When?
Six Questions, One Answer
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When I fell in love?
In high school to the boy that all the girls wanted and only this cold unwanting girl acquired him.
“Watch out!” I remember him bellow out at me just before a thick hard lump smacked right into my lap.
It took me a second to reel back from the blow and it definitely left black bruises on my thighs the following day, but once I came to he was kneeling on the bench in front of me. The junior baseball star had actually sprinted across the field to make sure I was okay.
He apologized profusely, his face burning a bright red as he took full responsibility for the bad throw. He promised that he’d take me out on a date to make-up for his mistake. I turned him down. There was no way that I was going to let the most popular guy in school take me out. Especially since it seemed like a lame attempt to flirt with me.
“B-but I’m trying to apologize!” he insisted as he followed my retreating form down the silver bleachers.
“Sorry, but you’re gonna have to do a lot better than that to make up for the bruises that’ll show up tomorrow.” I shrugged, hugging my notebooks closer to my chest as I picked up my pace.
“What else is better than offering you a date with me?” he, unfortunately, sincerely believed that going on a date with him was God’s gift to the world. I couldn’t go out with a guy like that. I’d always hated arrogance and popularity—yes, I was a regular hipster slash rebel back in the day.
“I dunno, but you’d better figure it out unless you want this nobody’s hate on your shoulders forever.” I said just before sprinting off to my car and hauling out of the parking lot.
To be honest, I thought he’d give up. He usually always gave up when he was shown rejection. But I presented him with a challenge. I was one of the few girls that wouldn’t go out with him, one of the few girls he had no idea about because I had no one but myself to rely on in high school, he didn’t know where I live or what I liked to do for fun or if I had a boyfriend or where my favorite place to eat was. He knew next to nothing about me. And he liked that.
He’d figured out that I had been in his English class for the past 4 months, and that I was also in his Chemistry class. He always took the seat beside me. At first he didn’t strike up conversations with me, instead he simply observed me from the corner of his eye as I flipped ahead to figure out what we’d learn next, or when I’d tap my pen every time I got confused, or how my body was twisted away from him because I didn’t want to communicate with him.
Then one day he just started teasing me about my pen mannerisms. And I laughed and about his pronunciation every time he spoke in English to the teacher. Then he teased me about my green nail polish and how it reminded him of dinosaur scales and how I should paint it red because it was his favorite color. And we teased, and picked, and laughed, and snickered the rest of the day we were together, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that.
Then one day, without knowing, I found a bouquet of tea roses laying in the driver’s seat of my beaten lemon yellow car. I smiled, because they were specifically tea roses, not just normal, plain, uninspired roses. Only he could have known that. And only he could have known that I loved the secluded bubble tea shop on the far side of town, Cha Cha Tea, and that I’d been waiting for the final installment of the Harry Potter series to come in. Because that was what he’d rotated out first official/unofficial date around.
I decorated my nails with a bright red polish that night, and he wore a purple hoodie I’d never seen before and we fell in love that night.
At school the girls hated me, but I paid no mind to them. They’d never mattered before and they didn’t matter after.
He and I dated for a year and a half before we had to decide where we wanted to go. He wanted to stay in South Korea to study for Chemical Engineering while I’d always longed to travel to the states. It was a clean break up. Of course there were tears, broken hearts, and good memories that we were giving up, but we parted only wishing the best for each other.
And I admit I’ve thought of when over the years, how could one forget their first, young love? It will always be clear in your mind. The first kiss, the first hug, the first touch, the first “I love you” will always be fresh in your memory.
He was when I fell in love.
A/N: So, Sung-Gyu, Sung-Yeol, and now Woo-Hyun. Who do you guys think will be next? And who do you think that main character was talking to in the foreword? Hmm~? ^^ Thanks for reading guys!
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