Baro

My alarm-clock roughly pushed me out of my dreams. I reached out my arm and hit the off-button so hard that the alarm-clock fell to the ground. I grumbled at the loud noise it made. Then I slowly sat up and looked at my phone. The message I had secretly hoped for hadn’t come.

No message from Sandeul.

Sandeul

When I left the shower I noticed that I had come to a point where I’m starting to hate to take a shower because of the memories it brought to me every time. I dried my body with a towel and got dressed. I looked in the mirror and sighed. I looked like I hadn’t slept for years. Then I blow-dried my hair. When I was done I took my phone and left the bathroom. While going downstairs I looked at my phone. Still no message from Baro…

Baro

I was sitting at Sandeul’s and my table waiting for him to come. When he finally entered the classroom I stopped breathing for a moment. Without looking at me Sandeul went straight to Jinyoung’s table where he sat down on top of the table and started chatting with Jinyoung and the guy next to him. Although he seemed to hardly try to look cheerful and bright I saw that he had had a sleepless night or two. I knew that in front of Jinyoung, Sandeul wouldn’t make a scene so I got up and approached him to act as perfect friends once again before we would hush forever…

Sandeul

“Ah, Jinyoung~ I’m still so tired, your party was a great hit!” Baro said while sitting down next to me putting one arm around my waist and leaning his head on my shoulder. I inwardly shocked and didn’t move. What the hell was he doing? Jinyoung just laughed and called him:

“Baby Baro!”

Baro stayed like that for a while and I started to relax. But then Stacy joined us although she wasn’t even a member of my class. Baro put up his head and they hugged each other as a greeting. I looked away and started chatting with Gongchan, the other guy.

“Hey Baro, are you free on Friday?”

“I guess so.”

“Wanna go on a date with me? We’ll be uninterrupted don’t worry!” she said. I couldn’t remember anymore why I had liked her once.

Baro agreed and then she left again. Baro wanted to lean on me again but I avoided his head by getting up from the table. And then the teacher entered the classroom and Baro and I went to our seats.

Baro

During the first lesson I finally got a message from Sandeul but it wasn’t the kind of message I had hoped for.

“What the hell was that?” he wrote.

“What’s wrong with leaning on a friend when you’re tired?”

“So you still want to be friends with me?” he answered.

“Of course!”

He didn’t answer to that and I felt a weird pain in my chest. Did that mean that HE didn’t want to be friends with ME anymore?

Sandeul

Thanks to Jinyoung, Baro and I rarely were left alone together so we could hide the awkwardness at least as much as possible in front of the others. But I guess it was quite obvious though that something was wrong because Baro and I always talked to other people but not to each other. We kept up that weird atmosphere for the whole week.

Baro

The way it was between Sandeul and me pulled down my mood, even on Friday when I was preparing for my date with Stacy. But during the date for a short time, I luckily didn’t think about Sandeul at all. But when I got a call from Jinyoung, that was over!

“Yah Baro! Is Sandeul with you?”

“No, I’m on the date with Stacy!”

“…” I heard him mumble.

“Why are you asking? What’s up?”

“Sandeul’s parents called! He didn’t come home, yet and he’s not answering the phone. Gongchan and I are going to look for him now. I hope we’ll find him!”

“Okay, I’ll help you! Contact me when you’ve found him!”

“What about your date?”

“This is more important now!” I said and hung up.

“Stacy. I’m sorry, but I have to leave! I’ll make up for this!” I said and got up.

“What happened?” she asked and I decided to just be completely honest.

“Sandeul’s missing…Stacy, I’m sorry, I really like you, but Sandeul’s my best friend and in this kind of situation, I have to choose him over you!”

“Best friend? You two didn’t talk to each other for the whole week!” she said. I was surprised.

“How did you-?”

“Jinyoung told me!”

I inwardly smiled at my own foolishness. Of course Jinyoung had noticed it...

I sighed.

“I’ll tell you why next time!” I said and left.

Sandeul

I was sitting on a bench in front of the huge river. It was cold and the traces of tears on my cheeks felt like cool breezes. I had banged my head and felt dizzy and then I didn’t find my house anymore. Sounds dumb right? But that’s just pure reality. That’s me…

I didn’t want to go home anymore and I liked that bench and I didn’t want to get up from it because I knew I would only get dizzy again.

“Saaaaaaaaandeul! Saaaaaaandeul! Are you there?” I heard a voice call. I was too tired to turn around and look who it was so I just sat there and silently said:

“I’m here!”

Baro

When I reached the path next to the river, I saw a person sitting on one of the benches. I ran up to him and saw that it was Sandeul.

“I’m so glad that I found you!” I said under fast breathes. Sandeul turned his head to me.

“Sandeul? What happened? Are you okay? Why are you here?” I asked. He didn’t answer me and I began to get pissed.

“Won’t you answer me?”

He still didn’t answer he just let out a sigh.

“Man, your parents called Jinyoung, they’re totally worried about you and Jinyoung, too! He called me and I abandoned Stacy and our date to go look for you! So will you now just tell me why the hell it was even necessary?!”

