‘Have a seat’, my boyfriend suggested while already making his way over to the kitchen, ‘I’ll get you some tea. You must be freezing.’ And as I peeled myself out of my coat, I noticed that I really wasn’t feeling comfortably warm. I nuzzled myself into the cushions of his couch and pulled his TV-on-a-cold-day-blanket out of the corner to cover myself with it. He hadn’t changed anything about his living room while away and he had told me that he didn’t want to – after all, he lived here, and he wanted me to feel comfortable with coming over. I breathed in deeply to in the warmth that was slowly getting to me from the blanket and being out of my damp clothes. Suho returned moments later, carrying two cups and a steaming tea kettle. He poured the boiling liquid into the cups and handed me one of them. ‘Thank you’, I mumbled against the seam of my cup that had already heated up, enjoying a quick sip before putting it down on my lap. The young man did the same as he sat down next to me. Distant enough not to seem inpolite, but close enough to not create awkwardness. I looked over to him and then held up one side of ‘my’ blanket, inviting him to share it with me. He gazed at me shyly, but when I tilted my head and smiled, he agreed and laid the broad edge of the blanket over his legs as well. Then he turned to me again.

‘Hi’, I smiled after we had both gotten comfortable this way. He laughed and blushed a little as our shoulders touched, but didn’t back away. ‘Should I have fetched you?’, he asked, noticing the small droplets of water on my hair. ‘No, of course not’, I replied, ‘I wouldn’t want you to go outside to that weather.’ He threw a look out of the window only to see that the rain had started to pour more and more, making everything outside seem slightly blurry. He sighed. ‘I wouldn’t have asked to go outside to that weather as well if it wasn’t for something pretty important’, he stated as if searching for an excuse, but I shook my head. ‘I know that’, I clarified honestly. He never wanted to cause others trouble if it wasn’t for a good reason. But what could possibly be a good reason to call someone over at this time? I blinked at him and he looked back at me, not saying anything for a moment. Then he nodded and put his cup of tea down on the living room table in front of the couch, picking up something else instead.

It was a broken frame that held a photo, but I couldn’t properly recognize it because the way Suho held it threw reflections on it. So I just looked at him first. ‘During the thunderstorm last night, this photo fell down behind my couch and crashed’, he explained. He fingers fidgeted the frame he was holding, and I was almost worried he could cut himself on its edges. He took his gaze away from me, rather facing the photo that I still couldn’t see. ‘Want me to fix it for you?’ I asked, not really knowing where his explanations were supposed to go. The corners of his mouth slightly curled upwards, but not the way you would smile if someone made you an offer you really wanted to take. It was rather weak, slightly disapproving smile. Suho turned the frame around in his hands, seeming to be looking for the best angle, but returned it into the position it had started out in. Then he faced me again. ‘I know this might sound stupid, but the more I look at it, the more I get the feeling that this picture is actually … important to me’, he continued explaining. ‘Or – important to us.’ He clenched the frame one more time, and then he offered it to me. I took it from his hands carefully, still facing him.

‘I would like you to explain it to me.’

I slightly pulled up my eyebrows at him, being kind of confused by his words, but then my gaze met the picture that was now visible to my eyes as well. And I froze. It was a photograph of Suho and me at ‘our’ lake, the lake of our first meeting. He had taken it on our first anniversary. I was in the water, only my shoulders showing and he had considered that the perfect moment to capture in a picture. There were other photos that the two of us were on, but of course he had decided to hang this one up despite my complaints. He had said that it really reminded him of the second he first saw me floating on the water, of the second he fell in love with me.
And that he would never forget it.

I felt burning tears sting my eyes the moment that thought crossed my mind. He had always said that this was one of the most precious moments in his life, one that he wanted to cherish until he couldn’t think no more. And I had happily agreed, sharing that feeling as much as a human being possibly could. I bit my lips together, letting the frame sink onto my lap so its backside collided with my cup of tea. I felt Suho looking at me from the side, but I couldn’t look him in the eye that moment. I secretly blamed him for forgetting, and that made me blame myself for not considering his current state.  I usually blamed myself the most for the things that happened to him, and it wasn’t his fault for forgetting. But I didn’t want to hear that he didn’t remember this day. I didn’t want to know that he had forgotten about that almost magical second or about the way we had met back then. I wanted to keep pretending that he still knew, and that he still cherished it. ‘Uh, that’s … nothing’, I muttered under my breath, trying to get a hold of myself. You’re not going to cry!, I told myself harshly. But all I could see were thick layers of blurry liquid in my eyes. And it didn’t help that Suho seemed to notice.

