The tone embedded in his voice was neither passive nor aggressive, so it was a challenge to decipher whether he was relishing in taunting me or merely being respectful by getting technical and specific. All jarring thoughts aside, I was indisputably intrigued by Kim Jongin.

Not long after, I stepped out of the bus at my own stop. The chilly autumn breeze accompanying the rain was deeply invigorating to the senses.

As I entered through our front gate and walked over to the veranda, muffled, elated laughs filtered through our brick walls. I pushed the front door open and let myself in to find my parents lazily sprawled all over the couch in hysterics. An old sitcom was replaying on TV. They didn’t seem to take notice of my presence, so my mother carried on flailing her limbs in the air, viciously kicking her poor husband in the process. It was quite a sight, and it didn’t take a quantum physicist to draw the conclusion that they were a happily married couple. At the raw age of five, I’d told myself I needed to have what my parents had when I grow up.

And I stood halfway on the agonizing road to my ultimate aspiration – I’d grown up, but it was going to take – at the very least – a miracle or two so I could live the dream and marry the man I love.

Do Kyungsoo.

“I’m home,” I hollered, quickly deciding to rid myself of the pessimistic notions starting to accumulate.

“Oh, hi, honey!” my mother jumped up from the settee and frantically smoothed her hair down. “How was your day?”

“It was… good, actually,” I replied. I meant it. It rained and I think I made a new friend – an interesting one.

“Well, that’s great,” she beamed. “Do you want to join us? The show is still so hilarious!”

I politely refused her hard-to-resist offer due to the upcoming and cursed end-of-semester examinations. Besides, I wasn’t really intending to ruin their little date since downtime was scarce at this time of year. What with both of them being so caught up with work commitments and everything, I told myself to head upstairs, study hard and make them proud instead. It was the least any child could do for the people who brought them into the world, really.

The following morning, I met my brand new acquaintance, Kim Jongin, in 505 again. His ears were conveniently occupied with earphones and I could tell he was thoroughly enjoying his music as he loosely bobbed his head in all directions. I took my receipt from the bus driver and found myself sitting next to him.

“Oh, annyeong… noona.”

So he was going to persist with this “noona” business.

He wore yet another smirk on his perfectly tanned face. Glancing at him from the side allowed me access to the perfect angle to grasp how substantially chiselled his jaws were. They looked quite… endearing.

“What?” he spluttered, looking bemused.

“Will you please stop calling me that?” I shot a stern look at him.

“Calling you what?” he stammered, looking extremely lost and bewildered.

“’Noona’. Stop calling me ‘noona’,” I shifted my gaze back to my lap and started inanely picking my nails.

“Aren’t you older than me, noona?”

I was getting rather aggravated by his child’s play but I chose to take the “sensible” path so I shut my mouth. I thought I heard him scoff a little.

“Why do you want me to stop?” he queried out of the blue, probably sensing I’d gone awfully quiet. We were still roughly five minutes away from the campus so I figured I had to respond somehow.

“Because it’s strange and if you hadn’t already understood yet, we’re both eighteen years old,” I replied in the calmest way I was capable of.

“My parents raised me to be polite and address my elders properly,” he snickered.

The day went so painfully slow, what with Jongin bombarding me with greetings whenever I passed by him in the corridors in between classes. Revision sessions did not make it any less excruciating.

“Annyeong, noona!”

“How’s it going, noona?”

“Noona, study hard!”

I wasn’t sure what game he was playing at and I didn’t seem to give a toss either. All I needed was for him to cut the ‘noona’ business out, because it was extremely irritating to the bones.

--

I prayed to thank the heavens when Jongin didn’t board the bus home. Apparently, he stayed with Kyungsoo after school to attend soccer club practise. I loathed the very idea of sports, but I never thought this day would come – sporting activities serving me to my advantage.

Getting home, I was informed it was my turn to prepare dinner and despite my pitiable cooking abilities, my parents were kind enough to deem the food adequate for human consumption. I was halfway through my first helping of bibimbap when the doorbell rang to life.

“I’ll get it,” Dad volunteered and headed to the front door.

I heard the door latch unlocking, followed by faint murmurs. I was on my last spoonful when light footsteps approached. As I sniffed, a whiff of peppermint tickled my nostrils. I stopped chewing.

Peppermint.

Slowly looking up from my rice bowl, the scent became more and more recognisable. Right before my eyes stood a familiar figure, his doe-eyes squinting merrily at me.

Do Kyungsoo.

“Surprise!” he greeted. My heart somersaulted. Twice.

“W-what are you doing here?” I asked, unconsciously letting my chopsticks slip away from my fingers.

“Come Kyungsoo-ah, sit down,” my mother invited him to the table and set up a rice bowl and some chopsticks for the unexpected company.

“Annyeong,” he waved to me and took the seat across where I was sitting down. He looked very much like a little kid, and his smile would forever remind me of our childhood antics during middle school.

“What’s the surprise for?” I posed, snapping out of the sudden reminiscing.

“My parents are getting our kitchen renovated so unfortunately, for the next few weeks, the house is going to be a bit noisier than usual, and so I thought I’d ask your parents if I could study here,” Kyungsoo remarked and helped himself to some of my bibimbap.

“I thought it would be nice since it’s been a while,” Dad smiled.

It has been a while. A couple of moons ago, two highschool freshmen would barge in our front door almost every weekday straight after school, racing and panting to the kitchen to receive the honour of blessing their stomachs with Mrs Park’s homemade ddeokbokki before heading upstairs to bury their heads in school books. Kyungsoo and I were great study mates. Thick textbooks, the excellent smell of flashcards hot off our home printer, scattered refill paper and taking turns in reciting the entire periodic table still lingered in the walls of my subconscious.

But before both of us knew it, girlfriends, sporting commitments, student council duties, late night juvenile revelries and senior year happened. Things weren’t quite the same, and it was during those years that I was slapped in the face with the agonizing truth – it was time to grow up. We remained bestfriends and talked but I started to hold back because of the rapid progression of my emotions. Kyungsoo had drifted away from me and me from him.

Then he decided to take my first kiss away and intimately hold my hand under the stars.

And shortly, we were going to study upstairs.

In the comfort of my own room.

Alone.