A moment of vulnerability opens up a new opportunity. When someone shares and accepts that vulnerability within you, it’s like they have unpicked your lock; opened up your soul. And the thing that I was too oblivious to realise then was that the more you open up to someone, the more likely they will be able to steal your heart.

-------------------------

HJ: But he did say he considers me as a really good friend…

I took my mind off my deep thoughts and worries over how she would feel over the rejection. The screen flashed with the words ‘Heejin typing’ and so I waited for her next response. Honestly, I was worried that she would feel sad from the ‘friendzoning’ but instead, this spontaneious friend of mine…

HJ: So I’m still over the moon!! Hahaha he asked me out for a coffee in the morning too!

I couldn’t hide a smile that was tugging at my lips while I shook my head, unbelieving at how fast my friend had just changed. Within the span of ten minutes, she explored the dark depths of disappointment from her expectant self, only to turn around and float up into a bubble of sunshine and rainbows. I didn’t know whether she was just hiding her true emotions or whether she didn’t even care that much from the beginning anyway. Maybe I was the only one who took this all so seriously.

HJ: Why did you care so much anyway? ^^

Grrrr this girl. I guess I was right after all.  

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The next morning, I received an early email from the teacher organising the musical backstage helpers and crew that alerted all those interested in helping to have a meeting together at recess. It was a habit of mine to wake up early now, in case Kyungsoo would suddenly text me to tell me that his morning class was cancelled (as an invitation to meet up with him at the park) or that he mysteriously couldn’t make it to our intended meeting again. It seemed to happen often now – his mysterious disappearances – but it didn’t worry me too much. He was always a boy of many secrets and I didn’t want to appear controlling or over-interested in his business. It was worrying actually, that I was so accepting of all these sudden disappearances and standing me up constantly whenever we planned to meet up.

(flashback)

KS: That’s a promise then. Tomorrow. 8 o’clock sharp. Don’t forget!

Of course, I wanted to tell him, I’d never forget.

MY: Yeah, okay! See you!

KS: Goodnight! Hope Slenderman doesn’t come and get you! ;)

I smiled at this little inside joke of ours, happy at how much more Kyungsoo has opened up to me since we’ve met each other.

MY: Nah I’ll just tell him to come for you! ^^

KS: Aish you poop

MY: Hey don’t be mean you’re the poop

KS: No you are NOW GOODNIGHT AND DON’T FORGET!

I narrowed my eyes at the computer screen as he hurriedly logged off before I could type a reply, and sighed, leaning back onto my chair.

(end of flashback)

Sometimes I just couldn’t resist how childish and cute he was. He was still the same Kyungsoo I knew since last year, shy and reserved yet liked to tease and hated losing to others. I just wish I actually knew why he constantly stood me up when he was the one who always reminded me of our morning plans over and over. I wish I knew what was going on in his mind. I puffed out my cheeks and blew the air inside it out, frustrated at my inability to figure out all these feelings and thoughts and confusion. I shuddered a bit and snapped out of my daze, realizing that I had zoned out again. I should probably stop doing that.

I replied an email back to the musical organizer politely, explaining that I was interested in joining the musical backstage crew and to help out. An email quickly bounced back a few minutes later. The teacher thanked me for my interest and quickly added that he needed me to start helping him with something THIS MORNING. Which meant I only had 15 minutes to get ready unless I wanted to be late to whatever he had planned for me. I rolled my eyes at the words in the email displayed on my phone screen, and dropped my phone onto the bed. What does he take us as? Slaves or something?!

I quickly calmed down though, as later in the email, he apologised for the late notice and also said that he would really appreciate my help if I could make it this morning as it was a very urgent task. Who would be able to say no to a request like that?! I silently wonder in my head if that’s why my friends all call me a pushover.

--------------------------

Running at full jet speed towards the bus, I stretched out my hand and managed to squeeze my hand around the door to alert the bus driver of my presence. “Wait-”

I felt the heavy morning air tug onto my lungs and realised that I had held my breath this whole while running after the bus and cursing the train for its power line failures, barely making it on time to get on the late 7:45am bus. “-up.”

