There were very few things in Henry’s life that underwent the subject of change. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint why, but things were the way they had been for a long time, and he was satisfied with that.

He still hung out with the same 4 persons he had met in his first year in Korea.
He still went to the same music classes, even though his teacher had told him she couldn’t teach him anything he didn’t already know over two years ago.
And, most importantly, he still had no idea of what to do with his life when school was done.

His other friends - well, most of them - were settled for the upcoming 5 years. Ryeowook, he knew, wanted to be a brain-surgeon, Onew wanted to teach and Kris was pretty much being hauled back to Canada by the hair to work for his father as soon as semester ended, but Henry himself had no solid plan. Jackson, a guy who put an honor in being late every day throughout every single year told him not to worry.

“Dude, it’s not like you’re just going to wake up one day and be 40, fat and unemployed. Lighten up!”

Oddly enough, this didn’t make Henry feel any better.

First day of Year 13 was nothing out of the ordinary. People greeted the persons they were to hang with for the rest of the term. People sat the same places they sat in Year 12, with the same persons, probably talking about the same trivial things, but Henry had already expected that before he left home.

When arriving at the usual table, he also expected Onew to nearly trip over his chair because he was so happy to see him. He expected Ryeowook to nag at Jackson for not showing up for first period (even though everyone saw it coming even before the end of Year 12), and just as much he expected Jackson to shrug and smile, taking no heed in Ryeowook’s warnings about getting a sad life if he didn’t start taking his school seriously.

What he didn’t expect, though, was the sight of Kris walking towards their table with a grin on his lips and a girl by his side.
In the years Henry had known Kris, he praised himself for knowing the latter quite well, and even though he had been texting the older through the whole summer, Kris had not once mentioned anything about a girl - or a special someone at all.

She was different, but by no means ugly. Her hair reached her shoulders and nearly covered her left eye completely, and she sported a rather boyish-looking outfit (Henry could’ve sworn he’d seen a similar shirt on Kris sometime during year 11, but that’s another story altogether), and he had to say that it suited her, even though it was about two sizes too big.

“Trust Mr. Wu to get a lady even before semester starts” Jackson said lowly, earning himself a slap and a raised eyebrow of disapproval from Ryeowook. “What?” the younger asked, but Ryeowook just shook his head and turned away. “At least he’s getting something” Onew muttered, and Henry smiled. Jackson, though, didn’t find it funny, and rose from his chair with crossed arms, but before he could come up with a retort, Kris sat down, offering the girl a seat next to him.

Her name was apparently Amber, and she was from Los Angeles. She didn’t talk much, maybe because she was too shy to do so, but she laughed along with them when Onew cracked a joke or when Ryeowook yelled at Jackson, and Henry really liked her laugh. Kris probably did too, because every now and then she’d rest her head on his shoulder and he’d smile as if he was the luckiest guy on the planet.

It pretty soon became routine that their group now also consisted of Amber, and after three weeks of just smiling at each other and sitting at the same table, Henry had his first proper conversation with her. He had noticed her in a lot of his classes, noting how rarely she spoke or voiced her opinion, but when she did he found himself mesmerized somehow. She had a way with words that left not only Henry but often also the teachers mildly stunned, twisting her sentences and words so everyone in the room could identify with what she said. And after deciding that sitting two rows and a seat away wouldn’t do, he ditched his usual seat-buddy Xiumin - who just winked at him and turned to Jongdae shortly after - and plopped down on the chair next to Amber. The girl looked up shortly, probably surprised by the fact that someone would choose to sit with her, but the look of surprise dissolved after a few seconds, replaced by a small smile and a barely audible “hey” before she turned to her notebook again.

“What are you drawing?” he asked, peeking over her arm to get a look at her notebook. It was filled with doodles of just about everything, and in the middle of the page was the contour of what seemed to be a face.

“This and that” she replied, putting down her pencil for a short moment as if to inspect her drawing, only to pick it up a moment after to continue. He turned to look at the notebook-page and smiled. “I think it’s some pretty this’s and that’s” he said, and while he had no idea where the nonsense came from, it made Amber smile. “Really?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

Their conversation didn’t go beyond Amber’s this’s and that’s, but Amber noticed how Amber smiled subtly throughout the rest of the lesson, and that alone made him smile too. Not that he’d ever voice that, that would just be stupid. And weird. Really weird.

