Kim Kibum sits alone on the bench waiting for the train to arrive. Few people are waiting on the platform. The sun is only beginning to set and currently hiding behind a bunch of clouds. He sits in a dim part of the platform. His hands are shoved deep into his pants pockets and he hears his phone beep for the third time indicating that it’s about to run out of battery. Finally, he feels his phone vibrate underneath his palm and he takes it out to see it shut off automatically in a last-resort to save battery.   

     Kibum had actually been sitting there for a few hours not actually hopping on any trains. He wanted to wait for the later trains that came by, the ones that went to places that he had never heard of.

     He feels regretful and guilty. He needs to get away.

     The train arrives and pulls to a steady halt. The doors open and Kibum walks all the way to the end of the platform and enters the rear carriage and sees a boy who looks approximately the same age as him resting his head against the glass.

~~~~~~~~~~

     Kibum sits beside a short-haired girl named Jung Nicole. The two don’t talk for more than half of the year until Nicole kicks Kibum’s foot one day during a test and Kibum looks to his right and sees Nicole staring at him. “What’s the answer to the last multiple choice question?” she whispers lowly.

     Kibum realises that this completely disobeys the rules and he’s starting to sweat because he’s torn between being good and abiding by the rules, or breaking them and telling Nicole the answer.

     “Come on, remember I lent you that pencil like six months ago and you never returned it?” she whispers impatiently and Kibum’s thinking that him providing Nicole with the answer would compensate for much more than borrowing a pencil. He also realises that this may actually not have been the first time he and Nicole had spoken. Nicole looks away and Kibum turns to the front to see the teacher eyeing them carefully.

     “Uh, sure Nicole, you can borrow my eraser,” he says loudly so the teacher can hear. Mrs Kim harshly tells Kibum to be quiet but seems quite relieved that they are not discussing answers and takes a seat back at her desk. Nicole is confused for a moment when she is handed Kibum’s eraser which she had explicitly not asked for but then sees on it the letter ‘a’ written on it in black pen and mouths Kibum a, “Thank you,” and colours in the ‘a’ circle on her answer sheet.

     After the period ended Nicole went up to Kibum and gave him a free muesli bar to thank him for the answer. Kibum took it appreciatively despite the fact that he hated muesli bars.

     That’s the story of how Kibum and Nicole became best friends.

~~~~~~~~~~

     Kibum had never been the best at dealing with feelings and vowed to himself to never have to deal with anyone else’s problems because problems, inevitably, involve feelings. One time one of his best friends (at the time) Taemin complained to Kibum about the heartache he felt after having been rejected by the fifth girl in a row. Kibum just told him to man up. Taemin had obviously wanted a more sympathetic response and stopped being friends with him.

     When Kibum arrived at Nicole’s sixteenth birthday party an hour late he found her house completely deserted and had a hysterical Nicole crying to him for two different reasons: (1) Kibum was late and (2) her boyfriend just called to break up with her. She was both crying on Kibum’s shoulder and barely hitting him at the same time. Kibum didn’t even wrap his arms around her and said, “Maybe we should have some cake,” to which Nicole responded, “There won’t be any cake!” and kicked Kibum out of the house.

     Whenever Nicole would sulk about her ex-boyfriend after that, Kibum would only sit there and make comparisons between the complexities of dealing with emotions to the complexities of physics.

     Nicole had never complained to Kibum again after that.

~~~~~~~~~~

     Kibum has only been in one romantic relationship in his entire life. Her name was Boa (or at least that’s what she liked to be called). She was petite yet still had a matured look. Her hair reached just below her shoulders and was a gold-ish blonde that was always tied into a short ponytail. Kibum’s phobia of feelings was tested when Nicole had challenged him to enter a relationship. Now just because Kibum was scared of dealing with feelings didn’t mean he didn’t have any. He knew when he liked a girl. He knew when he was sad. He knew when he was anxious. He just didn’t go into discussing those feelings much. The problem with Kibum was that he didn’t want to be in a relationship (because relationships were pretty much all about feelings) but at the same time he hated to lose or back down from challenges.

     Kibum had invaded the little corner where Boa sat and read and had awkwardly asked her out on a date which she had eagerly accepted. The two dated for a month. One night Boa had asked Kibum how much he liked her. He decided to compare his feelings for Boa to his a wilting flower. That night they had broken up.

~~~~~~~~~~

     The bigger problems started to become more recognisable to Kibum when he stopped actually trying to deal with Boa-related feelings. Nicole had brought up the topic of boyfriends for the first time in a while and Kibum was starting to zone out until he felt Nicole’s hands close around on his which were placed on the table. “I really need you to listen. Just once I need you to listen. Please,” she says desperately and Kibum forces himself to care. “What do you think someone should do when they want something?” she asks him.

     “Um, go get it?” Kibum answers doubtfully. He knew it was a personal question and that there was no right or wrong but Nicole was staring at him with a ferocious intensity in her eyes that he couldn’t help but feel intimidated.

     “So…if I wanted my ex-boyfriend back then…I should go get him?”

     “Do you want him back?”

     “Yes.”

     “Then you go get him.”

     Nicole smiles and tightens her grip on Kibum’s hand. “You know, you’re actually really good at these kinds of things when you try.”

     “Trying takes up too much effort, though.”

