April 2014

 

I was sitting on the bench just outside of Jaemin’s high school, phone in hand and backpack on the ground. Normally I wouldn’t mind all of the waiting as I sat out basking in the warmth of the sun, but spring had finally come, and the heat was really getting to me and testing my patience. My clothes were sticking to my skin in too many places at once even though I’d dressed lightly, in t-shirt and jeans, since my uniform was now folded neatly and hidden inside my backpack.

 

I was starting to get nervous, too, because what if I get caught? Do I still look like a student who should be in school right now? I looked back at the gates in hopes that he’d finally come out, but in the sea of teenage guys in school uniforms, I still couldn’t spot Jaemin. It was time for their lunch break, and there were plenty of students coming out to eat outside of their campus, so he should have been out by now. 

 

I sat for another minute before finally bringing out our text conversation, fingers tapping out a string of angry emoticons and a ‘where the hell are you?’, then hitting send. At that same moment, I heard his message alert tone right behind me and I almost gave myself whiplash from how quick I turned around. At the sight of Jaemin’s face, I stood up to be eye level with him.

 

“What took you so long?” I asked, exasperated.

 

“Why are we doing this again?” he asked back.

 

“Come on, let’s go to the boba place so you can get changed in the restroom,” I said as I pulled him by the hand to start walking away from the students and the campus. He grabbed my backpack with his free hand and I followed with no further questions.

 

When we got to the shop, I ordered for the both of us and got us a table as I waited for him to finish changing. I drummed my fingers on the table as I waited, then frowned when I saw him walk out the restroom door.

 

“Man, really?” I said as I made a show of looking down at my baby pink shirt, a very similar shade to what Jaemin was wearing at that moment. I looked at him again and he was wearing denim jeans and similar white sneakers as well. “What is this, a field trip?”

 

“Are you copying me or something?” he replied, but he didn’t look too bothered by our similar getup. He sat down, then he poked me in between my eyebrows that I didn’t know were furrowed. “Aw, cheer up, buttercup. Can’t be angry on our field trip,” he said with a teasing smile.

 

“Don’t you have anything else to wear?”

 

“Why? We look cute!”

 

“Ugh, people are gonna think we’re a couple.”

 

“Ha ha, yeah… That would be terrible.”

 

“Well, whatever!” I said with a clap, putting an end to the non-issue. I laid out an imaginary blueprint on the table, drawing with my hands the schedule for whatever it was we had planned for the day. “So first, we’re going to the arcade, then we’re gonna eat, and then after that… we can take a walk on the beach,” I declared. “Huh, looks like that’s it.”

 

“That’s all we’re doing? Worst field trip ever,” he said. He took his cup, reading the tag to see what I’d gotten him. “This flavor again?”

 

“You order the same thing every time.”

 

“Wasn’t a complaint,” he hummed around his straw as he took a sip.

 

“And it’s not a field trip. Think of it like a fun getaway, you know. We’re rebellious teens. We’re gangsters,” I corrected. “And what more can we do with the span of just a few hours? I wanted to do this for the entire day, but I had to compromise because of someone,” I said with a glare directed at him.

 

“I didn’t want to miss too much of school. Why didn’t we do this on a weekend, anyway?” he asked, resting his cheek on his hand as he leaned on the table. “I lied to my homeroom teacher, said I had diarrhea or something.”

 

“Where’s the fun in that? Live a little! It’s already a Friday anyway, so we might as well start the weekend early. We could catch a movie, too, or go shopping if you want.”

 

“Nah, the movies right now,” he said. “But I do want to go souvenir shopping because it’s a field trip.”

 

“You’re so annoying,” I sighed. I took my cup, grabbed my backpack, and tilted my head towards the exit, signaling him to leave. “Well, now that we’re good, shall we go?”

 

“Let’s.”

 

With that, we made our way to the mall, trying to blend in with the sparse weekday crowd so that we didn’t look too suspicious, like we totally had just skipped school. I was probably looking around too much, self-conscious that people might see through our disguise, so Jaemin started some small talk along the way.

 

“I can’t believe you really planned this,” he said. One of his hands was holding onto his bubble tea, while the other one was swinging freely between the two of us. Every so often our arms would brush, and I would pull away. “What was your excuse, anyway?”

 

“I told Hyunjin to tell the teachers I had something urgent.”

 

“Wow… what’s the emergency?”

 

“Up to her,” I said to him with an innocent smile.

 

“You’re so bad,” he laughed with a smack to my bare arm.

 

I scowled and rubbed at where he hit me. “Can you not touch me? I feel sticky already in this weather,” I complained, to which he replied by putting his hands up as if surrendering. “I invited her to come along, but of course she didn’t want to.”

 

“Because of me?” he joked.

 

“Well,” I giggled, looking at him. “I was gonna say it’s because she’s a good student, but I guess you’re right, too.”

 

“Ah, I’m hurt,” he choked, exaggeratedly putting his hand over his chest as if he’d been wounded.

 

I asked him why he didn’t bring Jeno along since it had been a while since I’d last seen him, and apparently Jeno got sick the night before. I was very animatedly telling Jaemin how I managed to escape my own heavily-gated school, when suddenly he wrapped his arm around me to bring me closer to him.

