Haera

     After the awards ceremony, before the start of semester break, Luhan and I continue being in quite an absurd relationship—it’s between someone and her dreamcatcher.

     We don’t date, we never confessed to each other, but I have to admit that I have feelings for him, very fond feelings. What do you expect when you shoot a romantic tale of Romeo & Juliet together and spend every night (this sounds so wrong, but literally it is the true statement) together?

     Tonight, he accompanies me to sleep for God knows the nth time. I start to feel more loose beside him, because now we usually have small talks about school, friends, and everything before we go to sleep. Well it’s not exactly we, Luhan does all the speaking. I’m not saying that he speaks a lot, but yeah because I’m not quite an active talker...

     “...and after the professor knows that I was the one who portrayed Romeo, she gave the score right away.” Luhan is telling me about an evil photography professor who always postpones posting students’ final scores. “And not just my score, she gave me the entire class’ scores! See, she actually has finished all but why would she hold back giving it to us?”

     I’m lying beside him, facing his side, and chuckle. “Sounds chaotic. It’s a good thing I didn’t register for that class.”

     “Yeah... But the kids are cool, you might want to hang out with them. They’re nice.”

     Luhan is not really a social butterfly, but he has a lot of friends in our school, and the fact that he’s a Chinese student who is extremely pretty and good-looking alone makes him the object of curiosity there. In short, a total opposite of me. But after I played Juliet in our final project, people start talking to me, and while I find it as a huge struggle to socialize, I also think that this is a good beginning to be better on doing that.

     But to be honest, I’m also becoming an object of curiosity recently because people suspect me on dating Luhan. Well, we did a good job on our class’ short movie, maybe people took our roles too seriously. I wonder what people would say if they knew we sleep together... Wait, that also sounds wrong.

     “Good night.” Luhan smiles and pulls the blanket to cover his body. He sleeps on his side, facing me. He falls asleep within minutes after he closes his eyes, and I can just admire his innocent sleeping face. How can he manage to look so perfect even when he’s unconscious? As much as I want to go to sleep too and have a dreamless sleep that he makes it to be, I think I also can just stare at him all night.

     Half an hour passes, and I’m still looking at him. Wow, this is unhealthy for my heart. I smile every time there’s a slight facial movement of him, and I flinch a bit when he moves.

     We are less than a feet apart, and after a slow mumble was heard from him, Luhan raised his arm, and it lands around my body. I shudder a bit, but I didn’t do anything afterwards. I look at his thin arm. It looks so fragile, yet it felt so strong on scenes we shot where he needed to hold my body.

     I raise my right hand, intending to move his arm, but I stop. A bashful smile forms in my face. Han Haera, you opportunist girl.

     Luhan lets out another mumble, and I wonder whether he’s having the bad dream instead of me. But a few seconds later, he takes a deep breath.

     “Han Haera, I’ll say it. Let’s. Date.”

     My eyes widen. Luhan’s eyes were still shut.

     “Date. Yes.”

     Oh my, he’s sleep talking. I don’t know how to react. Hey, he’s sleep talking, why am I feeling nervous now?!

     Luhan continues to sleep soundly, but my heart still beats faster than usual. I carefully move his arm, and turn my body to the other side. Thank you Luhan, now I can’t sleep.

     I only got a couple hours of sleep, and I wake up with a heavy head, but what I witnessed yesterday comes to mind, and I feel weird again. It was just a sleep talk, only a sleep talk...

     I’m in the living room already when Luhan wakes up, and he comes out with a part of his hair sticking out hilariously. I laugh at him, pointing at his head. He looks at the mirror near the bathroom, and laughs too. He approaches me to the sofa, and yawns.

     “Did you have a nightmare?” he asks the obligatory question.

     “No.” I shake my head, smiling. He nods proudly, and watch the TV with me. It’s Saturday, and both of us currently have no personal plans.

     I think again about what he said last night. Did he really mean it? Does he have the same feelings with me? Does he like me? I silently curse at myself for not expressing myself better in front of him.

     I think I’m going to do it first.

     “Luhan...”

     “Hm?”

     “I just want to say that I really appreciate your help so far.”

     Luhan moves at his spot. “Are you going somewhere?!”

     “Wait—no.” I turn to face him, and he looks like a lost kid right now. “No, it’s even the opposite—well, I don’t know how to say it but—um—after all this time—I just want to say... I like you.” There, I said it.

     Luhan looks at me, and his eyes gradually got bigger. I don’t know whether to escape or laugh right now. Soon, his face goes red, and he awkwardly laughs. Oh no, what does this mean?!

     “Well... This is getting strange.” Luhan rubs his face. “How do you know? I mean, no... To be honest, I’m planning on going somewhere with you tonight and tell you about... Yeah, that.”

     Oh God, so he actually wants to confess too. I swallow, and hang my head down. “Sorry.”

     “What are you sorry for?” Luhan laughs, and he takes my hand. “So... We can say that now I’m not only a dreamcatcher, right?”

     I stare at our hands, and my lips curl. “Yes.”

     “I’m the one who feels sorry for not confessing earlier. I don’t want you to be surprised... Because I know you’re a very reserved and quiet person.”

     “Yet you still want to confess.”

     “Because I like you.”

      I hang my head down again, and smile widely. Luhan uses his fingers to lift my head.

     “Why would you hide it? I want to see you smile.”

     I smile to him, and he smiles back. I can’t believe this.

     I move to the kitchen to make our morning coffee, and Luhan tags along. He’s sitting on my pantry, and I join him, as we wait for the water to boil. We talk about random things, and suddenly he hops down. He stands in front of me, and the pantry makes me a few inches taller than him.

     “So I can do this now?”

     He gives me a quick peck on the lips. I stay there frozen. He smiles, and kisses me, and it was his Romeo kiss, which we did on the short movie. I just realized that I’ve missed this kiss.

     “Act 1 Scene 5, remember?” he smiles, after he pulls away. “But don’t be Juliet, you’ll die. Just be Han Haera.”

     I laugh, and nod. Why would I be Juliet when I can be Han Haera, who has Luhan by her side?