Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Not a day passes that Kibum is not in that tree. He is always in that tree. Tuesday he was reading. Wednesday he was writing. Thursday he was reading and listening to music. Friday he was on his laptop. Saturday he was on his phone—texting, writing notes, I wasn’t sure. Then on Sunday he just sat here. On Sunday he was there from ten in the morning to ten at night. Like a concerned friend I monitored him throughout the day. If he went down it was only for a minute and then in a flash he was back in that tree.

On Monday morning I woke up at six forty-five and he was there in that tree. His head was against the tree trunk and his eyes were closed. That was when I realised, with the early rays of the sun shining down and illuminating his face, that Kim Kibum was beautiful.

“Hey, what do you guys know about Kim Kibum?” I casually asked the group during a busy lunch period. It was hot and everyone was perspiring bathtubs of sweat. Our small inch of shade beneath the tree was overpopulated and the body heat combined with the humidity was making me nauseous.

“Oh no,” Minho gasps.

“He’s in love,” Onew says.

“With Kim ing Kibum,” Taemin finishes.

Ostensibly, this is a big deal because oh my god Jonghyun, Kim Kibum has ing issues.

“He’s nice…aesthetically. I mean… his jawline and his eyes…” I pause to think about him. His jawline. His eyes. “He’s ing spectacular.”

“You have mental health issues,” Taemin says and that’s the last he contributes to the topic.

“Being in love is a mental health issue,” Onew says and then eliminates himself from the conversation. I turn to Minho.

“Dude…” he says. “I agree. The kid is weird. And he’s obsessed with trees. I mean, he’s got the potential to be like every hippie on the planet.” I’m about to ask Minho to reword his sentence using different, less derogative terminology but he keeps going before I can do so. “But if you love him then I’m cool with that. It’s not any of my business.” I smile at Minho. Then he says, “But I don’t know anything about him and honestly, I’d prefer it that you never talked to me about it.”

That’s the last we talk about it.

“I’m thinking about breaking up with Taec,” Songdam announces during dinner—and we are not having Chinese take-out, surprisingly. If I had to endure one more night of sweet and sour pork then my blood would probably taste like sweet and sour pork.

“Hey, Songdam?” I say.

She looks up at me.

“No one cares.”

She rolls her eyes. “That cute boy in my chemistry class asked me out on a date. I told him I had a boyfriend. He said that he didn’t mind. Then I said that I was planning on breaking up with my boyfriend—Taec—because long distance is unfulfilling. Then he said cool and that he’ll pick me up at seven on Saturday.”

“Hey Songdam,” I repeat.

She rolls her eyes and her pupils stop on me.

“No one cares.”

She tosses rice in my direction. Mum scolds us. We don’t talk to each other for the rest of the evening.

I don’t want to hang out with Onew and co. at lunch period because it had been established that Kibum has been banned from conversation and considering Kibum is all I want to talk about, I am inadvertently banned from speaking. So I thought that instead of talking about Kibum, it might be more fulfilling that I talk to Kibum.

I gathered all my knowledge about Kibum, which is not much, and I set out on an endeavour to find him. Finding him isn’t hard because there aren’t many trees within the area of the school and most of the trees I stumble across aren’t climbable except for one thick one which is in the heart of the school. It’s in the art block and it’s thick but not very high and this tree is more unique than all the other trees because this one has Kibum in it.

“Kibum!” I call out.

He looks up from his book, eyebrows raised. “Oh, hi,” he responds awkwardly when he spots me.

“Can I come up?” I ask.

He laughs. “If you can.”

It’s a struggle, getting up, and if I can’t climb a rope in gym then how can I expect myself to conquer the likes of a tree. But people surprise you sometimes, and I surprised myself when I reached Kibum on his branch.

“Is this branch sturdy enough for two people?” I ask as I tentatively, with cautious movements, slide across to get to Kibum.

He shrugs, nonplussed. “Let’s see.”

