Summary:

There's this senior who always boop my nose and I'm not complaining

***

Seulgi's POV

There’s this weird senior. Who never spoke to me, except from occasional greetings; who I never actually hanged out with—if you disregard the minute long short talks between her friend joy and my friend Wendy; in short, we never truly interacted, and yet, she never fails to send my nose a soft boop and I never learned how to react to it. In addition, she’s also my biggest crush for a pinning time of 2 years.

Like today, I was leaning on my locker reading a book as I waited for Wendy to collect things from her locker and as usual Joy leans by the Wendy’s other side, who then never fails to bring Irene all along. After they finished their ministrations with their respective locker, our bodies naturally form a small circle, close enough to not block the jostling crowd in the hallway.

Joy and Wendy naturally seeped into short talks about school, recent gossips, and other topics I do not care about, and it seems the same for Irene, if her bored and spacing out expression isn’t enough indication. Then our eyes happen to meet. Her cheeks rised and her eyes crinkled as she whisper a soft hi and me, being as socially awkward as ever (and it seems to reach its peak whenever I’m with her) could only offer a nod. And as a routine, she stepped closer to me and booped my nose as I crinkled them in protest. She chuckled as she once again faces the others.

While we walk towards the exit, the smell of moist earth and the sounds of the raindrops clashing with the glass door and gravel meet our senses. We looked at each other in alarm. The news this morning didn’t say anything about a rainfall and I’m sure the students who barricaded the front steps outside share the same thoughts.

Thankfully, Wendy, as responsible as ever, flashed her bright blue umbrella, the reflection catching our eyes. Before I could speak up, Joy beats me to it, and then I remembered, my street is opposite from their direction. As I was once again searching for a solution to my predicament, a heavy tap landed on my upper arm, bringing me back to my senses. A transparent umbrella blocked the figure of the girl beside me.

“You’re going right, right?” says the voice behind the umbrella.

It seems like I won’t be running for my life the next 15 minutes. As Wendy and Joy greeted us goodbye, I rushed back to my room to get my jacket. Irene waits at the entrance lockers changing her shoes.

“Ready?” she said, oddly joyful.

We walked down the street, as the taller person, I offered to hold the umbrella. With her visible struggle, she couldn’t formulate a rebuke. It was silent, a silence not awkward, but rather comfortable and almost intimate. I glanced at her occasionally, making sure she had her whole body covered.

The only sound was the raindrops falling, small cars zooming in the narrow alley, and our heavy breathing (it seems like the weather station neither predicted the temperature and weather today—it was freezing). I offered her my jacket but she shook her head as response and only slid her shoulders to mine. I had gone stiff. This is warmer, she whispered in the air, but in the silence, I heard it well.

We were 10 minutes away from my house; I think hers are still doors away from mine, when we heard a soft desperate whine from a box outside of a shop. We jerked up, looked at each other and then walk nearer to the box as I receive her affirming nod. In the soaked decrepit box lay a white puppy. We squatted down the puppy’s level and inched closer. It seems like somebody left it here. I raised my hand, seeing no sign of fear from the puppy, I tickled its ears and pat it.

“It’s so cute.” says a tiny voice beside me.

I saw from my peripheral, her hands gradually reaching for the puppy, only to boop its nose. I chuckled.

“You seem to like to booping noses.” was the first thing I said to her that day. She smiled at me, and raising the same wet finger and booped my nose for the second time that day. Seeing me have the same reaction, she chuckled again.

We once again let the rain be the only sound for our ears, and our warmth mingling as the words of our minds are minds are yet to speak, as we pet the dog gradually falling into slumber.

“I like doing it.” She says after a short while. I saw her hand pause and plants itself at the edge of the box, her eyes seeming to search for mine. I looked back at her.

“I like doing it…

…to the things I like.”

Not giving me enough time to process and breakdown the cryptic words she said, she stood up patting her skirt, motioning for me to do the same. “Let’s bring it to the center.”

After we dropped the puppy in the center, just three doors away from us, we decided to take a different route, although it was longer, but we agreed nonetheless. Strangely, she didn’t link our arms anymore, I almost missed the touch.

“Here’s my street.” I informed her, as we are nearing our house.

As we walk nearer, the rain reducing to a drizzle, I could now sense the thoughts running from my companions head. If her thoughts were a web, I could’ve grabbed it and grasp it in my hand, feeling how her thoughts make the little space in the comfort of the umbrella posses a weird shallow aura that is almost suffocating. She stopped walking.

As I look back, swiftly dragging the umbrella to her head, she looks at me with a pouty and frustrated expression, her eyebrow mole virtually sliding down the corners of her face. I look at her in alarm and questioningly.

“Aren’t you going to say something back?” she whined, brows furrowing deeper. I did not get anything she said.

“Did you say anything?” I squeaked, somehow fearing for my life, backtracking at the past minutes we spend in silence.

“I just told you I like you.”

Oh. Oh.

She scoffs and walks past me, the darkness seeping through her only grows stronger, but before she can walk another step, I held her wrist, my thumb drawing circles on her soft skin, the snow-like skin I only dreamed to feel. I angled the umbrella to her cover, and inched my way closer to her. She looks back, and the tears beading the corners of eyes made me feel guilty, with my free hand, I wiped them away.

Her hand felt unbelievably cold, colder than the sky above perhaps, and then I held them in mine. I booped her nose, not with my finger, but with my own, as I said.

“I like you too.”