“Ahn, carry that in the back!”

The boy pulled the cap off his head and nodded at his boss, piling up the empty boxes. He rushed to the back and wondered aloud whether he should change jobs. It was difficult to have the same family name as his manager. Not that the other man wasn’t much older than him, maybe with only one or two years between them. I wonder if he really thought I hadn’t heard him, stacking more empty boxes next to his. The boy bowed and wanted to excuse himself, only to bow again ashamed.

He was cute.

“Sorry boss, I didn’t mean it.”

“I don’t care. Quit if you’re unhappy with something as petty as having the same family name,” leaving the boy alone in the storage, I pondered if that sounded too harsh. But it was something minor and if it bothered him so much, he should have told me earlier.

The boy was still there, playing with his phone while biting on his lips, constantly frowning at the screen. Coming closer with my hands behind, the boy flinched and hid his phone the same way I used to.

“I… I mean…,” he looked left and right, avoiding my gaze “May I leave earlier today? It’s my brother.”

“Sure,” he stared long at my warm smile while I came closer and patted his back “But really, it’s just a name, it won’t change a thing. Work hard and you’ll do good, alright?”

He nodded, holding tighter to his vibrating phone.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” hugging wasn’t a great idea. It was good between friends but not in front of the other employees. The boy should just leave.

“Ah, Jaehyo!” he turned around right before leaving the café “Don’t be late tomorrow!”

“YES!”

Kids these days were full of energy, heading in all the wrong directions. They want everything with as little work as possible.

I was one of them, confined between walls built to protect me from the world rather than accept it as it is. It would have been great if somebody else had done them for me and I only had to find a hammer and break free. Instead, these two hands placed every single brick, enclosed away from natural light, from nature, rejecting anything else that was not inside those walls. It was a cold and lonely place, only my face to stare at from the mirror in my mind.  I could not see my reflection anywhere else. The soul I harbored no longer sang and for a while, I thought it had left my body and I moved mechanically through life.

“Niel, are you closing up today?” the co-owner fumbled with his cigarettes, always lighting one to smoke on his way home.

“Yeah, you guys go ahead,” it was also the night we were supposed to celebrate the growth of our small business.

“Are you sure?” Minsoo tied his jacket around the waist, the weather too hot to wear it.

“Very,” I couldn’t tell him the truth, why I wanted to avoid them that night “See you tomorrow~!”

He bowed his head slightly and saluted with his hand, the cigarette trapped between his fingers.

Once again, I was alone.

It wasn’t bad. I got used to it and welcomed the fact that loneliness is sometimes the very thing I most needed. Clearing your head, having a bit of “me” time was exactly what the doctor prescribed. Sweeping the floor, fixing things around, making sure everything was ready for the next day, it was all just part of another memory collected throughout life.

Hardships, happiness, they flew in the same spectrum as we did. There wasn’t a single feeling not passed through every single one of us, adventurers through our journey.

Yet, despite all that, despite us making our way foremost alone, there were also destinies intertwining with ours. For every thread, there were billions other intersecting in a never-ending web of relationships and roads that fork and make us take decisions, whether to continue together down the same path or split ways and each continue with fate by their side.

On that very day, I celebrated everything. Celebrated life, celebrated my choices, celebrating the fact that I was still there, still on my road, still seeing wonders, still tangling threads with mine.

Midnight struck and the only one who wished me happy birthday was the kid still locked inside of my heart. It reminded me there were still a certain innocence we had to keep as adults, still a fantasy world out there that made everything just a little bit better. Clouds looking like cotton candy, silly things like that.

Silly things like that… ah, maybe I’m being too silly myself. Overthinking is awful, especially at that late hour.

I should just close everything and head home faster. Dongwoo’s message stopped me for another minute, chuckling at the funny row of emoticons describing how much he loved his brother and how he treasured that special day.

He was still an idiot. The army hadn’t changed him at all. It didn’t change me at all either. I still found it funny the way Dongwoo was my superior for a while, giving me special favors in my first months there and I ending up scolding him whenever we were alone, begging he treated me just as another regular soldier.

The idiot couldn’t do it. He protected me more than I could, despite everything I had done. After being the bigger moron of the two, he always protected me.

