“I’ll drive you, come on”

It had been a few days since you told Jonghyun what had happened and since then you tried to avoid the topic completely, it felt as if you had just placed your scars on display at the national museum.

You looked up from where you were to see Jonghyun’s car smoothly riding up towards you. You were running late for class as usual, but this time you had a legitimate excuse. You gave him a weak smile.

“It’s fine, I don’t want to get your car messy, I’ve been stepping in puddles from the rain last night.”

He looked you over as you followed his eyes.

“You’re really bad at lying.”

He was right, you looked down at your shoes and they were perfectly clean. You had purposely avoided the puddles so you wouldn’t have to clean your shoes when you got home. Reality was that you were petrified at the thought he might follow you around school without you knowing, allowing him drive you was basically an invitation for him to do whatever came pleasing to him.

“Get in the car Seo-yeon, I’ll drive you.”

“I have feet, I’ll walk myself.”

He let out a laugh but continued to pester you. You pulled out your phone to check the time; you had five minutes left until the first bell rang. Without a second thought of rejecting his offer again you rushed into the passenger seat.

"That's what I thought" he said smiling.

"What are you doing today?" You asked, hoping he would have plans that would keep him occupied, away from you.

"Meeting up with Jinki later this evening to put the finishing touches onto the song we've been working on. You want to come?"

That sparked your interest, you had eavesdropped unintentionally of them beginning to lyric & compose a new genre of music they had never done before, but every time you tried to mention it they would both divert the conversation onto another topic.

"You bet I do."

"I'll pick you up right after your last class alright? The same spot I'm dropping you off at."

You nodded and turned to face him.

"But what are you doing after you drop me off?"

There was a slight pause before he responded.

"I'm going to, you know, run some errands." His face turned into a slightly tainted cherry blossom pink. You weren't going to let it slide.

"You're blushing, are you lying to me?"

“No, but in all honesty even if I was lying I would cover it up better than you did” he said winking.

You looked out the window as your face flushed with embarrassment. You reached the jam packed parking lot behind the cafeteria of your school with a minute left to spare.

“Thanks for driving me,” you said as you proceeded to get out of the car.

“That’s it?” he asked with his arms outstretched.

you slid myself back towards him to close the gaps between his arms.

“Thanks,” you whispered.

“I’ll text you when the last bell rings, run as fast as you can so we can beat the traffic okay?”

You nodded and released his grasp. You made your way out and waved to him as you turned and began to jog into class. You didn’t want to receive another mark on your attendance sheet if you were capable of avoiding it. You sat down breathlessly in your seat just as your teacher walked in through the doors.

“Good morning class, open your books to page 453 and begin the warm-up.”

She paused and glanced across the room. Her gaze knowingly fell upon yours.

“Nice to see you made it on time Seo-yeon, let’s hope it lasts for the rest of the week.”

The class broke into fits of laughter. You ignored the noise and managed to smile back at her, without a verbal response you began to work through the warm-up. You drifted through the day with your usual schedule, four classes in the morning, break period, and your last two classes in the afternoon. But instead of taking short-cuts into your classes, you decided to put in more steps around the school to avoid bumping into trouble. Your phone buzzed as you received a message from Jonghyun:

“Seo-yeon, I parked myself in front of the office instead. There’s a group of guys standing around at the back of the cafeteria, I figured you wouldn’t want to see them on your way out.”

The first person that came into view was Rick; you cursed in your mind and placed your phone back into the front of your bag. Papers began to shuffle around you as everyone started to pack to leave. You hurriedly stacked your notes back into your binder just as the bell rang. You made a mad dash down the flight of stairs and out the doors towards the front parking. You spotted Jonghyun's car around the side of the building, but no one was inside. Puzzled you continued walking towards it cautiously. 

"ARGH!" you screamed as you felt two strong hands fold across your shoulders. You pushed them off you and turned around expecting it was Rick, but it was only Jonghyun, nevertheless your heart could not stop accelerating. You could not slow your breathing so instead you allowed the tears to trickle down your face.

“Seo-yeon? Oh god, I’m so sorry, don’t cry please I’m sorry”

You lightly threw a punch towards his chest, “don’t do that again, not here. I don’t handle surprises well here.”

He wrapped his arms around you, “sorry, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking, let’s get out of here come on.”

He led me to your side of the door and let you in before he made himself into the driver’s seat.

“I’m really sorry, really.”

You placed a smile onto your face, “It’s fine really, you just startled me, that’s all.”

He reached over to wipe the lingering tears on your face and started the engine towards the highway. You felt the guilt radiating off of him, so you were eager to lighten the mood a little.

“How was running your errands? You asked.

Immediately you saw his face light up a little, “it was good I found everything I was looking for.”

“What were you looking for, care to elaborate?”

“You’ll find out soon. But we’re going to meet Jinki at the café first before we head to his house, we have to discuss over plans in private. Is that alright with you?”

You nodded and continued to stare at him. Plans in private…you thought to yourself. You felt a little bothered that you weren’t able to join, but it gave you time to finish up homework. You made a mental checklist on which assignment to start first. You had finished most of it in between your breaks and felt content when you realized you only had physics left to do. You switched your gaze from Jonghyun to the window as he pulled up to the little café where you both would constantly go to when you had time.

