It hurt a little when I would see him in the hallway, and all he would do was to glance without a “hi.” It was a bit confusing, how he became so close, and in a matter of a few weeks it broke apart until we were just random pieced of yarn.

***

            “Go sit across from him,” my teacher instructed me to my assigned seat. My chest jumped a little then; from joy or happiness, I couldn’t tell. I tried to go to my seat, knocking a whole stack of rulers on my way. I felt my face heating up, afraid he saw my mistake. From the back of my head I felt the entire class follow my every move. I glanced up, only to meet his piercing eyes, those eyes that I’ve seen so many times before but felt nothing. This time was different, this time the eyes made me melt in my spot, they warmed me, and I felt my cheeks get even hotter than they already were. I quickly picked up the bunch of rulers lying on the floor, dropping them back into their bucket, while missing a few. I quickly slipped into my new seat, scared at how he would have thought of me now. I glanced up at him, my face turning red at just the thought of it. He gave me an understanding smile, one that made me unconsciously smile myself – as if we shared a secret that was just ours.

***

            The thing I regretted the most was not treating him like more than a friend. I kept my distance, and maybe it was too much of a distance. I don’t know if it was supposed to be “fate” or just a crazy coincidence, when we were paired together for projects. Twice. I took advantage of it, and maybe he did too. We would “get to work” right when we got home from school, and spend the rest of the night chatting away through technology about our lives. One of these projects was an extremely boring project, the kind of project that brought extreme stress to a lot of people in my grade. His group of friends and my group of friends decided to merge, after a mutual decision to not want one of the weirder ones in our class to join. Time flew by quickly, while we spent so much time dedicating our lives to this project. We stole occasional glances and smiles while working. They made me feel as if I was floating in air, making me crazed for the rest of the period.

***

I didn’t understand why I would get angry for no reason. Maybe it was because I wasn’t thinking right at the time. Maybe I didn’t have enough sleep or I was too stressed about school. It was during one of those periods after school when we were working on our project. One of my close friends, Krystal, was also part of our group. She was his best friend, his closest female friend, even closer than I was. She was one of those people that were so friendly, everyone loved her. She was sociable and got along well with everyone. She would openly hug him, openly start a conversation with him, and openly call him her best friend ever. It disturbed me that day, when they were talking and laughing with each other. I was sitting with Victoria, cutting out little crayon pictures for our presentation. It was as if my ears could only pick up the sound of them talking and joking around. It irked me and I didn’t like it. I wasn’t special anymore. I wasn’t the only one he would joke with; it was everyone. I wasn’t the only one he would tell little secrets about himself to; it was also her. But she was my friend, my extremely close friend too. She was the first friend I ever made when I transferred elementary schools and she continued to be my friend through middle school. I couldn’t get angry at her. I couldn’t just say I hated her, because I honestly didn’t. And this is when I decided that I was insane over him.

***

            “Jiyoung, I think I’m going crazy,” I confronted my best friend. She was not one I would usually get serious with. She was more of a jokester, innocent and unaware of these possible feelings. She laughed at me, with that high mocking laugh she possessed.

            “Why?” she asked, while leaning across the table. We were working on the project, and I caught a glance from him, as if on cue.

            “I think I’m crazy, because all I can think about is him. I can’t concentrate on anything when he’s around. Do you understand?” she rolled her eyes, obviously annoyed with my constant gushing about this guy. I never thought about how awkward it would be for her, considering she was friends with this guy also.

            “No. I don’t,” she replied firmly, trying to get me to snap out of it. “Get back to work.”

***

He was always very unpredictable, seemingly random and sly. I wasn’t sure if those were hints he dropped when he would add, “that was cute, what you did,” or if he was that nice to everyone. He liked to play games, he did. “Tell me your secret and I’ll tell you mine.” He would torture me by making me guess his secret, and only tell it to me after I begged him for days. That day was frightening, that day when he decided to play that game, that game that changed me. “Hey, guess who I like.” He spoke so nonchalantly, as if this topic meant absolutely nothing. I was doing my math homework, something I actually needed to concentrate on, but after I read that message, my brain became blurred. Was this a serious request? I stared at my computer screen for a good minute or so before cautiously replying, “Why?” My hands became shaky, slowly finding each letter. My palms became wet with sweat, making my keys sticky, but all I could stare at was the computer screen waiting for his response. Why?

“I don’t know. I’ll be fun.” It was just for fun. It was a game to him, I supposed. 

***

We would tell little secrets to each other, like what we thought about people in our grade, or what our dreams and aspirations would be. We sat next to each other one day after school, just the two of us. We were working on our project, revising anything that needed to be fixed. We worked in silence, not bothering to look up from our work that we were so concentrated on.

