RAINBOW RIDE☆ Peppermint Winter
Title: Peppermint Winter // Rainbow Ride!Side Story ☆
Author:
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Lee Hyukjae/OC, Lee Hyukjae/Lee Ji Eun
Word Count: 4.088
☆
Rainbow Ride ☆
i saved a place for you.
(i). Taehyo loves Lee Hyukjae.
She knew it the very first time she looked at him that it was love at the first sight.
She was sixteen, just merely a week after her Mom threw the most embrassing birthday party ever, where she invited almost the whole school and put her in a fluffy ribbon dress. Taehyo never liked dresses, so she took her revenge by putting on sneakers instead of those expensive looking red high heels and brought her guitar down the stairs before her mom got the time to snatch away her lovely pair of converse.
It was one lovely birthday party in the end and Taehyo felt extremely happy. She got so many beautiful presents wrapped in pretty wrapping paper; one of them was actually filled with jar of stars made from papers and she smiled, knowing it was Minmi’s all along. Minyoung gave her a breathtaking looking sweater; well sticthed from one of those famous branded designer and Taehyo once again smiled because Minyoung indeed has such splendid taste in fashion.
She was happy; that kind of happiness where she thought her face would be engulfed with a big fat grin for the rest of her life. Her stomach bubble up with excitement and pure bliss where she thought it could brust wherever she took a glance on those piling up birthday presents on the corner of her room.
But that so called happiness was different from this feeling she got when she looked at him.
It was one cloudy winter at four in the afternoon. She was on her way back from school and she found him, just meters away from her house. The guy was staring at the sky, his smile was wide and happy-go-luck, the little she could see of his hair was light blue, peeping out of his white knitted beanie with long ears. He was wearing a thick, wooly sweater, also white but a bit color of grey at the sleeves and collar. His pants were tight and red, worn at the knees with big holes that showed off his knees. Tall boots tucking his pants in, the laces untied and hanging sloppily and Taehyo fought the sudden urge to lean down and tie them. That thought alone was insane, because she could do nothing aside from staring, her concern making her brows furrow after a while.
He was beautiful. The image of him standing there covered in snowflakes made Taehyo think of angel descending from the holy heaven and this guy could make a perfect angel, she thought. She never think of someone as an angel before and she never felt so much contended by looking at a particular person so,
these all felt completely new.
Taehyo decided to take one small step, carefully stepping into the ground that covered with thick heavy snow. She felt her legs twitched but she assured herself to keep going, before this so called angel faded away from under her vision. She listened to the steps as she moved further, the soles scrunching on the snow and she pulled away a bit as the man tore his gaze apart from the sky and into the front door. He wasn’t looking at the door though, he was totally engrossed in seeing a small girl with crescent moon eyes and long wavy hair came out of the door and into...
his arms.
Taehyo bit down the urge to cry, her lungs never burned so bad in her life and she leaned against the concerete wall as she held her breath, counting to ten in her head. When he reached her face and kissed his temple lightly, Taehyo could feel the sound of her heart sinked in, which she never thought she could ever heard. But it was cold and it was dark and it was like everything moved in slow motion where nothing could ever be heard except the loud beating of her heart, hurt, it whispered.
They held hands and faded away under the heavy snowy rain.
Taehyo tried to walk, her footsteps came in slow pace and it was when she opened her own door that she realized her tears were streaking down to her cheeks. She didn’t even know the reason of why she cried over a man whom she saw for the first time in life for only five minutes, but her heart knew herself more than her mind could ever comperhend.
She closed the door shut.
(and maybe her heart, too)
(ii). Taehyo likes Lee Ji Eun.
She was the perfect cousin sister someone would ever has. She has long perfect hair that falls nicely to her shoulders, a beautiful voice, a perfect pair of eyes that turned into crescent moon whenever she smiles and a small lips that always seems to grasp the perfect words wherever she speaks. She lived in Incheon, but temporarily stayed in her house in the very first semester of her college life because her parents wouldn’t dare to let her live alone in her first year.
Her room was just besides Taehyo’s but the two of them used to sleep together in a shared room, mostly Taehyo’s and talked over things until late at night. Taehyo found Ji Eun very likeable, and also extremely smart that she used to tutor her on math, the subject of death. They went shopping occasionally in a month, took random walks for a cup of hot chocolate and strawberry shortcake on a lazy Sunday morning, baking chocolate in Valentine for their Dads and even made paper planes and threw them in the park along with the neighbor kids.
Everything was always turned out to be fun when it was with Ji Eun and Taehyo secretly wished she could just stay in her house forever, not even bothered to rent an apartment and try living on her own.
But the thought soon vanished into the thin crisped air when he met him.