Dongwoo was always there for me, even when we didn’t see each other for weeks. I hope we stay the same forever.

The next message came from my parents, nothing unusual, inviting me to have seaweed soup in the morning with them. I didn’t plan to do it, yet I knew they were always glad to see me, always happy to have me around and my mere presence brought joy in their life. The child they could never have naturally, the child they adopted and treated as their own, I was their sunshine.

Or a little how Donghae called me in the third message after midnight.

“Happy birthday to you~” the chanting came from the front doors. Minsoo was there, holding a cake while four more people sang with party hats strapped to their heads. The friends I made over these four years. “Happy birthday to you~~~” they all gathered around and before they finished singing, the cake ended up on my face.

It was a whipped cream war and I the victim.

“YA!”

While blowing up the single candle, I wished for two things. One being for Minsoo, Chanhee, Byunghun, Changhyun and Jonghyun to stay forever in my life.

---

At 12:42 AM, the party died out. Even if they wanted to spend the entire night together, I insisted they went home. Back to their girlfriends, back to their families, back to their apartments without me. Closing the café, turning down all lights except one and locking the door, I too had to return home.

The smell of grass, smell of flowers, the night breeze in late summer cooled down my heated body.

Four years… it has been four years… since I have last seen him.

“Hey there stranger!”

Even the wind has his voice. I have been imagining things the entire night, his smile, his scent, his arms around me, swearing I could see him watch me. My legs froze, they don't want to walk anymore. It is somebody else, isn’t it? It's another couple and the guy just happens to have his voice. Or maybe somebody wants my help.

Turning around, I see him.

He sees me.

Sleeveless black T-shirt, ripped jeans, his hands in his pockets, the dimple smile and brown locks. He hasn’t changed much. Even after four years in which I haven’t seen his face once, he looks the same as what I remembered.

White shirt with folded sleeves, black jeans and a chain hanging from his right pocket, with the same cat look and plump lips, he hasn’t changed much. He is the same doe-eyed child that dropped at my door one fateful day with his blonde hair and gorgeous smile.

It’s been four years, four long years…

…in which I only wanted him back.

“Hey there Dr. Jekyll,” he gave me the same weird look from five years ago, from when I first called him that. Still not moving, he does it for me, one step at a time. “Have you been working out?”

Henry takes his hands out of his pockets and looks at his arms, flexing them right away for me to see his muscles.

“Does it look like it?” he suddenly gets embarrassed, smiling like an idiot. “You know,” the distance between us is too small, couldn’t he have moved a bit further? Then again, why aren’t I the one to widened the gap? “I’ve never seen anyone more perfect than you in these last four years.”

I can’t take it anymore.

“Cheesy!” how could he say that of all the possible things? “Cheesy, cheesy, so freaking cheesy! You stink rotten a mile away from how cheesy you are!”

Henry grabs my head and kisses me right there in front of the café, right there where nobody could see us.

At least shutting him up still worked only through kissing. His soft lips make my heart flutter just as hard as the first time.

…and I like it.

No.

I love it.

I love every single bit of it, to the point that my body reacted and gets closer to him, clutching to his clothes and falling inside his warm embrace.

“Henry,” he gasps after I let go, my thumb silencing his mouth.

“I don’t care if you have somebody else or if you don’t want me anymore because you’re my girl and I’ll wait four more years, four decades even, if that’s what it takes for you to accept me back.”

I have smacked his head, shoving Henry off me, only to jump after in another kiss.

Whom am I kidding? Some threads are never loose and no matter how much we try to escape from them, destiny always has a way around two people meant to take the same road, hand by hand, shoulder to shoulder, through the best and through the worst.

That’s what life is all about. That’s what my life is all about.

And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

It has taken me four years to realize that, four years for both of us to change and when the roads forked again, we met and decided no longer to separate, for the road that shone the brightest was the one we ran on together in another adventure.

Henry, if you don’t know it already, I love you and I always will. Even if other lovers come and go, you’re the only one for me.

You’re my spindle tree and together we’re perfect.

the end.
(need to type the bonus chapter today ;A;)