“Ummmmm…” the tall and ridiculously good looking guy looked at my awe struck face and returned it with a confused face, “this is apartment 1707 right?”
It took my brain a second to react to his question, but eventually I snapped out of my daze and nodded like a bobble head.

“So then you must be ___________________!”

My eyes traveled down to his large suitcase and found the ID tag attached to the handle.
The words “Mark Tuan” stared back at me.
Oh my dear lord.

“M-Mark?” I stuttered out, almost losing my grip on the door handle.
The good looking guy nodded his head and smiled just enough for his perfect teeth to peek through.
“Wow,” I opened the door all the way and let him in, watching him lift his suitcase into the living room, “you grew up…”
Mark put his suitcase down and scanned my apartment. “Well that’s kinda what people do when they’re teenagers.” He sighed then turned to face me, “But we’re not teenagers anymore so I’m over that part.”

“I think when we were kids, we were the same height though,” he continued, walking around and looking at everything. I stood by his suitcase, trying to take in everything that was happening.

This was the kid I used to have sleepovers with?
This was the kid I was hugging in that picture?
This was the awkward looking kid in all the old photos?

Excuse me? Am I missing something?

I stared at his face for as long as I could without looking like a creeper and compared it to the mental image of him as a kid in my head.
Their faces were exactly the same.

“Were we? I don’t remember much,” I lied, slowly making my way over to my laptop that was sitting on the couch. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed him staring at me while I inched my way over.

“It’s ok. We have a lot of time to make up for these past 14 years,” he strolled over to his suitcase and lifted it up again, giving me another smile. I pulled my laptop closer to my chest and nodded again, but I could see him eyeing it.
“Make up for what?”

In 3 steps, he closed the space between me and him.
I stopped breathing.
He hooked his index finger under my chin and tilted my head upwards. His lips hovered so close to mine that I could feel his breath on my face.
“This,” he whispered as I froze, my eyes big and staring up at him.

I closed my eyes and waited for what came next…but it never came.
Slowly, I opened them again and was greeted by his smiling face. He reached up and ruffled the top of my hair. I flinched a little, but totally unconsciously.
“Just kidding,” he patted down the strays and smiled at me again, “So which room is mine again?”

“Huh?” I blinked at him a couple of times. My face must’ve looked pretty blanked out by this point.
He pointed at the door to the left of the bathroom, “Is this mine?”

“Oh….yeah,” I mumbled out and nodded slightly as I shuffled my way into my own room across the hall.  After I plopped my laptop on top of my bed, I quickly followed its example and sank into my comforter, my face getting redder every second I thought about how close his lips were to mine, how long his eyelashes were, how his scent smelled so familiar.

“Ugh, what am I doing?” I picked myself up and lightly slapped my face a couple times, trying to shake the thoughts from my head, “I can’t think about it. We’re living together. We’re supposed to be childhood friends. Childhood friends don’t end up together. They’re…just friends.”

“Hey ______________________,” Mark’s voice called from the other room. I stood in my doorframe and watched as he opened the drawer by the door and put some clothes in before I said anything.
“Yeah?”
He closed the top drawer and turned his head to look at me, our eyes locking onto each other briefly before I looked away.
“You ever wondered what would’ve happened if I didn’t move to Brazil back then?”

Author's Note
chapter title: Red Light-f(x) [x]