Myungsoo isn’t terrible at socialising, like his mother fears he is. It’s just that sometimes, he doesn’t have much to say. He can be sat for quite a while in the company of others, enjoying the conversation. He doesn’t feel the need to interject, unless he has something he wants to say. Most of the time, he thinks what he says will sound stupid, or that people will ignore him.

He has lots of friends. Six is a lot, right? Never mind that they’re only friends because they all share a love of music. They get on, and he has a good time with them. Next year, it might not be so good because by then he and Sungjong will be the only ones still left in school, but the others come to visit a lot. So he does have friends, no matter how much his mother worries.

It’s not as if he’s bullied, either. Some of them make fun of his blank expression, but for the most part they leave him alone. He knows that some of the girls think he’s “Too cool” and Sungyeol once said he heard them gushing about him as he waited in line for food in the cafeteria. But he’s not interested in those girls. They are boring and they don’t understand his need for silence.

He likes someone else. Someone outside of school and outside the rest of his life. His friends, save Sunggyu, know nothing of his crush. They wouldn’t. He’s not forthcoming about his feelings and such, a combination of being a guy and his trouble with words. Sunggyu only knows who she is because he saw them together at the park that one time, and he made him promise he wouldn’t tell anyone. He’s not ready to share her yet. He doesn’t think he ever will be.

She’s one year older, a university student with hair that never quite stays neat in her slapdash ponytails. There are always little tendrils running free. He likes that. He thinks it’s pretty, he just hasn’t figured out how to tell her that yet. He met her in the art store he frequents for school supplies; she is a fine arts student and is always painting something or other. He only took art as subject because there was nothing else he wanted, but he sort of enjoys it and it gives them a connection.

She pointed to the collection of paints in his hand when they first met and asked what he was going to paint. When he replied (rather hesitantly – he hadn’t been expecting her to talk to him) he said he didn’t know. She nodded sagely, and told him she was the same way. She asked him a few more questions, ones that he didn’t really understand. A part of him felt like he was being interrogated, but when she asked if she could have his number, he didn’t refuse.

When he wanted to know why, she simply smiled and said it was because she liked the look of him, and might want to paint him someday. She gave him a name – Narae – and a number. He doesn’t expect anything of it until later, when she sends him a text with a winking emoticon.

Somehow, he manages to respond. He doesn’t quite get how he has been able to keep this going, because he’s not the best conversationalist. Narae says he is funny, but he speaks so little around people that he doesn’t think this can be true.

But that’s why he likes her. With her, he doesn’t have to speak. She enjoys the silence and uses it to paint him. He has spent more than one afternoon in the basement of her parent’s house, strumming a lazy tune on his guitar as she splatters paint in a replication of him. She always has paint on her fingers. For some reason, it’s usually a sea-green. She once told him it is a colour that reminds her of him. It’s like the sea, she said. Sometimes deceptively calm, but there are deep waves underneath.

He always wonders how she knows that he thinks much more than he speaks. His teachers, for example, have always assumed he doesn’t speak because he doesn’t know much.

He’s been wanting to tell her he really likes her for a while, but somehow there’s never been a right time and words, as usual, fail him. So when Woohyun started talking about Valentine’s Day and the girl he was going to send flowers to, it got him thinking. He’s not romantic. He doesn’t know how to be. Romance is a bit of an alien concept to him, and anyway. Narae likes flowers, but she’d only want to paint them in one of her odd, swirly paintings so wouldn’t it be a bit of a waste of his money? It’s not like he has much of it to waste.

He’s not one for big gestures, either. He can’t do that. It will only be embarrassing, and he’d rather not be rejected (if she rejects him) after a big, showy confession. He is stumped. It’s a little pathetic, but it’s the truth – he has no way to say the three little words of ‘I like you’.  If he tried to paint it for her, it would fail spectacularly compared to some of her works. If he wrote her something, it would only sound stilted and not as if it was coming from him (it wouldn’t be – he’d get Dongwoo to write it, as he seemed to be overflowing with emotions Myungsoo found it impossible to express).

Eating out could be another choice, but she’d know something was up. They’ve only eaten together when they’ve passed vendors or they’ve been so famished they stumbled into the nearest (and cheapest) fast-food restaurant. It leaves him with music. But somehow, it doesn’t feel special enough. She’s heard him play guitar a million times and she’s even heard him sing a few times. She once suggested he should busk, teasingly or ‘go make money from that blank face’.

Sunggyu, when he confides his plans, tells him to maybe sing a song that says all the things he can’t for him. He considers the idea. It could work. But would she get it? Sunggyu sagely advises him to kiss her after. There’s no way she won’t understand then, he says.

Myungsoo resolves to do this. If he really cannot pluck up the courage, then he could just be singing, and she’ll never know. It will be private, too. No one ever bothers their quietly artistic sessions.

It is evening when he begins to act out his plan. She is painting, and he can occasionally hear the slosh of the water jar as she sluices her brush off. He begins by strumming the first chord. She looks up, surprised. It’s her favourite song, and she knows it off by heart. He sings the first line quietly, carefully. He hopes he can get through the entire song without faltering. Every time he gets to the title lyric, he is terrified that he will stutter his way through the words ‘Can’t take my eyes off of you’ because he really, really means them.

He lingers on the last line, a little afraid of what he may have started. For a moment, he prays she hasn’t noticed his sincerity, and he can just pass it off as a joke and not have it be so serious.

She’s too perceptive for that, though. “Was that for me?” She asks quietly, dropping her paintbrush. He can only nod mutely, any thought of being brave enough to kiss her out of the window. The line ‘there are no words left to speak’ seems so ironically true now.

She ponders this for a second. “Do you like me, Myungsoo?” Again, he can only nod slowly, silently cursing Sunggyu in his head for persuading him this was a good plan.

She beckons him with a finger to come closer and look at the painting. He obediently stares at it, not really surprised to see another painting of himself. He’s almost her model at this point. It’s a nice one. He looks good, fingers plucking his guitar strings and a small smile hidden, just seen underneath his crop of dark hair.

“You know, I only paint people on their own very rarely.” She paused. “And even then, only when I really, really like them.” It seems that she has said the words for him. He doesn’t have to say anything. He can only show how he feels - she is telling him that it’s okay. If he leans down, he can kiss her.

So he does.