We were sitting on my bed in my dorm room, our backs against the wall, our feet hanging over the edge. Swinging side to side, his toes nudged themselves up against mine. Our thighs touching beneath my comforter, he hid our intertwined hands between their warmth. His right, my left. 

Nothing seemed righter as he listened to my plans for the next upcoming weeks. Nothing all too special on my end. First and second years in the Dance program here at the university had begun the scramble to find partners for the annual Winter Spectacular. I had decided to participate this time, though on my own. I don’t know why, really. What drove me to want to dance alone up on that stage? To command it with my presence and my presence alone? Maybe Jongin had inspired me, just a bit. Maybe the fact that I hadn’t seen him since Summer inspired me, just a bit. 

I told Taemin this, and he smiled. 

“I can’t wait,” he told me, and that was that. 

“Me neither,” I agreed, bringing talk of myself to a close, squeezing his hand in that place I couldn’t see it. 

Graduation day was fast approaching, something else I’m sure he couldn’t wait for. As for whether wanting that day to come was on the top of my wish list, I was still unsure as of right now. I was happy for him. I was proud of him. I was already missing him. To what extent? I was still unsure. 

“What about you?” I asked, orienting myself towards him, entangling our legs beneath the covers, “Anything happening on your side of the fence?” Where the grass never seemed greener. 

He didn’t answer right away. He stared at me blankly instead, as though contemplating his words. Wondering if he should tell me or not. Deciding to stop thinking about it as he opened his mouth to speak. Second guessing himself as he shook his head, his lips mumbling out an empty, “Nothing all too spectacular.” 

I smiled at his decision to use that of all words, but I wasn’t deterred by his familiar charming ways — that had become ever more charming, tactful, and regrettably evasive as of late. 

“You should at least give me a chance to hear it before you decide it's not worth the trouble of telling.”

He broke down in the face of my logical reasoning, sighing heavily while knocking his head back against the wall behind us. Closing his eyes because he, without a doubt, knew I wouldn’t like what he said next. Not because it was a decision he’d made in spite of me, but rather because it was one he had made for me. All for me. 

“I was offered a teaching assistant position by an English professor with tenure here: Doctor Robertson. He wanted to work with the ‘prodigy of the English department’ everyone was talking about.” I gave him a long, eyebrow arching stare, to which he laughed, and it was a nice thing to see, “I didn’t come up with the name! Though it suits me, don’t you think?” Pulling my hand closer towards him, he smiled as he said, “But I turned him down.” 

I didn’t deserve the decision he made for me. I didn’t deserve it all. Not at all.

“I wouldn’t be able to see you as often as I do now,” he finished, admitting his selfish crime against himself. Against his own future. “I did the math,” he professed, turning towards me, tugging me closer until I could feel his heartbeat pounding against my left hand, the one he securely pulled to his chest, “and it doesn’t lean in our favor.” 

He wouldn’t tell me then, but he’d be able to spend approximately an hour and a half a day with me. Not even half of that during the busier periods of the semester — which happened often and without warning. I didn’t think I was worth it. He deserved the experience, the acknowledgements, and the respect such an opportunity offered him. I didn’t think I was worth giving all of that up. 

But, thinking about it again, did it matter what I thought?

He deemed me deserving. He deemed me worthy. Taemin did. 

Taemin, with those big, brown eyes that stared at me for approval. A look he didn’t use to give me in the past. Before, he never needed it. Before, he chased after his dreams no matter how many forbidden shortcuts he had to take — and I suppose that was the sole similarity I ever noticed between him and Jongin.

Shaking my head, I gulped down, and, “I told him he should do what he wanted to, even if it meant being selfish. Thankfully, he said he’d rethink his initial decision.”

Sara, who was listening to my story of what happened two nights before whilst dangling in that precarious position on her back, her head hanging off the edge of her bed, scoffed, “Look at you, being selfless and all that jazz.”

“I’m serious, Sara. It really bothered me.” I protested, mindlessly scrolling through international news on Naver. 

She sprung upwards immediately, eyes narrowed, hands clutching down onto one of her pillows, green in color, “It bothered you that he was willing to give something up all in order to spend time with you? You, who if he doesn’t spend time with often might just dump him again? You, who just recently broke up with his precious cousin on a whim? The fickle, indecisive you?”

“It wasn’t a whim with Jongin. You know it was more complicated than that.” I argued back, looking away from my computer screen in order to throw her a rather put-off glance, “And I’m trying to stop waffling. Why do you think I’m so firm on this: decisions Taemin’s making for his future?”

“I get it, I get it.” She bent under my gaze, laying back down on her back, knocking her heels against the wall no matter how many times the two girls who lived next door would chew her ear off for it the next time they saw her, “You know me, just always trying to give you a hard time.”

“I wouldn’t have you any other way.” I really wouldn’t. 

Changing the subject at the drop of a hat, segueing whether the conversation had come to a sensible transition or not as per usual, she sat up again, a serious — borderline life-or-death — look on her face, “Since we’re best buds again, how about you help me figure out how to avoid Baekhyun today?”