Ji Eun introduced his boyfriend to the rest of the family in the next day, she was smiling so pretty and bright that Taehyo think it was unfair of how someone could manage to look that flawless. The guy named Lee Hyukjae was grinning to his ears when he addressed the whole family, he didn’t look so tall without his boots and Taehyo’s hands were shaking when he shook her hands and gave her a pat in the head, exclaiming to everyone that she looked cute.
He soon made everyone loved him because he was so funny that Taehyo’s dad laughter were always heard whenever he was there. Her mom used to invite him for dinner that it finally became a daily set routine on their life; by having Lee Hyukjae sat right beside Taehyo in every dinner occasion. Taehyo once asked her of why didn’t he take place beside Ji Eun because aren’t boyfriend supposed to do that? But Hyukjae shook his head and gave him the most breathtaking smile before he whispered to her ears,
“I wanted to sit next to you because you’re so cute.”
He pinched her nose lightly and Taehyo pushed him away before he barged in to her room, face flushed and heart beating in rapid moves.
But Taehyo never had her hopes up, or even made any kind of attemps on making him to like her. Because she liked Ji Eun and she loved Hyukjae and she would never lose any of them both.
Never.
So she sealed her mouth shut and loved Hyukjae quietly from a far.
(iii). Taehyo loves the way Hyukjae laughs.
“You’re back!” he blurted bouncing to his feet, smiling at Taehyo like they’re in a tooth paste commercial. Taehyo just smiled at him, putting back her shoes in place and walked her way to the kitchen. Hyukjae tagged along, his hands placed nicely into her shoulders while he cheerfully exclaimed that her mom was having roasted chicken for dinner.
“Where’s Ji Eun eonnie?” Taehyo asked as she tried so much to cover the sides of her cheeks that she believed were turning into this disgusting shade of pink on the sight of Lee Hyukjae in gray wifebeater shirt welcoming her in the doorway and even escorted her into the kitchen.
Hyukjae took his hands off her shoulders and slumped back into the couch, flipping the channels before he spoke.“She had to tutor some stupid kids from the college.”
“Is she not going to have dinner with us?”
Hyukjae turned his head from the television and looked at him, a soft smile gracing the tip of his lips. “I don’t think so. But don’t worry, Hyukjae oppa will be here at the dinner, never going to miss out your Mom’s wonderful chicken.”
Taehyo thought she was cruel from ever had such uncontrollable happiness occured on the absence of her cousin sister in their splendid dinner in Thanksgiving, but she let herself enjoying it; this rare moment that just popped out of nowhere and handed to her in a silver lining plate.
“Why are we invited you to our dinner again? You’re going to ravish all these delicious food!” Taehyo teased as she plopped onto the couch just right beside Hyukjae, her hair slightly brushed his bare shoulder and she shuddered into the brief contact.
“Because I’m handsome,” Hyukjae bragged, his eyebrows raised and he put on this funny expression on his face before Taehyo threw a plushie to his face.
“You’re an idiot,” she said. And when he laughed, Taehyo felt like she wanted to do nothing more than to choke on his smile, the glint in his eyes, the slight saking of his head that’s bound to occur no matter how lame her jokes were.
The sound of his laugh was so lovely that Taehyo thought it would grazed forever into that safe place inside her heart.
(iv). Taehyo wants to forget Lee Hyukjae.
Taehyo woke up to Hyukjae standing beside the window in the weak early-morning light, wearing his gray sleeveless tee that he liked the most and holding a cup of coffee. It was early and Taehyo was particularly tired from all the homeworks that kept her awake for the whole night, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from watching Hyukjae, from watching all the little things about him that she thinks are beautiful but has never said it aloud. Things like the way he curled his toes when he’s cold, his stupid expression when he teased her on her collection of storybooks like Peterpan, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, or when the color of his hair turned when the sunlight gently hits it.
It was funny because Taehyo never thought she was the sappy type, but all so suddenly the word “Beautiful” seems inadequate. Hyukjae wasn’t beautiful. He was flawless, he was stunning, he was the kind of heart-stopping perfection that literally brightened her world. “Beautiful” is an understatement; all it takes was just one smile from him and her world would stop turning.
“Hey ,” Taehyo managed to say after she took one last glance from the window that hung nicely in their living room.
Hyukjae turned, his hair was still messy from sleep and there was a pillow crease on his cheek. “Morning Taehyo,” he said, raising his mug to take another sip.
“Where’s everyone?” She asked, trying to be the normal Taehyo who might as well wouldn’t give a fuck on the sight of a man with sleveeless tee hovering around his kitchen at eight in the morning. Left aside the fact that the said man was her first love, also happened to be her cousin sister’s lovely boyfriend and preferably a new member in her family because he always came for dinner every single night, got caught up in a card game with her parents and occasionally had a sleepover in the weekend. What a lovely family member, Taehyo thought as she pulled a carton of orange juice from inside the fridge.
