So I’ll watch you live in pictures like I used to watch you sleep

And I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe...

-

Jinki @jinkilee                                                                                   26m

 

At Dong Dae Mun with @_jjong! Food~ We are coming! *Q*

I stopped scrolling through my Twitter timeline when I came to that particular tweet, feeling my brows scrunch themselves up. Jonghyun again. I had no idea why I felt so affected by it; it’s like my mood had plunged to rock bottom in one second and I just wanted to go home. No, of course you do know why.   

“Oppa, do you want chocolate rice or chopped nuts on your ice cream?” Krystal, that pretty girl I’d been hanging out with for some time now, asked me with that sickeningly sweet smile of hers.

I like her, I really do. Or at least that was what I thought. At the start, it was just a casual agreement between us for an ice cream. But later, when the first date led to a second, and then a third, everything just became kind of annoying to me.

Especially recently.

“I’m fine with anything, you choose.” I answered dismissively. She just shrugged and placed our orders, then smiled back at me again.

Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing with her, where I am trying to go with this. I will admit that I might have flirted, or perhaps even led her on a little in our ambiguous relationship. To me, it was all just for harmless fun, and I thought we both knew that well. Until she began to get clingy, that was when I realized she is a commitment I did not want to have.

I was not looking for another relationship; I only wanted to live life apart from Jinki, date someone else other than him, just to show that I can.

Jinki.

Jinki who is with Jonghyun right now. My Jinki. No, not mine…

“I don’t think I will ever really be able to stop caring. So don’t forget that. I will always care about you.” Jinki wrote in that final letter he gave to me during graduation.

Remember what you said, Jinki? But look, here I am fading away into nothingness. And you don’t care.

To shake the thought of him away from my mind, I stared at Krystal’s hands that are holding her phone and scrolling through the contents on the screen just like I was a while ago. I stared at her long and slender fingers, her nails are well-manicured and coated with only a layer of transparent varnish. She has very pretty hands, I noted.

Jinki sat beside me on the bus back home from school with his head on my shoulder, clinging on to me like a kitten clinging to its master. Slowly, he walked his fingers up from my thigh to my waist, then to my chest.

“Jinki-yah, your fingers are so stubby and meaty.” I and laughed.

Jinki slapped my chest and pouted, lifting his head from my shoulder, unwinding his arm from mine and started to move away. But I stopped him. I always do.

I’d grab his shoulder and pull him back, closer to my chest. I’d kiss the top of his head and say, “But I love them anyway.” And that was all it’d take for him to settle back into my arms. Then he would doze off with his head on my shoulder, and I’d watch him in his peaceful sleep, feeling his body’s subtle movements from every inhale and exhale, trying to match the rhythm of our breathing.

I smiled. Jinki is a sportsman, and a tough one at that. Yet, when he’s with me, he had no hunger to be the alpha of our relationship, no desire to be in control. I always led. He always followed.

“Oppa! Kibum-oppa!” There was a hand waving in front of my eyes and I unwillingly returned my attention to the girl sitting opposite me. She is frowning at me.

“Your ice cream is melting, Kitty-oppa.”

I shut my eyes for a second and opened them again, simultaneously reaching for the cup of semi-melted ice cream, trying not to let my disgust show on my face at what she just called me. I was far more disgusted with myself, though. After all, did I object to it when she first called me that? Did I not play along with her, too? I totally asked for this.

“Kitty-oppa, are you feeling unwell? You seem really distracted today.” She asked, actually looking thoughtful for a change, her big eyes looking right at me as if she knew what – or who – has been on my mind all day.

“Ani, I’m fine.” I replied, plastering a bright smile on my face just to show willing, and dug into my ice cream before it could melt away completely.

I like chocolate. Jinki likes chocolate chip mint. Ordering a combination of these two flavours whenever I have ice cream is a habit that I can’t kick, along with the habit of– what? Stop!

This is ridiculous. I am going out with a girl and thinking about Jinki. I’d been paying so much attention to him recently; who he’s with, where he went, what he did, that I am driving myself crazy.

Upon hearing that nothing was the matter, Krystal reverted to her happy and bordering-mindless self. Is this what I get for choosing to hang out with someone who is three years younger?

My phone vibrated twice. A text message.

I reached for it at the same time that Krystal began to speak again. But I wasn’t hearing her. Everything around me got shut out the instant I saw who that text was from.

