Luck: success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions. You never believed in those. You believed that things happen because, in one way or another, our own decisions affect what happens to us. Usually. Just like how you chose to hit the snooze button this morning making you almost miss the bus. Or how you chose to eat something new from the menu this morning because you thought “I’m feeling adventurous today. I should try a different item once in a while,” which turns out to be a very bad idea because (1) it tasted really weird and (2) because it made things more difficult later on in the day. And the worst decision you probably made as of now was to put out paper while your friends put out scissors. Or maybe they just rigged the whole thing to get you to ride the roller coaster with them. Probably the latter.

You breathed deeply for the nth time since you and your friends entered the last waiting area for the ride. At this moment, you weren’t even sure if the coldness in your hands was because of the railing or because of how terrified you’re feeling at the moment. You’ve rode roller coasters before but that was a loooong time ago. Not to mention it was nothing compared to the one you’ll be riding in a few moments. It was said to be one of the steepest wooden roller coasters in the world, towering up to 183 feet high.

Screams and laughing were heard and the roller coaster came into view. Several people were either frantically fixing their hair while others were too shocked to care. Only a couple of them were laughing and finding everything amusing. They all stood up and vacated the seats which meant that it was your turn.

You clung to your best friend’s arm on your way to the seat. As if it weren’t scary enough, they decided that it would be even better to seat at the very end. Now, you have to decide which one is worse: third (5^th) wheeling all day or being alone in your seat while they were seating behind? Well, third wheeling was nothing new so yeah, you choose being alone in your seat on a roller coaster as worse.

You sat there without a word, waiting for everyone to get on, your heart pounding even harder now that you’re actually seated on your ride to hell.

“Uh, is it alright if I sit here?”

You looked up to see a dark-haired guy standing beside the seat next to you.

He stared back trying to find an answer from you before he looked towards the ride to see if there were any other seats. “Or I could look somewhere else…”

“NO PLEASE SIT HERE!” you blurted out.

The guy blinked in surprise before his face turned to a smile. “Thanks!”

You watched him sit down and buckle on his seat belt, grinning very excitedly, he was even a doing a little tapping dance with his feet. Oh how you wished you felt the same. Just thinking about the drop was enough to send a chill down on your spine.

“Chan-ah!” he calls out to a seat a few feet from him. “You have to do the mission with Myungho okay?”

“Soonyoung-ah! Don’t forget to do yours! You’re too excited!” a guy from another seat shouted back.

Soonyoung, the guy beside you, was grinning even wider at this statement. “Ah. Jun will probably fail this, not me.” He turns to look at you before noticing the look on your face. “Are you alright?”

You felt your stomach churn. You really shouldn’t have picked to eat something weird today.

Soonyoung waved a hand in front of your face. “Are you alright? You look sick.”

You nodded. You hated this but you hate turning back on a bet even more. You’re not about to give your friends that satisfaction.

Soonyoung studied you a bit more before looking back to the front. “Ah!” he exclaims, turning back to look at you. “If you want, you can hold on to me. Chan does that all the time.”

You exhaled, trying to calm your nerves. “No. I’m fine. Thanks.”

The attendant walked over and helped lower the safety bar and that’s when you knew: you were doomed.

“You can do it Y/N!” your best friend from behind told you, reaching over to pat your shoulders.

“YOU GUYS ARE GONNA PAY FOR THIS” you cried.

Soonyoung looked over and laughed, giving you two excited thumbs up.

At last. The announcer informed everyone that the ride will be starting in a few seconds. You gripped the safety bar tightly, your eyes trained forward. You heard a few people shout in excitement and a few encouragements for the people they’re with. And then it moved. Slowly, the cart moved forward and out to the open.

“This is crazy. Why did I agree to this? Oh right. I lost a bet! I’m the crazy one! Haaaaaaaaaa…I can’t do THIS!!”

Soonyoung laughed, amused at your really fast monologue. “It’s gonna be fun!” he shouts.

