‘I hope I stole your heart instead of the show
Meet me outside by the fountain.

I’ll be waiting’

~SG~

Here he was, the man I had thought was so unromantic, writing a message for me with a cake.

I couldn’t move still, because it wasn’t an easy task; believing this. The truth was, though, I felt like this was all a ploy, a way of him just comforting me, knowing that I wanted a diversion, and it was his way of giving me just that. I’ve known Kim Sung Gyu for a good part of like, twenty years of my life, and the entire time that I had known him, he’d never pulled a stunt like this. But he sure as hell knew that I liked this stuff; the well-planned confessions, the excitement that they bring. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t bring myself to, as I was afraid of what it could really be. I didn’t know what his intentions were. He was probably out there waiting for me, and as soon as I went, he’d climb up on his feet in sheer excitement, squeak in his usually adorable way and pull me into his embrace. As I died in his arms, he would mutter in my ears that I was his best friend, that I shouldn’t be sad, the same and the same things he’d told me myriad times. Its not that I particularly hated it but...

I shouldn’t have expectations, that’s what it was. It wasn’t the first time he had done something like this. That one time he made me sit in the front as I watched him sing in the band for the first time, and at the year end talent show when he sang ‘Lucky’ and had the entire school speculating while he was teasing me behind the scenes, taking it as light as snow. Sung Gyu was not committed. He didn’t do love, he didn’t to romance, he didn’t do relationships; that much I knew. And he knew that I knew it too, he knew that I acknowledged his shortcomings and still cared for him dearly.

But then again...when he’d talked about this girl, he looked so...different. I still couldn’t get that image out of my head, like it was imprinted in me. The glassy look in his eyes, the way his ears turned crimson, the way his fists were clenched, how he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

‘You’d know,

You’ll see’ was all he told me about her, and he wouldn’t even look at me...

Then Yoonmi’s words echoed in my head like a constant reminder; ‘It doesn’t mean that things couldn’t change’

Then could it be...??

No. No... I shook my head, hit on my temple and told myself Saera stop it, stop imagining things!

Oh god. I could swear I had stopped breathing, and I wouldn’t, if I didn’t get to know the truth. I had to find out, I had to. And there was no other way unless I...

...unless I went to see him.

It took me a while to gather my courage. The hall was almost empty when I finally climbed up on my feet. Sung Gyu’s parents were in the back, talking to my own and upon seeing me across the hall, they gave me a gentle smile. I might be imagining things, but it looked almost as if they knew too...

I exited the hall and then traversed the hallway, acutely aware of every step I made. I was getting closer and closer. I was excited but terrified just the same. Chances were that I could have gotten it all wrong. Perhaps he wanted to have it delivered to a different girl and the waiter got it all wrong. Perhaps the girl rejected it so the Sung Gyu had it presented to the next possible person. He could do that to me and easily get away; I wouldn’t mind, and he knew this too. But that’s fine. I would be mad, but I’d forgive him, time and time again.

Outside, I could see the fountain just in front of me. It was massive, the water spraying at just about anyone standing in the vicinity. It was cold outside, and a cherry tree nearby had shedded its blossoms all around, pink and white floating gently in the breeze. The sun seeping through the fountain had formed a rainbow; and through that, I searched for the familiar figure which held my heart.

He wasn’t there, I realised with a pang, once I had looked and looked but hadn’t caught the sight of him. Of course, he wouldn’t be there, what was I thinking? He was playing with me, or the waiter had gotten it all wrong. It was why I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

Dejected, I turned to leave, my hands fisted on the either sides. But then...

That was the moment that I saw it. I saw him. Sung Gyu was sitting on a bench further away from the sprays of the fountain, a lone figure in the face of uncertainty. He was hunched forward, like all hopes were lost, arms resting on his knees, hands fiddling with one another; the striking image of a man nervous and terrified of his wishes and dreams. To where I stood, he looked so small, so vulnerable, like someone would snatch him away any moment now. My heart had constricted, and I could hardly breath. ‘Thing could change’ Yoonmi was telling me in the back of my mind. ‘Things could change’.

