AlmightyK:

Hi world

I haven't posted here for a while bcoz too much happening at school and I've been busy with this project I have to do.

I haven't been doing art that much and def not smth worth sharing here, so it's not why I'm writing now either. I guess I need advice….. or something…….

There's this guy at school.

We've been hanging out for a while now and I guess it's been fun. He is like your total nerd and knows all the random stuff but with a sense of humor… or Idk what to call that cos it's mostly just freaking stupid. He's also kind of a doormat and seems to have time for everyone and I don't understand why he is like that. But I don't hate it.

We keep spending time together, and it's been happening more and more... I guess that's what you do when you make a new friend and you start to get close? We're making our project, he tutors me after school, we eat together… We laugh, I bully him (slightly), and we fool around so much.

I don't think I feel very special when he's around or something. I don't obsess over it, you know? But when we say goodbye for the day, I feel a pang. Like, for a moment, I'm actually sad. It's weird.

There's also this girl. Pretty, nice, clever. Her drawing skills are sick and she's both messy and neat, Idk. Her laugh is pretty too.

She's just totally into him – my friend. She gave me this note to give him, and I haven't a clue… it's like a Math test result paper to me. I hate to touch it, even though I know that, no matter what I choose to do, the result will be the same. If I failed, then I failed, but I'm just not ready to know.

All of this is like a test that I never studied for?

Idk what's going on and am confused.

No idea why I wrote this. Whatever.

#deletelater #personal

Kibum took one last sip of his lukewarm tea and switched his computer off: he had better places to be.

“Is this your favorite song?” Jinki's voice came through a warm reddish darkness.

“I don't know. Why?”

“It's just that you've played it three times already.”

Kibum risked being temporarily blinded by the midday sunlight and lifted one eyelid to look at his friend.

Jinki was lying on the grass next to him, holding the manhwa book that Kibum had brought for him above his face, with arms outstretched.

Kibum couldn't imagine how reading in that position could ever be comfortable.

“Do you want me to skip it?”

“No, it's fine. What's it called?”

“‘I like me better’.”

“What is it about?” Jinki went on, a curious child.

“You don't need my help with that, Mr. ‘It's mice, not meese’.” As much as Kibum teased Jinki, he couldn't quite nail the timbre of his voice when trying to imitate it.

Jinki gave a throaty laugh.

“I still can't believe you said ‘meese’! I mean, guy who literally wrote ‘god’ under level of fluency.”

Kibum had scribbled that in the self-assessment paper for English, thinking that Jinki would find it funny when he showed it to him (he did), and he was going to erase the cheeky answer and write a normal one later (he didn't). He forgot.

Kibum roughed up his jacket again to make it more comfortable to rest his head on.

“Can't a boy have a brain fart once in a while?”

“Sure, but you have to agree – it looked a lot like karma.”

“Whatever,” Kibum answered with a shrug, nestling on the grass again.

Jinki chuckled.

“That was a very relaxed ‘whatever’.”

“I thought ‘whatever’ was just a ‘whatever’.”

“No, you have an arsenal of ‘whatever’s. The annoyed one, the angry one,” Jinki went on, bending his fingers as he counted. “The indifferent one, the tired one, and then whatever this one was.”

Kibum smiled.

“Uh-hum.”

He closed his eyes and enjoyed the music for a while before Jinki came up with something else that he wanted to know his opinion on.

“Wouldn't it be weird if we really had ‘brain farts’? Like, information is kind of like food, isn't it? Most of it is okay, but then sometimes you hear a thing and it's really hard to digest. Can you imagine sitting in class and just ripping a big one out of your head when it gets too hard? Can you?”

Kibum stretched out his arm and d around the grassy ground to find the top of Jinki's head. He gave his fluffy crown a pat or two.

“Shhhh. Don't overthink it. It's okay.”

“Yeah, thanks,” the boy agreed after a pause. He was still learning to discern the thoughts that were worth being investigated and those far from.

Kibum heard him huff and puff about something and took another peek. Jinki was using the book to fan off a bee that seemed particularly enamored by him, looking as concentrated as he did when composing dialogues in English in class.