     She laughs and she lets go of his hand and Kibum can’t notice the reluctance in her eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~

     There’s a knock on Kibum’s bedroom door and Nicole suddenly invites herself in. Kibum just scoots aside on the bed and lets her join him. She wraps an arm around him, buries her face in his shoulder and starts sobbing uncontrollably. Her sobs become more hysterical and gradually louder and Kibum momentarily has no idea what to do. Then he remembers something Nicole had once taught him to do when someone cries and that’s simply to wrap their arms around the person and never let them go. Tentatively, he snakes his arms around Nicole’s trembling body and brings her head closer and into the crook of his neck. Kibum’s face is emotionless as he stares at the corner of his room and lets Nicole sob into his neck. He feels her tears trail down his collarbone and soak his shirt and he tries to hush her up but she just continues to sob.

     When her sobs die down she starts hiccupping and between each hiccup Kibum manages to identify a sentence, “I—hiccup—really, really—hiccup—freaking—hiccup—like you Kim Kibum.”

     Kibum is left staring absentmindedly at the wall until he finally realises that: Nicole really, really freaking likes him.

     She starts sobbing again and he lets her sob onto his pillow as he lies there next to her staring at the ceiling and his brain is filled with so many thoughts of how he’s a terrible person.

     Kibum’s parents don’t realise that Nicole had stayed the night. When he wakes up, the pillow of which Nicole had slept with is soaked with all her tears. Kibum stares at Nicole as she sleeps and realises that she may be the most beautiful girl he had actually laid his eyes on. He her cheek lovingly for a while as she sleeps soundly. When he sees her lips curl into a smile he retracts his hand and lies on his back.

     “Good morning,” he hears her whisper. Her breath tickles the skin of his neck. He shivers.

     “You should go,” Kibum tells her. He opens up his bedroom door and motions for her to get out. She stares at him, baffled, and sits up reluctantly. She asks him, “Why?”

     Kibum laughs. “Um, your parents must be worried about you, Nicole. Now go.”

     Kibum’s mind is spinning like a wheel. Staring at Nicole and thinking about her feelings for him and then trying to think about his own feelings for her is making him delirious.

     “Please,” he pushes.

     He wishes she’d leave sooner so he wouldn’t have to see the hurt and confusion fall on her. He wants her to go. He needs her to go.

     She rubs her eyes, pulls her jacket over her shoulders and pushes past him.

     Once he’s certain she’s gone he sighs and covers his face with his hands and rubs his eyes. Maybe he doesn’t hate feelings, maybe he just hates hurting feelings.

~~~~~~~~~~

     Kibum’s walking towards Nicole whom he can indistinctly see in the distance—but he still knows it’s her. He’s walking—jogging—towards her when Boa appears without warning and blocks his path. He watches as Nicole walks further and further away. He looks down at Boa and impatiently asks, “Can you please move?”

     “Kibum, I was just wondering how you were doing,” she asks, unreasonably bitter. She seems to have noticed him eagerly trying to get to Nicole. He actually feels his heart ache when he realises Nicole is out of his view.

     “Fine. Now can you please—“

     “Just one thing, you had been cheating on me with that little Nicole girl the entire time we were dating weren't you?”

     Kibum rolls his eyes and puts both hands on Boa’s shoulders. “I wasn’t cheating on you. I just stopped liking you, alright? Now I need to go and find Nicole because I need to tell her something important.”

     Kibum plants a long kiss on Boa's lips for reassurance purposes and then runs after Nicole. Boa stands there and giggles as she touches her lips. Unfortunately, her fluttering heart is not on Kibum’s list of concerns.

     Kibum reaches Nicole a few seconds after first period bell rings and he’s running faster than he ever has in his life. He drags her back by the shoulder and she turns back to stare at him in disbelief. “Kibum—“

     “No, wait. Please…I need to tell you something that I realised right after I asked you to leave. Nicole, I lov—“

     “Don’t,” Nicole says, voice breaking. She frowns as her eyes turn red and wet. “I need to tell you something first.” She walks closer to him and closes the distance between them completely. She grips his collar, rises on her tippy-toes and presses their lips together gently. There’s the briefest spark between them that ignites throughout the entire five second kiss. She pulls away and gets down back on her feet again and he realises she’s crying. “Firstly, no matter how ty you are sometimes, you’re my bestfriend and—god Kibum—I have been so madly in love with you for the past few years but I know if you’ll never feel the same way about me.”

     “Nicole—“

     “And secondly…” Her lips tremble and the first few tear drops fall down her face and Kibum finally succumbs to the fact that he absolutely hates seeing her cry. She holds his hands and whispers, “I’m really sick, Kibum. Like…sick; sick as in ‘I’ve only got a short time left of my life left’  kind of sick and just for once I want you to not run away. Please don’t run away. You’re my best friend and I need you more than ever right now. Please, please, please don’t run away.”

     Her tears fall silently just like how Kibum’s heart breaks.

     When dealing with feelings Kibum always had one solution…and that was to run away from them.

     So Kibum walked away. He left Nicole standing there alone and more broken than she had ever been before.

~~~~~~~~~~

     Kibum fakes an illness to avoid attending school for the rest of the week. If you count immense guilt and a broken heart as an illness then I guess he wasn’t faking it.

     It’s a Saturday and Kibum sits quietly with his earphones plugged into his ears despite no music playing. The guy who sits opposite him looks almost as broken as he does. Kibum yawns and spreads himself across the seat. He doesn’t know how many times the train has stopped. He never kept count. He turns his head to the side and looks up at the guy opposite him who’s hunched over, his elbow resting on his knees supporting his chin.

     The sun had gone into hiding long ago and rain splatters against the train windows. The grey sky is endless whilst the buildings and the trees whir past in a nauseating blur.