Jongin

Melt me from being frozen. Block B - "Be The Light" 

I’ll call you when I’m home. 

I groaned in frustration and banged my head against my desk. I didn’t want to bang it repeatedly, because I did in fact care about my brain cells, but I did want to bang it hard enough for the appropriate amount of pain to settle into my skull. I needed to punish myself for getting so miserable over the fact that she and I couldn’t talk for another twelve hours. Just when I was enjoying our communication reaching the fullest extent, she pulled a complete stop on me. 

She started refusing my phone calls, saying that she was too tired, or had too much work. She had started taking more volunteer shifts, making it hard for her to text me back when I desperately needed a quick reply. And to my complete disgruntlement, she had decided that she was going to stop texting me during school. We were getting so far forward, and she had just pushed us three steps back. 

Now it was more agonizing. It was worse than waiting to go home to talk to her, if she was available. Now, she was at my disposal whenever I wanted, but she didn’t want to be. If I didn’t speak to her soon, I would go insane. 

Sometimes I wanted to do something very odd and track her phone, find her address, and let her know how absolutely upset I was that she had begun practically ignoring me. But thinking about how absolutely creepy and out of line that desire was, I had begun to think that maybe I had found the reason she wanted to cut off communication. Even if it wasn’t going to be that overdramatic, the yearning to meet her was growing stronger every day. It wasn’t a secret anymore: we were interested in each other. We liked speaking to each other and hearing our complaints, our secrets, our opinions, ourselves. And as happy as it made me to be able to connect to someone on the guise of personality alone, I still wanted to meet her. To be able to see who I was talking to. Who I was going mad over. 

“Does the sweet prince have anything bothering him?” Joonmyeon leaned over and whispered into my ear. I turned my face to meet his, glaring at him. I was not in the mood for any of these s right now, and I was furious that we had decided to sit together in the beginning of the year, so our seating was permanent. I would rather sit next to someone who was obsessed with me than next to these tools. But such is life. I can’t talk to my girl, I’m surrounded by idiots. The list goes on. 

“You, right now, mostly.” I spat, rolling my eyes. He clutched his heart, feigning heartbreak, catching the attention of the pair that wasn’t already focused on our exchange. 

“Please, it’s so obvious that our stud muffin is pressed over a girl.” Kyungsoo announced, to the surprise of everyone. They tried to be subtle, but I noticed my surrounding classmates perk up their ears and become unnatural at the suggestion that something was happening with me and another female. It was rare when it was confirmed, and not just a rumor. 

“How can you tell?” Sehun asked, not looking away from the pencil he was absentmindedly balancing on his nose. 

“Does Jongin ever look at his phone this much?” He asked the others. They shook their heads immediately, looking at the phone that I was clutching for my life. “So this means that either there is a girl who he is waiting for, or we can start calling Jongin ‘Joaquin’ because his life has gone from lonely to pathetic and he fell in love with his OS in an attempt to recreate the movie, Her.” 

“Well, he did cry when we watched it together.” Chanyeol commented, remembering the incredibly awkward movie night that involved me shedding tears in expense of my own loneliness, and everyone else staring at me in disbelief. 

“He was the only one that wanted to watch it, too.” Baekhyun snickered. 

“Well excuse me for believing we were close enough to sit down and watch a critically acclaimed drama about the loneliness of the human condition together.” I defended, trying to change the subject. I wasn’t prepared to tell them about Natalie, mostly because I didn’t know how easily I could lie to them about her. They were so quick to lose their attention span, my plan was delightfully successful. Until Kyungsoo spoke up again. 

“Don’t act dumb. Whose the girl you’re ing?” And again, more students leaned in, hoping to catch a few words. 

“I’m not ing anyone.” I groaned with an eyeroll. It was so hard to talk to them about romance. They didn’t believe it existed, and believed it only served to make girls foolish enough to believe their lies, in turn making it so much easier to sleep with. I was always the odd one out, it seemed, because even the slight idea of romance excited me. 

“So are you seriously trying to get tied down?” Sehun asked with curiosity and awe, the pencil finally sliding off of his nose. 

“I’m not talking about this with you. Especially not right now.” I finally looked around to address all of the students who had forgotten their previous attempts at being subtle, and were now staring at us with no respect for privacy. But then again, when were we ever private? They all immediately looked away, anyway. We ruled with fear, and as much as I hated it, it was certainly appreciated at times like this. 

“Alright but answer me this,” Joonmyeon began. I trusted it was a decent question, since he was the more logical out of all of the idiots I hung out with. “On a scale from one to ten, ten being Margot Robbie, how hot is this girl?” I shook my head as soon as I heard his question. I couldn’t believe I defended his honor, even for a second. 

