Sunlight pricked at your eyes to open. Open, open. Your brain was telling you to wake up. But your body wanted to stay warm under the covers. You drifted back to sleep…

There was someone in the kitchen… Cooking? But you didn’t smell anything. This whole image was quite fuzzy. Mom..? Maybe it was your older brother… You tried to move to get a better view, but, why was it so hard to lift up even a muscle? Then you heard the phone ringing. The person inside the kitchen went to pick it up. It was still hard to see them but you could see that it was a guy. It was your brother… Why wasn’t he picking up the phone? He let it ring. He stood in front of it for a little while longer before going back to what he was doing before. Pick up the phone. It’s ringing! Don’t you hear it? Don’t you hear the phone ringing, brother? You tried hard to move but it was useless. You wanted to answer the phone so badly…

Your eyes burst open before you realized that was all a dream. You blinked a few times when you became conscious of the fact that your eyes had watered a little. You turned off the ringing that sounded from your phone’s alarm. You got up slowly to look at yourself in the mirror. You wiped the corners of your eyes gently. You ran a hand through your hair. Bed head. You made funny faces at your own reflection before tapping your facial cheeks. “Today is going to be a good day!” you said to yourself. After freshening up and dressing out of your pajamas into more casual clothes, you grabbed your things and headed out the door.

“Aah!” you screamed when you saw that you had almost stepped on your neighbor’s cat that was sleeping on your doormat. The cat stretched as you shooed it awake and walked away to go back to sleep on its own mat. You sighed at the lazy cat but then slightly wished that you could be her for a day. When you turned a left outside the gate to head over to the music store, you almost screamed again when you saw Chen standing there, leaning against the wall. You covered your mouth before anything was vocalized.

He turned after noticing you. “Hey ________.”

You just stood there, completely at a loss for words.

“What? Are you surprised?”

You just nodded slightly, your hand still covering your mouth. You noticed that his hands were held behind his back.

He chuckled. “That’s good. I wanted to surprise you.” He looked at the ground and cleared his throat while covering his mouth with his fist.

You finally found your voice. “What… are you doing here?”

“I told you I wanted to see you again. And… even though it was only a few days ago that I saw you, it’s just that… Today, I really wanted to see you.”

You let out a nervous laugh. “Sorry, this is really sudden. And, I have to get to work soon.”

“Oh, really?” he looked a little disappointed. “How dumb of me to assume you’d be free.”

“Why would you think that? …You’re not dumb.”

“Well it is Saturday… and I guess I thought you wouldn’t have anything to do today.”

“I’m sorry to say that I am kind of busy today.”

With that, you stepped to the side and then proceeded to walk past him… awkwardly. You slowed down a bit when he wasn’t saying anything. How utterly awkward this whole situation was. He had shown up and waited who knows how long and here you were trying to escape.

It’s not like you wanted to leave him but what else were you supposed to do? Ditch work to hang out with Chen all day? Oh, that idea seemed too good to be true. The old man would scold me and fire me, yet again, only to re-hire me because he doesn’t trust anyone else working his shop or getting close to his own collection of records. You didn’t want to do that to the old man anyways. You liked working there anyways. You decided to go to the store no matter what Chen did or said.

You heard him call your name. “Where do you work?” he ran to your side and followed your pace of walking.

“What are you planning on doing?” you eyed him suspiciously.

“Hmm… well I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay but I’ll stay with you… wherever you’re going.” His eyes smiled.

You turned to look forward. “I work at a music store. Part-time though.”

“Oh, part-time? What? Are you a student the rest of the time?”

“Yes.” You found yourself laughing at the fact that he had guessed it right.

“Really? That must be tough.”

“Not really. Well, I’ve been doing this for a little over a year now. It’s not that bad. I like it so far.”

Chen admired that nostalgic look in your eye that matched your smile. But he could tell something else was there behind your words. He wanted to ask ‘Were you lonely during that time?’ but chose not to.