The bus driver narrowed his eyes in annoyance and let out a rough grunt before gesturing for me to heave-my--onto-the-bus-this-very-minute-or-else-his-laser-eyes-were-going-to-cut-through-me-and-chop-me-into-dead-meat. Trying to show my thankfulness to the angelic and kind soul that he is, I obeyed happily and pulled myself on. At that moment, I realised that it wasn’t only the bus driver or myself who was having a bad morning; the bus was filled with accusing eyes and whispers that involved spit flying out of agitated lips. I cowered my head and attempted to stand as far as I could from the public around me, and happened to notice a pair of familiar shoes whilst looking down at people’s feet. Unwilling to stare at more tomato red faces and laser tinted eyes, I let go of my curiosity. Not like I particularly felt like talking to anyone I knew right now anyway, or realise that some friend or classmate of mine had seen my embarrassment of holding up the whole bus play out. The bus that was hobbling slowly across the bumpy gravel road smoothed slowly to a stop and I made a mental note to thank the driver AND wish him a nice day and a safe drive in order to ease his annoyance. Stepping off the bus and walking towards the pedestrian crossing, I noticed a boy (or a man) with a hoodie slipped deep over his head (so much that I wonder how he could see where he was going) following my footsteps. I tried not to think too much about what my grandmother used to tell me about kidnappers and their oh-so-typical build and dress code. Tapping my foot impatiently, the seconds passed by like hours, and I almost tripped over my own foot as the little pedestrian figure turned green.

-----------------------------------

“Thank you so much for coming. Now, you see…”

Mr Kim at first appeared a very sensible and rational man, but as soon as words began to slip out of his dry, chapped lips, I almost threw my head back and put on a “What the hell does this guy think he’s doing" face. Of course, I was naturally a calm person (or am I??) and so I kept my face still while I continued nodding in understanding of his instructions. I think it’s just that his voice sounded a little too animated and his eyebrows moved up and down a little too much for comfort, but otherwise he was a very kind and grateful man and did not forget to thank me (in fact, thanked me so many times with those wiggling eyebrows of his that I nearly had to tackle him onto the ground and pin those two eyebrows in place). “I trust that you get it, smart girl. *adds a playful punch to my shoulder* Just stick this stack of recruiting posters around the block and sha-zing! *weird waving action* All done!”

“Uh… yeah! Will get to it right now!”

I turned around and breathed a sigh of relief. Just being around him made me feel the need to raise my tone of voice by a whole octave just to match his enthusiasm. I began stepping gratefully out of the room (of course, since I was very glad to be leaving this room) until that voice of his resounded across to my ears once again. “Name’s Minyoung isn’t it? Easy to remember!”

My face cringed in frustration (although unsure of whether I should be frustrated at all, since he was after all a very kind man by nature, who just happened to be graced with an unfortunate set of eyebrows and a much too enthusiastic voice). I managed to croak a “Yeah” out of my throat and fake an awkward laugh before wishing him a nice day and stepping out of the room for real. No, please don’t remember my name.

------------------------------

I took the remaining half stack that Mr Kim had handed me to the front gate of the school, hoping to paste some there for students who came in from the bus stops to see. For the first half of the stack, I had mastered the technique of slapping blue tack quickly against the poster and then sticking it on the wall without dropping the rest of the posters that I was holding onto the ground. Stopping in front of the walls that spread invitingly before the front gates of the school, I began sticking posters with confidence and pride. That was, until I realised that the wind was especially strong at this part of the school, and it wasn’t helping that a storm began to grumble its way near from the far distance. She mentally cursed when the posters flew and dropped, dancing around in the wind like a silent ballet flaunting its grace and beauty in front of wide eyed and amazed audiences. As the wind picked up, and the posters boosted in its further flight of glory, I swore I almost heard a whisper forming with the whistles and whooshes of the gale.

“You can’t do anything right.”

“I’m better than you.”

“You should be disappointed in yourself.”