“Your Dad and your sister are currently having morning excersice in the garden and your mom was out groceries shopping with Ji Eun,” he replied back, after stifle out a yawn and lazily sprawled himself on the top of their couch.
“I’m hungry Taehyo yah- can you make your oppa a breakfast?”
“Not in a million times,” she tried holding back a loud ‘yes’ as the answer because making a breakfast for your cousin sister’s boyfriend (who was so gorgeous and hot and perfect and flawless and always glued in her heart like some annoying dirt he was) wasn’t such a good idea to do in this lovely Sunday morning where she supposed to just laid back and enjoy the rare day off.
“Really? You don’t want to make Hyukjae Oppa feel happy?” Hyukjae jumped out of the couch and rushed out to stand in front of her, all puppy eyes and pouty lips. It was tragic, the way Hyukjae always managed to find her perfect weakness with his stupid aegyo but Taehyo smiled, nonetheless. She punched his stomach lightly, muttering ‘just for this time you ahjussi’ before heading out to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
And when Hyukjae screamed out in happiness and thanked her with a quick hug from behind, Taehyo was left breathless, gasping for air as she locked herself in the bathroom. This was wrong, loving Lee Hyukjae was a huge mistake but she just couldn’t stop. She knew that Hyukjae will never be hers and that thought alone should have at least give her an enough epiphany to move the fuck on and stop loving the daylights out of his face.
She wished he knew how to quit him, how to suck him out of her veins, from inside her blood, from the cracks in the bones that she hid away. She wished she could run away from the sight of him, looking as flawless as ever as he stood in the kitchen, eyes wide in excitement and a happy grin on his face.
Taehyo wished she knew how to quit him.
(v). Taehyo’s not an awesome writer but he writes about Hyukjae.
She wrote about him in her old tarnished blue notebook, usually in the midnights where she couldn’t sleep because having the thought of the man you loved sleeping just besides your bedroom wall wasn’t such a nice way to sleep in.
So, she wrote:
‘ it’s crazy, how much i think about someone who has never stopped to look at me.
i mean, whenever i leave a room all i can imagine is your face at the end of the hallway, a lingering glance that sticks long enough to make you smile at me or ruffle my hair because you love messing with me and that means you are a jerk.
i love that jerk.
but you aren’t drawn to me, you do not feel the static teasing your bottom lip, fingertips iching, eyes wide in silent plea because you do not see me. but i see you, lee hyukjae, even in my dreams, where i will know you and you alone, and i can say all these outloud because loving you now is too much, too ironic.
i want to meet you in many different ways. ’
She closed her notebook and cried to sleep.
(zero). Taehyo understands.
She just turned seventeen a week ago, without a stupid birthday party that her mom threw this time around. She just went out with her girlfriends a week later (because her birthday happened to be in exam week), a nice and warm celebration in one cute cafe in Hongdae where they sang happy birthday song and handed her presents (Minmi gave her a handmade scrapbook from all the pretty quotes and lyrics she wrote herself and Minyoung gave her a complete storybook of Disney characters that beautifully craved and engraved in thick expensive papers just because the two of them were avid Disney fan) before they went home with stomach full and happy.
Taehyo never tell her bestfriends about the fact that she loved Hyukjae, even though she was pretty sure that Minyoung used to throw her a knowing glance when Hyukjae would occasionally appeared to pick her up from school.
The two of them were decided to escort her home because ‘We would pretended that today was your birthday so might as well be all nice and kind’ and Taehyo just laughed and held their hands, swaying it from side to side as they walked back home. They were just a few meters away from her house when the snow was starting to fall in, cold and damp across her cheeks.
Taehyo looked up and suddenly, all she seen was a memory of her standing in a cold pavement in one winter afternoon, staring at the guy whom he thought she would be forever in love with. The said guy was once again standing by the doorframe, just a few meters away from her in an exactly a year time from the moment she first laid her eyes on him,
and suddenly, the realization of what had happened in a year hit her between the eyes, just like a ton of bricks.
She loved him, but he never did. He was in love with her own lovely cousin sister, the feeling wasn’t mutual and those butterflies that swim their way towards her stomach pit were left to fly and deserved to die. Her butterflies were unrequited, but hers aren’t.
Someone has told her once, a soul mate isn’t the person who makes you the happiest, but the one who makes you feel the most, the one who conducts your heart to bang the loudest, who can drag your giggling with forgiveness from the cellar they locked you in. It has always been Hyukjae, but as time goes by, she knew Hyukjae wasn’t going to be that perfect key to the lock inside her heart.
Because he was already someone else’s key.
“Taehyo? Are you okay?”
