“Sorry, I’m busy after school,”

Rejected by another one—another one of my so-called male friend. I nodded, “Okay, I understand.” I turned around and immediately caught sight of Kyung standing just a few feet away from me with a smirk on his face, as if he knew that this would happen. I frowned and told myself that I wasn’t going to give into his deal. There was no way I was going to give him my number and have him bug me 24/7. I was already bothered by him at school and after so why would I want hear his annoying voice every single minute of the day. Lifting my chin up, I walked forward and ignored his presence.
As I walked by, he cleared his throat, “No luck, I see,”
I stopped walking and exhaled, “I still have more,”
“Didn’t you say that your brother needed it fixed by the end of today?”
“I still have time,”
“Why don’t you just stop this nonsense and tell me that you want me to help you?” He asked, “I mean all you have to do is give me your number so I can fix the bike,”
“I’m not going to give you my number even if it was a last resort for me,”
He chuckled, “We’ll see; I’ll see you afterschool and see how you’re doing. If you still haven’t found anyone, you know what you need to do.” He whispered the last couple of words before walking away from me.
I scoffed, feeling more offended than ever! He just makes me so mad!

By the end of the day, I had gotten rejected by every male friend of mine. Was I that appalling to them that they didn’t want to agree? I sighed and slung my bag over my shoulder. Seohyun had a club activity going on so she had left earlier than usual. Walking out of the classroom, I found Kyung standing beside the door, probably having waited for me. I ignored him and kept walking. No matter what he says to me, I’m just going to ignore him because I don’t want to give in to him. Kyung’s footsteps echoed from behind me, indicating that he was following me and probably waiting for me to say something to him. I clenched my fist and held in my inner thoughts of actually giving up to him because I really had no other choice. Either I was going to fix it myself or have Kyung do it for me.

Just as I took a step outside, my hand was caught, stopping me from taking another step forward. It was obvious whose hand it was, so I tried to jerk it away, but his hand didn’t budge. Sighing, I turned around to tell him off, but instead I was surprised to see someone else—Ahn Jaehyo. My heart thudded as I tried to sound out words, “W-What are you doing?”
He smiled at me, “I heard from others that you needed someone to fix your bike,”
“Oh,” I swallowed back a ball of spit, “you did?”
He nodded, “I’m actually free this afternoon if you still need someone,”
I clenched my other fist and tried to loosen my hand from his but he doesn’t let go, which was strange. I looked into his eyes and noticed a strange glint that shined, warning me of something bad. Clearing my throat, I shook my head, “No, I actually found someone,”
“Really,” he answered and took a step towards me, “who?”
“S-Someone,” I said and tried to shake my hand off, but he only tightens his hold. “Grasping onto my hand like that—I could report you, you know,” I threatened, “especially since you’re hurting me.”
“Hey, do you want to date me?”
I furrowed my brows in confusion, “What?”
“You used to like me, don’t you?” He asked, “I remember hearing the other girls talk about it,”
“Yeah like two years ago,” I answered, “you told me to stop having those kinds of feelings towards you though.”
He nodded, “I did, but now that I think about it, I think we could work out,”
“Jaehyo, let go,”
“Nope,”
Immediately, I kicked his shin, forcing him to loosen his grasp of me. As I took a step back, I had walked into someone—Kyung! He grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes as if telling me that he would help out of the situation I was in. I shook my head, but he ignored it.

“Hard kick I must say,” Jaehyo touched his knee before lifting his head up to look at me. His eyes shifted from me to Kyung, “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to fix her bike,” he answered, “what are you doing?”
“Funny, I was actually going to do that,” he walked towards us. I immediately stiffened, worried that he was going to grab me again, but Kyung squeezed my hand. “Come here,” Jaehyo extended his hand, “let’s go,”
I shook my head, “I told you that I’ve already found someone to help me,”
“Really?”
I nodded, “P-Park Kyung is going to help me,”
Jaehyo rolled his eyes and sighed, “Don’t kid around with me; you don’t even know the kid,” he took another step towards us, which I gasped internally.
Kyung seemed to have noticed this; he released my hand and placed his hand around my waist, securing his protection and right to me. “We know each other quite well actually,” he commented and placed his other hand on my left cheek, turning my face towards him. I furrowed my brows at him, confused as to what he was doing, but before I could come to a conclusion, he had placed his lips on mine. His lips softly moved against mine as he whispered, “Just go along with me,” his eyes assured me that this would help the situation.
I closed my eyes and leaned inward to deepen our kiss.

Jaehyo clucked his tongue, cursing a word or two before leaving us.

Kyung slowly pulled away from me and smiled, “It worked,”
I was too dumbfounded to speak a word, seeing that this was initially my first kiss with Kyung.
He chuckled, “Well, looks like you owe me your phone number,”
“T-That,” I pulled away from Kyung and turned the other way, feeling my cheeks grow hot.
“Was that too sudden?” He asked, “Sorry, it was the only thing I could think of to make him leave you alone.”
I bit onto my lower lip and said nothing. The feel of his lips were still warm on mine, making me hate myself for remembering how it felt. I touched the side of my face with the palm of my hand and exhaled. Without saying another word, I walked on ahead, ignoring the calls from Kyung. Right now I was in a state of thought—thinking if this was a dream or if it was real
Kyung grabbed my hand, “Hey, I was talking to you, you know.”
“J-Just follow me,” I said and began to walk with his hand still wrapped around mine.

We walked in silence to my house.

Once we reached there, I found my brother staring at his bike with his arms crossed. As soon as I opened the creaking gate, my brother turned around. At first he had this hard expression on his face, but it softened as soon as he saw Kyung.
He slightly tilted his head, “You brought your boyfriend over?”
I immediately shook away Kyung’s hand, “N-No,”
“Then…”
“He’s going to fix your bike,” I announced, “You need it for tomorrow, don't you?”
He nodded, “Are you sure you can fix it before the sun sets?”
“Of course,” Kyung answered, “it’s a simple replacement,”
“Well, better hurry up then,” my brother said and took a step to the side, “I’ll be inside.” And he left.

I cleared my throat and walked towards the bike with Kyung at my side. “So?”
“I’m going to need your number first,” Kyung reminded.
I sighed and took out my phone from my bag, unlocking the screen first before handing it to him. “Here.”
He took it and within seconds had added his number into my phone—also sending himself a text message from my phone. A smile descended onto his lips as he handed my phone back to me. “Now we call and text each other whenever we want to,”
“You mean whenever you want to,” I mumbled.
“Hey,” Kyung placed a hand on his hip, “didn’t I just get you out of a situation that you yourself couldn’t get out of?”
I rolled my eyes, “Thanks,”
“Well, let’s go buy that chain,” Kyung walked to the bike and grabbed the handlebars, “the nearest store I could think of that sells the chain is on the corner of 46th.”
I nodded, “Let’s go then,”

As we walked with the bike in between us, I couldn’t help but glance over at Kyung. My stale emotions towards Kyung was becoming flexible and wobbly. His warmth was still at bay on my lips, making it hard for me to forget our kiss, especially since I had leaned in to deepen the kiss. I shook my head at the thought and looked the other way. Idiot, you can’t possibly have fallen for him just because you shared a kiss with him, have you? I asked myself and though I tried to deny it, I knew that I had. The uneven palpitation of my heart hadn’t gone back to normal after our kiss either. I already knew for sure that he felt nothing for me because his eyes were only set on Seohyun.