On the first night I had spent a day out in town with Kai I'd just stared at my dream catcher like it was the most captivating thing in the world. He'd been friendlier than I expected. Usually, the boys were downright douches always telling me things I could change or should wear in order for them to enjoy the next date. Kai just said he liked my shirt and wished he had enough money to buy some new clothes himself. It didn't seem to bother him either that people were staring at us like the misfit acquaintances we were. He just kept on talking about how much he hated how girls and boys were always all over him and how he really appreciated my distance and what he likes most about me so far is my name. Apparently, it means bright and flowering, which is the complete opposite to me. Why the hell, would my mum name me that?

“You look like you're going to be sick,” Kai pointed out. He had stopped eating his burger and had this worried look on his face. “Am I really that annoying?”

And that smile again.

“No. Not really. Compared to a lot of people you’re actually quite bearable. It's just that-does my name really mean something so stupid?” I asked, looking up from my coke. We had ordered lunch at a café and the waitress had shown us to a table by facing the sun. It was beginning to burn my skin.

Kai laughed. “It's not stupid. Now what's stupid is the fact that this burger is five thousand won. It's terrible.”

I felt the corners of my mouth tugging up and immediately went back to sipping away at my drink. I shouldn't have let me guard down.

I always used to do that.

So when I'd returned home that night, mum had asked me how it went and all that crap before letting me go to bed. My most common reply was 'fine' because it actually was. It was fine. I was fine.

It took me a while to go to sleep since my thoughts were just going around and around in circles.

I shifted under my covers, just making out the shape of the dream catcher by the dull moonlight. That was the day I truly believed that it worked. It had done something special and now I had Kai. Kai was so perfect. I knew that he was proving my theory wrong but it just felt so right. There was nothing fake about him. Maybe...just maybe he was that one good dream that he was talking about. That one that slips through the middle.

 

§§§

 

By the third outing I had started growing sick of Kai's constant cheerful mood. I wished that he would get angry just once and yell at me. Tell me that I was stupid or something, like all the rest. I already knew it, I just needed to hear this one person to tell me. I needed to know that Kai wasn't what he was all cracked up to be. So I didn't turn up.

We had planned to hang out at the cinema but I stayed at home and finished my homework. Mum came into my room a few times to tell me it was lunch time or that someone had called. Most of the time it was the latter.

“Kyungsoo?” she'd asked cautiously, peering around the door.

Looking up from my desk for the umpteenth time I didn't even bother saying come in. “What it is?” I'd replied, forcing myself to sound cheerful.

“Miss Keun has called again. She says your next appointment has been changed to this Monday and she just wanted to apologise for her secretary getting the dates wrong.”

“So, no one else has happened to call in between the mix-up?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Oh. Right.”

We'd left it at that. Kai probably didn't go either. He was probably sick of me as well. I mean, everyone else was. What made him any different?

 

The next day presented itself with a knock at the door. Mum was at work to fill in for a sick colleague and so I had the house to myself. Being the lazy procrastinator I am, I hadn't bothered to change out of my pyjama pants and old, baggy T-shirt. Neither had I brushed my hair. Yet there was Kai in a nicely ironed button-down and holding a flower in his hand. I raised an eyebrow.

“What?” I asked abruptly.

“It's Valentines Day!” Kai yelled.

I caught a faint scent of mint. “You can't be serious...” I scowled.

“Very.” Kai the flower into my chest. “As a sort of commemoration of our friendship.”

I stared at it. “Can you get even cheesier?”

“Oh you haven't seen anything yet! Now just take the damn flower and get dressed and we'll head out. You owe me after you skipping out last time.”

“No,” I said bluntly. “No way am I accepting such a stupid thing!”

A hurt look flickered over Kai's face as he backed up slightly. “But it's Valentine ’s Day!” he protested. “Friends are supposed to go out on 'dates' to make fun of those people who are seriously going out.”

“Well, I frankly don't care. Now good bye.” I shut the door and stormed back to my bedroom where I promptly fell back asleep.

What I didn't find out till later when I went for a short walk was that Kai had left that freaking flower on our doorstep. There was something so aggravating about having it there. It was so bright and yellow and so I stood on it. The leaves made a satisfying crunch underneath my Converse as I made my way down the path. It made me smile for the first time in ages. Looking back I saw a splatter of a squashed stem and canary coloured petals were left on the step. The walk was made all that much better to know that the flower was now dead and most definitely ruined. Part me wanted to feel guilty about doing this to Kai. I ignored it.

