“When I look into your eyes I see everything I want in this world and that is never going to change.” 

― Stephen F. Campbell           

            It was already half past twelve, but her phone just would not stop vibrating. Another miss call from him. The guy was as stubborn as ever. Perhaps ignoring him was a tad too much. After all, he was still a close friend. It was not that she turned to hate him or anything like that. The situation was far more complicated than that. She was actually way too fond of him that she now ended up wanting all of him for herself.

            A wise man once said: “You knew you were in love when you started to be selfish.” Ok, maybe not a wise man, but more like a wise woman. When her feelings first shifted into this, she had had to keep chanting to herself that she only liked him as a friend, no more, no less. Unfortunately, it only worked for the first few days. Seeing his perfect jawlines, hearing his raspy voice or accidentally touching his large hand was not exactly helpful at all.

            After a week, she finally accepted defeat within herself. Ahyoung admitted that she had somehow fallen in love with her charismatic and sassy friend, Junhoe. But the admittance was only to herself, not to Junhoe. She would not risk letting him know that, when she knew she had not a chance with him. Apparently, he already had someone to love, and he looked serious about that person. Whenever Ahyoung pressed him on that issue, he would just brush it off and abruptly change the subject. She hated it when he did that, but what could she do? If he didn’t want to talk about it, he wouldn’t talk about it. That was how the Junhoe she knew worked.

            Even though Ahyoung was the one who decided to keep her feelings to herself, she couldn’t help but feeling awkward around him. Just the sight of him made her blush crazily, and together with his husky voice asking her if she was alright, were enough to send her running. To her embarrassment, she had literally run away from him, just this morning and ever since then she had been avoiding him the best that she could. Her job of running and hiding was pretty easy, considered Junhoe’s height and bleached hair made him stand out no matter where he was.

            However, her actions might have made no sense at all to him, for he had been sending her text messages and calling her nonstop. Ahyoung felt extremely guilty for avoiding him that she didn’t dare to read any of his messages. Junhoe was probably thinking what a nuisance she was, or perhaps she had gone insane. Or maybe he had already figured out that she had feeling for him, and just trying to reach her so he could reject. There were endless possibilities swimming in her mind, and sadly, none of them was positive.

            Frustrated at her own negativity, she found herself reaching for her cellphone. Just reading the texts was enough, she reasoned. It would not do much damage to just read some messages, right? Now, Ahyoung was unconsciously holding her breath while reading his messages.

            Junhoe (10.30): ‘Hey, what was that all about?’

            This was after her first runaway. Ahyoung felt her cheeks went red as she still felt embarrassed for acting like a five year-old. Never had she thought Junhoe would have such a huge impact over her, because this was the very first time she was afraid of getting rejected by someone. Normally, her motto was rejection over regrets. Rather she got rejected now and got over it than forever holding on to the ‘what if’.

            Junhoe  (13.00): ‘Are you ignoring me?’

            “Guess I am,” Ahyoung answered to herself mostly.

            Junhoe (15.00): ‘Pick up.’

            As she expected, the sassy prince started to get annoyed at his third messages. Junhoe was not the patient type, especially to those that had known him for a long time. It was as if scowling whenever she did not pick up her phone was his way of saying: ‘Hey be thankful that I care enough to mind that you’re not answering my calls.’

            Actually, that was exactly what he had said to her when she pouted over him scowling too much. Though his words were not really comforting or sweet, she was still overjoyed that the almighty Goo Junhoe cared about her.

            Junhoe (17.45): ‘Yah Kim Ahyoung! You sure have the guts to ignore me!’

            Uh-oh! She was screwed. Seemed like Junhoe had reached his own limit and it was never good when his head was replaced with a boiling kettle. Ahyoung gulped nervously at his tone.

            Junhoe (00.10): ‘I’m coming over right now so don’t you dare run away!’

            What? Ahyoung blinked as the text seemed to dance before her. Looking as dumb as possible, she read it again. Then it started to hit her like a sudden tidal wave. Junhoe was going to her apartment! And this text had been sent 20 minutes ago, meaning –

            Ding~dong~! Ding~dong!

            Ahyoung jumped at the sound of her own doorbell. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her palms started sweating as she walked to the front door as quietly as possible. She stood on tip-toe and peeked in the door hole. Junhoe’s scowl greeted her almost right away, leaving Ahyoung wandered if she was hallucinating or was he really standing in front of her doorstep.

