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˗ˋˏ Briefly Orange ˎˊ˗

SYNOPSIS: Fragmentary source of healing and like an oasis away from the city, for his group of friends, Boo Seungkwan’s family farm is a regular vacation destination away from the city. Yet Seungkwan wishes for anything but a future filled with mountains of oranges, his dream of living in the city still ineffaceable in his head. When he receives a request from a friend he fell out of touch with asking if they could stay on his farm for the summer, Seungkwan finally finds himself in an opportunistic place in which his dream can finally become a reality. Why? Because you’re cursed to have everything you love disappear.

Sweltering heat and an eventful summer, magic touches lives in ways that we can never imagine. But in this transition between seasons, we find ourselves asking: when loss is as transient as the lives we live, what does it mean to love with every fiber of our being?

PAIRING: bsk x reader

GENRE: angst, romance, slice of life, magical realism

TAGS: food/drinks, time jump, friends to lovers, single father!csc, summer fic, slow burn, cooking processes (including descriptions of knives), a character falls off an atv, different povs (yn's chapters are set in the past / seungkwan's chapters are set in the present), soonyoung and jihoon should have their own separate warning

WC: 32k

A/N: if loneliness and loss could be consolidated through prose, maybe this fic was meant for you – nu.

wondernus's masterlist

ONE. PEELED ORANGES

It starts with the peel. Hold the orange in both hands and press your thumbs against the hollow bottom where there’s an open dip between the peel and the fleshy meat of the orange. Press into the peel with the tips of your fingernails, hard, penetrating the peel and creating a perfect opening to peel the fruit. Then, start peeling the bright and smooth outer shell away until you’re left with that orange and fleshy ball of juice. When you halve the fruit between your fingers, it sizzles and cracks crisply as you rip it apart — sometimes the juice escapes the membrane in a transparent drop of liquid, collecting on your finger, and rolling down your hand toward your arm. Sweet or sour, the rest comes after.

YN

Sometimes when we’re not careful, we fall in love.

Waves broke over and over again against wet sand and caused hundreds of tiny ripples to race towards the shore, outlined by a frothy white foam that briefly settled on wet sand before it dissipated. You thought that you knew everything there was to know at that age. Fifteen. It was the oldest you’ve ever been. From your spot on the sand, far away from the water, you knew exactly where the water would run and stop to kiss the sand and say a brief greeting before leaving. You knew how in Autumn, the sun sets in hues of pink and orange that blend so finely that you would often wish that the sky was always pink instead of blue. And you knew that she was happy to be walking barefoot in the sand-turned-sludge area of the shore with her army green capris rolled up to her knees and her scuffed sneakers dangling from their shoelaces in her hands.

There she was in the distance, mouth pulled back into a wide smile as she looked down to watch and feel how the waves quickly run over her feet to wash the sand away and leave her about an inch or two deeper in the sand when the water retreats back into the ocean. From where you were sitting, you could clearly see her looking back at you while her entire upper body shook with glee from her happiness of simply being at the beach. Giant chunks of her unkempt bangs kept hitting her face as the ocean breeze blew, but she didn’t mind. She was so happy that you swore you could hear the remnants of her laughter carried by the breeze that brushed against you. You knew you were happy to be there. With her.

However, at that moment, you felt it grow in you again. It was that same feeling that came and went during the past few days during class, on the way to school, and even at night right when you tried to keep your eyes closed to sleep. Eyes locked on her as she squatted down to inspect something in the sand, you could barely hear the people around you as your vision tunneled while the previously acquainted feeling grew with so much warmth in your chest that you didn’t know whether you should scream in fear or cry from that swell of happiness. The more that feeling grew, the more it weighed your heart down so much that you felt that the weight could send something seesawing out of your mouth and past your lips. There was no escaping the feeling this time. No more suppression. You were in high school then. You had to be braver and smarter than you were in middle school. You could feel the words on the tip of your tongue, drying your mouth to a sandpaper texture and threatening to escape from its prison. Raging seas. Raging emotions. It threatened to come like the waves.

Water. You wanted to table the feeling and drink something refreshing before fully exploring it. No, you weren’t making an excuse to push it away, you think. Again. Practically forcefully peeling and prying your eyes away from her figure, which was making her way back to where you were sitting, you quickly dug through your beach bag to find the crinkled plastic water bottle you’d forgotten you brought. You felt assured that she would be coming to your side in that empty space between you and her stuff on the blanket you were sitting on. So when you finally uncapped the water bottle and brought the bottle to your lips, you let the lukewarm water fill your mouth, saturating every parched crevice in your mouth before gulping it down all at once. The second gulp of water wasn’t as big, but a few drops managed to escape the passage between your lips and the water bottle’s opening. And they trickled down the corner of your mouth and down to your chin before you wiped it away and stopped it with the sleeve of your new school hoodie.

You could hear her, her and her sweet voice calling for your name. Voice as affectionate as she was, it always felt like a symphony in your ears with the percussion section located in your heart. The very thought of her made your heart beat and hammer like a timpani during a solo or a piano played by the world’s finest musician. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Allegro. This time her voice was calling for you to come join her in the shallow part of the water. Wade a little bit with her because it would feel cool against your hot skin. It was a hot day. She didn’t know why you kept your hoodie on the whole time, but she was just happy you were there with her. You haven’t moved from your spot except to toss a stray volleyball back to its owners. Come on, go join her. Please. She wanted you to. The feeling wanted you to. You wanted to.

When you finally looked up, you could see the waves crashing against the shore underneath the setting sky. Peace. Nothing rang in your ears except for the sound of the roaring waves and the joyous shrieks of small children being chased by their parents. Nothing weighed down on you, not even personal worries about the future after high school that your classmates often talked about. Despite how your skin still felt hot and stuffy under your hoodie, you didn’t feel particularly parched. After all, you haven’t moved all day from your spot except to return a stray volleyball back to its owners. Even then, it was a lot better to cover up than to have your skin feel dry yet sticky from the warm and salty ocean breeze and mist flying against you all day.

Hot sand. Stiff crossed knees that were in need of stretching. You never expected anybody to be by your side when you looked up. Nobody to walk around the beach with. That day, you came to the beach alone to sit and people watch as the sun set in front of your eyes. It was nice being there by yourself, with no bag to watch over and no extra tracked sand leading into your house. Nobody to care about. Empty shell of a body like a lonely sandcastle alone on dry sand. There were footprints that led towards where you were sitting. No person who the footsteps belonged to.

Incoming sunset breeze to cool your face. Pulverized stone exfoliate via walking. Footsteps on the shore without a trace.

Inexplicable feelings. Setting sun. Forgotten youth. Home.

TWO. ORANGE JUICE

Roll your orange against the counter while pushing against it. Don’t be afraid to rough it up a little. We’re trying to release the juices. I think I learned something weird from this old television show I used to watch with my mom before bed that was part talk show and part DIY show… Huh? A mom? Let me finish first. So the ladies with their black hair in neat curls and matching outfits with those really fluffy short sleeves were talking to a guest, someone that deals with food maybe. Anyway, I learned that if you toss citrus around in your hands for a while, the tartness of the fruit gets replaced with sweetness. So I spent much of my childhood juggling my tangerines from the sidelines of the soccer field before eating them. Unfortunately, because I spent too long juggling my fruit and ended up eating it last minute, I always ended up with a stomachache that sent me back to being benched. Silver lining is, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a sour piece of tangerine before. So if you want a sweeter juice, I guess you can juggle the fruit a little before you halve it. Orange juice is easy. I don’t know why I have to teach you. But I guess you’re a good listener. That’s nice.

SEUNGKWAN

The large rolling suitcase leaves behind two long indents in the dry dirt path as it drags along the road. Each pull and tug towards a new temporary familiar coats the once black and glossy wheels in a matte tan color disrupted by speckled imprints of tiny gravel in every new layer of dirt rolled onto the suitcase wheels. Once in a while, much like the long lines used to omit phrases from a written sentence, the wheels break through a pair of footprints that belong to the person pulling the suitcase. Still, the traces along the dirt path are never straight nor as continuous as one would usually prefer. As an arborist would study the rings of a tree to determine periods of sickness and health, anybody could see how the lines left by the suitcase indicate periods of pause in transit, a person struggling along the road, and moments of pure and undisrupted conversation.

Under the warm morning sunlight, Boo Seungkwan has a new kind of warmth lingering by his side — someone so familiar yet so new, neither déjà vu nor jamais vu but nostalgia in person. He hasn’t seen you in years, yet he can’t find himself saying he expected the person to step out of the taxi to be a person drastically different from what he remembers. But you’ve changed since he last saw you, albeit it’s a more mature version of you who walks alongside him toward his family farm.

Seungkwan knows everything about you. For instance, as long as he asked you about family, close friends, past relationships, or the summary of the last chapter you read, you would always answer him truthfully, albeit bluntly. In the past, he would often find himself wondering whether or not you never tried to ask him any questions about himself because you were simply not interested or if you were afraid of your inevitable. He knows the amount of hair that collects on your drain every time you shampoo your hair. He knows you never order the same drink from a coffee shop twice. He knows the answer to every single question he has ever asked you to the point where even he's afraid that one day he would run out of questions to ask you. So when he received a message from you asking if you could work at his farm for the summer in exchange for room and board, he knew both your lives are about to undergo a new form of change and momentum. Change or no change, he agreed to your request if and only if you would be willing to fulfill his additional term: you must help him get rid of his oranges.

What presents itself as the summer getaway of the century is a 3-acre piece of land that hosts a small orange grove behind the cream-colored family farmhouse and guest house-turned-seasonal café that Seungkwan was left in charge of for the summer while his family vacations in the Maldives. Even sitting in the car with the windows down and turning onto the street the property sits, wafts of honeyed and tangy citrus can energize those on a long journey away from the city. Besides the dirt road that leads towards the farmhouse are large patches of clover in place of grass, and a beautiful array of flowers and bushes are planted between dirt and clover. What is most magnificent, Seungkwan points out while walking up to the farmhouse where you would be staying for the rest of the summer, is not the fact that his grandparents built this place from the ground up or the thousands of oranges they produce each year, but the fact that he drew the long end of the stick for you so you have the first-floor study to yourself instead of having to share a room with the rest of his friends.

When his introductory gist is returned with your silence, Seungkwan finds himself too embarrassed to see whether or not you reacted in response. But if he took the time to look, he would’ve seen you looking around your surroundings in awe, your mind wondering about how much of the landscape could change just by being thirty minutes away from the city.

“Let’s see,” Seungkwan mumbles while he opens the front door and leads you to the interior of the house in an attempt to free himself from his embarrassment. “The study is the first door on the left down the left hallway. It’s a sofa bed, and I already set it up for you. Laundry room is one door down. I’m in my grandparents’ bedroom down the right hallway. There’s also a bathroom and a guest room on our side. Everybody else should be upstairs…if you think it’s awkward to have pictures of my family stare at you while you sleep, I won’t be offended if you turn them around.” He scratches his hair, still trying to figure out whether or not he conjured an air of awkwardness between you and him.

He hovers behind you as you quietly make your way to your room — him studying how you crane your head to look around the foreign farmhouse interior from the living room to the ceiling's supportive wooden beams. It is rather quiet, as if you’ve both run out of topics to discuss after the brief moment you shared while trekking from taxi to house. He doesn’t know why he hesitates when you reach for the door's doorknob as if he were imagining you to be some interior design critic for a magazine. But his breath hitches for a second when you open the door and step into the modest office. Distracting himself from nothing, he looks at anything but you and settles for the tiny streaks of dirt your suitcase wheels brought indoors. And he smears the dirt streaks with his foot, making a mental note to mop when he has time.

Not too long after you enter the office, your voice calls for his attention. "Seungkwan?" You call for him.

Seungkwan steps into the office's open doorframe, careful not to cross the threshold of the room to give you some privacy. He notices you are sitting on the edge of the sofa bed, your suitcase temporarily tucked against the wall and underneath the light switch. Framed pictures of his family sit on the office's bookshelves. Some pictures depict little Seungkwan in a puffer jacket while holding large oranges in his tiny hands, causing Seungkwan to become quite embarrassed. What is more, is how he notices your hand clutching the blanket you sit on loosening with his presence and leaving a mountainous crease in its absence.

You thank him.

The response sounds like a squeak, which Seungkwan finds amusing and reassuring. There is the fact that there is an air of awkwardness present, not from his creation but from the years the two of you spent apart, that causes you to squeak. Gratitude is phrased simply, the attempt is more than enough to let him know you are feeling the same way he is feeling.

Truthfully, Seungkwan is still trying to fathom and process the fact that you are here with him. It hits him in this moment that maybe the you who sits in comfortable silence while staring out the window is not exactly the same person he once knew like the back of his hand. Finally taking time to look at his friend closely, Seungkwan still recognizes you in the same way that we recognize ourselves as ourselves even when all of our cells have exchanged themselves for new cells. He recognizes the way your hands clutch into balls with your thumbs placed between your pointer and middle finger when you fidget. He recognizes the backpack you brought as the same one you used in college. But he fails to recognize and understand why or how you have become the person to reach out to him for any reason. Why is it that he was chosen to be one of your protagonists in your journey to find the meaning of your life? How is it that a nobody who dreams of a life unattached to the farm could possibly offer something of such value to someone who constantly lives life in fear of loss?

The truth is, there is always something about being next to you that always makes Boo Seungkwan want to cry. Pity doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling that wells and burns in his chest. Is it rage? Sadness? Regret? Empathetic and sympathetic as he is, he is prone to wearing his emotions before he can even realize what he is feeling. Being next to you causes his chest to concave and collapse in on itself, but he knows better than to feel bad for you. Or maybe he thinks it’s so fucked that you’re in a position in which you’re so desensitized to loss that you can’t even recognize at any moment that you lost what you loved. Always by your side, or at least until a few years ago, Seungkwan was there to reintroduce you to the things and concepts you’ve once loved because he cared and noticed. A savior isn’t who he’s trying to be, nor was that ever his intended role. Maybe a constant without caution is what he strives to be, even if his selfishness causes him to believe that in case you ever allow yourself to fall in love with him he would be able to disappear and thus never take on the responsibilities of a third-generation farm owner.

Yet a curse regarding loss upon a regular human being in love shouldn’t be the wake-up call that shows the world that loss is a daily occurrence. Loss is as banal and unremarkable as its spelling. And Seungkwan knows this. He’s lost torn snack foil wrapper corners from his pockets. He’s lost time during transit. He’s lost those who he once loved dearly. So why is someone else’s loss so much more important to him when he knows that love is involved?

And why is it that Boo Seungkwan chooses to show everybody unconditional love and care even when he knows transactional relationships would statistically yield more return?

Seungkwan isn’t a bad person. There isn’t a single bad bone in his body. He’s known you long enough not to tiptoe around you because, despite your curse, you’re just a regular person. And you would prefer it if other people treated you regularly. But why is it that he feels the way he feels whenever he’s alone with you?

A silver compact car with dusty windows pulls into the driveway, crushing rocks under tires. Seungkwan watches his guests through the study window, how the driver parks his car and pauses his music before pulling up his emergency brake as if his music is more important than the safety of his car. On the bookshelf near the window, Seungkwan’s grandfather’s plastic analog clock continues to tick through the silence and makes itself known.

“I’ll let you unpack on your own.” Seungkwan breaks the silence, only now realizing the time and how he never replied to your thanks. “I have to lead the others to their rooms so call for me when you’re done. I’ll bring you around.”

“Who’s here?” You ask Seungkwan before turning your head to look back at him.

Seungkwan leans against the doorframe and tilts his head toward the ceiling to think. Sticking his fingers out one by one, he lists his upstairs visitors, “Lex, Morg, Noah, Hao…I think you remember Jihoon right? He just arrived with Soonyoung and Terry. Oh, Yunling is also here. Seokmin, Jeonghan, and others are coming later this week.”

“Oh? I didn’t know he was…” He hears you mumble to yourself.

“Oh? Oh. Oh no.” Seungkwan slaps his hand over his mouth in realization. His eyes widen as he stares at you staring back at him, and he feels like he’s about to be presented with the “World’s Worst Host” award. “I’m sorry I didn’t even think about it because I know you haven’t-”

“It’s okay,” you cut him off...a little too eagerly for his liking.

“I’m sorry this didn’t cross my mind at all. I- I can probably keep him far away from yo-”

“It’s okay Seungkwan.” You try to reassure him.

“Are you sure? Won’t it be awkward to spend the summer with him?”

“It’s been years. I think I can manage.” A tight-lipped smile.

“Okay, well I’m here.” Seungkwan isn’t sure whether or not his tone indicated reassurance or his physical proximity to you. He removes himself from the doorframe and turns his body away from the office entrance.

“You are,” you reaffirm, yet your voice can make two syllables sound as monotonous as ever.

“For you if you need anything.” He hopes this fragment can come off as the latter half of his previous statement. Only his head can be seen from inside the office.

“I’ll find you when I’m done.” Your voice is a bit lighter.

“You changed.”

“I’m still trying to change.” Hopefulness. A twinge of a tiny smile.

“You know, I’m glad you’re here. Not just because of the oranges, but I’m just…glad.”

THREE. HONEY CITRON TEA

You know, I hated this when I was a child because I always associated this with sickness. Whenever I coughed, Mom would grab me by the back of my collar and march me to the kitchen, and she would get the large jar of yuja from the innermost corner of the fridge by pushing all the condiments to the side. I remember the yuja jar being so old that I can’t remember the label, but the faded and discolored leftover pieces stuck to the remaining glue whose stickiness never seemed to wash off my hands no matter how much I scrubbed. Wooden dowl into the jar, it emerges with a heaping pile of jammy and golden cheong. Boiling watery concoction with sunken pieces of rind washes down the sore throat and coats it with handmade love. Eat it, she would tell me, it helps with the swelling. This is what you get for not bringing a jacket with you when you go out.