A soft voice called out from behind and Taehyo looked up to see her bestfriends’s worry stare stuck between her teary eyes and stuttering hands. Taehyo knew they knew, because she was trying so hard to give them a perfect smile but the slight of her lips were creaked and stained with bitter tears and she was just so near to stumble down the snowy roads because it was too much, these feelings were all too much and she couldn’t breath.
“I love Lee Hyukjae,” she confessed it out loud, finally. But the said guy couldn’t hear her, he never did. Instead, he was slowly faded away on her vision as he took Ji Eun’s hands in his coat pocket, walking their way to some places Taehyo would never brave enough to think.
“But he’s too old for me so yeah, I think this would never work out, and he better be with her.”
It came out much bitter from she thought it would and Minmi just sort of wanted to hug her bestfried but Minyoung stopped her motion and took Taehyo’s hand in hers, moving her slowly to her door frame. They bid goodbye and Minyoung said they would came back in a while before yanking Minmi’s hands and dragged her away.
Taehyo closed the door and moved to her room.
She closed her eyes and the image of smiling Hyukjae appeared by the tip of her fluttering eyes. Her breath catched into the back of her throat and god, it is so hard to breathe.
She hated the way Hyukjae always cares, a pat on the top of her head when she has good grades or the quick three seconds hug he always gives when she makes him food. That little bit of love and affection she so desperately wants, craves, needs, were all nothing but the kind of things a lovely brother would give to her little sister.
Taehyo knew he would never felt the same way as she did. And there was nothing she could do if he didn’t feel it too.
It was devastating, the heartbreak, the realization, the gasping for air kind of moment when all of those were coming in one mixed emotion that crushed your heart, successfully tore it apart in one swift motion.
She pulled out her notebook and drew numbers into the white paper.
11:11.
They say that number could grant your wish true, so she decided to wish.
There are only two things she ever wished for. On most days, she wished for his happiness and that even though he wouldn’t even know the fact that she once loved him, she hoped someday he would realized that he has always been loved. On selfish days, she wished that she will find joy and that she would find love. As much as she wished that he would find happiness with her joy and that he would know that she loved him. But Taehyo knew that she didn’t want the second wish to come true because it was just her being selfish and needy and she knew much better than that,
because her feelings for Lee Hyukjae was untainted and unrequited.
She knew he loved someone else, and that someone else was also has a big part to her life, that made she thought they would probably never be.
So even if she cried so much today, or tomorrow or maybe months from now from seeing him and realized that these all was going nowhere but down to the sound of her heart breaking, and even though the wounds of her heart cannot be mended,
she would always saved a place for him, on her heart.
A place she knew would be stained forever across her deepest dreams, a special place you would always give to your first love.
That time was when Park Taehyo realized that,
‘ when you love someone in the way love is supposed to be, that’s where true joy can be found. ‘
(epilogue?)
Taehyo opened the door; witnessing the looking-so-heavy plastic bags her two girlfriends were carrying with a wide small plastered on their faces. Minyoung already came in without even hearing her permission, kissing her Mom’s cheek on her way to her room and pushed Taehyo to sit on her bed the moment Minmi closed her bedroom door.
“SURPRISE!” Minmi screamed and threw her a baskin robbin’s cookies and cream flavored in big cup to her lap, before jumping around in excitement.
“What’s with all of these?” She pointed to the amount of rented dvd that scattered all around the floor along with marvelous bags of chips and diet cokes and cookies and oh my god Minmi even snucked in her favorite alcohol. “Do you guys want to get drunk in my house?!”
“Oh we could always drunk ourselves in grief,” Minyoung pat her head before plopping herself down to the bed. “We want to cheer the heart broken girl here so you better eat and cry with us.”
“I’m fine. It was just some kind of phase I’ve had to go through,” he threw them a reasurring smile before kicking Minyoung out of her bed and told her to pick one of the movies that they should watched first. Minmi switched on the dvd and turned the lighs out, soon getting engulfed by each plots of the movies. It was comedy, the one where you supposedly threw your head in the wall and die laughing from all the epic scenes. But Taehyo didn’t even laugh, she felt this twitch that frequently bit half of her heart most of the times and she decided to sneakily went outside her room, leaving the laughing mess behind.
She could hear the distant voice of Ji Eun talked to someone from her room, and by the sound of her laughters, she knew right away it was Hyukjae. Her heart twitched again in the most hurtful way and Taehyo made her way to the bathroom.
She knew these too shall pass. She would forget about Hyukjae, move on with life, find her own prince charming and live happily ever after. Lee Hyukjae was just a single phase, someone whom she met before she found the right one, someone who ought to give her lessons about love before she created her own.
But somehow, Taehyo knew that whatever happened in the future, Lee Hyukjae would always be there, statued in the place she always saved for her.
