This was the worst kind of humiliation. Standing there on the sidewalk staring open-mouthed at the one person Jiyoung was excited to see today, she crumbled into a million pieces. And no one even noticed. That was what made this humiliation so bad; there was no one to witness it. She was breaking and no one cared.

Jiyoung should have known better, really. This morning was going too well. She had woken up on time, had a delicious, filling breakfast, and had managed to put an outfit together worthy of any Pinterest board. Her confidence was through the roof and she was going to do the one thing in her life she swore she would never do.

She were going to confess to her crush.

Signing up for math tutoring was the last thing she wanted to do. Who in the world wanted to spend their valuable free time learning more about equations and algorithms? But she needed to pass this class. It was the second time she’d taken college algebra and the thought of taking it a third time made her want to crawl under her bed. So, she buckled down and took the walk of shame into the math lab. (Yes, that was an exaggeration. Everyone knows there is no shame in getting help. Didn’t mean she had to like it.) When she got the call from your assigned tutor, she ignored it. She hated talking on the phone to anyone let alone a number she didn’t recognize. No voicemail was left. Then a text came through.

Hi, Jiyoung! This Kim Junmyeon! I’ve been assigned as your math tutor. When you get a chance, let me know when you’re free so we can create a schedule that works for you. Have a great day!

Jiyoung waited an appropriate amount of time before replying. So, an hour and half later, she texted him her schedule and they made a plan to meet up in the library the following Thursday. Jiyoung marked that day on her calendar with exactly zero enthusiasm. In her head, this Kim Junmyeon was the cliché nerd from movies: dorky glasses, snort-like laugh, and clothes that looked better on a grandfather. Oh, boy was she happy to be wrong.

Sitting down at one of the tables by the large, ceiling high windows, Junmyeon was nothing like she’d imagined. He had a sophisticated aura about him. He dressed nicely, a thin long-sleeved shirt over a patterned button down, the collar laid nicely over the top of the shirt, and was blessed with sharp, handsome features. Jiyoung knew she was in trouble. But she didn’t care. She sat down at that table eagerly, ready to… learn.

For the past month and a half, Jiyoung met Junmyeon twice a week to go over the lessons and work on the assignments. By some miracle, her grade was actually going up in the class. Somehow she was able to better comprehend the material and secretly fawn over her tutor simultaneously. At this point, she was sort of feigning how much she wasn’t understanding to keep the tutoring sessions going. The nice thing about algebra, once you understood the basics, everything else built on top of it.

But today – today she had decided that she was going to step over the line from tutor and student into the realm of perhaps something more.

She liked Junmyeon. She liked his math puns and the way he scrunched his face when he thought hard about something. His lips would pucker whenever he lifted the sheet of paper to check over her work. Each time they met up, Jiyoung's heart acted like it was in the middle of a NASCAR race and it was determined to win. She had it bad. This wasn’t the first time she’d had a crush like this, but she had set her mind on making this one different. This time, she wouldn’t hold it inside. She was going to be the brave one, the bold one. The fact that birds were tweeting as she rode her bike onto campus should have been a sign that things would only be downhill from there. Unfortunately, like the optimistic idiot, she took it as a positive instead.

After locking her bike up, Jiyoung headed straight for the courtyard near the pond. Junmyeon had told her that he often spent his mornings there to finish up homework or to read a book (the fact that he read so much was another factor in her liking of him). In Jiyoung's imagination, he was all alone, flipping through a novel as he leaned against the trunk of a tree, looking like a prince taking a rest in the shade on a warm summer’s day. The water would be glistening in the background as a lovely, lighthearted melody played softly through the air. He would see her approach and smile that wide, brilliant smile. Her heart would skip as she sat down in the grass next to him and poured out her feelings. The daydream turned into a nightmare the second he came into view.

Junmyeon was not alone nor was he sitting under a tree with a book. He was on one of the benches, splayed out on the wooden beams with his head resting in the lap of a very pretty, more his league type of girl. She laughed as Junmyeon told a story. A delicate hand ran through his soft brown hair. Jiyoung's heart fell to the ground, forming a crater at her feet.