YN

During the summer, they switched the old sand for dark brown wood chips. A preschool-wide assembly was held a few weeks into the start of the Fall program regarding playground safety. More children were sent to the nurse’s office than the preschool workers have ever seen in such a short amount of time. It hurt a lot when you tripped and fell on your palms and tried to break the fall in the areas where sand once lay. It hurt even more when the taller kids purposely kicked the wood chips upwards, swinging them at the other kids when they hogged the swings. At least with sand, all you had to do was close your eyes and hold your breath when they kicked so the sand wouldn’t get in your eyes and mouth. But the topic of the assembly was “Walk Don’t Run”, as if the adults expected preschoolers to understand and believe that they were the problem and not the cheap excuse for an easier and flexible playground maintenance.

It was fun spending the day with your friends, digging as deeply as you could in the sandbox before the preschool workers called you indoors. After the sand replacement, it hurt to even kneel on the wood chips. So when you were three, you knew when to stop when you got hurt. After the implementation of the wood chips, you decided to stay indoors.

There was one kid who constantly got in trouble. Whether it be him failing to do assignments or him not finishing his food, he was always punished. You saw him squatting in the corner of the room, mumbling to himself while you played with your toy. It was your new obsession. It rattled. It twisted. It was soft. It kept you company. Weeks passed. You, indoors. Toy in your hand. Boy in the corner. Sometimes mumbling. Sometimes he talked to you. Indoors was safe. That, you understood.

An unfortunate incident, the same boy in trouble again walked past you just as an adult walked into the room. Eyes wide, you sat in a daze with your tiny legs stretched in front of you. You looked as if you had forgotten something. With nothing to do on your spot on the rug, you stared at the boy walking to his time-out spot and then at the adult.

The worker kindly called your name. Where is your toy?

What toy, you replied. There were so many toys that you didn’t know which one the worker was referring to. Trying to decipher the ambiguous question overwhelmed your tiny brain and made your head hurt. Which one, you asked again.

Adults were always weird. They asked vaguely phrased questions and changed directions when were asked to reiterate or further explain their intentions. Instead of describing the toy for you, the worker decided to target the boy because he saw him walking past you when he entered the classroom. Illogical as it was, a new suspect had arisen in the worker’s mind. And to the worker, his mind was absolute.

You couldn’t do anything to help the screaming match that ensued. The boy shrieked until his voice became raspy, crying about how he didn’t steal anything. He looked at you with his helpless eyes, puffy eyes, pleading for you to side with him. He didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t like you didn’t help. You stated that you did not know of such a toy. Collusion. Turning good kids bad. Overthinking in the name of good standing with the directors of the preschool.

The preschool prided itself in implementing strict and good morals in its students. You don’t remember liking the place very much.

On report cards, there was always a section for the teachers and workers to write extra notes. "Good kid" was what was written in the section on the card sent home in an envelope. "Doesn’t cry."

If love erases, then societal expectations belittle human emotions. But what did you know? You didn't remember anything that came after the incident, just bits and pieces. You were only three.

FOUR. CANDIED ORANGES

She loved eating these, my grandma. It broke her heart when she couldn’t chew through these when she got her dentures. Sometimes she would forget that she couldn’t eat these anymore and would spend an entire day making a batch. Taking her time to text and tell us that she accidentally made some, she urged us to go and pick it up after class. While they were fresh, she said. I'm not sure if it was forgetfulness or the fact that she missed us that she would end up spending hours candying orange slices. I was living hours away for school, and she was too old to send them over by parcel. I wish I made more time for her.

SEUNGKWAN

“For a person who says that he hates oranges, you sure put a lot of care into them.”

Unable to see the person talking to him from his squatting position in the middle of the orange orchard, Seungkwan takes off his sun hat and lets it drop against his back with its drawcord secured around his neck. Shadow cast by the sun to the side of him, Seungkwan’s eyes follow the shadow towards its person and draw his eyes upon an old man's familiar figure.

“Uncle Hsieh!” Seungkwan exclaims happily upon recognition. He puts his hands on his knees and immediately hoists himself up to greet the elder while eyeing the man’s foldable personal shopping dolly almost filled to the brim with oranges. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Are you picking oranges for your kids?”

The old man immediately crinkles his face and slaps Seungkwan’s shoulder while shaking his head. “You know my kids never have time for me anymore. They took my grandkids on a vacation and wouldn’t let me come with them,” he tsks through his front teeth.

“No.” Seungkwan’s response sounds exasperated. He remembers the Hsiehs to be annual visitors of the farm.

“Right? They said that they’re worried my partner and I are too old to travel. But look at us-” He gestures to his dolly and someone in the distance. “If we’re healthy enough to come to your farm to pick oranges every winter, then why can’t we vacation in a nice hotel?”

Seungkwan quickly waves at another visitor passing by before turning to the man. He doesn’t know what to say in response and only hopes that everything turns out fine for the man because friendly banter would only cause him to bring up the fact that his grandparents are currently vacationing with his family. Not wanting to accidentally offend the nice man, he quickly diverts the conversation with a suggestion. “Chill off in our café before you go, yeah? I don’t want to have you ending up in a hospital because of heatstroke.”

“Maybe that’s the only way that I’ll get my family to visit.” The old man smiles, but Seungkwan can clearly see through the man's humor used as a pretense for his longing and sadness regarding his family. This interaction leaves Seungkwan wondering how his family is doing while he waves the old man goodbye.

This summer, for Seungkwan, is a montage of bliss between new and old moments shared with friends and the constant reminder of how loved his grandparents are by the community. As Seungkwan’s friends slowly move into this farmhouse for the summer, business at the farm proceeds as usual. So he runs the farm and café like how he has been trained to do it his entire life — picking oranges, shipping oranges to local grocers, running the café, making drinks, greeting customers, bookkeeping… He doesn’t complain about the fact that his family left the farm to him for the summer to go on a proper vacation. Bliss to him, then, is encapsulated by moments shared with new and old friends. Moments that make him forget, even just for a minute that the possibility of a predetermined and unwavering future are what make unbearable humidity and sweltering solar heat fundamental parts of a summer away from the bustling city life he’s grown accustomed to.

“Growing accustomed to,” this phrase when taken into another context, however, means something entirely different from Seungkwan. From his pile of oranges, he stacks into a wooden crate to load onto the wagon attachment for his ATV. Seungkwan looks specifically in the direction of the farm entrance where a group of people are working. He spots you sitting with Yunling under the navy blue canopy, chatting away and probably taking a break while persons three and four man the cash register. It’s been a few days since you arrived, but Seungkwan can’t help but want to look out for you as he used to when the two of you were in school together. And he catches himself, as he is doing now, and reminds himself that he doesn’t need to look out for you like how he used to do. That isn’t to say that his friends are bad people, but maybe the only lost puppy he has in his life right now is probably the literal one who is currently on vacation with his family.

Granted, he didn’t expect you to immediately open up to his friends over a couple of hard seltzers by the floor-to-ceiling windows in the sunroom on the first day you arrived. Sitting in the middle of strangers and a few familiar faces, you looked comfortable in your spot on the beige cushions of the rattan sofa.

“I have this condition where everything and everybody I love disappears…” Seungkwan remembers you saying with a soft voice. Your eyes dropped to stare at the open can of hard seltzer you hold in your hands. It was a topic about your life that you often chose to keep hidden, so it felt like a revolutionary turn hearing you address it so openly. “It sounds unbelievable doesn’t it? I had people tell me that it’s a common occurrence to lose what you love, but it’s literally as if that person or object completely vanishes from my life and memory.”

The room was silent after you finished speaking. Nobody raised their drink to their lips, and nobody moved so much an inch. Seungkwan thought that that was it, that everything was bound to fall to ruins. But Soonyoung’s simple yet loud hum of ponderance was enough to break the quietness.

“I think,” Soonyoung slurred, immediately redirecting the group’s attention to him. Minghao, who saw his friend’s tipsy state, reached over to gently pluck the drink from the older friend’s hand to set it on the coffee table in front of them. “I think anything is possible in this world, including magic. I mean look at Alex.” Soonyoung sat up straight and pointed at Alex, who sat across from him, and proceeded to laugh out loud while talking, “Out of everybody around us, he’s the one in a relationship, and you would be lying if you believed he was able to achieve it without witchcraft.”

So, maybe it is in Seungkwan’s nature to worry about those around him. Such nosiness for even the most picayune of problems and people, Seungkwan’s habit of worrying for and about others doesn’t even have an origin story. It just happens because he is who he is.

Dropping the ATV off near the entrance to the orchard, Seungkwan jingles and twirls the keys in his left hand while directing his seasonal workers where the crates should be stored for the night shipment to local grocers. Without noticing how hard he twirls the keys around his pointer finger, the small chain of keys flies off his finger and onto the ground a few feet ahead of him. It lands on a soft patch of dirt, light-colored dust covering surfaces that gleamed with a metallic sheen just a few seconds ago. Someone picks up the pair of keys before Seungkwan has the chance to react in the same way and lightly tosses the keys back to their owner.

Yoon Jeonghan, with his jet-black hair he spent months growing out that finally touches his shoulders, takes long strides towards his friend while reaching into his pant pocket for his phone, a long stream of complaints already trailing out of his mouth.

“I looked everywhere for you,” Jeonghan complains to Seungkwan while Seungkwan finds himself rolling his eyes. “Why didn’t you pick up your phone? We’ve been calling and texting you, but you wouldn’t reply.”

“I left it somewhere. Can’t remember where I put it,” Seungkwan sighs while wiping the dust off his keys with the hem of his shirt. “When did you arrive?”

“Like half an hour ago.” Jeonghan adjusts his light blue baseball cap to better shield his eyes from the sun. He clicks open his lock screen to double-check the text he received from his driver. “Seokmin’s napping in our room. He’ll come out later.”

“Oh no, was the drive bad? When did you guys leave?”

“Nah, the drive wasn’t bad. He’s just hungover,” he replies nonchalantly while shoving his phone back into his pocket. The dark-haired man quickly looks around the familiar farm and rocks on the heels of his feet. “Busy, huh?” He observes.

“Yeah,” Seungkwan agrees. There is a glimmer of mischievousness in his eyes when he cocks his head toward the ATV he parked not so long ago. “But the new investments help.”

“Bro I can’t imagine how cool your grandparents must look while riding the ATVs.”

“5 miles an hour.” Seungkwan gestures to the number five with his hand and drops it after. “Speed demons.”

“Still cool.” Jeonghan nods while looking around his periphery again.

It’s clear to Seungkwan that Jeonghan, who had spent a remarkable amount of time on this farm over the past few years, isn’t looking around to people-watch or check out the farm's new and expensive additions. Jeonghan has been around long enough that even Seungkwan’s grandparents consider him one of their grandsons. No, Seungkwan knows that while Jeonghan is trying to play it off as if he’s only checking out and reminiscing in his surroundings, what he is looking for is not it, but rather, a who.

When Yoon Jeonghan, who is usually not the type of person to be silent or stay still for long periods, freezes in his spot like a deer in headlights, Seungkwan knows better than to follow his friend’s line of vision to see who exactly it was who caught his eye. Instead, Seungkwan looks toward the blue canopy near the entrance and notices two people missing from their posts.

Out of nowhere, Seungkwan feels someone behind him throw their entire weight onto his shoulders. The force of the sudden weight on top of Seungkwan knocks Seungkwan’s sunhat from his head forward and onto the ground and causes him to lose his balance, but he grabs onto Jeonghan's unwavering and sturdy shoulder to steady himself.

“Seungkwan,” Yunling sings in a sing-song voice. Her bleached blonde hair falls and covers half of Seungkwan’s face as she reaches her arm over his shoulder to wave a familiar object in front of him. “You forgot your phone.”

“Get off me. It’s hot,” Seungkwan groans while bending his knees so she can safely hop off his back. She hands him his phone, which he thanks her for. In the meantime, another person picks the sunhat from the floor and tucks a thick booklet underneath their aim pit to brush the dust off the hat before handing it back to its owner. And Seungkwan finds himself, yet again, thanking another person for handing him an item he dropped.

Seungkwan sees you bring the accounting booklet to the front of your chest while Yunling leans her elbow on your shoulder. It looks like you are about to say something to him, but someone interrupts your question.

“Yn.” Jeonghan manages to push through his state of shock, yet your name rolls off the tip of his tongue as if he spent his entire life dedicated to saying the name he just said.

It feels familiar because it is.

FIVE. ORANGE SALAD

Orange peel sliced away to form a hexagonal-shaped fruit, lean the fruit on its long side against the cutting board to slice thin hexagons. If what you hold in your hand is too dull, then you risk losing more than what there is to the recipe. Dullness slices the fruit just as sharpness does, but you risk bruising the delicate meat and creating soft pockets of mush while the juice escapes and drips onto the cutting board. There are times when it’s better to do things quickly and all at once or you will risk losing the beauty in your creation. Simple orange slices in a refreshing salad, sometimes it’s better to not try too hard. You did your best. And that’s enough for me.

YN

The more you shifted on your plastic desk chair, the more static electricity you created, causing your arm hairs to stand up straight every time your arm brushed against the back of your chair. But you couldn’t help yourself — the singular high school desk chairs always felt confining to sit in, and this situation felt even more like a prison because you were attending your scheduled parent-teacher conference without any guardians present. The empty classroom was quiet with just your homeroom teacher and you present. Only your cell phone, which sat on the teacher's desk in front of you, rang loudly through its speakerphone option as the two of you waited for your guardians to pick up the call.

The space between your legs and the front of the teacher’s desk was minuscule, to say the least, so you could only stretch your legs to relieve some physical tension in your body toward the side of your desk. She readjusted her dark purple tortoiseshell rectangular-framed glasses on the bridge of her nose as she stared at your phone and then back at you as if doing so could create a telepathic communication with your aunt and uncle on the other side of the world. All that did was confirm that she was very disappointed in the current affairs of your home life.

Clearly annoyed, she pressed the red “End Call” button before the phone could go to voicemail and slid your phone toward you. You leaned forward and gingerly took the phone from the desk and set it in front of you, still feeling the lingering warmth of the screen on the tips of your fingers even after your fingers left the phone. It wasn’t like you were in trouble, but the guilty feeling you felt at that moment burned and churned in your stomach and left you feeling nauseous.

The teacher let out a breathy sigh, grabbed your manila folder from the stack of student folders to the side of her, and opened it to the first page. She tapped her chipped manicured finger on your information that you could not see from where you were sitting and looked at you. Her expression softened as she looked at your body language. She wasn’t mad at you. She knew you didn’t do anything wrong.

“There are a few things that we have to understand as things that are out of our grasp. And today is such an instance in which we have to recognize that fact. Your parents…” she trailed, as if unsure if she should bring up the topic of your parents.

“My aunt and uncle,” you promptly corrected her. “They work overseas on ships so it’s hard to contact them when they’re too far out. I live alone most of the time. But I do have someone who comes in and helps around the house so I guess I’m not really alone.”

“Right.” She nodded. “My mistake, but you didn’t need to tell me that much.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no.” She shook her head and breathed out through her teeth, feeling a tiny unsettled by your current situation at home and in the present. “Um, I think you’re a good student. Actually, an outstanding student given your grades and extracurriculars. But you’re a Junior now, and I really think you should start thinking about your future.” She tried to end her sentence with a polite smile, but you knew that there was still an air of uncomfortableness present.

If you were being truthful to yourself, you would admit that you never really took the time to think about your future as the prospect of a future for someone like you, more often than not, seemed like a myth than a reality. And the idea of going to school for something you didn’t love and then finding a job in the workforce for something you didn’t love felt like a torturous future you weren’t willing to partake in.

Sixteen-year-olds your age, you knew for a fact, didn’t have to worry about their future as you did with yours. Theoretically, our futures would be dictated in the direction of the things we saw ourselves loving doing even if it meant changing directions once in a while. Yours would be too, although the direction of change would be dictated through an erasure. What you love will always become what you lost. Maybe there was one thing that you could relate to others your age: it was the feeling of not knowing what your future would be like. And what would become of your future if you somehow fell in love with yourself? Would you lose the idea of yourself or would you simply perish?

“…career workshop next week. Do you have anybody to pick you up?” Your teacher asked while handing you your manilla folder containing your progress report.

“I’m taking the bus home,” you replied, feeling sheepish that you completely zoned out after she started talking about your future. You hoped you didn’t miss anything important.

“Okay. Well, stay safe.” She nodded while craning her upper body over her desk to see you put your folder in your backpack. “And I know you’re a bit forgetful at times, so I’ve attached the workshop flyer in your folder so you won’t forget about it. I’ll also remind you in class.”

SIX. CITRUS SALMON

I wonder if I am wasting away my life. We wish our elders to live long and grow old, but…I dunno. Citrus salmon baked at a steady heat for a quarter of an hour, I wonder how much of my time I’ve wasted waiting for it to bake to perfection, waiting for something to happen to me. Maybe this is why I nag so much to the point that even I know I’m starting to become such a nuisance to those around me. The pressure to do something worthwhile and not let anything precious go to waste, why must we try so hard all of the time? If I spent all my fifteen minutes lying on the couch while staring at the ceiling, not even thinking about my salmon baking, just simply zoning out until I’m stopped by my timer, am I wasting my time? Whatever I do in those fifteen minutes, I would still end up with flaky citrus salmon, right? Right?

SEUNGKWAN

Boo Seungkwan drags you by your elbow toward the front of the café, dodging patrons sitting on beautiful glossy white barstools with orange wood-stained surfaces and looping around farm product displays.

“There’s nowhere for me to sit.” He hears you complain in his ear. He knows it’s a bit embarrassing for you to be dragged around like a toddler in front of people you don’t know, but he’s on a mission. “I’ll honestly be more comfortable hanging out in the back until my break is over.”