“It's about being real with someone. Feeling nice even when you're not doing anything special.”

Jinki looked back at him, bee-related distress still visible in his features.

“The song,” Kibum reminded him. “You feel better about yourself because they bring out the good in you.”

His friend sat upright and crossed his legs, his lip puckering as he gave it some thought, harsh sunlight getting into his eyes, reflecting off his black hair, turning it almost brown. Not interested much in grooming and not at all nagged on by his perpetually tired parents, he'd let it grow long in the past weeks. And, oddly, that seeming unkemptness became him. It softened him even more.

Kibum would perhaps like to un-notice that, but he was an artist, too. Nothing bad in singling out the nice things, at the end of the day.

“Isn't that kind of selfish?” Jinki said, his lip. The shadow from the trees had moved, and it was time to follow it. “To think about yourself when you should be focusing on the other person.”

Kibum was feeling hot, but he didn't move either.

“Of course, it's selfish. Because liking someone is about you for the most part. You like them because you like the way they make you feel.”

Jinki took his time to answer. He was thoughtful and enjoyed the process of idea-forming. Kibum preferred to fire away and watch the consequences unfold.

“I never thought about it that way,” the boy said honestly. “But I don't think it's the truth of it. Because, why do we try to take care of someone we like, then?”

“Because we enjoy it? It's easy to be kind when you like yourself.”

Jinki frowned.

“My mom taught me that you should be kind even when it's hard to.”

“I'm only saying that people wouldn't get into that stuff if there was nothing in it for them.”

“Well, it sounds cynical. Have you ever even been in love?” Jinki asked, looking down on him.

He was so cheesy to use the L word unironically. Like an old person.

Kibum flipped through faces of friends and classmates he had known before, some coming with a spark of pain or shame as they flashed by. He found nothing in his heart for them at the moment.

“I don't think so. You?”

Jinki's eyes shifted to the grass leaf he was folding and twisting between his fingers.

“Me neither.”

“Wow, what a player, you.”

The boy shrugged.

“What's love got to do with going out with someone for a bit?”

There he goes again. Embarrassing.

“Who sounds cynical now?” Kibum said, half-messing around at this point, half-invested in the conversation. Since Taeyeon, he had hardly had anyone by his side to have this kind of talk.

To be honest, he approved of Jinki's answers. If his friend had started teaching him about the beauty of the L word and sharing romantic stories that would be too out of character now, he would have felt somewhat isolated – and there is nothing more humiliating than being the only one lacking experience at an age when you are supposed to be lacking experience. That and the L word.

“I don't know, I've got no clue. We can only theorize.”

Jinki settled down on the grass again, but then lifted himself up on an elbow and reached for Kibum's lunchbox. He retrieved a rather wholesome sandwich with ham, some veggies and mustard in it that looked like a much-upgraded version of his typical lunch. He bit into it ravenously.

“If you go on like this about it, you'll be just fine, though,” Jinki said to Kibum, who had to make effort to figure out what he was saying through all the munching. He held up the remaining sandwich to back up his words.

That wasn't helpful.

Kibum's eyes flickered.

“You mean, like, how?”

“I mean, you took me to a park, we rented bikes, and now we're having a picnic with music and whatnot... That's date material for sure.”

Jinki wiped his hands on his jeans and grabbed another sandwich. Kibum, who had been looking at him since the moment he started talking, had still failed to pinpoint just how the snack had vanished so quickly.

“Go on like this with whom?”

His friend purposely looked at him like he was a bit of a fool.

“Me,” he joked, both cheeks full.

“You're telling me to ask Arisa out?”

Jinki chuckled.

“Well, I know better than tell you what to do, but…”

Unconscious of it, Kibum slipped his hand into his pocket to check if the note was still there: he had brought it with him on their walk. Sure enough, the neatly folded rectangle hadn't gone anywhere.