My eyes glazed helplessly over the posters that have already spread what seemed like miles across to the other side of the courtyard, and for a second, I thought I heard rain pouring and dripping onto the merciless pavement. Wrong. It was the sound of the rain pouring endlessly down onto my heart.

While I stared into space and wondered what I should be doing about the fallen papers, a certain being took a more rational and logical series of actions. It was a hooded figure; a boy that walked across the courtyard with conviction; a solid build that appeared so safe and secure – that I would dream of holding onto for reassurance and comfort. My eyes dug into his back figure as if all the answers that I’d ever need in my life were etched into his back. It was not until he turned around that I snapped out of this little daze of mine. “What are you doing just standing there?”

I flinched at his slightly forceful and demanding tone, but did not take offense in it (as he was right after all). It was his face however, that shocked me the most. Not because he wore a face full of spewing warts and bulging eyeballs, so much so that I had to force myself not to puke and embarrass myself once more or anything like that. In fact, his face was so flawless it radiated and subsequently blinded both my eyes (even though that's not the real reason either). He was freaking Byun Baekhyun. A boy who I knew. And I wasn’t ready to let him see the unfolding of perhaps one of the worst days I’ve had in my thick history of embarrassing moments. Suddenly with my mind switched on and my brain back in power, I linked the hood and the shoes that I saw back during the incident on the bus. Not that too!

I could feel myself burning red by the millisecond as he continued staring at me, his eyebrows crinkled up like he was staring at a piece of- well, a not so pleasant smelling mixture excreted from the back of a human body. Well, all I knew during that single moment was that I felt like a piece of not-so-pleasant-smelling-mixture-excreted-from-the-back-of-a-human-body. Finally tearing my stare away from him, I tried to focus on an object – any object that would distract me from this terribly embarrassing moment, or even more so wished that my mum would shake me right now and then I would wake up and realise that it was all a dream with my mum screaming into my ear that I was late for school. Anything – anything, but this. I was used to being able to do things. I was always expected to do well in everything. I- I couldn't stand the feeling of failing at things. I wanted to show others, show my family that I didn’t need others to help me do things; that I could do things myself. I couldn’t stop all these thoughts from rushing into my head like a speeding car, and waited silently for an ambulance car to race over and save me from this misery. From this pathetic self-pity.

“Hey, you alright?” I heard as a hand landed on my shoulder – a hand that felt amazingly lean and long despite his slightly softer and wider build of his body. At that point, I realised that I had my eyes closed all this while, and probably looked like some maniac just… trying to sleep standing up or something. My eyes fluttered open as the image of Baekhyun flooded into my retina, looking slightly worried, eyebrows furrowed with a different emotion this time. In that one single moment, I swear I would’ve paid anything to leap into his arms and just tell him that I was helpless and for him to rescue me, but I didn’t. I only felt a wet substance expanding molecularly from my tear duct inside my mocha tinged spheres and even then, my pride kicked in and told me to turn away before any tears risked spilling out in front of the boy before me whom was Baekhyun. I blinked furiously, trying to contain them in my eyes but that was enough strange behaviour to make him realise that I was embarrassed at everything that happened and probably felt stupid about it all. He inched his face closer to mine, making me pull mine back in alertness, and he swayed his head side to side, his brown orbs penetrating deep into mine. Suddenly, his face twisted into a face of concern. “Yah, are you crying?”
“Why would you think that?” I said, trying to hide the cracking in my voice and pushed around him to face the courtyard when a single tear rolled down my face. I advanced towards the courtyard with a bit of a stomp, sniffled a little, and bent down to collect the posters that have now been smothered with the dust from the concrete. “You are, aren’t you?” His steps crept up to where I bent down so I got up and made a move to bend over another part of the courtyard for more posters. He grabbed my wrist before I could move further and forced me to look him in the face. My crying face had never been the most dramatic – when I was young, my face used to flush a bright crimson red as if I had been facepalmed with a glass of tomato juice, and my eyes would puff out as if I was a crocodile that was scared of losing sight of its prey. However, the older I grew, the more I learnt to hide my tears from others and no one ever realised when I hid in the bathroom and cried secretly. Judging from Baekhyun’s reaction at seeing my face, I concluded (with a tinge of pride) that at least my face was most probably not in ruins, unlike the events that unfolded in just the early hours of the day.