I stepped towards him slowly, every step I made making me stronger, bolder. He hadn’t seen me. He still hadn’t. It appeared as if he himself had given up on it, just like I had before. I had taken so long, and he must have been sitting here for hours, waiting for me to emerge through these doors. I approached him, closer and even closer until the brown in his hair was so prominent in the afternoon sun. I could see how the warm spring rays made his skin glow, how his hair danced gently in the breeze. There were cherry blossoms scattered all around him, some of it in his hair that I was so inclined to brush away. But I didn’t. I could hardly even move. I stayed there, frozen and quiet, and finally, with the card he’d sent clutched hard in my hands, I called his name.

“Sung Gyu”

His hands halted, I noted, and he slowly raised his head, gazing up at me appearing so surprised as if he hadn’t expected me at all. For a moment, it was just him and me; us just staring at each other as if we were seeing ourselves for the first time. I realised, in the heat of that moment, that his eyes appeared very, very brown; like little pools of amber I would perhaps drown and lose myself in.

“What took you so long?” He asked, sighing, and I noted the sound of relief in his tone. He must have been so tensed and scared the entire time, just like I was before, imagining that I wouldn’t come. But still...I couldn’t get my head around it. How was it possible? How was it possible that he...? And I...? I couldn’t understand.

“Did you...” I swallowed. “Did you wait for long?”

His gaze, warm and mesmerizing, fell into mine; and I felt a little part of me dying inside. “It’s okay...” He bit the corner of his bottom lip and smiled. “It’s fine, since you’re here now...”

Then, making my heart stop for an instance, Sung Gyu turned back to the bench he was sitting in. I wasn’t sure what he was doing for that moment, only except that he had crouched down and was searching for something behind the bench. He made a little sound of frustration, which almost made me laugh. And soon, he pulled out a beautiful bunch of red roses and baby’s breath. A bunch of flowers for me.

For me.

He turned back to face me, awkwardly holding the flowers in both his hands. He looked so stiff, like it was the last thing he wanted to be doing, he was so bad at it that I laughed.

“What’s going on, I don’t understand” I told him in the end. It was true. I don’t understand. All this time he’d been telling me again and again that someone better would be coming around the corner, and I hadn’t seen even a sign of it quite possibly being him. Had I been oblivious to it all this time or was I still getting it all wrong?

He held the roses out to me. “I... I imagined it’s obvious enough?”

“Yeah, I mean, No... I....” I stuttered. “How is that possible? I mean, you...you told me...besides, oh god you’ve done things like this so many times! How am I supposed to? I don’t know, it’s like...? It’s just a bit...? This is really strange and I-?”

I was going on and on without making any sense, my brain in a muddle and heart picking up the pieces. But I couldn’t go on any further. Sung Gyu just groaned loudly in response as if he couldn’t take it anymore, and suddenly reached for my hand. He pulled me towards him, and as I stumbled right into his arms, he engulfed me in his warm embrace. He placed a hand on the side of my face, cold and gentle against my skin, and his eyes warm and hopeful, fell into mine.

“Saera, are you ever going to stop talking?” He muttered lowly, almost a whisper, and all before I could even form a coherent response, he moved closer and pressed his lips onto mine.

That, I suppose, answered all the qualms that had ghosted in my mind. I could feel him in every inch of me, dragging me all the way back to twenty years of our past. Him twelve years old, and me just ten; coming across each other for the very first time. Us sitting on a park bench, small and awkward, oblivious of the years of a beautiful future ahead. His lips were soft, and he tasted sweet like almond and sugar, and his hand, still holding the flowers had pressed onto my back, the crisp tissue of the bouquet brushing against my bare skin. He moved away after a moment, the touch of his lips still lingering on mine like a beckoning. All my fears had washed away; and for that moment, I revelled in his gentle embrace.

I buried my face in his chest as he held me close and breathed in the sweet citrusy scent that I had always known. Suddenly it felt like home to me.

“Saera, hey” He lifted my face to him with his fingers beneath my chin. When his gaze searched in mine, I felt my eyes warming up, as if I had waited for this moment for so long.