The two of you appear in front of a man sitting alone in the corner of the café who stares through the large windows beside him at nothing in particular. It’s one of the only spots in the café with cushioned seating and low coffee tables positioned with the intent to allow groups of friends to sit and chat together while enjoying the scenery. But it seems as if the man is too occupied with his thoughts to notice incoming groups of customers eyeing his spot. Thick groomed eyebrows that contrast and provide a balance to his softer facial features and with an irresistible boyish charm to him, the man sits with his back against the loveseat to better support the sleeping baby in his arms. Despite his well-kept appearance, small stains on his knit beige tee, dark circles under his eyes, and the fact that his lunch on the table in front of him remains untouched but his coffee gone, is a clear tell that the sleeping child is his daughter.

Leaning towards you, Seungkwan brings a hand to the side of his face to purposely create a wall between the man and him and whispers rather loudly to you, “This is Seungcheol. He’s living in the café.”

“Bro.” The man named Seungcheol looks at his friend with a rather unenthusiastic expression. His voice is raspy as a result of not speaking all day. “You’re making it seem like you’re describing some random weirdo living in your café. And I’m only living in the rooms in the back of the café because the main house is too noisy.” He turns his head toward you as if to defend himself in front of a judge, “I have a house and a well-paying job you know. It’s enough to support two daughters.” His rebuttal is said with an obligatory huff, as if it was part of a spiel he’s said more than a hundred times, yet there is a twinge of sorrow in his tone that is entirely intertwined with his cheekiness. It’s a feeling and a state of being that Seungkwan knows that Seungcheol can never truly escape.

“One of his daughters is a dog,” Seungkwan quickly quips in an attempt to lighten the mood to avoid a sense of awkwardness between the three of you before the two are introduced to each other.

“Still a daughter.” Seungcheol rolls his eyes and nods at the empty space in front of him, jutting his chin slightly upwards in place of his occupied hands. “Sit.”

Seungkwan also nods at you, indicating that it’s fine for you to sit. Dragging you toward a random man and his daughter in the corner of the café has its place in Seungkwan’s grand scheme for you to get rid of his oranges, but he thinks the interaction with Seungcheol could prove worthwhile for all of you — including Seungcheol. So he takes it upon himself to sit next to his older friend, quietly stretching his arms outwards so the father could pass him his sleeping daughter. And if all of the cards are played right, Seungkwan thinks he could be killing two birds with one stone.

Gladly handing his daughter over to his friend, Choi Seungcheol mumbles a quiet note of gratitude before he sits up straight and rolls his shoulder backward to stretch his back. He leans forward in his seat and comfortably rests his elbows on his knees before grabbing the untouched fork next to his salmon salad. Seungkwan watches him dig his metal fork into the roasted salmon and take a hearty bite to enjoy the marinated citrus flavor of the salmon by itself before raking the metal prongs through the meat to shred it to pieces just as Seungkwan’s grandparents had taught Seungcheol to do so before they went on vacation.

June is when Seungkwan’s friends all arrive at the farm for a summer away from the city; January is when Seungcheol arrived at the farm, two people’s lives packed up in a couple of suitcases and cardboard boxes for time away from the city to heal and escape. The café, originally a guesthouse, returned to serve its original purpose by housing Seungcheol and his daughter for a little over half a year, and Seungkwan knows very well that he doesn’t have the heart to tell his friend that he should’ve moved out months ago. So Seungkwan sits in the once sought-after spot in the café with a sleeping baby in his arms, watching the newly single father scarf down his salad like it’s his last meal. Looking at the infant, her dark-colored eyebrows and the pout that resembles her father’s all too well, stress stores itself in the pit of his stomach, finding company with the sympathetic grief he shared with the heartbroken Seungcheol who once couldn’t so much bring himself to pick up the pen to sign his divorce papers.

Falling in love is easy, but falling out of love and learning how to become whole again is a process that can shatter one’s soul and make one doubt whether or not love in any shape and form is an achievable future feat. For some people, a lifetime is not long enough to contain and overcome love’s defeat. And for those devastated by love, the process of falling in love would never be the same as it once was.

“How long have you had her for?” Seungkwan hears you ask him, your voice clear and without apprehension yet only loud enough for those sitting across from you to hear.

The father hesitates for a second, nodding his head while licking his lips clean of vinaigrette before leaning his fork on the edge of his ceramic plate. He sits up with his arms crossed in front of his chest before dropping his arms and folding his hands in his lap. “That’s weird for me to hear because usually people ask me how old she is, but you seem to measure time differently,” he replies and unfolds his hands yet again, this time stacking one over another neatly on his thighs. “Asking me how long I had her for is what I usually hear when it comes to pets or cars. I also get questions about my age when they see me with her.”

Seungkwan scoffs at his friend’s rather thorough reply to a simple question. “Stop lecturing them. You sound like an English professor.”

“Maybe I was one in another life.” Seungcheol smiles meekly. He separates his hands, clutching them in two fists before letting go as if he is struggling with deciding where he wants to place them. “I just celebrated her first birthday earlier this year. Seungkwan’s grandparents let me mark her height against the wall. Got to prop her up against the wall and everything.”

In the brief moment of awkward newly acquainted silence between the two, Seungkwan’s eyes dart between his two friends, registering in his mind the start of a friendship. He sees your soft smile, lips pulled back to reveal the top row of your teeth. And Seungcheol, although a bit embarrassed to be gushing about his daughter, smiles with his head pointed downwards yet his lips pull back to allow his dimples to finally show after being hidden for so long.

“Oh.” You laugh, clapping your hands together, suddenly remembering a story. “I remember Seungkwan showing me the spot in the hallway. She’s taller than Seungkwan was at this age, right?”

“Literally one of the best moments of my life,” Seungcheol adds without hesitation, slapping both of his palms against his knees to further solidify his statement.

Mouth hanging open, Seungkwan glares at the two, somehow finding himself regretting introducing you to each other. But before he can verbally retaliate, a cream-colored sleeve blocks Seungkwan’s view. Yoon Jeonghan, in his textured button-up shirt, quietly retrieves Seungcheol’s empty cup to place on his small serving cart. And he takes the damp towel hanging from his apron and wipes the empty space on the table in front of you before he slings the towel back on his shoulder after he finishes. The three of you have no choice but to pause your conversation to watch the worker as he slowly turns away again to grab something from the top of his cart, a slice of orange cake nobody ordered, to place it in the empty space that he wiped. Jeonghan doesn’t say anything to the three of you nor does he try to make eye contact, but Seungkwan observes how he places the plate of dessert in front of you as if he is handling something as delicate as his first love.

Shifting his observation focus, Seungkwan sees how you stare at him with a look of bewilderment and something unreadable even as Jeonghan reaches into his apron to protrude a set of utensils for you to use. A chorus of welcomes causes Jeonghan to pause what he is doing, shoot straight up, and join in welcoming the customer. Jeonghan seems to recognize the man who walked in and waves at him, letting him know that he’ll clear a table for him as soon as possible. And he takes the opportunity to set the utensils next to the plate he placed and quickly rolls his cart away, avoiding confrontation.

“Asshole,” Seungcheol mutters while leaning forward to pick up his fork. “He could’ve asked if I wanted a refill. I’m literally one of his closest friends yet he chooses to take my cup away just to spite me.”

Seungkwan looks down at the sleeping baby he is holding to make sure she is still sleeping. When he sees that she’s still asleep, he puts extra caution in covering her ears not because the café is loud, but because her dad has a potty mouth.

“But you know-” Seungcheol attempts to speak while chewing. The action is a little harder than he expected, so he swallows before continuing. “Jeonghan. He’s not the same as he once was. I’m sorry for admitting this, but I know about you only because I found out through Jeonghan back then. And believe me when I say this- Wait, no… actually, Seungkwan can vouch for me. But I was honestly super against what he did. We actually lectured him at that time. But who am I to lecture someone about love? I haven’t even hit my thirties and I’m already divorced.”

He slumps back into his seat, pinching the bridge of his nose. He stays like that for a second before letting go of his nose, and he folds his hands in his lap while staring out the window. His right leg shakes, sending little tremors that vibrate beneath his feet, while his lips purse and shut tightly as if not to let the words on the tip of his tongue come out. Gloom casts over Seungcheol as quickly as mist covers car windows on foggy days. His eyes blink fast.

“It’s hard…isn’t it?” Words come out of Seungkwan’s mouth, but it’s not said to console anybody in particular. He has never experienced loss like you and Seungcheol have. “Finding yourself after love.” It becomes more of a personal question rather than a rhetorical one.

“I feel like I am always on the verge of crumbling inside…” His voice cracks and Seungkwan can feel his heart shatter. “…my entire body is tethered by a thin string of hope I hold onto. Sometimes I cry in the restroom with the fan on so I wouldn’t wake the baby. But looking at the bright side of things is easier said than done.”

Silence fills the space between the three of you, expanding and pushing itself against the invisible bubble that protects your conversation from eavesdroppers. Nobody really knows how to respond to Seungcheol, how they should reply, or if they should console him. Wracking his brain for the correct answer, Seungkwan sits silently while staring between the half-eaten lunch on the table and the man next to him. It seems unbelievable that any form of separation between two people could cause an almost never-ending avalanche of hurt even after the person has healed.

When Seungcheol snaps out of his brief melancholic moment, he feels extremely bashful upon seeing how his friend and new friend look at him with such pity. So he does what every other normal human being does: play it off and play it cool. “You guys honestly don’t have to look at me that way. I’ve accepted the fact that I have to move on. And I’m pretty sure I’m okay now. It’s just scary to take the next step, but-”

“She gave up when it was getting too hard is what Seungcheol was trying to say.” Yes, Seungkwan wants Seungcheol to become better and heal over time, but it angers him so personally that anyone feels forced to hide their pain. Who is healed is healed, but it doesn’t mean that healing has to equate to something painless. “And she took everything she owned except for the child.” Seungkwan finds himself, in the moment, extremely heated so much that he jolts in his seat almost as if he is preparing to launch himself at somebody.

“Because I wanted to look after her. Afterall, I’m the one who wanted her.” Seungcheol glares at his friend while reaching over to take back his stirring child. He clutches her against his chest, his right hand placed over her head as if to shield and protect her from damage. “Leave it to Seungkwan to be mad at things and people you’re not even mad at anymore. But, in all honesty, I think it should be okay to give up when it gets too hard.”

Seungkwan doesn’t catch your conversation with Seungcheol because he finds himself staring at Jeonghan on the other side of the café. He stands at the self-serve bar, refilling glass pitchers and organizing the utensils the customers are supposed to grab themselves. Someone calls for Jeonghan, Morgan probably, and Jeonghan waves him goodbye. A customer comes up to Jeonghan, a nice-looking lady whose skin looks severely sunburned. Standing straighter than usual, he looks around the café before locating whatever it was that she needed him to find. He sends her off with a smile that quickly fades after she leaves his vicinity. The worker continues to survey the rest of the café, probably people watching while he grabs the emptied pitchers in his left hand. His eyes land on Seungkwan’s, and he tilts his head to the right as if to ask Seungkwan “what’s up?” Seungkwan thinks about Seungcheol’s comment about his empty cup and quickly cups his left hand, tilting it toward his mouth. Fully expecting Jeonghan to shake his head no, Jeonghan defies all odds and nods at Seungkwan. Albeit, he does motion to his friend that he has to bring the empty pitchers to the kitchen first.

“I don’t know,” you drag while prodding your cake with your fork, eventually taking a small bite. “I feel like it would be awkward, but I am here to find at least some meaning in my life. I’ll do it if you do it.”

“Yeah, and have Soonyoung and Seokmin use my baby as an entry ticket so they could spend hours at the children’s arcade because they would be getting their money’s worth because the games are technically for kids? Do you honestly think I would let them near her just so I could go hiking with you guys?”

“Yes?” you reply with your mouth full. A smidge of cream decorates the corner of your mouth, which you wipe away with the back of your hand. “I mean we haven’t really talked since we both arrived, but Yunling says she’ll shove him off a cliff or something if anything bad happens. Or at least join us for our morning jogs.”

Seungkwan snorts when the image of Yunling shoving Jeonghan off a hiking trail appears in his mind. He looks at Jeonghan cautiously approaching the three of you again, this time with a glass pitcher and three cups in his hand.

“…that people change over time, and they change even more after they’ve been given time to grow on their own.” Seungcheol looks at his friend who carefully pours water into the glasses and smirks at him. “Preferences change so in the future you might fall in love with what you gave up in the past. Isn’t that right, Jeonghan?”

SEVEN. SUZETTE SAUCE

When I talk to my mom, sometimes she would bring up stories about my childhood that even I don’t remember, stories I can’t fathom I once did. It would seem as if she were describing somebody completely different from me, like a different person. Time moves linearly as do our lives, but it’s nice to know that there are others out there who stop to remember who we once were even when we can’t. So what I’m saying is that there are more people who care about you than you think. Even when you’re gone, even when you’ve lost yourself, to many of us, you would never be gone…Speaking of gone. This sauce, add some to your crepes before the others come use it all. I’m too lazy to make another batch.

YN

“So you’re giving me your number so I can text you whenever I have the urge to launch myself at someone? What if I get my phone confiscated? What if I text you and then get the urge again and then end up launching myself at somebody just because you didn’t reply to my text in time? Even I don’t think that’s a very good plan, but I’ll exchange phone numbers with you.” The boy pursed his lips and uncrossed his legs, defeated by his assigned peer leader. It wasn’t like he wanted to be in a “safe” room set aside by the guidance counselors where students could talk through whatever it was that they were going through with their peer leaders. Yet here Boo Seungkwan was, sinking deeper into the giant bean bag seat that he hoped would swallow him whole before his parents found out how he “threatened” to lunge at a kid in another class.

Sighing, you shut your spiral notebook and tucked your pen in between the metal spirals. Seungkwan was right, offering him your phone number as a form of life alert wasn’t the best plan of action. But it wasn’t like you had a lot of practical peer leader practice, to begin with. With no peer leaders available to help another student, the guidance counselors could only turn to you as their last resort — the last pick of the bunch.

“Complicated” was what you would use to describe the student in front of you. You’ve seen him in passing and at the schoolwide activities where he would lead the student body in several activities like it was his calling. He was popular and well-liked, to say the least, always kind yet with a temper unmatched like no other. Perhaps it was Seungkwan’s humor or exaggerated movements which sometimes landed him in trouble. Honestly, he never meant any harm. So maybe this was why the guidance counselors thought you were the perfect peer leader for Seungkwan: because he was complicated but not too much to become a complication.

“Well, enough about me.” Seungkwan struggled to adjust his bean bag between words so he could adjust himself in a way that would allow him to sit up straight. “What about you? I’ve seen you around but I didn’t know you were a peer leader. How much experience do you have?”

“Not a lot,” you found yourself admitting. Whether it be Seungkwan’s friendliness or the “nothing goes outside of this room” rule set by the Peer Leaders Program, you decided that you had nothing to lose in confessing to your lack of experience. “My grade keeps fluctuating in my literature class and I’m pretty sure my literature teacher things I’m a pathological liar so I’m always on the verge of getting kicked out of this program…hence, my not being able to take anybody under my wing until you.”

“So I’m basically your saving grace.” He nodded while smoothing out his navy khaki pants.

“I guess,” you grumbled. It wasn’t like you were failing tests and lying to your teacher on purpose. And it wasn’t like your truth would ever be accepted as truth. Because to the adults in the high school, you were as truthful as the boy who cried wolf.

“Well.” He shot up from his bean bag and walked over to the wooden square table to sit with you. Crossing his arms on the table he continued, “I think it’s dumb that your grades play a huge factor in determining whether or not you can be a peer leader. There has to be more to it than grades. What about you? Aren’t you in the class above mine? Why is it that your grades determine your worth in this program?”

Only having had your first proper conversation with him today, you felt a twinge of surprise that someone as social and hot-headed as Boo Seungkwan would be mad at you. Like the Vertigo effect was used in films, you felt trapped under the fiery stare of Boo Seungkwan while everything else in the room grew in size. From bean bag to wooden table, Seungkwan turned the tables on you. He may not have been a peer leader, but you felt as if he was mad for you, as if Boo Seungkwan was someone you could confide in without being judged. As paradoxical as it seemed, being trapped under Seungkwan’s gaze felt like a freeing opportunity for you to take.

Moments like these, as you understood for people like you, came once in a lifetime. Still, hesitation made your voice quiver, “Promise me you won’t think I’m lying.”

You watched him sit up straighter than before. He shook his head and crossed his fingers in the air. “I promise.”

Throughout the school, the school bell rang to signal the end of class and the start of lunch. You let your eyes wander a bit before they eventually landed back on Seungkwan, who looked more than eager to listen to your story than to pack up his things and rush to lunch. Scratching the corner of your mouth, you began before your heart could find itself stuck inside of your throat, “Whenever I love something, that thing disappears. In literature class, we were reading a book, but I think I accidentally fell in love with the plot and ended up having its existence erased from my memory. So when we were taking the exam, I bombed it because I couldn’t recall ever reading the book and it disappeared from my possession.” You found yourself getting agitated while recalling your most recent incident, “And the thing is, how do I know if I’ve forgotten something if I don’t know what it is that I forgot? So when my teacher met with me, he thought I was purposely being a smartass for trying to tell him that I’ve never heard of the book before even when we’ve clearly spent like two weeks on it.”

Feeling even more frustrated than before, you wanted to be anywhere but near Seungkwan because a large part of you felt as if he was going to start laughing. It wasn’t like you knew how this curse started. And it wasn’t like you could go see a doctor regarding your condition. Everything felt…frustrating.

“So,” he began warily as if he was struggling to find the correct words to say, “does this mean you can forget simple things and also people?”

It was as if you were blasted by a theatrical breeze from a home fragrance commercial. You could see Boo Seungkwan looking at you earnestly, a gaze you weren’t sure you’d ever seen before.