“I’m not talking about this.” I repeated firmly. I was grateful that everyone suddenly stood up, greeting the teacher. The conversation was over, and I could spend the rest of class thinking about how I could avoid this conversation during lunch. 

As much as I hated it, I had a reoccurring thought while I tried to focus on the math lessons that were being given out. What did Natalie look like? It’s not like I was shallow enough to base my feeling strictly on physical attraction, but anyone who claimed that it didn’t play a huge role was a liar. I wasn’t shallow, but I wasn’t ashamed of myself enough to lie about how much I thought physical attraction was important. It’s the glue that held everything together, especially when you first started out. The intimacy and everything that could only be expressed in private was replaced by physical attraction in public. It’s where affection stemmed. What if there was no physical attraction to Natalie? What if I let that get in the way of a possible relationship? 

There was a new level of anxiety settling in. I wanted to hold her hand, and kiss her cheek, and be able to date her like any normal teen would get to date someone they really cared about, but was all that going to be possible if I wasn’t physically attracted to her? 

Did these thoughts make me an awful person? Would she be disgusted if she heard the way I was thinking about her now? 

It was going to be an incredibly long day. 

I had to meet her. I had to dispel these thoughts as soon as possible. I was ready to throw myself in front of her. 

I had opted to return home with my mother after dance class today. Luckily for me, it resulted in her buying me a large burger meal. I had to stuff it down my throat in the car so Kangin wouldn’t get jealous, but the greasy deliciousness was enough to make my almost choking worth it. I hid the rest of my milkshake in my duffel bag to get past Kangin, and went up to my room to collapse. It was probably a little disgusting, drinking the shake after having it been in a closed space with sweaty clothing, but I wasn’t the kind of guy to waste a milkshake. I’m not sure anyone was. 

I had been thinking about asking her to meet me all day, all through class. I guess I felt strongly about it, because my mother and Minseok both commented that my movements were sharper today. I took a deep breath, pulling out my phone from the pocket of my jeans. Scrolling through my contacts, I landed on her name, hesitating before my thumb hit the call button. I took sips of my milkshake to calm myself down while the phone rang, fully expecting to go to for the third night in a row. I was pleasantly surprised, and almost choked on my vanilla flavored saliva when she answered. She said hello, while I responded with a coughing fit. 

“Are you okay?” she asked when I was finally done gasping for my dear life. 

“Totally, why wouldn’t I be?” I said, my voice still caught in my throat from my near death experience. 

“As long as you’re not dying, I guess.” She laughed. 

“I’m surprised you picked up.” I said, grinning after hearing taking in the sound of her voice. 

“Yeah, well, it was a reflex.” She said. Normally, I would’ve thought she was joking, and laughed at her comment. But with the way she had been treating communication lately, I couldn’t think she was joking. 

“You’re that busy, huh?” I chuckled nervously. 

“Yeah, I’m taking a lot of extra shifts and working on some projects I need to get done soon. Something really big is happening next week and I can’t afford to lose my focus.” She ranted, her voice faltering towards the end of her speech. 

“I understand. Gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.” I commented in almost a whisper. 

“Yeah. My priorities have been getting a little twisted lately, I just need to get back on track.” Even during our conversation, it seemed like she was typing something, and paying more attention to that than me. It stung a little. I remember during the first few phone calls, she’d yell to her mother that she was going to pick up more pens at a store nearby with the excuse of getting to put her full attention on me. Now, it was like I was background noise. I sighed. 

“How is that working out for you?” She stopped typing for a moment, letting silence fill the spaces. 

“It’s really miserable, if we’re being honest.” She confessed. “I forgot how much I hated focusing on working without any amusement in between. I’m pretty sure my face is back to a permanent frown.” 

“Well, lucky for you, I have absolutely nothing to do with my life, and I can provide the amusement you so desperately need.” 

It was my chance to sneak in conversation about appearances, and ease into asking her to meet me. All of the planning that had gone into this moment had suddenly vanished into the dark spaces of my mind. 

“So. Marlon Brando.” I began, cursing myself for not knowing how to ask for what I wanted. 

“You have my attention.” She giggled. 

“You know, people say I look like him.” I said, proceeding to bash my head into the pillow below me at my own stupidity. 

“Of course they do.” She said, dismissing me. But her voice did sound less heavy than when she was explaining her duties, so I figured I was at least doing some good. 

“They don’t, actually. But I am pretty freaking cute.” I laughed, trying to get somewhere near where I was first intending to go. 

“I’m sure you are.” 

