Chapter I: Magic

He opens the door, expecting a Mi Ja blankly staring at the lawn of grass in front of his house. Then there comes this thought that basing on Mi Ja's persona, staring is a bit of a understatement, so practically, she's actually charging herself to rush towards the grass and frantically pull them out — yes, she won't just pick up the weeds but the grass itself. There's that possibility, but she could also be just standing there while planning a protest in front of Taehyung's house. As to why she would even do that, Taehyung doesn't really know.

He's wrong, though. His mistake's is too much to be overlooked. The moment Taehyung sees a familiar figure sitting lousily on the porch of the house, he asks himself, how could this fragile-looking girl, who's almost as tall as Taehyung if not taller, do something as scandalous as that? Easy. Because they were friends, not to mention, best of friends. And Taehyung knows the only person who's qualified for that title is somebody who's as insane as he is.

He quickly pulls the edge of her ponytailed hair as a greeting. He places his hand inside his pocket and feigns innocence before Mi Ja hastily turns around wearing a scowl. She screams at him, seeming like a wild boar infuriated because it didn't get the her catch today. What she seems like isn't actually so different from from what she's really feeling; she is aggravated about two things that happened against her luck today.

One, he went to a date.

And two, it was his first.

And somewhere in the middle of one and two, there's a miniatured Mi Ja yelling desperately, "That should have been me!" Should have been, life emphasized for her especially. Should have been.

"What are you doing, Dumbhyung?” she slams her balled fist on to the surface of his chest, and to her surprise, the one who’s hurt was her. The bang sound of the meeting of her sharp-boned fists and his averagely broad chest was loud. He chuckles at her and smiles gently to show that he's completely and beyond okay, mocking her. Mi Ja sends a fiery glare at him, almost as if blaming him to take responsibility for her aide-desperate fists. She continuously gawks at him and then straightens her posture. She reminds herself that she has to calm down and veil away her disappointment from him but she also has to act normal, and pretend that him pulling her hair is the actual reason why she’s annoyed. Though everyone should know that it's actually in Mi Ja's nature to get pissed off about all sorts of matter, shallow or otherwise.

“The usual,” Taehyung sticks his tongue out, “Serving you with your favorite, annoying Taehyung sprinkled with extra cuteness.”

“I think I need to puke,” Mi Ja groans until she gets choked by Taehyung’s arm that locked her closer to his chest. She could smell the scent of coffee coinciding with the faint fragrance of sweetness. Sweetness not of desserts that should usually go along with coffees and anything else, but she sniffed in the sweetness of a young woman. She pulls away from his embrace and the question erupts from , "How was it?”

“What? How was what?” Everything hasn’t sunken into his mind yet. Today is certainly one of those days he will always reread in his diary of milestones. The moment he walked into the café, he knew that the girl smiling at him from afar will apparently swerve his rollercoaster of feelings into a whole new climactic level. Seeing the look of disbelief on Mi Ja's face, like it was a diary he had just reread, he suddenly recalls everything. He laughs it off as a joke and says, “I say, it was the best of all the dates I've had."

She frowns, "It's your first date, what's your basis?"

"Then, it's too perfect for a first date!" Taehyung claps his hand, as if enjoying a performance. But in all honesty, watching him in this state is more enjoyable to Mi Ja. Well, somehow.

“How so?” She grins, challenging him as she raises an eyebrow menacingly. She walks towards the two-step staircase and sits down. She flexes her legs and shivers as she feels the wintry breeze tickle her skin. At that moment, she wishes Taehyung would take off his jacket, because luckily he really is wearing one, and then wrap it around her. Knowing him, he wouldn’t hesitate and do so.

So, he does.

He quickly takes it off of him and hands it towards her. He smiles at himself, feeling superior because of his being a gentleman. Taehyung scratches the back of his neck, praising himself restlessly, 'Taehyung, you have such a clean heart'. As she receives the jacket, she flashes a quick smile she never intended to show. He purses his lips forward and giggles to himself.

Taehyung then realizes how lucky he really is. Aside from taking a step nearer to attaining his romance by attending to a tryst, he had just been retold about his fortune. A ceaseless friendship; always there to support him. He stares at Mi Ja, and then rests his head on her shoulder, “It’s the best. You’re the best, too, Mi Ja.”

“I know, right?" She says flagrantly, even matching with her chin held high and boastful smirk.

“You know, sometimes, there’s suddenly this flash of memories around me. Our years and years and years of friendship, I think it's really cool. I mean, we've been together since then,” For years, and years, and years, of pretending to hold no special feelings towards him, she had always been barricaded by this big towering wall called friendship. And in all those years, she’s been imprisoned inside this jail called friendzone, and what's worse? The other party doesn't even give a care, or does he even know that he's been suffocating her in this stage? Friend-ing-zone.

He beams at her. Mi Ja blushes and truth to be said, there’s no reason not to, mainly because she’s been madly in love with him ever since. Every single day, she being tortured by her indecisiveness of what she wants to feel. Is she lucky? Or is she just plain unfortunate?

Should she be happy because the person she treasures the most treasures her too? Or should she not because that’s just how it is for her to him? Friends. She didn’t know how to look at the word anymore. Friends.

While some people would wish to be friends with Taehyung, she wouldn’t. Maybe if she wasn’t born to be Ryu Mi Ja and moved to the neighborhood twelve years ago, she might have gotten a bigger chance of overcoming the Friends hurdle. Maybe. Or maybe, she was never even fated to be more than just a friend to Kim Taehyung. Judging by how everything appears to be now, she won't be surprised if the latter is completely factual.

“Are you blushing? Oh my goodness, are you possibly in love with me?” Taehyung fakes a gasp.

Madly. Yes.

Instead of acquiescing like how she usually does inside her mind whenever Taehyung asks such an idiotic yet wise question, she warped her expression comically and asked, “You didn’t eat any peanuts, did you? Or did you use your sister’s perfume again?”

“Agh, don’t remind me of her reeking perfume.” Taehyung covers his face in disgust as he leans his body on the thick white-coated column. Mi Ja guffaws loudly, and professionally covering up the honesty trying to break out of her.

Taehyung then remembers something.

He snaps and says, “Ah! I forgot something!”

“Huh?” Mi Ja furrows her eyebrows and the reply she receives is the sight of Taehyung running inside the house and the sound of loud steps going up the flight of stairs and creaking of the floorings. She pouts in irritation and leans his head on the column to her right. As she can feel her eyelids getting heavier by time, she knows she's already close to dozing off to slumber yet she doesn’t exert effort to keep herself awake. Because she was certain that if ever Taehyung comes back later, he would wake her up. Or if not, he would carry her, either in his back or bridal style, take your pick, towards her house which was and always has been surfaced across theirs.

And as she had expected, as Taehyung arrives at the scene, she was already asleep. He sighs and places his hands on either of his hips. He kneels beside him and watches her snore for a short while. And he kind of enjoys it. Feeling a bit satisfied just by ridiculing her carefree sleeping face inside his conscience, he ruffles her hair and then walks in front of her. Taehyung pulls her legs and wrapped them around his waist, then he presses her stomach against his back. He carries her on his back, even if she’s heavy, and slowly marches to the other