The ambiguity in regards to our safety causes panic to flood through my veins. But Kibum seems pretty optimistic—and by pretty optimistic I mean that he’s just not panicking. For once in my life and for the only time in my life I am ensuring all my trust upon a lone tree branch. I steady myself beside Kibum, our shoulders bumping against each other. The branch shakes a little and I glare it at until it stops shaking and balances our collective weight. The leaves and other branches block the sunlight from shining in our faces. I look at Kibum because, even though the view is quite breathtaking, Kibum is pretty breathtaking too.

“There’s something pretty magical about watching the sun go down,” Kibum whispers.

I hum in agreement. I bring my hand down on the coarse wood and I let my fingers glide over Kibum’s.

“It’s so great being up here.”

I hum once again. It’s not that I’m not interested in what Kibum’s saying. It’s just that his voice is a whimsical tune and I don’t want to interrupt it with the cacophonous tone of my own voice.

“This tree is my favourite of all trees. I come here sometimes—only sometimes—in the middle of the night because the view of the stars is best from here. It’s quiet here. Sometimes I walk through the hallways and the solitude is just as beautiful as the stars. If I had the choice to disappear I’d go somewhere far during the day and then I’d come back here when the sun isn’t up because no one would look here.”

I nod. I slide my hand underneath Kibum’s and I hold it. He doesn’t respond but he doesn’t slip his hand away from mine either.

For the remainder of the lunch period we watch the sun shine in the sky, my hand on his hand.

For two weeks Kibum doesn’t come to school. That isn’t worrying because whenever I come home he’s up in the tree. But then I stop seeing him in the tree and that’s alarming.

One lunch period I decide to defy the morals of conversation starting by beginning with, “So Kibum hasn’t been in his tree.”

Taemin rolls his eyes. “No one cares.”

“I hear he killed himself.”

My heart sinks to where my ball sack should be. “Who says?”

“Everyone. They say it was bound to happen,” Onew says through a mouthful of chicken salad.

I slam my fist on the table. “Dude, that’s just ed.”

“I’m not the one who’s saying it!” Onew shouts with his hands in the air as some kind of form of self-defence.

“Do his parents know?”

“Dude, no one knows and to be honest…”

I cut Minho off. “Don’t say no one cares because you should care.”

I disappear. They don’t follow me.

I take it upon myself to pay Kibum’s parents a visit. Mum commends me on using my spare time to connect with the neighbours. Dad mindlessly agrees.

When Kibum’s mum opens the door she seems perfectly fine, just tired. I don’t know where to start.

“Hello,” I say.

“What do you want?” she asks, blatantly irritated with my unprecedented visit.

“Is Kibum home?” I ask.

She rubs her forehead. “I’m not sure. A few weeks ago, I suppose, he said he was going to on a school field trip for everyone in his grade that was supposed to last for two days…” I raise an eyebrow. What school field trip?

“And he’s not back…”

She shrugs. “Well…No…I’m not sure. He just…He’s very independent, that Kibum, and his father and I are just busy people. We have no time to worry about him. But he’s mature so we trust that he doesn’t just run off and do what he pleases.”

I shake my head. “So you don’t give a about him, basically?”

She waves a hand at me dismissively. “Please get off my property, son.”

She closes the door. I go back home, defeated.

A textbook is sprawled out across my table but all my attention is on the tree. It’s empty. I miss Kibum’s presence. I’m sure the tree must miss Kibum’s presence too.

Songdam enters my room and I’m too lovesick to yell at her, make a remark about her beaten up and then convince her to leave.

“You miss your boyfriend?” she asks. I fail to detect any mockery in her tone.

I nod.

“Well, I’m worried about you.”

“Can this not happen?”

“What?” she asks.

“We’re going to have one of those rare, sentimental brother and sister moments where we don’t yell at each other and one of us is genuinely concerned for the other. Then we’re gonna hug each other, maybe a peck on the cheek here and there, and it’s going to be awkward as . Also, he is not my boyfriend.”