While most people feel relieved when, upon searching their pockets for something they had to give someone, they find it right where they put it, ‘relief’ hardly describes what Kibum felt in the moment. He was… disappointed? It's not that he wanted to lose it, but… It could have flown away while they were biking, by accident? It could have fallen out when he took out change before? He had lost some things that way, and it wasn't his fault. Why couldn't something like that happen this time?

But, no. It was still his problem.

“Why d'you think she'd even say yes? Choi Minho seems into her; I saw him staring with those bulging frog-eyes he has.”

“He's tall, attractive-looking and good at sports...” Jinki played with that idea, not looking too worried about all the competition for his future wife. “Even though you did try to eliminate him with your rake.”

With an exasperated groan, Kibum helped himself to the contents of the lunchbox, too. He wasn't hungry – just stress-eating.

“And all the pieces have fallen into place, haven't they,” he muttered with a sandwich-filled sigh.

He hated how good of a theory that was: him taking care of a love rival the old-timey way – with a gardening tool.

“Don't get stressed about that. I'm just good at noticing stuff.” Jinki ignored the overtly skeptical look his friend gave him. “Even when watching detective dramas, I know who the killer is from the start.”

It was both sad and oddly charming how proud he was of that.

“Yeah, you and all the old ladies who watch them.”

Jinki made a face.

After the park, the two boys took a bus to Sinchon, to wander the crowded weekend streets, maybe drop by an arcade room or sing a song or two in the basement karaoke place from last time, but mainly just gawk around.

Kibum was about to drag his friend to Artbox and spend, no doubt, at least a few thousand won on things that he already had at home, when at the very doors Jinki turned around sharply and froze.

Arisa, Kibum guessed. No, Taemin.

His ex?

All of them at once?!

He'd never had this much anxiety about sudden social encounters before.

Kibum followed Jinki's gaze and saw no familiar faces. He exhaled in relief.

But the other boy stared across the street like he'd dropped at least five ice creams that afternoon. Kibum figured it had to do with a long-ish line of people waiting at the door of what looked like a new store opening, if the balloons and loud music were any indication.

“Oh no, I'm so stupid,” Jinki groaned, his hands dropping limply by his sides.

Kibum waited for an explanation, but his friend seemed to forget about him altogether.

“I'm glad you're becoming more critical of yourself, but whatever we're looking at is telling you this how?” he prompted, and Jinki finally told him what was going on.

It was simple enough: he'd waited for this shop to open for a couple of weeks now because he was hoping to buy one of those ‘pretty cool’ headphones that were going to be sold at a third of the original price. The problem was, the offer was both limited to the first one hundred purchases and only valid on the opening day.

“I didn't realize this was today – I thought it said Monday! Dammit.”

“What's the original price?” Kibum asked, trying his best to understand what in that situation was so worth being stressed about.

“Thirty,” Jinki mumbled, looking like he was about to cry.

Oh.

That Kibum understood… kind of.

“What are you standing around for, then? Waiting for those discounted headphones to drop out of the sky?”

Jinki blinked.

“N-no.”

Kibum had already turned to cross the road.

“But the line is too long already!” Jinki, usually the optimist and the most hardworking kid at their school, cried. “It's useless!”

“God, I am rubbing off on you,” Kibum grumbled, smoothing down his hair as he waited for a gap in the stream of passing cars.

“And you hate waiting!” the other went on.

When the traffic eased for a moment, Kibum dashed across and his bewildered friend had to follow him.

“Man, have you ever crossed a street normally?! How are you still alive?”

“Thanks to you,” Kibum shrugged. He took a spot in line and assessed the crowd – there was about a hundred people. “Technically, it's doable.”

Jinki looked at him incredulously.

“It's ‘doable’? I don't recognize you.”

“I don't recognize you. What are you fussing about?”

“I said that we don't have to do this because it's too late, but here we are doing this. Why?”

Instead of speaking, Kibum showed him the answer by digging his hand into the pocket of Jinki's khaki pants and bringing the boy's current headphones up onto the light – a blue, cheap nothing, mostly held together by the tape wrapped around the cable for safety in two places.

Jinki grabbed them back quickly.

