“While I relish our warm months, winter forms our character and brings out our best.”

Luhan

I look up at the skies as the snow begins to gently fall on the streets of Seoul. The icy breeze whips past me, making me exhale puffs of cold air.

I personally prefer warmer days, but if it’s a choice between the warmth of the summer season and a cold winter day spent with her, I’d gladly take the latter. Cheesy, right? Especially if you think about who it is I’m referring to. If she’d heard me say that, I’m sure I’d just end up getting laughed at, with a matching snide comment about how much of a ‘moron’ I am. But then again, that’s just how my relationship with her works.

 I tell her she’s pretty, she laughs it off and tells me I’m an idiot. She never takes me seriously and I guess, I’ve grown accustomed to how she brushes off all the sweet nothings I tell her. I am, after all, her bestfriend… and nothing more.

I know what you’re going to say. Been there, done that, right? A guy being in love with his bestfriend is so painstakingly cliché, I want to stab myself for being in the same position. I tell myself every single day, “Of all the girls that have thrown themselves at you, why’d you have to go and fall for that one girl that never will?”

And you know, what I actually don’t get is how and when I started falling.

Maybe it was when I first started to notice how she dazes off into her own world, then will immediately chuckle by herself, without even telling me the reason…

Maybe it was when I first realized how cute she looks when she’s trying so hard to stay awake on the nights she needs to cram for schoolwork…

Maybe it was when I first started to find her constant requests for extra rice charming…

Maybe it was when I’ve grown comfortable with the way she----

“Luhan! Why didn’t you tell me you were here already? Have you been here long?” ----pretty much interrupts my every thought, may it be spoken or not.

I smile as I looked at my bestfriend. “Ani. I just got here.”

She stared at me for a couple of seconds. Then, she frowned and pinched my nose. “Liar. Look at how red your nose is. You look like Rudolph.”

Maybe it’s the way she can always tell what’s wrong without the need to ask…

She then heaved a sigh and pulled me in. “Come on in, I’ll make you some hot chocolate.” Or how she can always find a way to somehow fix it.

Maybe it’s the way she’d eat off the last pieces of French fries just to see me annoyed…

Maybe it’s the way she’d pretend to get mad at me, only to have the satisfaction of seeing me frustrated…

Maybe it’s the way she’d call me at the most random times, just to tell me she misses me…

Maybe it’s the way she gets upset when she sees me upset…

Maybe it's the way she masks her concern with all her angry episodes...

Maybe it’s the way she’s smile at the simplest things…

Maybe it’s all of those things. I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what had made me change from just a “bestfriend” to a “bestfriend-who-is-secretly-in-love-with-her”.

When I first met Chanmi, I was completely sure that if we were going to be something, I knew it was going to be just friends because honestly speaking, she was far from my ideal girl. She was far from the girls I usually dated. She wasn’t thin. She wasn’t stunning. She wasn’t poised. Heck, she wasn’t even that nice when I met her, so I thought that whatever we were going to develop in the future, it was surely going to remain platonic. But I was wrong. The more I spent my days in the sun with her, the more I started to realize I no longer wanted her friendship. I want so much more, but I’m scared. I scared of risking a beautiful bond over my want to be someone who is more than just a friend to her. So for now, I guess being her bestfriend will have to suffice.

Funny, isn’t it? I was the one who had ‘friendzoned’ her in the beginning without her even knowing, but in the end, I’m the one who’s surely going to get ‘friendzoned’ once she finds out about my feelings.

“Why do you keep sighing? Are you high or something?” Chanmi asked teasingly as she sat next to me on her couch.

I stuck my tongue out at her. “Aish. Mind your own business, Kwon Chanmi. It’s not like I tell you off when you go about laughing by yourself at the most random times.”

“Fine! No hot chocolate for you, then.” She crossed her arms and turned away from me. Aigoo. Sometimes this girl is just too cute.

“Yiiieeeee. Don’t be mad, Chanmi-ah. I really want to drink your hot chocolate.” I cooed as I rested my chin on the crook of her neck.

She gave out an exaggerated huff, signaling that she was still/ pretending to be mad.

I chuckled as I nestled my chin on the same spot. After a few seconds, she started throwing in fits of giggles.

In between her giggles, she was able shriek out, “Yah! Luhan stop it, it tickles!”

I stopped for a moment to pinch her cheek. “Will you give me my hot chocolate now, then?”

Chanmi turned to me with a cheeky grin. “I ran out of hot chocolate, actually. Hehe.”

“Aigoo. How cruel. You were actually bribing me with hot chocolate, but it turns out, you don’t have any.” I told her as I hugged her from behind.