“I didn’t ask you to so don’t blame me for that!”

I sat down next to him.

“What the hell is going on with you?”

“I…didn’t find my house!” he finally said.

“What? Were you drunk again?”

“No, I…..accidentally banged my head and became dizzy and then I couldn’t find my house anymore!”

It was so absurd that it was already funny again so I laughed.

“That’s all? That’s why? Everyone had to go nearly mad? Wow, I’m impressed!”

Sandeul got up and walked away.

“Hey, wait! Where are you going?” I called and caught up with him. I touched his shoulder to stop him but he roughly pushed away my hand and said:

“Let me! Just get lost!”

“No! I looked for you for almost an hour, I won’t leave until I brought you home, even if I have to carry you home, little princess!” I said.

Sandeul

“….little princess!”

I was angry at Baro and I felt ashamed and I felt tacky, so I turned around, lurching for a moment and then changed my direction.

“Where are you going now?”

“Home.”

“Okay, I’ll accompany you!”

“No, just go!”

“You’re going to get lost again!”

We hushed for a moment.

“Hey~ Sandeul! Don’t be sulky….What’s up with you lately? Come on, I know you!”

“No, you don’t! You don’t know me at all and I don’t want you to!”

Baro grabbed my arm and stopped me from going and turned me around to face me.

“Why?” he asked.

“None of your business. I just don’t want to!” I said. My eyes widened when I felt his hand that was grabbing my arm, wander down to my hand and interlace our fingers.

“I don’t care if you don’t want to. Cause I want to! I want to know everything about you!” he said and his voice seemed to become more and more of a whisper. He moved closer and his other hand wandered up my arm to my neck.

“I want to know what you do, what you like, how you laugh and how you cry and how you’re beautiful voice sounds when you talk or when you sing melodies that only you know like you did at the night when I picked you up!” he added.

For a moment I felt like I was in trance but then I came back to my senses and realized how absurd those words sounded when they came out of the person’s mouth that rejected me and that told me how it was all a joke to him. I pushed his hands away.

“Do you ever think of other people’s feelings before you play with them?” I said and continued to walk.

“What?” he said and ran up to me.

Baro

“This all is just a joke to you, right? One day you run away, then you kiss me, then you reject me and tell me that it was nothing to you and make me feel tacky and cheap. Then you suddenly act like we’re best friends at school and then you yell at me and now you just tried to…whatever! I’m sick of it!” he said.

Once again I tried to grab his hand to stop him but he roughly pulled away.

“Stop that! Just leave and let me go home alone! I’m not a child anymore!”

“Sandeul, I…”

“Stop it! “ he shouted. “I don’t think I want to be friends with you anymore!” he then added and I stopped walking. He went along.

“What?”

“Please don’t act like we know each other anymore.”

“You can’t just quit a friendship on your own! That’s something that both people have to decide!”

“Chill out! It’s not like we’ve been the best friends in this world, so just forget it”

“To me…it was!” I said and he stopped walking now, too. He turned around.

“Stop that ! We only know each other for a few weeks!”

Sandeul

“So what? Does it matter? Did you never meet a person who you fell for immediately?”

“No, never! But you can’t compare something like that to our ‘friendship’!”

“Why not?! I think friends become friends because they also kind of ‘fall’ for each other but in a different way than couples do!”

“Whatever! I didn’t fall for you.”

Baro now approached me.

“I don’t believe you!”

“I’m tired of this. I wanna go home!”

“I won’t let you until we’ve fought this out!

“CAN’T YOU JUST GET LOST?!” I shouted.

“If you didn’t fall for me, then why did you do those things in the shower of the swimming pool? With those actions you started all of this chaos!”

“Who knows, maybe I was drunk.”

“In the swimming pool? You weren’t!”

I sank down on one of the benches and ran my fingers through my hair. I felt dizzy again. Silent tears started flowing.

“You’re driving me crazy.” I mumbled.

Baro knelt down in front of me.

“Then just tell me the truth! Talk to me!”

“What are you expecting to hear?” I said and lifted my head a little to look at him.

“What do you wanna hear? That I DID want to kiss you? That it was MY fault? Yes it was! I admit that, but you hurt me more than anyone else ever did or could and I don’t want this anymore. So let’s stop okay? I’m over it!” I said.

“But I’m NOT over it, yet!” Baro whispered and reached out his hand to wipe away my tears.

Baro

I moved closer hypnotized by his glassy beautiful eyes to do everything that’s possible to prevent them from crying again. When our lips were only inches apart, when I could already smell his sweet taste and I had closed my eyes, my cellphone suddenly rang and I almost got a heart-attack.

I backed off and answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“It’s me! Jinyoung. I don’t know what to do anymore! We didn’t find him and we’re worried to death!”

“Don’t worry, I found him. I’ll bring him back home.”

“I’m so relieved! Slap him and tell him to never ever do that again okay?” Jinyoung said. I laughed and then hung up...