           “I know you’re in there, Kim Ahyoung!” His heavenly voice confirmed her that it was the real deal, not hallucination. Ahyoung sighed deeply. She was not mentally ready yet. Considering her options, she quickly found herself with none except for opening the door. Ignoring him more would only do her worse.

            She quickly gathered herself back and calmed her nerves down. This was not the time for her to lose her composure over him any more than she had already had. Finally, the door swung opened, leaving her and Junhoe face to face. He was as handsome as always, with his blonde hair gelled up away from his lovely face. He was wearing usual black trousers and a simple white shirt buttoned up nicely, but leaving the top button opened. The way he rocked those casual clothes made her heart skip a beat.

            “Have you done checking me out yet?” Junhoe said teasingly, but the scowl hadn’t left his pretty face yet.

            “I was not,” she coughed, hoping to act normal, “why are you here anyway? Shouldn’t you be at the party?”

            “Shouldn’t I be the one asking questions, not the other way round?” he said as though it was a matter of fact and raised an eyebrow at her. Before she could protest, he let himself in and closed the door. Now that she literally had nowhere to hide, Junhoe started his interrogation. Ahyoung now felt like a criminal having to face a fearsome policeman. Bet ten bucks that no criminal would be this desperate for their policeman to hug them or kiss them like she was. She scoffed silently and repeatedly reminding herself that this was not the time to get carried away by her fantasies.

            “Where do we start?” he narrowed his eyes at her with a skeptical look, “Ah right, what’s your problem?”

            “What problem?” she let out a small retort. However, her attitude seemed to push him more on edge. He closed up on her, making her backing up slightly.

            “Don’t act dumb, Ahyoung. I know you have read my messages but decided to ignore me,” Junhoe said, still closing in on her while she was backing away from him. Ahyoung let out a small shriek as her back met with the wall, finding no more space to move. Still, she chose to stick to her acting.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Junhoe.” Junhoe said nothing back, but snatched her phone and went through it.

“Hey! That’s mine!” She tried to get it back from him, but her effort was to no avail. After a few seconds, he showed her the screen and pointed at the word: seen.

“And what is this?” he asked nonchalantly. Ahyoung’s face fell when she saw it. How stupid of her. She could have at least hid her damn phone but no, she just had to bring it with her.

“Um…I forgot?” she said, or more like asked him to agree with her explanation. To her despair, Junhoe was not that easy to fool.

            “Why are you avoiding me?” Junhoe decided that they had played around enough. It was high time she told him what kind of weird thoughts running through her pretty head. Ahyoung diverted her gaze to anything except for Junhoe, because he was seriously distracting her. He was so close, and with his height he completely towered her. The faint smell of his cologne did not help at all. It only added more to her nerves and made blood rush to her cheeks. Anyone who looked at her right now would mistake her with a ripe tomato with nowhere to escape.

            “I-I am not!” she stuttered and tried to push him away but Junhoe didn’t even budge. He just stood there and observing her with his brows furrowed. Under his unfazed gaze, Ahyoung felt suffocated. She kept shifting left and right, trying hard to slip away. The situation at hand was so intense that Ahyoung could even hear her own heart accelerate quickly every second passing by.

            Too busy squirming, Ahyoung failed to see Junhoe breaking into a knowing smirk. His mind had been gearing up to find some answers and it finally clicked in. How she reacted, how she turned away and refused to look in his eyes, how she was avoiding his gaze. Things started to come together in Junhoe’s head, and for once he thought he could understand the female’s mind. Now that he knew what was going on, Junhoe wanted to be forward to her. But seeing how he was affecting her changed his mind. He thought that if he wanted to see more of Ahyoung’s fluster, he needed to play around even more than this. The thought made him smirk even wider than before. Her eyes went wide as she saw Junhoe closing in on her, his lips were almost touching her ear.

            “Miss Ahyoung, am I so handsome that you stuttered?” he whispered slowly in her ear, knowing how much of an impact he was to her. Each word he let out sent a shiver down her spine and made her head spin. The only things mattered to Ahyoung now were his husky voice and his slow breath upon her ear. But Ahyoung was not the only one who was dying from their closeness. The moment Junhoe reached in closer to her, he almost lost to temptation and kissed her ear. Luckily, he was able to refrain from doing too much. Junhoe wanted her to fluster, not scared and ran away again.

            “C-Can’t you move away a little?” she said frantically. Though there was a part of her that was hopeful. His sudden actions made her feel that he somehow cared. That he actually harbored something for her.