“I guess. But…I don’t know.” It came out more like a sigh.

“Yn, is there someone around you who will remind you of these things?” Seungkwan asked you. “Because it seems like some of these things could be gone for you, but they wouldn’t really be gone.”

You blinked. Once. Twice. Sure, those you loved disappeared, but it wasn’t like you didn’t have any friends. You had a regular social life in high school, with friends in every class and friends to have lunch with or hang out with during the weekends. But there was always a particular friend that people would ask you about, the one you could only assume you truly loved. “I had a friend toward the beginning of high school, but I think she moved away? I can’t really remember her at all. But I would like to think that she was there to teach and remind me about those things.” You shrugged. You had no choice but to act nonchalantly towards someone you didn't remember at all.

“Then can I be that friend?” Seungkwan’s eyes looked hopeful. “For you, I mean. I want to be your friend.”

“Aren’t you scared of the fact that I could possibly fall in love with you romantically or as a friend and you would disappear? Do you really not think I’m joking?”

“Not really.” He cocked his head toward the ceiling and tapped his finger on his chin. “If anything, you can fall in love with my family farm so I’m not forced to take over it after I graduate from college.” He tried to joke. You weren’t sure if he was serious or not. Yet he smiled brightly at you and stretched his hand toward you. “Let’s be friends Yn. As long as you stay with me and I stay with you, we’re bound to not get kicked out of school.”

You shook his hand. “Okay. Yeah. Thank you for wanting to be my friend.”

“And thank you for agreeing.” He got up from his seat and pointed at the jar of sweets on the shelf by the door. “Can I take a piece of candy? I can’t believe they’re making us miss lunch for this.”

EIGHT. CRANBERRY ORANGE SCONES

Can you help me pick up a box of the cranberry orange ones? Do you remember if it is “scOWNs” or “scAWNs”? No, I’m not going to make them myself. Have you ever tasted a bad store-bought scone? Me neither.

SEUNGKWAN

Morgan meticulously applies globs of light brown hair dye onto Seungkwan’s hair by covering his roots and then moving on to the rest. Blissful as he can be, Seungkwan tries to take advantage of this brief moment of pure relaxation, even if it means sitting on the same kitchen barstool for a few hours while the rest of his friends are having a pool day. He reaches under his plastic cape to grab the TV remote on the island countertop to turn on the subtitles because it feels wrong to not have them on. It’s a recent spy movie, but he can’t remember if it came out one or two summers ago.

Tonight, the inside of the house is so quiet that Seungkwan can hear everything in his vicinity: the sound of the dye brush scratching against his hair, someone turning off the faucet in the upstairs shower, someone closing a door, muffled shouting from the outdoor pool. The farm and café are now closed to the public, and all of Seungkwan's friends have dispersed for the time being. With some people in the pool and some in the city, Seungkwan thinks it is rather nice that Morgan would rather spend time dying his hair than be in the pool with her boyfriend.

“Don’t be afraid to tell me if your scalp burns or hurts,” Morgan hums while maneuvering pieces of his hair with her gloved fingers, looking for dry patches she missed.

Seungkwan likes Morgan. She’s meticulous in her actions, and her natural flair of confidence allows her to stand out from the crowd. So he was just as shocked as the rest of his friends when Alex showed them her dating profile, saying that she was the one who matched with him and proceeded to schedule a date with him in the span of a few exchanged messages.

Pulling off the plastic gloves from her sweaty hands, Morgan crumples them in her palms before tossing them into the trashcan. From her apron, she produces a shower cap and places it over Seungkwan’s hair, making sure to carefully tuck the plastic against his skin so that it doesn’t cover his ears. She bends over to further inspect Seungkwan’s hairline and wipes off stray streaks of dye before they can tint his skin a different color.

The sliding door to the sunroom opens, and Minghao steps into the living room with the novel he is currently reading tucked under his arm. He takes a seat across from Seungkwan, and looks at the shower cap’s design and squints through his circular-rimmed glasses, “Duckies.” He admires the childish print for a bit before turning to Morgan, “Alex texted me to say that your phone is still by the pool. He’s worried that it would overheat in the sun so he moved it to the tables for you.”

“Go take a break.” Seungkwan turns around to nudge her arm. “You’ve been standing for an hour. I’ll watch the clock for you.”

“Thirty minutes and then you go wash your hair.” Morgan shrugs off her apron and folds it before placing it on the island next to the other hair-dying products. “I’ll style it after you’re done washing it, but make sure you scrub your scalp thoroughly so that the dye doesn’t stain your skin.”

She exits through the back door, and the movie breaks into commercial. It’s an ad for a topical cream, and short clips of people smiling while doing everyday activities play while the narrator lists all of the possible side effects.

“Did you happen to see where Jihoon is?” Minghao asks Seungkwan. “Seungcheol said that he wanted to gym with him today, but he can’t reach him.”

Just then, the front door cracks open with a swing, and the entry alert chime rings to let those in the house know that someone has just entered. Seungkwan couldn’t see who it was, but he could hear sneakers getting kicked off and the familiar sound of a duffle bag’s plastic strap buckles clacking against metal zippers to know who it was. Seungkwan looks at Minghao and cocks his head toward the entrance, and Minghao lazily waves a hand in response as if he’s saying it’s not his problem anymore.

“I think someone’s in the downstairs bathroom. You can shower first.” Seungkwan hears you say, but he can’t catch what Jihoon replies. He assumes that he agrees because he sees his figure quickly pass the living room to make its way upstairs.

Seungkwan listens to your footsteps while you make your way down the hall to the office. Instead of entering the office, he watches you walk toward the kitchen where you approach him and look at the mess on the island and the duckies on his shower cap.

“Oh, you dyed your hair,” you observe.

If Seungkwan didn’t feel hot while Morgan was dying his hair, the warmth that courses from his head to his stomach makes him feel like he’s sitting in a sauna. He knows that he shouldn’t be embarrassed to be sitting in the kitchen looking like a plastic cone, but that’s unfortunately what he feels he looks like. Fortunately enough, it doesn’t seem like you needed an answer as you turn around to go to the fridge where you fill up your water bottle before waving goodbye so you can go to your room. Seungkwan sighs and sulks in his seat, his black plastic cape crinkling in response.

“How many minutes has it been?” he asks Minghao who currently messages someone on his phone.

“Hmm, like five? Six minutes?” He replies without looking up.

God, Seungkwan thinks. Five minutes felt like forever.

A door closes at the end of the hallway, and Seungkwan can hear the sound of someone’s plastic slippers slapping the ground as they walk toward the living room of the house. He sees Jeonghan holding the bathroom laundry basket in his arms as he lightens his footsteps when he walks towards the office. He continues to observe his friend who seems hesitant to approach the door of the office, as if knocking would cause him to burn in hell. Jeonghan sucks in his breath, maneuvers the weight of the laundry basket into his left arm, and pops up his knee to support the weight as he slowly brings up his right arm to knock on your door. But he hesitates before his fist can make contact so he drops his arm and turns around only to meet Seungkwan’s eyes.

Seungkwan cocks an eyebrow. Jeonghan shrugs. Seungkwan cocks his eyebrow again. Jeonghan’s eyes widen and eyebrows scrunch towards the middle as he throws up his hand to let it fall to his side.

“Just knock,” Seungkwan urges him, although with a tone of annoyance. But it is enough to get Jeonghan to knock on your door. Twice. Seungkwan hears you tell the person outside your door to come in, and when he sees Jeonghan finally close the door behind him, he feels as if he has just finished a triathlon.

“Why are you guys looking at their door?”

Seungkwan turns around to stare at Soonyoung, who stands at the far end of the kitchen island, drenched from head to toe. Chlorine water droplets rain down the kitchen floor, creating a mini pool around Soonyoung’s feet. Red goggle indents line the perimeter of Soonyoung’s eyes, evident that he had been swimming for a while. However, his goggles are nowhere in sight.

“Where’s your towel?” Seungkwan asks his friend, his judgmental eyes trailing the one drop of water that rolls from Soonyoung’s chin and onto the previously dry floor.

Soonyoung only shrugs and runs his fingers through his hair, causing more water to fling onto the floor. “I’m on mopping duty so I thought I would rush to shower and then mop afterwards. But why were you guys staring at Yn’s door? What happened?”

“Jeonghan’s inside,” Minghao explains.

For some reason, Soonyoung takes that information as an invitation to sit on the last open island barstool. He puts his elbows on the counter and leans in, “They were exes, right?”

“You’re dripping,” Seungkwan comments with judgement in his voice. “But, yeah. How did you find out?”

“I’m mopping,” Soonyoung retaliates but leans in closer. His eyes squint as he looks at the office door and back at his two friends. He whispers loudly, “Word travels fast. But I heard it’s because Jeonghan got scared or something and dumped Yn when he found out that everything Yn loves disappears.”

Of course, Seungkwan was never going to confirm or deny Soonyoung’s gossip even though it is technically true. Given Seungkwan and Soonyoung’s friendship, Seungkwan would never want to grant Soonyoung the satisfaction of knowing that whatever comes out of his mouth could possibly be true. He also doesn’t think it’s his place to tell anybody that Jeonghan’s been trying to find a way to apologize to Yn for what he did in the past. So he stays quiet, pretending to ignore Soonyoung by looking over his shoulder to get a better look at the television.

Soonyoung opens his mouth again because he is unable to read the room, causing Seungkwan’s bottom lip to twitch. “Hey, do you think Jeonghan wants to get back together with Yn?” Once again, he speaks his stream of consciousness without regard to how bad it is in the open. “Because if not, I might make a move.”

The statement is enough to make Minghao look up from his novel, only to give the man sitting next to him the coldest side eye Seungkwan had ever seen. Seungkwan can only sit in his seat, utterly shocked that such an idea would ever form in Soonyoung’s mind. It’s only been a week since the two met, and Seungkwan was sure that they weren’t that close with each other. So “Go shower” is all Seungkwan can say to his friend. He makes sure to point at the several pools of water Soonyoung has created since he came into the house a few minutes ago.

But before Soonyoung leaves for the bathroom, he points at the television in the background, “Oh, that’s the movie where the agents thought the crystals were bombs but the bombs were supposed to be books right? The one where the main character’s dad was some famous dude who owed a bunch of money to bad guys so the bad guys intercepted the dad’s chandelier delivery because they wanted to plant a bomb in it to frame the dad.”

Minghao nods, clearly not paying to whatever Soonyoung is saying.

“Or was it the second one with the backstory with the good agents having to mess up their mission because they found out that their agency only wanted surveillance on the dad but didn’t want them to stop the bad guys from planting the bomb because they wanted to stay in their own lane or something? So two of them went MIA to fix the situation while the tall one volunteered to stay back and act like the mission went wrong. Oh, remember how the main character found out about the spy she was dating, so she broke up with him and her best friend spent the entire time trying to make his move?”

“Dude.” Seungkwan can feel heat gathering and bunching at the top of his head, and it’s not from the dye’s chemical reaction. “Go shower.”

“I swear Soonyoung is like a psychic or something,” you hum while bringing the rim of the brown glass bottle to your lips. “He did come to apologize and ask if I had any clothes I also needed to wash. A little awkward though.”

Seungkwan watches you tilt the bottle towards the night sky, watches the beer flow into your open mouth, and watches how your throat bobs as the liquid makes its way into your system. Jacuzzi jets blast toward the center, creating several bubbles that pop against your legs, exploding on contact and drenching the underside of the fabric of your knee shorts. You don’t seem to mind though, Seungkwan thinks having to talk to an ex is probably more uncomfortable than getting your shorts wet while you dip your feet in the hot jacuzzi.

“Tell me about your day though.” You reach over to hold a strand of his hair between your fingers. “I can’t believe Morgan was able to do this,” you murmur.

The simple admiration of his hair makes him feel like the world’s most special boy. In his spot on the jacuzzi next to you, underneath the scintillant country sky where the crickets chirp loudly, simply, and carefreely, his happiness comes alive to dance and sing with all of the other nocturnal creatures. He glows as brightly as the moon as he tells you about his day, his hair, and the little things that nobody would care about. A little drunk, you still manage to listen and stop to remind him about how much you love his hair. How pretty it is. How much you appreciate him for looking out for you for so long.

He forgets that he has his own drink in his hand, an aluminum can whose contents are probably more flat than they are carbonated. Suddenly he is a boy again in that same room where he first met you. The feeling is inexplicable, but the feeling is there. The past courses through his present, and his constant sits beside him, thanking him out of nowhere for staying by their side.

He wants to say it was a promise that he made, or that it wasn’t even because of the promise. He looked out for them because that’s what friends do. But Boo Seungkwan is in a place where he is starting to realize that he is stuck in a place between two extremes: friendship and romance. And in this math equation, there is the added Z-axis. Jeonghan. So he scoffs and decides to make a joke out of his internal dilemma, “Me being here this whole time literally means you never really loved me. Even as a friend.”

“What do you mee-an,” you wail. “I do love you. And appreciate you. And love you Kwan.”

He waves his free hand in front of your face. “My hand is clearly here. Why am I not gone?”

You take a sip of your beer while squinting at his hand. “I can’t see your hand because you’re waving it too fast.” You laugh while putting your bottle beside you. “That means it disappeared because I do love you.”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes and brings his drink up to his lips. He feels your hands run through his hair, circular soothing motions, and then all at once, purposely ruffling and messing it up. But he lets you. He sees your dopey smile as you continue to play with his colored hair while you remind him, yet again, how much you like it. So he sits and drinks his flat seltzer while his legs prune in the hot tub. And he wonders what it would be like to love you as someone who wants to be more than just friends.

NINE. ORANGE CHICKEN

I had a friend who would eat this every single day in college because it was cheap and because it came with a fortune cookie. Two, if you were lucky. I don’t even know how he was able to eat this every single time we went to the food court. But I remember very clearly how he would hold the fortune cookie in one hand and squeeze until the plastic bag obnoxiously popped. He never cared about how the popping noise would scare the other students in his proximity because all he really cared about was how he could hold both ends of the cookie between his two thumbs and index fingers and break it in half with a clean snap. And he would separate the two ends just enough so that he could read the fortune. He didn’t even eat the cookie. He just wanted to keep the fortune in the back of his phone case. Didn’t care if there were doubles. I remember asking him if it meant anything to him. He said he wouldn’t know until it happens. His bike got stolen on campus, and he ended up throwing away his fortunes.

SEUNGKWAN

Today is quite possibly the second worst day of Seungkwan’s life, the first being the day his parents told him that he was going to inherit the family farm. About fifteen minutes after the clock struck eight at night, Seungkwan's group of friends huddle around the kitchen island. Each person grips a red plastic cup in their hands. Alcohol is the drink of choice tonight, rounds of quick shots before someone is smart enough to phone the cab to come pick them up to take them into the city for a night out. And Seungkwan sits in the middle of the living room couch with his arms crossed over his chest. His navy blue cap hides the top of his head. Tonight, he has no indication of going out. Not when his head is bald.

Shame is what Seungkwan feels. He feels ashamed that his hair disappeared without reaching even two full days since Morgan spent forever dying and styling it. He feels shame because a small part of him is mad at you, but he knows he could never be mad at you because it is not entirely your fault that his hair disappeared. He feels ashamed of himself for allowing himself to feel as if he has been stripped bare and left vulnerable when it is only hair on the top of his hair that he is missing. The only difference between him and you is that you don’t seem to care that your hair has also magically disappeared.

You are sorry. Haircuts, dyes, trends, hair loss, roots, split ends…they all took time to teach you everything there is to know about hair. You have apologized to Seungkwan multiple times since relearning the concept of hair. Although Seungkwan can see you standing with the rest of the group, laughing and pre-gaming for the night out, he sees you make eye contact with him from time to time as if to check up on him. To say you’re sorry. You didn’t mean for it to happen.

What sucks even more, to Seungkwan, is that you’re blessed with a certain kind of confidence that allows you to not care about something as banal as losing your hair. But Seungkwan is the type of person who cares a lot about what other people think of him, and how other people perceive his outward and inward appearance. A soft heart is what he has, one that allows him to feel for others, but also one that can shatter easily. Not having hair feels like a blow to his gut. His ears tinged bright red even in the dimly lit living room, he still doesn’t have the confidence to go out for a night out in town to club with his best friends no matter how much he wanted to do so.

Even Seungcheol is here. Even the man who couldn’t leave the farm for god knows how long is finally willing to go clubbing out of all things. Seungcheol stands near the sink with a giant handle of tequila in his hands, holding it up while a thin silver chain swings from his neck. His daughter is upstairs with Terry, who can’t come out tonight because of cramps. Terry has gotten into trivia lately, so the baby might end up gaining a few more brain cells while the rest of the group loses who knows how much by the end of the night.

Soonyoung stumbles to the couch and crashes into the open space left of Seungkwan. His body hits the cushions with a hard thud, and he lays there for a second before he realizes that his red face is uncomfortably wedged in the crack between the back cushion and the armrest. Seungkwan reluctantly helps him sit upright and offers a shoulder for him to lean on. It looks like there’s another person on the couch who can’t join the rest of the group tonight.

While Soonyoung mumbles incoherencies about getting lit while lying on Seungkwan’s neck, Seungkwan can only look at his lap while wishing he were more like you. And he would be lying if the thought of him also being cursed to forget the things he loved so his baldness wouldn’t affect him as much had also crossed his mind, so he mentally scolds himself for even coming up with that thought. It’s a fucked up thing to cross his mind, and all Seungkwan really needs is someone to validate his emotions and feelings.

“Seungkwan.” You disrupt him from his thoughts and squat in front of him while another person sits on his other side, Yunling. You look up at him with your round eyes and pout, “Are you really not coming out with us tonight?”