“Look… I don’t know what you’re sad about. But if you need someone to talk about it, you can trust me.”

I stared up into his eyes blankly, even though I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest at that moment. I felt a soft vibration of my phone on the side of my thigh, but it wasn’t difficult to ignore it. I tore my eyes off him as the silence was getting uncomfortable, but I nodded quickly at him and from the corner of my eye, I saw his lips twitch up into a smile.

We both continued to pick up the posters in silence, and he had shouted across the still courtyard that he was willing to stay back to help as well afterward. I quickly shouted back a “thanks” in his direction, but was still crowded with thoughts that perhaps he just pitied me for being so useless and not even able to stick some damn posters up around the school, and felt embarrassed for suffering a misfortune in front of a boy. Somehow, even though his words brought me much comfort and refuge, I still couldn't get around the fact that I hated embarrassing myself in front of boys.

(flashback: 8 years old)

A ball rolled and softly hit the front of my shoes as I looked up into the distance, trying to find the owner of the ball.
“Over here! Throw it over here!” a few boys waved their arms frantically at me, and I picked up the ball instantly and readied myself to throw the ball over the field. I had never tried throwing a ball that far of a distance, but I didn’t want to look like a complete idiot standing there and not giving the ball back when I clearly saw them waving at me. On the count of three, I threw the ball. One, two, three!
I hauled the ball towards them and held my breath when I could not see the flight of the ball in mid air. Instead, my eyes widened as I stared, eyes fixated on the ball that was bouncing softly on the ground just a few metres away from where I was standing, until it stopped bouncing and laid motionless on the pebbled ground. My mouth dropped and hung there, not willing to close as I stared at the ball, and then at the group of boys, and then back at the ball. As I turned around and began running away from it all, I heard the same group of boys howling with laughter, words slipping from their lips like “fail”, “weak” and the “How useless”, which all of them subsequently seemed to laugh in agreement with. I kept running and didn’t stop till I reached the girls toilet, and sat in the cubicle crying my eyes out till lunch ended.

(flashback ends)

I shook myself out of my little flashback and shuddered at those memories. Standing up and dusting my school dress, I picked up the stack of slightly ruffled and bent posters and stretched my arms out and yawned. In the distance, Baekhyun also rose from his kneeling position, picked up his pile of posters and looked over at me.

"Finished!"

We both smiled in relief at each other and he did a little celebratory fist pumping in air dance before he suddenly flinched, face pulled back, hands clawing furiously at something in front of him. Subsequently, engaged in this new action with his hands, he dropped the pile of posters he had just cracked backs and knees picking up. He looked sheepishly at me after shuddering a bit and finally stopped clawing at thin air and yelling for something to "go away". His hands were in front of his face imitating a swatting action whilst I stared, half in disbelief, half in amusement at that boy standing a few metres away from me, expression painted as if he was scared of being punished by the teacher after doing something he had not meant to do, and wanted to smash his head against a brick wall and just end it right there. He fixed his stance a little, cleared his throat and tried to avoid my gaze while I crossed my arms, lips curved mockingly. “Now what happened there, may I ask?”

He chuckled a little, cocked his head to one side and finally looked back into my eyes. “There might’ve been… a fly or something?”
He rubbed the back of his neck anxiously, and I couldn’t contain my laughter anymore. I pulled my head back and burst out laughing so hard I felt like the tears that had been dried up in my eyes from a few minutes ago had all magically turned into liquid form again and threatened to escape from my eyes. “Yah- stop laughing!” he insisted with a pout, albeit not being able to resist a little giggle that escaped from his lips that caused his eyes to curve up into the shape of a crescent moon.

