despite the blazing heat and unceasing beads of perspiration trickling down every possible corner of my face, summer was a pretty good time to rejoice.

stepping out with glee from the examination hall, i dumped my notes in the recycling bin and headed over to the girl who had been waiting for me to finish my paper. she was listening to music as she scrolled through her phone. from the back i imagined her looking bored and impatient (waiting for me to finish duh). swinging an arm over her i covered her eyes with my hand. i hear her make a little gasp before she smirks, "joohyun, i know it's you."

i giggle and move my arm down to give her an incomplete back hug around her neck.

"can we have lunch now? i'm kinda hungry"

i peck her cheek from behind, "ok."

with our hands interlaced we head off for some food and i think about happiness.

sometimes i wonder about the measure of happiness. i mean, i've come to understand that happiness isn't measured in terms of economic currencies. that's why i'm majoring in literature. but that's besides it. if happiness cannot be quantified in material terms (i wasn't one to be bought into material gifts in order to feel the short-lived euphoria) how will we ever measure happiness? what is considered the average and healthy amount of happiness we all deserve to feel? is there a limit for happiness?

floating by life like a dream has been my forte. it wasn't that i was naive or numb to things. i was not sad, but neither was i very happy either. perhaps the easiest way to justify this was that unlike others, my experience of life then had been limited. they say love is the single most thing that makes you or breaks you but with my many fleeting crushes and superficial obsession with celebrities, i did not have anything concrete to prove this notion right. that being said, i never understood how a single emotion of love could lift one's spirits up so easily. i wasn't being cynical (maybe i was) — if we had all come to this world alone and grew up experiencing everything by ourselves, how could another entity suddenly become so significant that our happiness had to depend upon them? weren't we all capable of creating moments to be happy about by ourselves? i was for self-agency so i never understood the sudden 'fall' for someone, to suddenly become dependent, almost as if you never lived successfully alone in the first place.

then son seungwan floated into my life like a dandelion in a summer's breeze and these thoughts were challenged. no, i'm not admitting to me being a helpless lover that isn't able to stand on her own, but love is a funny thing. love makes one reliant on another, yet the latter is capable of making you so much stronger. yes, perhaps from now on i will always need wendy to wipe my nose when snow falls and the ground is laden with melting ice and i forget to close the window and she will be cooking chicken soup. perhaps from now on i will always need seungwan to tuck me into bed, to slip under the covers with me and tell me the night sky does not hold my nightmares. rather, the night sky is only our blanket. she wraps me up and tells me to have sweet dreams, tells me the stars are watching over me and i don't have to be afraid but i'm not afraid only because i know she's there beside me.

after all these people will say i'm incapacitated, that i've lost all my independence and fallen and broken my knees and i won't be able to get back up. and maybe that's true, or maybe because of son seungwan i've learnt to give and give and give in different ways. i've learnt she drools as she sleeps and her dna stains my pillow, that she doesn't wash the dishes properly when she's too tired and just wants to snuggle with me, that on days she's late because she has deadlines to meet i pretend i haven't waited for an hour because i just want to lessen her stress (not aggravate it), that on days she has to stay up i pretend i'm not tired at all and watch her as she perseveres in her revision. and maybe that's love. because it is only when you realize that your life isn't just about living for yourself that you see the world in broader, more enlightening, more compassionate perspectives. seungwan has taught me then that love isn't just a feeling. love isn't happiness, happiness isn't love. love is wanting and making someone happy. love is motion. love is the way the sun shines hard on us in summer, not because it wants to burn us, but because it wants to engulf us with so much warmth that cannot be given by all the other 3 seasons combined.

it is in summer when seungwan takes me out to the beach, sits me down on the mat and starts strumming a song for me. "i hope my sweaty palms don't kill the mood", she says as she begins plucking and i know it doesn't matter. love isn't about perfection. love is trying. i smile, we both are perspiring and our shirts are sticking to our skin but it's ok, i suppose it's just the sun being a metaphor for our love.

sometimes it's when seungwan does all these things i feel like i don't do enough for her but i feel the need to do something anyway, no matter how small. so i wipe the beads of perspiration off her forehead with a tissue. and i think i'm trying to be funny because i'm pressing really hard on her entire face sloppily and she can't concentrate on her song so she begrudgingly puts her guitar down and pulls me down with her.

"what are you trying to do?"

"just cleaning your face" i grin.

"well you're not doing a very good job"

"excuse me, at least i bothered to —"

with that she cuts me off and kisses me and this is when i think maybe love is just a feeling. when we kiss, that is. love is when the taste of her lips send tingles up my spine, when i feel her body pressed against mine and the gaps between us are to be filled and made whole. and maybe this is love. love is making someone whole.

perhaps it's on a summer's day, when the sun is at its fullest, its brightest, that i feel most keenly the shape of our sweaty bodies fitting each other's like puzzles (maybe the perspiration makes this a lot easier but let me try to be poetic for once). perhaps it's on a summer's day the experiences i've had since last fall have culminated, enlightening me on the idea of happiness.

indeed, we create happiness with our own hands. but i've learnt happiness has no limits (thank god for that or i wouldn't have been able to calculate it. math hasn't always been my best subject). you can be happy alone, you can be happy with someone else. but with seungwan, i become happier. looking back at my supposed cynicism and stubborn independence, i guess i only have a few things left to impart to you.

maybe one day we'll be able to relinquish our inhibitions and take a leap of faith with someone special.

maybe one day we'll be able to experience a happiness that cannot be discovered alone.

nevertheless one thing is for sure

we'll all get there.

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a/n: this is a really disjointed piece but i wanted to cover the idea of happiness/love so... :/ sometimes i take joohyun's cynicism but i guess we all have to hope that someone right for us will come our way & make us a better person :)

sorry for disappearing, my comp crashed & i had deadlines to meet & sigh :( finals in 2 weeks! hope you guys are having a great day tho <3