“Mr. Lu, you’re still free tomorrow, right?” Hana asks Kris before he steps out of the door.

Kris only stops by to drop the kids off home and help around with setting a few things in the house that Luhan might’ve forgotten. Like always, he has some errands to do and he is going to return back to his work tonight.

Luhan hears this conversation and glances at them after taking Taeyang’s shoes off and putting him down to play with his toys, “What about tomorrow?”

Hana instantly turns around, as if she hadn’t expect him to hear about it. “N-nothing. I-I have to talk to your brother about something.” She scratches the side of her jaw.

“About what?”

“Something.”

“As in?”

Hana hastily scans the room to see if she can change the subject. Seeing Taeyang struggling to bend down to get the toys on the ground from near the kitchen, she dashes over to him. “Ah, Taeyang, be careful.”

Luhan shifts his eyes to his brother, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know either,” Kris shrugs. He puts up a hand, “I’ll be taking my leave now.”

“W-wait!” He’s about to stop his brother but Hana, with a speed like never before, has already run over and closes the door with a bang. “What—Pabo, don’t do that or your—”

She winces as she puts a hand over her wound, regretting her decision on running over.

“What are you hiding?”

She glances up, innocently. “Hiding what?”

“Whatever it is that you and hyung are going to do tomorrow.”

She pauses while looking away. “Nothing.”

“Don’t ‘nothing’ me. Tell me.”

“Nothing, I said.” She drags her feet over to the couch and sits down. She reaches for the remote and turns the T.V. on. “Hey, I hear that Naruto is finished. When’s the—”

“—Hana,” her name softly escapes his lips and he doesn’t look back at her. “Is it about…the accident?”

“Hm?” Her eyes are glued to the T.V., trying to escape this conversation. “Hey, there’s a summer sale! Let’s go—”

“—you know that my Dad caused it, don’t you?” Is that what you and hyung are going to be talking about? Is that why I don’t know anything about this “something” that you two are going to do tomorrow?

The speechless room gives Luhan his answer and his heart becomes heavy. He can’t even turn back to look at his friend because he’s scared about how she’s going to see him from now on. Or even act around him. Their friendship will no longer be the same. It’s been destroyed the very moment the car dived into the cold ocean, putting hers and Taeyang’s lives in danger.

Two thin hands wrapped around his waist and it shocks him because her scent brings him back to reality. At first, it is a tight squeeze and it gradually loosens around him.

She slightly presses her head against his back and says to him, “Yeah. I know.”

Hearing it confirmed is worse than his assumptions, so he breaks her clasped hands around him and parts from her. “You can hate me, hit me, call me names, or whatever, but please, please don’t say that we can’t be friends anymore.”

A smile breaks from her and she confusingly asks, “What are you talking about?”

“My Dad hurt you and Taeyang because he caused the accident. I-I know that he did it to—”

“—to get you back, I know that, too.” She steps forward to him, which he takes a step back, scared that if he gets another taste of her touch, it’ll be hard for him to truly let her go. “I’m not mad at you. I’m not even mad at your father, too.”

Did he hear it right? She’s not mad at him or his father? Why? Hers and Taeyang’s lives were in danger and they would’ve died had someone not passed by the bridge where the car dived off from. She wouldn’t have had to miss graduation and would’ve walked the stage with everyone else.

“I understood why he did it. Cause he’s a parent, Luhan.” She looks down in guilt, “If we were to put that in the perspective of Taeyang getting taken away from me, I-I might’ve done something horrible just to get Taeyang back in my life.” Her balled hands tightened and she swallows before looking at her friend, “That’s why I understand.”

He stands there, still, trying to take in everything he hears. Even though it resonates in him, he can’t accept that she’s not mad at him or isn’t even going to react in something other than accepting what had happened to her and their son. Their lives were in danger, does she not recognize that?

She continues, “If you think it’s partly your fault, don’t. You saved us, you know.”

“H-hmm?” He saved them? How? He was miles away from where the accident happened and was the last person to know of what had happened.

“Taeyang and I would have died if we didn’t have your bat. I used it to break the window and swam out. That’s how I got the cut.” She bites her lower lip, “So, if it’s anyone who should be mad…it’s you. I lost something precious; I lost—oomph.”

“—pabo!” He has stepped forward and squeezes her, momentarily forgetting that she has a wound, “if it’s anything that I was worried to death, it was you and Taeyang, not a stupid bat! If it’s anything precious to me, it’s you and Taeyang, not a stupid bat!”

“L-Luhan…” She winces in pain, “Ooh…”

Ooh? He backs away when he remembers why she’s hurt. “S-sorry, I-I—” He apologetically looks at her checking her bandage in case any blood seeps out. He says it one more time when they’ve confirmed that it is okay.