Always.
Author:
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Lee Hyukjae/OC, Lee Hyukjae/Lee Ji Eun
Word Count: 4.088
☆
Rainbow Ride ☆
i saved a place for you.
(i). Taehyo loves Lee Hyukjae.
She knew it the very first time she looked at him that it was love at the first sight.
She was sixteen, just merely a week after her Mom threw the most embrassing birthday party ever, where she invited almost the whole school and put her in a fluffy ribbon dress. Taehyo never liked dresses, so she took her revenge by putting on sneakers instead of those expensive looking red high heels and brought her guitar down the stairs before her mom got the time to snatch away her lovely pair of converse.
It was one lovely birthday party in the end and Taehyo felt extremely happy. She got so many beautiful presents wrapped in pretty wrapping paper; one of them was actually filled with jar of stars made from papers and she smiled, knowing it was Minmi’s all along. Minyoung gave her a breathtaking looking sweater; well sticthed from one of those famous branded designer and Taehyo once again smiled because Minyoung indeed has such splendid taste in fashion.
She was happy; that kind of happiness where she thought her face would be engulfed with a big fat grin for the rest of her life. Her stomach bubble up with excitement and pure bliss where she thought it could brust wherever she took a glance on those piling up birthday presents on the corner of her room.
But that so called happiness was different from this feeling she got when she looked at him.
It was one cloudy winter at four in the afternoon. She was on her way back from school and she found him, just meters away from her house. The guy was staring at the sky, his smile was wide and happy-go-luck, the little she could see of his hair was light blue, peeping out of his white knitted beanie with long ears. He was wearing a thick, wooly sweater, also white but a bit color of grey at the sleeves and collar. His pants were tight and red, worn at the knees with big holes that showed off his knees. Tall boots tucking his pants in, the laces untied and hanging sloppily and Taehyo fought the sudden urge to lean down and tie them. That thought alone was insane, because she could do nothing aside from staring, her concern making her brows furrow after a while.
He was beautiful. The image of him standing there covered in snowflakes made Taehyo think of angel descending from the holy heaven and this guy could make a perfect angel, she thought. She never think of someone as an angel before and she never felt so much contended by looking at a particular person so,
these all felt completely new.
Taehyo decided to take one small step, carefully stepping into the ground that covered with thick heavy snow. She felt her legs twitched but she assured herself to keep going, before this so called angel faded away from under her vision. She listened to the steps as she moved further, the soles scrunching on the snow and she pulled away a bit as the man tore his gaze apart from the sky and into the front door. He wasn’t looking at the door though, he was totally engrossed in seeing a small girl with crescent moon eyes and long wavy hair came out of the door and into...
his arms.
Taehyo bit down the urge to cry, her lungs never burned so bad in her life and she leaned against the concerete wall as she held her breath, counting to ten in her head. When he reached her face and kissed his temple lightly, Taehyo could feel the sound of her heart sinked in, which she never thought she could ever heard. But it was cold and it was dark and it was like everything moved in slow motion where nothing could ever be heard except the loud beating of her heart, hurt, it whispered.
They held hands and faded away under the heavy snowy rain.
Taehyo tried to walk, her footsteps came in slow pace and it was when she opened her own door that she realized her tears were streaking down to her cheeks. She didn’t even know the reason of why she cried over a man whom she saw for the first time in life for only five minutes, but her heart knew herself more than her mind could ever comperhend.
She closed the door shut.
(and maybe her heart, too)
(ii). Taehyo likes Lee Ji Eun.
She was the perfect cousin sister someone would ever has. She has long perfect hair that falls nicely to her shoulders, a beautiful voice, a perfect pair of eyes that turned into crescent moon whenever she smiles and a small lips that always seems to grasp the perfect words wherever she speaks. She lived in Incheon, but temporarily stayed in her house in the very first semester of her college life because her parents wouldn’t dare to let her live alone in her first year.
Her room was just besides Taehyo’s but the two of them used to sleep together in a shared room, mostly Taehyo’s and talked over things until late at night. Taehyo found Ji Eun very likeable, and also extremely smart that she used to tutor her on math, the subject of death. They went shopping occasionally in a month, took random walks for a cup of hot chocolate and strawberry shortcake on a lazy Sunday morning, baking chocolate in Valentine for their Dads and even made paper planes and threw them in the park along with the neighbor kids.
Everything was always turned out to be fun when it was with Ji Eun and Taehyo secretly wished she could just stay in her house forever, not even bothered to rent an apartment and try living on her own.
But the thought soon vanished into the thin crisped air when he met him.
