There are some things that we don’t realise in life. Maybe it’s that piece of homework that you always end up forgetting to do, albeit never realizing it even existed. Maybe it’s that stray cat that always followed you on the road from school back home and you just never realised it was homeless and wanted you to take it home. Or maybe… maybe it’s that boy who always looked after you, that boy who was always there when you needed someone there, and you never realised how important his existence was until he left. Yes – we were all that foolish and oblivious, thinking that things would always end up the way we wanted to, but they don’t. It was just one of those other things we had to learn the hard way when growing up.

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“Eomma! Let’s go!” I shouted to her from the other side of the house while busily attempting to pull a jumper over my head without ruining my perfectly (or so I thought) clipped hair. I turned a corner and skidded on a stop with my slippers before pushing off towards the kitchen counter. I let myself take a three second rest before yet again holding all my breath to chug down a full glass of milk in one go. Way to start off an early morning.

I didn’t mind though because these few mornings, I have been going to school early to spend my mornings with Kyungsoo. In theory, I should’ve been pretty excited every morning to see this special friend of mine, but  instead I was nervous. Very nervous. Every morning, I could not get that butterfly feeling out of my stomach as my insides twisted into a single lump of frustration and confusion.

I shook my head violently to spin those thoughts of meeting him out of my head and woke myself up with three gentle slaps to the sides of my face, before straightening my uniform with a huff and slipping my warm feet into my school shoes.

Train rides felt lonelier than usual, perhaps because I haven’t been taking the train with my friends lately. The first few times I had been absent on the train, they had asked me about it, but soon even that stopped. I guess they just got over it.

The train accelerated as the slight rocking motions of the train came at an increasingly faster pace. The sound of the train wheels running over the bumpy train tracks imitated the beating of my heart that was getting quicker by the second. It would’ve probably been better if I had a friend with me, because it meant that I had something there to distract me, but the only thing I could do was stare nervously out of the clear window on the train doors as the train passed several towns and suburbs and approached that of my school’s.

I stepped off the train and walked towards the escalator. “Okay, you can do this. You’ve done this before already,” I muttered under my breath and didn’t even realise that I had slowed down my walking. All the busy people lined up behind me begun pushing and shoving like cars honking at a slow car in front. I sighed and hastened my pace, and some grunts and sighs could be heard from the back. I couldn’t back out anymore.

The park wasn’t too far away, and surely I arrived at the park just on time (I had stood around because I didn’t want to be there early). I walked up and down the path that stretched all the way across the park and around on the perimeter of it. Step by step, second by second, time ticked away and somehow Kyungsoo was still nowhere to be seen. I raised my left arm staring at my watch – 8:13am. Kyungsoo wasn’t late often. Every time he wrote that he would be back on chat at a specific time, he would always be back on a few minutes earlier so that we could start chatting right away when the time came. At the choir rehearsals, he would arrive a whole half an hour earlier to set up and sit around, waiting for me to come. One morning he even insisted on playing the scary maze game with me before choir rehearsal begun (because he had arrived so early), and so we both sat in front of his laptop, hesitant in opening up the game. He flicked off the lights (he claimed it was to “get in the mood” for the game) but backed out the last second after I opened the game and began playing it. In the end, I was too scared to continue and slammed his laptop screen down while we both stared at each other awkwardly at the failed suggestion in playing this game in the first place. I smiled when recalling those memories, but I didn’t notice when we had begun distancing away from one another. Was it after I met Baekhyun? I hadn’t thought so, as I swore to myself that I wouldn’t have any intent on being interested in Baekhyun (due to my close friendship with Heejin). I just noticed that I had begun cutting our conversations short with excuses that I was busy or that I had to sleep early. I frowned at the thought of our friendship drifting before being snapped back to reality with the vibration of my phone.

I hesitantly wrapped my fingers around my phone and slipped it out. I flipped the phone open, and surely enough, that name that I had become so familiar with popped up: Kyungsoo.

I’m sorry.

I hurriedly closed my phone and slipped it back into my pocket, adjusting the position of my bag on my shoulders and headed back towards school. At that moment, I could not tell whether I was relieved or just mad – relieved because I had been so nervous all morning wanting to get out of this, and mad because he always said sorry without giving a reason. I knew he was a reasonable person, but it had happened so many times that I felt like I couldn’t be so forgiving anymore. I sighed and looked up at the lights flashing green, signaling for pedestrians to cross the road, and I walked slowly back to school. Is this the beginning of an end? No - it ended before it even started.

