The Early Days III

Childish Confusion

            Back when I was a child, my mother used to tell me that girls hit me because they liked me.  I never believed her.  When boys hit me, it was because they were picking on me or they were mad at me.  And they hit hard, too!  Why would girls be any different?  As I got older, I started to understand that she was right.  They only did it to get my attention.  But then, when Kyuhyun started picking on me, I was really confused at first.  We were friends.  Weren’t we? 

            Kyuhyun and I were sitting in the back seat of the company van, on our way back home from a television show appearance with the other members of SJM.  I was leaning forward, listening to Henry tell me about how he’d recently recorded a rap in Zhang Liyin’s single, Moving On, when Kyuhyun suddenly smacked me in the back.

            I glanced over at him, narrowing my eyes, and swat at his hand.  “Stop that,” I whispered, trying not to interrupt Henry.

            “I mean, it didn’t take very long,” Henry continued, “but considering how short it is, I must have recorded the damn part about forty times.  , my throat was so hoarse afterwards.”

            “I bet!”

            Kyuhyun poked me in the side, making me squirm. 

            “Kyu!” I scolded him, smacking his thigh.  “Stop!”

            This time, Henry looked over at Kyuhyun, but instead of being upset at being interrupted, he just smiled over at his hyung. 

            “If they had you singing that small of a part that many times, I can’t imagine how she must have sounded after recording the rest of the song,” I said, returning my attention to the maknae.

            Henry shook his head.  “She couldn’t even speak.”

            This time, Kyuhyun reached around me so he could poke me from both sides at the same time and I nearly jumped out of my seat.  Kyuhyun began laughing so hard, he was holding his stomach with his hands and even Henry couldn’t stop himself from snickering at my reaction.  I finally turned to face Kyuhyun and smacked him hard in the chest.  “What is your problem?”

            Kyuhyun couldn’t stop laughing to answer me and just grabbed my hands so I couldn’t hit him again.  I tried to pull them away anyway and he finally released them and wrapped his arms around me, effectively keeping me from hitting him again.  Although I wanted to be angry, I had a hard time of it when he was holding me like that, hugging me close to him.  Deep down, I lived for those moments. 

            “I’m sorry,” he finally said when he was able to quit laughing.  “I was just teasing you.”

            “I was trying to talk to Henry,” I told him.  “I’m allowed to talk to other people, you know.”

            He reached down and tickled me in the side, making me squirm, but he kept ahold of me when I tried to break away from him.  “But what if I wanted to talk to you?”

            “You can talk to me later,” I said, trying to wiggle out of his hold.  I admit that I wasn’t trying as hard as I could have.  “I don’t get to spend much time with Henry.”

            “You’ve spent enough time with Henry today,” Kyuhyun softly whispered into my ear.  “It’s my turn now.”

            Again, he tickled my side and I broke out into loud laughter.  Kyuhyun began laughing as well and we both began to wrestle around in the seat.  That’s when we finally caught the attention of our leader. 

            “That’s enough, maknaes!” Hangeng hollered from the front of the van.  “I’m trying to sleep.  Save it for later!”

            I pushed my hands against Kyuhyun’s chest and he finally released me.  “It’s all your fault,” I whispered. 

            “You shouldn’t have ignored me,” he only said, sitting back in the seat and reaching down to squeeze my knee, where he knew was ticklish.  We ended up getting in trouble for that one as well.  The driver swerved a little when I suddenly shrieked. 

To Have and To Hold

            I’m not an overly physical person, but early on in our friendship, Ryeowook established his need of wanting to touch a lot.  After a while, I got used to it and came to initiate contact between us almost as much as he did.  And I was never more thankful for that than when I realized I had a huge crush on him.  I didn’t have to look for stupid excuses to touch him because it was already part of the status quo. 

            I also learned early on that Ryeowook tended to calm down more when I was around and especially if I was reassuring him by wrapping an arm around him or hugging him.  At first, it was just a subconscious thing that I did whenever he seemed upset.  I’d walk over to him, pull him into my arms, and ask him what was bothering him.  Or who.  If it was a who, there was going to be some hell to pay for it.  That’s the benefit of your best friend being termed EvilKyu, after all.  I didn’t realize what was going on until one day Heechul began giving me some about it, claiming I was Ryeowook’s knight in shining armor or something of that nature.  I forget sometimes how observant he is.  Despite possibly being right about it, I still erased all his cellphone contacts and locked him out of his laptop.  No one makes fun of me and gets by with it.

            I don’t mind being a knight in shining armor though or even just his rock to lean on when times are rough.  And this certainly isn’t a one sided dependency issue on his part.  Trust me, I’ve always needed him as much as he needs me.  I’m just saying, this was one of the things I fell back on the most in those days before we were dating. 

            One particular day, I’d walked into the dorm after a schedule to find Ryeowook obsessively baking stuff.  I love it when he bakes, but I could tell by how distracted he looked—he didn’t even notice me walk in the room—that he was upset about something.  He was mumbling to himself, looking over a recipe, when I walked up behind him.  I rested my hands on the counter on either side of him and then leaned over him, looking at the book he was reading from. 

            “You on a cooking binge?”

            “Oh, hey Kyu,” he said, jumping a little.  Then he reached over and squeezed my hand briefly before returning his attention to his recipe.  “Did you just get back?”

            “You didn’t hear the door?” I asked, resting my head on his shoulder. 

            “No.”

            “Why not?”

            “I was reading through this, trying to decide if I have the ingredients to make it.  I guess I was concentrating on it too hard.”

            Ryeowook hadn’t even bothered to look at me once yet, which bothered me.  I don’t like to be ignored…by him.  I glanced around the counters.  They were filled with warm cookies, some frosted cupcakes, and several loaves of bread.  The kitchen smelled delicious, almost as good as he did.  “It looks like you’ve been baking all night.  Are you hosting some event that I don’t know about or are you just craving sweets?”

            “I’m not having a dinner,” he simply said, running his finger down the ingredient list.

            “So you’re craving massive amounts of sugary treats?  Are you pregnant?” I teased, reaching down to pat his stomach.

            This finally warranted Ryeowook looking over at me, his face scrunched up in confusion—possibly mixed with offense—and his mouth dropped open. 

            “If you are, I should probably be worried,” I continued, “I think the only person you’ve been sleeping with lately is me.  Is there something you want to tell me?”

            This warranted him turning around and hitting me in the chest.  And rightly so, but at least he wasn’t ignoring me anymore.  “You’re erted!  Quit hanging around with Hyuk so much!”

            I began laughing and grabbed his hands before he could hit me again.  “I am just teasing you because you seem to be deep in thought about something and I want to know what it is.  Are you stressed out about something?  Is there someone I need to hurt?”

            Ryeowook shook his head and looked down at the floor.  “I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately and it’s driving me a little crazy.  Baking just allows me to sort out my thoughts better.”

            “Are you sure it does?  You don’t look okay?” I said.  “And there’s a lot of food here.”

            Ryeowook looked up and glanced