Ji Eun introduced his boyfriend to the rest of the family in the next day, she was smiling so pretty and bright that Taehyo think it was unfair of how someone could manage to look that flawless. The guy named Lee Hyukjae was grinning to his ears when he addressed the whole family, he didn’t look so tall without his boots and Taehyo’s hands were shaking when he shook her hands and gave her a pat in the head, exclaiming to everyone that she looked cute.
He soon made everyone loved him because he was so funny that Taehyo’s dad laughter were always heard whenever he was there. Her mom used to invite him for dinner that it finally became a daily set routine on their life; by having Lee Hyukjae sat right beside Taehyo in every dinner occasion. Taehyo once asked her of why didn’t he take place beside Ji Eun because aren’t boyfriend supposed to do that? But Hyukjae shook his head and gave him the most breathtaking smile before he whispered to her ears,
“I wanted to sit next to you because you’re so cute.”
He pinched her nose lightly and Taehyo pushed him away before he barged in to her room, face flushed and heart beating in rapid moves.
But Taehyo never had her hopes up, or even made any kind of attemps on making him to like her. Because she liked Ji Eun and she loved Hyukjae and she would never lose any of them both.
Never.
So she sealed her mouth shut and loved Hyukjae quietly from a far.
(iii). Taehyo loves the way Hyukjae laughs.
“You’re back!” he blurted bouncing to his feet, smiling at Taehyo like they’re in a tooth paste commercial. Taehyo just smiled at him, putting back her shoes in place and walked her way to the kitchen. Hyukjae tagged along, his hands placed nicely into her shoulders while he cheerfully exclaimed that her mom was having roasted chicken for dinner.
“Where’s Ji Eun eonnie?” Taehyo asked as she tried so much to cover the sides of her cheeks that she believed were turning into this disgusting shade of pink on the sight of Lee Hyukjae in gray wifebeater shirt welcoming her in the doorway and even escorted her into the kitchen.
Hyukjae took his hands off her shoulders and slumped back into the couch, flipping the channels before he spoke.“She had to tutor some stupid kids from the college.”
“Is she not going to have dinner with us?”
Hyukjae turned his head from the television and looked at him, a soft smile gracing the tip of his lips. “I don’t think so. But don’t worry, Hyukjae oppa will be here at the dinner, never going to miss out your Mom’s wonderful chicken.”
Taehyo thought she was cruel from ever had such uncontrollable happiness occured on the absence of her cousin sister in their splendid dinner in Thanksgiving, but she let herself enjoying it; this rare moment that just popped out of nowhere and handed to her in a silver lining plate.
“Why are we invited you to our dinner again? You’re going to ravish all these delicious food!” Taehyo teased as she plopped onto the couch just right beside Hyukjae, her hair slightly brushed his bare shoulder and she shuddered into the brief contact.
“Because I’m handsome,” Hyukjae bragged, his eyebrows raised and he put on this funny expression on his face before Taehyo threw a plushie to his face.
“You’re an idiot,” she said. And when he laughed, Taehyo felt like she wanted to do nothing more than to choke on his smile, the glint in his eyes, the slight saking of his head that’s bound to occur no matter how lame her jokes were.
The sound of his laugh was so lovely that Taehyo thought it would grazed forever into that safe place inside her heart.
(iv). Taehyo wants to forget Lee Hyukjae.
Taehyo woke up to Hyukjae standing beside the window in the weak early-morning light, wearing his gray sleeveless tee that he liked the most and holding a cup of coffee. It was early and Taehyo was particularly tired from all the homeworks that kept her awake for the whole night, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from watching Hyukjae, from watching all the little things about him that she thinks are beautiful but has never said it aloud. Things like the way he curled his toes when he’s cold, his stupid expression when he teased her on her collection of storybooks like Peterpan, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, or when the color of his hair turned when the sunlight gently hits it.
It was funny because Taehyo never thought she was the sappy type, but all so suddenly the word “Beautiful” seems inadequate. Hyukjae wasn’t beautiful. He was flawless, he was stunning, he was the kind of heart-stopping perfection that literally brightened her world. “Beautiful” is an understatement; all it takes was just one smile from him and her world would stop turning.
“Hey ,” Taehyo managed to say after she took one last glance from the window that hung nicely in their living room.
Hyukjae turned, his hair was still messy from sleep and there was a pillow crease on his cheek. “Morning Taehyo,” he said, raising his mug to take another sip.
“Where’s everyone?” She asked, trying to be the normal Taehyo who might as well wouldn’t give a fuck on the sight of a man with sleveeless tee hovering around his kitchen at eight in the morning. Left aside the fact that the said man was her first love, also happened to be her cousin sister’s lovely boyfriend and preferably a new member in her family because he always came for dinner every single night, got caught up in a card game with her parents and occasionally had a sleepover in the weekend. What a lovely family member, Taehyo thought as she pulled a carton of orange juice from inside the fridge.