“Saera...are you okay?”

I shook my head, feeling tearful and inexplicably content; a mixture of emotions that I couldn’t possibly explain.

“What’s going on? I don’t understand...” I whispered, making him smile.

“I’m confessing to you” He worded it out to me. “I’m confessing to you, Saera”

I remained quiet, everything around me blurring and disappearing into oblivion until all I could see, hear and feel was him. “But why?” I went on, feeling like a fool.

Sung Gyu laughed, and then dragged his knuckles softly down my cheek. “Why do you think?”

I shook my head. What if he thought it was funny? To entice me? To bring my hopes up? To ruin what we’d had going on for so long? But then I looked into Sung Gyu’s eyes, witnessed the utter sincerity mirrored inside them and realised how wrong I had been all along. It’s Sung Gyu, the man that I had trusted, loved and cherished for the longest time in my life. He would never do that to me, he would never hurt me that way. As I gazed at him, the twenty years of our past flashed right through my mind, the past that had brought us here, to this moment right now.

“I like you, Saera...” He mumbled softly, his eyes never leaving mine and tilted his head, mulling over what he’d just said. “No... no... wait, we’ve already established that” He laughed softly to himself then, making me laugh along with him. Then he sighed, his fingers dancing gently on my back. “I love you. There is no better way to put it, Saera. That’s what it has always been. I’m in love with you”

“Always?” I echoed, suddenly everything came to a standstill. Always?

He nodded, biting his lower lip. “Since twelfth grade, I think, when you first started high school”

I remembered us still in high school. My hair cropped short after that unfortunate incident with the hair iron, and Sung Gyu an adorable little thing with fluffy cheeks and the nicest long legs. I had no idea back then. No idea at all.

“T-that...long?”

“Mmhm” He nodded as he slowly took my hand, and he passed the bunch of roses into mine. Its sweet scent wafted in the air between us. “I’ve waited...for so long”

“And this whole time...?” I started, a thick knot forming in my throat, understanding the gravity of what I was getting at.

“I was trying to tell you” He replied.

I gazed down at the flowers in my hand, slightly blossomed red roses and baby’s breath in odd places, just the way I’d have liked it. Sung Gyu knew me better than anyone ever did; and with a pang, I realised, being with Sung Gyu was the only way that everything made sense.

“I never knew...”

He chuckled. “You’re so difficult, you’re the most clueless thing that I’ve ever met”

I looked up, pouting my lips and he tapped a finger onto my nose. “Still I love you for that”

“You should have told me” I continued.

“I tried to” He sighed; his eyes fixated into mine. “Remember that time when I invited you to see Oasis play and we did Jason Mraz?”

I widened my eyes, my hands tightening around the bouquet. “You mean when you made me sit right up in the front and-,”

“I was going to confess to you” He replied, graveness in his tone. “But you, of course-,” He pouted his lips.

A sudden image of me sitting up in the front and making faces at him towards the end of his performance flashed through my mind. Then I had climbed up on my feet and told him that his singing gave me a headache; he didn’t talk to me the entire day and we made up that evening because I ordered pizza and he wanted to share with me. I was trying to preserve myself that day, since I’d realised only then that I was in love with him. The fear that I would lose him had held me back, completely oblivious to what he had felt for me.

Today, however, a distant memory that remained vaguely in my mind made me giggle. He laughed with me, a surprisingly pleasant sound echoing in my ears. And then I thought of the truth about that day, what I’d hidden away in a corner of my heart from that stuffy school auditorium and his performance that stayed with me for so long, vivid as ever. After all, I had nothing to lose, because I knew that, as it had always been, Sung Gyu was a constant in my life.

“To be honest...” I muttered, looking at him through my lashes, feeling suddenly self-conscious. I felt his hand on my back, slowly rubbing circles onto my skin. “To be honest, Sung Gyu, that day...in the school auditorium, I too realised that I....I liked you”

It was such a pleasant sight, watching the realisation dawn on him, and seeing how his face changed. His eyes widened, his fingers pressing onto my back. He made a small sound of surprise, one that I was so accustomed to, and then he laughed. “That day? During the performance?” He went on, in his voice underlying was his absolute befuddlement.

