He handed me the mint-chocolate ice cream cone and plopped down beside me on the bench

 

“What’d you get?” I asked

 

He stared at his cone in fascination “Vanilla”

 

And that was it. End of conversation

 

We sat in silence, it wasn’t awkward nor was it completely silent

 

You could almost say we were observing the passerby’s and telepathically communicating to each other, at least that’s how I thought they saw us

 

My ice cream cone was now flat, the edges of the cone were also bitten off

 

I looked to his, which was still perfectly in shape, drops of melted vanilla leaking their way down to his fingers

 

“Why aren’t you eating?” I asked

 

“Huh?” He snapped out of his trance “Oh..”

 

I passed him a tissue “Here”

 

“Thanks” He slightly smiled “I was just thinking”

 

I felt rude; it would definitely be rude to ask what he was thinking about. It must be personal for him not to tell me

 

“About what?” I am a rude person, okay

 

“Just..things. My past” He sighed and stared back to his ice cream “I knew it, I can’t eat this” He chuckled bitterly

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because, it reminds me of someone” he scratched the back of his neck absent mindedly

 

“Want to talk about it?”

 

“You’re asking an awful lot of questions today” I shrugged “It was this person..”

 

A girl, probably, his ex-girlfriend maybe, and he misses her or something

 

“This was their favourite ice-cream flavour” He sighed

 

I knew it

 

“I thought, maybe, maybe I could forget about them if I take on their role. When we go out for ice-cream, I’d always get mint-chocolate chip and they’d get vanilla..” He trailed off “I thought maybe if I change, it wouldn’t matter that much”

 

I nodded as he solemnly looked down

 

“Don’t worry, here, have some of mine” I shoved my nearly finished cone to him as he took a bite

 

“That’s..” He blinked a few times “Different”

 

“Different?”

 

“Yeah, are those dark chocolate chips instead?” He murmured, I shrugged

 

“Did you know dark chocolate is actually healthier than fruit?”

 

“..That kind of thing… how do you even know?” I think he laughed sincerely for the first time today

 

I shrugged again “It’s true”

 

Trying to lift someone’s mood was difficult, making friends was difficult,

 

Until he came along

 

Opening up to him in a blink of an eye, laughing, smiling, insulting each other was practically a ritual now  

 

“Sungmin?” I quietly nudged him

 

“Hm?” He slightly grinned, not at me, but at the mint-chocolate cone in his hands

 

“So what happened to her?” I asked

 

“It’s bittersweet” He replied instead

 

“Bittersweet?”

 

“Yeah, kind of like… love”

 

“Love?”

 

“Yeah”

 

And the silence returned

 

End of conversation

 

“Are you seriously not eating this?” I couldn’t help but break the silence, referring to his vanilla cone which I was now holding

 

“Nope, I don’t think I can” He shrugged

 

“So tell me, what happened to her?” I insisted on finding out

 

“Her?” He looked amused “Oh, no..”

 

“What?”

 

“You mean ‘him’” He chuckled

 

I was surprised, but not shocked

 

"What's his name?" I asked

 

"Kyuhyun" It flowed out almost lyrically  

 

“Ah, I see”

 

“Yeah..”

 

“That’s still nice” I grinned “You can have that, I’ll be eating this then”

 

I took a bite from his vanilla ice cream

 

He looked at me, almost in fascination, amusement, stunned. And then he smiled, the prettiest, loviest, most beautiful smile

 

And I hoped

 

Maybe one day I can be that replacement

 

Maybe one day they’ll use milk chocolate again

 

Maybe one day love won’t be as bitter but more sweet

 

Maybe.

   

 

-END-