Shoulders slumped and day ruined, she turned and headed for the student union. If today was going to like this, then she was going to sprinkle it with an overly sugary coffee drink. Preferably with extra chocolate drizzle. It helped - a little bit.

The morning's classes went by in a blur. Jiyoung was certain she took notes, but none of the information sank in. Later she would have to transcribe her quick scribbles to a word document to help with studying. She would learn the information then. By lunch, she was starting to peel herself off the sidewalk of humiliation. Especially when the one person she could always rely on joined her for lunch.

“How did it go?”

Jiyoung remained silent, continuously munching on the sandwich in her hands as her best friend sat down on the other side of the small, two-person table near the middle of the cafeteria.

Baekhyun laughed his signature, SpongeBob-like laugh. “That bad, huh? I told you not to do it.”

“Technically, I didn’t do it,” Jiyoung corrected. “He already has a girlfriend.”

“Ouch.”

Jiyoung nodded. How could she not see this before? Did he mention having a girlfriend and she just blocked it out? The two of them talked casually between math problems, about friends and fun things they liked to do on the weekends. However, he’d failed to mention one very important detail.

“Well,” Baekhyun reached over and plucked a potato chip off her plate and plopped it in his mouth, “at least you found out before you said something. I told you he wasn’t worth it.”

“Just because he has a girlfriend doesn’t mean he isn’t worth crushing on.”

“Okay. Whatever you say.”

Jiyoung rolled her eyes at him. “You’re so much help.”

Ignoring the quip, Baekhyun snatched another chip. Jiyoung smacked his hand, but all that managed to do was break off a few pieces, the crumbs falling to the table. Smiling proudly, Baekhyun popped the half-chip into his mouth. “So, are you just going to go home and write a letter?”

“Are you just going to go home and write a letter?” Jiyoung mocked with a scrunched face.

Byun Baekhyun had been Jiyoung's best friend since the they had met in the first grade. He’d stolen her popsicle that her mother had packed as a special treat for the first full day of school. When he saw Jiyoung start to cry, he broke off the piece he’d been on and handed the rest back to her. There was a bit of a disagreement on the level of nice-ness that act achieved since it was Jiyoung's popsicle to begin with, but somehow it caused the two of them to be inseparable ever since. Being Jiyoung's best friend meant that he was privy to the more private parts of her life.

Like the letters.

Starting as young as ten years old, Jiyoung had developed a bit of a tradition when it came to your crushes. Emotions were hard to process, but she found them easier to work through if she thought through them and translated them into words. Those words would fly across the paper, transferring the feelings that made her both laugh and cry into the graphite that formed them. Not to mention, the act made her feel like the heroine in a rom-com. Certainly it was something that Meg Ryan or Rachel McAdams would do once they realized how they felt about the male lead.

The first letter she ever wrote was during her final year of ballet class. Dancing had been a part of her life since she were three, but a new passion had been discovered so she’d decided to quit after this last cluster of classes. A terrible decision, really. Because right after her mind was already made up, a new boy had joined the class.

Kim Jongin.

He had just moved into town after his father was promoted to a new position and had to transfer to headquarters. Jiyoung had never seen him at the park or the grocery store before. He was completely new. And beautiful.

He was blessed golden skin that glistened, shining brighter the longer he danced. And, oh, the way he danced. It was well beyond what anyone else could do. His movements were fluid, water-like, as if the very beat of the music were pulling and manipulating his limbs to convey what the notes had to say. Each move was a word and when he formed them together, they could make you smile or cry. And when he smiled… oh, his smile was like starlight. The kind of brightness that stayed in the sky even as the city lights flickered on. To this day, Jiyoung had never found one that could rival it. He was a dream that every composer coveted. So, what was her young heart to do?

Well, the movies said to confess. But there was no way she could find the courage to do so, especially since she only saw him in class and she couldn’t confess in front of everyone. The only other option was to write it out; to write it out like Jane Austen pouring her heart out for Tom Lefroy.

