Summer blows through and brings about a fresh melody to wipe away the tainted scent of spring. The birds start chirping and the city comes alive with movement and noise, bustling activities that make the city come alive with colour and a freedom that can only be felt in the summer air. There’s nothing better than to feel the moisture settle on your skin and the warmth of sunlight pool across your back as you cycle to your nearest grocery store.

Jin goes back for a few weeks, stating that his father has requested his presence in helping him out in his business, which leaves me dwelling upon what to do for Namjoon’s upcoming birthday that is coming up sooner than I expected it to. Glad that I have something to busy myself with, I decide to concentrate solely on my best friend’s birthday preparations.

“Did you ask Haeryung if she was planning anything?” Eva asks as she follows me into a stationary shop. I’m meant to pick up some decorations for his birthday theme, which I’ve decided would be all about Gudetama considering how he loves that small character to death. I’m planning on making small egg icons on the birthday plates and buying soft mustard yellow napkins to match. I also assigned Hoseok to find some Gudetama balloons, which he complained royally about since it is harder to find Gudetama themed things. Unlike other characters, Gudetama isn’t a really popular one amongst our generation and one really has to look for it to find it.

Hoseok probably wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for Namjoon.

“Oh shoot.” that had completely slipped my mind. Maybe she is planning something on her side and if she is, then things might get complicated. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Well maybe you should’ve, considering she’s his girlfriend and all.” Eva replies with a raised brow, “She’s gonna throw a fit if she knows you organized something without telling her.”

“Ugh,” I groan while ruffling through the various types of yellow, “Life was so much easier without girlfriends or boyfriends.”

“I can’t really complain,” Eva says as she helps me figure out the right colour, picking out one that looks closest to mustard yellow before shoving it in my face, “Jungkook treats me right and there are no complications. He has no close girl friends and he’d been my closest guy friend for the longest time.”

“See, I wish things were as easy as that for me,” I grumble, plucking out her colour and putting it up against the light. Looks pretty close to the yellow I’m looking for, I think to myself.

“I mean, you wouldn’t have any issues if you just dated Namjoon in the first place.”

My brain blanks out for five seconds. I replay her question in my mind over and over again.

“What?” I splutter.

“You heard me.” She shoots me a pointed look, “Dating Namjoon would be so much easier. You guys are friends, and he’s your best friend at that. Nothing would be easier than this option.”

“Okay but we don’t love each other.” I stammer as I feel the heat crawl up the back of my neck, spreading across my face, “Not like that, anyway.”

She gives me another pointed look that seems to suggest otherwise and I’m flabbergasted by her words. It keeps haunting me even as I make my way home, and her words are rotating circles in my thoughts, spinning me into a web of countless questions of doubts and what ifs. So what if that actually happened? I think to myself before shaking some sense into my brain. What am i thinking? We’re not dating. We’re best friends and that’s it.

Suddenly, the feelings I’ve locked in a small forgotten compartment at the back of my brain flash before my eyes as I’m forced to remember the flurry of weird butterflies that had traipsed across my belly the day I woke up to realize that Namjoon’s warmth had been very very comfortable, and that I would’ve been content to stay that way for longer if that was possible.

They overwhelm me, push me to a point where I have to grasp the edge of my kitchen counter to hold on to something that I call sanity. No no no, my hands go up to rake through my hair in order to brush away all those weird things I’m thinking about. I can’t think about this, I won’t think about this. This is wrong wrong wrong.

Why does everyone keep telling me this? Why had Hoseok mentioned it earlier and why is Eva bringing it up again now? It’s not helping the situation, especially when I’m trying so hard to see Namjoon the same way I’ve seen him all these years.

He’s just a friend to me, a friend that I hold dear to my heart, and it’s going to stay that way.

---------

Haeryung admits that she hasn’t planned anything special for Namjoon’s birthday when I ask her on the phone the next day, and as diplomatically as I can, I tell her that she can take credit for my idea and that I leave everything in her hands. Not to my surprise, she is excited at the notion and gladly accepts to take up my role. Within minutes, I’m stripped from my responsibility and I just sit there after she hangs up the phone, staring outside my window and wondering why I feel like something has just been wrenched from my heart even when I had been the one who wanted that in the first place.

It’s better this way, I tell myself and try to ignore the gnawing pain searing across my chest, bubbling through my stomach, It’s better that Haeryung is the one to do it. I have nothing to do with this, it’s better that I have nothing to do with this.

There’s so much I can do for Namjoon until I reach my limit. I’m just his friend. Just his best friend, and Haeryung should be the one entitled to doing what I’m doing.

“So do you really think he’ll appreciate the Gudetama theme?” Haeryung asks me over the phone. I don’t have to see her to figure out the excitement laced in her soprano. She’s clearly ecstatic at the idea of planning a surprise for the said boy since she has never done such a thing before.

I shrug, “Yeah. He’s addicted to Gudetama. Why wouldn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” she replies, “I don’t want him to think it’s childish.”

“Then you can just say that I suggested it.”

I try to keep myself busy so as not to think of Namjoon’s upcoming celebration. Instead, I spend my time looking around for some kind of job or internship that would help me save a little extra cash. I catch sight of a hiring ad for a dishwasher that doesn’t include any specific qualifications and a few days later, I am admitted to the back kitchen of The Zone, a small gaming centered restaurant, where the manager quickly glosses over my responsibilities and gives me my first batch of dishes to wash.

My co-workers are nice and the atmosphere is chill in comparison to what I would’ve gotten at Mcdonald’s, but the area is infested with nerds and geeks that spend day after day shooting down zombies and creating parallel universes that would satisfy their fanboy cravings, but it’s enough to distract me from thinking of other intrusive thoughts, stops me from dwelling upon the weird fluttery feelings I’ve been having in accordance to a particular individual.

But I’m caught off guard at the end of the week, just a day before Namjoon’s birthday. It’s late when I finish cleaning up the entire kitchen, and I’m walking along the pavement that will lead me to my flat, when I catch sight of a silhouette amidst the darkness. The stranger leans against the wall, tapping his foot impatiently with a hood drawn up against his face and the darkness of his clothes blending in with the rest of the night.

I approach with caution, unsure of whether I know them or not. “Uhm, excuse me?”

The dark figure turns and upon catching the familiar features in the soft streetside lamp, my footsteps falter instantly.

He’s the last person I expected to see, and I can’t say that I’m pleased.

“What are you doing here?” my voice comes out more clipped, dryer than I expected it to be. I don’t mean to sound harsh but he’s picked the wrong day to show up at my doorstep.

Namjoon s his hands in his pockets, squints at me through the dark, “What are you doing?” He scoffs before checking his phone, “It’s practically midnight.”

“Oh is mom worried?” I answer with sarcasm dripping from my tone. I don’t hesitate to push past him and make my way up the stairs to my flat. I want nothing more than to throw myself on my bed and forget the world for a little while.

I had been doing such a good job not really thinking about him. But now that he’s here, I guess there’s no avoiding the situation now.

“So?” He says as he follows me inside and kicks off his boots, making himself at home and not at all getting the ‘go away’ vibes that I’m shooting from my eyes, “What have you been up to for you to come home this late?”

“Work.” I answer dryly, “What brings you here?”

“I have good news,” he flashes a smile, one that threatens to break his face in two and lights up at the back of his eyes so that he looks like a little kid. It makes me think unwillingly of the time when we were ten and he’d just successfully pulled out his baby tooth on his own.

The good old days. It that so much has changed now. We barely can hang out anymore and when we do have free time, there are other people we’d rather see.

Or rather, there are other people we’re supposed to see instead.

“And what might that