“Yeah it was not my fault that you look ridiculously good when you sing” I replied, not stopping myself once, no barriers on my words. Today, I was going to be honest with him, as open and clear as glass. Everything I had felt for him, everything I’d known, he would know them tonight; I’d let him make his decision later, whether to pursue me, whether to take different directions. What was certain, however, was that he was never going to leave me. Not like that. Kim Sung Gyu never would.

He smiled, and the dazed look in his eyes most definitely shifted something strong inside me. “Is that...how you thought of me?”

“Think of you” I corrected him. “Every single day”

“Saera...” He addressed me gravely, bringing me closer against him. “This is ridiculous. Have we been going in circles while we both...?”

“Like each other?” I filled in for him, and as it struck to me, how outrages that it seemed now, I couldn’t help myself stifling a giggle. That was so like us, going around in circles for years. But then, we had our own reasons, we both did. I didn’t think it’s the right time to dwell on them now. We’ve found each other now, and that’s what which mattered the most. Sung Gyu joined in giggling himself, and I gazed up at him, this man that I had been in love with all along. Funny how life worked, really. We’d go around and round, searching for the person we belonged with like puzzle pieces, taking too long to realise that it was right where we felt like home.

And that was what Kim Sung Gyu for me. He felt like home. It had its own perks, being with him; but same went with being with me too. What I lacked, he filled in for me, just like how I filled in for what he didn’t seem to have. We completed each other, we drew our painting together, we sang our own song. I didn’t regret that we took so long to acknowledge the truth to one another. Between spontaneous lovers and despairing heartbreaks, we’d grown up, we’d come closer and closer, every painful memory becoming one step forward to one another. Thanks to all of that, we stood here now, together, hand in hand. I had no regrets, none at all.

We laughed, and we allowed it to fade into the rose-scented air between us. His eyes, searching for the lost pieces of him within mine, never moved away as I felt myself disappearing in his own. For that moment, I realised, we were connected, we were in element, we were one person, Sung gyu and I. I didn’t hesitate at that time, to be the one moving in first. With my hand still holding on to the flowers, I threw a hand around Sung Gyu’s neck, tiptoed to reach his height; then slowly but surely, pressed my lips against the soft, warm ones of his own. I kissed him, I finally gathered all of me and kissed him, in hopes that everything that I had failed to tell him in words will be conveyed in that simple touch. He didn’t take long to respond to me, in the same intensity and might. His arms wrapped around my waist, bringing us closer, him almost lifting me off my feet. I felt the drizzle of the fountain on my skin, the warm rays of sun over my closed eyes. I pictured the two of us, lost in our own world, shadowed by the rainbow of the fountain and cherry blossoms scattered by our feet. Quite a sight, it must be; two lovers finally coming together. It would be a sight that I’d be striving to see.

Truthfully, I couldn’t believe that I had concluded Sung Gyu to be unromantic. If I’d look back at the day, all that he’d been throughout was the complete opposite of my expectations. That afternoon, after we’d pulled away from each other from a blissful kiss, I realised that we were in the public; we could have gotten ourselves arrested. I had to tell him that, and we’d laughed. And then he told me that he had a surprise.

He brought me to a hotel; a completely unexpected turn of events. It was an expensive one, the sort of hotels that we’d only see in magazines, where only the celebrities would spend a night in. As I gazed at him, completely mystified, he held my hand and led us to the reception. ‘We have a booking’ He informed the reception, and soon there was an unexpectedly grandiose key dangling in his hand.

He’d booked us a suite. A massive, expensive suite. It was on the top most floor, overlooking the entire town, making everything look as little as match boxes. He knew that I liked surprises; that was the best part. He knew that I liked well planned confessions and unexpected surprises. And he most definitely knew that I had dreamed of a nice, cosy night spent in a ridiculously expensive room.