Kim Jongin,

I’m not sure how to start this. Do I compliment you on your dancing? It’s nothing like I’ve seen before. Prima Donnas in the Russian Ballet would be jealous of you! But you probably hear that all the time. And about how handsome you are, even under all that hair. I can’t help but watch when you pull it back for class so you can see yourself in the mirror. Why can’t I look like that? I somehow ended up looking like a frizzy wet cat that just climbed out of the tub.

I guess what I’m trying to avoid saying is that… I like you. A lot. I like your laugh and your wide smile. I like how much you love music and how you interpret the melody with your moves. No one can freestyle like you! My heart does a dance of its own whenever I see you. I hope you don’t have anyone that you like, just so I can stand a chance. Would you ever think of me like that? If not, it’s okay. I just needed to tell you. Someday, you’ll be on stage dancing to an audience of thousands and I’ll be right there in the front row, cheering you on! Until then, I hope you always find happiness in what you love.

Love,

Jiyoung.

That sentence about watching him on stage made her cringe in hindsight. Cute for a ten-year-old, but a bit stalkerish. Luckily, though, Jiyoung never gave it to him. She chickened out every time up until the last class. The idea of him opening it and reading right there in front of her was mortifying. So, then, she decided to mail it. The teacher gave her his address after Jiyoung told her she wanted to invite him to her birthday party (it should be a little worrisome that a teacher was willing to pass on private information like that… perhaps it was because she was a kid). Three times she went to the mailbox to send the letter out and three times she ran back inside to hide it under her mattress.

That was the beginning of the weird little tradition. Though Jiyoung never sent the letter to Jongin, she felt better having somewhat confessed her feelings and worked through them without the humiliation of actually… doing it. So, the next time she had a crush so overwhelming that she needed to get the feelings out, she wrote a letter. She even went all the way each time to address the envelope, giving the confession a sense of finality. There was no fear in them ever going out. Baekhyun was the only other one in the world who knew of their existence. At the current moment, eight were hidden in a drawer in your vanity. The way your fingers were itching, a ninth one was on the way.

“I might,” Jiyoung finally replied.

Baekhyun leaned forward eagerly. “Can I read it when you’re done?”

“No!”

He snapped his fingers as he sat back in his chair. “Darn.”

“Why am I even friends with you?”

“Because I’m charming.”

There was no question in his voice. He one-hundred percent believed it. And… to be honest, he did have his moments. But that was all in the past. “Like a plank of wood.”

Shaking his head, Baekhyun rapped his hands on the table before standing up. “Alright, I’m going to class. Have fun with your pencil and imagination.” For emphasis on his stupid remark, he stole one last chip before walking off.

Jiyoung finished off her sandwich in a bit of a rage. By the time she was finished, muscles were aching as if you’d spent several hours at the gym and it was jaw day.

There was only one class left for the afternoon. But it was algebra. How was she supposed to concentrate on functions when her sad attempt at getting into a relationship with her tutor failed so epically? Somehow she managed, though, and she packed up at the end of class with a new sort of determination. As she hopped on her bike and rode home, she thought over what she going to write. She was so lost in her head that she hadn’t notice the car pulling out of her neighbor’s driveway, nearly hitting her before the driver hit their brakes.

“Shoot!”

Jiyoung back peddled to break. Her heart thumped in her chest. No life memories flashed before her eyes, but she was sure you almost died. Slowly, she moved forward to get out of the way of the car. 

“I’m sorry!” she yelled over her shoulder.

The driver leaned out the window.

Oh, great.

It was her neighbor. Or, at least, your neighbor’s son. Do Kyungsoo. He stared at Jiyoung with an expression that could be blank but could also be a glare. It was hard to tell with him. Shaking his head, he pulled back inside the car and drove away.

Fighting off embarrassment for the second time this day - albeit this situation was much lower on the scale and it happened a bit more often than she’d like to admit - Jiyoung put her bike up in the backyard and headed up to her room. Jiyoung's mother, a literary history professor, and her father, a doctor at the local hospital, were both at work and wouldn’t be home until well after dinner. She was used to it. Besides, she was an adult and she liked being able to decide to have pizza for dinner and not worry about what other people wanted for toppings. Once she put the order in, she sat down at her vanity and got to work.

