We’ve been best friends since the beginning of the high school. It all happened during that day when…

 I got lost in the first day of school and end up arriving late at the class. There was only one empty seat left, located at the back of the class. Before my new homeroom teacher showed me the seat, I knew that seat would be mine.

There she was, sitting next to the seat, ignoring my presence as she let her left elbow rest on the opened window. She took a glimpse at me standing in front of the class before continue to ignore by observing outside of the classroom. It was a very awkward situation as usually guys would sit with their guy friends and girls would sit with their girl friends; but in my case, I sat next to a girl, surrounded by seats sat by other girls. Obviously I was in the wrong side of the class. I went to my teacher but to my surprise, I must stick to that sitting arrangement for the whole year. I was blamed that those wouldn’t happen if I arrived early at school.

“My name is Kim Junmyeon. Nice to meet you.” I gave her a smile as I noticed she finally turn her head around at the noisy class during recess.

“I know. Nice to meet you too. I’m Choi Sooyoung. Urmm…Do you know where’s the cafeteria is?”

That was the first conversation starter between us. My first impression of her, which was a cold, hard to reach or communicate, 4D, nerdy-ish girl; seems to fade away as I learned that she’s actually a loud, cheerful, food-lover, gamer, and boyish girl. It’s very easy to communicate with her and without realizing, it’s already three months we knew each other and become really close friends.

“Hey, you two. Both of you actually like each other, right?” Baekhyun, one of my close guy friends came and teased us.

Sooyoung and I laughed hearing his words.

“How could that possibly be? Look, he like long straight hair girls with high interest in literature. The one that read books a lot. He likes funk rock and not to mention he said Pirates of the Caribbean movie is more interesting than Harry Potter!” She was describing my personality at first but later got annoyed as she suddenly brings back the favorite movie topic we discussed earlier in the morning.

“Yes, but not to mention I’m also the complete opposite of her ideal type. She likes guys with broad shoulders, y back kind of thing, and tall. She loves the popular OPPA type. She also loves ballad song which I found it kind of boring….. and not to mention, I don’t understand how Harry Potter could be a lot better than the Pirates!”

Baekhyun left us after he ‘satisfied’ that there was really nothing between us. We were just friends at that’s it.

It’s already half a year when I realized the tremendous attention Sooyoung is getting. Her cheerful and easy-going personality has captured the hearts of the boys from the school. I even heard she had her own fan club. There was even one time when there were boys coming at me, trying to check on my status with her. Thankfully, Baekhyun confirmed about me and her in a friend zone.

“You looked so pissed off. Wanna share about it? I’ll wait if you don’t feel like talking.” I told her as I saw her slammed her bag at her table.

“Those love letters are driving me NUTS! Lockers are for students to put THEIR THINGS! They’re NOT MAILBOX!! Every morning I have to take EXTRA time just to clean up the mess! AAAARRGGHHH,” She screamed and left me speechless.

Pity of her, I took the courage to go to the ‘fanclub’ and complained about it. Luckily they understand and even took actions on preventing their members to disrupt Sooyoung’s privacy. I was choking out of laughter to see how crazy these fanboys could be. Later, I realized I was treated more like Sooyoung’s manager by the club. Sooyoung who knew about it a bit later, thanked me for it.

“Suho, could you please come here for a while?” A hyung from the senior class called me. They wanted me to ask Sooyoung if she could possibly be the school’s model along side with Jang Geun Suk and Song Joong Ki hyung. Our school was planning to change the uniform to attract more students.

“Suho? Your name is Junmyeon. How did you get that nickname?” Sooyoung asked me as she chewing her third seafood dumpling.

“Your dearest fanclub gave me that name. They said I’m their guardian to get them close to you. Suho in other words.” I smiled.

“Really? I like it. I think you’re my guardian too, protecting me from them. Then, I’ll call you Suho from now on too.”

Her fame didn’t last long after the new two girls, Yoona and Seohyun, got transferred to this school. Don’t get me wrong, she was happy as she said that she could finally get back her freedom.

Yoona, a girl with a deer-eye, fair skin, with an egg-shaped face, is the definition of a human goddess existed in the planet earth. Although the attention was on Yoona, I find Seohyun, a very polite, well-mannered girl as a person I couldn’t take my eyes off.

“She’s your definition of ideal girl.” Sooyoung got me stuttered after I got caught staring at Seohyun for too long.