“Point taken.” He lowered his voice: “I'm just surprised that you wanted to stick around because you hate crowds and noise.”

Kibum let out a big sigh.

“‘Kibum is selfish and O-M-G he's doing something for a friend’, I get it. No need to rub it in again.”

The atmosphere got a bit sour after that – quiet, at least.

Kibum didn't try to leave, didn't want to, either, but he was tired. It seemed that he was trapped in a cycle where he'd reveal himself to someone and then get exactly the image he deserved based on his own words and actions – and he felt like he'd had enough of that crap.

A couple of minutes had passed when he felt a gentle nudge.

“Look, it might take an hour or so… so, if you don't wanna wait, it's fine if…”

Kibum yanked his sleeve out of Jinki's apologetic hand and asked him to describe the headphones in case either of them would have to act quickly.

It didn't take an hour, or even a half: quite soon a visibly stressed, but professionally chipper young man counted the people waiting and, with many apologies, cut off the special line that would get to enter the store first – right after our two friends.

The boys exchanged looks: Jinki – of wide-eyed amazement and Kibum – of something along the lines of ‘I told you not to dawdle for a good reason. See?’.

Also, Kibum thought that the way Jinki raised his eyebrows about everything was sweet. Adorable, even.

.

Soon, it was their turn to enter, and Jinki prepared to make a run for the headphones as Kibum realized that his help might not even be needed – he couldn't imagine how walking over to the headphone section – or whatever their target was – and grabbing one could be difficult. Unless some unexpected event created a problem, but he couldn't imagine that either, and he relaxed so much that he yawned.

Jinki's hand wrapped around his as he led him into the store – only to stop after a few steps. The boy's lips moved subtly as he read the words on a big festive poster hanging up from a ceiling so that it wouldn't be missed.

An unexpected event was starting to be expected.

Kibum cleared his throat. (Jinki was still holding his hand.)

“Hate to interrupt your reading session, but-”

“They have discounts on foldable hair dryers,” Jinki said, putting heavy emphasis on the last three words as if it was a riddle for Kibum to solve, and an obvious one at that. “Mom's is broken!” he cried, elated. “Just grab them headphones, will you? I'll pay!”

And with that instruction, Kibum's hand was let go of, and he could swear he felt the movement of air created by his friend turning on his heels and dashing up to the second floor like some goofy cartoon character.

You'd think they're handing out free homework up there.

Kibum snorted. He'd save that one for later.

He moved toward the crowd of people bustling around what he assumed to be the electronics section, sighing as he elbowed his way through the young couples who didn't even seem to know what they were doing there besides blocking aisles with their arm-locking. Kibum glimpsed some headphones and stopped when the flow of people shaped up into a line.

His phone buzzed and he was almost surprised that he had it with him: somehow, he hadn't even thought of checking it all afternoon.

He had new comments on his blog and that brought him back to reality: he had more on his hands than just a pair of heavily discounted headphones.

Kibum scrolled down his latest post with bated breath – maybe now all would become clear with the help of some unbiased feedback.

The first comment made him pause.

“OMG YOU'RE LIKE TOTES INTO HIM!!!”

That didn't help. What did it even mean?

“Is your friend hawt??? O_o”

What's wrong with these people?

“Just mess that other up and be w him! He likes u back THAT'S SO OBVI”

He wasn't even going to bother.

“That's a complicated situation to be in…” Finally, someone who gets it! “Maybe you should talk to him? If he returns your feelings, you can be together, and if he doesn't, you will know the truth!”

What a load of rubbish that turned out to be.

Kibum didn't get the guidance he was maybe looking for, but he noticed how oddly encouraging his followers were being with a possibility of same- romance (not that anyone was really ‘into’ anybody here). Somehow progressive people were drawn to him?

The line was slowly creeping forward, and he decided to give a couple more comments a chance. The very next one shed light on the reason for all the encouragement.

“U don't feel ‘very special’ when he's around?? lmao gurrrl ur all over him!!! Face the truth n confess to the dude!!!”

