Two days later, in a park, on a bench near a small pond, with a bowl a strawberries

“Hey, Kyuhyun.”

“Ne?”

“Are we a… a… couple?”

“Copeul?”

“I mean… um… more than… chingu… I don’t even know if there’s a plural for that…”

He probably only understood the last word. Because it was in Korean. And it meant “friend”. I took a strawberry, ate it, and growled when I tasted how sour it was. Kyuhyun laughed a little and touched my cheek with the tip of his fingers. I shivered at the tenderness of his caress and half-closed my eyes.

“Henry-ah,” he said in a soft voice before he started speaking really fast in Korean, blushing a little.

“Eeeeeh?” I let out, lost, when he was done. All that I had understood was “saranghae” somewhere in the sentence but then that was about it.

“Copeul… loveu? Two saram loveu?”

Saram. Another word I wasn’t sure of. But if I remembered correctly, it meant “person”, or “human”, things like that. For example, “Canada saram” meant “Canadian”, in Korean…

“Yeah… that’s what a couple is,” I said softly. “Two people who love each other.”

“Ah, ne! So you me copeul!”

I blushed. “Is that right…”

“Ne, ne! Henry-ah, jeonhwabeonho mueoyeyo?”

“Eeeeh?”

“Jeonhwab-”

“I won’t understand more even if you repeat it in Korean…”

“… jeonhwabeonho… hmm… phone? Phone numbeo? Numbeo… numburr? What… phone numburr? You?”

I almost wanted to laugh at his English grammar and pronunciation, but I probably wasn’t any better than him when I had to speak in Korean. I smiled.

“Oh, yeah, phone number! You want to know my phone number?”

“Ne!”

“Here…”

I entered it in his cellphone and gave it back to him, making him smile like a kid while he was memorizing the number. He didn’t need to, but Kyuhyun being Kyuhyun… he just had to, didn’t he? It made me smile. That guy was adorable. Adorkable.

“Here, want me to try texting you if you give me your number?” I asked him softly.

“But… moni?”

“Money? Don’t worry about it. Just one text. Okay?”

“Ne.”

He gave me his number, and I texted him quickly. His cellphone vibrated and he took it, unlocked it, and tilted his head to the side when he saw what I had sent him, while I was blushing like crazy.

“Henry-ah. Hana… net… set? Mueo?”

Of course he wouldn’t know. Not more than I did about the 4-8-6 when he had written it to me for the first time, two years ago. I blushed some more.

“1-4-3, Kyu… repeat after me… one… four… three.”

“Won, feo, srii…?”

“… let’s just say you got it right. 1-4-3.”

“No… understand.”

“I suppose it’s pretty normal… here, give me your hand.”

In his hand, with a pen, I wrote the words I wasn’t able to say out loud, blushing. I then wrote the numbers “1-4-3” under them, and made him count the letters. He let out a loud “aaaaaah! Ne!” when he understood, and I blushed some more because I knew that, if I didn’t understand “saranghae” before, he perfectly knew what was “I love you”.

I mentally prepared myself to whatever he could say about me not being able to say it when I was perfectly able to write it. But he didn’t say anything. He stayed silent, perfectly silent, but his lips touched mine in a deep, long kiss, and I closed my eyes, simply enjoying it. Because his lips were so soft. Because his love was so strong. Because his soul was so beautiful.

Because I loved him so much.

I moved back for a split second. Just long enough to whisper something, my lips still touching his a bit.

“I love you, Kyu.”