“Bro, you have got to stop smiling like that” Jackson said once, when the two of them had a break during dance classes. “You look like you’re sky-high”. So Henry did, he wiped the smile off his face and focused on his dancing, just until he met Amber again at lunch the following day, because as soon as he saw her the smile crept back onto his face again.

A few months later it’s nearly Christmas, and Henry found him in Onew’s house along with pretty much everyone else from their school, wandering the grand halls in search of someone he knew – because while Henry stuck to the same persons like glue Onew was so much of a social butterfly it hurt, and if Lee Onew invited the whole school, everyone said yes.

He’d been walking around for quite some time and un-purposely disrupted Xiumin and Jongdae in getting close when he thought he’d found the bathroom before he gave up trying to scout out his friends. He stood at the top of the staircase, drink in hand (he wasn’t really sure what it was, Onew had given it to him and then left with a smirk, and Henry just didn’t trust the guy when he smiled like that) and lost in his own world when she arrived.

“Having fun?” Amber asked, and Henry momentarily had to remind himself that breathing was a thing, because wow – Amber looked great. The back of her hair had been gathered in a small bun, and she wore a pair of black skinny jeans alongside a simple white shirt with the words ‘VIVE LA VIE’ written across it in red alongside with a pair of Doc Marten’s. Honestly speaking, she was probably the girl in the room with the most clothes on.

“Yeah” he said, “I am”

Amber took a sip of her drink, eyeing his curiously. “What are you having?” she asked, and Henry shrugged. “I have no idea. Onew gave it to me half an hour ago”. Amber laughed (and Henry was momentarily in Heaven) and raised her glass towards his, clinking the two slim pieces of glass together. “To the mysterious drink” she said, and Henry laughed before downing the substance. It turned out that whatever it was Onew gave him tasted like berries and mint, and so that one drink was quickly followed by another, and around midnight Henry was too far away in his own world to walk properly, and when he woke up the next morning in his own bed with hundred hammers pounding on his skull and a vague question of ‘how did I get here’ hanging on his tongue, he realized why he didn’t trust Onew.

Onew got him drunk. Every single time.

He remembered how Amber had grabbed his arm and dragged him towards the couch in the hallway, pushing him down to sit before he hurt himself, and how she had looked with rosy cheeks and the bun in her hair nearly pulled out. “You’re beautiful” he’d blurted out, and he didn’t remember if she had answered him, but he remembered that she had smiled briefly before vanishing, saying that she needed to find Kris, leaving Henry to later fall asleep and be woken up by Xiumin who held up a sleeping Jongdae with one arm.

Come to think of it, Henry didn’t think he wanted to know what happened after.

But apparently there were no hard feelings afterwards, because when he met up with his friends for lunch the first day after Christmas break Amber was already there, turning around and smiling at him when he entered the cafeteria. And even though something told Henry that Kris didn’t know he subtly had been hitting on his girlfriend, there still was a little voice in the back of his skull that told him that Kris was holding on to Amber’s hand tighter than he used to, and that they were sitting closer than before.

A week into the new semester after a particularly long lecture about something Henry forgot the moment he stepped out of the door, he decided that he was annoyed. Because on the row directly in front of him sat Amber and Kris, legs popped up on the seats in front of them, laughing at some joke trying so shush each other when the laughter was somewhat audible, holding hands, making Henry’s stomach clench in a painful way. Why did they have to be so… Couple-ish? Furthermore, why did it bother him? He knew it shouldn’t, but it did, and that thought alone was more frustrating than the way his heart started beating faster whenever Amber looked at him.

He was falling in love, he realized, and on top of that, with one of his best friends’ girlfriend.

.

Spring came around the corner with quick strides, leaving Henry with little time to think about his semi-crush on Amber  - or said woman in general -  as both he, Jackson and another guy named Bambam were practicing every day after their last period for the grand spring show the school did to raise money for charity. He had been practicing intensely every day for the past month, using his lunch breaks in the dance studio instead of in the cafeteria and found himself relieved when no one asked why.

And in fact, he didn’t think about Amber (that much) until the party that the rest of the dance team decided to throw after their performance. Henry himself didn’t know anything about the girl who had invited him other than that her name was Hyoyeon and she had a thing with coloring her hair in all the colors of the rainbow, a thing that had later rubbed off on Bambam, but Jackson wouldn’t take no for an answer and dragged him there as soon as they had finished the show.