The ride to the top was even terrifying, you can’t imagine how it would feel for the first drop. The cart finally reached the top and you had a few seconds to gather yourself before the dreaded drop. Your eyes widened as you felt it near the edge of the platform, seeing part of the cart already on its way down. “TELL MY MOM I LOVE HER!!” you shouted, shutting your eyes close.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The next few seconds were a mess. You felt the wind on your face and the food screaming in your stomach. Or maybe it was the scream of the people on the ride. Maybe both. Down. Up. Down. Up. Side. You lost count of how many hills and drops you had to go through before losing the courage to scream any more. With every hill, it felt like your body was being dragged. And with every drop, you felt your body leaving your seat and your heart being left somewhere up there and you couldn’t take it anymore. Eyes tightly shut, you grabbed on to Soonyoung who was clearly enjoying everything.

Soonyoung smiled, finding it really cute how you’re basically curling into a ball, burying your face on his arm, hearing little yelps and muffles every now and then. “PICTURE TIME!” he yelled after a while amidst the noise the wind was making.

“WHAT?” you yelled back, raising your head a little to see what he was talking about.

Flash! Flash! Flash! The camera snapped pictures continuously.

You blinked a few times, trying to get rid of the flash from your vision. You turned to look at Soonyoung who had a weird expression on his face with his hands posed like those of a T-rex and laughed. He looked absolutely ridiculous (and cute) with that expression, you forgot for a moment how terrifying the ride was. Soonyoung caught your eye and laughed as well, knowing full well that what he did looked really weird. Everything was fine until the last drop wherein you had to stop mid-laugh to bury yourself once again on his arm.

At last, the ride is finished. You sat still, clearly shaken at what just happened. Like the people you saw before, you were too out of it to even care about your appearance. The cart slowed to a stop and the safety bars were lifted. Soonyoung stood up, waiting for you to stand so he could go on the platform.

You stood slowly, only to feel your legs turn into jelly. Good thing he caught your arm and supported you until you were sure you could stand on your own. “Wasn’t that fun?” he asked.

“It was but I don’t think I’ll ever go again. At least, not seating at the back,” you said and gave him a small smile. While the first half of it was terrifying, thanks to his weird pose, you at least had a fun memory with the ride.

“You did it Y/N! We knew you could do it!”

You turned to see your friends smiling and grinning at you, some patting your back and some admitting the game before was planned.

“Really funny guys. Really funny.” You rolled your eyes. Never again. Well, maybe if Soonyoung was there. Or at least someone as nice as him.

Reminded of how grateful you are for him, you turned to see where he was but he was gone. You sighed. He was probably with his friends already. You scanned the area once more to see if he really wasn’t there anymore. A new batch of people were already loading onto the cart and your friends were already hurrying you up so you could all check the photos. Gathering your things, you ran towards your friends and walked to the souvenir shop.

You all went to the counter swarmed with people buying photos. He wasn’t there at all. Even his friends weren’t in sight. Sighing in defeat, you stood beside your best friend and looked through the photos. Each one was really amusing to see. There were people who were screaming with their eyes and mouth wide open, there were some with 0 expressions on their faces, and there were people who did weird poses. And in one photo, you saw it. Soonyoung was there with the weird pose that you saw up close and…

“Ooooohhhh!! Y/N has hearts on her eyes!!” your friends teased, nudging you and poking your shoulder.

Right next to him was you, looking at him curiously as you can remember but in the photo, it looked just like how they said; you looked like you had heart eyes on him.

You felt yourself blushing. As embarrassing as it looks, it is a really good photo. Would it be weird to buy it?

“Hey,” the woman behind the counter called, “you’re this girl, right?” she asks pointing at you in the picture.

“Yes, that’s me,” you said blushing even harder. Was it that weird?

“The guy seating beside you left you this.” She smiles, handing you a photo.

You took it and smiled. It was the photo.

“It’s already paid for and you should probably look at the back.” She smiles again before moving on to another customer.

All your friends had their eyes on you, grinning.

You flipped the photo and saw a slightly messy handwriting on it in blue ink. “You were really cute during the ride. Would you like to hang out with me sometime? No roller coasters, I promise. Call me soon at –” you quickly pressed the photo on your chest, hiding the message from your peeking friends.

“Sooooo?”

You smiled, looking at the couples in front of you. “I think roller coasters aren’t that bad.” Riding the roller coaster started out as a bad decision but right now, you can’t help but feel picking out paper was good luck after all.