Only lucky people see the world through rose-colored glasses when they're in love. The rest of us are left to suffer - silently or not, me being the former - through heartbreak.

I had to have known that it would happen sooner or later. But still, why did it hurt so bad?

That, and it was worse since it was partially my fault. If I had even the slightest courage and allowed myself to just walk up to him, telling him about what I felt for him...would any of this happen in the first place? That, I wouldn't ever know.

What was I supposed to do?

What was worse was that Wooyoung didn't even notice how my behavior changed after that one phone call. He even knocked on my door to introduce me personally to his girlfriend. Just looking at her made the jealousy and sadness and fury inside of me start to boil.

But being stupid little me, I only smiled and said, "You two look good together."

Well, it wasn't like that was a complete lie. She was pretty and smart and just about the definition of perfect, so of course she would suit Wooyoung nicely. But that didn't and wouldn't stop me from hating her guts.

I couldn't even remember her name. In my mind, she had simply become "the girl who stopped the milk deliveries". That was now her name. I didn't think she even deserved an actual name.

If I had a picture of her, I definitely would have stuck it on my wall after making some adjustments to her face with a Sharpie marker. It might have been for the best that I didn't have a picture of her.

It seemed that every other sentence would have her in it as long as I was having a conversation with Wooyoung. My initial resentment for her turned into some kind of black pit of every single bad feeling ever to exist in the entire world. In between all of the bitterness that I harbored for her, I also had a sense of amazement that Wooyoung could speak of her so easily in front of me, completely oblivious to the dark atmosphere that would surround me.

It happened one day while (for the umpteenth time) Wooyoung was talking to me about his oh-so-wonderful girlfriend. We were sitting outside a local restaurant, at a table underneath a bright red umbrella that was getting on my nerves for no actual reason. I had been drinking some orange juice out of a straw, gnawing on it relentlessly while he seemed to never end the amount of things he loved about her.

All of the anger that I had pent up just exploded as I snapped, "If she's so amazing, why do you feel the need to talk to me about it? Go and compliment her in person!"

It took me a few seconds to realize what I had said. The silence quickly became increasingly awkward as Wooyoung stared at me with a blank yet curious look.

Oh no.

Did that really just happen.

What was I going to do.

"You seem like you're in a bad mood," he told me. He didn't sound offended or angry at all...more like...he pitied me for something.

"I'm fine," I grumbled, gritting my teeth. "It's just that sometimes when someone talks about only one thing for every single conversation, it begins to get redundant. And annoying." I barely kept myself from saying that it being repetitive was only a part of it; the rest was because the only topic that seemed to exist in his head was...that...girl.

He just shrugged, sipping at a tall milkshake glass. "When you fall in love, maybe you'll understand."

I already am.

It stupidly took me another awkward silence for me to realize that I had said those three words out loud. I desperately wanted to just hide under the table if that didn't make me look even stranger than I already did.

"Really?" Wooyoung said, his face brightening even more. "Who? Do I know him?"

"Guys have such stupid questions," I muttered, wondering why I had to get myself deeper into this mess.

"But you don't look happy," he continued without listening. "Why aren't you happy?" He frowned, puzzled and worried at the same time. "Did he reject you or something?"

"Yeah," I answered. Well, that was true...he just didn't know that he had turned me down, I guess. And this was getting into very uncomfortable territory.

"Was he mean about it? What did he do? Don't just sit there and listen to me ask questions!"

I didn't tell him that it wasn't my fault that he was barely giving me time to answer all of his questions. Instead, I opened my mouth and said, "He got a girlfriend. And stopped cheering me up with strawberry milk like he usually did."

As dense as my neighbor Jang Wooyoung was, even that got through to him.

The blatant yet soft rejection he gave me was to be expected. But no matter what, it drove pain into my chest that rivaled what I felt when he told me that he had officially begun dating someone who did not live next door to him. I should have known better than to straight-out confess to someone who already had another girl occupying his thoughts.

From then on, we never talked. It must have seemed like a taboo thing to do through Wooyoung's eyes - and he would be right. If he came into any voluntary contact with me, it would make me think that he was giving me a chance.

Days, weeks, and then months passed. By the end of the school year, us two neighbors who had once been best friends were now reduced to mere strangers.

All the time, I wished things were different.

When he rejected me, he should have done it rudely. Meanly. Arrogantly. He shouldn't have been so nice to me in the first place; he shouldn't ever have visited my house to hand me some milk cartons; at least that way, I could pass him off as a jerk and then move on.

Why did he have to make that so impossible?

On the afternoon of the last day of school, I took the usual route back home. The happiness of finally encountering summer was short-lived as I was given the space and silence to think. The dread of what would happen if I met Wooyoung on the way back home invaded my thoughts as I stepped my way through the neighborhood.

Turned out that out of all days, today was that day.

There he was. Just sitting on the sidewalk with his feet on the asphalt of the road.

For some reason, he looked sad. It was the way he sat slouched over, as if all the energy had been drained from his veins, that I knew there was something wrong. His face also seemed distorted in some kind of pain.

The internal conflict began immediately. Should I leave him alone and just pass him to go home? Should I go the way I came to avoid him entirely?

Or...should I talk to him?

"Jieun..." he said as I took a hesitant step forward. His voice sounded tired and shaky.

I didn't say anything. What was I supposed to say in this situation?

He sighed, clamping his hands together at his forehead as if praying for something. He didn't say anything for a while. I stood there silently, aching to ask him what had happened when he said it:

"She broke up with me."

The overflow of emotions was overwhelming. I was sad. I was happy. I was angry. There were definitely reasons, but they contradicted each other: I was sad, happy, and angry all because that they had broken up. It all made it hard to breathe.

As much as I felt hope now that the two of them split up, he was definitely down in the...well, down in the dumps. Who wouldn't? It was so obvious that he really had liked her a lot...maybe even loved her, as much as it broke me to say it. I couldn't just let him mope over it without trying to do something. Even though it was in the past, he had always done something for me every single time I wasn't happy.

It wouldn't be fair if I didn't repay the favor.

Before I knew it, I ran away.

When I returned, Wooyoung was still in the same spot. I was breathing heavily from sprinting all the way to the convenience store and then back. Never in my life had I exerted myself that much.

Tiredly, I shoved my arm out at him. He took a while to lift his head in order to look at the light-pink carton that sat in my hand. I watched as a small smile flitted across his lips.

"What's this?" he said, a small bit of amusement returning to his tone. "Are you still a child?"

I swallowed and then nodded once.

He looked at me in the eyes with warm nostalgia across his irises before reaching up to me, placing his hand on top of the drink and closing his fingers over it.

The only thing separating our hands being a carton of strawberry milk.

Okay, yeah, that ending is very corny and whatnot and open.

But it works, doesn't it! ^^

And that concludes the story. Hope you enjoyed it!