"Did you know, you really look like my ex-boyfriend?"

That was the first thing Kai ever said to me on our first date.

---

I should have known at that time that the guy that I've fallen so deeply for would eventually break my heart one day.

Have you tried the feeling of liking someone really a lot, but you don't even know if he likes you for half as much as you do? It hurts, it really does. But when you will fallen head first into a relationship, what the entire world thinks no longer matters, whatever your brain tells you won?t even mean a single thing to you. Because, when you?re near him, your mind stops working, you get butterflies in your stomach even before he opens his mouth to speak to you. Have you ever had that feeling? I have felt it.

It was started when I've set my eyes on KIM JONG IN at the moment I stepped into school. No, don't get me wrong, he isn't one of the star players of the basketball team. He isn't one of the music students who could charm the entire school population once he starts playing the piano. He just good looking, no doubt, but not the type who would grab your attention the moment you step into a room. But every time he looks into my direction and gives me a dimpled smile, I just kind of melting down in seconds.

We started off as friends. I knew him through a friend, and soon we became acquaintances who waved hi and goodbye whenever we bump into each other in school. And then? We just happened to chance upon each other on the net and started talking about everything under the sun. Oh, who am I was kidding about? I've secretly spent every single hours spying and asking around for his email address. How I've done it isn't the main point, what more important is that, we got closer each other. Our first conversation took 8 hours, and the consecutive conversations just lil got longer. Sometimes, to thinking back, I really wondered what we talked about. We kinda clicked? the first time we talked, and I think that was what that has really drawn me to him.

He was different from the guys that I've ever known. I've been living a quiet life for 17 years, undisturbed by boyfriends and whoever be call it. Every time, when my friends consulted me for love advice, I've always thought they were quite silly. Why bother about what the guy says, I thought, since he is so insensitive there so no point crying about it. I've decided that guys were trouble and I wanted to stay out of the mess for as long as I could. It was a wise decision. But I never realized that it wouldn't work. When I fell, I fell even deeper than they ever did felt.

So, being the silly and impressionable I was, (to think I thought I was an expert at love myself) the more I talked to him, the more I was drawn to him. Every word he said seemed fascinating, and every joke he told just appeared funny. I started deciphering and dissecting every word he said to me, trying to find if he was hinting anything between the lines. That was my favorite past time for a couple months. Call me silly, but me at that point in time couldn't have bothered. Every time he mentioned a cute girl he saw in school, it would dampen my spirits a little; and when he makes a little comment about me, I actually believed that it meant he cared about me and I would get happy about that one little sentence for one entire day. I would talk about guys intentionally to test for his reaction. When he seems just that bit irritated or even jealous? It would simply make my day.

After a couple of months, I felt tired and I really wanted to end that guessing game because I realized I was getting nowhere with it.

But guess what, one afternoon, when we were talking...

"Let's go have lunch one day kay, Hun.?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I told myself I must have been dreaming, but the look on his face confirmed what I heard. I was elated, of course, but I had to act nonchalant about it. We settled the time and date just about how two friends would have. I even told him I thought it would be cool to hang out together sometime? I remember feeling like punching myself in the face after I've said that sentence out loud. Great, Sehun, now you have just emphasized on the fact that both of you are only friends. He grinned at me again, with that megawatt, dazzling smile.

---

I love the way his eye twinkles when he smiles at me, and the way his hair shines under the sun. I love the way he makes a face when he realizes that he has done something silly. I love how he would try to sweet talk me into doing something for him, the way a little boy would whine for a sweet that he wants. But what I love most, would have to be the way he said my name.

---

We went out for a couple of times, but conversations between us seemed to remain the same. Every time when things would suddenly go all quiet between us, and he looked as if he wanted to say something, I would always hope that it would be the time that I've always waited for. The time when he has finally realized that I was the only one who is the most suitable for him.

However, things went back to normal soon after. We were both caught up with exams in school and we barely had time to talk to each other anymore. I didn't want to, but both of us eventually drifted apart. I couldn't get used to it. We used to talk to each other everyday, but at that time, I was lucky if I could get to talk to him once a week.

It was then when I've finally realized how I had been changing my world so much so that it would revolve around his. And without his presence, it seemed that there was something missing from my life, and I tried my very best to fill up that hole. After all, he wasn't in my life from the start anyway. I could just try to erase his existence, and pretended everything has never happened before isn't it? We weren't really considered a couple before? It should be a lot easier to forget him. I started filling myself with these thoughts to hypnotize myself, but no one could understand it better than me that it wouldn't work.

The feeling of liking someone is really scary. Especially when you're not sure if that person likes you back or not? You spend all your time and energy try to figure out how he thinks. And in the end, if you find out that he has never cared from the start, imagine how hurtful that would be.

Actually, to be honest, I just wanted to live in denial because I didn't want to admit that he didn't like me. I could easily name a few incidents which were obvious signs that he didn't treat me anything more than a friend.

My 18th birthday. I had all my friends celebrating it with me, but I wasn't entirely happy. And I knew exactly why. I could give up celebrating it with the entire world, just so that he could stay and keep me company. I was thinking to myself, he wouldn't even have to give me anything, I would be happy enough with him by my side. But I didn't even get as much as a phone call from him. The day after, he told me he was busy and that he forgot.

One day, I asked him, "Kai, what would you do if a someone will baked cookies for you??"
He replied coldly to me, "I don't like sweet stuff."
And yet, I could still recall the story he told me by which he had spent the entire night baking cookies just for a Valentines Day gift for his ex- boyfriend on Valentime Days. He obviously cared enough for him to do that, and I obviously won't hold a candle next to him in his heart.

---

It was really ironic how my friends spent months trying to persuade me not to like him anymore; I tried to listen to them. I really tried to, but I couldn't. My mind would just wander off on its own to think about him.

And in the end, I got over him over one night. That night, I thought things out clearly, and it had never been so clear to me that that guy would never ever fall for me. It was reality that got me over him.

Two months later, I finally decided to tell him how I felt. I knew if I never told him I would never get a proper closure from it, and it would continue to haunt me forever.

"Kai......., guess what,?.... I really liked you in the past" I told him.

He just was kept quiet in minutes.

Then he looked up and gave me an awkward smile and said, "Oh... You're???? Cute....."

---

The feeling of liking someone secretly cannot be anymore aptly named.

Crush. And how it crushes people.

By being able to talk about this now, I can safely say that I've completely gotten over him and every insensitive thing he say would no longer affect me. I've grown out of that silly little crush.

Once upon a time, I've wanted desperately for him to like me. Then, I had wished to forget him quickly so that it could lessen the pain. Now, I've buried this piece of memory deeply inside one corner of my heart, where no one would be able to find and retrieve it ever again. It will always still be there, but still I will make the memory just vague. At least, vague for the pain not to be felt ever again.

During the period when I've been in the deepest, I often thought, what would happen, if we happen to walk by each other ten year later on the streets,which each other is holding on to another person hand?

Now I know my answer.