And the next after that:

“Nah sis men ain't … You don't need him trust this old girl… but maybe it's the soju speaking oooops haha”

Nice.

They all thought he was a girl.

They'd been thinking that all this time. People who'd been following him and leaving comments for years.

He went through quite a crisis in that line for heavily discounted headphones – who would've thought?

Kibum cast an objective eye at his blog feed, and what he found was Sailor Moon fan art, elaborate drawings of unicorns and a whole post dedicated to how brilliant BoA's latest single was.

Yeah, he got it now.

The great worldwide web was not his friend today – it actually complicated matters a bit – and Kibum was about to lock his phone when it buzzed again. A direct message.

He recognized the nickname from some of the more thoughtful comments he'd been getting for the past weeks, but he'd never really talked to the person before. He opened the message with a new spark of hope within him: if someone could help him at all, it was that one follower of his.

“You're a dude, right?”

His heart skipped a beat.

“Yeah”

There was a pause and he wondered if he should ask them something, but he got his reply sooner than he'd thought of anything.

“Thought so”

“You're probably wondering what the hell is going in your brain right now but it's ok”

Is it?

“You've been spending a lot of time with this guy and he's been on your mind. It's relatable and happens more than you think”

The interior of the store around him vanished: this, this message thread right here turned into a buoy in the sea of confusion, and he grabbed it to cling on for dear life. He wasn't even aware of how he began nibbling on the nails on his free hand.

“Friendships can be weird like that and you don't have to beat yourself up about how you feel”

Was he beating himself up? Probably. He didn't really know. But he felt like this stranger did.

“Just, no matter how you feel..”

Be kind to myself? He could already guess where this was going and he was leaning in that direction too.

“Don't let him know”

Wait a sec. A warning?

Kibum grabbed a pair of headphones, eyes still glued to the screen, waiting for a continuation.

“Just give him the note from that girl and let you both live”

His new found buoy hissed and trembled as it began to deflate.

He wanted to argue: who said that there was anything to let Jinki know about? (Besides Arisa's note, of course.) What was even being decided here? No need to be so rash with the presumptions.

But he also felt like he was running out of time.

“Why?”, he asked simply.

“You wanna be the resident gay kid?”

He dropped the headphones as someone bumped into him. He ignored the apology and picked them up robotically.

The room was getting hotter, angrier. Or maybe it was only his vision getting red.

“Who says I'm gay?”

“Look I'm sorry to presume”

“But it seemed like you needed answers”

“Just looking out for you mate”

Kibum replied:

“Thanks but no need”

“Also I'm going to a nice school btw”

‘And Jinki wouldn't tell anyone’, he wanted to add, but didn't have the guts.

“Everyone's nice till there is a resident gay kid”

“Don't be the guy whose face gets pushed into the toilet”

There was nothing left of the buoy now. Just suffocating, boiling sea.

This was getting just too real, too fast.

“I won't be the guy whose face gets pushed into the toilet”

“Good for you”

“You may be annoyed now, but you'll appreciate my advice later”

“The sooner he gets together with her the sooner you'll get over him and you two will be just friends again”

“Why should him getting together with her depend on me?”

Kibum replied both to the messager and himself.

“Do you think he thinks like that about you too?”

In his mind, he saw a montage of Jinki smiling with his eyes getting tiny, laughing at something he said, letting his hair get ruffled, and hitting Kibum's arm in response to another playful insult – looking genuine, happy, simply himself. He didn't have any hidden anxieties.

“No he doesn't”

“Then it will happen anyway”

He shut off the app, thinking that his mood could not be any more ruined, but then his eyes shifted to the item he was holding in his hand and, mortified, he realized that he had picked up the wrong headphones.

He just couldn't have a peaceful day on this Earth!

“Oh, there you are! Been looking for you,” Jinki panted, coming out of the store.

Kibum, who'd had enough of the stuffy atmosphere inside, was waiting for him by the entrance.

“You look flustered,” Kibum said, smoothing down one side of Jinki's shirt's collar. “Did you have to fight some grandma for that hair dryer?”