“Do you not believe me?” I asked, trying to get the laugh out of her that I knew she needed. 

“No, no. I bet you’re the talk of the town.” 

“I am, actually. Girls swoon over me all the time.” It felt a little wrong saying all of this, because I knew it was true, and that made it conceited. But she didn’t know that, so I tried to reassure myself that I was only doing it in the interest of hearing her be happy again. 

“Really?” She asked with obvious skepticism. “I’m not sure I believe that.” 

“And why don’t you believe that?” 

“Because if that were true, you wouldn’t be talking to me.” 

“Yet, here I am. Besides, what does that matter? I’m sure you’re cute enough to be worthy for me.” I meant it as a joke, but it felt sickeningly vain. 

“Well, I appreciate the sentiment, Mr. Popular, but I don’t know if I am.” 

“It was a joke, Nat. You don’t have to prove that you’re worth it or anything, because you are, I was just being stupid.” I trailed off, panicking that something I had said had caused some sort of painful memory in her. 

“I didn’t mean that. Please, if anything, you’ll have to prove you’re worthy of me.” 

“So, what? You don’t think you’re cute?” I asked, finally getting to where I wanted to be, but far from how I wanted. 

“I mean, I’m not ugly. But it doesn’t matter, I guess. If you’re cute or not. You could be the prettiest girl in the world, but it wouldn’t make any difference if you don’t have any charm. You’ll just get ignored in favor of the girls that ooze charm in their every little expression.” 

“You’re charming as hell, Nat.” I said reassuringly. I had never heard her sound so low. It felt like this was some internal pain she had been dealing with for longer than she’d like to imagine. 

“Not to everyone that sees me in person. I’m either the stuck up or the girl that’s too studious to be noticed.” She said, with a sigh. 

“That’s not true. What about that Myungsoo guy that keeps calling you?” Normally, I wouldn’t bring him up, because I was petty and jealous. The thought of some other guy trying to pursue my girl made me upset, but if I needed examples to get her to stop sounding like she was, I’d bring him up a thousand times. 

“Please, any college guy that’s messing with a high school girl is desperate and shouldn’t have their opinion counted. I mean, people bump into me and don’t even look at me when they apologize.” She continued, sounding more frustrated. 

“Whoever has the nerve to do that is just an .” I said, rolling my eyes, imagining the kind of tool that wouldn’t even have the common courtesy to help the poor girl up. “If I met you in real life, I wouldn’t treat you like that. I’d be sure to show you just how charming you were. I’d treat you like an absolute princess.” 

I was now pacing my small room, flinching at every word that seemed to escape from my overly excited mouth. She chuckled at my plans. 

“Gross.” She said, making me smile. “But very much needed.” 

“I agree. I want to show you that you don’t deserve to speak of yourself with anything less than admiration.” I continued. 

“I wish.” She said with a sigh. 

“Why don’t we?” I closed one eyes, staring at my trophies, trying to remind myself that I had done scarier things than asking a girl to meet me for coffee. 

“Why don’t we what?” She asked, enunciating every syllable. 

“Meet up. Have a cup of coffee. Go on an actual date.” She was silent, and I felt the burger making its way back up my esophagus.

“Okay.” She said after some time. Before, I was so nervous I could puke, but now, I was so happy I could puke. 

“Really?” I asked, practically yelling in joy. 

“Yeah. Really. I think it’ll be nice. Does Saturday sound good?” She asked, excitement finally present in her voice. 

“Saturday is perfect. I am completely free.” In reality, I had agreed to meet the guys on Saturday to go check out some new restaurant they wouldn’t shut up about, but I would gladly take her over them. 

“Great.” She exclaimed before pausing. “How will I know it’s you?” 

I made my way over to my closet, looking for something distinct, something that would stand out. The majority of my clothing was black, and that would easily blend in. I pushed hangers aside until I found the perfect item to stand out. A pink Ralph Lauren button up. My mother had gotten it for me on my birthday, going on about how I needed to add color into my wardrobe, and my life. It had been pushed into the corner of my closet immediately. Now seemed an appropriate time to bring it out. My life did have a bit of color now, after all. 

“I’ll be wearing a pink shirt.” I said, excitement spreading throughout my body in waves. I was finally going to be able to see her. 

“I’ll wear a pink dress then.” She said after I heard her shuffling around. I was ecstatic.

We were going to be meeting for the first time, and we were going to be matching. It doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing I would be into, matching and announcing that I was basically dating someone, but with her, everything seemed wonderful. 

“Where should we meet?” 

Shooting for a double update this weekend! But then again, I'm horrible and I'm sorry if it doesn't happen. 

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J