“Your Dad and your sister are currently having morning excersice in the garden and your mom was out groceries shopping with Ji Eun,” he replied back, after stifle out a yawn and lazily sprawled himself on the top of their couch.
“I’m hungry Taehyo yah- can you make your oppa a breakfast?”
“Not in a million times,” she tried holding back a loud ‘yes’ as the answer because making a breakfast for your cousin sister’s boyfriend (who was so gorgeous and hot and perfect and flawless and always glued in her heart like some annoying dirt he was) wasn’t such a good idea to do in this lovely Sunday morning where she supposed to just laid back and enjoy the rare day off.
“Really? You don’t want to make Hyukjae Oppa feel happy?” Hyukjae jumped out of the couch and rushed out to stand in front of her, all puppy eyes and pouty lips. It was tragic, the way Hyukjae always managed to find her perfect weakness with his stupid aegyo but Taehyo smiled, nonetheless. She punched his stomach lightly, muttering ‘just for this time you ahjussi’ before heading out to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
And when Hyukjae screamed out in happiness and thanked her with a quick hug from behind, Taehyo was left breathless, gasping for air as she locked herself in the bathroom. This was wrong, loving Lee Hyukjae was a huge mistake but she just couldn’t stop. She knew that Hyukjae will never be hers and that thought alone should have at least give her an enough epiphany to move the fuck on and stop loving the daylights out of his face.
She wished he knew how to quit him, how to suck him out of her veins, from inside her blood, from the cracks in the bones that she hid away. She wished she could run away from the sight of him, looking as flawless as ever as he stood in the kitchen, eyes wide in excitement and a happy grin on his face.
Taehyo wished she knew how to quit him.
(v). Taehyo’s not an awesome writer but he writes about Hyukjae.
She wrote about him in her old tarnished blue notebook, usually in the midnights where she couldn’t sleep because having the thought of the man you loved sleeping just besides your bedroom wall wasn’t such a nice way to sleep in.
So, she wrote:
‘ it’s crazy, how much i think about someone who has never stopped to look at me.
i mean, whenever i leave a room all i can imagine is your face at the end of the hallway, a lingering glance that sticks long enough to make you smile at me or ruffle my hair because you love messing with me and that means you are a jerk.
i love that jerk.
but you aren’t drawn to me, you do not feel the static teasing your bottom lip, fingertips iching, eyes wide in silent plea because you do not see me. but i see you, lee hyukjae, even in my dreams, where i will know you and you alone, and i can say all these outloud because loving you now is too much, too ironic.
i want to meet you in many different ways. ’
She closed her notebook and cried to sleep.
(zero). Taehyo understands.
She just turned seventeen a week ago, without a stupid birthday party that her mom threw this time around. She just went out with her girlfriends a week later (because her birthday happened to be in exam week), a nice and warm celebration in one cute cafe in Hongdae where they sang happy birthday song and handed her presents (Minmi gave her a handmade scrapbook from all the pretty quotes and lyrics she wrote herself and Minyoung gave her a complete storybook of Disney characters that beautifully craved and engraved in thick expensive papers just because the two of them were avid Disney fan) before they went home with stomach full and happy.
Taehyo never tell her bestfriends about the fact that she loved Hyukjae, even though she was pretty sure that Minyoung used to throw her a knowing glance when Hyukjae would occasionally appeared to pick her up from school.
The two of them were decided to escort her home because ‘We would pretended that today was your birthday so might as well be all nice and kind’ and Taehyo just laughed and held their hands, swaying it from side to side as they walked back home. They were just a few meters away from her house when the snow was starting to fall in, cold and damp across her cheeks.
Taehyo looked up and suddenly, all she seen was a memory of her standing in a cold pavement in one winter afternoon, staring at the guy whom he thought she would be forever in love with. The said guy was once again standing by the doorframe, just a few meters away from her in an exactly a year time from the moment she first laid her eyes on him,
and suddenly, the realization of what had happened in a year hit her between the eyes, just like a ton of bricks.
She loved him, but he never did. He was in love with her own lovely cousin sister, the feeling wasn’t mutual and those butterflies that swim their way towards her stomach pit were left to fly and deserved to die. Her butterflies were unrequited, but hers aren’t.
Someone has told her once, a soul mate isn’t the person who makes you the happiest, but the one who makes you feel the most, the one who conducts your heart to bang the loudest, who can drag your giggling with forgiveness from the cellar they locked you in. It has always been Hyukjae, but as time goes by, she knew Hyukjae wasn’t going to be that perfect key to the lock inside her heart.
Because he was already someone else’s key.
“Taehyo? Are you okay?”
