A week later after the trip, I went to class a little early. There wasn't anyone around so the teacher asked me to get some things for him in the faculty room.
It turned out it was too much for one person to carry. Nevertheless, I tried.
It was when I was nearing the stairs when I felt all the weight being lifted off my hands. I looked up, only to find a smiling person in front of me. Tall, lean and extremely familiar. That was when I met him for the second time.
I realized he was the student who helped me and Hannah last week back on the trip. The charming 10th-grade student whose smile comes with a cute little dimple.
"Good morning!" I greeted. I was surprised at the level of enthusiasm those two words of mine reflected. But you couldn't blame me. His smile produced that kind of effect.
"Good morning." He chuckled, his face becoming brighter with every passing second. "I'm wondering why we haven't talked after last week."
"Hmmm?" I mumbled, unable to form a much more coherent response.
He smiled. "I don't think I caught your name before," he said, shifting his weight to his other foot.
That's when I realized we were still standing in the middle of the hallway, with him lifting all the things the teacher asked for, and with me just staring at him stupidly.
I grabbed the objects on his hands but he sidestepped to avoid me.
"So," he continued, his dazzling smile still in place. "What's your name?"
"Jiyeon," I replied with yet another enthusiastic chirp. What is with me and my embarrassing mouth?
Even with all the things he was carrying, he managed to extend one hand. "Nice to meet you. You can call me Kai." His smile even melted to a much sweeter one if that was possible. "I hope we can be friends."
I hesitantly raised my right hand and fitted it into his. "Friends. Okay." I nodded meekly.
The sound of his laughter echoed through the deserted corridor.
"Why do you look so scared of me?" he asked, laughing as he finally started walking. "You were fine last week."
I quickly followed behind. "Uh, you're my senior?" I offered, my voice low because of nervousness. And Hannah isn't here anymore to save me from embarrassing myself, I added in my head.
"So? It's not like I bite," he countered, shrugging and looking at me for a more valid reason.
So I racked my brain for another reason. I came up with nothing else. "Er, you don't look approachable?" You are totally lying, the beating of my heart said. I panicked! I said to it in reply. Unapproachable was the last word I wanted to describe him
He stopped walking and whipped his head towards me, his eyes rounding on the process. "I don't?" I thought I had made him mad but he suddenly laughed. "Are you fine with that? Being friends with an unapproachable person?"
"Of course!" I replied, with more vigor than was necessary.
The whole situation was unusual, but who was I to complain when this cute senior was asking me to be his friend.
He turned to respond but the bell rang before he could say a word, signaling the start of whichever summer classes.
"Come on," he said, and then he was already running ahead, with all those weights on his hands. I just stood there for a while, staring at his running figure.
Kai. A smile painted itself on my lips at the sound of his name in my head.
All of a sudden, someone tapped my shoulder from behind. I turned around and there Lu Han was, grinning at me, his electrifying eyes alive as ever.
"What are you spacing out there for, dummy?" he asked, knocking on my head.
That snapped me back to reality. "Hey, who said you could touch me?" I said, feigning irritation. The annoyance was a reflex whenever Lu Han did something. But the truth was, our truce, as I'd like to call it, was going well.
"Me," he replied playfully, messing my hair early in the morning.
"You have got to stop doing that!"
He just grinned and then went to grab my hand, dragging me behind him as he ran. "We're already late, Yeonie. You can get back at me later."
I huffed but made an effort to move my legs faster. "I told you to stop calling me Yeonie."
That summer turned out to be a whole lot better than others. It was all because of a person named Kai. Our interactions increased after our second encounter. We were friends, after all, he kept saying. He was effortlessly blending in our little group of three.
"I swear you're all smiles this past few weeks, darling," Mom said to me in the kitchen one morning as she was busy preparing meals not only for me and Dad but also for another set of people. Chris was still at his basketball camp.
I showed Mom one of the smiles she was talking about and shrugged good-naturedly. "What can I say? I'm happy."
"Is Lu Han being good to you now?"
"Hmmm? What does that have to do with anything, Mom?"
It was Mom's turn to shrug innocently. "Well, you're always talking about how he was always ruining your day."
I cursed Lu Han silently. Mom had never really believed that Lu Han would do anything to hurt me. You two are just playing. Losing and winning is part of that, kiddo. Her words, not mine, when I first complained about the jerk. It didn't help my case that Lu Han acted like a sweet little thing whenever my parents were around and my parents were close with his.
"He's still ruining my day, Mom. I just found other things to be happy about." I smiled in reflex at the thought of the breath of fresh air named Kai.
She considered that for a moment and beamed. "You will have to tell me about these 'other things'. But not now." She glanced at her watch. "I must go. So should you." She piled the meal boxes on top of one another and brought out a box to put them in.
"What are all this, by the way?" I said, taking my meal from the pile.
"It's for the town committee. The town's fiftieth anniversary is coming so everyone's been busy."
I nodded and didn't think much about it. "Alright. Have fun, Mom."
"Say Hi to Lu Han for me."
Speaking of the devil, Lu Han, unsurprisingly, was starting to revert to his old ways as time passed by. I knew he was too good to last. But another weird thing about him was that I often caught him staring daggers at Kai.
To my pleasant surprise though, as the days progressed, Kai became somewhat of a protector.
When Lu Han purposely messed my work, Kai'd almost instantly be there, lending a hand. Whenever he caught Lu Han teasing me, he'd come to my defense. Whenever he saw me down spirited at the end of the day, he'd always find a way to cheer me up. It was like everything Lu Han did, he knew a countermeasure for it.