“What’d he do this time?”

“He invited me out for ice cream after class today.”

“I’m not sure I see the problem. You love ice cream.” I turned back towards my computer in my seat at our shared desk, only to have her stand up, close the distance between us with two firm stomps, and spin me around by my shoulders. 

“That’s just it! He’s figured out my weakness! Food!”

I laughed as she shook me back and forth, envious of her for more than just a handful of reasons.

She abruptly let go of my shoulders, dusting them off gingerly, and whilst batting her eyelashes and sticking out her pink-tinted lips, she asked, “So can I borrow your bus card?” She looked like a goldfish searching for someone to kiss. With Baekhyun in mind, I laughed for a second time at the apt simile. 

“How does that lead to this?” I pointed into the air at one nonexistent thing, and then another; at seemingly nothing, and yet seemingly everything.

“Well he doesn’t have a car and you know I lost my bus pass last week.”

My lips parted when I realized what she was getting at. I nodded my head knowingly, “So you’re going with Baekhyun for ice cream then.”

“You didn’t exactly give me many choices as to what else I could do. All you did was laugh at me, which is basically like you saying, ‘Oh, Sara, you poor soul, how I love to watch you wallow in miserable embarrassment for my own amusement.’”

I bent over, ignoring her claim — that may or may not have been true — to instead open the lower right drawer of our desk, going to work on her request immediately. Sara and I always stuff things into this particular drawer when we no longer need them. It’s mostly paper related items: schoolwork, newspaper pages, and the like. It’s been getting quite full lately, something I only notice as I open it now. How long had it been since we’d emptied it?

“I’m sure you’ll have a great time.” I laughed for the third time, only to have her give me a firm slap on my shoulder for my insinuating tone. 

“Blah blah blah, hurry with the bus pass producing.” She walked over to her dresser, beginning her own search for something she’d forgotten about. 

“Give me a second, you know I haven’t used it in awhile.” I mumbled back, shuffling through page after page of ink, the thought that I might just get a paper cut if I’m not careful, and many at that, causing me to slow down by the time I was halfway through.

“Okay,” she sang out as she slipped on what she was looking for: cute, blue and yellow striped socks.  

I pushed past the fresh batch of graded assignments and the fresher batch of fashion magazines, digging deep down to the bottom of the pile, feeling around for that familiar slip of plastic. When my fingers squeaked past a smooth surface, I seized the moment immediately. I grabbed hold of what my fingertips only momentarily brushed past and yanked it from the box full of forgotten slips of papers. Not noticing I was wrong, that what I had in my hand now wasn’t my bus pass in the least, I almost handed it over to Sara. 

Almost. 

I almost forgot about last winter. About the Christmas present I received from the boy named Park Chanyeol. About the impending season soon to arrive once more. 

I quickly stashed it, that picture of him in front of his computer, eyes widened in slight surprise, lips parted to say my name in protest. Slipping it into the pocket of my white cardigan, I cleared my throat and said, “Weird.”

“What’s weird?” Sara asked absentmindedly as she zipped up her jacket, getting ready for her “ice cream date” with Baekhyun — though she’d never be caught dead calling it that. 

“I can’t find it.”

“What?” She dragged out, complaining about my feeble attempt to look in the first place.

But it wasn’t feeble. I had tried. I had tried until I was tired of trying. Up until this point, that’s all I’ve been doing. 

I just couldn’t find it anymore. 

Indecisiveness had apparently become a habit at this point.

Taemin didn’t end up letting go of his TA opportunity. At my behest, at my promise nothing would change if he did, he decided he’d do it after all. The next thing I knew, it was the middle of October. The leaves were beginning to fall. The trees looked barren and battered on our evening walks around campus. He was seeing better now without his thick-framed glasses since his optic surgery back at the end of September — yet another thing I pushed him into. He was busier lately as he prepared for his impending graduation date at the end of December. He was constantly writing or grading something or other. His only free time were those moments we walked hand in hand, early in the morning and late at night. 

He liked to call these times the “Highlights” of his day with a wide smile on his face, laughing surely at how ridiculous we both knew he sounded. 

Seeing him pursue his dreams without holding back made me happy. 

Seeing that he was doing it all while that familiar red scarf was wrapped tightly around his neck sent me over the moon.

As if that wasn’t enough, his affection was unceasing. 

He liked to kiss me each night as we passed by “our” bench and that large, off limits patch of green, precisely twelve seconds after it came into view. Never before, never after, always right at that moment.

And he’d walk me back to my dorm with his arm around my shoulders. He’d sigh after each long day, smile as though he wasn’t able to since he last saw me, and say as though to himself, “This is nice.” I’d agree with him with a soft mumble of, “Yeah.” 

We fell into a habitual routine that was hard to break. 

A/N: Inspired by RAC's "Let It Go." I'd like to pick your brain for your thoughts about this Fall season thus far. Feel free to pour it all out below. I'll gratefully scoop it up. (Sidenote: I will be focusing solely on this story until I finish it. Get ready for steady, feel-filled updates!)