The first meeting, those first words spoken to each other, our shyness – our relationship was like a classic love story. I knew though, that behind all these signs was a bigger potential for a friendship. I thought that it was easy to tell when you fall in love, but it isn’t. It is easy to like someone, but what does it take to say that you love someone from the bottom of your heart; how do you prove to yourself that your love for that someone is real? When I tell others about us, many think it’s a classic love story but I don’t. We were a story of two people who weren’t ready for love.

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(flashback continues)

‘Yeah, you’re from the boy’s school and we met the other day! I added you, of course I do,’ I responded to his message, with a grin on my face. A few seconds later, a reply came back.

‘Ah right! Yeah…’ he sent back, shortly followed by an icon of a cartoon face-palming. I laughed softly at his reply, and asked him what he was doing.

‘Ah… I’m at the hospital right now.’

I literally jumped out of my seat at that moment. The dream was all I could think about. The image of Kyungsoo lying on the hospital bed flashed in my mind but I shook my head violently, trying to erase that picture. I had just met him… why did I care?

Another few messages popped up one after the other and I turned to the screen, still with a blank expression plastered on my face.

‘Yah… are you there?’
‘Sorry did I scare you?’
‘Do you not want to talk right now? I can stop talking…’

I smiled gently at his messages, imagining him typing these with his eyes wide, worried at my sudden lack of response. This kid is really insecure, isn’t he? I was quick to reply after that, and I just told him that I was worried and asked him what had happened.

Apparently he had hurt his knee and had to receive surgery. His conversation with the PE teacher was also because of this, and he was not coming back to school for most of the term. I worried for him, and told him to rest well.

Every day after this, he would initiate the conversation, asking me about school and what I was doing. On other days, when he was bored in the hospital, he would talk about all those boring movies that replayed over and over on the TV at the hospital, and how elated he was when he finally found the cartoons channel on TV.

‘Cartoon channel?! Really??’ I laughed when he excitedly began messaging me about how funny SpongeBob was.

‘Yeah… SpongeBob is cute!’ he responded with a smiley face, as I laughed at his innocence and childish interests.

That week, I did not spend a day without chatting to him. We would talk about anything: movies, TV, music, sport – anything was a topic of conversation for us. I found out that he was also passionate about music, and wanted to join the annual musical next year.

‘I was hoping for a lead… but I can't dance with this injury and I don’t think I’ll even get into chorus.’

When he talked about music, there was a different spark about him. He seemed to know everything about it, and would never fail to be carried away by the topic of music. So when I found out that he wouldn’t be able to make it next year, I felt crushed. I knew how much it hurt to have a dream ruined after chasing after it for so long. I promised him that I would audition next year and live his dream for him, and he seemed glad that I shared the same passion as him.

After missing school for a few weeks, he finally returned to school and I had the chance to see him. We walked past each other on the way to school, but he seemed particularly shy again, and only managed to wave with a slight smile. Although I was slightly frustrated that he only waved after all those conversations we’ve had over the web, I sighed. I knew I wasn’t able to do much better either and yet I was frustrated that he didn’t try harder in breaking the barrier between us.

That was the last day of school for the year. Christmas break had begun and I rushed back home, skipping and singing Jingle Bells down the hallway and into my room. I dropped my school bag and threw myself onto the bed, planning to nap there until dinner time. That was not what ended up happening though, as I heard a small beep from the computer. Suppressing a smile, I jumped off the bed and walked towards my computer. Although in most cases it was him, I had been cheated a few times and now I knew better than to assume it was from Kyungsoo before seeing the messages. I clicked open the notification, and the big fat name that I have grown to fancy flashed: Kyungsoo. I smiled and wondered what he would write to me on the first day of holidays, before hesitantly clicking to open the message. My initial expectant smile turned cold and fake as I scanned my eyes over the words.

‘Minyoung. I realised that we’ve never called each other by our names before, so this is a first. Annyeong Minyoung. I was suddenly told by my parents that I am going overseas for the whole holiday… I can’t believe this either. I will be away so I can’t chat for the whole holiday. I mentioned about wanting to write a song with you sometime in the holiday, but I can’t so I’m sorry. I’m sorry… and I’ll see you next year. Merry Christmas.’

I stared blankly at the contents of the message and reread the message, slowly, word by word continuously, as if this motion of my eye was set on repeat. It felt as if all that we had gone through – all those late night conversations we’ve had, those plans that we talked about had been fake and treated as a joke. I felt… dejected. Somehow though, I knew on the inside that Kyungsoo was not someone like that. He was a sincere and thoughtful person, and he had always locked his feelings inside of him. He just didn’t know how to express his feelings.

I closed the message after reading it for one last time and decided that it was best not to think about it. It would be a bother to think about this for a whole holiday; after all, Christmas is meant to be merry, isn’t it?

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Hey guys! I know this is a really short update and it's not very good, but I promise the next update will be very fast (and better than this one)!! I hope you all can comment - that way I'll update the next chapter quicker!

Hoping to see many comments coming!! ^^