You two were already at the entrance of the music store. He looked up at the sign.

“So this is it, huh?”

You frowned. “Are you judging me?”

He looked frantic since it wasn’t his intention at all to upset you. “No, no. I’m just.. saying..”

 Your face didn’t change.

“OK, I’ll stop.” He proceeded to inspect the ground in shame.

You laughed. “I’m just kidding, Chen. Don’t be too easy.” You patted his shoulder.

You pulled your hand away promptly when you saw him react. You cleared your throat and looked into the store when he had raised his head.

“Anyways, I don’t know if you can stay here the entire time. The old man will probably think you’re a customer, at first, and then see you’re not here to buy anything and make you leave.”

“We’ll see about that.” he said with a smirk and walked into the store. You sighed and followed in after him.

The bell of the door made a ding noise as the two of you walked in. Chen looked around and was in awe of all the old music set out on all the shelves and the many kinds of instruments displayed against the walls. The usual tune of light classical jazz was playing inside the store.

You made your way behind the counter, took off your coat to hang on the chair, and placed your bag on a shelf behind you. You took your seat on the stool behind the register. “Like it?”

Chen turned his attention away from the instruments back to you. “Yeah… it’s pretty cool.” He stretched out his hands and positioned them to look like he was taking a picture of you. “Click! You look cool sitting there too.”

“________!! Is that you? Are you finally here?!” the old man’s voice called out as he walked out from the back door. His eyes were already glaring at you.

“Don’t look so malicious this early on a Saturday, Jin.” you took your two index fingers to your own face, lifting up the corners of your mouth to imitate a smile. “Like this, like this.”

“Aish, using your weird words again. What hav—,” old man Jin stopped when he finally noticed Chen. His eyebrows weren’t furrowed anymore. He put on one of his fake, business-man smiles.

“Hello~! Are you looking for something?” he quickly made his way around the stacks and boxes of CDs to stand in front of Chen. 
Chen slightly looked down; Jin was a pretty short guy. You had to cover your laugh at the comparison.

Chen introduced himself. “Hello sir. I’m not looking for something in particular… Just.. uh—browsing.” He glanced at you, then back at Jin.

Jin kept his smile on, hiding his annoyance. “Ah, okay, okay. Please don’t hesitate to ask for any assistance.”

“Jin, you’re going to scare him away. Why is it whenever I bring a friend here, you terrify them into buying something?” you said loudly.

Jin scowled at you, walking away from Chen towards you. “This is your friend? Why didn’t you tell me first?”

When he got up closer to you, he whispered, “He’s too good-looking for you.” Your mouth dropped as you scoffed.

“Whatever. Just watch the register.” he tapped the register and made his way towards the back room.

Chen walked over to you and rested his arms against the counter. “He seems… nice.”

You crossed your arms. “I guess.”

“You seem to have a good relationship with him. He trusts you enough.”

You nodded. This was true. Jin had only hired you because he knew he was getting old and needed help around the shop. You became his only employee; the only person on his payroll and you both sort of grew on each other with each passing day. The snarky comments shared between you two was merely out of a kind-of-twisted friendship.

“Is this what you do all day at work?” Chen looked over the counter to see another chair next to your stool.

“Well, first of all, I’m not here all day. Just for 4 or 5 hours. And yep, all I do is sit here and watch the shop. Jin comes out every now and then to restock some stuff or bring out new shipments. But mostly, he stays in the back… and sleeps or eats.. or watches TV… or a combo of the three.”

Chen sat in the chair next to your stool. “I see… So, not too many people stop by?”

You shook your head. “Not really. If there is customers, it’s usually one of Jin’s friends or the same people who buy CDs regularly from us.”

“At least you have regulars! That’s a good thing.”

You shrugged. “I guess.”

You could tell Chen was trying to cheer you up seeing that talking about business was putting you into a low mood.

He stood up and wandered about the shop a little more. Something in the back corner caught his eye.