At the moment, it was there that I was standing, gazing out at the vast city beyond me as it slowly sank into dusk. The streets were gradually lightening up as the sky turned lavender, the sun disappearing into the horizon. It was becoming colder; there was a slight mist in my breath and gooseflesh forming on my skin. But I was happy, inexplicably so. As I watched the city slowly coming to a rest, I was coming alive. It was as if a new sun had raised in my life. Beside me, he stood looking as beautiful as ever, the evening sun in his eyes.

When Sung Gyu’s hand reached towards mine, it was I who moved and grasped it tight. It had been like this for a while; Sung Gyu quietly questioned; with his actions, with his eyes, and I granted. He moved closer to me, and I let him engulf me in his warmth. We still kept our friendly boundaries before testing further. The transition was slow and terrifying. After all, we’d been best friends for the longest time. And so, when I beckoned him to hold me from behind, he was a little perplexed. When I held his hand against my waist, he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“Are you worried?” I asked him at one point, and he’d looked at me as if I’d spoken in volumes. It was all new to us, to both of us. I was easing it into him in the same pace that he did for me.

Sung Gyu laughed a little awkwardly, but still he grasped my hand. “It’s still you, Saera”

I nodded, biting my lower lip. “Not much have changed” I told him as I turned around and ran a hand gently up the curve of his neck. “But things definitely have” Then I pressed a chaste kiss upon his lips. He trapped me against him and caught my lips between his teeth. I giggled, but then it morphed into silence before he gently pulled away from me. Then he ran a hand along my skin; caressing my cheek, down the curve of my neck.

“I’ve always wanted this” He told me as my fingers reached for his tie. I smiled at him, my breath a little shortened, and my heart in my throat. What was coursing through my veins, hot, rushed and exhilarated, I realised, was an excitement that I had never felt before.

“Then kiss me again” I told him.

And he did just that.

When his lips moved against mine, pried me open, and me letting him, when the tips of his cold fingers played a gentle dance across my skin, I realised, we were slowly transitioning from one phase to the other. We tested our boundaries, stretched the strings which held us apart until they snapped and dissolved to nothing at all. We shifted further and further from where our dynamics have worked, and the fine line between best friends and lovers had most definitely disappeared. He kissed my lips, searched deep within me, and his hands moved down to places that had long before been unchartered under unspoken words. He was braver, bolder, and so was I, completely aware of the direction that we’d take. I closed my eyes as his lips s down my neck, his face burying in the curve of my shoulder, and his hand descending on my back, leaving behind delicious trail. My fingers clutched onto the dark waves on the back of his head at the sheer pleasure he was giving me, and the desire I had for him expanded in multitudes.

It was definite, by the time he propelled me backwards across the room. I was acutely aware of where we stood in time. It didn’t matter; the way the sky turned from evening to dusk, the way the city died and came alive. It didn’t matter that our skin ran cold in the chilled spring breeze, the curtains dancing a slow tune lining the balcony windows. He stopped right as we’d reached the bed, its soft cotton lining at the back of my knees, his fingers hovering uncertainly on my back. In his eyes floated a question; and when I failed to understand him, he breathed huskily against my lips; “I want you”

Something shifted inside me and it burst apart; a hot white rush coursing through every inch of me, every single nerve ending painfully alert of every movement, every breath. I desired him, I desired his warm lips on my skin, his touch in places he’d never before reached. “Please” was all I could say before my fingers felt his warm skin. “Please...”

That, I suppose, was all the impulsion he needed. He kissed me again, in a way that times changed, and continents drifted without even us realising it. He lifted me off my feet, and I allowed him to. He laid me down in the cloudy soft covers, and I held onto him, daring him to let go. My dress slipped off my shoulders, my fingers fumbled on his belt. And as he kissed me again, I hummed into his breath, a carnal desire that I'd never before known to exist had overtaken me.

He took my breath away. There was no better way to explain. As the cold wind rushed past us, as the gentle lights from the city seeped inside from the open windows, he showed me; he showed me how our love could play the same tune, again and again, on the gentle strings of our hearts.

I just gave up on the countdown as we have only two chapters left, hope you don't mind my impatience.