Monday, April 12th, 2004

Hey Diary,


Say happy birthday to me! I'm sixteen today ^^ I've realized I've grown quite a lot, I'm only nine centimeters shorter than Lulu hyung now. I'll keep growing tall!


You know what? Actually I'm only trying to act cool now. You know that I had been waiting for this day for one year and three months, right?


Since yesterday until this morning I had been worrying too much about how my relationship with Lulu hyung would continue after this day. Yesterday night I couldn't sleep because he called me and we talked about our parents. They have never been too happy about us getting into a deeper relationship, especially my dad, he said a boy shouldn't love another boy in a romantic way. The first time I told him about this last year, he got mad but I was even angrier that he wouldn't understand. Lulu hyung also talked to his mom, and what really made me even more worried about today was that he cried a bit on the phone. I could hear it, but he insisted he wasn't crying.


So this afternoon after I went back from school, I found Luhan hyung and his mom in the living room at my house. They were discussing something with Dad. Seeing how they looked at me, I really didn't want to know what they had been talking about, I didn't even want to talk to them because I was sure they had something bad to tell me. I ran away to my room, but Luhan hyung came to solve things with me.


He told me that we had got some "rivals", which were our own parents.

It had been almost two years since the first time I met Sehun, and more than a year since we had made that promise. I had been quite drunk back then, but I had never regretted making that promise with Sehun. So far we had waited for a year plus three months. Sehun had told me that he would confess to me again on his sixteenth birthday. Then, he was turning sixteen in less than a day.


A day before his birthday, I had spent hours talking to Mom about him and our relationship. Actually I had told her before that I had felt something special for this boy. She had been very surprised to know about that, but since she had assumed it had only been mere feelings of an unstable teenager that wouldn't possibly develop into something big, she hadn't considered it a big problem back then. But then that I told her about our promise, she was suddenly against it.


"You're almost twenty now, Xiao Lu. Don't waste your age for a young teenager, you better go find someone more mature, maybe a girl in the same university? You have many girl friends, don't you? But, if you do play for the other team, I'll try to understand because you're my son after all. Just... Don't involve a kid in something serious like this, Xiao Lu."


"But Sehunnie is not a kid anymore. You know how mature he is, Mom. Isn't he your favorite? He's been calling you 'mama' too since you asked him to. Why are you rejecting him now? Please Mom, just let us have this. It's really important to us, you probably don't understand, we've waited for this for a long time. Would you rather let me go out with a stranger than with this boy that has been like our own family?"


"It's because he is like our own family," Mom sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'll talk to his dad first."


I narrowed my eyes at her. "...Do you have something to tell me? About you and Mr. Oh?"


Mom looked away to avoid my eyes and straightened her back. "What? There's nothing to tell you. I just need to know what he thinks about this."


"So it doesn't have anything to do with...your relationship with him?" I carefully asked, "Not because Sehun is his son?"


Mom turned her head and frowned at me. "Why are you interrogating me now? It's not only about that. You should have known that it's wrong to have a relationship with a young boy in the first place."


"Not only about that," I repeated her words, "so that means you do have something with him, right? So Sehun and I can't have a relationship because of that, am I right?"


Mom sighed and massaged her temple. "Go back to your room, Lu Han."


I was caught off guard because she had just called me by my full name. Not trying to fight her anymore, I got up from the couch we were sitting on and walked away. Before I left the room though, I stopped walking to see her once again.


"...I'm sorry, Mom."


I locked myself in my room like a childish teenage girl, threw myself onto my bed and grabbed my phone to call Sehun. Usually he greeted me on the phone with a cheerful tone, but as if he had known what I was going to talk about, this time he sounded rather doubtful with worry thick in his voice.


"H-Hello...? Luhan hyung?"


I bit my lip and gulped down the slump in my throat as I tried to blink back my tears. "Se...Sehunnie. What... did your dad say?"