Seungkwan finds it hard to reply. He wants to go. He really wants to. But his sudden lack of confidence since he woke up and discovered that he didn’t have any hair made him want to curl up into a ball and hide in this house until all of his hair grew back. And it sucked seeing all of his friends prepare to go out and have fun while he rots away in his thoughts. “I don’t know” is what he sadly replies.

“Look,” Yunling begins, “None of us made fun of you when we saw you panic when you didn’t have hair, right? We don’t care. Hair grows back. And you look amazing with hair and without hair. Right, Soonyoung?”

“Yeah.” Soonyoung raises his left arm before letting it drop against the armrest. “A baddie and a baldie.”

“So you’re going to come with us to the club. You’re going to flash your ID at the bouncer. And you’re going to walk into the club and have a great time,” Yunling lists while patting the top of Seungkwan’s head.

“If you want, we can all stop by and buy colorful wigs before hitting the club together. I know that some of them did their hair, but I doubt they’ll mind putting a wig over it. Confidence doesn’t come back that easily, but at least we can start by being a little silly.” You tap his knees

before pushing yourself up. “If it’s not club appropriate, then we’ll go bar hopping.”

He tries to look up at you though his baseball cap’s visor blocks the upper half of his vision. Palms up, your outstretched hands wait for him to accept their invitation. Truly feeling the presence of his loved ones around him, Seungkwan accepts that he is one of the luckiest people in the world. You might not be the type of person who verbally tells him how much you love him, but he likes to believe that there’s a loophole in your curse, one that allows him to exist even when you love him platonically. So he allows you to heave him upwards from his place on the couch, wondering if you know that he has fallen for you.

TEN. SHAVED ICE

Discomforting sting on the tips of your fingers, you grate the frozen orange against the zester, letting the miniscule pieces of ice fall into the bowl below like snow. It burns and you ask yourself why you wanted to do this again, why this was the treat you wanted to eat on a hot day. Halfway through shaving the frozen fruit, the surfaces hugged by the pads of your fingers slowly melt and turn into mush. Juicy and mushy and orange and leaking, snow continues to fall into a pile until the sting becomes unbearable. The reward isn’t so much of a reward, but a reminder of you impatiently waiting as you watched them do the same thing every time the house was too hot and the fans weren’t enough, grating and zesting frozen fruit. Were there tears in their eyes? Did they run their frozen fingers under the tap? Refreshing treat in your mouth, you wouldn’t know. The ice is melting in your bowl. You still don’t know.

YN

“Hey.”

The masculine voice dragged you out of the conversation with your friends regarding your plans for the weekend. It caused you to turn your head to the left, only to see a familiar-looking student your age who sported a large wrinkled tee and a prominent mole on his cheek. Choppy and short black hair and those prominent eye bags that matched your own, the student looked too handsome to be the kind to approach you.

“You’re in my history class with Dr. Edelman, right? 7:45 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays? I’m Jeonghan,” he introduced himself.

It was about halfway through the semester, and you knew you were always barely awake in the class to even notice the other students in the class. It wasn’t a very large class — the only people who were willing to sign up for a 7:45 a.m. class were the people who needed the class to graduate or people who couldn’t sign up for the same class at a different time. You were the latter. To be honest, you didn’t even bother to get to know anybody during the class, nevertheless hung out with them after class, so you didn’t know why Jeonghan would make the effort to introduce himself to you while you were having dinner with friends at a small restaurant in another city.

“What’s your name?” He pushed. Did he push? You didn’t know. This was the first time somebody approached you outside of class like he did. The situation was awkward yet a little bit exciting. You were only nineteen and waiting for the day somebody approached you the same way Jeonghan just did.

Yunling, whose elbow was sharp as the edge of a table, elbowed you on the side of your ribs. Digging her elbow into your side, she urged you to reply to the guy who approached you.

“Ow- Oh. Hi, I’m Yn,” you replied while you shoved your friend away from your side.

There was an amused smile on his face in reaction to Yunling and you, the kind where his lips were stretched wide into a smile, and his mouth hung open just a little so that his teeth didn't touch.

A soft chuckle emitted from that awkward smile, but you thought he didn’t necessarily find it awkward or off-putting. It was the kind of reaction that you would give to a stranger or an acquaintance — truly interested and amused but not close enough to emit a real reaction.

Knowing very well that all of your friends had their attention turned to your conversation with Jeonghan, you felt the littlest bit of embarrassment to be in the spotlight. However, this moment is what you wanted for the longest time. To have a stranger approach you in the middle of a conversation, not even a meet-cute, but to be seen by others after being unseen for nineteen years is all that you wanted. So, with the pride that swelled in your chest, you decided to make small talk with the guy standing at the end of your booth in the middle of the restaurant.

“Did you come with anybody?” you asked while holding eye contact with him.

“Yeah.” His response was smooth. He turned his body and quickly pointed at his group of friends crowded around the several menus on their table. “I think I should go back before they order something for me that I don’t want. But it was nice talking to you.” He shoved his thumbs into his jeans pockets and flashed another smile.

“It was nice talking to you too.” You glowed. You felt like you were glowing as bright as a glowstick in a dark room. Was it possible for a person like you to glow? Were you feeling what people were talking about when they looked at another person after a good experience and described it as a glow?

“I have to go. But I’ll save a seat for you. One of the guys at my table is also in my class. He won’t bite. I also won’t…” You noticed that the tips of his ears began to pink in color when he noticed that he was trailing in his speech as if he noticed that he was rambling. “Okay. Bye,” he basically fired out of his mouth before he rushed back to his table.

It was quiet between the four of you, all of you trying to process what just happened. Still, you couldn’t help but squeal with your friends, giggling while your friends dramatically reenacted what happened and then shushing them when it got too loud. You felt like you were on cloud nine. You didn’t know where the expression came from, so you felt as if you passed cloud nine and were simply floating higher and higher. Each time you snuck a glance at him over your friend’s shoulder, you found him looking back at you with a polite smile on his face.

Did he purposely sit in a seat facing you so he could also sneak glances at you? What were his intentions? Was he just being nice? You didn’t know. All you knew was that he waved you goodbye when you left with your friends, and it made you trip on your way out.

ELEVEN. ORANGE CREAMSICLE

Huh? No. I’m not judging you for eating the shell before eating the ice cream part…No, I’m not being sarcastic right now. But aren’t you scared that by the time you’re done with the shell, the inner ice cream portion would start to melt? It just feels like once you deconstructed it by eating it in layers you’re basically eating an orange popsicle and vanilla ice cream instead of eating a creamsicle. Or maybe I’m too traditional of a person that I find myself judging a person for doing something as banal as eating a creamsicle like that. Been taught that rules were always created for a reason. Huh? Okay you got me. Of course I’m judging you. Who eats a creamsicle like that? I don’t care about your teeth. Eat it together. Please, I’m begging you. Or at least turn away so I don’t have to see that atrocity.

SEUNGKWAN

Sunless is the sky today. Hot and stuffy air and the rising humidity make the fabric of a tee stick to sweaty backs. When it’s been unbearably hot these past few days, it’s hard to imagine that there is no sun in the sky today despite the blistering heat. Pedestal clouds in the sky hang so low that they almost hug the farmland underneath them. The blue underneath the clouds cast the sunroom in a hazy cobalt filter. Indoor lights have been switched on since eleven in the morning. It seldom rains in early June. Today is an exception.

The familiar loud ping of Terry’s cell phone trivia game rings for a second before it is shrouded by the rolling thunder. After days of hearing pings and buzzes, the rest of the summer group couldn’t help but find themselves drifting toward Terry whenever they started playing a new round. Cash was at stake, but there were thousands of people to beat.

Like a new divorcee in divorce fiction, Seungkwan stands on his front porch with a warm cup of citron tea in his hands while his robe stays securely wrapped around his frame. Mist from the pouring rain hits his skin and makes him feel even more sticky than usual, but he’s too worried about those who haven’t made it home to worry about himself.

Chewing through the hard yuja rinds that made it into his mouth after he sipped tea, he watches the collected water on the roof pour down on the gravel below like a constant waterfall. The rate at which the rain pours down in the distance makes each individual droplet invisible to the human eye. The falling rain looks like the grain on old television screens so much that the thundering sky feels more alive than the rain it accompanies. The rind is hard to swallow.

Two muddled blobs in the distance close in on the house and become even more clear to Seungkwan with each passing second. To Seungkwan, there is something very interesting to him about how people tend to cover themselves with anything they have when they’re in the rain even if they’re soaked. Finally, back from your daily run, Yunling and you run with your hands covering your faces despite the two of you fully drenched. And Seungkwan is ready to call the two of you inside the house when he sees the two of you pause in front of the porch. Walking toward the two of you to get a better understanding as to why the two of you suddenly stopped, he feels a sense of relief when he sees the scene in front of him.

Like two characters in a brief montage in a movie, Seungkwan’s two friends laugh as they let their arms fall to their sides as if giving up in their fight against the rain. Instead, they allow the water to fall onto their skin without worry as they live life in slow motion. What a wonder it is to be able to let go without worry. And what a treat it is to be able to play outdoors to appease and amuse the child in us. Seungkwan feels a twinge of jealousy, jealous that he could never allow himself to let go like the two of you, jealous that he’s the one standing in the comfort of the shade.

Yunling is the first to notice him standing on the porch, and she stops to wave at him, beckoning him to join. “Come in the rain,” she yells over the pouring rain. “It feels nice.”

Seungkwan walks over to the porch fence and places his mug on the flat railing, careful not to touch the chipped railing because of its bothersome texture. He’s trying not to mind it so much, but the wet and sticky mist created from the rain splashing against the ground clings onto his skin uncomfortably like a second skin.

“Seungkwan, have you ever played in the rain before?” Yunling yells at him, her hands cupped around her mouth to create a megaphone shape. The rain slicks her long hair so much that it makes her ponytail look flat. Even her sport-wick running top looks glossy when saturated by water. Still, she lets the rain pellet and massage her skin.

He has to think about the answer to her simple question. Yet the circumstances turn it into a rather complex question. When was the last time he played in the rain? Has he ever played in the rain before? The thing is, Seungkwan can’t come up with a solid answer because he can’t find it. “Childhood maybe” is his reply.

“Well, nobody is stopping you now except for yourself” is her reply.

Nobody is stopping him except himself. This is something that he knows in the back of his mind. They say we are our worst enemies, and Seungkwan constantly finds himself in situations in which he is his worst enemy. Today, his enemy tells him that it’s better to stay dry because he doesn’t want to risk catching a cold after being soaked by the rain even if it’s only for a couple of minutes. It’s what he’s always been taught: getting wet by rain means the risk of catching a cold and that catching a cold is bad. Plus, he absolutely despises the feeling of wet clothes stuck against his skin so much that even imagining the struggle of trying to peel off his wet jeans makes him shudder. So he waves his hands and denies Yunling’s open invitation despite wanting so badly to join the two of you in the rain, splashing in small puddles, and big puddles; and laughing while chasing each other. How amazing it would be, even for a minute, to simply let go without any worry.

Too bad he is his own enemy.

“Oh fuck!” You stop in the middle of a puddle, causing Seungkwan to suddenly become very alert. “Our phones,” you wail into the open.

The man who is quite possibly in love with one of his best friends watches you from the porch, how only when you’re running from the rain do your hands magically float upwards to create a sort of shade in front of your face despite you playing in the rain without any care in the world a few minutes ago. He can hear it, running shoes crunching against wet gravel, the wet squishing noise created by the amount of water in your shoes, and your panting as you stand in front of him.

Eyes wide and eyes blinking hard as if to squeeze and wring away the drops of water on your eyelids, you greet the owner of the house. And the owner of the house looks at you from his place on the porch, how he can see drops of water drip from your clothes and create a pool at your feet, how he can still see tiny droplets on your lashes. You’re standing so close to him that he feels like he has to hold his breath as a form of defense.

“Gosh,” you mutter while looking down to inspect your clothes. “My shoes are going to take forever to dry.”

The front door opens with a swing, and the familiar entry alert chime’s ring barely makes its way through the pouring rain. Yoon Jeonghan walks out of the door and onto the porch while wearing his house slippers. In his hand are two large towels, immediately attracting the two drenched runners towards it like moths with an open flame. Only this time, it’s not the moths that are getting hurt, it’s the bystander.

Seungkwan watches you run over to your ex, thanking him as you take the dry towel from him before making your way indoors. Yunling follows in your footsteps shortly after, thanking Jeonghan for the towel before turning to Seungkwan. “Come inside before you catch a cold.” She smirks at him before she steps indoors. Seungkwan finds himself scoffing in response.

TWELVE. MIMOSAS

I remember when my friend told us to meet at this brunch place she really liked because the mimosas were good the last time she went. But we ended up having a sober brunch because we forgot that we had somebody’s birthday party to attend the night before. The food was good and the vibes were good, but we were all hungover. Sober brunch sounds wrong, but it’s not bad at all. Really. It’s not bad. But we should go sometime. I heard the Mimosas are good.

YN

He dug the eraser into the flimsy page of his notebook and erased the same mistake over and over until his hands crinkled the page and the friction of the eraser against the paper left a noticeable tear in the page. You watched his frustration continue to unfold as he haphazardly swiped the eraser crumbs off his notebook, flinging them to the middle of the circular table where you were sitting.

The third person at the table flicked the singular eraser shaving that landed on his pencil case back at its owner before shoving the plastic mesh pouch into his backpack along with his study notes without a folder. Vernon, with his poorly dyed auburn hair that curled and covered his eyes, took out his metal water bottle from his backpack to make room for his textbooks. He quickly zipped his backpack and flung it over his shoulder before grabbing his water bottle. The water bottle's ice cubes clanged loudly against its interior and caused multiple students in the library to look in his direction. He looked at you before looking at Jeonghan, who looked stressed enough to rip his eraser in half and looked back at you with an apologetic look on his face.

“You want my fortune cookie fortune from today? It has special numbers,” Vernon suggested as he stood up and pushed in his hair.

“No,” Jeonghan mumbled in response.

“Well I wasn’t going to give it to you anyway,” Vernon taunted in return. He looked at the wall clock in the corner of the library and clicked his tongue before waving goodbye to you.

You watched the younger student as he walked over to the elevators and rapidly pushed the elevator button to hitch a ride to the first floor before giving up and choosing to take the stairs. The elevator dinged and made itself known to the entire floor the minute the fire escape door closed behind Vernon. To your left, Jeonghan, whom you found to be good company over the last month, stared at his history notes like he was trying to decipher the writing on an ancient clay tablet.

“I don’t get it,” he whined while he reached for your notes to compare with his.

You scooted your chair closer to him to get a better look at the two spiral notebooks on the table. Handwriting defined by its heaviness, Jeonghan’s scrawled history notes were defined by the broadness and heavy indents in each etch. Despite each heavily scribbled word, there were clear and evenly defined spaces between each word and character. Your handwriting, however, was slanted and connected through loops, and your inability to lift your pencil off the paper between each character you wrote. Its overall messiness made you want to rewrite everything after you compared it to Jeonghan’s handwriting. Still, you looked at the content written between both notebooks and found that there weren’t any differences between the notes. After all, the two of you were taking the same class.

“I gave you my notes and also studied with you these past two weeks. If you still don’t get it you can look it up online or memorize things word for word. It’s just history,” you mused while sliding your notebook closer to him so you could go back to your homework. “What did you even get on the midterm?”

“Full marks…” he replied in an almost embarrassed whisper. “With extra credit.”

The look you shot him was an inexplicable blend of confusion, annoyance, and humor. You thought that if Jeonghan was able to score above full marks on a midterm, there was no reason for him to ask you to study with him after class.

“Shouldn’t you be the one tutoring us instead?” You raised a brow at him while he looked back at you with amusement. “Do you even get the material?”

The corner of his mouth quirked upward, and you wanted to take your pointer finger to pull it back down. Yoon Jeonghan crossed his arms and turned his body toward you, making you lean back just a little in response. You watched as the familiar lazy half-smile reappeared on his face, this time partnered with an unreadable expression.

“I get the material.” Maybe it was the way the sun from the windows across the room hit his face at the exact moment, but you swore you saw his eyes glimmer for a nanosecond. “Maybe it’s you who doesn’t get it.”

When he realized he wasn’t pulling a response out of you, he visibly gave up and looked you in the eye. “Yn,” he stated.

“Yes,” you replied.

“I was trying to hit on you this whole time.”

“Huh?” This was not how you thought the conversation was going to go. The truth came down on you like the warm sunlight in the library, allowing you to finally understand the nuanced ways Jeonghan tried to get closer to you since the first time he introduced himself to you. And it filled your heart the same way it did when the handsome Jeonghan approached you while you were eating with your friends.

“Go on a date with me? Without Vernon next time.”

“Okay.”

THIRTEEN. BAKLAVA

Thin sheets of pre-made phyllo, the lady in the video said to cover them so they wouldn’t dry. With only her voice, she tells us not to worry if we tear the fragile sheets of unleavened dough. As if it were her telling us that it’s okay if we break something that is fragile even if we handled it with the utmost care. As if it’s okay if we mess up. It’s just phyllo. It’s just dessert. It’s just baklava. You’re a first-timer. Cover the sheet with ghee and then add another layer of phyllo. It’s going to be okay. There was something so comforting in her words, as if she were my own baklava guardian. Telling me it’s okay if mistakes are made, she continues phyllo, ghee, phyllo, ghee, phyllo until it’s stacked to a specific length. Then it’s nuts and the numerous layers of phyllo and ghee. Make the baklava, still careful when handling the fragile sheets of phyllo, but forgiving of simple mistakes. Lessons in baklava. Sweetness in sticky orange syrup. Mouthwatering dessert and a soothed heart.

SEUNGKWAN

Squishy orchard soil, not yet dry from the rainfall a few nights ago, is loose enough to track mud splatters against calves. Seungkwan and Terry walk alongside each other. Mud suctioned against the bottoms of their shoes, clipboards in hand, they leave tracks wherever they walk. Broken branches and fallen oranges are accounted for, but soil erosion is what Seungkwan is most concerned about. Terry, however, cheerfully walks alongside their friend while leading their conversation about niche trivia regarding agriculture.