She comes over to him and takes him by the hand. She squeezes it before he pulls it away. “Thanks, Luhan.” She gives him an assured look and then hugs him. “Thanks for saving our lives.”

He feels her smile and it warms him up.

“And thanks for choosing Taeyang.” She refers back to when the surgeons asked who they should give first-aid attention to between Taeyang and her.

“Who-who told you?” His cheeks become flushed and he tries to stay calm.

She chuckles, “Luna. She was angry that you didn’t choose to save me first…but I was very happy. Very.” She pulls back from the hug and looks up at him, “Also…I lost one more thing, b-but this time, it’s a very precious item to me.”

He frightfully gazes down at her. Maybe this is the part and the reason why they’ll no longer be friends. She has lost something important to her, and who can ever forgive something like that? He quickly braces himself as he waits for her explanation.

She raises her left hand and regrettably says, “I-I lost our ‘wedding ring.’ It must’ve slipped off when I was swimming out of the sinking car.”

It takes him a slight moment to laugh comfortably. “What? That’s it?”

She angrily pouts at him and smacks him on the chest playfully, “It’s not a ‘that’s it’!” She mutters under her breath, although he can still hear, “It’s very significant to me.”

He lightly pushes her forehead, “Pabo, if it’s that, I can buy you another one.”

“No!” She moves away from him, shocking him. She whines, “You said that it was specially made for me and it’s the only ‘wedding ring’ in the world with your design.”

She really considers it as a wedding ring? His chuckling makes Hana believe that he’s mocking her viewpoint of the ‘wedding ring’ he had given to her. With a smile still slapped on his face, he casually leaves his spot, “Wait here.”

She blankly stares at him, “W-where you going?”

He doesn’t give her an answer as he heads upstairs, right before he gently pats Taeyang on the head who has been ignoring his virtual parents’ small spat because he’s been busily building a tower with the blocks around him. A minute or so later, he comes back down with his hands behind his back. “Close your eyes.”

Hana eyes him suspiciously. The last time she closed her eyes for him, he a brush with black paint vertically across her face when they were cleaning the art room, causing their classmates to laugh at his prank. “No.” She takes a step back in case he’s hiding some tools to do something to her. “Never will I ever close my eyes again for you.”

“Aw, just this time. We don’t even have paint anyway.” His comment implies that he remembers the artistic prank. He gives his best effort to not laugh as he thinks back to it.

“Tell me what you have behind you.”

“Close your eyes first.”

“Luhan…!”

He copies her tone, “Hana…!”

She laughs in response to his cute imitation. She impatiently orders him, “Just show me.”

“If you close your eyes.” He knows that no matter what, she won’t be persuaded because he can’t be trusted about it, which is understandable to him, and he accepts it. So, in order to accomplish what he wants to do, he bargains for it. “How about this: if I do something you don’t like, I’ll let you abuse me for a day.”

Hana burst into a laugh. It isn’t much of a bargain, but at least she gets to do something satisfyingly to him in return. “Okay!” She closes her eyes shut and mentally decides to not like anything at all so she can hurt him in any way possible in return for all that he’s done to her. “Anytime, Luhan.” After she says that, she feels his touch on her hand.

He brings her hand up and says to her, “Leave it like this.”

“Okay…” Her curiosity increases to its max and her toes fidget in impatience.

Something cold touches the top of her wrist and then encircles it. It’s not Luhan’s hand… She docks her head to the side, trying to mentally guess what the object is. She becomes nerve-wrecked when she believes that it’s another joke of his, that maybe he’s put something icky or bug-related on her hand to creep her out when she sees it. In disgust and fear, she opens her eyes and whips her hand back. She reflexively touches her wrist, “Luhan, what—!”

She feels something familiar and eyes down at it. In surprise, she gasps in awe. “Y-you…h-how did…” She can’t remove her eyes from the object at her wrist. She’s scared that if she looks away, it’ll somehow magically disappear. “…How…?”

“You still had it when they found you…but they had to take it off for your surgery.” He answers. He cheekily smiles at her to hide his embarrassment, “I’ve had it since then so I can put it back on your hand again.”

She brings her hand up close and touches it. She gives him a heartfelt look, “Pabo, you’ll be the only person who gets to put it on my hand.” After she says it, she kisses the “wedding ring” she thought she had lost.

Seeing her do so to it, he can’t help but imagine that it’s he whom she had just kissed. With that in mind, he face becomes hot and pink and he glances away.

But, it is a wrong move.

His imagination turns true because she pecks him on the cheek.