            “Give me one good reason why I should do so?” He moved his head back so that now he was looking into her eyes. His face was only an inch from hers. When she tried to turn her head, he used his hand to grab her chin and forced her to look at him. With no other choice, she looked straight into his eyes. They were still as brown as ever, and they were drowning her in. There was something different this time, an emotion so foreign but so familiar, as though she had seen it before. Where had she seen this emotion of him? Ahyoung tried racking her brain to collect the pieces together. Then it hit her. Those eyes, fired with passion, were only visible to her when she asked about the one he liked.

            The realization brought her back to reality, to the cruel truth that he had already liked somebody else. The butterflies in her stomach vaporized instantly, leaving only a sharp pain in the heart.

            “Because you already have someone you like,” the words were barely audible, but enough for Junhoe to catch them.

            “Yeah, I’m taken,” he replied calmly. His calmness and poker face got her off guard. Ahyoung couldn’t believe he said that and still did this to her. It was not right to push someone’s hope up just to crush them later. Her eyes started to sting. The emotion she tried to keep at bay was trying to break free, and it took every single fibers of her to hold still.

            “Then why are you doing this to me? Is kidding around with me really that fun?” His face started to blur away from her vision as her tears building up, “You’re really mean, Goo Junhoe!”

            “Yeah it’s fun,” he said, wiping the tears that had fallen on her cheeks, “but I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

            Ahyoung could not believe what she was hearing anymore. Junhoe had just said it was fun to kid around with her. Even if that was the truth, he could have at least phrased it differently. More tears were streaming down her face.

            “Let me finish, Youngie!” Finally, Junhoe was panicked. He didn’t think Ahyoung would react like that, nor did he ever think what he had said hurt her.

            “I love you,” Junhoe exclaimed hurriedly, hoping it would get through her. At this point, anything else would be pointless. She would not listen to him reasoning, but this might calm her down. Or so he thought. His words did stop her crying, though this time, her whole functioning system stopped too. Ahyoung just looked at him in wide eyes, her voice stuck in . In her head, his three words kept replaying again and again.

            “Today’s not the first of April, right?” she said dumfoundedly.

            “No, it’s not,” he let out a small laugh but then turned serious again, “I really mean what I said, Youngie. When I said I was taken, I meant by you. I have loved you longer than you could imagine.”

            “But why didn’t you say anything when I asked you?” Ahyoung asked. She still couldn’t comprehend this situation. Her mind was overloaded.

            “Because I was waiting for you to love me,” he sighed, “You never looked my way, Youngie, even though I was right there next to you.”

            He looked away from her, hoping she didn’t see how much painful it was for him to silently be by her side. But Ahyoung saw it. She saw the hurt in his eyes. For the first time, Junhoe looked vulnerable to her. The sassy prince that never faltered in his cockiness was now looking like a child with so much pain. Unconsciously, Ahyoung reached out her hand and cupped his face. She felt him jolted slightly under her touch, but he turned back to look at her. He lifted his hand to hers and held onto it like a sinking man holding on for his dear life.

            Nothing mattered to her anymore. Ahyoung shifted her gaze to his lips. There was a sudden urge building up inside of her, filling her up with desire for him. The fire burned slowly but passionately into her heart, she felt like it was taking her over. She felt Junhoe gently caress her hand with his thumb and the sensation was driving her insane. Without even realizing what she was doing, Ahyoung slowly leaned in closer to him. Their faces were now only an inch apart, her lips parted slightly. With one swift movement, she crashed her lips onto him, pouring out every single emotion inside of her.

            Junhoe was taken by surprise with her sudden action, but soon he lost in their kiss. The way her lips caressed his was indescribable that Junhoe could not help wanting more. Ahyoung pulled away shyly, realizing what she was doing, but Junhoe didn’t let them separate for long. This time he took the lead and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her even closer to him than before. He caught her lips with his, and nibbled on them slowly.

            Ahyoung was drowning in his arms, her body fit perfectly against his. She draped her arms around his neck as he deepened their kiss, the girl could not think no more. Her knees started to give up on her, so she had to hug Junhoe’s neck for support. Suddenly, Junhoe broke the kiss, but still holding her firmly. Ahyoung wanted to protest, but she was a little embarrassed, so instead, she pouted slightly.

            “You still haven’t said you love me yet,” Junhoe complained but laughed at her pout. Ahyoung looked at him longingly before leaning onto him. She gave him a small peck on the cheek and hugged him tightly. There was nothing more she would have asked for. Just having Junhoe by her side was enough.

            “I love you too.”