“She’s everyone ideal type.” I answered.

“Nope. Not everyone. She’s not my ideal type.” Sooyoung giggled after making such unfunny joke.

I gave her an irritated look, just to make her stop talking.

“You are a well-mannered guy, very considerate, and just like Seohyun, you are a very good role-model to all students in this school. I’m so lucky having you as my best friend. Did you know I keep on bragging about your high scores to my neighbors?” She smiled, ignoring my ‘signal face’ which obviously wanting her to stop talking about Seohyun.

“Don’t brag about my exam scores! You should brag about your scores! You know I could teach you study if you want to.”

“No thanks. I did brag about my scores by the way. But of course, my gaming scores. Keke”

Our conversation stops as a guy from the 3^rd year student came in front of us and handed Sooyoung a bouquet of roses.

“Seunghyun-oppa.” whispered.

I observed the guy. Broad shoulders CHECK. y back…looks like it, CHECK. Tall, CHECK. And..the face, popular looking guy, CHECK. Haha.. So this is your ideal type, Sooyoung-ah?

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Seunghyun hyung suddenly gave me a weird look.

“No, I’m sorry. It’s just that, I remembered.. Sooyoung once described to me about a guy features long time ago and today I realized that person is you.” I smiled. Sooyoung hit my arm, blushingly to my statement.

“Really? She did? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?” Seunghyun hyung asked again.

“Don’t worry, it’s a good thing. Trust me.” I smiled widely to those two.

Seunghyun hyung gave Sooyoung his wink before he waved us goodbye as he ran to his friends.

“You finally meet your match from heaven, huh?” I again.

She was staring blankly at the roses. The way she stares at them, she was definitely giving some thoughts.

“You know.. that girl Seohyun.. I think she likes you.” Those words came out from managed to change the subject.

“Seohyun? You’re kidding, right?” My heart suddenly beating so fast to the point I believe Sooyoung could see my red face.

“I’m not kidding. Last week we were playing truth or dare and she confessed about her feelings for you. It was supposed to be a secret. But I think since both of you like each other, might be better if I help you two out. Tell her how you feel. But don’t tell her you know about this from me.” She smiled.

“Why did you tell me now?” I asked.

She gave a loud sighed and stand up, preparing to send the empty plate back to dish room. “Because I thought I want to let you to find it out yourself. But both of you are too slow.. It’s between you and her. Take the courage and be a man!” She slapped my back and quickly left me behind.

If I’m not mistaken, that was the last time we had a long conversation. After that, all I see was she hanging out with her friends, while pushing me to confess to Seohyun every time we met. We sat next to each other, but she keep on getting to the class right on time as the teacher comes in and shushed me every time I wanted to tell her something unrelated to the class. There wasn’t really a long friendly conversation for quite a time.

As usual, she packed her things as soon as the class ended. That day, I planned to stay close to her anywhere she wanted to go so that we could finally had a conversation like before. I asked her if I could send her home. For the first time after a month, she agreed to give some space for us to be close friends like before.

I started the conversation on telling her about my real age. I was born a year later than her. My mom made a mistake by sending me to school a year earlier during the first grade. I wasn’t really sure how they let me in but I assumed the school also made mistake for not checking at the year I was born. She giggled at my ‘life-history’ by jokingly said the reason for my short height was because of the age.

Our conversation however ended immediately when Seohyun confronted me and confessed her feelings. I was flustered although I knew about her feelings all along. I turned my head and saw Sooyoung was smiling, encouraging me to accept her confession.

I nodded. Seohyun gave a small clapped and trying shyly to hide her red face from being seen by others. She suggested a date at a coffee shop in the library and I agreed to meet her there at the time we promised. Sooyoung gave me a thumb up before she headed straight home leaving me awkwardly with Seohyun.

During the time before I went for a date with Seohyun, I realized my friendship with Sooyoung seems to go away. Seunghyun-hyung has been visiting our class frequently to see Sooyoung. They were having a long chat every day any time when they had the chance to do so. That also includes their phone conversation.

Seeing Sooyoung already have a company, I decided to focus more on Seohyun. We’ve been dating for a while now and all of those dates usually include finishing up our assignment so that we wouldn’t waste our time.

I was in the library with Seohyun to do homework when she suddenly whispered, “Your soul went somewhere else again.”

Her complain stops me from thinking about me losing my best friend. “My soul?” I asked her.