“What’s this?” he called out to you from the other side of the store.

You got up from your stool and started walking over to him. You could see him over the shelves of albums. He put his hand on it. He lifted up the beige tarp that was covering it.

“It’s a piano.” His smile showed his joy in finding the instrument.

You nodded as you stood next to the piano, placing your hand on the tarp as he was trying to take it off.

“Don’t!” you gasped. He looked alarmed.

“Why not? Am I not allowed to touch it?”

“The old man says it’s an antique. Even I’m not allowed to touch it.” You cross your arms signifying your resolve in the decision to not play around with the piano anymore. You saw Chen’s eyes change as he put on a mischievous smile on. You couldn’t stop him fast enough before he revealed the keys of the piano by lifting only that part that the tarp was covering.

A tiny chill went up your spine as he dared to press a single key. Ding.

The only sound that was made.

You had tried to stop Chen from touching the piano keys but ended up tripping on the front leg of the piano. Your arm was stretched out already and you had already started falling. Chen reacted quickly, grabbing your arm and using that momentum to let you fall into him.

The next thing you knew, your arms were around Chen’s neck. His arms held you from falling onto the keys of the piano. You felt his hands, one on your back, one on your waist.

If he hadn’t caught you, your bum would be all over those piano keys, making the most horrible noise which would wake up the old man and he would make you regret it a thousand lifetimes over.

You slowly opened your eyes, already knowing what you would be seeing. Even though you were expecting it, you still weren’t prepared.

Chen’s face was centimeters away from yours. So close…

You took this millisecond of a moment to marvel at his nose, the corner of his right eye, his lightly pink cheek, the curve of his parted lips.

You gulped and then totally regretted that gulp, feeling like that was the loudest you’ve ever gulped in your entire existence. You felt like any kind of noise would seem loud in the quiet of this moment.

You felt his hand very, very slightly move up. You couldn’t look him in the eyes, you just couldn’t. Your arms that were still wrapped around his neck wouldn’t budge either. Your gaze focused on his shoulder for some reason. But you felt his stare the whole time.

Suddenly, you sensed his face leaning faintly towards yours. You definitely felt his hands move too.

No, this can’t be happening. No, no…

You cleared your throat and turned your head away just a tiny bit. You had to force some nerve into your arms to force your hands to unclasp from each other. As you brought your arms down from him, he removed his hands away from you also. He took a step back away from you.

“Sorry…” his voice was faint.

You only shook your head a little, not even knowing if he saw you. You turned to pull the tarp back to cover the piano. He had walked back towards the counter. Only the classical jazz that played in the store was heard.

You patted down the uneven folds of the tarp so that everything would be as it was originally. You turned to look at the counter. You saw Chen had cross-folded his arms onto the counter and put his head facedown.

Aww… You felt bad. The situation replayed in your head as you walked towards him, trying to block out what you were thinking or feeling and tap into what must have been going on in his mind. You bit your lip as you approached him. He knew you were standing in front of him but he didn’t raise his head.

You didn’t care what was going to happen anymore. Every time this awkward silence came up between you two, you hated it. You tapped Chen on the shoulder. You took a breath as you leaned your forearms against the counter, right in front of him. Your arms touching his own. You saw him slowly raise his head. You couldn’t help but break into a smile when you saw that he had made a small indentation in his forehead from lying on the zipper in his jacket sleeve.

He was quite surprised to see you so close to him… again. He wondered why you had started chuckling.

His confused face was so adorable, you couldn’t take it. You lightly touched the mark on his head.

Chen, still unaware of the fact that you were laughing at his sleeping mark, touched your forehead in response. You flinched in surprise. He didn’t take away his hands though and you didn’t move away anymore. Your eyes met his as his hand lightly caressed your cheek. You didn’t have to move as he adjusted closer to you and held you by your chin. You didn’t care anymore, no more holding back. You felt his lips touch yours first; time seemed to have stopped but everything was right.   

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a/n: FEELS.