“Also, I learned something from a trivia question I answered wrong yester-”

A scream pierces the conversation from a distance and causes the two to stop in their tracks in the middle of the orchard. Seungkwan’s eyes follow his hearing, turning his head toward where the scream came from. Overturned ATV and a wagonful of oranges behind it, Seungkwan’s heart drops when he realizes the severity of the scene. Seokmin is already on the scene, visibly fearful yet determined to help the person who drove the ATV.

Terry is already running across the field and heading toward the accident. “Noah” they yell, their light flannel flapping behind them as they run. Noah’s name, carried by the breeze, alerts those it passes. It notifies Seungcheol. Alex. You.

As if struggling to drag himself through the mud, Seungkwan tries to run, although lethargic in his strides. Something is holding him back. Is it the way the ATV fell over in a way that even the damp mud would never allow? Or is it the way the wagon of oranges is still magically hooked and attached to the ATV with not one of the oranges in the pyramid leaving its stack? By the time Seungkwan makes his way over, Seokmin already has her upright and leaning against him for support.

“It’s just a light sprain.” Seungkwan hears Noah say through a hiss. “This rock. It came out of nowhere. Believe me Seok. I’ve never seen it before…Seungkwan! This was never here before? Right?”

Seungkwan walks toward where Noah points. To the side of the ATV, in the middle of two rows of orange trees, a rock protruding out of the ground sits proudly. However, the land around the rock is extremely flat. There is no sign of erosion at all. And Seungkwan has walked this orchard long enough to know that there were no bumps to indicate a rock of that size and stature.

“No,” Seungkwan confirms. The existence of this rock wracks Seungkwan's mind. “You’re right. It was never there.”

“See?” It came out as a plea. She looked at Seokmin and pointed at Seungkwan. “I wasn’t going too fast. It was the ro- Ow! Fuck!”

“I’m sorry,” Seokmin apologetically mumbles. “Get on my back. Let me carry you.”

Seungcheol arrives, bent over and panting. He places his hands on his thighs to take a breath. Alex arrives shortly after, panting but also with a fearful look on his face. He tries to speak, but Seungkwan motions for him to slow down and catch his breath before starting. He’s never seen Alex act like this before. Alex, possibly the only person on the farm who could almost match Soonyoung’s entire personality and energy, stutters as he tries to talk while catching his breath. Seungkwan observes how he breathes a little too hard for someone who only ran a couple of meters, to realize that Alex looks like he's seen a ghost. Alex crumples to his knees, landing with his palms against the wet mud.

“Shit.” Seungkwan immediately rushes over to Alex’s side, placing his hand on his back. Worry erupts in his body, its lava traveling through his veins. “Breathe, Alex.”

“Seungkwan,” Seungcheol calls.

“What?” Seungkwan’s tone is a bit unrightfully agitated. Thinking about it, even he agrees that his glare was uncalled for.

“Yn.”

Seungkwan pats Alex’s back twice before he looks over to where he saw you previously run. Seungkwan has trouble trying to locate you as you are nowhere to be seen until he finally sees a lump on the ground between trees a few rows away from where he is standing.

A lump in the mud, hands pushing yourself up from the ground, you rise to your full height. But you can’t because your legs are nowhere to be seen.

FOURTEEN. BUDAPESTBAKELSE

Do you know what it feels like to give into what you thought you hated the most? To give up and give in and end up loving what you once condemned? Beautiful and decadent was this roll on display. Budapestbakelse on the tiny card on a stand. Thought they were mangoes peeking through the whipped cream in the magnificent rolls. Delicate hazelnut meringue cake tickled with the burst of the oranges, I fell in love through my hurt. Where did my hate come from? How could I hate something that gives me so much joy?

YN

Soft kiss on your lips, the feeling lingered on your lips before it faded. Too embarrassed to look him in the eye, you opted to look at his lips. Perky cupid’s bow and the muted dark pink of his lip balm, his lips could only remind you that his hand was still holding your cheek with his thumb resting on the corner of your lips. Delicate was his touch, cupping his love and waiting for an answer to his future. Your future. A future together where you both loved each other if the present permitted it.

Courage built up in your heart, you decided to tell him before it was too late. How everything and everybody you loved disappeared. Not sure if it was a curse or not, but you told him it was a condition that was perpetually fixable if those around you noticed what was missing. Seungkwan’s name left your lips like it was second nature. Then Yunling’s. Then Terry’s. Then Noah's. You listed your helpers with the thought that he could also be one for you as he was the one with whom you were most intimate. Yoon Jeonghan, whom you’ve been in a relationship with for the past month — who pulled you to his side and introduced you to his friends as his, who told you he loved you the moment he felt it within him — you finally told him in that used car of his.

You kissed him again on the cheek before you left his car with your backpack. He was quiet while he took time to process the information. That action of his was what you liked about him. You liked his clinginess towards you and his drive to manifest everything and anything he wanted through hard work. Your friends liked him too and squealed whenever he brought snacks and drinks for all of them while he visited when you were studying. You liked how, despite processing the information, he still managed to smile when you kissed him on the cheek goodbye. And you liked how he always stayed in the car even after you locked the door behind you.

His goodbye text came before he started the car. The notification made your heart race as you pulled out your phone from the front pocket of your backpack.

Goodbye, it read. I don’t think this is going to work out for us, another text. Bye.

Yoon Jeonghan threw away the relationship before it could reach its next stage.

FIFTEEN. CROSTINI

Cream cheese and orange marmalade spread on store-bought crostini topped with prosciutto, we ate these like we depended on them. When the prosciutto ran out, we ate them with cream cheese and marmalade. When the crostini ran out, we ate the leftover cream cheese with our spoons and swiped the remainder off the foil wrapper with our pointer fingers. It’ll be okay. We don’t know when exactly it will get better, but it’ll get better. Don’t make the same mistakes as we did back then. Clearance section cream cheese and prosciutto? That morning after could not possibly be tamer than what you’re currently going through. You can do it…just like you’ve done before.

SEUNGKWAN

Lowered center of mass, he keeps your body balanced on his shoulders as he increases his stability in his squats. Heels dig into the ground as he keeps his chest up, grunting as he comes up from a squat. Soonyoung watches Jihoon use you as his weight, patiently waiting for his turn to use you as his gym weight while reminding Jihoon to protect his knees by keeping them behind his toes.

The rain from last Tuesday never really left — it only migrated from one area to the next: from the countryside to the city to the mountains. What could have been a nice Sunday afternoon hiking trip for the group was unfortunately obstructed by emergency text notifications regarding

avalanche warnings in the mountains. With all of the cars gone, Jihoon and Soonyoung could only resort to creating their own mini gym in the entryway of the house to work in some exercise before their next shift on the farm. The only person willing to work out with them was the only person who thought it would be funny if they used them as their weights.

Seungkwan watches everything from the kitchen, observing the gym heads at work and how Jeonghan casually walks out of your room while carrying your backpack on his back for you. It seems to Seungkwan that the distance between Jeonghan and you has closed a significant distance. Jeonghan, who even struggled to knock on your door, is now comfortable enough to walk in and out of your room even without you present. But he doesn’t want to be too quick to judge. After all, Jeonghan is his friend. Seeing how your mobility is limited, you would technically need someone to help you do things for you. Jealousy makes Seungkwan wonder why Jeonghan would be the one you go to for help.

So Seungkwan chooses to stay quiet while he continues to scrub his dishes in the sink. He rinses his batter-covered dish sponge under the tap, squeezes some of the water out, and tosses dish soap on the sponge before lathering it again. He pretends to be interested in the suds that slide and glide on his orange kitchen gloves. God, how he hates that even his grandparents’ kitchen gloves are also orange. They’ve only been gone for a little over two weeks, but Seungkwan can’t help but miss them. After stumbling upon a recipe book on the office shelves while hanging out with you, Seungkwan thought that a little baking to pass the time that was supposed to be spent hiking in the mountains could soothe his lonely heart.

Still, his hands are at work, yet his ears stay alert. He hears Jeonghan tell the three that it’s time for their shift on the farm. There’s a brief moment of silence that causes Seungkwan to look up from his dishes. He sees Jeonghan take you from Jihoon’s arms, opting to playfully tuck you under his right arm instead of holding you in both his arms. There is a complaint from you telling him to hold you properly instead of carrying you like a briefcase. The playful banter between the two of you marks your departure from the house with Jihoon following suit. Soonyoung stays behind.

Soonyoung makes his way toward the kitchen, and Seungkwan keeps his head low, turning on the tap and cleaning his sponge before he rinses his dishes. The refrigerator door opens and shuts within a few seconds. Seungkwan is barely able to put his sponge back in its sponge tray

within those seconds.

“Smells good,” Soonyoung comments while digging around the cabinets for something. A blender bottle. He grabs the communal tub of protein powder from the countertop that aligns the wall and brings it to the island where Seungkwan washes his dishes. “Can we eat it later?”

Seungkwan huffs when he hears Soonyoung’s question. Asking if he can eat whatever is in the oven instead of asking what it is. Typical. He starts setting his rinsed dishes on the dry towel to the side of Soonyoung. Soonyoung dumps a few scoops of the powder into his bottle and turns the lid of the protein powder tub shut. He turns around to put the tub back where it came from and then goes back to the clean plates, bringing it upon himself to load them into the dish dryer for his friend.

A question has been bothering Seungkwan for the past few days, a question strong enough to make him whip a meringue cake without an electric whisk. Like a prisoner in his mouth, the question wants to escape into the open. But every single time he sees you interact with Jeonghan, even if it’s just a simple wave, Seungkwan can’t help but feel a little down. The question wracks his brain and eats away at his heart so much that he hates himself for feeling jealousy towards two people. The only person who might be able to answer his question is the one who abandoned his blender bottle to help his friend load the dishes.

“If you have a question, you can ask me,” Soonyoung offers out of nowhere. He grabs the chain of measuring spoons from Seungkwan’s hand and places them in the dryer for him. “Especially if it’s about them.”

There are times when Seungkwan tends to forget that Soonyoung is older than him. The problem does not really lie in his age, but in the way he presents himself. Soonyoung, goofy and energetic, is not really someone Seungkwan turns to when he needs to confide in someone. However, it doesn’t mean that Soonyoung isn’t capable of harboring emotional intelligence. In fact, the way that Soonyoung sees the world is precious. He looks at everything around him in a way that captivates him so much that he becomes a Little Prince in a big circular Earth. He sees the world as it is — simple yet beautiful. Simplicity, in Soonyoung’s mind, is the aesthetics of reasoning and the beauty of living. Seungkwan knows that Soonyoung knows what’s on his mind. It’s simple. So he asks him:

“Is there something going on between them?”

“Yeah,” Soonyoung replies. Simple. “Jeonghan’s trying to get back together with Yn.”

“You’re not gonna tell me more?”

Soonyoung grabs something from the fridge and fills his bottle with it. “Nah,” he replies while shutting the fridge, “It’s not my place to tell. But cheer up. It’s just Jeonghan.”

“It’s just Jeonghan” probably sounded a lot better in Soonyoung’s head, but the statement only sends Seungkwan into a further state of anxiousness and jealousy. He knows he shouldn’t feel that way, but it’s hard not to when Soonyoung basically confirms that two people are currently pining over you.

After Soonyoung heads toward the farm, Seungkwan stands alone in the kitchen, thinking about how dumb he was for believing that Jeonghan only wanted to reconcile the relationship to become friends again. A little part of him finds himself hating the hypothetical you who would be willing to get back with someone who literally tore their heart into pieces. The exact same heart that Seungkwan spent weeks mending.

And the dynamics. Gosh, Seungkwan, a lover of consistency, especially hates change when it comes to group dynamics. He wonders about how the dynamics of the current group would change if the two got back together. He wonders how the dynamics between you and him would change if you really got back together with Jeonghan.

Deep in thought, only the smell of something burning can alarm Seungkwan before he can hear his timer go off. And the air of the room, once sweet and citrusy, is replaced with something acrid and burnt. Stress causes him to freeze, and Seungkwan can only watch as Terry rushes into the kitchen to throw open the oven door.

“Fire alarm,” Terry yells at him. “Fan at the fire alarm while I grab your cake.”

SIXTEEN. ORANGE AND HERB MARINATED FETA

Use orange zest for these. Good cheese too. Marinate it for at least half a day in the fridge. Overnight is best. But nobody is going to judge if you get a little bit ahead of yourself. Why is it so normal to shame one’s excitement? Why do we look down upon people for the trivial things that make them happy? It’s just cheese, you know. I’d be happy if I got to sneak a few pieces before it’s properly marinated.

YN

Warmth was his kindness as he held you in his arms while you let your tears roll onto his crew neck. Heartbreak was on the table, and you were served. Yet Boo Seungkwan, who smelled of dirt and his city garden internship, made sure he was always there to clear away the plates. Chest heavy and your eyes sore and puffy, heartbreak hit you in waves following the day Jeonghan dumped you on the same day he told you he loved you.

You were always interested in how heartbreak felt. The internet never gave you a straightforward answer. Seeing your friends suffer from one heartbreak to another was never enough to show you how it would feel. And you were never sure if you were ever going to experience heartbreak. Not that you wanted to be a masochist, but you couldn’t help but be interested in something you never felt before. You wanted to be prepared in case you were able to experience it someday. Maybe that one day might be the day you felt the most human.

It always felt weird, like an invisible exclusionary line that separated you from the rest of the world. Your curse. Your illness. Your whatever you wanted to call it. Why did it have to be you who lost everything you loved?

With nobody to be mad at, you could only be mad at yourself. How you spent years letting yourself be defined by your curse so much that you lived every day tiptoeing around anything and anyone because you were afraid to fall in love. Because of that, you never really had an absolute understanding of what love was or what love felt like. And it sucked when your friends told you that even they couldn’t tell you a definitive answer as to what love was.

Then came Jeonghan. A shining beam of light in your wandering, you lunged at him both figuratively and literally with the hope that he could be the one who changed you. You thought that maybe if you were able to be in a relationship with him, you could feel more human. This didn’t mean that you faked your way through your relationship with him. No. You weren’t that kind of person. You had a crush on him. You liked him. You liked being his. But you weren’t given a chance to love him.

This time, you weren’t sure if that chance was tarnished because he was afraid of you loving him or you were afraid of loving him.

“Fuck.” You sniffed while wiping your eye with the collar of your shirt. “Is this what heartbreak feels like?”

“Feels like?” Seungkwan’s tone sounded like he was offended for some reason. He pulled away from his embrace to reach toward your desk to grab a few tissues from your tissue box to hand them to you. “You’re going through a heartbreak.”

Defensive is what you felt upon hearing Seungkwan’s reply. This sinking feeling in your heart that came and went whenever it pleased, you had trouble understanding it as heartbreak. So you replied, “But I didn’t even love him.”

Did you love him? Could the strong affection you felt towards him as well as the peace you felt within your heart be signs that you loved him? Did your love find a new way to drive another person away? If anything, all of that led to you admitting to your best friend that you felt a fear creeping and building within you. You were scared of falling for somebody in the future if it meant that this entire ordeal would happen again. Yet the fear of falling in love and knowing the person you loved is going to disappear was something that you continued to let define your present and future.

“An ordeal?” Seungkwan sounded more offended than he should be in the current situation. “You don’t have to lessen heartbreak as a means of trying to overcome the situation by calling it something less than it is. You’re young. I’m young. We’re supposed to date around, break hearts, get heartbroken, and discover ourselves during our twenties. I would never forgive you if you spent your twenties hung up about a man, so please live your life to the fullest whenever you can.”

“But what if…” You were hesitant to finish the thought, but the very fact that you were with the person you trusted with your entire heart allowed you to finish speaking. “…what if I fall in love with myself while I’m discovering myself?”

The thought of disappearing from the world sucked you dry. You felt like your insides were sucked into a cosmic black hole that formed inside of your body, body concaving and making you shrivel. Then came the immense amount of guilt you always carried with you, the guilt of knowing that you made people disappear on multiple occasions. You were scared of making people disappear as you were equally scared of disappearing yourself. It wasn’t the fact that you didn’t know what came next after disappearing. It was the fact that you were scared of disappearing because you thought that you were not important enough to have someone notice that you disappeared. It scared you.

“Why don’t you fall in love with yourself?” His question.

“I’m scared of being forgotten.” Your answer.

“I don’t think I can ever forget someone like you.” His honest answer.

A sad smile. Your vague answer. You knew that you could never put as much effort into your friendship with Seungkwan as he does because you were scared of loving him as a friend. Yet love was so twisted. You struggled to understand how it was that you didn’t love Seungkwan as a friend. You would probably launch yourself in front of a bus if it meant saving him. You would give him your entire bank account if he needed it. You would always rely on him if you were sad. So how was it that it was not love? Why was it that Seungkwan was not gone? And why was it that Seungkwan chose to stick around even when he knew that you were constantly restraining yourself from giving as much as he did?

Boo Seungkwan had quite literally become one of the only constants in your cursed life, and you were doing everything that you could to keep him from disappearing. Because you knew that there was probably nobody else in this world who would understand you as much as Boo Seungkwan.

SEVENTEEN. FREEKEH SALAD

I had this friend who would always buy this at the grocery store for every single potluck. And every single potluck you could see his name under the dishes section with this same salad written next to his name. It wasn’t like anybody complained or anything. He would bring the salad, and we would eat it. One time, I found myself craving this grocery store salad after a workout so I went and bought the same one in the same container I’ve seen so many times. But when I was able to sit down to eat it, I realized that the flavor was off. And it wracked my mind. I had a picture of the container taken on my phone so I knew I bought the correct item. Even the ingredients were the same. I tasted the salad so many times that I knew that there was no way that this salad that I was eating was the same as the salad I ate multiple times at the potluck. So I reached out to him. Turns out, he would add orange slices and drizzle some of that orange juice left over from cutting the oranges into the salad. Who would’ve thought. It was a tiny extra step that he never talked about. Yet comparing the original salad to his salad, it made me wonder just about how much of what I know I do not know.