“Henry! Hi!” Amber came towards him, closely followed by Kris, hugging him briefly before going back to Kris’ side, the latter quickly resting his hand around her waist. She was all smiles and giggles while she talked, but Henry forgot to listen because a) Amber had actually hugged him, and b) wow she was cute when she was drunk. Because that was what she had to be, with her tinted cheeks and the way Kris had to tighten his grip on her to keep her standing. Their (rather one-sided) conversation was abruptly finished when someone Kris apparently knew got his attention and he said something to Amber that Henry didn’t catch. But Amber nodded and kissed him on the cheek, just before he turned around and left without saying goodbye. Amber and Henry both looked at Kris’ retreating back until he was no longer in sight, and she turned around to send him a big smile. “Well, I just wanted to say that you guys were good in that dance recital” she said, and before Henry could form a proper reply she was gone, mixing in with the crowd of people to search for her boyfriend.

On one hand Henry really wanted to try to follow her, he really did. But on the other hand he figured that it would look awkward and pathetic, him stumbling through the room looking for a girl that he wouldn’t be able to talk to, and so he stayed where he was, slumping onto a couch that wasn’t occupied by couples and settled with watching the party he was supposed to be a part of.

A few hours later, when Onew had succeeded in getting him drunk again, Henry found himself staggering outside to breathe properly and throw up. The chilly air was like a refreshing blow to the face, unlike the leaves on the bushes that hadn’t quite bloomed yet, leaving Henry to be able to see the contents of his stomach after he’d thrown it all up.

Onew had better be ing happy he wasn’t able to walk straight right now he thought, raising his arm to wipe his mouth.

“Don’t do that, you’ll get puke on your jacket.” Henry turned to see none other than Amber in front of him, a roll of toilet paper in one hand and her jacket in the other. Before he could mumble out a coherent sentence from his mouth about how he usually wasn’t like this she tore some paper from the roll and handed it to him, watching him wipe his mouth and crumble the paper before throwing it over the fence to Hyoyeon’s neighbor. “What’s bringin’ you out here?” he asked groggily, taking a seat on the granite bench in the dimly lit garden. Amber sat down next to him with her jacket in her hands and looked down at her feet.
“Actually I was about to head home. Unlike certain dancers, regular students don’t get Monday off and I have a ton of papers to finish.” She let out a small laugh and sighed, looking at Henry with her head tilted to the side. “What brings you out here? Well,” she threw her head in the direction of the bush with a smile, “besides the obvious?” Henry just shrugged. “I just needed some fresh air, I guess” he said, sighing in content when another cool breeze graced his face, easing his already insistent headache.

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the bass of the music inside the living room and the sound of cars speeding up on the road on the other side of the brick wall. For a minute Henry contemplated starting up small talk, but he had always been horrible at doing so, and really, what did they have to talk about? School? Kris? If talking about Kris was his only alternative he’d much rather settle with silence.
It was funny, because until Amber came into the picture Henry had really liked Kris. He was a good friend, had been since they had meet years back, and a part of him felt guilty of being mad at him for having a girlfriend. Even if the girlfriend was Amber.

Amber broke the silence by sighing contently, resting her head against his shoulder. “You’re such a nice guy Henry” she said. “Why aren’t there more like you?” He figured she wasn’t expecting an answer, so he stayed silent and prayed that they could just keep sitting like that forever.

With his luck though, it was no surprise that Jackson came stumbling out into the garden a few seconds later, knocking over a potted plant in the process. “Henry, dude, dude, dude-hic!, you gotta help me out I can’t find-hic! Bambam any-hic!-where!” the younger said, trying and failing miserably in walking straight, ending up on the grass with his arms and legs spread out. Amber lifted her head from its position on Henry’s arm and laughed heartily, motioning for Henry to stand up with her to help his plastered friend back inside.

“How much did you have?” Henry asked, slinging Jackson’s right arm over his shoulder and supporting his weight with his own, half-carrying him inside with Amber holding on to Jackson’s left arm, guiding him through the garden without knocking over more plants. “I had-hic! a few of those uh, those things you kno-hic!, the ones that taste like uh strawberry-hic! And uh-hic! Prrrrobably more than that.” Henry rolled his eyes and dragged his friend inside, sitting him down on one of the chairs in the kitchen despite said friend protesting that he wasn’t-hic! drunk.

After putting a glass of water next to Jackson on the countertop and a stern reminder to get it all down, Amber went out to look for Bambam. And as soon as the female was no more to be seen in the kitchen, Jackson snickered and shook his head. “Oh man,” he said, and Henry hummed in response. “What?”

