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                The man stands ever so still, waiting upon his answer. The only movement that is detected is the slight breeze that ruffles the man’s hair. He is clothed in a white suit with a transcendent aura that emits from his being.

                Small dainty hands cover his eyes and he is jolted up from his relaxed state. The effect is instantaneous as a nervous chuckle leaves his lips. She laughs when she sees how surprised he had been when she came up from behind. He beckones towards her and she takes a seat beside him.

                “What do you have there?” she gestures to the small book he was holding. Her voice is timid as she is still shy around his presence.

                It had only been a week since he had first asked her out. She had noticed him the first day of class – sitting at the end of the lecture hall with a bored expression on her face. The way his tousled hair framed his face, the smirk he sometimes had which disappeared as quick as it came and his indirect ways of showing how he was interested in her. Even through all of that, it came as a shock when he took her hand and boldly asked her to be girlfriend outside the door of their college class.

                “A book,” he says, handing it to her.

                She flips through the pages, intrigued by the contents and secrets it held.

                “Would you read it for me? I like your voice whenever you read,” he grins at her.

                She doesn’t think much of his request so she turns back to the front page. There is shuffling as she hears him getting comfortable. The first words barely leave before she feels his head fall on her lap.

                Her heart races at how close he is to her and before her mind could react, her body does and she pushes him off her lap. He falls onto the ground and looks up at her in mock sadness.

                “You asked me to read to you, not to become your human pillow,” she retorts.

                After brushing his shirt off, he takes his seat back beside you. With a pout he says, “But isn’t that what girlfriends are supposed to do?”

                She blushes upon hearing the term of endearment for the first time. “Do you want me to read this or not?”

                “I do.”

                With a sigh, she flips open the book once again. Her voice is melodic and soothing in his ears. In all honesty, he doesn’t register a single word she is saying. His eyes trace every single feature on her face, starting with her curious eyes, which absorb each word of the novel; to the tip of her nose, which she wrinkles every so often as an unknown habit of hers; and ending at her pink lips, which move gracefully to form each word. He doesn’t know what it is about her that entices him but everything she had done since the first time their eyes met in lecture had caught his attention.

                He leans his head against her shoulder and closes his eyes, enjoying the warm sun on his face and the happiness he feels around the girl he likes.

                “Yah, Kim Hanbin. Are you even listening to me read?” she glares down at his sleeping figure. She feels the urge to push him away again but seeing how peaceful he looked tugs at her heart strings.

                “Not really,” he mutters, “I was too distracted by your beauty.”

                She rolls her eyes and can’t help herself when a soft chuckle leaves her lips. He suddenly sits up and takes the book from her.

                “Since you’ve already read some for me, let me read the rest for you,” he tells her. He already knows how the story will end, but he can read from her expression that she was yearning for more.

                Books had always captivated her. It was what led to her deciding to pursue a career in journaling. In fact, if not for her love of reading and writing, they would have never met. After a couple of conversations with him, he had shared that he took their shared course for an extracurricular credit. She had laughed at him when he spoke of his ongoing battle with the written language and promised to help him on future assignments.

                He brings the book to his lap, purposely drawing the words away from her eyes. Initially, she patiently sits while listening to him read. However, the pace he was reading was too slow for her and she leans closer to him with the plan to read ahead with her own eyes.

                There is a slight turn of his head and he comes face to face with her. They are so close that she feels his breath tickle her lips as he says, “Here, you can’t see?”

                Not bothering to wait for her answer, he wraps his arms around both her shoulders until he has her locked within his embrace. She sits frozen, scared yet excited to be so close to him. Every inch of her body screams for her to relax and give herself up to him but her mother had taught her better. She was not going to be an easy girl for him to get.

                She ducks her head and leaves her spot on the bench. She starts walking away from him before he grabs her hand and stops her from continuing.

                “Where are you going now?” he asks.

                Her heels click when she turns to face him. His innocent, brown eyes meet her own and the defensive walls she was trying to maintain threaten to crumble. “If you’re trying to get me interested in reading that book so that you can get close to me, I’m not going to let that happen,” she says with a jut of her chin.

                Her words cause a mischievous grin to appear on his lips. She’s lured by his boyish charm as he leans in close to her. “Please, if I wanted to get close to you, I’d be much more direct.” In the small amount of time they had known each other, she had seen that he was never patient. This time was no different when he takes her hand and tugs her down the park walkway.

