→ M I N H E E

I laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling. I woke up just about an hour ago, and knowing me, once I've woken up, I can't go back to sleep. I didn't exactly know what time it was because my room was so dark and the sun hasn't even rised yet, so I guessed that that meant that it was probably around 3 to 4am.

I was way too scared to get up and go turn on the light, so I just basically laid there on my bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars that I remember my mom putting up when I was five years old. I remember the first time that I got my hands on those ers, right away, I asked my mom to stick them up onto my ceiling so that I could see them glow at night.

After a week of begging and nagging her to, she finally did it and I was happier than ever. Something about the glowing stars just made it easier for me to sleep, and according to my mom, I never woke up crying- ever again. What a miracle that must've been for her.

I glanced around the room, everything was dark. Like, completely black. With an imagination like mine, I could imagine the most hideous and frightening things in the world, making me even more scared of the dark. 

I slowly let myself drift off in my own thoughts, trying to get my mind off of the hideous and frightening things that were probably sitting in my brain, waiting for me to imagine. The first thing that I thought of was, of course, Jongin. Oh, how I missed him. I never knew that flying away to Beijing would make me want him more, I thought that it'd help me get over him, but boy, was I wrong.

The next thing that I thought about was Yixing. I felt pretty bad, knowing that he liked me and all. I wasn't stupid, I knew when a guy liked me and when a guy didn't. But when it came to Jongin, it was pretty hard to tell. I remembered that one day in the car with Jongin, when we were discussing about our first loves after Jonghyun's birthday party. I thought that Jongin was my first love, when really, he wasn't. Yixing was.

I was too in love with Jongin at the moment to realize that he, in fact, was not my first love. He was actually my second. Yixing, well, even though we were children, we still had strong emotions for each other. That's why my grandmother wanted me to marry him so badly, it wasn't because his grandmother and my grandmother were close friends and they wanted their grandchildren to grow up and have a future together, it was because she could tell that we had something together.

But once I moved to Seoul, all of the memories kind of flushed out of my head, and I never really thought about Yixing that much. Until now, that is. All of the guilt suddenly started to eat me from the inside out, and I was feeling so horrible. It suddenly hit me- that day on the playground with Yixing, the day before I left Beijing. We made a promise with each other, and I broke that promise. I broke it, like, not even a minor breaking, but a major. I majorly broke it, and now, I was being eaten alive with guilt.

Sweat started to drip from my forehead as I thought about that one day on the playground, the promise we made, everything. The memories started coming back, combining with memories of Jongin, and now I was starting to feel myself hyperventilate, wanting to scream and throw everything; everywhere. 

I couldn't take the guilt that was literally eating away at my soul, I probably deserved all of this. I broke a promise, a promise that probably meant so much to Yixing, a lot more than it had meant to me. I was such a selfish person, and I couldn't help but put myself down. 

I threw the blanket off of me violently as I sat up. The frightening and hideous thoughts came into my mind and immediately, my fear struck me and I grabbed the blanket that I had thrown off of me and slung it back over my head. For a second, the cool air that was trapped inside of the blanket calmed me down, but that only lasted for about a matter of seconds before it was replaced with hot air.

I removed the blanket from my face; it still covered my body and all, but my face stuck out. I had to let myself breathe, I couldn't suffocate myself. Sure, I felt horrible at the moment, but I'm not going to suffocate myself. 

I closed my eyes, and hoped that I would somehow just end up falling back asleep again. I swore that another hour passed by during the time that I closed my eyes, because right when I opened them, I was greeted by a little bit of sunlight that was piercing through my window. My eyes immediately shot open, and my heart nearly pounced with joy. Never in my life have I ever been so happy to see sunlight.

I looked out the window, there were birds nesting by a tree, and I saw a figure standing below that tree. I squinted my eyes, and due to my bad eyesight, I couldn't really make out what the blurry figure was. I knew that it was a person, but I didn't know who the person was. Before I could even let it go and lay back down in my bed, I saw the person waving at me and jogging towards my window.

My heart skipped a beat as I watched the figure approach me. I didn't know who it was; what if it was some killer or something? No, there can't be a killer in this neighborhood. Luhan told me that it was 100% safe. I looked at the figure again before closing my eyes and praying to God. Okay, please let this be someone that I know, and not a serial killer. 

When I opened my eyes, it took me a couple of seconds before my blurred vision was gone and I could actually make out who the figure was. I stared at the figure, and it stopped right below my window. I stared at it some more. Yixing? 

"Hey! What are you doing up so early?" I heard him call out. After hearing his voice, I had no doubt that it was him. It had to be him.

"I'm just- you know, I-" I couldn't think of an excuse as to why I was up so early. I couldn't just say 'Oh, you know. I'm scared of the dark and I've been up for nearly two hours. What aboout you?' 

"Couldn't sleep?" Yixing raised an eyebrow. I didn't see him raise an eyebrow, but I could tell that he was doing it.

I nodded, "Something like that."

"Come down here, let's talk." he smiled. I nodded, again. I hoped that my grandma wasn't awake, because she would be throwing tons of questions at me, asking me why I was up, where I was going, and what I was doing going outside this early in the morning.

I walked downstairs, only to see that the whole living room was completely empty and no one was in sight. I sighed to myself in relief. Although there was a little bit of sun, the living room didn't have any windows, so the whole place was completely dark. I couldn't help but think of all of the hideous and frightening things again, but I quickly wiped that out of my mind as I sprinted towards to what I believed was the front door.

I grabbed the knob and unlocked the door, and when I opened it, I was greeted with light, and an overly-happy looking Yixing. I smiled at him and greeted him. I combed my hair with my fingers, which didn't really help the knotty hair much, and tried to keep my distance away from him so that he didn't smell the aroma of my sweat. After all, I've been laying in bed for about two hours, in complete darkness, feeling like I was about to get turned into stew or something.

"Keeping your distance away from me?" he asked, almost like he was reading my mind.

"No! It's just that, I was- uh- I just woke up, and I-" I couldn't help but stutter. I was really not good at lying when it came to this early in the morning.

Yixing chuckled, "Hey. I was kidding. Don't get too worked up over it."

I nodded.

"So, why're you up so early?" I asked him, trying to change the subject.

"I'm always up this early." Yixing shrugged.

I took note of that. He took long walks out late at night, and now I learned that he takes long walks out early in the morning. Does this boy even sleep? 

"Aren't you tired? You know, going to sleep late and waking up this early?" I asked him.

He shook his head, "Got used to it." 

"Oh." was all I could make out as I took note of how relaxed I was. The neighborhood was extremely quiet, and no car would ever zoom by at full speed. It was a small, quiet, and very calm neighborhood, that almost made you feel too safe. Too safe wasn't good to me, because if you got too used to it, one day, just one day, if something bad happened, then you would be in some deep .

"Are you hungry?" Yixing asked. He leaned back a little bit on the garage.

I looked down at my stomach. I wanted to say no, but my stomach felt so empty. I ended up nodding my head.

Yixing laughed, "Are you just going to nod your head at everything I say and give me one-sentenced replies?"

I stayed quiet for a bit before replying, "No."