Kim Junmyeon,

Has anyone told you how your hair looks in the sunlight? The dark brown hues seem so warm and inviting, like an ebony chair that was warmed by the unfiltered rays. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to run my finger through it. Would the strands be as soft as they look? Would you wear the same smile on your face that you do during our sessions? But I guess I might not be meant to feel them. Today, I intended to tell you how I felt. I woke up with a determination, a goal to say how much I like you to your face. I was so nervous riding my bike to the university, but it was the good kind of nervous; the kind that makes you keep going. It seemed, however, that I was too late. Or maybe I simply never had a chance at all. I’d missed any signs that said you were already someone else’s.

I hope she knows how lucky she is. I hope she makes you laugh and listens to you when you’re having a bad day. Your laugh is like a symphony. Does she tell you how light and lovely it is? Or how infectious it is? When you laugh, I can’t help but laugh along. It’ll be sad not to hear it anymore. Or have our talks filled with random subject changes. But I think I’ll miss your smile most of all. The way it crinkles your eyes yet still lets them shine. The way it spreads across your face and the way your cheeks grow. It is truly a sight to behold. I hope wherever you go, you are always smiling. You always let your light shine even on the cloudiest of days. That’s what’s so special about you and what made me fall for you. Even when I was frustrated or couldn’t understand, you were patient, taking my mind off of the negative and turning me so I could face the positive. That’s a rare kind of person. You are a rare kind of person. Please always be happy, Kim Junmyeon.

Love,

Jiyoung

With a sigh she sat back in your chair. The letter had done its job. Though she was still sad about the way things turned out, she no longer felt defeated. The words she needed to say were now out there without being “out there”. Okay, so he had a girlfriend. Big deal. It wasn’t the end of the world. There were more potential love interests out there that she could find. He was only one and obviously wasn’t the one.

Beginning to smile again, she folded the letter and put it in an envelope. She didn’t have Junmyeon’s address, so she wrote out the address for the math lab. Opening the top drawer of the vanity, she placed the latest addition to her collection under the first envelope. The doorbell rang right as she closed it up again. Oh, thank goodness. Food.

Practically skipping down the steps, Jiyoung hurried to the front door.

“Hi-” Jiyoung stopped as soon as she opened it. The person waiting on the other side was not the pizza delivery guy - it was Baekhyun. The boxes holding the pizza and cheese sticks she’d order for no one but herself were in his hands. Over his shoulder, Jiyoung barely caught sight of the delivery man driving away. “Really?”

“What? I was bored. And hungry.” He flipped open the lid to show her the hot, melted cheese of the appetizer. “Cheese stick?”

Rolling her eyes, Jiyoung stepped aside so he could come inside.

Baekhyun had been to this house plenty of times in the past so it was easy for him to make himself at home. He didn’t wait for Jiyoung before pulling plates out of the cabinet and pouring a drink. He even went as far as getting her glass as well. “Thirsty?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

The two of them ate at the kitchen table as her mother had a “no meals in the living room” policy. Small snacks like nuts and popcorn were okay, as long as you didn’t spill any on the couches.

“So… how did the writing go?” Baekhyun asked cheekily between bites.

Jiyoung shrugged. “Fine. I’m deciding that I’m getting over it.”

Now it was Baekhyun’s turn to roll his eyes. “You always get over them fast.”

“What’s the point of dwelling on the things you can’t change?”

That was always Jiyoung's answer. Yes, the hurt was immediate and painful, but Baekhyun was right, she tended to push it aside rather quickly. That was the whole point of her letters, anyway. Get the feelings out of the way so she could move on. What was the point of clinging on to something like that? She would only end up worse if she stayed in that spot. So, Jiyoung pushed herself to move on. And eight times out of nine, it had worked. There was only that one nagging letter that failed to do its job. That particular set of feelings refused to go away even as she looked to other crushes, as she found other boys to like. It was the one she would always wonder about, the one that was completely off limits. The dull ache still crept up every once in a while. If moving on was what she had to do, she would do it. Because she would prefer if she never had to go through something like that ever again.