                The birds above them are chirping as the spring breeze whistles through the leaves. Their steps fall into place with each other and he never lets go of her hands.

                “Hey! That guy is selling some cotton candy. Let’s go get some!” he exclaims.

                She is pulled once again behind him as he runs towards the vendor. They wait in line patiently until the parent and child finish their payment. He greets the vendor and requests for the largest cotton candy. Despite her initial resistance, he tempts her sweet tooth when he presents the large pink and blue cloud. Every time she reaches forward with for a bite, he pulls it further away from. He enjoys watching her slowly become frustrated and a small pout forms on her lips.

                “Oppa,” she whines and gives him a glare. The next time she moves forwards, he holds the candy still. Her taste buds explode with the sugary treat.

                A laugh bubbles within him when he sees that the candy engulfs her whole head due to its immense size. He brings himself closer to the candy.

                She immediately catches what he is trying to do and rips a large bite away before his lips can meet hers between the candy. Her hand becomes sticky as the sugar melts between her fingers but she teasingly dances away from him.

                He runs up to walk beside her again, unaccepting of his previous failure.

                “You’ve got a little bit of it here,” he gestures to his own face in mirror of hers.

                Still suspicious of his intentions, she reaches up and wipes her cheeks. She’s unsure of whether she has removed it as her hands are sticky before and after the action. Her wonder is confirmed by the shaking of his head.

                He sighs and takes her hand into his, making her stop on the sidewalk in front of him. Looking into her eyes, he places one hand on her cheek before drawing her close to him. His heart is pounding inside his chest as she blinks while waiting.

                There is only one thought that goes through her head: his lips are as soft as she had always imagined.

                Although he was the one to instigate the kiss, he feels a tingling sensation shoot from when their lips had met down to his toes. It renders him breathless, both physically and mentally. There is a dazed look on her face when he looks down at her and he doesn’t miss his opportunity to say,

                One hundred days was not a lot compared to other couples but it was enough for him. He the phone where the two of them stand happily, gazing at the camera. Swiping to the next photo, the memory of their first time travelling outside the main city enters his mind. With his part time job, he had saved enough to take her out to Jeju Island and to surprise her after her article made the front page. It brought a smile on his face seeing their simple joy of being together.

                There’s a knock on his door to tell him the car was ready and waiting for him outside. He stands with his suitcase in one hand and the phone still grasped in the other. The room has been stripped clean of anything that belonged to him. The cabinet is devoid of any bottles of medication and the bedsheets had been washed until they were white as snow from the times he had awoken in the middle of the night due to the nasty coughs that suffocated his body.

                A small part of him feels sorry for leaving her this way. But his mind convinces him otherwise. He knows of the pain that he would be bringing her in their days to come. It happened to everyone he had gotten close to. She was the one he could not bear to see in tears, especially if they were because of him, so he decided to leave before any of that could happen.

                He wonders what she must have felt when she went to his house. She would have found that nobody lived there any longer. Perhaps he would have been the reason for her tears regardless.

                He looks up at the man who is still smiling down at him. Was he ready? Half a year ago he would definitely have resisted as much as he could. There were still so many things waiting for him to do in this life. So many places to go; so many people to meet. But a sense of peace washes over his body. In the time he had been with her, he had gotten his fill of how simple yet happy life could be when he was with somebody he loved.

                Deep down, he knows he had left with selfish reasons. It was never for her sake. The pain of leaving was not for her to avoid – it was for himself. He wanted to be the one left with the joy of knowing her.

                This realization causes him to sigh. He is happy that in his last days he was able to get to know her and spend it with her.

                Taking a deep breath, Hanbin pushes himself away from the bed to stand on the floor. He gazes down at it, intrigued by the fact that he could not feel the cold tiles on his toes as it usually was in the mornings when he would get up.

                And he would never want to get up if not for the pain that brings him to the bathroom, expelling nonexistent fluids from his empty stomach. The faint memory brings about an imaginary shiver up his spine.

                The man waits for him, as patiently as ever, with his outstretched hand. Hanbin looks at it once and then places into it his own. He doesn’t know what happens but all his feelings are stripped away with his last exhale.

                They walk out of the room, leaving only a blissful smile on his sleeping face.

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