“I wonder how Kris is going to react when he finds out you’re having the hots for his girlfriend”

Had Henry been drinking anything, now would have been the ideal time for him to spit it all out in sheer surprise. “What are you-“

Jackson started to laugh, wiping imaginary tears from the corners of his eyes while promptly ignoring the fact that Henry’s expression had shifted from baffled to downright annoyed. “Henry, my man, you are so easy” his friend said. “You look like a lovesick puppy whenever Amber’s around and when she’s not, you sulk as if you were five”. Henry huffed. “I don’t sulk”

“Yes you do. And it needs to stop. Right now” Jackson pointed his finger at him and gave him what was supposed to be a serious look and leaned forward, suddenly both looking and sounding very sober. “Look, I get it. She’s nice, funny and hot. But she’s taken, alright? You don’t want to be the guy who breaks up his friend and friend’s girlfriend, trust me, I’ve been there. Not cool.” Henry raised an eyebrow at his friend, making him throw his hands up in defense. “Yeah okay I know that came out wrong, but that’s not the point. The point is that you’re not going to waste the next six months being in love with a girl you can’t have.” Henry sighed.

The funny part of Jackson’s and his friendship was that Jackson usually didn’t think. Not because he wasn’t able to, Ryeowook once told him that he had scored an 85 out of 100 in a math test, but because he chose to be laid-back enough for it not to be a necessity. Whenever something big and dramatic went on Jackson chose to interfere as little as possible, preferably not at all, but when things got personal and something in the guy’s mind deemed it the right time, he was dead-serious and – to Henry’s great annoyance – almost always right.

“Look,” Jackson said, “just wait it out. Be a friend, not a girlfriend-stealing douche”

“Thank you so much for the kind words” Henry mumled sarcastically with a roll of his eyes, but Jackson just shrugged his shoulders and turned to his still full glass of water, chugging half of its contents down in one go, just as Amber walked through the door. “Bambam’s out cold on the sofa in the other room, but Jongdae says you guys have an unfinished match of beer pong that needs to be done” she said, and Jackson smiled to himself before standing up from the chair he’d been previously occupying. “Ah yes, that’s true. Any of you guys fancy seeing me wipe his in a friendly game of pong?”
Amber shook her head. “I have a feeling it’s not going to end well, and I’ve better things to do tonight than dragging your around some more”. Henry laughed quietly as Jackson clutched his chest and whined, and he started singing a bad version of Baby Don’t Hurt Me while Amber practically pushed him out of the room and told him to get out.

“I like him” she said, and for a moment Henry was actually afraid she meant that she liked liked him, before he remembered that he was the one helplessly in love and not Jackson. “Yeah” he said, “he’s a great guy. Most of the time.” Amber laughed and sat down next to him on one of the bar stools, so close that their knees and elbows nearly touched, and played with the thought of how easy it would be for them to accidentally touch each other’s hands or bump their shoulders together even though he remained still. Amber didn’t seem to mind, however, and just smiled at him. He smiled back.

For a while the two of them just sat there in the kitchen, and Henry fought hard to come up with something intelligent to say, just to keep them talking because he realized how nice that felt. “So, where’s Kris?” Henry heard himself say, and while it wasn’t what he had hoped his brain had told him to say, he supposed it was better than just sitting there and staring. And maybe he was hallucination – he was pretty sure he was – but at the mentioning of Kris’ name it seemed as though Amber’s smile faltered a bit. It didn’t last for very long, probably only two or three seconds, but he was sure it was there. “In there, probably, having fun.”

Henry had never been one to pry. In fact, he was a firm believer of people coming to him if they wished for his help or opinion on certain matters, but he found it surprisingly easy to forget that by listening to the tone of Amber’s voice. It didn’t sound as happy as she and Kris were supposed to be. “And you’re sitting out here with me, not having fun”

“I never said that.” Henry smiled at that, and yet again Amber smiled back at him. That, he thought, was a thing he could easily get used to. “To be honest I’ve never been a real party-person. I can hold my alcohol fine, and I enjoy seeing my friends, but the whole thing with gathering 50 people in a room that’s only meant for 25 isn’t really my thing” she stated, and Henry somehow managed to say “Me neither.” Just how he did that, he wasn’t sure. Amber laughed briefly, eyes turning into small crescent moons and lips baring her white teeth. She turned her face away from him afterwards, and opted for looking down at her hands instead before sighing and standing up completely.
“Well,” she said, “I better get going. Keep an eye out for the pong match for me?” Henry nodded and stood up from his chair. “You can exit through the kitchen door. If, uh, parties aren’t your scene.” God, that sounded stupid, Henry thought, but Amber just smiled and bent over to kiss his cheek. “I’ll see you” she said and before Henry could register what was happening around him she had pulled back and was out the door. He sat dumbfounded for a minute, stunned by the mere fact that Amber had kissed him, even though it was probably only meant as a friendly gesture.