I could hear a long sigh on the other end of the line, just as I had expected. He began to tell me how his talk with his dad had gone quite tensed too, and how it had ended the same way as their previous arguments about this matter.


The next day was his birthday and we all had planned a dinner to celebrate it. I didn't know if I would be able to see his dad again later. He would probably look at me in disgust, and I would most likely bow my head to avoid his eyes most of the time. I just didn't want to make it awkward for Sehun though, it was his birthday, I wanted him to enjoy it and just be happy.


"Hyung, you know that this won't stop me, right?"


"W-What do you mean?" I asked with shaky voice, my tears already welling up in my eyes.


"...Even if we're not allowed to do this, I will still confess to you. It's my promise to myself. On my sixteenth birthday... I will tell you everything I feel, because we've never actually mentioned what we feel about each other since we made that promise. It'll be different, right, hyung? I'll be sixteen tomorrow, I can understand my feelings better than last year. I just need to... you know, spit it out. I've thought about this, and of course this will be hard, but if our parents don't let us...happen, then we don't have to have anything between us. Don't think that we have wasted the last one year and three months, no, we have gone through that to reach this point. It should be okay as long as we know each other's true feelings, right? As long as we can still meet each other..."


Sehun paused and I heard him sigh, long and heavy.


"Can you accept this, hyung? It's fine if they don't let us have that 'boyfriends' label. We'll always be boyfriends in our hearts, right? Only I won't be able to touch you, because I won't be the one. That's too bad, huh?"


I knew he was only joking about that touching part, and we had never talked about it again since that night, but somehow I got so emotional because he mentioned it again. I bit my lip hard, but I finally lost it; my breath hitched as the tears finally spilled out of my eyes. He sighed again, he must have heard me.


"...Hyung... Luhan. Please don't cry."


He had just called me by my name only. I felt much more secured and protected just because of that. For once I didn't see him as a younger boy; his deep soothing voice, the way he called my name, it was the voice of a mature one, a loving boyfriend. For once I felt much weaker than him, I knew I needed his shoulder to lean on just for a while.


"No.. No I'm not crying." I quickly wiped my tears away with the back of my hand. "Why are you talking like this, Sehunnie? Don't you want us to get together?"


"Of course I want it, but we can't fight our parents. I still hope that they will somehow change their minds though. Now cheer up, hyung. We'll be okay. Don't lie to me, I know you're crying there. Don't make me come to your house now."


I chuckled and cried at the same time. Wiping my tears again I mumbled, "How can you be sure? I told you I'm not crying. I'm fine, okay? I'm a man."


"Yeah, yeah, sure," he laughed softly, not buying my words. "So... Luhan," he deepened his voice, "I'll see you tomorrow? On my birthday dinner?"


I giggled a little because he sounded a lot like an older guy asking me out on a date, but his cute lisp was still there.


"Yes, we'll meet again tomorrow," I smiled shyly at the sheets, "I can't wait to see you again. I miss you."


"So cheesy," he laughed, "where did the shy Luhan go?"


"Still here."


"Good." I could hear a smile in his voice. "Have you stopped crying?"


"I have." Oops.


"And you said you weren't crying," he chuckled. "How about a goodnight kiss? To calm you down?"


I cracked a creepy grin as I drew imaginary circles on the sheets with my finger. "Mmm... Okay."


He gave me a smooch on the phone, making me blush and giggle like a Japanese girl in manga.


"Have a good sleep, Lu. Don't worry about tomorrow."


"Okay, baby. You too." Oh how all this sounded so cheesy. And in nine days I wasn't a teenager anymore. But I liked it, we could freely show affection to each other.


After we had ended the call, I went to sleep with a much calmer heart. Wasn't I so much like a teenage girl?


The next morning, Mom woke me up early to have an unexpected talk with me. She even apologized to me about our little fight the night before. Apparently she had talked to Sehun's dad, because she told me to go back home from campus earlier so we could go to his house. I had a feeling what would happen there wouldn't be too nice, because Mom's intention by taking me there wasn't to let me play with Sehun. I knew it because we were coming over at one in the afternoon, and at that time Sehun would still be at school.


