*SORRY I forgot to put the cloud symbol as it was late TnT

Same but Different (iii)

Present Day.

Silence settles in my bedroom with just the subtle whirr of the air-conditioning audible. It’s dark, night time teasingly obscuring your face. I edge a bit closer as the heat brims through my every vein, burning so sweet even though it makes me weary to always be so jittery.

Today is Tuesday, and it’s been eleven days since you told me you loved me. Eleven days since we first kissed. Eleven days, and I still wonder if I’m merely in a dream. After all, time seems to last forever in my head, where I can rehearse what I want to say to you without missing my opportunities.

You are my boyfriend now. Months ago in January, I was stealing glances at you across the canteen. I was used to seeing your back and the faint details of your face, sunlight glistening over your irises. Your smile from afar was the highlight of my day, what I kept in my pockets as I fell into a dreamless sleep, caught up in the thoughts of you.

February came and I watched you walk down the hallway holding my jacket, my heart fluttering nauseatingly with butterflies. People would find the sight tormenting, as if taunting with what would never be, but it made a fool like me happy. Out of a ludicrous courage, I’d draped that jacket over you in the library, and that mad bravery gave me something so lovely in return. At least I could keep you warm that day, and perhaps a few more times.

By some coincidence too good to be true, our team was heading home when you were too. Of course, it shouldn’t have mattered to me much as it was just you and Jaebum talking to one another. But to me, it meant that you knew I was Jaebum’s teammate. I had perhaps a tiny little spot in your memories as the person I was now, taller and a bit less quiet.

For thirty minutes I anxiously dwelled, knowing that we would be left alone after Jaebum and Jinyoung alighted. Should I say something to you when it’s just you and me left? What do I say? Would you think me strange if I spoke to you? I was a nervous wreck, palms sweaty as I kept to the corner. Byunghun asked if there was something wrong and I could barely churn out an answer.

When everyone else left, the silence told me what to do. We were strangers, not the two small boys from before cramped in the morning crowd. We had no obligation to speak to one another—It’d weird you out if I approached. With my heart sunken into my guts, I gazed at my feet, enjoying the few moments left of solitude with you. 

I can never forget the way you stepped back and spoke to me. With a soft smile, you said I must be tired, and I lost myself for thankfully just a few seconds. It’d been two years since you spoke to me with the hope of a conversation. The most I ever received were those short “excuse me”s as you squeezed past me in the train, and that was enough to light up my day. But here you were, gazing at me and awaiting an answer from my constricted throat.

My legs were aching from the circuits our coach made us do. My arms were sore and when I left the basketball court, all I could think of was going straight home to rest. But I couldn’t let go of the second chance fate gave me after I missed the one from two years ago. Were you upset when you found out I lied, Youngjae? I’m sorry for saying I alighted at the same station as you, even though mine was the one after yours. I just wanted to spend as much time as I could with you. After all, it could have been the only day I'd ever get to speak to you like that. 

The day after, some insane bravery made me walk down those stairs to you. With yesterday's conversation b in my ribcage, burning the sound of your voice into my heart, I thought of how you came up to me and I borrowed your confidence. It was from there on I learnt it was possible to fall even deeper for you.

With the project bringing us together, I could see you up close and actually be in your sights. It made me so dizzy with happiness I sometimes could not breathe around you. I could stand next to you and walk with you, that small space bridged by the heat only I felt. I could speak to you and hear your gentle voice clearly, words meant for me and not someone else. From worrying you would never know my name, we were now project mates—acquaintances, at least.

In March, I thought it was all supposed to end. But you lay with me in my bed and assured me you’d love to be friends. At that time, I thought the lump in my throat was the greatest happiness I would ever have when it comes to you.

You were next to me with your delicate face squished against the pillow, all innocence and obliviousness curled into your form over the mattress. I wanted to kiss you like crazy and hold you tight, but I told myself I could never do that to you who didn’t love me the same way. Your kisses were for a person who would take care of you well, better than I ever could. Who was I to take away something so precious, knowing your kisses would mean the world to you lover as they did to me? No matter how I yearned to just peck you on the cheek, to just hold you a little, I knew I'd be intruding a space that would never be for me.