She nodded. She gave a sharp stare at me, but with sad expression written all over her face.

“You know.. I think let’s stop seeing each other.” Her words shocked me.

“I really like your cheerfulness, your energy, your humor, your sense… but since we started dating, I realized you starting to lose all of those. You weren’t yourself.”

“What are you talking about? Did I space out bothers you? I’m sorry; I try not to do that again.” I was apologizing to her.

“You said the same thing every time we went out a date. Let’s just end this. Thanks for everything.” She bowed at me politely and left me alone at the library speechless. I could see her running away crying but my legs wouldn’t move even an inch to go to catch her.

It was a week after we stopped seeing each other when I heard the news that Seohyun and Yonghwa-hyung were in a relationship. Instead of feeling depressed, I felt relieved to hear about it. After several dates with her, I learned the wise side of her on choosing her life path. I’m sure Yonghwa-hyung is a guy is perfect for her. I guess he didn’t ‘change’ like I did when dating Seohyun.

I was about to take a seat when Sooyoung pulled my arm and dragged me outside the class.

“What?” I was half screaming, still taken aback because of the force of the sudden pulling.

“You and Seohyun.. I thought you two…” She was confused.

“We’re not.” I gave a sigh and released myself from her. I walked back to my seat as she follows me dumbfoundedly.

“Why? I thought both of you were each other’s ideal type. I don’t understand,” she was half whining.

“Just focus on your Seunghyun-hyung and stop talking about my relationship. She dumped me. End of the story, okay?” I felt a little annoyed with her attitude that morning.

There was a long silence before she started to murmur. “Seunghyun-oppa and I didn’t work either.”

She was on the same position when the first time I met her. Her elbow was on the window while facing outside the class. “We stop seeing each other the day you and Seohyun started dating.”

My eyes widen because of her statement. The fact that I didn’t know about it proved how shallow our friendship was during the ‘dating era’.

“He told me I wasn’t being myself when I’m with him.” Her eyes were still fixed outside.

“Seohyun told me the same thing too.” I told her my side of the story.

We gave a look at each other and sighed heavily at our pathetic love story. We gave ourselves laughter right after that. After a long time, our friendship went back to normal.

It was the end of the school year when Baekhyun came and bluntly ask us, “I know last time I asked the same question, but I want to ask again. Are you two in love with each other?”

“Why are you asking us the same thing again?” Sooyoung violently grabbed Baekhyun’s collar, obviously pissed off with his question. I couldn’t stop laughing while trying my best to hold Sooyoung from doing any further harm on my friend.

My laughter ended as Baekhyun gave out his reasons. “I heard from Taeyeon-noona that Seohyun decided to let go off you because she felt like you actually like her” (while pointing at Sooyoung). “It’s something about she always caught you observing Sooyoung even when you were on date with her.”

“Huh?” Sooyoung took one step behind both of us, trying to keep a distance away from me upon hearing such things from Baekhyun.

“Hey, are you trying to lie at us?! Why are you doing this? What did you want actually?” She suddenly decided not to bother about Baekhyun’s story and accused him instead.

“But..but.. I also heard from Seunghyun-hyung that he also thought that you like Jummyeon. You were spacing out too much when you were with him but your liveliness come back every time when he’s beside you.”

Baekhyun giggled as he saw Sooyoung and I paused and stared at each other for a while.

It took five seconds before we laughed out loud. How that could possibly happened? We patted Baekhyun, telling him how cute he was thinking we were in love with each other. We just told him that Seohyun found her soulmate in Yonghwa and Sooyoung’s relationship with Seunghyun just didn’t worked out. It has nothing to do with our close friendship. Sooyoung and I were both in a friend zone and nothing much.

Five years has gone since then.

What Baekhyun said was true. We did like each other. We were too stupid to realize our own feelings because of the friend status we put both ourselves into. Screw on ideal types. What important is the comfort-ness that we felt when we were together. I knew I could live thousand years more with her. It was her character that comforts me every time I saw her. She was my soulmate. Today, she will be my gorgeous bride. Baekhyun, my best man was standing next to me, holding the precious ring that would link Sooyoung and I as a family for the rest of our lives.

Did I mention the fight we had this morning? Sooyoung wanted to wear high heels but I would look ridiculously short if I stand next to her. She forced me to wear insoles. I can’t believe I end up wearing insoles on my wedding day.. sigh.. I wonder why my height didn’t increase since high school?