And my guess was true. When we arrived there at Sehun's house, his dad had been waiting alone in the living room. It felt like I was about to face my death really soon, they were going to kill me while Sehun wasn't there. I wanted to run away so bad, call Sehun and wail for help on the phone. I couldn't face it alone.


Even though Mr. Oh greeted me with a small smile and a soft pat on my back, I was still as scared as ever, and he didn't fail to notice it.


"Don't be scared, Luhan-ah. We're only going to talk about some things," he chuckled.


And so, Mom and I took a seat and we began to talk about that "some things". As I had expected, Mom and Mr. Oh ended up lecturing me again about how wrong it was to have a relationship with Sehun. From the way they talked about it, it was clear that they were still against it. My heart sank to my stomach.


I thought I shouldn't have come there if they were only telling me about the same thing all over again, but then I changed my mind. They told me more than I had expected, making me feel better and worse at the same time. Was it even possible?


By the time we had reached the final conclusion, the clock struck three and a sound of a door being closed echoed throughout the house. We didn't have to wait for long until Sehun passed by and froze when he saw us. Sehun; he looked so handsome and manly in his uniform. His bag was slung on one shoulder and his black hair was slightly messy after a bike ride from school. Clutching the strap of his backpack, he stared at us quietly in utter confusion. I was too busy admiring him that I had forgotten to greet him. I opened my mouth to call him, but before I could do so, he had sprinted up the stairs to his room and slammed his door. I cringed because of the loud sound and furrowed my eyebrows when he opened the door again just to close it again softly. I let a small smile grow on my lips. My Sehunnie had always been a good boy, he didn't want to leave a bad impression.


"Mr. Oh, can I go see Sehunnie?" I asked the father.


Mr. Oh answered with a smile. "Please do."


I beamed and jumped immediately, waved goodbye at Mom and bowed at Mr. Oh before fast-walking to Sehun's room. I stopped in front of his door but didn't knock right away. I pressed my ear flat on the door, and after making sure everything was fine in there, I twisted the knob and pushed the door open with a goofy grin on my face.


"Sehun-ah!"


"Waaahh!" Sehun jumped and hid next to his bed immediately. When he saw it was only me, he pouted and crawled up onto his bed. He was only wearing shorts, while his torso was completely exposed.


I giggled and joined him on the bed. "Why are you shirtless now? Showing off?"


"Showing off what? I didn't even know you were coming here," he said as he grabbed his basketball jersey that was laid on the edge of the bed. "I was changing. Don't surprise me like that again, hyung."


"Aww, are you pissed off now?" I giggled and pinched his cheek. "Where's the cheerful Sehun?"


Sehun put on his jersey and raised an eyebrow at me. "Still here?"


"Good!" I stole a peck on his cheek. "Now where's the grumpy Sehun?"


"Gone." Sehun grinned bashfully and scratched the back of his head. "Gosh, this is so old, hyung."


"It is," I smiled and kissed his cheek once again. "Happy birthday, baby. Be happy today."


"It's the third time you say happy birthday to me today," he smiled and kissed me back. "Thank you, hyung. I'm sorry for acting childish just now. Did your mom say anything?"


"Don't worry about it," I grinned and ruffled his hair. "You were just afraid about what we were talking about, right?"


Sehun lowered his gaze and sighed. "Yeah, I thought Dad could have said something that might have hurt you. Did he? You should have at least texted me to let me know you were coming here, you know. I would have come home earlier."


"It's okay, baby. No he didn't. You see I'm fine now, right?"


Sehun glanced at me and nodded hesitantly. "Tell me what you guys talked about."


I tilted my head and tapped my chin. "Do I have to? There's a lot."


