December 28^th, 2002.

The lights came back on, blinding everyone on the Ferris wheel. Seon Yul’s eyes widened as she stared into Young Saeng’s brown eyes – his face too close to hers, his lips almost touching her own.

She backed out of his arms and slid herself as far away from him as possible. She looked down and squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment, knowing that her face more than likely resembled a tomato at this point.

Young Saeng cleared his throat. “Umm, the lights are back on,” he stated the obvious.

“Y-y-yeah,” she stammered.

They spent the rest of the ride down in awkward silence. Seon Yul kept looking to her right, perfectly aware that Young Saeng was sitting to her left. The ride was supposed to be the perfect end to their day: it seemed like a never-ending torture chamber now. Every once in a while, Seon Yul would brush her hand against her cheek only to feel that it was still burning with embarrassment.

They finally reached the ground and the door opened. Seon Yul split and was out of there in the blink of an eye. She kept walking away when all of a sudden she felt someone grab her arm. Young Saeng spun her around and she glanced up at him. When she looked into his eyes, she quickly looked back down at her feet. Young Saeng relaxed his grip on her arm. “We should go…” he said quietly. There was hurt in his voice and his eyes.

Young Saeng led the way out while Seon Yul followed behind him. She couldn’t stand the awkwardness but there wasn’t anything she could think of to return the atmosphere back to the way it was. Whenever he glanced back to check that she was still behind him, she quickly averted her eyes back to the ground again.

Everyone else from Everland seemed to be leaving too, for the bus was almost as packed as it was in the morning when they arrived. Seon Yul entered first and chose a seat in the back: Young Saeng sat next to her.

Young Saeng’s intensely close presence was almost too much for Seon Yul to handle. it up and take it like a woman, Seon Yul, she thought to herself. First step: just look at him… That’s it; doesn’t take rocket science to look him in the eye. She took a deep breathe and exhaled slowly. Slowly, she turned her head to look at him. She met his eyes and realized that he must have been looking her way for a long time. It took more force than gravity holding the Moon to the Earth for her to not look away and jump out of the emergency exit. Before she could turn away, Young Saeng grabbed her hands and said, “Seon Yul.”

Her hands were shaking and probably sweating for all she knew, but she didn’t want to pull them away and cause him more pain. Thankfully, he loosened his hold a bit but still held on. Their hands rested on her lap.

“Listen… I’m sorry about the Ferris wheel… thing,” he winced at his lack of vocabulary to delicately describe the event. “It was uncalled for.”

Seon Yul was so lost in his eyes that she was barely able to respond. The feeling of his hands still partially linked with her own further delayed her response when she finally stuttered, “N-n-no, it’s okay.” Not. “I understand.” Not. “Sometimes… impulse… not thinking…” She continued to mutter random words in attempt to prove that she really was okay with it. When she stopped rambling and looked up again, she saw that he was smiling at her and tightened his grip on her hands for a moment before letting go. She smiled weakly back and they spent the rest of the ride back with slight awkwardness still hanging in the air.

They gave their thanks to the bus driver as they stepped off the bus and started walking down the street toward their houses. Seon Yul noticed that Young Saeng was walking slower than usual. The night air was still but its temperature was biting. Seon Yul wrapped her arms around herself in an effort to keep all her body heat to herself.

“Wait,” Young Saeng said. They paused walking as he took off his top jacket and wrapped it around her.

Still too flustered to argue with him, she said, “Thanks,” and they continued walking.

They reached Seon Yul’s house in no time and saw that the living room lights were on. “Oh, I guess my parents are home. You should come in and say hi to them. They haven’t seen you in a while.” She hoped that her casual invitation would loosen some of the tension from earlier.

“Yeah alright,” he agreed. They walked to the front door and Seon Yul knocked, hoping her parents would open the front door so she wouldn’t have to dig into her bag for her keys.

Her mother opened the door and her face brightened when she saw her daughter’s best friend. “Young Saeng-ssi! What a surprise!”

“Hello,” he said formally and bowed. “I hope you are doing well.” He was stiff and a lot more formal than usual.

Seon Yul’s mother gave her daughter a quizzical look but nevertheless opened the door wider to let them in. They followed her to the living room where they found Seon Yul’s father standing on a small step ladder removing photo frames that were hanging on the wall. Her appa turned around when he heard them come in. “Young Saeng-ssi! Long time no see,” he greeted from the ladder.