Quicker than he’d ever done before he leapt out of the kitchen chair to follow her, nearly knocking over Jackson’s half-empty glass in the process. The garden was only lit up by a handful of low-light lanterns but he could still make out the figure of Amber walking through the darkness out to the front gate. “Amber, wait”

The girl turned around at the sound of Henry’s voice, stopping just where the driveway to Hyoyeon’s house stopped and the street began. And Henry should really just have walked back inside, he should have listened to Jackson and just be the good friend, but he knew that if he didn’t take the chance now, the opportunity wouldn’t present itself for a long time. Probably never, actually, and he couldn’t wrap his head around that, so instead he thought ‘ Jackson’ and surged forward to meet Amber’s lips with his own.

Kissing Amber was like an out-of-body experience. He felt her lips on his, and he also very much felt how Amber was actually kissing him back, but the whole thing was so surreal in Henry’s head that he almost feared it to be a dream, until Amber pulled away.

“You just kissed me” she said. So it wasn’t a dream. Crap.

“Uh, yeah” Henry replied, searching the girl’s brown eyes for any indication that she was mad at him, or at least half as baffled as he was over his own stupidity.

“Why?” Yes, why? Henry didn’t have a direct answer. Because I think I’m in love with you didn’t seem like a plausible response, and to be honest Henry was too clear in the head to blame it on the alcohol he’d had, so he shrugged, rather sheepishly, before his brain took him out on any new adventures he would come to regret later on. “Because I wanted to” he said, and had he not been intoxicated and had the girl in question not been Amber he would have been able to laugh. But he was, and she was, and he was at least 99% sure he was royally screwed.
But then Amber smiled.

It wasn’t the same smile as she’d offered him the day he sat next to her in class, nor was it the smile she’d served as a reply when he had called her beautiful - this was something new, something magical, and something he wished (and was stupid enough to believe) was only reserved for him. She looked nothing short of beautiful like this, Henry decided, when her eyes shone just like the stars above her, when nobody was around to force them to be friends, because they weren’t anymore. What they then where, he didn’t know. But if he could see any more of those special smiles, he wouldn’t ask.

When he woke up the next morning, it was with Amber’s kiss on his lips and her smile on his mind, and suddenly his hangover wasn’t all that bad.

Before Henry had had a proper time to digest the butterflies that had manifested in his stomach, he was graduating high school. Most of his things were already packed for Berkeley, and should he say so himself graduation week had passed by smoothly: He hadn’t cried, he wished his music teacher a good summer, he was cool with his weekly Skype-date with Jackson and Onew, and he had made sure to give Kris his basketball shirt back before said guy left for Canada.

When the graduation party came around and Henry had spent most of his evening strategically avoiding the girls who tended to cry a lot over things like this, he was reminded of the butterflies. It wasn’t very subtle; actually Henry would describe as the small creatures slamming into his abdomen at full force, numerous times, knocking all of the air out from his lungs and leaving him slightly dizzy. 

Amber was looking stunning as ever, standing with a group of girls Henry didn’t recognize, but when their eyes met and she smiled directly at him she got a thousand times more beautiful. He watched her excuse herself from the others and move towards him, and he found himself noticing how everything in his peripheral vision seemed to blur, in contrast to Amber herself who stood out clearer and clearer with every step she took.

It dawned upon him that he had yet to hold a conversation with the girl without being intoxicated, and the thought of not being able to blame his idiotic mistakes on alcohol made his hands feel clammy and his shirt too tight. But this was his last chance of ever getting anything done before leaving for Berkeley, and something told him that Amber wouldn’t just sit back and wait for him to come home during the holidays - she had her life too, and he wanted so badly to be a part of it. Not that he would ever tell her that, because when all was said and done she was still dating Kris, and would probably do so regardless of colleges and future plans. That thought wasn’t exactly uplifting.

