23^th April 2009

It’s been over a week and Saturday had just rolled by. Throughout the weekdays, Baekhyun -sshi …op-pa… and I have been meeting up at the same beach. And over this short time, our conversations have gotten a lot more diverse, a lot longer, and a whole lot more easygoing. The awkward air that had once entrapped us has definitely dispersed now (though admittedly, the awkwardness was mainly caused by…myself). No more supposed ignorance on my half and well…more and I mean much more animated talking on his half. All I can say is that, this…op-pa sure knows how to take ‘talkative’ to a whole new level.

I should have expected this to be honest; I mean he had always been rather talkative from the first time he opened his mouth in front of me, to think that he could get more talkative than that is a real wonder.

In all fairness if it wasn’t for his talkative nature, I doubt we would have been able to get along so well. Not to mention so quickly too.

Lately I’ve been thinking, Baekhyun…op…pa – ok, I really need to get used to this –‘s appearance in my life must have affected me a lot. Jinhee unnie has been getting daily updates from me about this newfound friendship of mine (and no I haven’t told appa anything about this yet – he’ll probably flip if he finds out it’s a guy friend) …according to her, I’ve changed quite a bit since I met him.

“It’s lovely to see you so bright and smiley these days. I’d really love to meet this friend of yours sometime. I’m glad that there’s someone out there that’s keeping you happy.” She said.

And well…I guess her little wish has been granted on this fine Sunday’s afternoon…

Back straight, shoulders relaxed, head lightly swaying to the music and a small content smile playing on her lips. Eunmi sits at the piano leaving her fingers to completely take over and with every note played, her fingers delightfully dances along the keys like an innocent child running into the vast green fields, enjoying every bit of freedom she has.

The melody sounding so heart-warming yet playful as though it’s stirring up that energetic feeling inside of you which makes you want to just jump up and dance along to it. Even the sheer white curtains besides her billowed in that delicate ballerina-like way, it’s movement so chirpy but at the same time maintaining a level of unexplainable elegance.

As the piece ended, just like that other time, a short round of overenthusiastic applause was sounded. “As expected!”

Eunmi looks up from the piano keys and that very moment her rounded eyes met with his mischievous crescents, a big grin breaks out “…oppa.”

Baekhyun grins back at her, raising his right palm “annyeong”

“Che” she playfully scoffs “what brings you here?”

Going into sass mode, Baekhyun lowers his jaw as an act of feeling offended “is it a crime to drop by and say hi to a friend now?” hand resting on his hip, highlighting that pretty s line that he’s ever so pride of.

The younger girl blankly stared right back at him until “…Hahaha!” she couldn’t hold it in any longer and just bursted out. “Seriously…please…j-just…stop” she motioned with her hand.

Baekhyun chuckled back in response, loosening up his stance and standing more…normally now. “Hey, you started it” he invites himself to the empty space next to her on the piano stool, lightly nudging her in the arm.

The two of them were too busy in their own little moment that they hadn’t notice Jinhee walk into the room.

“Oh! You must be Baekhyun-goon right?”

“Eo! Unnie!”

Her voice sent the boy jumping up from his seat and turning to greet the older girl with a bow.

“Ah yeh. Annyeonghaseyo…”

“Oh, no need to be so polite here…I believe that we briefly met before right?”

Once the realisation struck him, Baekhyun immediately bowed his head down again “I’m sorry. That was such an abrupt intrusion on my half”

“Haha! It’s ok. I didn’t mean to intimidate you. If anything, I should be thanking you for taking care of our Eunmi there”

“Unnie!”

“No, well I haven’t really done much…” he says, whilst awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

“Oh trust me…” her voice drifted away as her eyes made contact with the embarrassed younger girl. Her dongsaeng looked so cute that she couldn’t help chuckling at the sight of her pinked cheeks, but kindly decided to save her from further embarrassment “oh, silly me! I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Jinhee, Eunmi’s unnie. Just call me noona, ok?”

“Yep” he enthusiastically nodded “got it” holding up the ok sign with his fingers.

“Good! Well I guess I’ll just leave you two to it then. If you need anything just give me a shout”

“Neh” the two chorused.

Once she left the room, Eunmi immediately let out an almost inaudible sigh of relief. Luckily Baekhyun’s attention was focused on the piano to notice it. He cautiously reached out to the keys with his index finger and slowly pressed down on one of the keys, allowing the sharp note to resonate throughout the room.

“Well haven't you been dying to play the piano?” Eunmi joked.

Baekhyun’s response came quite delayed which made Eunmi curious as to what he was thinking, he seemed a bit out of it but then suddenly returned to his usual self and played along with her.

“Hell yeah~, how could I possibly resist it?!”

“Haha! …you~ actually know how to play it?”

As if that was the one question he was waiting for this whole time, Baekhyun suddenly sat up straight. That smile on his face overflowing with confidence “well! Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Eunmi raised her brows at him, as if challenging him to go ahead and play.

“Guess it’s my turn to shine” he says snobbishly before singing “shine bright like a diamond~”

Eunmi giggled at the little sway dance he did as he sung that one line and lightly slapped his arm “…just play already”

“Ok ok” rubbing his arm even though no pain was dealt “patience my dear” he taps Eunmi on the tip of her nose – making her scrunch her nose up at the peculiar sensation it caused – before cosying himself up by wiggling his into the seat. “Are you ready?”

“Yes. I’m ready, now go on”

“Ok” so he says, closing his eyes and calmly inhaling and exhaling through his nose, his hands readily hovering over the keys. “Try and guess what I’m playing”

♫♪♫ ~ Baekhyun's piano music  ~ ♫♪♫

With the way he was acting, Eunmi was half expecting him to go all Chopin on her or something but once his piece started…

Her brows…

…narrowed in thought…

…something…

…just something…

…felt awfully familiar about this piece…

…this…

…this melody…

Somewhere in the background she could hear Jinhee burst out laughing and that was when it struck her.

She turned to him with an ‘are you kidding me?’ sort of look. But just one look at his dorky face made her burst out in giggles.

He finally got to the first chorus of the song which was quite a light-hearted melody, but the way his head nodded or more like dramatically bounced to the music, looked as though he was playing his own rendition of Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony.

He was way too absorbed into the music.

To finish off, his finger lingered on the last key, shaking his head in sync with the resonation of the final note.

“So! What do you think? …my piano skills…are they fab, or are they fab?” flicking his nonexistent long hair.

“Really now? …oppa…you…seriously though…Gee???”

“Ding dong ding! Haha! …well nothing beats the goddesses of our generation”

Eunmi simply rolled her eyes at him and shook her head in amusement.

“Ok my go now~”

Well since it already got to that point, I might as well just play along with him right? Haha

So yeh, the majority of the day passed by with the two of us taking turns to play different songs. Every now and then, Jinhee unnie would chip into our little ‘guess the song’ game, we could just hear her voice shouting out some answers and sometimes she would even pop in the room too.

But the highlight of the day had got to be the last piece we played…