When I'm with Lu Han, all I ever do was watch out for his attacks. When I'm with Kai, all I ever do was laugh at his jokes. Maybe I should just stop hanging around Lu Han? Although that would be quite a feat, given he was only 3 meters away from me.
And Hannah continued to believe in him anyway, so I let Lu Han be. Kai was there anyway and unsurprisingly, that was enough to bring a smile to my face.
A couple of weeks after Kai's arrival in our lives, Lu Han surprised me with his confession, about Kai.
"I don't like him, Yeon," Lu Han mumbled while we were walking home from our pottery class. "I don't like him one bit."
"Don't like who?" I mumbled absentmindedly. Truth be told, my mind was still reliving the events of the day, when Kai chose me to be his partner for an assignment and not those other girls who had asked him. I couldn't help feeling honored that he chose me instead of his peers.
So it surprised me when he spat Kai with so much venom in his voice I wouldn't be surprised if Kai had already bitten his tongue off.
"What's wrong with him?" I asked, my tone immediately defensive as if it was I whom Lu Han had expressed his dislike.
"I don't like him." Lu Han stomped around like a kid. It was both fascinating and aggravating to watch. Fascinating because it was unpredictably like Lu Han. Aggravating because this was Kai he was talking about.
I took one look at his face and realized that Lu Han was really upset about this. "Hmmm, you should go join the marching band," I said, making an attempt at lightness, referring to his display of childishness. "They've been practicing so much during the summer, they could use someone like you."
Lu Han just shook his head. "I don't like him," he repeated, sighing. "He always hangs around you now."
I raised an eyebrow at this. "So? We're friends, after all, that's normal."
"But he always hangs around you now!" he said again as if I didn't catch the words the first time I heard it.
"And you don't?"
"But I'm different, Yeon. I'm different," he said, whispering the last part.
I couldn't understand him. Why would he hate Kai for something as trivial as that? "Is it because your pranks don't work as much as they do before?" I guessed.
For a second, he looked hurt, but then he immediately nodded. "Yes. That Kai person is ruining everything."
Ah, so it was the pranks, after all. "You mean restoring everything right?"
"And you. Look at you. You're siding with him," he
accused as if I was making a terrible mistake.
"How could I not? When Kai had been nothing but kind to me. Unlike you," I reminded him.
"Can't you un-friend him or something?" he insisted, pretending he didn't hear what I just said.
"You're being immature, Lu Han."
"So? So are you. It's not like you like him, right?"
"A-" That stunned me for a while and sent my thoughts reeling into motion.
"Right?" Lu Han repeated, his voice almost pleading.
"O- Of course not!" I said but I wasn't sure if it was the truth.
The truth was, Kai was kind and easy to get along with. He was an unexpected shoulder that you could lean on. Not to mention, he was gorgeous and had this cute little dimple whenever he smiled.
That was why I couldn't understand when Lu Han sighed again and said, "I don't really like him, Yeon."
"But why?"
Lu Han looked so sad at that moment I was tempted to reach out a hand to him.
"Because he's stealing you away from me," he said, his voice so serious it was sending me chills. For the first time, Lu Han's eyes weren't vibrant, they just looked lonely.
Is he serious?
"With him on your side," he continued, "how am I supposed to prank you now? It just frustrates me," he whined, looking at me with these pleading eyes.
Darn it. And to think I almost believed him. What a master of deceit!
I forced a laugh and started walking, fast. "Jerk," I muttered to myself. "And to think I was starting to believe that he was just jealous."
What I didn't know was that he was just behind me, walking just as fast. So it wasn't a surprise he heard what I said. Playful Lu Han was in motion.
"Why? Do you want me to be?" he suddenly whispered in my ear.
What the hell. I walked faster, wanting to create as much distance as possible between us.
"Are you being shy, Yeon?"
"Shut up, Jerk!" My cheeks were already crimson red as it was, I didn't need another reason for it to be redder still. So I dashed home and left him there.
But escape wasn't really an option when it came to Lu Han. He was right next window after all.
"Goodnight, Yeon. Dream of me and not of that jerk Kai, okay?" he reminded me when I was letting down the curtains that night.
The nerve of him to call Kai a jerk.
I just stuck my tongue out at him and headed towards my bed. Then I collapsed, thinking of the last couple of weeks that had gone by.
As much as I could see Hannah and Lu Han in it, it was Kai who shone the most in my memories. Because really, where do you find a guy who would treat you like a real girl?
Though perhaps I wasn't being fair with my comparison since the only other guys in my life are Lu Han and Chris, and frankly, they weren't good comparisons, to begin with. One was my brother and the other was my friend-nemesis. No one could blame me for easily finding Kai a decent human being.
"Kai, Lu Han wants me to un-friend you," I whispered to the ceiling above me. "I don't think that's possible."
I thought of all the things we did together. He was so much fun to be with. So mature about things yet still display enough amount of childishness so you never fail to have fun when you're around him.
It's not like you like him, right? Lu Han's word echoed in my ears.
My heart jumped in response when I remembered Lu Han's words. Uh-oh, this is bad.
I closed my eyes and wished for sleep to come.
That day, I realized something that I never would have had Lu Han not spelled it out to me. Can you believe how dense I am?
I like Kai, and it wasn't in a just-as-friends way. And you know what? I realized that because of Lu Han.