SEUNGKWAN

Not yet the end of the summer, nine people arrange themselves on the front porch of the house while the afternoon sun shines on them. A tripod is being set up by two people who have yet to join the group. Silver van parked on the cul-de-sac, the remaining two finish loading suitcases into the trunk and slam it shut when they finish their task. The seasons have changed for a while now; now it’s time for someone’s season to progress onto a new one.

Boo Seungkwan watches Seungcheol and Alex as they jog back to the group. Morgan and Soonyoung have finally finished setting up the tripod with the added mini-lesson from Morgan who taught Soonyoung how to take pictures from his phone by using his smartwatch. Sadness is stored in Boo Seungkwan’s chest, already creeping up his throat.

They’ve been wasting away under the burning summer sun when they could’ve been running the farm with the wasted time. One can easily blame Soonyoung for his lack of knowledge regarding technology despite having the best phone on the market, which led to the loss of time. And the father’s inability to pack all of his and his daughter’s things until the very morning could also be a potential subject of blame. Yet nobody complains about wasting time. They could never. Wasted time, in this case, was a gift that kept loved ones from leaving.

Granted, the father-daughter duo are only moving their stuff back to their place in the city while Seungcheol has to attend a few “IRL side quests” (as Terry likes to put it) disguised as in-person meetings for his job. Seungkwan is still making Seungcheol come back for free labor until the end of the season. Nonetheless, the very thought of two beloved people leaving for only a few days is enough to cause forlornness to wash over the group.

Seungkwan sees how Seungcheol’s aura of happiness shines brighter than it has for a while. There is a newfound energy in his friend, and Seungkwan could never be more proud of him. So, taking a group picture to commemorate friendship and new beginnings seems fitting for this day.

“Hey Kwan.” Your voice causes Seungkwan to respond by looking down at your upper body in his arms. He props up his right knee to lift your body higher so he can properly talk to you. “You can put me down whenever you’re tired.”

“I’ll never be tired,” he replies.

Seungkwan isn't trying to make his conversation with you private, nor is he expecting anybody to listen, but he sees Seungcheol in the corner of his eye smiling at him. An actual smile, the kind where the smile is so big that his eyes squint and tiny smiles form on the outer corners of his eyes. He’s not sure if the older guy is smiling because of his conversation with you or the fact that him holding you in his arms visually parallels how Seungcheol is carrying his baby in his arms, but he doesn’t really think anything of it. Although Seungkwan is finding it harder to read his friends nowadays, he’s just happy that Seungcheol is finally in a state where he’s ready to move on with life.

“Come on everybody,” Soonyoung shouts while running back to join the group on the porch. “Let’s take the group photo.”

EIGHTEEN. SCREWDRIVER

If you think about it, a Screwdriver is like a Mimosa’s rebellious sibling. But only if they were from a refined family or not even refined. I don’t even think refined is a good word for it. But it’s like in the movies where it’s set in a prestigious private school or something and there’s this one rebellious student who “wears” the school uniform but in a different way. Yeah. Okay. I’m not good at explaining things am I?

YN

Bodies squished against one another on the worn-down brown couch originally bought as a flea market passed from one graduating friend to another, the bodies tried to scoot closer to each other to accommodate everybody who wanted to join the drinking game at the party. What could better define a graduation rager than a fun little Truth or Dare happening in the living room of some random acquaintance’s apartment?

The strip of LED lights that wrapped around only a quarter of the living room’s edges was enough to illuminate the small university apartment. The music from the speaker was synched to the lights, causing the lights to pulse and switch colors every few seconds. There were enough people packed inside the apartment to cause every firefighter’s arm hair to tingle. A game of beer pong took place on the dining room table. The sound of the ping pong ball hitting the insides of the cup was drowned out by the cheers. Graduation was over, and there were only a few days before the apartment leases ended for everybody. Tonight, every apartment unit was celebrating.

You found yourself on the floor, your legs tucked uncomfortably to the side of your body because your jeans couldn’t allow you to cross your legs. Two red plastic cups were passed to you, the contents being several strips of folded truths and dares for you to choose from. The cups weren’t heavy themselves because the weight of having to choose between truth or dare felt heavier. Center of attention, you didn’t know whether you should be a bit adventurous and go for the dares or play it safe but risk not wanting to spill something and drink from the disgusting concoction that Vernon and Yunling came up with on a whim as a punishment if you picked from the other cup. Plus, you knew and were close to everybody participating in the game, so you knew that they wouldn’t judge you based on the decision you were about to make. So you stuck your hand in one of the cups and pulled out the truth you had to answer openly.

With the slip of paper tucked in your palm, you gingerly placed the cups on the coffee table in front of you by pushing away the mess of opened hard seltzers and cheap beers from the liquor store next to the wholesale store a few blocks down the street. Anticipation caused your fingers to quiver as you opened the slightly damp piece of paper that was in your hand. And you read what was scribbled on there loudly, “Is there anybody in the room that you like?” But your voice faltered as you hit the end of the question.

Suddenly, your corner of the apartment became a couple of decibels quieter than the rest of the apartment. Half of the Screwdriver you drank along with a bunch of other liquids sat uncomfortably in the pit of your stomach. Everybody knew about your curse and about the breakup that happened. It was only a simple little truth to answer, so how could it change the atmosphere of such a lively party so quickly?

Seungkwan, who sat beside you, took it upon to snatch the piece of paper between your thumb and pointer finger to read for himself. He laughed a little too loudly as if it were forced. And he pushed your bicep with his right hand as if to make it seem like he was kidding around with you. “Oh my god” is what you remembered him gasping before you reached over to grab Terry’s unfinished drink on the coffee table.

“Yn, you’re drunk! It clearly says ‘Is there anybody in the room who is most like you?’” Seungkwan waved the piece of paper in the air with the blank back facing the circle of friends as a sort of ethos to support his claim and dropped it in his drunken stupor.

Rim of the can to your lips, you knew what you read. Seungkwan told a white lie for you.

“Whoever wrote that has to take a shot. Couldn’t you have thought of something juicier?” Seungkwan huffed before grabbing your wrist in his hand, pulling the can away from your mouth in the process. You picked up the piece of paper and pocketed it before you allowed him to pull you away. “We’re going to go to the balcony so they can get some air and sober up a bit. You guys keep playing.”

NINETEEN. PORTOKALOPITA

Heaven in a bite melts in your mouth into a pool of orange and vanilla. Heat of an unusually warm Autumn day opts you to pay extra to add a scoop of ice cream on top. Did you ever need a reason to treat yourself to something as small as a scoop of ice cream on top of a slice of Portokalopita? Does it count as cheating to want to indulge in something from time to time? The world shouldn’t feel like it’s going to end if you do something out of the ordinary or if you spend a little extra for something that you may not remember eating a couple months down the road. The truth is, we’re not going to remember exactly how we felt in the present in the future. We may remember being happy, but there will come a time in which you forget what exactly it was that made you happy…what it was that made you sad. It’s just life. It’s just cake. Even if you’re not going to remember in the future, wouldn’t you like to grant yourself that tiny bit of fleeting happiness?

SEUNGKWAN

It’s over, he thinks.

Boo Seungkwan lies awake in the dark on his side of the large shared mattress. Two soft pillows comfortably prop up his head, and the air conditioning in the room brings the room to his preferred sleeping temperature. Nevertheless, Seungkwan is finding it especially hard to sleep. Whenever he closes his eyes, he cannot stop seeing the scene of Jeonghan holding you in his lap the whole time everybody was in the backyard roasting marshmallows. And when he opens his eyes to stare at the ceiling above him, he can’t stop himself from thinking about how comfortable Jeonghan looked when Jeonghan would hunch his back a little to rest his chin on top of your head while he kept his arm wrapped securely around your stomach to keep you from falling off of his legs. It renders Seungkwan jealous.

It's time to give up, he thinks to himself no matter how much that idea hurts him. Give it up for Boo Seungkwan for finally realizing his feelings for you, only to have the guy who usually sleeps next to him be one step ahead of him. Or even several steps ahead of him. But Seungkwan is much too nice of a guy to even think about ruining a blossoming relationship between two exes to get what he wants even if the person he wants is one of the aforementioned friends. He wants to wish the two of his friends well no matter how much thinking about the two of them possibly getting together in the near future hurts him and makes him feel like crumbling. Even lying flat in the dark bedroom makes him want to cry so much that his tears escape his tear ducts through the outer corners of his eyes and fall along his face to wet the tips of his ears and then land on the pillow.

Extremely jealous and desolate on the inside is how he feels. He thinks about what he could have possibly done in the past to allow him to be in the same position as Jeonghan was tonight. Piercing sadness strikes through his gut, and it pins him to his bed. This feeling that makes him immobile is worse than the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night and being unable to move even the tips of his fingers.

Where he excused himself from his group of friends early, claiming that he was feeling more tired than usual, he now finds himself alone with his thoughts while life animates the rest of the house. He hears bits of laughter that escape from the living room and footsteps above his head. Seungkwan’s lie was not a lie at all — he does feel tired, but in a way that dries his eyes and eats at his insides. He’s too tired to socialize. He’s much too tired to think about tomorrow. He’s exhausted thinking about love and friendship.

A rectangular ray of light disrupts the dark ceiling for a brief second before it disappears. Yoon Jeonghan closes the bedroom door behind him while he’s careful to walk lightly and quietly to his side of the bed in the dark. Pretending to be asleep, Seungkwan closes his eyes to avoid confrontation with his friend. It’s a childish move, but what can he do?

Seungkwan’s body slightly dips to the left when Jeonghan climbs into bed. Jeonghan is doing his best to not wake his friend because, for all he knows, Seungkwan has probably been asleep for a while. Jeonghan showered earlier in the evening, but Seungkwan can still smell the scent of the fragrant smoked wood on Jeonghan.

He doesn’t know how long it has been since Jeonghan got into bed. The two of them are silent. The room is uncomfortably silent.

It’s so silent that Seungkwan can hear the tiny crackle Jeonghan’s lips and saliva make when he opens his mouth to speak. “Are you awake?” Seungkwan hears his friend ask him.

“Yeah.” He finds himself automatically replying. He feels so dumb. “Can’t fall asleep. You?” He doesn’t know why he’s being so honest with Jeonghan.

“Nah,” Jeonghan admits. He brings his left hand up to his mouth to clear his throat before awkwardly folding his hands on his stomach as if he is mentally preparing himself to say something confessional. “I uh- I kissed Yn.”

There it is.

At that moment, it felt like the end of the world, is what Seungkwan currently wishes he felt. But he doesn’t. The confession doesn’t pain him either. The feeling he currently feels while trying to absorb the fact that Jeonghan kissed you feels so disgusting. It makes him feel disgusting, yet it also numbs him so much that he doesn’t know what he’s feeling. Is it the feeling of his world crashing down? Not really. It’s as if he knew that it was going to happen despite how much he did not want it to happen. Like a harsh reality slap to his entire body. That’s what it is. Somehow, he finds himself mustering up the courage to ask Jeonghan what happened.

“They kissed me back.” Jeonghan answers, but there isn’t any pride in his voice. To Seungkwan, he sounded kind of sad. Dejected.

Jeonghan’s hair ruffles as he turns his head so that his right cheek lays against his pillow. He wants to make proper conversation with Seungkwan by looking at him. Feeling incredibly hurt, Seungkwan can’t bring himself to face him.

“Kwan. Do you know what a pity kiss is?” Jeonghan almost whispers as if he is admitting a fault.

“Why would you ask me about that?” Seungkwan grumbles while pulling the sheets closer to him.

“They kissed me back only because they pitied me.” Jeonghan turns his body so he’s leaning on his right side. He moves his right arm towards his head so he can prop himself up. “I mean, it’s not like they were leading me on this whole time. I was only getting ahead of myself. It was a pity kiss, Seungkwan. They pitied me. I think they’re appreciative that I’ve been trying to repair what I broke, but I know for a fact that Yn never planned to get back with me even if we became friends again.”

Seungkwan feels Jeonghan stroke his hair by running his fingers through his bangs and straightening it out for him. It’s as if Jeonghan is simultaneously trying to mend what could become a broken friendship with Seungkwan before it happens. Seungkwan is hardheaded as to how truly soft-hearted the mature Jeonghan is.

There’s a soft smile on Jeonghan’s lips as he continues to stoke his friend’s hair. He feels pity for himself. “I know you hated me for messing up in the past, and even now I regret letting go of Yn because I was afraid. I don’t know what I was so afraid of. I ended up still liking Yn even if half of them is physically missing.”

Seungkwan turns his body so he’s facing away from Jeonghan. He doesn’t get why Jeonghan is telling him so much. Is Jeonghan trying to rub it in his face that he finally understood what Seungkwan and the rest of the world knew when they were back in college? His eyebrows are furrowed with stress, and it would take more than a hot iron to flatten them out.

Jeonghan lets his left hand drop before taking it upon himself to pull the sheets over Seungkwan’s body. “There’s no use in pursuing them anymore. I let hope get the best of me.”

“Oh” is the only thing that Seungkwan can manage to say. He doesn’t really know how to continue the conversation with the older man or if he should even continue the currently one-sided conversation because he also likes you. Really likes you to the point where it feels almost obsessive given how much he thinks about liking you.

“God,” Jeonghan groans while grabbing Seungkwan’s shoulder to shake him. “Stop being dumb. If you like Yn then make sure you tell them before you live the rest of your life being regretful because you didn’t do something when you had the chance. Stop being so stubborn and confess your feelings. There’s no need for courtesy when it comes to love.”

“Yes there is,” Seungkwan snaps at Jeonghan. He sits up in a fit of madness and tosses his legs over the edge of the bed. “I need water.”

“You need to tell them how you feel.”

The walk from the bedroom, down the hallway, past the living room, and into the kitchen feels like the longest journey of Seungkwan’s life. When he finally gets to the kitchen, he sees a few people walk out of your room. He grabs a cup from the cabinet and fills it up the cup with water while trying to make it seem like he’s not staring at the people exiting your room. He sees them wave and say “goodnight” while shutting the lights and closing the door for you because you can’t do it yourself.

Thoughts cloud Seungkwan’s head. There’s a huge part of him that wants to knock on your door after all of the others have gone to bed, but he doesn’t want to be a bother. So he tells himself that he will eventually confess to you. He just doesn’t know when.

TWENTY. MADRAS COCKTAIL

Get this. If a Screwdriver and a Mimosa are family members, then the Madras is like the cool single aunt. Or even like the coolest older sister who you always wanted to be like when you grew up. It’s just cranberry juice, orange juice, vodka, and some lime juice if you’re feeling a little extra. She’s cool. She’s sweet. She’s sour. She’s everything you’re not. But that doesn’t mean you’re any less than what you think yourself to be. You’ll get there some day.

YN

“You okay?” Seungkwan asked you after shutting the balcony door behind him.

“Yeah,” you meekly replied while you leaned against the black metallic balcony railing. “Thanks for saving me.”

“If I still need to save you from a little game of Truth or Dare, then how are you going to survive without me by your side all the time?” Seungkwan joined you to your right, leaned his forearms against the railing, and looked below towards the apartment parking lot.

Down below, a couple of people were moving out of their apartments and loading boxes filled with an ending chapter of their lives into their cars. There were a couple of inebriated stragglers who stumbled around and sat on curbs. And there were the people on the balconies who stepped out to look beyond their tiny apartments to see the world around them only to be met with the view of a parking lot and a gas station in the distance.

If people were stepping out to do all kinds of things, what did you step out for? You struggled to find meaning in escaping an awkward scenario during a drinking game with your friends and felt even more trapped with the fact that you stepped out onto the balcony where you were hit with the reality of not being with these people you shared days and nights with for years.

“I don’t know” is what you came up with. It was fine to not know. You spent your whole life avoiding not knowing, escaping unthinkable truths. If you spent your whole life dedicated to prevention, then who were you trying to protect? And were who you were trying to protect worth protecting at all? There was so much meaning in everything around you, and it constantly seemed like people were trying to find meaning in their lives, trying to find meaning in anything they could find. You knew that Seungkwan wanted to work in the city gardens to find meaning in his life so that he was not tied down to his family farm. He had tons of friends and people he loved, a future he wanted, and meaning to his life. And he still promised that nothing was going to change between the two of you, that he would stay by your side for his entire life if he could. But did you want that for him? Did you want to keep him by your side just because he was one of the only few people in this world who truly understood you? Or was there some deeper meaning that you have not yet found or considered?

“I’m going to miss you,” you told him.

Even under the dimly lit balcony light, you could see how red his ears were, how deeply red his chest was through the unbuttoned portion of his polo. His tinted sunscreen hid most of his glow, but you thought about how physically uncomfortable he must have felt at that moment, how alcohol doesn’t sit right in his system. Yet he patted your shoulder before tossing his arm around it to tell you just how much he was going to miss you. He reminded you again that he was going to be working at the city garden for their summer program so you could visit him or hit him up whenever you wanted. He was always looking out for you, but you could only hope that he never felt like you were ever taking him for granted.

Because you knew that if you could ever allow yourself to fully love him, you would do so without any restriction to give him the unconditional love that only someone like him could deserve.

“Seungkwan!” The balcony door swung open, sending a quick breeze toward the both of you. A cat-type with pale skin who was wearing a beanie pulled over his head of hair appeared in the doorway. He must have slammed the door open a little too forcibly as he quickly held onto the door to keep it from vibrating and proceeded to bring his opened can of cola to his lips to lick away the contents that spilled onto his hand. “Shots” was all he said before he headed back inside without bothering to close the door.