“Where have you been hiding for the past six months?” Amber jabbed lightly at his elbow with her own and gave him a small smile that, once again, made Henry lose all air in his lungs. He shrugged. “I’ve been right here. You’ve seen me.” Amber sighed and moved to stand in front of him, rolling her eyes. “Not like that, dimwit. I’m talking about what you’ve been doing in here” Henry blinked when Amber raised her hand and poked his temple softly, smiling at his puzzled expression. “You’ve been distant since Hyoyeon’s party.”

Henry hadn’t meant to be absent in the weeks following Hyoyeon’s party. Jackson had called him out on it several times and Onew had asked him if he was sure he was all right, and Henry had just shrugged it off as being tired or stressed about the final exams. But it had been hard, even harder than usual, to see Amber sit just a few feet away from him, smiling and laughing and just being her, and his plan of just going on with his day like it was no big deal had been a sufficiently harder task since the kiss. She hadn’t mentioned it, he hadn’t either, but a part of him (the jealous part) wished for her to just break up with Kris and for them to run away together into the sunset, even though he knew that the probability of that happening was bigger than the probability of finding life on the Sun. So he said nothing.

“I just wanted to see if you were all right after, you know, the-“

“The kissing?” Amber nodded, and Henry might have been wrong, but he was pretty sure he saw a flash of color dash across the shorter female’s cheeks. Maybe she remembered it just as well as he did. “Yeah. That’s never happened to me before”

“Me neither”. It wasn’t like Henry went around and kissed his friends’ girlfriends at parties all the time - actually, before Amber, he hadn’t really kissed a girl since middle school when he kind of had a thing with a girl called Yeri. It lasted a week and a half and then the poor girl moved away to God knows where to study, and Henry never heard from her again. So much for his first kiss.

But kissing Yeri and kissing Amber were two very different things, under very different circumstances, and he was determined not to let Amber get away as Yeri did all those years ago - just how he was going to do that he wasn’t exactly sure - but then again, he had never really been a guy for details.

“Do you think any of us is going to remember all of this when summer’s over?” Amber asked suddenly, and Henry shrugged. “I don’t think we’ll remember it all. But we’ll be surrounded by little things that reminds us of it - like meeting certain persons or eating the same food the cafeteria served us on Meat Monday” Amber laughed. “See, how do you not have a girlfriend? I don’t get it” she said, and Henry couldn’t help but laugh. “What can I say? The ladies love the John Green-mentality” he replied cockily, mentally patting himself on the back for - so far - being able to have a normal conversation with the girl he so achingly had been in love with for the past year. “That’s not what I meant, but now that you mention it, okay.” She shook her head in a somewhat fondly manner at him, and Henry’s curiosity peaked. “Wait what? Have you been watching me?” He raised his eyebrows in fake surprise and winced when Amber hit him on the arm - note to self: Amber was strong - and called him an idiot. “I just mean that you’re basically what every girl in this school have been looking for”

“Really?” Amber shrugged. “Yeah, if you believe the talk from the bathrooms”. Henry blushed and looked down at his feet, because even though he had more than a few female friends (and a sister), none of them had ever looked at him as the perfect boyfriend-candidate, and if they had, they sure as hell wouldn’t tell him. And it made him wonder if this was what really went on where Henry had no chance of hearing, or it was just something Amber made up to see his reaction. He liked that thought, because it made his feelings seem less unrequited and himself look less like an idiot taken straight out of a movie.

“You think what they say is true?” he then asked, looking at her just as she looked away. What for, he didn’t know. “I think,” she said, eyes trained on the entrance to the gym on the opposite side of the grass field, “that some of it is true, yes. But not all.” Henry raised his eyebrows. “Some? Like what?”
Amber was quiet for a while, and Henry would like to believe that the silence was because she didn’t know what to say around him just as much as he was in panic every time he was around her. When she had given her answer enough thought she turned to him, a small smile playing at the corners of .

“You’re nice. You tell people when they look good because you feel like they deserve to know, not because you expect to get something in return. You’re faithful and you’re honest, and you’re the nicest guy I know. And there should be more people like you around this school. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.” She looked up at him and held his gaze for a long time, eventually looking away with a shake of her head. Henry was sure his cheeks were nearing the shade of a tomato, because the way she had just looked at him made him feel like he was the only guy in the world - a feeling that was just as welcome as it was terrifying.