“Wouldn’t it be cool to be in love?” he asked suddenly. I felt my face start to heat up and tried to stop my clammy hands from shaking too much. I wasn’t sure. Did I want to be in love? The question was so uncalled for and sudden. Confused and flustered, I asked him.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Hmmm. How should I say it? You would always have somebody there for you. There would be somebody that you care about in the world, the anchor in your times of need.” It scared me how he could easily turn from a playful character to someone with so much meaning. “Just saying…” he added, waiting for my response.

“I guess,” all I said was that. I guess.

***

I was walking with my friends to the bus stop. We would wait for the bus together after school, eating warm pizza that we all pitched in to buy together. That particular day, I was feeling a bit jumpy. I turned around, to meet his eyes. He was talking to one of his friends. He gave me a weird look, as if he was saying “really?” I nodded while continuing to walk with and my friends, when he briskly walked up to me.

“Do you really want to know?” he spoke quietly and pressed his shoulder against mine, closing the gap between us. I jumped a little at the sudden contact and felt my gut rolling over on itself again and again. It churned because at this moment, it would be the moment of truth.

“Yes,” I replied confidently, expertly hiding my uneasiness. After useless guessing back and forth we came to an agreement about his little game. If he told me who he liked, I would have to tell him my crush.

“Are you sure?” he spoke with a little hint of nervousness.

“Yes!” I laughed and poked him, “You have to tell me, you promised.”

“Guys, come on, the bus isn’t coming. It’s so much easier if we just walked,” His friend called out to him.

“Well, got to go,” he whispered while he walked away, not forgetting to turn around and smirk at my defeat. He slipped through my fingers like the sly person he was.

***

It wasn’t until later that I found out who he liked. It wasn’t Krystal, or any other pretty girl in my school. It was none other than boring old me. I remember my entire world stopping, my heart skipped a beat (or maybe a few), and I found myself laughing at the confession. It was bliss, probably one of the best moments of my life. It’s an unexplainable feeling, a feeling you can only get from something like this. Relief. Maybe that was what it was, I’m not sure, but that was definitely one of the feelings that were mixed in. But he ran away. After those few seconds, when he spit everything out in one sentence, he ran away. The next day was extremely awkward. We would meet each other in the eye, and immediately look away again. Was it natural to avoid the other in a situation like this? I didn’t know. I was completely inexperienced with relationships and so was he. He would talk to my friends and I would talk to his friends, but we would never get the courage to talk to each other face to face. It was almost like torture when I would sit across from him in class, because I would never be able to look up. He would always talk to the person sitting next to him, ignoring me.

***

I thought maybe it was a phase in a relationship. There would be a time when things would be really awkward and quiet and it would soon get all better. It didn’t get better. We graduated from middle school, school ended, and summer came. We looked at each other from time to time, but would look away again with red faces. Others never caught on. After the summer, he got the courage to send me an email. We started to talk again, but not with the same closeness we once had. We talked about starting high school, our schedules, what new people we met. We met up one day after school.

He told me to meet him on the half floor, that area where everyone would do their homework or talk with their friends. I stood on the stairs alone and watched the mass of people talking about their lives.

“Hey,” he greeted and took the spot next to me. He stared straight ahead, and wouldn’t meet my eye.

“Hey,” I replied. I stared at the binder I was holding, unaware of what I was supposed to say. It was silence for a couple of minutes before I remembered something. I took off the book bag on my back and took out a nice sugary, unhealthy hostess cupcake. “Here,” I said, placing it on the ledge, “Happy belated birthday. I forgot to give it to you yesterday.” He smiled a little, but I wasn’t able to read if he was happy or just faking it.

“I thought you were going to make it yourself,” he joked and shoved me a little. He took the cupcake and put it into his bag. “Thanks,” he said. Just thanks.

***

Our attempts to keep in touch eventually died. We stopped talking to each other completely. Those few moments when we would catch each other in the hallway would be quiet and awkward. There would be no greeting, just a glance. I would like to say that I got over that little phase in my life, but I could never get it out of my head. He was a special person, someone that I grew fond of and would like to cherish forever. I was only twelve or thirteen. It’s hard to say that when it was last year. It felt like what those people would describe in movies or books. But what would I know? It was probably constructed of fake and mixed signals, just the new puberty hormones kicking in trying to trick all of us. 

A/N: Hi! I feel like most of it is just rambling and it doesn't seem to have a certain... topic. I guess. I feel as if it's too short though (even though it was like 7 pages on word) o.O Tell me what your guys think! I hope I can get feedback from great writers! Also, please tell me if there are non-kpop names here... I wrote this as a story with American names at first, and then changed some things, so tell me if there's something that seems out of place. Thanks for reading! It's greatly appreciated~ ^-^