Smile

The first time I met him, it was under the shade of an old tree, its branches created shadows on the pavement as the sun slowly disappeared beneath the horizon. I couldn’t tell what kind of tree it was, not that I wouldn’t be able to tell because I’m a botanist, but because something far more interesting caught my attention. A laugh.

I looked beside me to see a man with a hand covering his mouth, head bowed to look at his mobile device. His eyes disappeared in crescents while he giggled into his hand, small lines appeared on their corners as his eyelids shut even tighter and his laughter grew more resounding.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he murmured when he noticed me looking, or maybe the proper term is staring, at him. He then moved his hand to show me his smartphone, “It’s just,” he giggled again, pressing his hand harder over his mouth, “it’s so funny.” He showed me a gif of a cat, it looked uninteresting at first but then someone placed a fake flower over the feline’s head and that’s when it all changed. The other boy beside me didn’t even bother covering his mouth anymore, doubling over as he watched the gif again and again and again.

Without asking for my name he said, “Isn’t it funny?” He retracted his arm to view the gif by himself again, giggling as if the comedic content would never lose its humor. Dumbly, I nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see my reaction. He looked towards me, head tilted to the side with his eyebrows furrowed. I felt my eyes widen a little, my knees shook slightly as my brain short-circuit due to the other’s adorable display. 

“You look familiar.” He said, his other hand moved to his chin as if to think then he snapped his fingers, “Right! Lu Han’s cousin!” His eyes brightened up at the realization. I thought, as I looked into them, those brown orbs might as well me in with the way I fell into it, captured by its innocence and genuine light. “I forgot your name though,” his voice started becoming smaller, shier, “since I never really met you.” He smiled then, pocketing his mobile device to offer his hand to me. 

“Yixing,” he offered, his smile growing wider and I swear I felt my heart fall to my stomach then to the ground before bouncing and rolling to stop by the stranger’s feet. If his laughter was a headturner, his smile was and is captivating. 

Even now as I look at him, laughing at something our friends will probably think is ridiculous, I can still feel the same skip of my heartbeat, my breath hitching and my brain going haywire, all because of his smile.

When I asked our friends what I should do to win his heart, they said that it’s easy, make him laugh. And sure enough it was easy. Yixing is so giving, so understanding and he finds even my stumbling and fumbling for words something worth giggling over and saying, “That’s cute,” before patting my cheek and leaning over to give me a kiss, “You’re cute.” What they didn’t tell me was that along with making him laugh and having him fall for me, I too will fall deeper. That too was also not that hard. Every time he smiles and laughs, his dimples dig a pit on his cheek and I feel myself diving there and getting lost, in his laughter, warmth and affection. And soon enough, all I want to hear is him calling my name as he laughs at something I did or said.

“Yi-fa-a-an!” The way his shoulders rise up and fall down along with the many As he laughs through before he gets to finish saying my name, makes my stomach flutter and want to cage him in my arms and have his body rub against mine. Whenever he laughs, he slaps my arm every now and then, sometimes soft enough to make me smile, sometimes hard enough to make me run away. But I always come back to him; to see him smile again and drown myself in the image of those perfectly lined teeth, deep dimple and the sound of warmth and happiness all contained in a small body that I can wrap my arms around to secure and keep to myself forever.