“You like him a lot,” she states.

“Aren’t you an observant one?”

“He really liked that tree and you really liked following him,” she says like she’s proud she knows something about me.

“Why did you say liked?” I ask. “You say that like he’s…Like he’s…Like he’s gone.”

I watch her reflection in the window sit on my bed. She flattens out the creases in my bed sheets. Her lime-green nails are currently the most vibrant, perceptible thing in my room. To fit the theme, she had printed leaves on her nails in a darker shade of green. They glitter as my bedroom light shines on them.

“It’s kind of weird, though, that’s he’s, like, so obsessed with trees,” she says. Now she just sounds like everyone else who doesn’t give a about him.

“He gets that a lot. Never in his face, though. That’s what everyone says behind his back.”

“Do his parents know where he is?” Songdam asks.

“,” I sigh. “They don’t even care. No one cares. What’s wrong with him? What stops people from caring about him. He disappears. No one knows where he is and everyone’s like we don’t care, he’s just some potential hippie .”

“I like it when you’re passionate and serious,” Songdam says quietly. “It’s awesome seeing you…care about things, you know? Because I’m so used to you making fun of me and making fun of life. Now something big happens and your walls are crumbling. It really shows you how real people are. People are these…fragile things. And sometimes it takes one thing to make a person’s wall fall down.”

I never thought about it that way. I didn’t think I had walls. I never needed them. I never needed walls to protect myself. Maybe that’s what happened to Kibum. Maybe his walls tumbled down. Maybe he can’t fix them. Maybe that’s why he hides up in the trees. Maybe that’s why he likes it when people can’t reach him because when people can’t reach him then that berefts them of opportunities to hurt him.

“I want you to find that boy,” Songdam says. “I want to see what you can do with him. I want to see what he can do with you. I want to see what you two can do together. When you’re against that fence looking up at him and interacting with him I always watch you. You two share something. Right now that something is very small but it has the potential to grow bigger.”

“Since when did you become obsessed?” I ask with a light chuckle.

She looks at my reflection in the window, making eye contact with the me in the window. “I know you think I’m a because I have five thousand boyfriends and I use jumbo tampons,” she jokes but then she frowns. “But I’m really a closet romantic. I have a lot of boyfriends because I’m trying hard to find the one, you know? Now I’m here envious of the potential relationship you can have with this tree hugger and you didn’t even have to try,” she sighs. I’m staring at the tree again but her words are the centre of my thoughts. “I want you to find him.”

“Why? So I can fulfil your closet-romantic side?” I ask, smiling.

She smiles. “And I want you to be happy.”

We stop talking for a moment. I hear someone sniffing. I think Songdam is crying but when I look back at her she’s just staring at me and she looks just as confused as I am.

I see a face in the crack in my door.

“Mum, have you been eavesdropping on our conversation?”

“Sorry,” she says through sobs. “It’s just so lovely to see you two interacting so…lovingly.”

“Mum, get out,” Songdam and I snap at her simultaneously.

Fast footsteps tap away and Songdam and I are finally alone.

“I’ll save you the awkwardness and I won’t hug you,” Songdam says as she proceeds to exit my room. “I know you know where that boy is. You’re just not thinking hard enough.”

Songdam exits and I’m alone. Kibum is somewhere and he is alone. The tree is empty.

I think about Kibum. Kibum was just a boy who I had the excellent fortune of moving next to. He ends up being such a peculiar, conserved person. But when he opens up to you he’s like a flower blossoming. It’s a slow process but when you see it, when he opens, he’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. He takes your breath away.

It’s almost early Summer but to me it feels like Autumn because Kibum, my flower, is dying. The thought of Kibum being alone scares me because he’s the realest person I’ve ever met. He’s not ignorant like Onew. He’s not vulgar like Taemin. He’s not uncaring like Minho. Just when I feel like I’m about to see him blossom he’s taken away from me.