By April, we were having lunch together before our literature class, your lovely lunchboxes keeping my tummy warm for the rest of the day. That special break before our literature class—one I spent peeking at you from behind the pillars—was now reserved for us at the school garden. On those days where we had literature, I'd come to school with a buoyant happiness clinging to my shoulders, wishing for time to pass as quickly as it could. Those were the days I got to spend time with you, and they became my favourite days of the week despite how long classes ran.

Then, you promised me three chances to ask you out, and we went out together for the first time. Though I chided myself for thinking otherwise, I couldn’t help but see it as a date. It was the second time we watched a movie together and the first time we held hands. Did you know how much I stared at my hand when we got back home? I held it to my chest and despite the tedious bouts of sneezing, I fell asleep as happy as a five-year-old with candy.

It was a dream to finally have you as a friend. Days went by and May came. We were closer to one another and it was here I started becoming complacent. I always wished to see you more but this time, I wasn’t as afraid to ask if we could meet. I had the audacity to be sad when you left me with Taemin and went away, and I even felt jealous hearing my friends got to spend more time than I did with you.

You were so nice to me that I foolishly forgot I was one out of many who you treated the same way. Being at the receiving end of your care and love, I started thinking I was someone significant to you. My promises to be contented with what I had withered away into a selfishness I told myself I'd never allow around you.

I wanted to have a special place in your heart, even if it was not as a lover. I wanted to be a close friend you shared secrets with and met often, like Himchan and Jongup. I hoped you would love me like you loved them.

Like a starry-eyed boy, I chased after you who were my Summer. And somewhere along the way, with how you flushed at my words sometimes and how your eyes lit up so prettily when you saw me, I started to wonder much too arrogantly. 

I knew I was mad. I was delusional to think someone like you would come to like me in that sort of way. But that foolish heart of mine replayed these moments of you—your apple blushes, your soft stutters, your blossom smiles—making me smile as silly as I could.

Could you maybe like me in the same way, or was I out of my mind? You told me you were okay with boys who liked boys. But would you ever like one yourself—me, perhaps? Even though I knew what I was—quiet, uninteresting, awkward, reserved—I held on to a ludicrous hope that it was possible.

It was an arrogant greed that made me want more. Our friendship meant the world to me, which was why I never dared to let myself get carried away. But as the days swept past into June, I came to realise I really couldn’t live without you by my side. I had sunk too deep in when I should have kept our distance. I loved your laughter that painted the walls with sunshine; I loved the dreams still lingering in your eyes in the morning.

You who were afraid and shy for no comprehensible reason, you who were so oblivious to how beautiful you were… I wanted you to know I loved you so madly.

Would it be so bad if I told you I liked you? I feared losing all we had between us, exiled to metres away that I’d never be able to get back. I was so happy to take care of you as a friend, to talk and laugh with you about what happened in our classes, but I…

I wanted to know what it was like to take your hand and never let go. I wanted to hold you tight. I wanted to kiss you on the lips where your lover would. I was greedy, wasn’t I, Youngjae? To want more when you’d already given me so much. I promised the world I’d be happy if you just knew my name, and here I was months later, thinking about holding you intimately.

You were so kind. Even if I were to confess and you didn’t like me the same way, you would still keep me as a friend, right? You loved unconditionally without prejudice. Maybe, just maybe that step forward wouldn’t be as devastating as my mind screamed it was. You probably didn’t like me the same way, but I just wanted to let you know that there was someone who loved you with all his heart.

You deserved to know that. Each time you told me you were sure no one would ever love you, I wanted so much to tell you how much I felt. You saw yourself as too plain and unattractive, and I couldn’t ever understand you. How could I, when your every smile left me breathless? The fall of your eyelashes reminded me of a sunset while your glitter eyes whisked me away into rain puddles. Never had I ever been tired of seeing you at the end of the hallway; even catching a glimpse of you brightened my day.

You’re a boy who places others before you, never once thinking about what you can get out of people. You put your heart into your designs, skipping meals just to make sure they’re done well. You’re humble, always wrongfully putting yourself down and dismissing your achievements. You make me laugh with your lighthearted jokes and the care in your questions makes me feel so loved. Conversations with you lift my spirits and leave a leap in my steps for the rest of the day.

Why would you think no one would ever fall for a person as amazing as you? Out there, someone else surely liked you the same way as I did. It hurt to know you viewed yourself so differently from what you really were.

