[a/n]

hello... again.

wherever u r, whatever u do, i hope ur doing alright.

i just suddenly felt the need to address the issue that's been brought up to the surface after being silenced for so long.

personally, at home, my parents weren't much of a fan of black people. i remember one time my dad made a very unpleasant remark about a representative of a country on a beauty contest. i told him off, but i doubt he listened at the time. and now he's saying all this about americans being racist and all.

i just have to take a moment to admit to everyone that this isn't the issue of americans only. this is also the problem that every nation in the world faces. it's my father's, my mother's, my sister's, the people around me, and mine. i mean, it's such a ing shame that somebody had to die first before we finally see the truth.

for now, we can only hope and do our best to make sure that a man and all the people before him didn't die in vain. we can continue to raise awareness by starting with the people closest to us. i started with my father. it felt good and empowering to speak up. so i continued with my mother, and my sister, and with everyone's contribution, hopefully, the rest of the world will follow.

#blacklivesmatter

I touched the spot on my cheek where her lips rested just a second ago but felt like a million years away. It was warm. Her lips were soft. My skin tingled like the flutters of butterfly wings, which was weird because those were supposed to be kept restrained on my stomach. But it was so sweet I kept on repeating and reliving it over and over again. The kiss lasted only a mere second, but in my mind, it had imprinted itself and lasted for much, much longer. If I could stop time and went back to live in a moment for the rest of my life, this would be it.

But I couldn’t.

So life went on and I had to drag myself kicking and screaming away.

Irene giggled from next to me. “You were too cute. I couldn’t help it.”

I didn’t need a mirror to know how red my face must’ve been now.

She giggled again. “See? Cute,” she poked my cheek and I half-heartedly swatted her finger away when really all I wanted was to grab her hands and rest my cheek on her palm to feel her warmth.

I grumbled in response and she finally let me go with a chuckle.

Getting through the rest of our meal in comfortable silence, I grabbed our plates and washed them while Irene dried the dishes I passed over next to me. This time I let her mull over her thoughts. Irene wasn’t the type of person who talked about her problems often. She liked to solve her own problems. I was just there so she wouldn’t be alone, as someone to anchor her in the present.

After we were done with the dishes, Irene left the sink for the couch and she the TV playing a random series that we had binge-watched last weekend, the volume tuned all the way down, while I grabbed the ice cream I bought earlier and two spoons, one of which I offered to her as I took my seat next to her.

How many times had I been here, right in this space, in this same situation—us in front of the TV with a spoon in each of our hands and a tub of ice cream between us, with the exact same reason? Would I wake up some day and decided that this was it, that I had finally had enough of my feelings for her? Or would I keep on doing this even when I knew she didn’t need me to do this for her anymore? Not when she already had Harry.

And as if she could hear my thoughts, Irene muttered next to me, “Thank you for this.” And I knew she wasn’t talking about the ice cream only.

“You’re the only person I can ever be this comfortable sharing the same space in silence with. I don’t know how you do it, but you just… understand. You don’t ask questions and I never tell you much, but somehow you just know exactly what to do and what to say when I need it.”

I was the only one. Not Wendy, her childhood friend, and definitely not Harry. I felt my heart thumping loudly inside my chest. I wondered whether she could hear it, and I almost thought she could when she picked her head up to look at me. But she actually only did it to say:

“I’m so grateful to have a friend like you.”

It was sweet, but also oh so bitter I could taste in my tongue. I couldn’t bear that look in her face anymore. So full of wonder and gratitude but for all the more different reasons than what I was expecting that it felt like getting an earwax-flavored Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, like opening that box of PS4 under the tree only to realize that your grandmother was only using that box to keep the ugly sweater she always gave you every Christmas. The worst part was that you couldn’t even be mad at her about it because it wasn’t her fault that you were expecting the console in the first place. Your expectations were your responsibility alone and not anybody else’s. So it wasn’t Irene Bae’s fault that buried deep down there, I was expecting for us to be more than friends.

I looked down and played with my fingers hidden under the pocket of my hoodie. “Don’t mention it,” I told her. “What else are friends for?”

Hopefully Irene didn’t realize how sour I was saying the word ‘friends’.

It was quiet for a while again. One after another spoon of ice cream was being scooped into our mouths and I watched the TV playing while the TV watched Irene getting lost in her thoughts again. She had this faraway look in her eyes and she nibbled on her spoon even when it was spotless already.

I decided to break the silence and ask her, “So what did you want to ask me?”

She looked up at me. “Huh?" she wondered not recalling our call.

“You said you wanted to ask me something. You said it was about your dad," I reminded her, feeling a little curious myself about the man.

“Oh,” she said as a flash of realization hit her. But it was short lived and was soon replaced by a troubled expression. The most troubled I had ever seen her in. I knew she was second-guessing her decision.

I sighed a little bit surprised at the bits of disappointment I felt even though it had been the nth time Irene had refrained from telling me anything about her father. “It’s okay. I already brought my book just in case. We can just study,” I tried to assure her.

Irene smiled her gratitude and I pulled my books out of my bag, putting it on the table in front of us and sitting down on the floor. Irene followed me sitting on the floor grabbing the ice cream tub along with her and placing it on the floor between us.

“Is there anything you don’t understand?” I started and she was quick to point some things out. Soon, her living room was filled with the lively chatter of my explaining and her questions as she tried to fit the lessons to her logic.

“Seul, I can’t balance this reaction,” she complained, frowning at the piece of paper in front of her. I took the paper from her and scanned it for an error. I found it.

“You got this multiplication wrong,” I told her. “That’s why the numbers still don’t add up in the end.” I gave her the paper back. Most of the time, Irene got the steps right, but