“I- I think I’ll go inside. I hear them yelling for me, and I don’t want my name to be perceived by the neighbors.” Seungkwan awkwardly gestured to the ongoing party before looking at you again. “Can I get you anything?”

You shook your head to tell him you didn’t need anything. “I’ll head inside after a few minutes. You go ahead,” you told him.

A sheepish smile is what he left you with before he went inside. After you saw him gently close the door behind him, you looked at the piece of paper that you picked up and kept in your clammy hand. Uncrumpling it, you straightened it out against the flat side of the metal railing. You didn’t even need much light to see the words scribbled on the piece of paper: “Is there anybody in the room that you like?”

Yells emitted from inside the apartment, and you looked through the large glass windows to see Seungkwan taking a shot with those around him. He looked happy to be exactly where he wanted to be, but you couldn’t help but think he always looked a different kind of happy whenever he was around you. You read the stupid little strip once over and looked back at your group of friends, especially the one in the center. Smiling to yourself, you folded the little paper and tucked it in the space between the back of your phone and your silicon phone case before opening the balcony door to join the rest of them.

TWENTY-ONE. GLAZED CARROTS

You would think orange-glazed carrots would taste the same as orange carrot juice, but it doesn’t. It’s mostly the same ingredients used in different ways. It’s like how a lot of us live such similar lives, yet we all have different outcomes. A framework is only there to guide you along the way, but the results may vary even if you choose to follow or not follow the framework. I can tell you that I need a couple stalks of carrots, a quarter cup of orange juice, two tablespoons of sugar, and a bunch of other things, but it doesn’t mean that our end result would turn out the same. I may be making some glazed carrots while you end up with carrot cake. Don’t worry about sticking to what was originally written in stone. Focus on what you want to do.

SEUNGKWAN

Sweat drips down his back and colors the back of his shirt a darker hue. The fabric sticks uncomfortably to his skin as he runs around the farm while constantly checking his overheating phone to see if there are any new messages. Today, fear lingers over everybody like a dark cloud in the sky. You are missing, and nobody can find you.

Something unsettling has been going on for a few days. It’s Wednesday now, the last Wednesday of the month. It was only Saturday when Jeonghan confessed that he kissed you, Friday when Seungcheol moved out. As if there is a new shift in the pacing on the farm, nothing feels the same even though everything is the same. Seungkwan doesn’t know if he’s gaslighting himself into thinking there’s something wrong, but ever since the day Terry was finally able to pull Seungkwan to the side to talk to him, he knew that there was something wrong:

“What is so important that you have to talk to me in Soonyoung, Seokmin, and Jihoon’s room? It smells like sweat in here,” Seungkwan complained while standing in the middle of the bedroom and looking at the mess of gym equipment and strewn gym shorts on the floor.

Terry stuck their phone in Seungkwan’s face. On the screen was a picture of a chart that Seungkwan couldn’t quite comprehend was describing. There were a bunch of different colors, and he couldn’t quite make out the words with how Terry’s hand trembled. “Oranges. I was a couple of rounds away from winning that trivia game when a question about oranges popped up. I swore I was going to move on seeing how I’m literally working on an orange farm,” Terry said. “I was so pissed when it said that I lost because I answered incorrectly so I had to look it up. Look at this chart, Seungkwan. It’s summer. We don’t grow grapefruits or lemons here. Most oranges are in season from November to early spring.”

Seungkwan squinted his eyes and grabbed the phone from his friend’s hand to double-check the chart and the website where that page was pulled from. It looked legit, but it didn’t mean that it was impossible to have a late orange harvest. Then again, he couldn’t recall ever working on the farm in the summer because his entire family always went on a summer vacation together. He tried to recall what he learned in university. Was it during a botany course that he learned about fruits? Was it a pomology course? He couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t he remember?

“But that’s impossible,” he bluffed. Why did he bluff? “We’re still getting loads of oranges. They’re plump, juicy, and ripe. It’s always been this way.”

“Yeah, it’s always been this way during winter.” Terry took their phone back from Seungkwan to pull up something before flipping their screen for their friend to see. “Look at the date. December. The reason why we were wearing short-sleeves was because we got sweaty from working on the farm. I always liked building gingerbread houses at your place because your grandma always baked them with orange zest.”

“Then why are we here? Why are they in season?”

“I don’t know, Kwannie…You think we would have all of the answers we’re looking for. But we don’t. But is it really that big of a difference if there’s no harm at all?”

What makes the current situation at the farm even worse is the fact that you stopped using your phone about a week ago. There was no use in carrying your phone around when people were always by your side, and you were also wary of the possibility of not being able to hold your phone anymore. That means that there is no way that somebody could possibly reach you without having to physically find you first.

He takes the back door through the café kitchen and rounds the corner up the stairs. The air-conditioned interior of the café pricks his skin, but he doesn’t care. There are only a few places left to check, and Seungkwan is determined to be the one to find you. His heart is racing. He doesn’t even stop to catch his breath as he double-checks every single upstairs room.

Surprise. Relief. A long laugh. Long last, he finally finds you asleep with Seungcheol’s daughter in the middle of the bedroom surrounded by the pile of the baby’s plushies. He drops to his knees, clearly out of breath, and lays flat with half his body on the baby’s soft rug and the other half on the cold hardwood floor.

Only your head is what is left of you. Seungkwan thinks it happened sometime today while you watched the baby for Seungcheol. But you’re still you. That’s all that matters.

A couple of footsteps bound up the stairs. Seungkwan calls out to them from his place on the floor. Alex and Morgan appear, both with sweat dripping down their foreheads and making strands of their hair stick to their face. All is well on the farm.

All is well.

“Are you hungry?” Seungkwan asks you as he props your head on his jacket to keep you from rolling off the picnic blanket he set up. A brief bike ride with your head in the bicycle basket brought the two of you to a nearby field a couple of minutes away from the farm.

“You know what? I haven’t been hungry for days, but you’re the only person who still takes time to ask me that question out of habit. Maybe I miss your cooking or your nagging about my food choices, but I think I’m feeling a bit hungry now that you mention it,” you answer him from the comfort of your spot on the blanket. “Thank you for bringing me out here. You must’ve been scared the whole bike ride because I could see you looking at me while you were biking just to make sure I didn’t bounce out of the basket. I’m not a bouncy ball, you know.”

Seungkwan sits by your side before deciding he would be much more comfortable lying down on the blanket. So he lies there with you, under the canopy of a giant tree and the vast blue sky that stretches into an unknkown world.

There are so many things in life that Seungkwan still doesn’t understand. He thinks about Jeonghan and how he quickly became Seungkwan’s biggest hypeman since that day. There’s also his conversation with Terry that lingers in his mind, how magical this summer seems. And he thinks about you, how lucky he is to spend even an hour with you, quiet, and in the area between the bustling city and the quiet countryside.

“Do you think,” Seungkwan begins, “that because you’re hungry that there’s a chance for your body to come back? Is that too much of a question? Is it bad that I’m asking that? I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you laugh. “I think I used to be so scared of anything that had to do with disappearing that I lived life just so that I could prevent it from happening. I think I’m much happier now…Definitely much happier now that I don’t physically have a body. I’m okay if it doesn’t come back.”

“Can I ask why?” At this point, Seungkwan’s head turns towards yours. He sees you. Peaceful. Still. The foil to the inner turmoil that defines his very character.

So you laugh. A big “Ahh haha” that precedes the feeling of embarrassment. And you roll off Seungkwan’s jacket so that you can face him face-to-face, a chance to be physically closer to him. And he’s here to catch you, to steady you by keeping you close to him with his hand supporting the back of your head, never really wanting to let you go.

“Because I know you’ll be by my side.” Big and toothy, you grin at him so widely that it causes his breath to hitch.

“What if I’m not by your side?” Seungkwan tries you even when his intimate proximity to you causes him to feel such an immense child-like glee.

“Then I’ll find a way to you,” you tell him. Soft is the words on your lips, soft is your gaze as he brings you closer to him so that your foreheads meet, and softer is how your very being lands on his heart. “I like you, Seungkwan.”

Soft is the way he kisses you, carefully and gently as if to wade in the waters. A tumultuous first meeting that predetermines the present, Seungkwan’s lips fold between yours as if connecting two puzzle pieces not necessarily missing from each other. They were always meant to be for each other.

So he pulls your head closer to his as he deepens the kiss, wetting lips and sparking a new season of life even if it is only briefly.

Magical summer and the oasis away from the city, how hard is it to tell someone you have loved them for so long that your heart yearns for them even when they are near you? Like the fibers that hold the oranges together, he wants to envelop you with his entire being even when he knows the two of you would eventually part. But what is life like when you live in fear of the future? The present time is brief — but how beautiful it is to live it fully, to not take the present for granted?

“I think,” you tell him when the two of you pull apart, “if I wake up tomorrow without my head, I would be fine with it knowing what it is like now to live without regrets. But would you miss me if I disappeared?”

Seungkwan flipped over to lay on his back and brought your head to his chest so that you could hear his voice rumble in his chest against the backdrop of his beating heart. “I miss you even when you’re near me.”

“Stop being cheesy. Be honest,” you pout.

“I wouldn’t miss you.”

“Why is that?” You asked him.

Seungkwan stops to think for a second and brings an arm up to support the back of his head. “I dunno. I think it’s because I would delude myself to the point where I would believe that you are right beside me. But I would miss you, and I would do everything to not forget you. And I wouldn’t ever blame myself or regret the fact that I have loved you for the longest time. In fact, I’m thinking about that time in college when I got mad because you said that you didn’t love me.”

“Well you asked me why you weren’t gone after being friends with me for so long. Me telling you that I didn’t love you was logical, wasn’t it?” you complain.

“I’m still hurt. Wounded, actually,” Seungkwan pouts while holding your head above his face. He kisses the tip of your nose before putting you back against his chest, hugging you tightly even if it suffocates you.

“Stop handling me like I’m your doll.” He watches as you roll your eyes at him while speaking even though it’s evidently clear to him that you’re just being shy. Even then, he has to admit that his boldness also surprises him. “I don’t think there’s anything logical about anything, really. So I think I can say that I’ve also been loving you for the longest time. So to be able to say it out loud without being afraid, even if I can only do it briefly, I would still be happy about the fact that I could give and receive love from you, Seungkwan. So hold me tight, briefly, even if it’s only for a moment.”

TWENTY-TWO. CHOCOLATE ORANGES

Giant ball of molded chocolate wrapped in orange tinfoil, you thwack it against a flat surface until you feel the chocolate break into their individual slices. What is underneath is a classic milk chocolate treat, several slices too many. Take a slice and bring it to your mouth. Do you let it dissolve into a pool of chocolate and orange or do you break it apart between your teeth? Do you bring your fingers to your lips to lick away the melted bits or do you wipe it away? Is it wrong to do what you want to do? I like licking my fingers even if the person next to me thinks it’s a disgusting habit. I don’t care. I’m just eating chocolate and minding my business. Wrap it in the tinfoil if you’re not finished. There are a lot of pieces, so you don’t have to try to finish it in one sitting. I like trying to keep it in the shape of an orange, but that’s just me. I won’t judge you based on something as small as eating sweets. Several years down the line, you might still remember how anxious you felt or how embarrassed you felt in this moment. You would think about what other people might have thought about you. But in reality, I would be thinking about this moment. About how fun it was to whack the chocolate ball on different surfaces and watch the slices reveal themselves as we unwrapped the foil together.

SEUNGKWAN

Rows upon rows of trees barren and without fruit, the sight of it all was like a miracle at the end of June. The fact that it actually happened shocked Seungkwan so much that he didn’t even react when Seokmin and Soonyoung swiped his wallet from his trekking backpack to pay for the overpriced convenience store sliced oranges and whole oranges for the group during their hiking trip as a joke.

Trail mixes in plastic baggies, filled water bottles in hand, and several forms of oranges thrown in a plastic bag, the group follows each other along the hiking trail they were supposed to visit several weeks ago. Sunlight bright and cool winds passing by, today could not be a more perfect day for a friendly group hiking excursion in the mountains overlooking the city. And Seungkwan keeps your head wrapped tightly in his arms in fear that Jihoon would somehow find a way to use you as some form of weight training. Again.

Not once does he complain about not being able to use his hands to hold onto rails for support while climbing steep staircases or while crossing over stepping stones in the several rivers. He walks in the middle of the group, holding you up to let you inspect nature from different heights, happily chatting with his friends who surround him.

He tells you about oranges: the fruit, the ones on the farm, the way you like them prepared in desserts, the smell, the taste, the history he has with them. And he fills the gaps in your memory one description at a time. He has done it so many times that he knows what questions you are going to ask him. He knows how to describe things in ways even authors struggle to do. He’s patient, careful with his words, and welcoming of different voices in his conversations.

Tennis shoes crunching against the dirt paths, every time Seungkwan hands you over to another friend, he would always somehow find you back in his arms. Beyond the lush and vibrant green leaves is the city Seungkwan so badly wishes to live. But he sees his group of friends — Jihoon and Jeonghan, who try to push Soonyoung into the bushes whenever they can; Seokmin, who blushes while he intertwines his fingers with Noah’s; Morgan, who drags Alex by the straps of his backpack; Minghao, who is about to use your head as a phone stand for pictures before getting yelled at by Terry and Yunling; and Seungcheol, who is happier than ever — and it makes him think about just how much his life has been touched by magic to be able to be so unlonely in such a big world.

There is a scenic spot that overlooks the city. The group decides to stop there to rest before turning back so they can have dinner in the city before going back to the farm to pack up to leave.

Seungkwan sits on one of the stone benches with you in his lap. Yunling sits to the side of him and stretches her legs, bending over to massage her calves. Noah, whose sprain is already gone, comes over to hand her a few of the whole oranges they bought at the store before leaving to pass out the rest.

“God,” Yunling complains while handing Seungkwan an orange, “the peel for these are so thick that I kind of regret clipping my nails last night. And I bet these aren’t as tasty as the ones on your farm.”

“Not my farm,” Seungkwan sighs.

“I know.” Yunling pats him reassuringly on the back. “But some of my most precious memories happened on that farm. And you’re so entirely precious to all of us. How can we not associate you with the farm?”

Seungkwan bites his lip, not sure if he should come up with something witty to counter or continue the conversation with Yunling. In fact, he doesn’t know what he should be doing. He’s a college graduate, but he struggles with finding the balance between filial piety and his dreams. He struggles with trying too hard to try to fit into a world that makes it seem like everybody has their lives in order. He wonders about where everybody would go after they leave the farm. Would they remember this month how he remembers it, or would they return to their daily lives as if nothing has happened? He doubts they would treat their time on the farm as nothing, but he is human. He worries about things that he shouldn’t be worried about even if they cause him to become incredibly stressed. And he worries about you — how you would be able to go back to where you were in your life before you reconnected with him.

Yunling excuses herself to exchange her orange for another snack, leaving Seungkwan alone with you. Seungkwan looks at you with a slight frown on his face.

“What are you thinking about?” you ask him, your facial features soft yet filled with concern.

“Umm,” Seungkwan hums while looking to the side of him where two oranges sit. One for him and one for you. He tells you about how even if the convenience store orange would take him forever to peel, he would separate the tough skin from the delicate fruit as usual until the perfectly round ball of fruit is halved and then quartered and then whatever it takes to separate the fruit piece-by-piece. One after another, transferring fruit from his orange-stained fingertips into your awaiting mouth, he would watch you chew and smile as brightly as the sun in the summer sky. And he would smile too, fruitless in his hands yet fruitful in his love for you.

Boo Seungkwan knows he’s so lucky even when he didn’t realize the presence of love buried in the rising heat that left his skin sticky to the touch during summer. Tiny people struggling to find their place in this big world, he sits on his spot on the bench wondering what he must have done in his past life to be able to sit there, in that moment, sharing fruit against the backdrop of the world with you. Moments with others, so pure and tender. To Seungkwan, to have met you in this life is a once in a lifetime.

“Tell me, Seungkwan, what is the best way to peel an orange?” You ask him with such a cheerful smile on your face.

Suddenly, Seungkwan’s lap feels as if something heavy had been lifted off of him. His hand is still hovering where his hand had previously held your head steady. A sense of calmness instead of grief overwhelms him. Happiness even. Because he understands that even when we’ve fallen out of love with others or with ourselves, there is still someone other there who loves you and remembers you for who you were. So he takes one of the oranges to the side of him in his two hands and starts peeling.

He answers your question, wherever you may be, “It starts with the peel. Hold the orange in both hands and press your thumbs against the hollow bottom where there’s an open dip between the peel and the fleshy meat of the orange. Press into the peel with the tips of your fingernails, hard, penetrating the peel and creating a perfect opening to peel the fruit. Then, start peeling the bright and smooth outer shell away until you’re left with that orange and fleshy ball of juice. When you halve the fruit between your fingers, it sizzles and cracks crisply as you rip it apart — sometimes the juice escapes the membrane in a transparent drop of liquid, collecting on your finger, and rolling down your hand toward your arm. Sweet or sour, the rest comes after.”

TWENTY-THREE. THE ORANGE

Tough and protective skin, I’ll still hold you delicately in the palm of my hands. Being tough doesn’t mean you can never get hurt. Tell me about how vulnerable you are on the inside, and I’ll continue to sit beside you and cherish your worth.

YN

Sometimes we fall in love before we realize we're in love.

TO MY BETA READERS AND HELPERS, to be constantly surrounded by your (INDI @playmetheclassics, ZETA @multi-kpop-fanfics, BEE @idyllic-ghost, PAULA @gyuwoncheol) support, I am incredibly lucky that it isn't only once in a lifetime. and much like how seungkwan feels, to be friends with you is once in a lifetime.

DEDICATED to those who are struggling to find love after loss — it may not be as far as you think.

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