It was what gave me the courage to confess to you. I was nothing great for you to take pride in that I liked you, but at the very least, you would know it was more than possible that someone would love you.

I spent weeks crafting my present to you, hoping to confess by the time Beacon came around. I’d sing for you, and after the competition, I’d confess to you by the river where we let our paper boats go. Was it over the top? Would you like it? I fretted over this and that, browsing through necklaces to find one you’d like. Out of the many I looked through tirelessly, I picked a dove pendant. It had a fond sentimentality I wondered if you would recognise.

I spent afternoons rewriting letters over and over again as Yoochun laughed at my plight. He’d make fun of me, asking if I was handing in an essay, and tell me where I was too long-winded. Every day, I’d go to the craft shop and work on the small trinkets, those that encapsulated the moments we shared. A coffee cup for the times we spent at Coffee Cojjee, a flower for the recesses we had in the school garden, a paper boat for our wishes then.

Like a fool, I practised the words in front of the mirror relentlessly. I love you, I love you, I love you. I’ve said these words a million times in my head to you, yells trapped in my lungs whenever our hands brushed. Yet, I fumbled, rehearsing it like a child learning his first words. Occasionally, I’d piece your reflection in the mirror, imagining your reaction. What if you said you loved me back?

When you kissed me on my birthday—this time, purposefully—I learnt just how lovely hope could be. Do you know, Youngjae? It felt like the world stopped when you kissed me. The nightfall stilled along with me, a thin breeze brushing my shoulders like a gasp. My whole mind drew a blank as you scurried back into your apartment block.

I stood staring after you till I finally registered the wetness on my cheek. Slowly, it seared in an euphoric intoxication, taking away the sensation everywhere else but the spot where your lips touched. My chest swelled with a buoyancy so great it ridiculously felt as if I could fly.

That… was a kiss, right? You… you pressed your lips to my cheek. Was that a kiss? I didn’t even know anymore.

I walked back in a daze, gingerly cupping my cheek to childishly protect the kiss you gave. It was only when I reached home that I had the rationality to yell at the top of my lungs.

I’m still not sure how to describe what I felt then. It was like I was running a fever so sweet, flooding me with this exhilarating, disorienting heat I’ve come to associate with just you. I thought the floor might cave in any moment from how numb my entire self was, all the feeling in my body gathered at the teem of my cheek.

You kissed me. You actually kissed me.

I sat on my bed and stared absentmindedly at the wall for a long time. What did it mean? No, it couldn’t be that you liked me back; why would you? You must have kissed me to wish me happy birthday. It was undeniably platonic.

My pounding heart bellowed otherwise. I wanted to call and ask you what it meant, but what if it meant nothing? Or did it mean something, and you’d think I was stupid for asking?

I dared not touch my cheek that night and lay on my other side, afraid I’d rub away your kiss. If you heard the words inside my head then, you’d think of me as terribly childish. That was your first kiss to me—officially. Was this a first kiss? I tossed and turned in my bed, laughing to myself as if the ceiling was the funniest thing in the world. I smiled like an idiot till my cheeks hurt. Every now and then, I’d get up and gaze at my reddened cheek in the mirror, warmth lingering like you drew summer over my skin.

You kissed me. Yoo Youngjae kissed Jung Daehyun, and this time, it wasn’t an accident.

I fought with time to keep every fresh detail imprinted in my memory. The way your soft, plump lips felt against my skin, how you leaned back with a resplendent blush on your face… My cheek was warm for the whole of that sleepless night. Once morning came, I couldn’t help but prod incessantly at my face, tracing the outline of your lips.

With that kiss, you gave me so much courage to go through with my confession. Maybe… maybe you liked me too. It was possible, right? Perhaps, for some reason I’d never be able to understand, you liked me in the same way.

This was hope in its richest form, sprinkling a suffocation of fear into a happiness too giddy for words. And you gave it to me in a kiss that melted honey all over my skin.

The day after, I noticed you were acting distant. I worried I did something wrong or that something may have happened to you, and it left me restless for the whole day. When we went home together, despite you assuring me there was nothing wrong, I could tell you were feeling down.

…Then, you told me not to take what happened last night wrongly. Jus