her glasses fog up when he exhales. the proximity between them is too close, too little space exists for it to be avoided. he looks at her in a way that screams "oh--i'm-so-sorry-i-didn't-mean-to" but she doesn't see it because she's already clearing the fog and wiping her glasses against her sweater's sleeve.

she puts it back on and turns her head away. she doesn't look at him. she still does not see the look he's giving her, or the way his ears had turned red ever since the moment between them broke because of his abnormally heavy breathing.

"sorry," it's he who mumbles this word. it's insincere, they both know it.

she sighs and rakes a hand through her hair; this week it's black. last week it was blonde, last last week it was turquoise. next week he thinks her hair might be at the brink of dying, if it isn't actually dead by then. 

she's not leaning onto him anymore. she keeps five inches of space between them. her eyes are wide open and annoyed and is set onto a thin line; pursed. her lips are pursed and she's annoyed and he caused this. 

"you're no good." she stands up and walks away from their little bench under the greying sky and brown leaves of the ever tree. the wind is so cold, he can't feel the tips of his fingers or how his heart drops down his stomach at the prospect of rejection.

he tells himself he's an idiot, but like all words he utters; he doesn't mean it. not really.

on monday, he has his hands in his pocket and his heart on his sleeve when she walks by him and so obviously ignores his whole being and the fact that he exists. she just walks on by with her high heels stomping on the remnants of his tattered ego.

contrary to that; he feels all of her inside him, every bit of atom she contains boils his spirits up in a pot and makes the butterflies in his stomach fly wild and fly free. it's almost crazy.

when he looks back his shoulder, she turns the corner and is gone. he slumps, sighs and listens to the boys behind him talk about their kissing lessons from the very same girl who has his heart in her hands. 

he tries it again.

knock knock

he wants to.

the door opens and she complains the next five minutes before he explains for three and she lets him in begrudgingly but she's at least decent by making him take off his shoes and coat and offering him tea that is sweetened by honey. 

"i usually don't offer seconds for lessons," it's palpable she does not approve of this despite inviting him in and letting him drink her tea. "but you're cute." 

when they get rid of the formalities and awkward tension and her glasses and everything else in between, it's her who leans in and it's him who doesn't know what the heck he's doing and that's not even why he's there. he's not there for lessons, he's there for her and he can feel every part of him pulsating just by the thought of that, just by the touch of her.

"you really are no good." 

she's laughing but she means it, he's too drunk in ecstasy to even care about it. he just looks at her playing with her hair - it's black with a purple ombre - and he reaches out to caress her cheek, like the way he does in his dreams, but she slaps his hands away and shakes her head.

"don't touch my hair, jung." 

he opens his mouth to tell her he wasn't going to, not really, but now that she brought it up he kinda, sorta wants to instead. before he can say anything, the doorbell rings and she jumps out of her skin and pushes him off the couch and tells him to go and if he still wants to live by tomorrow morning. 

before he jumps over the fence, he turns around and makes the first move of kissing her. it takes a second to connect lips but more than minutes, hours, days to disconnect them. when the front door opens and "yerim, are you home?" echoes from inside, she pushes him away and he falls not just onto the patch of dry grass that belongs to her neighbor, but onto the black whole that is her; that is kim yerim. 

they sit beside each other eating tacos and nachos and it's iced tea for her and just water for him. books opened on hundred-something pages are sprawled before them. she taps her pen against the steel table and her finger taps the side of her glasses, she's in deep thought about quadratic equations and numeric values and things not related to him.

he shifts in his seat and their shoulders brush and strands of her hair that were tucked behind her ear fall and it's like temptation. he doesn't even know what he's doing until she stops him. 

"didn't i tell you before not to touch my -"

"why?"

a sigh. "just don't." 

this week her hair is orange with pink and blue highlights. it's vibrant and cheerful unlike her mood today. exams are coming up, he stays quiet beside her and tries to study but the words don't come, the information resists to enter his mind.

his head falls on the space between her shoulder and her neck. she sighs. he sits back up, his spine straight, his shoulders squared, his hands on his lap and kept to himself. 

"don't," it's a word she breathes out. it's like a whisper, it's barely audible but he had heard it. he had picked it up with his ears and he wished he hadn't. the movement of his lips against her stop and he takes two steps back. 

today her hair matches her mood for once - dark blue and dark violet. 

he had tried to direct her again, had tried to sneak his hand to the back of her head to delve deeper into euphoria (it's impossible for someone to kiss that good but somehow yerim does it) but she had stopped him again. 

she walks away with that annoyed look he knows all too well. she fixes her blouse, her skirt and then her hair even though he hasn't touched it, ever. 

he sighs and kicks the marble-tiled floor with his worn out sneaker. 

she acts like he doesn't exist this time. he had upset her last week, and two days before and yesterday too. when he locks eyes with her during the ceremony, she looks away and continues to chatter with her friends. her hair is like worn-out fire - it's auburn and it's beautiful on her, he thinks.

he walks behind her when they exit the auditorium, hands in his pockets and teeth biting onto his bottom lip. her hair looks dead, lifeless and stiff from behind.

he'd still run his fingers through it. 

he blows air through his hands because even the school heater isn't enough to keep the cold of january away. she stops by the girl's restroom because some of her friends enter and she stays out, back against the wall and arms crossed against her chest. 

he passes by her and mutters, "hey." 

he stops in his track when she doesn't reply. he looks back and she's staring straight ahead, she's not giving him the satisfaction of a second glance; he knows this. he knows her. he looks away and continues walking. 

he bikes by her house and sees her hunched outside on the steps, her knees to her chest, her head down and her hair covering her face like a curtain. he places his bike on the pavement and walks towards her. 

a scowl covers her pretty features the moment they finally lock eyes after those days of ignoring. he crouches down when she tells him to go away. 

"you locked out?"

"it's two in the morning, what are you doing out?”

when he snickers, her scowl fades by the tiniest bit. it's the other way around. she rests her head back on to her knees and he stands up. his hand dives into the plastic bag he's holding, the reason why he's out and about at dawn on a monday. he places a carton of banana milk in front of her. 

she doesn't look up. 

his hand goes to her head, slowly he pats her crown and he can feel himself feel surprised by how soft her hair actually is. his fingers slowly glide down her strands, until his hand finds her cheek. (every strand is like the finest thread of spider silk.) 

she looks at him, a frown on her pretty face. he moves his hand to the crown of her head and pats her there again. a second later he runs his hand through her hair and his mouth glides over her's and it's salty, yet sweet, he realizes the saltiness because of her tears. 

he sits with her on the doorstep of her house until the sun comes up and school starts in two hours and she remembers there's a spare key for the back door under the mat they're sitting on. 

three hours later, they're at school and they're in different classes but she holds onto his hand and leads him straight to the guidance office for their tardy slips and he doesn't complain; he savors the fact she's holding his hand rather than his heart, and there's a skip in her step as he whispers to her ear how he had always wanted to get into trouble with the ever-so troublesome kim yerim. 

"of course you'd want to be in trouble with me," she says before she flicks her auburn hair off her shoulder. she smiles at him, and everything inside of him smiles back.