It was rare moments like this that I got to express my true feelings for my bestfriend. At moments like this, I could hug her affectionately for a while, before she’d break it off and act like it was all just a friendly act. 

As expected, barely a minute into the hug, she broke it off and stood up. I watched her walk away from the couch and towards the coat rack.

She turned to look back at me with that same, calculated smile she’d use on the rare times she was actually upset.

“Don’t worry, Lulu. I’ll just run over to the store real quickly to buy your hot chocolate. No biggie.” She smiled again as she prepared to go outside. “Make yourself warm, okay?”

Before I could protest, she was already out the door.

That was another maybe.

Maybe it was the way she’d go out of her way to make me feel comfortable…

As I thought about this, I realized that none of these maybes mattered. I was in love with her, period. I don’t need to know how or why or when I started loving her. I need to know what will happen if I act on this love I’ve had for years. I need to take the risk of actually telling her I love her, before I am unable, even if it puts what I have been protecting for so long on the line.

I ran outside Chanmi’s house to chase after her. I no longer wanted to be the bestfriend who is secretly in love with her. I wanted to be the guy who is openly in love with her.

“Chanmi-ah!” I called out to the brown-haired girl in the pink sweater.

She spun around to look at who called her. She was surprised when she saw it was me. “Luhan?! What are you doing outside?”

I didn’t respond. Instead, I walked towards her and kissed her before I could talk myself into backing out.

Once she realized what had happened, she immediately pushed me away, disdain, written all over her features.

“Luhan, this isn’t funny! You know full well that that was my first kiss. I was supposed to give it to someone special… someone who actually loved me.”

“Am I not good enough then?” I asked her.

She didn’t respond, instead, she looked at the snow-covered pavement.

“I’m sorry, Chanmi, but I just don’t want to be your bestfriend anymore…” I  told her as I pulled her into a tight hug.

“That’s not the point, Luhan! I don’t want to be just another girl you’d date then leave. I’d rather be the bestfriend that’ll get to stay by your side forever.”’

I looked at her in confusion. She knew all this time?

“You think I didn’t get all your subtle hints at skinship? All those sudden remarks about how ‘pretty’ I looked? I’m not as dumb as you think I am, Luhan. I don’t want to be just a girl you flirt with.”

I was shocked at this. I didn’t think she’d actually consider me flirting with her just for fun. I squeezed her tighter as I breathed her in.  “I honestly thought you knew, but I guess you’re just as scared and confused as I am."

I pulled back a bit from the hug, so that I could look her straight in the eyes. "Chanmi, you’re not a girl I’d be attracted to at first sight. But gradually, as time passed by, I started falling for all the little things you did. I started falling for you. I’d asked myself countless times why it had to be you, but it wasn’t until now that I’d realized why. You are the only person whom I know completely, and I have learned to accept all of you, warts and all. The way you eat like a construction worker when you’re upset, the way you drool when you sleep, the way you cuss at me whenever you feel like doing so. I have learned to accept all of it.” I kissed the top of her head and continued, “Somewhere along this beautiful friendship, I’ve fallen in love with you. All parts of you. And I’m willing to give up all the warm months we spent and will be spending as friends, if it means that this winter, I’ll get to spend it as your boyfriend.”

For a couple of minutes, none of us spoke.

Chanmi then released herself from my embrace and looked at me with solemn eyes.

“You’re serious, lulu? You’re really in love with me?” Realization seemed to be dawning in on her as she looked at me with thoughtful eyes.

I chuckled at this before heaving a sigh. “Geez, what part of that speech didn’t you get, Chanmi? I am, okay? So if you’re going to break my heart, you have to do it now.”

 A smile slowly crept up on her face, “I’m in love with you, too.... So what does this make us now?”

 For few seconds, I could only blink at her, dumbfounded at what she had just said. “Chanmi… you don’t have to say ‘yes’ because you’re feeling guilty. You know that, right?”

This time, it was her time to give out a chortle. “I know, Lulu.”

“So you’re my girlfriend now?”

“Yah! You haven’t even asked me out on a date yet.”

“Well, how about we go head on to the café and go on our first one now?”

Chanmi smiled and gave me a nod. “Sounds good.”

I held her hand as we walked towards the café which would soon foster the first of our many dates to come.

Thus ended my days as the “bestfriend-who-is-secretly-in-love-with-her”. I was now the boyfriend who got to keep her as my bestfriend. This winter day brought out the best in both of us, making us step out of our comfort zones, and say all the things that would have been left unsaid, if it had not been winter.

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THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO: vanadium_elmm! Yaay! :)

Friend, sorry kung nakakadisappoint ha? Pero sana magustuhan mo pa din.

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