“Haaaachuuu!” Kai’s sneeze sound fills up his silent bedroom. He sneezes again.

I walk into his room with a bowl of chicken porridge in my hand and place it on a table next to his bed.

He catches a fever because he was in the rain for too long. Luckily my body’s immunity is stronger than him. I only get a mild flu.

Today is Saturday. We got no school, so I decide to look after him for today. His parents are outstation. They will get back only once a month. He is always alone in this huge house. Poor him, he must be lonely.

“Eat this.” I scoop a spoon of porridge and intend to feed him. He gaps his mouth easily and eats the porridge. He finishes the porridge and swallows his medicine.

“Urgh, my head.” He lay down on his bed and massaging his forehead.  I lend him a hand to pull his blanket, covering half of his body.

“Do you want anything else?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “No… but… thank you.” Kai turns his head to me and gives a grateful smile. “I really don’t want to be alone right now.”    

“You’re such a baby.” I laugh. He also chuckles along with me.

“I’m sorry about…” He bites his lips. “Yesterday.”

“I don’t really mind since you already pay for it.”

He frowns. “Huh?”

“You get a fever.” I let out a small giggle. “That’s enough for me.”         

“Ouch, that’s hurt.” Kai hold his chest as if his heart is really in pain (he’s joking).

How on earth can I go on being mad at him? I like this person in front of me right now. It doesn’t matter how he acted like a jerk sometimes, I can’t remove this strong feeling for him inside of me.

Later that afternoon, our classmates visit him. He is getting better with their attendance. Of all his acquaintances, one person hasn’t come. JiYoung. She doesn’t shows up yet. It’s already late for a person to come visit. I don’t think she’ll come.

“You still wait for her?” I get him out from his day dreaming. He was looking out through the window for awhile now.

“She’s not coming isn’t she?” He stares outside again.

I’m not going to answer his question. This has been the third time he’s asking the same thing. I remain silent.

“Why are you here?” He asks.

His question makes me jolt but I manage to cover it. If he can answer that question himself it will be much easier for me. I’m a girl for heaven’s sake. It’s not proper for a girl to tell a boy, she want him to be hers. Besides, it’s not like he will want the same thing as me if I do tell him about it. For now, I’m going to hold it back.

“You’re my friend. I supposedly need to be here.” How I want to tell him I like him.

“Then, why is she not here?” His question is getting harder for me to answer. “She doesn’t want to be friend with me anymore?”

“I don’t know.” I answer truthfully. JiYoung never mention to me about any of that. I’m not sure if she wants to be in any relation with him, as a friend of course.

I watch him strolling out from the room to the kitchen. He grabs two can of soda from the fridge. He throws one to me. Fortunately I am a good catcher.

“You can’t drink that for now, you know.” I say.

“Don’t care.” He replies as he open the can. In one gulp, he drinks quarter of the soda. Kai then let out a coughs.

I clutch the soda from his hand. “I told you.” His hand accidently brushes mine. There’s suddenly a sense of butterfly inside my stomach-tingly and uncomfortable. I need to get out from Kai’s house this instance. I have stay here long enough and seeing his condition, I think it is okay for me to leave now. The real reason why I want to leave this badly is because I am tired of hearing him saying about JiYoung. I try to endure it but I have feelings too. It hurts.

*****

The day after tomorrow is the school festival and each class have to send their representative. For our class, only I and Kai are being sent as the representatives. I never like doing this kind of things but considering that Kai insisted me to join along I simply agreed. Supposedly I have a chance to do a piece of work today and I can get a lot of payment from it. I rejected it however.

We will be given an extra co curriculum marks. I have more than enough marks already but since he is the one who needs the marks, we end up here. That is what he gets from skipping class and everything. His marks have been deducted and now he has to gain all the missing marks so that he’ll be able to move on to the next semester and somehow, I’m being drag into his problem too. Nevertheless, I don’t feel burden at all. I like it because this will give me the opportunity to work with him.

“Why are you grinning?” Kai glares at me from the end of the stage. “Help me with this.” He passes me a small paint brush. We are given task to paint some of the props that will be use in the performance on the festival day later.

Kai just recovered from his fever. It took him two days to completely recover from it and good thing those two days were not a school day. I don’t really like the idea of him not coming to school.

It’s been almost half of the day we staying there. It’s lunch time. Other students that were on the stage with us before already go out to grab something to eat.

I get a hold of the paint from Kai’s hand and dip it inside the green color paint. The cardboard that was cut into a tree shape is lying on the stage. I color the tree thoroughly. Then my stomach grumbles. I haven’t bite on any food yet today, not even breakfast. I put my other free hand on top of my stomach as if I can control the sound coming out from it.

Kai doesn’t seem to realize about it. He goes on painting the cardboard in his hand.

“Can we do this later?” I ask him.

“No.” He plainly answers.

“But I’m hungry. Don’t you.”

“No.” He repeats his recent answer.

I purse my lips. Why can’t he be nicer? If not because of him, I won’t be here. Please be aware that I sacrifice so many things for you.

About half an hour after that, we finish painting those things. The other students are still painting theirs cardboard and preparing other props. I feel a little burden is being lift away from my shoulders.

“Now, we can eat.” Kai pull me to the cafeteria. He order two bibimbap and one lemon juice for him and for me, he orders an apple juice. It has always been my favorite. I can drink that juice for the rest of my life.

I don’t understand how he really is. Sometimes he’s really concern about me but sometimes, he act like I was no one he knew. It’s been almost two years I’m being his friend, but I still can’t figure out his true self.