‘I wouldn’t have called you over for nothing’, he stated seriously, his voice altering between worried and decisive. He had always been good at telling my truth and lies apart, and that was one thing he obviously hadn’t forgotten as well. He tried to make eye contact, catching a glimpse of my eyes that were filled to the brim with tears. I realized that and lifted my arm in a swift movement to cover my face for the moment, but nearly spilled my tea over my arm doing so. Suho quick-wittedly caught the cup but couldn’t prevent a few drops of hot liquid from making their way over my hand. I quickly pulled my hand back in pain, but Suho got a hold of my wrist before I could cause any more damage. His fingers held it firmly and I whinced, not knowing what to do as my tears drippled down my cheeks in a mixture of sadness and pain. My boyfriend looked at me worriedly, obviously out of words as well. That surely wasn’t the reaction he had expected. It was just a picture to him after all, nothing to care let alone cry about. I was giving away pretty much everything. I heard him breath in and out, looking away for a second, then facing me again. His dark brown eyes had gotten serious and I felt myself blush from how strongly he locked eyes with me. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.

‘And you wouldn't cry over nothing, Miyoung.’

I sobbed desperately. He was as right as could be, but I just didn’t want to tell him anything more. Suho now took a look at my hand that was only showing slightly red marks. I shuddered as he covered my fingers with both his hands, completely taking them in as a shelter. Slowly, very slowly, he then placed a kiss on my knuckles that peeked through his hands. ‘I know I’m asking a lot of you, but I really need you to tell me about this’, he uttered lowly but clearly. ‘I know that it’s important to us, otherwise I wouldn’t have hung it up on my wall. It’s something that I shouldn’t have forgotten about, so please make me remember it.’ I bit my lips, trying to avoid his gaze. ‘Please, Miyoung. I’m begging you.’  

And that’s when I told him everything. That it was the place we had first met two years ago, a lake not far from the city but far enough not to be frequented by a lot of people. I told him the story of how we had met, although it was hard to put something like that in words. He had always known the story by heart himself, and now I was the one to tell him about it like I made it up. It sounded stupid coming from me and I realized how childish my behavior had been that time. But when I finished, my voice and breath still shaking, Suho breathed out deeply. He looked at me, his soft lips clearly forming a smile. ‘You really sound like the kind of girl I would fall in love with’, he admitted almost sounding amused, but as loving as always. He was being honest. He meant it. I giggled breathlessly under my sobs, not knowing what else to say. He really didn’t remember it, but he didn’t reject it. He seemed to take it seriously, as if he wanted to learn from it. He knew that it was true, that it was important. That it was something he should know about. And somehow, I then felt better for having told him about it. It was a memory so precious to me that I wanted the whole world to know about it, and if he forgot, it was my duty to help him remember this moment.

My boyfriend let go of my hands, picked the frame up from my lap and set it down on his. He took away the black borders that kept the picture in place and carefully removed the splintered glass that covered it. All that was left now was the picture itself. ‘This is propably the most beautiful picture I have ever seen’, he muttered tenderly without looking at me. I knew that he must have summoned all his courage to say something like that. I gulped and swiped the stains of my tears away as good as I could, want to lean on him, but that would have been too much. Instead I picked up my cup of tea from the table and slurped in the rest that was left in it. Suho looked at me again, his cheeks a blushing red. ‘Can I take you there tomorrow?’, he suddenly asked me, and I almost chocked on the sip of tea I had in my mouth. I quickly gulped it down and refrained myself from coughing. I didn’t really know what to answer. He obviously was serious about his question, but I wasn’t sure about my reply. I really wanted to go there with him, but I guessed I would be the only one ‘feeling’ the place and the last thing I wanted to do was start crying in front of him over again. So I just cleared my throat. ‘Uh, we don’t have to go there’, I stuttered, ‘I mean – we can just choose another place. It’s propably not too cozy around there if it continues raining like that.’

Suho faced me, obviously getting what I wanted to say.  I tried smiling at him to change his mind to another subject that was a little less captious because I felt my heart trembling anxiously, but he didn’t seem to share my need to talk about something else. He took his gaze away from me, staring into distance for a moment, thinking about something as it seemed. Then he got up and walked over to one of the shelves, pulling out a drawer and taking something out of it. He returned to the couch, putting a new and undamaged frame onto the table for me to see. ‘Let me take one more picture of you that I can hang up. One that I remember’, Suho said to me with a caring undertone, pointing towards the frame. His fingers were shaking as his own words tested his courage, but he didn’t hesitate. He seemed to be serious about this even though he didn’t want to force me into anything.

‘Please, allow me to pick you up tomorrow at 6.’

I sighed and cast my gaze down obediently. He had me.