“These events are no joke,” his friend said earnestly. Sweat ran down his forehead in big drops.

“Well, maybe these will heal your social trauma.”

Jinki hurried to open the bag Kibum had presented him with.

His voice cracked as he cried:

“Pink?!”

“That's all I could get,” Kibum replied, imitating the crack on the last word.

He could tell that his friend was a bit disappointed with the color, but overall too excited to care much.

Jinki made peace with the situation quickly:

“They'll get the job done is what really matters! Also, they're unique. I bet no other guy at school has bright pink headphones. And I'll match your style better now.”

Kibum huffed.

“I don't like pink.”

The other boy pulled on the hem of his shirt:

“Um, excuse me?”

“Excuse you, this is not pink. It's peachy salmon.”

God, it was addicting to make him laugh. The note, Arisa, the comments on the internet, the weird anxiety following on his footsteps so persistently lately – it all seemed so far away when Jinki had that look on his face. Maybe he'd dreamt it all up?

No, the note was still in his pocket when he slipped his hand by habit, a piece of paper, but made of lead – it felt heavy. He was tired of carrying a piece of somebody else's hopes around.

“Did you make that up?” Jinki as they walked past a row of trees on the way to the bus stop, the sun getting into his eyes again, but at this hour it was setting down.

If Kibum gave him the note, he would be walking past those trees and enjoying the sunset with her, arm in arm most likely – he was just cheesy enough to do that in public.

And what did he care?

What was he supposed to do?

“It is the color. You uncultured swine.”

Jinki laughed even harder, because he'd seen that cartoon too.

Being a fool and pretending nothing is happening is always an option, right?

“Do you know with whom you can talk about totally-not-real colors, though?” Jinki leaned closer to answer his own question with significance: “Arisa.”

At least these annoying conversations helped put off the inevitable – all the teachers purposely pairing up Jinki and Arisa for all future things and giving them exaggerated winks. Two smart kids locked together in a juvenile romance, how cute.

Kibum sighed.

“You want her to get together with someone who raked a rival's foot and then insulted him? Sounds like a dangerous type.”

“Well, I think that dangerous type felt guilty about what he did.”

Jinki had that knowing smile on again.

“Did he? To me he seemed quite cold-blooded and ruthless,” Kibum argued.

The other boy shook his head with a chuckle.

“Nope! Minho had a random limp later that day and I saw you shoot a worried look at him.”

“I was just worried that he wasn't hurt enough.”

Jinki was having none of that.

“Maybe your face expression doesn't show much, but your eyes always do,” he insisted.

Oh.

They had arrived to the bus stop, and Kibum averted his face instinctively – he definitely needed to check that screen again just in case it had refreshed in these last seventeen seconds or so.

“Cool story, bro,” he muttered.

Jinki's bus was coming soon.

“For real, though! Like, when Mrs. Song asked if you'd enjoyed volunteering at the fair last month, and you were like…” he made Kibum look at him by tugging at his shirt before imitating his signature eye-roll. “‘Sure, teacher.’”

Kibum wanted to protest and claim that he hadn't sounded that y, but also suspected that he probably had.

“Anyway, I'll put in a good word with Arisa for you if you want. You know, as a person who has kind of been on a picnic date with you.” Jinki winked.

Yeah, that was the wink that all the teachers would be doing soon if he gave him the note now. It was so cheesy, it was insulting to things that were usually called cheesy, but in reality, were just moderately so.

“Or, maybe don't?” Kibum suggested back, really meaning it.

Jinki took a pause to think.

“Yeah, that might be a tiny bit weird,” he admitted in what Kibum would call the understatement of the year.

Would Jinki had given him the note if they had traded places? Kibum didn't have to strain his imagination for a second to know for certain that he would. Mr. You-have-to-be-kind-no-matter-what.

Dammit.

“Jinki, I have something to give to you.”

The boy did that thing where he raised his eyebrows as both an answer and a question.

Kibum envisioned Jinki and Arisa standing here at this same spot, him making her giggle, their hands entwined. Her tiny fingers pinching out that grass leaf that Kibum had just noticed was still stuck to his friend's hair.

