Chapter 18

"So this is where you're really bringing me to?" Jongin said in disbelief as he looked at the tall arc in front of us with the name of the amusement park I decided on taking him to.

"Well, are you really going to have regrets coming with me now?" I asked him, raising a teasing brow.

He cocked his head in my direction and sighed sullenly. "Since we're here and all, do I even have the choice to regret? This is a 30 minute drive from home and I don't have a car nor do I know how to drive, so what else can I do?" He said sulkily, sniffing.

I giggled, wrapping my arm around his. "Great. I haven't been to any amusement park in such a long time, so think of this as you doing me a favor." I told him.

He looked down at me squinting, trying to melt me with laser eyes, but since that failed, he just looked away and said, "fine. But this better have no next time or any repeat."

I bobbed my head and grinned at him. "Of course, you have my word. Our next destinations won't be so cliché as this first."

He nodded and said, "oh, are you really expecting me to travel with you in that car again?"

I pouted. "Why? I did a pretty good job driving you know. You should give me credit for I did as I told my mom I would. Careful. Very careful." I told him with a flourish of my hand.

He peeled my hands away from his arm and shrugged. He slipped his hands in his pockets again and took several unsure steps while surveying the area. "Why are you suddenly being defensive? I never said I wasn't going to ride the car with you again. I was just asking a hypothetical question." He said, rubbing his nose as he searched for the entrance.

I beamed, rushing towards his side and hugging his arm again. Jongin looked down at me, trailing his gaze down to our intertwined arms, but didn't reject me this time. Instead, he dragged me towards the ticketing booth. And though I offered to pay, he refused the money saying that he already got it covered. We received stamps on our wrist from the ticketing officer and we were finally allowed to freely roam the jam-packed amusement park.

"This brings back so many memories." I said in amazement as I watched the merry go round do a slow turn while the horses and their cute little jockeys moved up and down, up and down, and while the passenger of the mini boat at Wild Cruise screamed as they dropped to the water and a huge splash wetted the outside of the ride and some of the passengers clothes, and while the carriage in the rollercoaster did a death defying go on the loop, and while boys supposedly my age tried the shooting game to win their girlfriends a huge teddy bear, and while people from the long queue at the hotdog stand separated from the line with a delicious hotdog or corndog on stick in their hands, or while everyone else just enjoyed the fun of this place.

"Really?" Jongin asked, "when was the last time you have been here or at any amusement park anyway? A date?"

I was thinking of good things about the park; like the last time our families went together here and had a fun day when we were twelve, or that time in middle school to which the six of us spent the entire day trying rides, eating, and due to inevitable circumstances, throwing up at nearby bushes.

But at the mention of 'date', I was reminded of the first and last time Sehun took me to the amusement park. It was supposed to be our very first date since I rejected him the very first time he asked me out. It was in December. By then Jongin was already gone. And I was really tired of grieving and regretting for a while. I was willing to be happy again even for a day. And Sehun was there giving me a chance to be happy with him. So I took it. The chance to be happy even though I wasn't entirely happy. At least a part of me was.

"It was a date." I told Jongin as we bought cotton candies from the stall nearby the Ferris wheel. "Sehun took me here for a date."

The admittance seemed to affect him somehow since his lips thinned and there was a visible creasing of his forehead, but whether he didn't like what he heard, he didn't voice it out. He just ate his cotton candy as he pleased and let me do the talking.

"By then you were gone to London I guess. And I really, really had a long time grieving for losing you. Sehun was the person who had stuck to me and made it his goal to make me smile every day. I suppose that made me really appreciate him more. And in one of those Ferris wheel boxes—" I pointed at the tall Ferris wheel in front of us as we walked and he followed my finger with his gaze, "he asked me to be his girlfriend and we had our first kiss." I felt my cheeks flush about the last part. Why did I even mention that to him?

Now he was looking at me with probing eyes. "Did he really just ask you to be his girlfriend then?" I nodded. "And when was that?"

"In December." I answered unsurely, wondering why he was suddenly interested about this.

He looked away and narrowed his eyes at something then said, "so the first time he asked you on a date and you rejected him, you weren't really together." He uttered out softly more to himself as if he just figured that out now.

"Yes. That was it." I said as I gazed around us, "I think the first time he asked me out was supposedly the day he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend. But then you and I fought," I looked at him but he was still not looking at me, "and I rejected his offer. After that I had just drifted away from the rest of the world and he knew it wasn't really the best time to ask me something like that again although we both knew we liked each other. It was an unspoken truth to us. I haven't even told him how I felt but I knew that he liked me, and I liked him. Used to."

"Used to?" By this time we had already circled the Ferris wheel and the sky was starting to turn a shade of amber. "Do you really not like him now?"

Do I not like Sehun now?, I asked myself. But then I said, "do I have the option not to answer?"

"No," He said firmly, "treat this as we playing game of truths again. You can't lie either." Now he was looking at me intently, testing if I was going to look away and then lie.

But it wasn't like I was going to, so as we halted I held his gaze and said, "Maybe."

"Maybe what?"

I shifted my eyes around. Left and right. Wondering what was I even trying to say. Maybe what? As he asked that it was even harder to decide because I was purely confused. I had been always confused about a lot of things like I said, especially now that these people—including Jongin—came back in my life. And it was so abrupt, unplanned, that I just couldn't have a concrete thought about all this.