A soft voice called out from behind and Taehyo looked up to see her bestfriends’s worry stare stuck between her teary eyes and stuttering hands. Taehyo knew they knew, because she was trying so hard to give them a perfect smile but the slight of her lips were creaked and stained with bitter tears and she was just so near to stumble down the snowy roads because it was too much, these feelings were all too much and she couldn’t breath.
“I love Lee Hyukjae,” she confessed it out loud, finally. But the said guy couldn’t hear her, he never did. Instead, he was slowly faded away on her vision as he took Ji Eun’s hands in his coat pocket, walking their way to some places Taehyo would never brave enough to think.
“But he’s too old for me so yeah, I think this would never work out, and he better be with her.”
It came out much bitter from she thought it would and Minmi just sort of wanted to hug her bestfried but Minyoung stopped her motion and took Taehyo’s hand in hers, moving her slowly to her door frame. They bid goodbye and Minyoung said they would came back in a while before yanking Minmi’s hands and dragged her away.
Taehyo closed the door and moved to her room.
She closed her eyes and the image of smiling Hyukjae appeared by the tip of her fluttering eyes. Her breath catched into the back of her throat and god, it is so hard to breathe.
She hated the way Hyukjae always cares, a pat on the top of her head when she has good grades or the quick three seconds hug he always gives when she makes him food. That little bit of love and affection she so desperately wants, craves, needs, were all nothing but the kind of things a lovely brother would give to her little sister.
Taehyo knew he would never felt the same way as she did. And there was nothing she could do if he didn’t feel it too.
It was devastating, the heartbreak, the realization, the gasping for air kind of moment when all of those were coming in one mixed emotion that crushed your heart, successfully tore it apart in one swift motion.
She pulled out her notebook and drew numbers into the white paper.
11:11.
They say that number could grant your wish true, so she decided to wish.
There are only two things she ever wished for. On most days, she wished for his happiness and that even though he wouldn’t even know the fact that she once loved him, she hoped someday he would realized that he has always been loved. On selfish days, she wished that she will find joy and that she would find love. As much as she wished that he would find happiness with her joy and that he would know that she loved him. But Taehyo knew that she didn’t want the second wish to come true because it was just her being selfish and needy and she knew much better than that,
because her feelings for Lee Hyukjae was untainted and unrequited.
She knew he loved someone else, and that someone else was also has a big part to her life, that made she thought they would probably never be.
So even if she cried so much today, or tomorrow or maybe months from now from seeing him and realized that these all was going nowhere but down to the sound of her heart breaking, and even though the wounds of her heart cannot be mended,
she would always saved a place for him, on her heart.
A place she knew would be stained forever across her deepest dreams, a special place you would always give to your first love.
That time was when Park Taehyo realized that,
‘ when you love someone in the way love is supposed to be, that’s where true joy can be found. ‘
(epilogue?)
Taehyo opened the door; witnessing the looking-so-heavy plastic bags her two girlfriends were carrying with a wide small plastered on their faces. Minyoung already came in without even hearing her permission, kissing her Mom’s cheek on her way to her room and pushed Taehyo to sit on her bed the moment Minmi closed her bedroom door.
“SURPRISE!” Minmi screamed and threw her a baskin robbin’s cookies and cream flavored in big cup to her lap, before jumping around in excitement.
“What’s with all of these?” She pointed to the amount of rented dvd that scattered all around the floor along with marvelous bags of chips and diet cokes and cookies and oh my god Minmi even snucked in her favorite alcohol. “Do you guys want to get drunk in my house?!”
“Oh we could always drunk ourselves in grief,” Minyoung pat her head before plopping herself down to the bed. “We want to cheer the heart broken girl here so you better eat and cry with us.”
“I’m fine. It was just some kind of phase I’ve had to go through,” he threw them a reasurring smile before kicking Minyoung out of her bed and told her to pick one of the movies that they should watched first. Minmi switched on the dvd and turned the lighs out, soon getting engulfed by each plots of the movies. It was comedy, the one where you supposedly threw your head in the wall and die laughing from all the epic scenes. But Taehyo didn’t even laugh, she felt this twitch that frequently bit half of her heart most of the times and she decided to sneakily went outside her room, leaving the laughing mess behind.
She could hear the distant voice of Ji Eun talked to someone from her room, and by the sound of her laughters, she knew right away it was Hyukjae. Her heart twitched again in the most hurtful way and Taehyo made her way to the bathroom.
She knew these too shall pass. She would forget about Hyukjae, move on with life, find her own prince charming and live happily ever after. Lee Hyukjae was just a single phase, someone whom she met before she found the right one, someone who ought to give her lessons about love before she created her own.
But somehow, Taehyo knew that whatever happened in the future, Lee Hyukjae would always be there, statued in the place she always saved for her.
Always.