I think once you’ve thought about how a person sleeps, how they’d feel pressed up against your back, or your head on their chest, how compatible your bodies would be in the same space of a bed — once you’ve thought about that, you’re fucked.
All These Things You Wish You’d Say (via cryingwouldbetooeasy)
prompt: tiptoe
He starts early, leaving the first Sunflower somewhere she will easily find - a small note with instructions hanging from the stem. He's careful not to wake anyone up. He doesn't make a sound as he makes his way around the Sorority House, passing through hallway after hallway until he gets to the backyard. "Come on boy, we're burning daylight." Chewy looks excited, too.
Perhaps he knows?
--
The second Sunflower is left on KD's kitchen counter by a bowl of Cheese Doenjjang, the third on the ground by the hedges surrounding the property.
Jicheol sends a small prayer to the universe as he walks the other way and passes by the gate again.
Please, please...
--
He stares at the crack on the pavement and wonders if this is too much. Will she even remember? Will it appear that he's remembering too much? Will it feel insignificant?
A few people pass, distracted by Chewy to pay too much attention to the crazy guy frowning at the sidewalk - holding a suspiciously large wooden crate of books in his arms. "What do you think, Chewy?" His little friend answers by jumping on his leg and pawing at the crate.
Chuckling, he sets the crate down on the ground, putting the Sunflower on top of a sign that says, Watch your step.
--
Yonsei University Park is especially serene on mornings. He takes his time sitting on that specific bench, watching as the sky slowly brightens from dull blue to stunning gold.
Chewy jumps on the bench beside him and lays across his lap. As he pats the top of Chewy's head, a smile makes its way to his lips. "This is good, right buddy?" He leans down to peer at Chewy and gets what seems to be a nod. "Good boy."
--
The fifth Sunflower is left behind on the bench, sheltered under a big, red umbrella.
--
He lets the morning sun envelope him with warmth as they turn the corner and enter the walkway in front of the familiar Cafe.
He begins to panic.
Jicheol wishes Joongki was there.
He takes a seat on their favorite spot and breathes, the last Sunflower twirling in his hand as Chewy lazily spreads himself on the carpet by Jicheol's feet. As he looks out the window, he remembers - he remembers everything.
He sets the Sunflower down on the table to make the call and he instantly brightens at the sound of her sleepy voice. "Good morning, Mina."
"Jicheol-ssi, something feels weird... there's... there's a Sunflower stuck to Captain's neck!" His other hand grips the bright highlighter tightly.
Will all this be clear enough for you, Mina?
She wishes she could say that she had no regrets. It was her choice to break up, after all. He didn’t even see it coming—if he did, she wonders why he didn’t do anything about it. She realized the enormity of her mistake when she woke up in the middle of the night a week after the end, violently roused from a bad dream. She didn’t remember the dream upon waking, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that she called out his name. She’s not wired to pine away and dwell, but there’s an ache in her chest that won’t go away. She hates it; she hates herself for it, but she can’t bring herself to fix it. She’s made her choice. She just has to make peace with it.
There’s a lifetime’s worth of photographs and videos and voice messages and e-mails in her hard drive; she tells herself to delete everything, to get on with her life. How does one truly say good-bye to one’s best friend? She files the thought away. It was her fault that they’re barely more than strangers now. The hardest thing she didn’t think she had to live with. Â
The week she was reassigned, I asked her if she found it even more horrifying than being at the ER. She’s not exactly fond of children. It takes a bit of time before she could warm up to them. She said it was fine, and that the worst thing she could come up with is the way children cry when they’re in pain.
“Especially the babies, oh god the babies. You don’t even know where to start with them. You can’t even ask them where it hurts. They just keep on crying.”
“How many are on your watch right now?”
“Twelve. One is a preemie, three are a couple months old. The rest are toddlers and grade schoolers.”
This was last year.
I’ve stopped asking a lot about the kids since her first patient passed away three months after her reassignment. A surgery had gone wrong, and she was the first responder when the parent reported something unusual about the child’s condition. The child was five.
Anna and I don’t have much history to speak of—I only became her boyfriend about the same time she’d been transferred to Pediatrics—but it was the first time I’ve ever seen her cry. I came home to find her on all fours, crying and looking like she was going to be sick. Like there was an inexplicable amount of pain bubbling in her throat that she wanted to throw up.