The 25 year old Soori would have already figured out her life, but the 18 year old me was pretty lost. Lost in her world. Everything about me now came out as spontaneous. I just kept on following the tides and not even thinking of what were the implications of my actions would be for the most part.

And it was ironic because though I wasn't so sure either with my answer to him, I still said it because it was what I thought was right to say at the moment—even though it was just half of me saying it was true. "Maybe yes I still like him."

I didn't think again at first how it could affect him, but really what should I say then? No, I didn't like Sehun anymore? Then he would easily conclude I was lying. At least he would buy a 'yes' and maybe we would be able to move on from it.

But then when I saw his face and I just felt this change in him, like he had just built a few more walls to protect himself from the inevitable, how I wish I just said 'No'. It wasn't a complete lie anyway. Yes, I still liked Sehun. But these days there were times when I didn't even think about him, when I didn't even flinch when I hear his name being mentioned, or when I didn't even find it hard to talk about him.

"Do you want to play some games?" He asked as we rounded the game stalls were lots of couples crowded. The topic about Sehun was long forgotten, but still I couldn't put my mind out of it because Jongin was being a little standoffish and wasn't really paying attention to me ever since then.

I looked at him, who was jiggling a few coins in his hands while deciding on a game with his eyes, and said, "should we try that toss-a-ring game for now?"

He settled his gaze at the stall of the game I had suggested, and seeing that only one couple was there playing, he nodded. We ambled towards the stall and he paid again for both of us. I wanted to protest but didn't say anything since this didn't really seem like a good time.

"You have five chances to shoot a ring around the poles," the scruffy man who was managing the stall told us, "and if you manage to shoot four out of five perfectly, then you get to pick one of the big prices." He gestured at the blue teddy bear, couple t-shirts saying 'His' and 'Hers' in simple black print, a dozen of soda in can, and probably a year's worth of a sack of popcorn kernels displayed behind the poles we were supposed to aim at.

I didn't really like the cheesy couple stuff like matching t-shirts (and what use would the two of us have for that? We're not even a freaking couple!), nor was I settling for a dozen of cans of soda (I could buy that in the supermarket!), and nevermind the sack of popcorn kernels (because how could we even enjoy being in the amusement park while carrying it? Well except if we took the effort to go back to the parking lot and put it in the car. And that's just too tiring!). My hopes were all for the huge blue bear since it was fluffy, light and BLUE!

I was still busy looking at the bear when Jongin said to the man with fiery determination, "give me the rings."

The scruffy man handed him five rings with a befuddled expression on his face. Jongin grabbed the rings. But when the man was about to hand me my rings, Jongin suddenly snatched it away from the man's hold, surprising the two of us. The man looked back and forth at me and Jongin, wondering about what just happened. Then something else appeared on the man's face. A mischievous grin.

"Ah." He said with a teasing gaze as he watched Jongin tossing a ring. He got one around the first pole and the man nodded in approval. "Now I see. Your boyfriend is very chivalrous to save you from even sweating in the game." He said, glancing at me with a taunting gaze.

I blushed. "No. No." I denied to him, waving my hand in denial to his assumption. "He's not my—"

"Oh look at that! A perfect shot! You got everything in with your first try young man!" The scruffy man shouted in amazement as he clapped Jongin on his back. "You're good. Your girlfriend should be really proud of you. You have very good aim." He said, then they both looked at me in scrutiny. I turned a shade darker from my cheeks to my neck.

You idiot! Why are you even playing along with him!, I wanted to tell Jongin.

I was so flustered that I just stood there clenching my fists at my sides and trying to stop my heart from beating too fast and my pet butterflies from going haywire.

"Can I get the bear for her?" Jongin said. I looked up. As soon as I heard him say that, my irritation towards him dissipated and instead I was moved because it was like he heard what I was just thinking of a while ago. Did he want to get the bear for me? I could cry a river!

The scruffy man removed the huge bear from its hook and handed it to Jongin who thanked him in return and the man winked meaningfully at me. I blushed automatically, aware of the meaning of that gesture. He was blatantly teasing me again because he knew I was easily flustered.

"Here." Jongin gave me the bear, and I took it gingerly from him. It was so fluffy that when I buried my nose on its fur, I almost wanted to use it to sleep on. I could sleep on it forever.

"That was such an interesting game!" The man told us, "I hope I helped you gain points from your girlfriend, young boy! And hopefully she will reward you with something even better!" I blushed when he added that, but before I could even defend myself and say 'I am not his girlfriend, you idiot!' to the man, Jongin had held my hand and pulled me back into the crowd whilst laughing happily.

"Why didn't you even correct him you idiot?!" I complained when we were finally out of the man's earshot.

Jongin grinned down at me, his expression filled with genuine mirth once again that my heart melted. "It will be more troublesome to explain something like that when you know someone wouldn't just believe so easily. We won't see him again anyway." He said. I considered his words and thought that he was right. Maybe he was right. Or perhaps he just did that because he actually enjoyed this—seeing me flustered.

I scrunched up my nose in distaste, thinking of the possibility that he just made fun of me. It had somehow distracted me that I almost forgot about our entwined hands that were still closed on each other. I looked down at it and smiled. Well, almost smiled. If only I wasn't afraid he would catch me smiling because of it and ask why I was doing that. I suppressed the smile on my lips that were shaking from too much restrain until we were down to our next game.

We played one shooting game, a couple of video games we used to play in his house, and we rode several rides that were too childish for our age. I really loved the boat ride we had in this manmade cave trail that wa