December 2013

“Alright, you go and have your lunch.” Haneul smiled at the man. “I’ve got it from here, oppa.”

“Okay, thanks Haneul. Have a nice day!” He called out as he made his way towards the door of Café Halcyon, waving as he pushed open the door. “You too, Chanyeol.”

The tall man shot him a smile and waved his goodbye and thanks as he disappeared out the door and into the busy street of downtown at one-thirty in the afternoon.

Chanyeol propped his elbows on the counter and rested his chin on his hand, observing as the girl behind the counter grabbed the black apron from the hanger and secured it around her waist.

It was a lazy Monday afternoon and there weren’t a lot of customers at this time of the day. After a while of silence, Chanyeol finally put down his magazine and leaned forward, peering at the girl behind the counter. “Haneul-ah.”

She looked up from the pack of coffee beans she was opening. “Hm?”
“Why don’t you ever call me oppa?” He asked.

Her eyebrows shot up and she stared at him for a moment like he was asking her a ridiculous question, and maybe he was but he couldn’t help the question from leaving his mouth.

“Why?” She poured the whole pack of coffee beans into the machine and discarded the empty pack before resuming her place across him behind the counter.

“I mean you call Minseok ‘oppa’ all the time.” He started. “And I’m older than you so –”

“By six months.” Haneul pointed out.

The man gave her a look. “I’m still older.”

“Why would you ask me that in the first place?” She placed her hands on her lips and looked at him. “Do you want me to call you that?”

“Well, not really.” Chanyeol murmured. “But –”

“Then I won’t call you that then.”

“Wait.” He said, a little too loudly and it earned him a couple of stares from the group of customers sitting by the window. He gave them an apologetic smile in return before turning his face and attention back to his best friend. “Can you just call me that, once?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know how it sounds like to be called oppa.” He answered as a matter of factly.

Haneul rolled her eyes. “Then ask someone else to do it.”

“But I want to know how it sounds like coming from you.”

“That’s creepy.”

“No it’s not.” He shot back. “Common.”

“It’s not happening, Yeol.”

Chanyeol could care less if his words came out in an almost childish whine. “But why?”

“We’re best friends. We’re already beyond that don’t you think?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You’re not going to call me dongsaeng now, are you?” She asked, cocking her head to the side.

The man shook his head.

“There you have it.”

Not pleased with not getting his request fulfilled, Chanyeol could only fork a piece of lettuce into his mouth before stabbing another poor piece of mayonnaise covered vegetable on his plate while Haneul went back to work.

Too caught up with his sulking, the boy didn’t notice the faint brush of pink that dusted her cheeks as she purposefully kept her face away from view and instead busied herself with cleaning the already spotless glass door of the pastry shelf.

Being best friends with Haneul sure had its privileges, considering the attention and care – and skinship, too – he got that was undeniably more than what she offered others. So he did not understand the point of it all when he was denied the one thing that he wanted to hear from her.

He tried to piece snippets of his memories of her addressing the barista with the round eyes together with her calling his name, expecting it to have the same sweet ring to it but it just sounded weird and lame like a badly trimmed and put together audio clip.

Chanyeol frowned at his salad. This wasn’t fair.

“You know, it’s not worth it at all.” Chanyeol offered, releasing the folded piece of paper and letting it land back onto the ta