The wind was icy, cutting through my skin. I tucked both my hands into the side pockets of my jeans, accelerating my pace, and lost in an attempt to produce extra body heat. I kept myself amused and watched the water vapour escape out of my lungs. Deciduous trees looming over the front entrance of the campus were now completely , shouting that winter was just around the corner. And so were exams.

As I was reminded of the dreaded assessments, my mind drifted away to last night’s post study session. I chuckled to myself as I remembered Kyungsoo’s “intimidating” face that was still so freshly engraved on my brain. Then I thought about how my heart pumped blood and bliss as he came close, as he tickled me, and as I grabbed his hand to help him up. Like a hyped little kid waiting for her favourite cartoon series to air, I looked forward to studying tonight.

With him.

And the next thing I knew, sweat beads were forming across my temples. It was amazing how pleasant thoughts altered the weather altogether. Suddenly it was a fine, summer afternoon.

“Noona, wait up!”

My sudden daydreaming was obnoxiously interrupted by a panting Kim Jongin. Sun-kissed face swathed with a wide smile, he sprinted towards me from behind.

“Annyeong… noo… na,” he greeted with uneven breaths, water vapour filling the space between us.

“Annyeong,” I forced a smile and tried to shrug off the noona business. He was close to breaching my tolerance levels.

“Bus… coming,” he panted.

Surprisingly, the bus was punctual and almost empty. The only passengers inside were an ahjumma snugly wrapped in a knitted scarf, along with a snoozing local supermarket employee. I sat by the window and started to lose myself in the blank and moistened canvas. Out of habit, I always wrote my name, scribbled my signature and printed DKS tagged with a smiley face. I was utterly oblivious to Kim Jongin’s infamous smirk until he pressed the buzzer. We hadn’t passed Gustavo’s yet so I wondered where he was headed to.

“Where are you off to?” I stopped doodling to ask.

“Noona, I have a-”

“Will you please stop calling me that,” I rolled my eyes hard and turned to the window again, irritated.

“Okay, I’ll stop.”

I breathed a sigh of relief with a tinge of gratitude.

“I’ll stop if you come with me. Deal?”

Dazed, I shot him a look. He scoffed a little, his hopeful brown eyes waiting for a response. What on earth was he up to now?

“Deal? Come with you? Where?”

Edging closer to me, he grabbed my wrist with his right hand and hoisted his duffel bag strap on his shoulder with his left. The driver gently pushed the brakes as the bus decelerated and came to a halt. Jongin pulled me up and dragged me to the exit.

“Here.”

Now even more caught in a daze, I was yanked out of the bus. We were in the middle of downtown Gangneung, surrounded by street food stalls, elementary students and office people. Slowly sinking back into normalcy, I pulled my wrist from his grasp and turned to face him.

“Excuse me, but what are you doing?” I snapped. My bewilderment was now evolving into rage.

“Hyemi, just come with me,” he uttered and snatched my arm, dragging me away from the bus stop. His grip was so strong so I couldn’t budge.

“Where are we going?” I yelled. It was quite loud considering I managed to turn some heads towards our direction.

“You’ll see.”

After a lengthy series of pulling, dragging and yelling, we arrived at Wonderland’s main entrance. It had been some time since I’d gone, the last time being with my parents when I was around twelve. I had no clue that the theme park still operated because running into me downtown was extremely scarce. Jongin kept a hold of me until we’d reached the ticket office.

“Two please,” he told the lady at the stall and swiftly grabbed two ten thousand won bills out of his tattered leather wallet. Handing the money out, he took the tickets and we made our way inside.

I was exhausted and my feet felt badly battered. I could already sense the bloody callouses sprouting around my ankles and under my toes.

“What are we doing here, Jongin?” my tone was nowhere near friendly and polite.

“We’re going to watch my cousin.”

The absurdity of his awfully vague responses was maddening to the bones. Drawing an extra heavy sigh, I just shut my mouth and trotted along behind him to conserve the little energy left in my system. The cold didn’t help at all.

Turning a couple of corners and passing by a couple of rides, we arrived in front of a set stage adorned with balloons, banners and theatrical light bulbs. Presumably, a band was going to perform, since five guys were fiddling with amplifiers, guitars, microphone stands and a shiny red drumset on the stage.

A somewhat cheery Wonderland employee came up to us with an exaggerated “Hey there!” and ushered us to the audience seats. I collapsed down on a chair and stretched my legs to ease some of the pain.

“Hyemi-ssi,” Jongin coughed. I barely noticed that he was using formalities due to my sore limbs. No more “noona” this and “noona” that.

Then I remembered his little negotiation in the bus.

“I’ll stop if you come with me. Deal?”

“What do you want?” I groaned, leaning my head back on the seat.

 “Mic test, 1, 2, 3. Check.”

Before he could respond, the band commenced their showcase with a first song that sounded oddly familiar. I couldn’t recall where I heard it before, but I thought his cousin must be a bit prominent if the band’s songs had already played on the radio.

And then the main vocalist gave it away.

Yanking the microphone off of its stand, he started walking back and forth across the reasonably wide stage as the of the chorus approached. Then, he pointed the device towards the almost lifeless audience, obviously expecting us to sing along.

Rookie band.

I chuckled to myself. This determined band member was Kim Jongin’s cousin. His movements and gestures were flawlessly identical to that from their performance in the domain when I was with Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo.

“Hey, what time does this end?” I shot up, startled at the thought of my bestfriend.

“I’m not sure. Around seven?” Jongin shrugged. “Why? You don’t like-”

“Study,” I mumbled. I looked at my wristwatch. 5.43 pm. He and I had agreed to start at six.

“Oh, right. I’ll- I’ll take you home.”

“No, no, it’s fine I can-”

“It’s okay. It’s dark so I should take you home.”

Ditching the band right in the middle of their song, we exited the theme park grounds and caught the next bus home. It was taking a completely different route from the one we rode from the campus, so I figured it was going to stop at my street first.

The ride was uncomfortably awkward because neither of us spoke for the first five minutes. Then it dawned on me that I most probably had just spoilt his cousin’s performance for him. I was no fan of any guilt trip, so I decided to act civilised and apologise promptly.

“Hey, look, I’m really sorry we had to leave,” I murmured, picking my nails habitually.

“So this is how much you like him, huh?” Jongin smirked for the umpteenth time today.

“What- like- who-” I could feel myself turning flustered. How did he even know? Jongin scoffed and shook his head at me in disapproval.

“Well, you see, I originally asked Kyungsoo to come with me,” he explained, “but then he said he couldn’t because you two had a study session.”

At the thought of him turning down a friend’s almost irresistible offer to loosen up merely to study with me, my heartbeat gradually raced.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Oh” was all I could muster to say.

Jongin insisted that he walked me all the way to our front gate because it was dark, so he got off the bus with me. I was actually relieved that he offered to, as I was heavily paranoid in having to pass a short alley way at night.

“So are we… friends, now?” Jongin asked out of the blue, scratching the back of his neck lightly.

“I thought we already were?” I looked up at him and gave him a smile.

And for the very first time, Kim Jongin didn’t smirk at me – he warmly smiled back.

Safely arriving home, I slightly bowed to Jongin to express my sincere gratitude. He bowed back, smiling, and suddenly the intimidating and irritating Busan friend from just a few hours ago was replaced by a rather coy gentleman. As he was about to walk away, a familiar figure approached from the right and called out.

“Hyemi-ah.”

Squinting my eyes to get a clearer sight, the figure came closer, and a slight whiff of peppermint and ocean teased my nose.

Do Kyungsoo had arrived.