From: Jinki

Hey, are you free this coming Saturday? Do you want to have dinner together?

I swear my heart stopped right then and a mixture of fear and excitement rose up in my stomach. I stared at the screen, exited my inbox, and went in again to see if I had indeed gone mad and imagined receiving such a message from him when in fact, it did not exist at all. But no, it was still there, and it still said the same things.

Jinki. Freaking. Asked. Me. Out.

Goddamnit, the last time he did that was… I can’t even remember.

“Oppa, are you listening to me?!” Krystal’s annoyed tone reached through the fog in my mind and commanded my attention once again. I almost snapped at her to stop interrupting my thoughts, but held myself back in time, reminding myself that it isn’t her fault for getting upset that I am acting like I didn’t want to be here. I’d get upset at me too.

“Mianhae, what did you say?” I took a deep breath and said as nicely as I could.

She sighed. “I asked you where should we go later, after this? You said you wanted to check out the new store at the mall, right? We could go to the arcade after that. What do you think, Kitty-oppa?”

I weighed up my options quickly. I could continue this date with Krystal and spend it thinking about Jinki, getting pissed at being constantly interrupted, and feeling frustrated with both her and myself for landing both of us in this ; or go home and spend my time thinking about Jinki in peace.

“I… I should head back home, Krystal-ah. I still have an assignment to complete.” I lied, looking away when I saw her face fall at my words.

“Krystal-ah…? What happened to Kristie-pie?” She mumbled really softly, but I still heard her. For a fleeting moment, I felt really sorry to her. She really doesn’t deserve this.

“Hmm, okay. Another time then?”

I smiled at her. But I guess there won’t be another time.

***

I never imagined that I would have the chance to sit across of Jinki like this again, with only a table in between us at a nice, quaint café. And yet here he is, right in front of me, looking better than I have ever seen him when we were still together.

Jinki had always been the type who wore his basketball jerseys and sweatpants all around, and his running shoes were considered the most presentable footwear he owned. He tied his hair up in any way that was the quickest, sometimes even pulling his long fringe back with a hair band. He always said that he hated having hair all over his face and that true sportsmen do not care about their image whenever I were to look at him disapprovingly.

“I want you to kiss my forehead and tell me I’m beautiful! Even when I’m sweaty and my hair is all messy after my trainings! Even if I’m shabby and not the least bit ‘glam’ as you always put it! Why can’t you love me for me? Why do you always have to pick on all these things about me? Is it really that important?”

His hurt tone from that night resurfaced in my mind. That night we had a huge fight over the phone that eventually led to our end. I pushed the thoughts away. This is not the time I wanted to remember how badly I had hurt him then.

The Jinki I am looking at right now was wearing a plain white V-neck over dark gray skinny jeans and a pair of Adidas high-tops on his feet. That pair with the wings that Jeremy Scott designed. His was wearing his hair down, fringe swept to the side and slightly styled to look wavy and y. It was all I could do to not gape at him because he just looked so good.

Was it because of me? Do I even have the right to think that he took such a drastic change to his appearance because of what I used to say?

“Here.” Jinki said as he poked two straws into my drink. There is an easy smile gracing his lips, which only made him all the more beautiful. He still remembers that I drink with two straws, and I could add that it’s something that nobody else had cared enough to notice about me. Definitely not Krystal.

When he gradually stopped contacting me all those months ago, I really thought that I had lost him forever.  Of course, I hadn’t realized it at that point. I only knew it when it was all already too late. When he’d already reformatted his whole life that I am not a part of. When he had other things to do, other people to be with. When he had Jonghyun and when he no longer cared about me. He probably didn’t even know that I’d been having problems with university.

“Did you wash your hair just before you came out?” I blurted out before I could stop myself and mentally facepalmed. That was… awkward.

Jinki looked at me strangely with a raised brow, and then answered in careful, measured tones, like I was a nutcase. “Yes… why?”

… Oh, I might as well.

“Your hair smells nice.”

To my pleasant surprise, he actually laughed and looked at me with those bright shining eyes of his. “Thanks. I guess?”

We caught up over dinner; staying in the café and chatting even way after we have finished our food. Talking to him felt really comforting and refreshing. He is still the one who knew me best, even after we have not met up in such a long time. I told him about my dilemma at school, how I wanted to drop my double degree because I felt like I was starting to not be able to handle it. I was so tired of working hard without an aim.

