get me anywhere – it only proves how much cowardice and despair I had in my system. I was quite impressed with the way I managed to hold our friendship together and with how I controlled myself all these years around him, as I battle everyday with the undeniably strong force of my emotional Velcro.

“Good. The last thing I want is an awkward week ahead,” he said. He bit onto his ice cream cone and wiped his mouth.

“S-same here.”

Slurping my hollow thoughts away, I finished my cone. I stood up and straightened my clothes, feeling surprisingly full. I was getting ready to head out the door when he grabbed my arm swiftly.

“Are you doing anything after dinner?” Kyungsoo asked, his stare once again devouring the little strength left in my body.

“Nothing’s come up. Why?” I broke away from his grip.

“There’s a local band playing at the park tonight. Wanna come with? I want to chill out.”

Every living cell inside my body begged my conscience to refuse the invitation. I wanted to emit my anger and frustration out to him to let my emotions gradually disband from what took place last night. If you come, you’re still a coward. A big one.

“What time should I meet you?”

--

The bass was powerful, shaking the ground and penetrating my eardrums. Swarms of people roamed the domain while I strolled and searched. I stopped by a patbingsu stall and let myself in to a little treat. The taste was heavenly, the sweetness exploding all over my taste buds. I walked around for another ten minutes and circled the whole area almost three times before I caught sight of him.

I walked over to the lunatic who was flailing his right arm in the air frantically. He was wearing a plain black pullover jersey and a pair of faded jeans. His fringe was still up. With both hands inserted in his front pockets, he smiled. The lunatic looked strikingly handsome.

Thump. Thump. Thump. I wasn’t sure if that was the sound of bass dropping or my heartrate rapidly ascending.

“Annyeong,” he beamed at me, still waving his arms back and forth. My knees were at risk of toppling over.

“Annyeong,” I replied, making a mental note that I was still secretly cross with him. You’re still angry, Hyemi, don’t let your guard down and get your act together.

Finding a spot relatively close to the stage, I helped him spread the picnic blanket over the dewy lawn. I sat down facing the band and blankly watched them fiddle with their instruments and amplifiers.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, still smiling. I wondered if that was really necessary.

“I just had patbingsu while waiting for you.”

“Wow, thank you for buying me some, it’s delicious,” he said with heavy sarcasm, rolled his eyes and turned his head to the left to face me. I wondered if that was really necessary.

“I thought you didn’t like patbingsu. Babo-ya.”

He snorted. “Oh goodness, you still remember that?”

Of course I still remembered. One afternoon three years ago, while walking home, a boy confessed to my bestfriend in broad daylight in front of me. Park Chanyeol, the sly troublemaker that he is, unexpectedly took a deep breath and handed Kyungsoo a bowl of patbingsu in haste right after proclaiming his love to him by the sidewalks of downtown Gangneung. For a month, I gave both of them unimaginable crap, teasing and taunting until I was convinced Kyungsoo had started to question his own preferences.

“I wonder where he is now,” I laughed, fixing my gaze on the stage.

“Hopefully somewhere far, far away,” he chortled.

After an hour had swiftly gone by, I checked my wristwatch for the last time. The band played unfamiliar songs with highly pessimistic and conventional lyrics about love, broken hearts and resurrected relationships. The main vocalist attempted to somehow reach out and “connect” with the audience by turning his microphone towards us, clearly oblivious to the fact that they were nothing but rookies.

It was quite exhausting mentally criticising the band and fighting drowsiness at the same time. Lightheaded, I stretched my legs and decided to lie on the blanket. The sun had gone home and the skies were tinted with pink and orange again, just like yesterday.

My mind had started drifting. I began my usual contemplating and deciphering, carefully reviewing fresh incidents and memories stored inside my head – sometimes going overboard and succumbing into paranoia. I thought about the boy next to me. I thought about my feelings. I thought about my anger, and how it was slowly subsiding. I thought about my own unjustified reasons and why I kept holding on only to drown even further into my sea of emotions. I thought about the stolen first kiss, how deeply I had already fallen, and how I had convinced myself that I was in way too deep – too deep – to gather the strength to escape and swim back up to the surface.

A sudden and sharp gust of wind grazed my skin, causing my web of jumbled notions to disappear. The show was over, the band had started to clean up and people were dispersing into every direction. A crescent moon hovered over the dark, velvet sky sequined with seclusions of stars. It was breathtaking. To my surprise, Kyungsoo had started shuffling about, stretching his legs and finally propping himself down on the picnic blanket beside me. He let a huge sigh escape out of his lungs.

He was close. Too close for comfort.

“Wow,” he gaped at the sky, “so many stars tonight. It’s… pretty.”

“It is,” I bluntly responded to his child-like awe.

“I don’t know how people came up with constellations, though. Isn’t it enough to just stare all night and just get lost in them?”

He droned on and on about absurd constellations and eventually the rest of the solar system. I was amused, half-listening, stargazing the rest of my cares away. I cherished the moment, occasionally laughing and playing along with his rants. Never before had I gotten and felt so close to and with him – both physically and emotionally. Our arms were literally millimetres away from touching and it made my breathing uneven.

“Hyemi-ah?”

At the sound of my name, I tilted my head to the right, unintentionally meeting his eyes again.

“Are you cold?” he mumbled.

Thump. Thump. Thump. The band had gone home, so now I was sure it was coming from inside of me.

“I- I am a little bit,” my teeth chattered. It’s really cold.

“Here.”

He tossed me the black pullover jersey he was wearing. Underneath, he only had a very thin, long-sleeved top, but he didn’t look bothered at all. I took the jersey and spread it over my torso, instantly feeling the warmth. It smelled of him – peppermint and ocean.

“Hyemi-ah.”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I already told you it’s-”

“I kissed you because she looked so much like you.”

Uneven breathing, sweaty palms, goosebumps. I heard right and I heard what I needed to hear. I fixed my eyes on the stars – it was enough “to just stare all night and just get lost in them”. I shut my eyes and two drops of tears escaped from the left, cascading down my cheeks.

“I know.”

“Hyemi-ah.”

“Mmm?”

Kyungsoo lifted his left arm ever so gently – his left hand quietly landing on my right palm, his fingers slowly but willingly intertwining with mine.

I was still looking up, completely lost in the stars. As my thoughts danced with the beat of my heart, I’d finally convinced myself I never was angry in the first place – not even in the slightest, not even at all.