I imagine him up in a tree. He’s all alone. He’s watching the stars. He’s watching the stars from the perfect place.

A perfect view of the stars.

And just like that I figure out where he is.

Trespassing into the school is one of the easiest things I’ve ever done. With one jump over a short fence I’m in. There’s probably cameras functioning around every corner in every hallway but I don’t care. If Kibum can do this sometimes—and only sometimes—then I guess I can do this.

When I see the tree and all its natural glory plus Kibum in it I smile like an idiot to myself. His chin is tilted upwards as he gazes upon the stars scattered across the sky like someone had painted a canvas black and then splattered silver paint over it.

I climb up the tree and I’m once again counting on the tree branch to withstand our collective weight. Kibum doesn’t look at me. He’s forever admiring the sky.

It’s quiet for a very long time. I’ve left a small distance between us. I don’t want to scare him. His eyes are shimmering and I can see the stars in them. If I’m the sky then Kibum is the stars.

“Kibum…” I whisper.

He hums in response.

“Can I ask you something?”

I watch him nod his head slowly.

“Why do you do this? Why do you always…climb trees? Why do you spend hours upon hours just up in that tree in your backyard? It’s like you don’t want people to find you.”

Kibum smiles but it’s the most horrible smile I’ve ever seen on someone’s face because this smile says that he’s breaking. It’s like someone had torn a whole in the sky.  

“It’s the opposite actually…” he says, sighing as he looks at his hands. “Remember when I told you I had another reason to be up in the tree?” I nod. “Well…” he continues. “My parents never really…I wouldn’t say they never cared about me. That’s just a pessimistic thing to say. They work a lot. So they don’t have time to take care of me like they should. But sometimes…Just sometimes…I feel like they really don’t care. So when I was thirteen I climbed the tree for the first time since that time I climbed it to conquer my fear of heights. I went up and stayed there until my parents would realise I was gone and they’d start looking for me because if they did start looking for me then that would mean that they cared about me…” He pauses, “They never went looking. I was up there for hours. It felt like a day I was up there. They never went looking.”

“Your walls fell…” I whisper to the night sky. Kibum hears it, though, and he says, “Yeah, they did.”

“So is that why you keep climbing the trees? To confirm that your parents care about you?”

Kibum nods.

“But…” he says, a little more optimism in his tone. “I started to love it up there. You get to see everything. You get to watch the sun go up and go down. You get to see the moon go up and go down. And it’s quiet. It’s like no one can touch you up here. You’re invincible.”

I move closer to him and hold his hand. This time he squeezes in response. I bring his hand into my lap and press my other hand over our already interlocked fingers.

“I care about you,” I say to him quietly like I could scare him with the loudness of my voice. “I care about you and when you disappear I’ll always look for you.”

Kibum smiles and he suddenly kisses me on the cheek. I smile. I kiss him on the forehead. We watch as the moon goes down. And the sun comes up. 

A/N:

It took me like seven hours to write this I am not even ting you. 

But yes, you people know the drill and it must be tiring reading it over and over again. If you see a mistake, ignore it. 

But I'd like to take the time to explain this story a little bit. This story was heavily based on Hold on Till May by a band called Pierce The Veil. They are ing amazing so if you like post-hardcore stuff then, you know, go listen to them. ANYWAYS, so this story was inspired by the meaning behind the song. The lead singer of Pierce The Veil, Vic Fuentes, wrote the song about a girl who he used to date and she used to do what Kibum did in this story. She used to hide up in a tree and see how long it took for her parents to notice she was gone.

In case this story and the meaning behind it/overall plot/storyline is breaking some kind of copyright law then I'd like to credit Pierce The Veil for inspiring me with their song and also pay respects to the girl whom this story is practically based on. 

But thank you so much for reading this giant chunk of text I had spewed here. 

I love you all!