Deep down, I wanted Kai to go away, to stop trying to be so nice to me. I didn't deserve it which was my motive I guess. I didn't deserve it. He may have this wacked up, crazy dream about me that says he could make me a better person but I learnt that hope and love are just false things that people think up so that they don't have to face reality.

By the time I reached home I felt like I should've grown a six pack out of that amount of exercise. But I also felt much better. When I plodded into the kitchen mum frowned from where she was at the stove. She knows I prefer to cook the dinners. I always hated it when she made them. She already did so much for me.

“Mum?” I asked. “What's wrong? Why are you cooking tonight?”

Mum laughed and looked down. “Really? Haha. I didn't actually notice that I was doing this! We've just been very busy at work this week and I guess my brain needed a distraction.”

“Then you need rest,” I replied forcefully. By the smell of meat cooking, dinner was already half done.

“Honey, just go relax. I can do this,” mum said calmly, returning to stirring the saucepan.

“No,” I said. “I can finish dinner for you.”

“Just let me do this,” mum insisted.

“But-”

“Kyungsoo, just go to your room.”

So I left.

 

§§§

 

It had become a strange habit for me to lie so that half of my body was dangling out of the window and the other half was resting safely on the sill beneath. Every time I did it, my skin would be brushed with the rushing breeze of cars racing past our two-storey house below. It made me feel an immense calm like I could determine whether I jumped the rest of the way out or not. A few times, people had spotted me and thought I was committing suicide. At times I wish I could, but I don’t want to leave mum. And I don’t think she wants me to leave either. Besides, suicide is quite a selfish way to die. You leave everyone else to pick up the pieces you left behind.

On that particular night I positioned myself so I was further out than usual but my hands had a firm grip on the ledge. Besides, I had health cover if anything happened to me. Above me the dream catcher was moving around in the wind like a feather would, just whipping this way and that. I reached up and grabbed a hold of it to steady it. The string was fraying slightly right at the very ends so it was hardly noticeable and the beads at the end were faded in colour. They were now milky browns and dull, pastel reds. Sort of like me. I was worn out now too.

All my colours had been torn away and now all that was left was black. I twisted around and dangled my head out the window instead. My red hair whipped into my face and my jumper was getting cold from the night temperature but all of this felt so serene to me.

My feet began swaying back and forth like I used to as a child. Each time they hit the wall inside I could hear a thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

“Hey!”

“OH SH*T-” I almost fell forward as an all too familiar voice broke the silence.

Kai had somehow managed to climb up the house and was sitting next to me. He had a huge wind-breaker on so his form was this series of lumps in the dark. His breaths were coming out in short, sharp puffs of smoke. A torch was tucked under one arm and a water bottle under the other like he'd recently been jogging.

“I could have freakin’ died!” I yelled.

Kai shrugged. “If you had then I’d be sure to tell your mum with my sincerest apologies.”

“You son of a bi-”

“Language dearest Kyungsoo,” Kai scolded innocently. He propped the bottle on his lap and the torch so it was shining a small ray of light over the street beneath us.

“I swear you are such an idiot,” I scowled. “Now, could you please vacate my window-sill? This is my window-sill and- are you even listening to me?!”

Kai was too busy studying the stupid dream-catcher. He had the torch pointing at it and that smile was back. “I didn’t know you had one!” he said excitedly. “I love these. I wanted to buy one but they’re apparently a waste of space. They just seem so cool to me.”

“Yeah, yeah, now please move or-”

“You owe me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For stepping on my flower.”

“How the hell did you see that?!”

“I was watching you.”

“Creepy much.”

“Says the guy who dresses like a Goth.”

“Wearing black does not categories me as being a Goth.”

“Sure it does.”

“Who says?”

“I do.”

“Well, I say you’re gay.”

“What made you come to that conclusion?”

“You flirt with me.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m gay.”

“Sure it does.”

“This is a bit de ja vu isn’t it?”

“Exactly.”

It wasn’t until we fell silent that I noticed we were both laughing. Not just Kai this time. Me as well.

“What’s the torch for anyway?” I managed, taking a deep breath.

“So, I can see your wonderful face,” Kai replied automatically.

“Getting creepier.”

“Also, I want to see your reaction.”

“To what?”

I backed up a bit, which was near impossible, considering the space of one window.

Kai lent forward and kissed my cheek, my forehead and then- so I slapped him, jumped back and slammed the window shut, almost crushing Kai’s hands as he tried to escape. He winked at me from the glass and then looked up. I followed his gaze. The dream catcher.

“So?” I mouthed.

“Love you,” Kai mouthed back from the other side of the glass with a cocky grin.

I was too shocked and angry to even come up with a snarky comeback so I stuck my finger up at him and pulled the blinds down.