“Do you not like what you’re studying?” Jinki asked, regarding me with a serious look.

“No, it’s not that… But I just, I don’t see how it’s going to help me after I graduate?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I just want to bum around and do nothing. Get any old job at some shop, maybe a book store, or a café like this one. Earn enough to feed myself and live a simple life. I don’t need a double degree to do that.”

“You don’t really want to do nothing, Kibum. You’re just picking the easy way out, aren’t you? You don’t want to go through the trouble of figuring out what you want to do and having to work hard towards it. You’re a smart person, Kibum-ah, you just don’t know what you want yet.”

I stared at him, half relieved and half amazed at how well he knew me.

“Yes. I just don’t know. I really don’t. You’re right.”

He only smiled and said in that knowing way, “Of course, Kibum-ah. I know you.”

And then I realized Jinki is the only person who really knows me, maybe even more than my own mum does. I hate that with this realization, comes that feeling of longing again. Of wanting to be with him, not just as a friend.

Was it still possible?

Throughout the night though, he would pick up his phone from the table and tap away at it at regular intervals. He was always smiling at his phone, at whatever that whoever was texting him had said, that I couldn’t help feeling a little envious of that person. Does he smile like that too when he receives a text from me?  

“I’m going to the washroom.” Jinki said and got up from his seat.

I was honestly, a little disappointed when he took his phone along with him. Not that I was planning to snoop around his phone or anything… Okay, maybe I was.

My eyes landed on his wallet that was placed on the table and I began to feel curious. Looking in the direction of the washroom to make sure he is out of sight, I scooped it up and began to look through it. I don’t really know what I was trying to find, it’s not like I expected to see anything other than the variety of cards and–

Oh my ing god.

There’s a Polaroid picture of Jonghyun staring up at me. He’s wearing a white shirt with a bow tie and suspenders, which he is pulling on and grinning toothily at the camera. Even if I really don’t want to admit it, he does look really handsome.

I feel like somebody just pushed me off the top of a tall building and I smashed into bloody pieces on the sidewalk below. The wallet suddenly felt too heavy in my hands and I put it back in place immediately, taking care to make sure it looked just like the way it did before I touched it. I leaned back in my seat, pretending like nothing had happened when really my insides were in uncomfortable knots.

Even when we were at our most loving phase, Jinki had never put a photo of me in his wallet. I don’t think they are a couple, are they? Wouldn’t Jinki have at least told me that? Then what was a photo of that guy doing in his wallet?

After a short while, Jinki returned to the seat. I was struggling to not show anything on my face, but the sting in my heart was really hard to ignore.

“Kibum, you okay? You look a bit pale.” He looked at me and asked with concern.

“I’m fine, just… kinda tired.” I said the most convenient excuse, looking at the table. I needed to stop being pulled in by him and his quiet charm. My time is over, he can’t be mine anymore. I have lost him forever.

“Shall we get going then? I’m meeting the guys early tomorrow for a game.” He smiled.

“D’you… D’you want me to bring you home?” I asked. Hoping against hope that he would say yes.  

“Do you think that I can’t go home on my own? I just wanted to know that I was worth your time! I wanted to know that you cared about me getting back safely! More than your own time, your homework, whatever else! Was I not even worth that?”

Because the position that I am in now, I have no right to send him back if he were to say no.

“It’s okay, you go back and rest early.” He said, taking his things and starting to get up.

“Jinki?” I called.

He paused in his actions and looked at me questioningly.

“Do you… like Jonghyun? Are you guys together?” I asked unsurely, in a last desperate wish that he would open up about that guy to me. I couldn’t be bothered even if I knew I may be acting like a psycho-ex-boyfriend right now, I just needed to know.

There was an unmistakable flicker of sadness that crossed his eyes. Not answering, he only let out a tiny chuckle.

“Let’s go.” He said softly, getting up and walking towards the glass doors.

What does that mean? 

A.N.: 1. I write more than one story. I update them alternately. 

2. I do not demand for people to comment. If you do not wish to comment when I update, i.e. you made yourself a silent reader, it's fine with me. But you do not have the right to rush me for an update. Silent readers do not have the right for except to unsubscribe. 

3. I try hard. Dont tell me what to do. 

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