I told him when we started.
“I won’t last, you know?”

But he smiled, a twinkle in his eyes obvious.
He took my hand and kissed me.
“I don’t mind.”

••⃝••

So what if Himchan was friends with him?
He left me.

Himchan walked into my room again, and I sat up on my bed, throwing my pillow at his face. “I told you to knock!” I yell, and he picks up the pillow without a word.
I hate it when he doesn’t talk.
He’s a lot of blabber and stupid; but when he doesn’t talk – he’s serious and he’s a brother when he’s silent. He becomes older. I put on a scowl; and he doesn’t mind. I’m still taller than him, so I feel avenged. Himchan gets himself seated on my bed, and sighs.

“It’s only been three weeks; Junhong.” He says, the words passing in rhythm to his sigh, and my scowl grows. I know he doesn’t like it when I hiss, but I wanted to. He’d call me a snake but who the cares anymore? I’m not six.

“Doesn’t matter. He left.” I say, crossing my arms.

Himchan reaches over for my phone, and he spares a glance at me; as if I would jump and bite his arm. I thought we grew from those shoes. Had we?

He slides through the messages, and shakes his head.

“He’s worried about you. Why aren’t you texting him back?” Himchan asks, and I roll my eyes.
“None of your business.” I say right back; and Himchan raises a brow.

“What was that?”

“None of your ing business.” I repeat; snatch my phone from his hands, and get off the bed.

“Junhong, I’m talking to you.” He clarifies, but I only spare him a glare. I grab my bag and my skateboard, and slam the door on him and walks out. Junhong I’m talking to you; I mimic in my head and scoffs, skateboarding out to the park in my skateboard.

Why am I skateboarding to the park? I ask myself, scoffs; and stops. I turn the board over and kicks my feet uphill to the other direction. I don’t even know where to head in that side, but who cares? I think I saw a gaming center that way once. Maybe I’ll try that.

ᵜᵜᵜ

Why can’t I get over this level?! “YA!” I yell, nearly crashing the game station. The level restarts on my last life left; and I take my headphones off. I settle for stumping my foot on the ground to kicking the machine, and stands up.

I jump when Jongup suddenly appears from behind my back.

“The are you doing here?” I ask, and he pulls his head backwards. He looks funny when he pulls his chin like that; and I laugh.

He narrows his brows, and makes space for me to get out.
He puts a finger on his cheek and shakes his head. “I heard you got it pretty bad this time.” He says, and I roll my eyes.
I put my hands up in protest. “I never do.” I say. It’s not a lie!
“I’m over it.” That’s not a lie either.

Jongup shakes his head sideways, eyes to his left. “You don’t look like it.” I scrunch my face. “And I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“So you did have it pretty bad this time. It was that professor guy, wasn’t it? Should I even call him a guy? He’s a man.” Jongup chatters away behind me as we step out, and I throw a glare at him.

“He’s a .” I curse, and Jongup wears a satisfied grin throughout the day. He doesn’t try to preach me so I let him hang around me. We go out for bowling but I never got a full score. Jongup was pissed when I left.

“I can’t believe you want to leave! I’m on a roll today!” He groans behind me as we leave; and I sigh.
“But I’m not, so I’m leaving.”

He keeps shut for a while; and we end up in a coffee shop, drinking chocolate shakes. Jongup is browsing on his phone, and I stare at the skateboard I dumped on the seat next to me.
Yongguk bought it for me few months back, custom designed. It was my birthday present and it actually got me pretty excited and happy. Now; however – I’m wondering why I’m keeping it.
I realized it’s the only skateboard I got.

I slurped quite loud on my emptied drink; and everyone turned their heads. I glared, and everyone turned back. Jongup looked up from his phone and bowed a bit awkwardly at everyone who threw us glances. I rolled my eyes.
Jongups’ a nice .

“Do you remember him?” Jongup turned his phone, and I squinted my eyes.

“The singer?” I asked.

I remember him from the school festival. I think he’s few years older than us.

“Not… really, he’s an economics major.” Jongup says. But then his lightbulb turns on. “Oh yes! He did sing for the festival though. So you remember him?”

I nod.

“Want me to set a blind date?” Jongup asks; and I actually laugh.

“Not really a blind date anymore.”

Jongup hummed as he agreed, and got his finger on his chin again. He did that when he thought. “Want me to set an ‘I already know how you look like’ date?” he rephrases; and I shrug.
He nods.
“Tell me if you feel like it. His name’s Youngjae. Yoo Youngjae.”

••⃝••

“My PhD. It’s going to take a year.”

I cross my hands, biting my lip.

“You’re leaving?” I asked.

His hair was a mess. He was messing it more.

“Just a year, Junhong.” He repeated, and I nodded.
I heard him the first time.

“Promise me we’d last.” He asked, and I shrugged.
“We can only try.”
I told him when this started.

••⃝••

Its past eleven thirty and I snoop around the neighborhood; checking if anyone was awake. All the lights were turned off, and I jumped over the gate, and worried again thinking it’s too short. Any thief can break in, at this rate.

I produce the key of the backdoor from my backpack; open it and slide in.

The lights came on; and I froze.
Himchan stood with his hands crossed by the light switches, and I blew my hair from my eyes.

It’s going to be a long night, I thought.

But Himchan heaved sigh of relief; and I was wrong. He only shook his head, and produced a chilled cup of chocolate from the fridge. He left it on the counter and avoided my eyes.

“It wouldn’t have killed you to show up for dinner.” He said, walking away.
He switched the lights off.

“Don’t sleep on an empty stomach.” He walked upstairs.

Drinking the chocolate was harder than expected.
I told myself it’s because it was chilled for too long.
It’s because it’s my second today.

Stupid, this is nothing to cry over.

Himchans’ room was next to mine; and I think I opened the wrong door.

I cried and Himchan kept combing my hair.

He woke me up to a cup of tea; and I pulled a face.
I never drink tea,
but it wasn’t so bad today.

Himchan asked me to reply Yongguk; and I did.

‘I’m fine.’ I said.

Himchan let me oversleep on his bed and left for work. Dad presented me with a questioner to answer when I walked downstairs at eight AM; but I didn’t get scolded because he was late for work. Mom left a pat on my head.

“How’re you feeling?” She asked, and I shrugged. “Fine, I guess.”
She smiled.
“Anything I can get you?” She got herself seated next to me for breakfast, but she had already had it with dad. She was just watching me eat. I shook my head at first.
But then a thought passed me.

“Actually, you can buy me a skateboard.”

She was on leave today; and she asked if I want to go shopping with her. I blinked my eyes. “Are you saying I can not to go school today?” I ask, and she laughs.
“You look sick enough.”

I realized skateboards are pretty expensive.

••⃝••
“You’re pushing the ground with your wheels.” Yongguk said, drawing a circle on the tissue of Starbucks.
I didn’t understand.
He drew an arrow towards the circle, and drew a straight line underneath it.
“This is the floor.” He said.
That arrow was forwards.
“Huh?”
He chuckled.
“The ground is pushing you forwards, and you’re pushing it backwards.”

“What?” I asked, raising a brow.

“This is a force diagram. Don’t you draw these for physics?”

“No?”

He laughed.
“Do you study at all, Junhong?”

I was offended.

“I don’t do math.”

He chuckled.

“This is physics.”

I shrugged.

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