My laughter died down slowly but certainly, as I suddenly remembered that I wasn’t here because of Baekhyun, but here because Mr Kim had wanted me to stick these posters around the school. We quickly agreed to stick the posters up as we paced around, picking the posters that he had dropped before striding back to the walls and beginning our morning mission.

The first time I glazed over the posters he stuck on the wall, I gently shrugged away the strangeness I felt that nothing seemed readable or coherent on that poster. A second look made me even more confused, as originally believing it was just my hazy eyes playing a trick on me, the poster still appeared incoherent. A third clearer look made me realise that it wasn’t incoherent and certainly not my eyes playing tricks on me; it was upside down. I suddenly recalled a memory from a few months back of a boy whom I still remember the voice of. The boy who was sticking posters down at our school... I fished into my memory pond and tried to pull out that very memory that I often revisited, before my eyes widened in realisation.

Some things are as unexpected as that. There are always people you don’t expect to see a second time, memories that you don’t expect to dig up after years pass by. And in this very second, as I was looking over at that boy on my left, sticking posters quietly onto the wall, a very familiar image of a shorter and plumper version merges with the figure standing before me. I turn to my right to see a few schoolgirls beginning to enter the school, and gasped at the familiarity of this moment. I stared in disbelief as those few girls tried to turn their heads to read the contents of the upside down poster. For a second, as I turned back to him and met his gaze, I heard him say, softly but surely – “It’s to get people’s attention.”

I realised I had been staring for too long when he asked me what was wrong. I just shook my head. “Nothing," I smiled, "Just suddenly remembered something from the past.”

He gave me a gentle smile before continuing his job, but the sudden scene was disturbed by the presence of a girl that stood next to Baekhyun. Heejin to be exact. I noticed the small drop in my heart and wondered why I seemingly felt disappointed. She did a little shy wave at him and he responded back with a faint smile, before her eyes shift towards me. A sudden pang of confusion hit her face, hidden underneath her stiff bright smile.

“Oh hey! What are you doing here so early?”

I gulped. Somehow, that tone of voice sounded too bubbly it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand and my eyes narrowed softly back at her.

“She was just sticking some posters up for some teacher and I came early so I helped.”

He sounded innocent and hid head bobbed up and down happily, not realising the sudden tension that boiled over Heejin’s face. She nodded happily back at Baekhyun, but looked nervously at me, then at him, then back at me. Deciding that I was probably not worth dawdling over, she grabbed his arm and he momentarily flinched out of surprise. Baekhyun asked what she was doing but instantly realised his mistake after taking a quick glance at his watch.

“I’m sorry Minyoung ah, I have to go get coffee with Heejin, I’ll go grab you one too?” his words almost too fast, too panicked and too rushed as he was being dragged away by Heejin.

“No, it’s okay! Don’t buy me one!”

I hoped he heard me as I didn’t intend to fuel further jealousy from her. I knew from the hard, frozen look of her eyes that she was overthinking things in her head, but I didn’t want him to further harden things up with his simple little polite gesture of buying an extra coffee. I waved at them as he turned back and walked ahead with Heejin. They chatted, backs lifting softly, up and down, up and down, as they laughed and walked together. I watched as their silhouettes slowly turned the corner, with a hint of resignation and disappointment in my face. Somehow after the events of this morning, I wished that he was thinking about me as much as I was thinking about him.

Some say that in the most vulnerable moments of your life, one discovers the most wonderful things. I say the most wonderful thing is finding someone who twists your vulnerability into something beautiful, and builds you a castle that makes you bold.

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Wow this ended up so much longer than I had expected..... Much much much longer. This was supposed to be like the first part of my planned chapter but it was so long that I decided to break it off as a chapter on its own - that's why there will be a Part Two to this themed segment (the theme will be vulnerability if I didn't make it obvious enough)!

I hope you guys all enjoyed this chapter (especially since it's after such a long period of no updates - for that, I'm sincerely sorry *bows*), I guess especially since a lot more begins progressing from here. As always, I promise there'll be more to deliver in the future few chapter, up until the last.

Now isn't he just adorable??? ^_^ 

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