Sehun crawled towards his pillows and patted the spot next to him. I went to him obediently and sat next to him, leaning on the piles of pillows while he encircled his arm around me and put his other hand on my thigh. He tilted his head to look at my face and smiled at me, his hand subtly my thigh.


"Tell me now."


I widened my eyes and parted my lips slightly. "Are you forcing me now?"


I felt Sehun's hand crawl on my thigh until it was dangerously close to my crotch. He smirked and whispered on my ear, "Tell me."


I had just realized this boy had actually grown up into something dangerous and his innocence had flown out of the window. I knew he wouldn't dare to touch me down there for real, but since he wanted to know about it so bad and furthermore it was also his birthday, I finally decided to tell him what we had been talking about.


I closed my eyes and heaved a long breath. "Fine, but please move your hand away. And don't mention a thing about me telling you this when our parents are around."


Sehun pulled back his hand and flashed a cute innocent smile at me. "Thank you, hyung."


And so I began to tell him everything, except for our final conclusion, because even before I could reach that part, he had turned quite furious.


"So they don't let us have a relationship because they also have one between them?" he asked with unhappy tone, his eyebrows met in the middle.


"No, they said they didn't have any, but it's obvious that they have gotten really close. I caught them smiling at each other like they were in love and they even secretly held each other's hands. Moreover, they told me not to let us fall too deep into this. I'm sure there's something between them. Don't you think so?" I said, somehow a little bit furious too. I was pissed off not because our parents were against us, but because of the fact that my mom hid something from me.


"They must be afraid that they won't be able to get closer if their sons are bound in a relationship," Sehun concluded. "One of us, either them or us two, just need to back off. So... I guess it makes us 'rivals' with our parents."


I took Sehun's hand and rubbed the back of his hand with my thumb to calm him down. "We technically are, but don't hate them, okay? They're still our parents and we can't fight them, like you yourself said last night."


Sehun sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Of course. We have no choice. Children have to obey their parents."


I chuckled and pulled him into a hug. "Now, don't be so depressed," I kissed his cheek and patted his back, "Have you prepared some good words to confess to me tonight?"


Sehun's chuckle behind my ear somehow made my heart feel much lighter. "How can you change the topic so easily? Of course I have. I'll make you shed happy tears."


I snorted and rolled my eyes. "You can't make me cry, I'm too manly for that."


"We'll see it tonight then. Or maybe I'll be the one who cries," Sehun smiled sadly, "I don't know if I'll be able to take it when you reject me."


I felt like crying just because he said that. I tightened my arms around him and buried my face on the crook of his neck, taking in his baby-like scent that I loved the most.


"We'll cry together then."


Sehun let out a long, shaky sigh and his breath hitched before he asked me, "Can I... Can I kiss you now?"


My eyes widened and a tinge of pink spread from my cheeks to my ears. Kiss? On the lips? We had never kissed that way before.


"...I'm sorry, Sehun-ah."


Sehun let go of me and rubbed his arm shyly. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you something like that. We're not boyfriends."


"It's okay." I kissed his cheek and gave him my best smile. "Cheer up, Sehunnie, don't be sad."


I really wanted to spend more time there, but sadly I had to go home and prepare myself for his birthday dinner. I hugged him once again and ruffled his hair before leaving him alone in his room.


Ever since Mr. Oh's company had started a partnership with my mom's, Sehun's family had become quite wealthier than before. That was why Mr. Oh had decided to celebrate his son's birthday at a fancy restaurant. It was famous for its expensive food and the elegant place itself, so I figured out I had to look nice to go there. Not too formal, but neater than usual. Sehun had challanged me with a special request; he wanted me to be all pink and cute, to my dismay, so I had colored my hair pink since two days before. Sehun had squealed cutely the first time he saw it. But of course, I'd change the color again as soon as possible. I let my bangs fall covering my forehead this time, but I made sure they weren't messy. For my clothes, I didn't know what to wear to make me look cute so I ended up picking a soft pink long sleeve butto