Waiting

by Valerie Joy Decrepito

He sits by the patio,
Silent, oblivious to the throng.

He does not hear
The children’s playful laughter,
Nor the parents’ warning shouts.

He does not see
The warm colors from the
Teepee of today’s
Thanksgiving parade.

He does not hear
The mob,
In all its shining glory,
Sing the bells
of a budding romance.

Nothing, not one thing, at all.

It has been a while since he had gone out by himself, completely out of disguise, to drink coffee at this one café that held on a lot of memories for him. It has been almost four years since he has last gotten here, at White Secret Healing Café and nothing much has changed. Yet it felt strangely and vastly different. The last time he came here, he came with her, on that one cold night when they had eaten Mexican food together. That time he was so happy, so content that she agreed to meet up with him in their secret place despite her busy schedule.

Sandara Park, his friend for eleven years at that time, had agreed to escape the world with him. Just lying on the hammock chairs in the salt healing room they had gotten had soothed their minds and had relieved the stress they have been going through—her worries about her Dr. Ian web drama and his current promotions with Eunhyuk. But something else happened that night. Looking at her playing around with salt—carelessly sprinkling it around and playfully humming their song Clap Your Hands—had changed his perspective of her.

He has always seen her as one of his closest friends just as she has considered him to be hers but at that moment, everything stilled and slowed down for him. She had asked him to take a photo of her and he found himself shakily handling the camera as she smiled at it. He didn’t know but her smile, oh her sweet precious smile, somehow had pierced through his DSLR lens and right through his soul. His heart had strangely ticked a different beat that time, had hammered within him until he couldn’t take it anymore. He had acted rashly, but bravely so, as he had knelt in front of her seat and had dipped his head to give her a fluttery kiss.

He could perfectly remember how it had felt, how she had felt—how her lips had hesitantly moved with his at first and how she had willingly cupped his cheeks with both hands afterwards. He had remembered pulling her in, inhaling her scent, and pressing her body to the back of her chair as he took the simple brush of lips against lips into new heights. She had sighed his name, losing herself into the puddle of warring emotions he had created. It was a perfect first kiss for the both of them, sweet and tender, enough to warm the coldness of that certain March night.

Her hands had forked through his hair and that had snapped him back to reality. He was her friend as she was his and friends weren’t supposed to kiss like that. He had lost his mind, he thought. And then just as fast as he acted without even thinking, he had hurriedly pulled out of their embrace, muttering a series of apologies, thinking he had taken advantage of her. He had hurried away as she continued to stare at him in surprise. He hadn’t known she had been waiting for what he had just given—his kiss and his attention—for almost eleven years.

He had said sorry to her and she had accepted it with a weak ‘no problem.’ She had gotten out of breath that time, he remembered, and had silently looked at him, as if she was expecting something. She had beckoned him to stop when he reached the door so he could wait for her and they could go home. She had clumsily poured water on the empty glass the staff had given them before all that happened and had chugged it down as fast she could until no water drop was left. She had looked around the room, had checked if they had left something, and had blindly followed him out to his car. He had sworn he heard her mutter a husky ‘wow’ before they had finally left the place.

It had been awkward at first, they both knew, but somehow they had moved from just friends, to kissing friends. It was a weird arrangement, they both knew but at that time, he was confused about whatever he was feeling for her and he reckoned she was just as confused as well. They had continued to hang out with each other days after that and he could just find himself pressing little kisses on her forehead, on her cheeks, on her palms, on her fingertips, and even her lips whenever she would say something that sounded cute to him, whenever she would scrunch up her nose while thinking out loud and whenever they would part ways again. She had never said anything about it, had never pulled back, but she had always closed her eyes and answered his kisses.

And that was when he knew even if she would not say it. She had fallen, so fast and without any thought, into this tangled mess he had created. She had fallen for him.

She had fallen for him after just a few days. And that had greatly scared him.

At the height of his “unfollowing” Dara, he had gone to pick her up from Tablo-hyung’s pad and had seen her playing with Haru. The eleven years they had been friends flashed right then and there in front of his eyes and that was when he realized she was more than just a friend. The flashes had also contained both their past and his future with her as his wife. He has always been vocal about wanting to marry. He even said he was going to marry right after his enlistment. All he needed was a bride, and just at that single moment, he knew the bride had to be her. It should be Dara. It’s supposed to be her.

It was supposed to be all of her or nothing of anyone. His bride was Dara, all of her or nothing at all.

At that same time, regret had washed all over him as he berated himself for doing something so stupid.

At that same unfortunate time, he had gone to pick her up so they could have dinner at Grill5taco. He had brought her there and kissed her one last time on her lips and it had tasted like it was goodbye to the phase they were going through. He had kissed only to tell her he had met up with Jihyun the day before and had asked her if she wanted to date him, to see how it would go from there. He had known she had harbored some feelings for him from the very first time they had worked together and he had wanted to try to reciprocate it to deviate his focus from Dara to Jihyun. Jihyun had said yes and had given him a peck on his cheek and it had given him a small flutter in his stomach, a great difference from the rumble of butterflies he has always felt whenever he is just near Dara.

He told her all about it and she had just pursed her lips but it was as clear as crystal that she was hurt, she was hurt to the point it had made her smile such a genuine smile at him to congratulate him. But that smile never reached her eyes as she had excused herself to go to the washroom.  She didn’t come back until a good thirty minutes after when she with the puffy eyes and red nose had told him she already called Jjangmae to pick her up and she was going to leave in five minutes.

The next day, she had called him to ask him out on a date on a certain date. She invited him to the BIGBANG MADE concert. He had gone, cancelling all that he had scheduled on that day for her. She had met up with him after the event and they had gone to Han River after to look at the scenery but had only been met by numerous couples who are deeply in love, those kinds of couples that they can never be. She had faced him bravely, faced him sadly when she had said her goodbye to him, bade him goodbye with her last kiss, the very same kiss he hadn’t wanted to end. He knew it was wrong, it was wrong because he was seeing Jihyun, but he had kissed her with all he could give.

It had broken his heart when she had pulled away and said, “I should have told you before…I should have acted on it…but even if I had, I doubt you would feel the same way. From the looks of it now, I cannot even have you. I love you, Hae. I have loved you so much that it hurts to know I could not be in her shoes…so please, please forgive me when I say I have to stop seeing you.” He had hugged her after that, hugged her as if he didn’t want to let her go but she had pushed him away and had taken his own heart with her.

And now he was here, almost four years after that kiss that had changed everything, waiting for her to come see him.

For