“Be careful Kris doesn’t hear you say that - he could get jealous” Henry joked, but he knew there was some kind of truth to what he was saying. And he didn’t want to think about Kris, not now, not here, not when he was alone with Amber for the last time in his high school life. He knew that statistically speaking, accidentally meeting up with Amber one time in the distant future would be near impossible, especially because she had basically popped out of nowhere and could easily vanish that way without making a fuss about it.

At the mention of her boyfriend Amber scoffed and hugged herself, an action that didn’t go unnoticed by Henry. “What’s wrong?”

Amber didn’t look at him when she answered. “You’d think that after all this time I would’ve learned my lesson” Henry furrowed his brows. “I thought - I hoped - that Kris would be different, you know? I just took his pretty face and his nice words as a guarantee everything would be okay, and all it got me was the spot of a trophy girlfriend with a boyfriend.” Amber still had her face hidden away in the dim light, but her voice pretty much gave away that something was definitely wrong. And maybe it wasn’t his job to pry, but seeing Amber sad was like getting a kick in the stomach, and he would only beat himself up about it later if he didn’t at least try to be the good guy Amber apparently meant he was.

“Hey,” he said, “look at me. What’s up?”

Amber turned around to face him, and he was surprised how he didn’t lose it completely when he saw her wet eyes. “Kris ditched my at Hyoyeon’s party to go see Seo Joohyun, and I let him. And I kept on letting him. I’m such an idiot”

Come to think of it, Henry had never seen Amber cry. He had been so focused on how he felt whenever she smiled that he hadn’t given everything else much thought, and now that she wasn’t smiling he realized how selfish an action that had been, albeit unwilling.

“I - .” Without giving it much thought Henry pulled Amber into a comforting hug, whispering words of comfort down into her hair for a while until she stopped crying. He hadn’t been a particularly good comforter ever before, but Amber didn’t seem to mind at all. When she pulled away she looked up at him and laughed nervously, and Henry thought she looked more beautiful than ever before - vulnerable and content all in one, confiding in him even though their relationship was borderline awkward.

“Sorry for crying on your shirt. I didn’t mean to drag you down with me or anything”

“Don’t mention it. It’s fine”

Now probably wasn’t the best time, considering her boyfriend - and Henry’s best friend - had turned out to be cheating, but for the first time since he met Amber there were no restrictions: No boyfriend to take heed of, no friends to listen to, no nothing. It was just Henry and Amber, two persons whereas one of them were knees-to-chest in love with the other.

Their second kiss was, in many ways, different than their first. One of the reasons being that this time, none of them were intoxicated, and another being that Amber wasn’t the least bit surprised. Perhaps he was easy to read, Henry didn’t know, but he was too busy focusing on Amber’s lips and hands and everything to really care. And he so, so wanted to say ‘I’m in love with you’ right at this point, but he couldn’t find the words or the will to break away to do so.
He didn’t know if Amber’s willingness came from Kris or from herself, but either way Henry was not going to complain. Everything in him was on fire, and his brain worked feverously to try and figure out what the Hell just happened here - to no avail, for he had long ago stopped actually listening to the little voice in his head that told him he was an idiot.

“You’re a pretty good kisser for someone who doesn’t have a girlfriend,” Amber mumbled afterwards, and Henry grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

They kissed one, two, three more times, and each time their lips touched Henry was reassured that the moment right now had been worth months of being miserable and in love without being able to tell anyone - well, except for Jackson, but Jackson had kind of just guessed it by himself around Christmas. He hadn’t told anyone, thank God, but he had given Henry a smug smile at every given opportunity whenever Amber was within close vicinity.

Around midnight, when the kissing had turned into holding hands and the bass from the gym had been replaced with a slow love song, Henry was absolutely sure he was in heaven. Amber’s hand fit perfectly in his, and the smile she gave him when he brushed his thumb over the little pink scar she had at the base of her thumb would be enough to outshine the moon that had just seeked refuge behind the trees. And it was while Henry was floating on his pink cloud in the higher altitudes, where Amber held his heart in her hand, that she chose to drop it.

They had left the school, hands still intertwined, and Henry had driven his truck through the eastern part of the city, through the main street and into a neighborhood with newly renovated houses and well-kept gardens. In front of Amber’s home, a red brick house with black eaves and an adjourning garage, a small ‘For Sale’-sign was dug into the grass.

“You’re moving?” he asked, and Amber smiled.

