the boy on the cliff ☯

rain

It's raining, a slow, heavy, ceaseless drizzle. The air smells fresh and sweet and shimmery with mist.
I huddle under my coat hood, walking quickly to keep up with Chanyeol's sloping strides.
Whenever I am around him, I am filled with a strange, jumbled-up feeling of secrets and longing. I'm almost used to it, but it doesn't go away.
He'll never know. He'll never know. I have to tell him. I can't tell him. How can I tell him?
"Oh, hey, sorry, no biggie, but I'm in love with you...?"
The feeling of being rejected makes my stomach flip over, but I'm certain that not telling him and regretting it will feel worse.
"Something feels weird..." Chanyeol announces, messing up his damp hair with his hand.
He is drenched, and more so than me, since he is only wearing a T-shirt and jeans and faded trainers. In September. In the rain.
"Hmm?" I turn to him, hugging my arms around myself. Despite my coat, I am soaked to the bone, and freezing cold.
"I don't know... There's something that's..." He pauses for a moment, his mouth slightly open, thinking. Rain drops slide down his cheeks like tears. 
"It's - it's my birthday tomorrow." He says finally, his voice still and steady.
"What? How come you didn't say before? How could you forget?" My voice is sudden, loud, incredulous.
"Birthdays are the best things ever!"
Chanyeol just looks calm, slightly puzzled maybe.
"I don't... Usually celebrate my birthday." He frowns.
"You don't... Right, well, we're celebrating your birthday!" I decide, pulling my hood further over my head to fend off the rain, which is falling harder now.
Chanyeol opens his mouth to speak but I cut him off.
"No excuses! Meet me at -" I say the first place that comes to my head. "The cliff. Tomorrow. In the morning, say, eleven AM?"
"I..." Chanyeol murmurs. "Okay." He agrees. "Will I get presents?" His face lights up like a little kid.
"Erm, sure. Don't you have them anyway?" I ask.
"I did. But not... For a while, now. No one bothers anymore." He admits, not looking at me.
"Oh." What do you say to that?
"Yeah, I'll get you a present. What do you want, though?" I continue.
"I don't know." Chanyeol says.
He goes silent for a few seconds, thinking. We pass the wall that he was sitting on, the day we first talked properly. My thoughts drift back to that day.
"Get me... Jelly beans!" He bursts suddenly, smiling. I freaking love his smile, I think to myself. It makes my heart swell, my head spin with happiness simply because he's happy.
"Jelly beans?" I step neatly around a puddle.
"Yeah! I love jelly beans." Chanyeol nods, accidentally stepping through that same puddle and frowning as he steps out again, his already old and slightly holey trainers now sodden. He keeps walking, ignoring the weird squelching noise his feet have started making.
"I can get you more than just sweets." I tell him. "You're my friend, I wanna get you something nice."
Chanyeol pouts, and I try not to stare at his lips, which are plump, slightly damp and the perfect shade of soft pale pink.
"Jelly beans are nice!" He argues. He's so childish. It's cute, in a weird way. "This is my stop." He adds, walking
ahead of me and slumping down on the sloping, thin strip of a seat in the bus shelter.
I nod and keep on walking
"See you, then. Eleven, the cliff, don't forget!" I call back over my shoulder
The rain pours down in never-ending buckets.
I promise to myself that I will make Chanyeol's birthday special, because it seems like no one else is going to.