August 2009 

 

“I don’t get why mom dropped me off at your place when I could have just stayed home by myself?” Jaemin scoffed and crossed his arms. “I’m nine! I can handle myself alone.”

 

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, watching their car drive off from the window in our living room. “But why is my mom going with yours? She wouldn’t tell me where they were going.”

 

“She told me she was going to my sister’s,” Jaemin said, sitting beside me on our couch. “She said my sister needed some help with the baby. Maybe your mom is helping with it, too.”

 

“Is your sister sick? My mom seemed a bit worried earlier.”

 

“I’m not sure, she doesn’t say much. Probably not.”

 

“Oh, well. I guess you’ll be here for a while, so what do you want to do?” I said. His visit to my house was unannounced, so I didn’t have anything planned for us to do.

 

“I don’t know,” he said, looking around until he saw the papers and stationery scattered on our dinner table. “What’s that?” 

 

“Oh, that,” I said, then I ran to the dining area, Jaemin following along. “I was making a scrapbook earlier with mom!”

 

He looked at the unfinished project lying messily on the table. “Well, then let’s do that,” he suggested. 

 

“Oh! Then it can be our memory book,” I beamed as I grabbed a chair so we could get started.

 

I gave him instructions on how to make the book and what my plan was, which surprisingly he followed carefully. He did most of the cutting and stitching the papers together, while I did most of the decorating. When we were done, we filled the first page with our handprints and random drawings that we made.

 

Then it came time to make our very first entry.

 

“What should we put?” Jaemin asked.

 

“I don’t know…” I paused as I thought for a bit, “What do you think if we each get one page, and write out what we want to do in the future?”

 

“Ew, that’s corny,” Jaemin cringed.

 

“No! I think it will be fun for us to read when we grow up! Like a time capsule! Do this with me? Please?” I pouted.

 

Jaemin rolled his eyes. He sighed before agreeing, “Fine.”

 

“Great! You go first,” I said, offering him the scrapbook and some colored markers.

 

He took it from my hands and started writing down, complaining as he did so. I waited for a few minutes, and when he was done, he flipped over to the next page and handed the book back to me. I tried to read what he wrote but he slammed his hand on the blank page, refusing to show me the previous one.

 

“Don’t read it!”

 

“What?” I whined. “Then what’s the point? We have to read it together!”

 

“Ugh, fine,” he grumbled, reluctantly letting go. “But don’t read it until after I go home!”

 

“Why?” 

 

“Just don’t! This is a lame activity anyway,” he said defensively, and he was red in the face.

 

“Okay,” I said slowly, narrowing my eyes at him. It seemed like he was hiding something. “I won’t, but you can read mine if you want.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, just say that you want me to read yours,” he said with a flip of his hand, looking closely to make sure I didn’t turn the page. “Hurry up.”

 

After a while, I gave the scrapbook back with my page filled and I asked him to read it. Suddenly, he smiled as he read what I wrote, shaking his head in amusement.

 

“Your first goal is to marry someone? We’re nine!”

 

“I told you this is for the future. I can write that down!” 

 

“Oh, you’re so boring. ‘Number three, see the Milky Way’.”

 

“Hey, I like stargazing, okay? You know that.”

 

“I know, we went to that camping trip with your family, but you chose to go on a cloudy day and we didn’t see a thing.”

 

“Whatever,” I scoffed at the reminder. Jaemin stopped for a while, and when I looked at him it seemed like he was mulling over something on the list.

 

"The fifth one... Maybe,” he said hesitantly, before continuing, “We can do that right now.”

 

He pointed at one of the bullet points on the list, and I looked over to see which one he meant. 

 

5. Have a Cinderella dance.

 

I furrowed my eyebrows, then I asked. “How can we do that right now?”

 

“I’m here, am I not?” he grinned smugly, puffing out his chest as he pointed at himself.

 

“Jaemin, you’re not a prince,” I laughed.

 

“Well, you didn’t write that he needed to be a prince!" he argued. "And at least we can do one of these right now.”

 

“Well… I guess you are kind of handsome if I look from afar."

 

“Hey!”

 

“Come on, let’s do it then!”

 

I looked around for the iPod connected to a speaker in the living room. I grabbed his hand to lead him there and picked up the device, scrolling to find a song.

 

Suddenly, Jaemin let go, keeping his hands at his back and looking away. I stared, confused at his weird behavior, then kept scrolling.

 

“This is my dad’s. He saved mostly old songs,” I said, until I spotted a song my mom and dad always played when we were in the car. I put the iPod back to play the song on the speakers, and I could tell Jaemin was not familiar with it.

 

“This song is called It’s Been a Long, Long Time. Mom and dad always play this song and I really like it,” I said to him.

 

He focused on the music before tilting his head in confusion, eyebrow raised. “This sounds really old. Why do you like it so much?” 

 

“It’s fitting for the occasion,” I retorted.

 

“So how we do this again?” Jaemin put up his arms, unsure of what to do with them, but then again I wasn’t sure either.

 

“Um, you should put your hand here, like this,” I said as I led his right hand on my waist, “and the other hand like this,” as I grabbed his other hand to hold mine.

 

And Jaemin was nervous again, so for a while it was very awkward as we danced to the song. We danced stiffly, and it definitely wasn’t the image I had in mind when I said I wanted to have a Cinderella dance. He was so tense that he accidentally stepped on my foot, and he panicked as I just laughed at him. After seeing that I wasn’t mad, he started laughing, too.

 

After that we just danced playfully and had fun with it as he pretended to be a prince for the rest of the day. His mom picked him up later during dinnertime, and when he said his goodbyes and left, my curiosity got the best of me.

 

I rushed to the scrapbook to finally read what he had written on his page, and was disappointed to say the least. What he wrote was very ordinary: ‘Be rich!’, ‘Drive a car!’, ‘Go to another country!’, and whatnot, and I was about to close the book in disinterest, but then I got to the last one, which was very peculiar for him to write. 

 

10. Fall in love!

 

I figured that was why Jaemin didn’t want me to read the list while he was here, knowing I would ask him if he had a crush and who it was. I asked him and a lot when we met again the next day, but he never answered who. After trying and failing successfully to get it out of him, I just gave up, and eventually forgot all about it.