“When I have this with me,” she innocently begins, not knowing of the “harm” she has caused to her friend who has freeze in response to the action committed from before, “it’s like you’re with me, Luhan.” She stops smiling when she doesn’t get any kind of reaction from him. She analyzes him and sees an awkward expression on his face. “You…okay?”

“Y-you can’t do this…” he quietly says the next word, “…anymore.”

“Do what?”

Because he’s flustered at what happened and at how ignorant she is taking the entire “kissing-my-friend-is-okay” action, he doesn’t know what and how to explain to her that her soft kisses cause a very unwanted result from below him. And if he does tell her, she’d be grossed out because they’re both friends, not a real lovey-dovey couple. She being disgusted of him is the second to the last thing of what he wants from her.

He cups his violated cheek and musters enough bravery to stare at her. “F-from now on, kissing between us is prohibited.”

She gives him a “what the” look. “We’re not kissing.”

“Then what was that?”

“What?”

He exclaims, although not mad but irritated at how slow on the uptake she is about the situation, “You kissed my cheek just now.”

“Oh, that?” She scoffs, “Pabo, you know that I do it to Taeyang, too.”

His expression shows that he doesn’t understand her remark.

“It’s to show appreciation.” She laughs it off, “Kisses have different meanings behind them, too; It’s not what you think they are just because they’re occasionally used as an expression of intimacy between lovers.” She goes over to Taeyang and is about to pick her son up when she remembers that she can’t since she can’t strain her wound. Instead, she stands behind him. “A kiss between Taeyang and I are like a parent to a child. The kiss between you and I are like…” she stops her explanation when she realizes that what she was about to say isn’t true. Friends…don’t kiss friends.

“Are like what?” He tensely asks.

She stammers, “It’s like what I said before! It’s to show appreciation. Appreciation.”

He heaves a sigh. I guess I can take that. “Sorry,” he says, “I’ve been thinking too much.”

“Yeah, you are.” She sends him a promising smile, “we both know we’ll never be anything more than friends.”

He laughs after all the tension he’s held is released. “Actually, we’ll never be anything more than a virtual couple.”

She begins laughing along, too. “You’re right. The closest kind of couple we’ll ever be is a virtual one. Good one, pabo.”

“Hey,” he changes his tone in response, “I’m not a pabo, pabo.”

She sticks her tongue at him, “I called you pabo first.”

“So, pabo?”

She pouts at him, “You’re the pabo, pabo!”

With all of the name calling and childish insults, the two friends’ spent their day catching up on all the bickering they’ve missed.

*

Luhan: what did you guys talk about? @ 1:27 p.m.

Kris puts his phone down after reading his brother’s text. He wants to inform his brother about his conversation with Hana from an hour ago, but he has already promised her he wouldn’t say spat anything about it to anyone. Not even a small detail.

But what worries him even more is how his brother is going to react when the time comes.

When he and Hana met up this afternoon for their talk, he had tried to persuade Hana out of what she plans to do, but she was stubborn on it. She wouldn’t even tell him why she had come to that conclusion. The only thing was that she managed to pull him to her side because he owes her his help. He never thought she is this kind of person, but he believes that she’s been pushed to a corner in order to have come up with this kind of “idea”.

But what has pushed her to do this?

When she told him about “it,” she didn’t locked eyes with him at all. She sounded hurt, she looked hurt, and she was hurt.

He knows that it’s something she doesn’t want to do.

But she has to.

He even asked her, “Did you talk to Luhan about this?”

She shook her head and didn’t bother to lie about it, “No. He doesn’t know about it. Please don’t tell him. Or our friends. I’d like for you to keep this between us.”

“Why do you need to—”

“—Sorry, Mr. Lu. I-I can’t tell you, too. But, I need your help. You’re the only one I can ask.”

He couldn’t turn down the offer, not when she looked gloomy, lost, and hopeless. He had never seen her like this before because she is always cheerful. Even if he wouldn’t get an answer as to how things turned out this way, he wanted to know one thing: “Did Luhan do something to you?”

She perked up, frantically, and defended her friend. “Of course not. He’s a good friend…a very good one. Too good that…” she looked away and then down. “it’s me instead.”

“What do you mean?”

She cleared and lied to him—a first—“Sorry, it’s time I get back to Luhan and Taeyang.”

Their conversation ended like that. No beginning and no closure. He’s determined and curious to know what’s in her mind to cause this “idea” from her, but he knows it’s not his place to ask. All he can do and has to do is be there for her.

With his mind made up, he responds to his brother’s text.

Kris: nothing much. @ 1:29 p.m.

*

Nothing much? Luhan tosses his phone to the empty space beside him. He’s not going to tell me about their conversation? He had asked, nudged, and bugged Hana about it when she came home, but all she said is, “Nothing.”

His cell phone vibrates again and he happ