“You too,” Young Saeng replied and bowed again. However, when he return to standing position, Seon Yul saw his eyebrows furrow. He glanced at her with a What’s going on? kind of look. Before Seon Yul could send a telepathic rely back to him, her father came down from the ladder and started talking.

“Ahh, my back is aching from all this packing. Must be old age,” he joked. “What do you think, Young Saeng? Think we’ll be done by the time we have to leave?”

“Umm, of course…” he answered slowly while glancing at Seon Yul again. She desperately wanted her father to stop blabbering.

“So I was thinking that—”

“THAT Young Saeng wants to pick something up from Seon Yul’s room,” Seon Yul’s mother interrupted her husband. “Right kids?” She turned to them and winked.

“Yeah, sure, absolutely. Let’s go Saengie.” Seon Yul grabbed his arm and dragged him upstairs.

“What? Was it something I said?” her father asked, completely confused at the current situation. Seon Yul’s mother laughed and kissed her foolish husband on the cheek.

Young Saeng walked into Seon Yul’s room and Seon Yul slowly shut the door behind them. Keeping her hand on the door knob, she tried to calm her breathing again. Slowly, she turned around and faced Young Saeng.

“What’s going on?” he cut right to the chase.

“Saengie… I meant to tell you today, but, things happened and I couldn’t—”

“Are you going somewhere?”

She nodded, keeping her head low in case tears threatened to fall. “We’re moving… to America,” she said quietly.

Silence. “How long have you known?”

“I found out last night.”

“And you didn’t tell me? I even texted you yesterday.” He seemed both mad and disappointed.

“I didn’t want to tell you over a text message,” she retorted. “I wanted to tell you in person. But I didn’t think you’d end up finding out like… this.”

Young Saeng paced the room while Seon Yul still stood by the door. He wheeled around on his heel and took a few steps toward her by the door. He stopped about a foot in front of her. “When?”

“January 2^nd of next year,” she answered quietly.

His outstretched hand slammed on the door to the side of her face. Her insides jumped in fright. She looked at Young Saeng: his face seemed to burn with anger now.

“January 2^nd?!” he repeated. “It’s the 28^th today. You’re telling me you’re leaving in 5 days?!”

“I meant to tell you!” she cried out. “I’m sorry you had to find out like this and that I wasn’t the one to tell you when I know I should have been,” she rambled.

His anger seemed to restrict him from saying anything sane. Before he could blow up any further, he grabbed the door handle. Seon Yul instinctively moved away from the door and he jerked the door open. Seon Yul heard him rush down the stairs and the slam of the front door followed.

Her parents ran up the stairs and found Seon Yul kneeling on her bedroom floor. Tears were streaming down her face. “What happened?!” her mother gasped.

Instead of answering, Seon Yul’s silent tears became audible. Her parents picked her up off the ground and sat her on her bed while the waterworks continued. They waited for her tears to subside before talking to her again.

“Sweetie, what’s going on? Did something happen with Young Saeng?”

“I… didn’t tell him… that we were leaving… He… got mad… and left…” She forced an explanation out of herself.

“Oh… I thought you told him already and that he knew why we were packing,” her father said, putting two and two together.

“I meant to tell him… but today was…”

“Don’t worry honey; he’ll come around. It was just an impulsive misunderstanding,” her mother said.

“Yeah… I hope so too,” Seon Yul replied quietly.

Her parents left her room to get ready for bed. Seon Yul mechanically went about her nightly routine before she settled in bed. She saw her phone sitting on her bed-side table and picked it up. No messages, no voice mails, no missed calls. She laid in bed and contemplated before composing a new text message:

미안해– Seonnie.

She put her phone back on the table and slowly drifted asleep with her arms wrapped around her best friend’s jacket instead of Daengie.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Yayyy! Update! =D Haha I'm so proud of me for writing ^^

This will probably be one of my last updates for the next few weeks. My last AP test is on May 9th, so I'm thinking it's gonna go like this: Get out of AP Physics exam on the 9th, crash at home, and die pass out on the 10th. lol XD

So yeah, if there's no update til then, I'm sorry; that's why =(

Oh, last thing: I hope that last bit of Korean is either readable to those who can read Hangul, but even if you can't, I'm sure it can be figured out in context. Otherwise, Google Translate will do the trick ;D

Bye bye for now! I will be back! ^_^

- Melody~xoxo