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When Baekhyun had mentioned to Heejin about having a “relationship talk”, she was blown over the moon. Somehow, she was convinced that he was going to confess to her, and so she was convinced that she should also use this opportunity to confess to him (after my endless persuading). That was, until yesterday night came and passed by without a single mention of a relationship talk. Apparently Baekhyun had been too busy, told her that he could not have a proper talk with her till 10pm, and despite Heejin waiting for the whole night just to talk to him, he had forgotten about it all and never replied back. I tried convincing Heejin that it was probably not his fault and that he was just caught up with work, but I mentally scolded him for disappointing my friend. Still, I was quite bewildered at this happening because he had seemed like a genuinely caring person and did not seem like the forgetful type either. It took me that whole night to convince Heejin that she should still confess to him tonight as to not waste anymore time and opportunity, but she felt more hesitant this time because she felt like he didn’t care about her enough to remember to reply. I didn’t want my friend to feel any worse than she already did, so I told her that he would probably apologise and talk with her about it again tonight. I secretly prayed that the relationship talk would go ahead tonight, as I didn’t want to have given that hope to Heejin and then have it all crashing down again.

I continued typing up my essay on my laptop when I stopped, tapping anxiously on my keyboard and staring at my chat box. If the relationship talk goes ahead, Heejin would be messaging me about now, I thought. My lips, slightly swollen and red from all my lip-biting pursed as my eyes flickered once again to my empty chat box. I sighed, sat up a little and continued writing my essay. *Beep!* The chat box on my sidebar lit up and bounced up and down, capturing my instant attention as I readied myself to click onto it. Taking a deep breath (and feeling oh so very nervous for my friend), I clicked into the chat box.

He finally started this relationship talk!! :)

I smiled in relief at my laptop screen, and replied back.

Good for you, chingu ^^

She replied back with a smiley face and I reminded her of the confession. After that, the replies gradually stopped so I knew to wait it out as their conversation played out. As if my prayers were heard, this talk was finally happening, just as Heejin had wished. I prayed again for this talk to go well, and yet it seemed that prayers could not be fulfilled one after the other. Somehow, amidst all things going well, things still managed to fall apart.

He used to like me last year…

The tapping on my keys slowly faded away as I stopped typing up my essay and relayed my attention to the new messages in my chat box. I anxiously waited for her reply as I stared through the screen at the words that she had typed.

But at that time, I only thought of him as a brother. A good friend.

I could feel the hurt that my friend was pouring through every single wrote she sent to me as I blanked out with many thoughts simmering at the back of my mind.

Baekhyun was always so nice to me… and I never realised it. Now that I’ve finally realised how much he means to me, he says I probably only think of him as a brother. Why didn’t I realise earlier, Minyoung ah? Why was I so blind to not realise how much he meant to me last year?

I read and reread the same message countless times, but was still in too much shock to reply. I stared around the room, trying to find something that could tear my attention off the laptop screen and away from all these emotions that began to bubble inside of me. Hesitantly, I began typing a reply.

…did you confess?

Seconds ticked by and I pressed the “Enter” bar. Yet, it felt like hours till a reply came back.

No. Would you confess in this situation? He says he felt my feelings for him, and he planned this whole talk so he could tell me that I probably got my feelings wrong. That I merely thought of him as a brother. He said he did this because he didn’t want me to feel hurt when I do confess… now who in the right mind would confess in this situation?

I had the urge to comfort her, to tell her that it wasn’t as bad as she made it seem, but those would be plain lies. I didn’t have the courage to say anything back. I had certainly lost all my dignity. I told her that all things would be great and that he would probably accept her feelings happily, because after seeing the way that he talked to her and treated her, I was close to sure that he had feelings for her. Maybe I should have told her not to bear her hopes so high. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so encouraging towards her. Maybe… maybe…

“If you wish and wish earnestly,
Will it come true, like the fairytales?
A never-ending happy ending, happily ever after…”

My phone begun playing this familiar tune that has been awakening me every morning from my deepest of dreams and my imaginary worlds back to reality. Usually I would just shut it off immediately, annoyed at the song waking me up from my nice cozy sleep but tonight of all nights, it woke me up to a new reality.

Maybe it was just meant to be and I couldn’t have done anything to stop it. Even if you wish and wish endlessly for something to happen, life is not a fairytale. There is no guarantee for those wishes to come true. And… there is no such thing as happily ever after. Sometimes, things just end before there is even a start.

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Hi readers!! I AM SO SO SO VERY SORRY THAT I DIDN'T UPDATE FOR SO LONG ;__;
I was really having a writer's block, and I hope you all forgive me for that. I also hope that there are still readers! Please comment so I know you still exist!!! :(
Please tell me how everything's going, I want to see what you guys all think.

And I'm sorry that Kyungsoo and Baekhyun didn't have much time in this chapter, but there were other parts of the plot that needed to be developed. I will definitely include them much more for the next chappie~!!

And wow the members did a great job mc-ing at the Melon Music Awards this year. I was in awe of their mc-ing talent ^_^ Am also very happy that they won the Song of the Year award, it was such a heartwarming moment!

As always, please comment and subscribe if you enjoyed it, thank you so much!!!!!

P.S. for anyone who didn't know, that song that I posted the lyrics off near the end of the chapter are the lyrics to "What is Love" by EXO-K.