 

“Hey, I said don’t —”

 

But I didn’t get to finish, as a man on a bicycle zoomed past my right from behind, ringing his bell as he did so.

 

We stood still, and I looked at Jaemin only to see his face mere inches from mine. It was an odd position, and it seemed like there was something he wanted to say, but all he did was continue to stare. He was looking at my face, but not meeting my eyes, and I waited a few seconds until eventually it got too awkward. I suddenly remembered we were out in public and should probably stop being a human roadblock, so I removed his hand from my upper arm.
 

“What, is there something on my face?” I asked as I resumed walking, turning around to face him as I walked backward.

 

Jaemin wasn’t moving for a second, until he looked like he snapped out of some sort of reverie, then immediately followed. “You should pay more attention to your surroundings, Heejin,” he simply said. “And watch where you’re going. If you get hit by a car, I’m not calling for help.”

 

“Um, thanks, I guess,” I replied, waiting for him so that we were side by side again. He switched our positions and I was now on his left. “What was the guy doing, riding a bike on a sidewalk anyway? Riding at the speed of a car, too. What a .”

 

And… Well, it seemed like I was the for planning this escapade in the first place, because we were only at the first stop and it already wasn’t going smoothly.

 

“Why won't security let us in?” I ranted to Jaemin as we did a walk of shame out of the mall. No mall meant that our arcade plan wasn’t going to come to fruition either. “I’m so pissed!”

 

“They just lost some valuable customers,” Jaemin said, trying his best to console me because I probably looked like a crazy lady, but I wasn’t having any of it.

 

“The guy even called us ‘kids’, like we’re a bunch of big, fat losers,” I grumbled. We sat down on a waiting shed since our legs hurt from all the walking, and so that we could process what had just transpired. “And why do they care that it’s school hours, anyway? Tell me, Jaemin. Do we look like kids? Tell me.”

 

“Uh…” was all he could say, and I sighed in frustration, feeling defeated at our failed excursion, field trip, or whatever. “Well, um,” he tried to come up with a plan B. “We could still grab a snack, and then go to the beach.”

 

“Fine, let’s get out of here,” I complied, not really able to do any more. “I’m hungry and I hate this place.”

 

Luckily the bus to where we were headed came within a few minutes. We got on, and as soon as we sat down I felt the weight of the entire day crash upon me and I was tired. The bus was empty, because who would be headed to the seaside at this time of day? So, Jaemin and I were able to talk freely.

 

“I can’t wait to get some seafood,” I said as I slumped on my seat, eyes already threatening to close.

 

“I’m starving,” he agreed.

 

Jaemin was by the window seat so he looked out into the city as we fell into a comfortable silence. In a few minutes, the buildings and street lights turned into trees and the sun out in the distance, and I decided that a little nap wouldn’t hurt. I was about to let myself sleep, when Jaemin suddenly piped up and looked over to me.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Today is fun.”

 

“Hmm?” I hummed again, too tired to even say anything.

 

“This is fun.”

 

“We… didn’t even do anything yet,” I said, punctuating it with a yawn and forgetting to cover my mouth as I did so. I closed my eyes, completely drained, but still tried to stay awake for the conversation.

 

Jaemin let out a small laugh at that. He continued, “Yeah, we did. We skipped school, got kicked out of the mall… We’re gangsters for real.” I heard rather than saw his bright smile, just by the sound of his voice.

 

“We were only walking the entire time.”

 

“Yeah, well I don’t mind.”

 

“Hmmm?”

 

I opened my eyes to give him a weird look, and I saw his smile become smaller, but not any less genuine, and it actually looked a little shy.

 

“I don’t mind, because it was with you.”

 

I waited for him to take it back, for him to say that he was kidding, because who even says that cheesy stuff? But it didn’t come, so I just turned away, closing my eyes again and bracing myself for a fifteen-minute nap. He was obviously just trying to be annoying again, so I shut him down.

 

“Ew.”

 

And he let out another laugh, less of a sound and more of a breath from his nose, but I felt him smiling anyway. “I mean it,” he insisted, and it sounded like he was looking out the window again.

 

Two could play at this game, I thought, so I got back at him. “Well, I had a great time, too. I don’t mind spending everyday like this, as long as it’s with you,” I said with a smile that mirrored his, although I had my eyes closed.

 

And there was a pause.

 

“Do you really mean that?” Jaemin asked with a small voice.

 

I wanted to say ‘Nope, gotcha!’ as if it were a prank, then proceed to make fun of him about it the rest of the ride, but I figured I would be lying if I did that. The day might not have gone according to plan, but it wasn’t all bad. I knew I had fun, too. I would have felt guilty if I said otherwise, since Jaemin sounded so genuinely unsure, so in my sleepy state of mind I decided to tell him the truth.

 

“Yeah… We’re best friends, right?”

 

And then there was another pause, even longer than the previous one.

 

I was about to fall asleep, thinking Jaemin wasn’t going to respond anymore, when he let out a legitimate fit of laughter, one that was loud enough to fill the entire bus that I was worried the operator was giving us a dirty look.

 

I opened my eyes to look at him once more, brows furrowed and confused as hell as to what I said that was making him laugh this hard. He looked back, smile so big with a bright glint in his eyes, looking at me as if I was the weird one, like he knew something I didn’t, until he calmed down.

 

“Yeah,” he said in between giggles. “For life.”