“Korea wasn’t what I thought it would be. As soon as summer break’s over I’m going to China.” Whether Korea wasn’t what Amber had hoped was because of Kris or not, henry didn’t know, but he had an ugly feeling that it was. “I don’t know what I want, Henry. I have respect for those who do, but settling down and just going with the flow of things isn’t me. I’ll go travel, I’ll see the world, I’ll stay at my grandmother’s home until they kick me out or ask me to pay rent. That’s more me. But not this.”

“I’m going to miss you.” They sat in silence for a while, watching as the red numbers on the dashboard clock went upwards, signaling that the night was ending and the morning was soon to begin. Henry didn’t know where his words were coming from, but they were nevertheless true. He would miss her. Amber turned in her seat to look at him fully, leaning over to kiss him again. Her hands found their way up his arms and around his neck as she – God knows how – managed to climb across the gear shift and onto Henry’s lap, and her tongue ran over his bottom lip in a way that had him grabbing her waist, despite the slight discomfort of their position. Amber, however, didn’t seem to mind, and so Henry decided to focus more on her lips than his seating.

When they pulled away – rather reluctantly, at least on Henry’s part – Amber looked him in the eye for the fifteen most agonizing seconds of his adolescent life. She looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t know how, and when Henry kissed her again she let him, until she gently pushed him back into the seat. “I don’t do nice guys” she then whispered, running her hands down the front of Henry’s shirt and grabbing his tie gingerly. “I don’t do nice guys,” she planted a kiss on his jaw, “I don’t get involved with nice guys,” another one, “I don’t let them drive me home after midnight.” Henry closed his eyes at the feel of Amber’s breath on his neck, and allowed his hands to move down the backside of her thigh, causing the girl to sigh in content before kissing him deeply again.

“I don’t know how to handle guys like you. It’s frustrating” she panted, and Henry opened his eyes, straightening up as much as the limited space allowed him to. “You’re going to go to college and sweep some girl straight off her feet, but it won’t be me. Understand? I’m going to put my heart up for auction and go home with the highest bidder, and then when we meet again in ten years – maybe – I’ll have learned my lesson. But not now.”

“What are you afraid of?” he managed to ask, and Amber smiled sadly. “You” she said simply. “I’m afraid of you and your stupid face and your stupid body and your stupid pick-up truck, and I hate it.”

She climbed out of the car after that. She rose from Henry’s lap and walked through the front yard to her house without turning around one single time, and when Henry called out to her she didn’t respond. When he was back in his bed that night, surrounded by boxes and packed suitcases and a phone in his hand, he tried not to feel as though he had been run over by a truck.

The following day, he packed his truck and drove away from home. Jackson, Bambam and Onew came to see him off, but the only face he really wanted to see was Amber’s, and she hadn’t shown. Not that he was too surprised, not after what she had told him the night before. When he thought nobody saw, he texted her, but got nothing in return.

It , really, that things had turned out this way. He was mad, irritated and hurt, because had it not been for Amber and her smile, he would have been okay. Alone, yes, but okay. He wouldn’t have had to worry about crushing on his best friend’s girlfriend at all – all he needed to focus on was keeping his grades up and how he stopped his sister from moving into his room while he was gone, but no. Of course it couldn’t be like that.

“You know dude, these things happen. They , sure. But this is a perfect chance for you to just forget it all – you’re going to America for crying out loud, I’ll bet my there are plenty of mysterious girls at Berkeley” Jackson said, and Henry nodded even though his friend’s advice didn’t really help. He didn’t want to forget her or anything that reminded him of her – he wanted to hold on to how it felt when they held hands, or how she smiled at him at any given moment or just how she looked in first period of Monday morning, because those would be the only memories he had.

It was stupid and immature and so cliché Henry thought about slamming his face down onto the steering wheel, but it was the way things were. When Henry drove to the airport he turned in by Amber’s house, but found it empty. The ‘For Sale’-sign was still there, but the car that he had spotted the previous night was gone from the garage – probably with Amber in it.

Maybe she was right; maybe they would meet again in ten years. He had no idea what kind of man he would be at that point, and he dared not imagine what kind of woman would turn out as, but he was absolutely sure that no matter what, he would not allow her to get away again. And he liked to think that she hadn’t done it because she wanted to either, just that she felt she had to in order to protect herself.

Not next time he promised. Not in ten years. 

1. I should actually work on, you know, basically every other project I got going on but #yolo am i right
2. This turned out so much more John Green-ish than I intended, and I have no idea how that happened
3. One of the very few and very rare stories where no one ends up dead, isn't this amazing?!?!?