“Oh it smells like home," you said as you walked into the café.

“The usual order?”

“Yes please," you responded and went into the little den at the back to settle down. You the night stand placed on the table and began to highlight the notes for the next day:

 “Any oscillation about an equilibrium position that has a linear restoring force is said to be undergoing simple harmonic motion.”

You frowned at the chicken scratch you had put down on paper. You had rushed drawing the diagram that corresponded with the text and now you didn’t know what it meant. You let out a sigh and continued on past the first portion of the notes. You looked up to see Jonghyun walking in your direction with two cups of tea with Jinki following behind laughing.

“Hi Seo-yeon! How have you been?”

“Hey Jinki! I’m alright, it’s been awhile.” You responded as you began to take cash out to pay Jonghyun back for the drink.

“Put that away, Jinki paid for both of us.” Jonghyun said placing your drink on the holder.

“Ah you shouldn’t have, thank you.”

“No need, we are going to sit over in the bear wing if you need us okay? We’ll try and make it quick but it seems like Jonghyun has a lot to go over with me.”

“We’ll be back as soon as possible, I promise.”

Jonghyun gave you a warm smile before he nudged Jinki to start walking in the other direction. You sipped your tea until they disappeared into the other room. As soon as they left, you went back to finish your notes. It wasn’t until the time read 6:15 that they were done discussing. But by then you had fallen asleep waiting for them.

“God, look at her. She even sleeps like an angel.”

“Hey snap out of it, wake her up we are already behind the schedule you laid out for us to follow.”

You heard an exchange of whispers but you were too tired to care to listen. You felt Jonghyun’s hands on the small of your back, “did we take too long?” he laughs, “wake-up wake-up it’s time to go.”

You let out a whine when light flooded into your eyes.

“I got your bag come on.” He reached for your hand and dragged you out of the café.

“Jonghyun I will meet you at my house okay?”

“Meet you there.”

The cold air finally jolted you awake, but you were still confused with your surroundings.

“Where are we Jonghyun?”

He let out a laugh, “Did you forget? We just got out of the café and now we are heading to Jinki’s house to finish the song.”

“What took you guys so long,” you whined.

“Sorry. I’ll drive fast, okay? Get your blood moving in a bit.”

It didn’t take long until you both arrived at Jinki’s house, you didn’t know if it was because Jonghyun was speeding or if it was because there was no traffic.

“I’m going to go in first and count to a hundred before you head inside, okay?”

You were about to object, but before you could he had already bolted toward the house. But, instead of waiting until a hundred you just walked out and slowly made your way towards the house.

As soon as you walked through the doors the projector screen in the living room flickered on and films of you when you were younger began to play. There were a whole bunch of memories on there that you had missed: family picnics, school parties, play auditions, everything that once held a lot of meaning. Then pictures of Jonghyun and you faded onto the screen, before you had the chance to ingest each picture a video of Jonghyun popped up:

“Oh hi (laughs). Oh man this is so embarrassing, what am I doing. Where are we at now, how long have we known each other? Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years? It doesn’t matter, ah no it doesn’t. I feel like we became friends for a reason, don’t you think? I have you. You have me. I never thought I could be with someone for so long without getting sick of their presence. Even when I get agitated by you, I never want to stop being with you. Remember freshman year when you ruptured your hip and you had to spend weeks in the hospital, I wasn’t able to see you all that time. Family visitors only I suppose. I was dying on the inside because I wasn’t able to be with you to comfort you. Then the past months when you stopped coming to me for help, I sincerely thought I had lost you. But I waited patiently everyday for you.”

The screen went black and the lights in the room went dim.

Then softly Jonghyun’s guitar began to strum:

“Before the arrow of light, pierces the end mark
It's not just a matter of dodging it skillfully
Numerous times, it was fired,
And the pain was always inflicted internally.
Without realizing it, it went deeper, deeper...

If you are sad, cry.
Just honestly cry as you are. 
If you are still in pain after that and need someone, 
Come to my side. 
Come as you are,
If you're in pain no matter where you are,
Come to my side. 

Better Better Oh Better.

I get you better, the loneliness creeps up upon us.
Even the promised date has passed. 
The entrance that keeps beckoning to you, 
The corner where one reaches the limit of one's grief - 
I will shut them off, shut them off, so that they don't distress you any further.

If you are sad, cry.
Just honestly cry as you are. 
If you are still in pain after that and need someone, 
Come to my side. 
Come as you are,
If you're in pain no matter where you are,
Come to my side. 

Until the day you can laugh again, 
I will stay with you, no matter when that is. 
Don't let go of those hands, those hands,

If you are sad, cry.
Just honestly cry as you are. 
If you are still in pain after that and need someone, 
Come to my side. 
Come as you are,
If you're in pain no matter where you are,
Come to my side. 

Oh better At the ends of this world, 
If I can run into you there, it would be great.
Better I want to be with you. 
Better With you, forever.

Someday, no matter till where, 
With just your own strength,
If you feel that you can stand up and take off,
Live, without looking back.” 

The tears that you had tried so hard to hold back began to flow down your cheeks.

“Seo-yeon-ah,” he began, “I don’t want to be a part from you again. I don’t think I can hold my feelings back for another year anymore.”

He approached you and held onto your hands.

“Will you be mine?”