7^th May 2009

I didn’t really get back home till midnight, and unnie didn’t really seem to notice that I was even gone…well she acted like she didn’t anyway.

I guess we kinda just got carried away back there. Our hands were sticky despite cleaning the cake off with napkins, but neither of us bothered to care. We lay on the grass, staring up at the fireflies flying over our bodies, all around us.

It felt strangely comforting how our breathing gradually became calmer at the same pace.

Next thing I knew, we were talking...deep stuff.

 

I don’t really remember how it happened. It all went by in a blur.

All I can recall was the short silence that fell upon us and I guess from then on one thing led to another. And before I knew it, stories, memories, good and bad were spilling out of our mouths.

 

…memories of friends when I actually went to school and memories of being picked on for being different.  I never told him how I was different or how it mainly happened in PE classes when I had to sit out all the activities, but still, I told him.

Oppa told me his fair share of stories too, how he was always picked on when he was little. I found it hard to believe when he said it but he just looked at me and smiled, like it’s all in the past now.

I remember him saying that his parents were always busy, they still are, and it was his older brother who had practically brought him up. The other kids knew nothing yet rumours went around that he and his brother were orphans. At first he would just cry over it, but then he learnt to fight back. And he got into many fights since.

I tried to lighten up the tension that only I probably felt, jokingly stating “you don’t look like the aggressive type.” He laughed but then his face turned serious again, “I had major anger issues back then”.

 

For a moment, I just stared at his face…well his side profile as we remained lay down on the grass. I observed his eyebrows and then his eyes, wondering what he would look like angry.

Would it be scary?

But he’s always smiling.

I think he noticed what I was doing as he glanced at me and smiled.

“But then I kinda just got over it” his tone changed. Back to his happy self.

 

And that was when I realised that I just caught a glimpse of Byun Baekhyun’s serious side.

His most real one yet.

Not that he usually acts fake.

I know how genuine his smiles are, well at least I feel I do, but sometimes I can’t help but to think that he forces himself to smile throughout the day to push him through. Or maybe I’m just unnecessarily reading too into it, maybe I’m just trying to find faults in someone else to make my own existence feel better…and if that’s true, that’s bad, like reeaally bad.

 

I asked how, how he got over it. He says that one day he just sat himself in his room and thought about things and the more he thought about things, the more he started to realise how messed up he was.

I started to wonder exactly how old he was at this point.

He says that his brother was a major factor in all his thinking.

“I thought about my brother who kept coming up to school because of my bad behaviour, apologising in my stead. Yet after all that, he never once shouted at me. He was the one who was there for me, comforting me. And I was just making things difficult for him” and that’s when his sudden change started. He says it was a “surge of the moment thing”. He was all smiles ever since then.

 

It still baffled me how it all happened to him. The amount of thinking he must have done in that one day. I guess Byun Baekhyun has his moments.

From then on we spoke more about our families.

I told him that I never met my mother, who died after giving birth to me, but appa told me lots about her and I know that she’s a great person. Oppa looked at me solemnly. I didn’t want him to start feeling sorry for me so I switched topics to my appa. That appa of mine and how overprotective he is, how he even immaturely disapproved of me having a male doctor, despite it just being a regular growth check up which only required measuring my height and weight.

Oppa bursted out in laughter, “I’d love to meet your dad one day”

I told him that he probably will since he’s coming back in a week's time. .

 

I don’t really know if I’m ready to be introducing Baekhyun oppa to appa but I don’t want to be hiding things from him either. I just hope that appa would be nice to Baekhyun oppa, it’s not like he’s my boyfriend.

And when Baekhyun oppa started asking questions about what he does, I avoided them with just two words “you’ll see."

And then we just remained lying there on the grass. God knows for how long.

 

The rustling of the grass around me, the smell of nature, the perfectly cool air, the millions of little lights above us and oppa's soothing voice. There was this undeniable comfort of freedom that wrapped around me, almost lulling me into a blissful state of oblivion.

 

But before my eyes fluttered close, it detected a sudden movement that allowed me to blink myself back awake.

Oppa sat up and looked back down on me. "Mi-ah" that's what he calls me now. Mi-ah. 

"Mi-ah, we should head back"

He jumped onto his feet whilst I sat myself up and extended his hand out towards me. I took his hand, allowing him to pull me up.

"It's getting really late now, noona's gonna kill me if she finds out."

 

The walk home was just silent.

It was definitely a challenge for me to climb back up that tree, with oppa hoisting me up a few times to get to the branches. But I eventually made it back to my room. I noticed that there were seconds left till the clock hit midnight and the last thing I remember of that day was wishing Baekhyun oppa 'Happy Birthday' again before we said our goodbyes and turned in for the night.