Would Taemin be okay with that? Of course: he had a mysterious girlfriend of his own. He wasn't weird and possessive… No, he was, just not in this way.

He punched Jinki on the arm.

“Ouch! Why?!”

“I hate waiting and crowds, and you made me go through both.”

Rubbing his elbow, the boy smirked.

“I still got some sweet pink headphones out of it.”

Walking to the bus, Jinki turned around.

“If peachy salmon was a thing, would you try and eat it? I think I would.”

“Just go already!” Kibum cried in reply.

He came back home an almost meek, docile version of himself after that whole day of doing mostly nothing with Jinki – hanging out with his ‘best friend’, as his mom had already started calling him in her phone conversations. He picked up some laundry off the floor, and worked a bit on their project.

With regards to the note, he gave himself time until Monday morning – the most extreme possible deadline.

By the time he walked into the classroom, at least fifteen minutes before the kid who always arrived first would, and a lot earlier than Jinki, who had a more relaxed concept of time, would saunter in, Kibum realized that he'd been wrong to wait this long. Because by now, when he looked at that piece of colored paper, lying on his desk in a visibly worse shape than when it had been given to him, he hated it.

Being a teenager, he didn't think that a note was too dramatic and old-fashioned a gesture, and he didn't blame Arisa for wanting to write it. What he hated was that he, Kibum, had to participate, and even more than that – that he was feeling so many things about it.

What would happen once Jinki got it?

He'd read it discreetly in the hall or the boy's room, it would most likely surprise him, considering how oblivious he was to what looked to Kibum like plain old flirting. Maybe he'd need some time, and would tell Arisa as much, as kindly as was natural for his person. Or maybe he'd realize his own hidden feelings, or just decide to give it a go for the simple reason that Arisa was a very pretty, very nice girl, and he'd be a fool to miss that chance. Perhaps he'd return to the classroom and hold her hand, and that would be enough of an answer for her.

And Kibum concluded that he wasn't such a nice boy for not wanting that to happen. For hating the idea of losing someone who had finally filled the void that Taeyeon had left behind her, to a romance that would probably make both sides of it very happy. Kibum didn't want to trudge behind as they held hands. He didn't want to go back to repressing his sarcastic nature for fear of being misunderstood.

And he was especially not nice because he was now being a secret villain to this future couple, these Romeo and Juliet of the district. Because what they were doing was innocent and romantic. And if he had had anything to confess to Jinki (and he most definitely didn't), his face would be plunging the toilet next week.

And since he was officially not a nice a person and at this point quite riled up (not without the help of last night's insomnia), what stopped him from betraying her trust even more?

Even later, he wasn't sure why he did it. Maybe to make himself feel even worse.

What he did was… he opened the note. He read all of it, and it was sweet and way more touching than he had expected it to be. Of course, Arisa's words were beautiful like the rest of her.

He tore the paper up and tossed it into the bin.

During the first break, Arisa approached him with the same look of hope she had had on her face at that bus stop before the weekend.

“I'm sorry, I lost the note while we were walking,” Kibum said in a low voice so that Jinki, who was already napping on top of his desk, didn't hear. “Just tell him yourself.”

She looked quite crestfallen at that, so he added:

“He'll probably say ‘yes’ anyway.”

The hopeful spark came back.

“You think?”

“I'm sure of it.”

Then he walked out of the class, to get a drink from the vending machine and also to strike the line under the whole thing.

How could he have ever thought that his decisions had the power to change anything?

A/N: Hi everyone! I finally finished the chapter. Hope you've all been okay and in good health. December is near, let's all take good care of ourselves as much as we can and pull through. As always, I want to thank all my readers who are still around for this story - I have been writing slowly, but time and time again I feel that these characters motivate me to go on with the fic even when it's hard to stay motivated. And as always, any kind of feedback, be it positive or critical, is more than welcome, as it inspires me to continue and improve - and also, it's fun to talk to you guys~! Love, L.