“It’s Jeannie,” she said, when she’d calmed down enough to speak. “My poor Jeannie.”
The name rung a bell. I remembered seeing it on a card Anna had tacked against the corkboard in the bedroom. On it was a doodle of a little girl in a yellow dress, and a nurse that held her hand. There were arrows beside each character. Jeannie. Nurse Anna. Both of them were smiling.
I love Nurse Anna because she sings to me when I feel sick. She’s my angel, Jeannie wrote. Thanks to that little girl, I learned Anna could sing. (For some reason, I felt like I’d always known.) I teased her about it a lot until I convinced her to sing around me. She sings so beautifully.
It’s been a long while since I’ve heard her sing.
I come home tonight and find her sitting at the veranda. A couple of months earlier, we pulled an old couch out there so we could have a cup of coffee after dinner and just watch the city lights (or the goings-on from the windows of the apartment next to ours). It had become our favorite spot.
“I’m home. Brought you something to eat.”
She doesn’t budge, nor say a word. That’s bad news.
I take the bag of food to the kitchen and join her shortly, noting an unfinished cup of coffee on the floor beside her slippers as I silently sit next to her. She’s hugging her knees, and her eyes are glazed. It’s an all-too familiar scenario. I need not even ask.
Instead I put an arm around her shoulder and pull her close to me. Three seconds in, she starts to cry against my chest. I let her.
I don’t mind the time I spend just holding her, but I do mind the lump that forms in my throat when I hear her cry.
“I should just quit,” she says a while later. With the balls of her palm, she carelessly wipes her tears away. “I can’t do this anymore, Sky. I tell myself it’s okay. . . that I won’t get too attached the next time. It’s fucking impossible.”
I just nod, knowing very well that this, my being here beside her, is the end result of nurse-patient attachment. “Those children need you though.”
“We have lots of nurses.”
“Are all of them like you?”
“No,” she says outright. “I don’t know. We’re all different.”
I rock her, very gently, in my arms. “You should think about it more. I know it’s a difficult thing to be able to see this children struggle and die, but think about the comfort you give them whenever you’re there just to hold their hand.”
She falls silent. I could only hear her sniffles every now and then.
“I see the letters you get from these children. I know you keep most of them now, but if I had it my way, I’d make a shrine out of all of them. They adore you, Anna. You’re a ray of hope for them. If you quit now—”
“I just can’t deal with another child dying, Skylar!” She shakes her head. “You don’t know how it feels to look into a child’s eyes while they struggle with their last breath. . .”
“I do know.”
She stops, and I assume she realizes I was a soldier before we’d met. She articulates it for me. “It feels like hell.”
I nod.
She buries her face in her palms and asks to be left alone. I squeeze her tightly one more time, press a kiss on her temple and leave, taking her cup of cold coffee with me to the kitchen. It will take her about an hour or two more of contemplation, I calculate, before she moves to the bedroom to get some sleep. I ready a glass and a pitcher of water on the bedside table. She often gets nightmares when a patient passes away.
After she’s fallen asleep later on, I take a look at her corkboard where cards and letters and doodles from her young patients are tacked. She kept them all away once, but I put them back up while she was at work one day. I may not know all these children, but I know she’s touched every single one of them in ways she might not even have realized.
Do you remember asking me why I became a soldier? I ask her in a letter I’m writing while she’s in deep slumber beside me. I told you that I wanted to become a soldier because my ex-girlfriend wanted me to be, and you laughed, saying that it was the lamest fucking reason ever to do anything.
I asked you why you became a nurse then, and I will never forget what you told me. You told me how your mom died when you were still a baby, and how, as you grew up, nobody was there to give you the care that a mother would when you got sick until your dad took you to this one hospital. There was this nurse, you said, who took care of you, read you books, and sang to you until you got better. And you decided that when you grew up, you’d be a nurse too, because no one should ever go through getting sick alone.
Do you understand, Anna? You do this because not because of a sense of duty. You do this because you love. This is what makes you a great nurse. Â And you should never let anything, even death, take that love in your heart away from you.
Trust me on this just this once, would you?
I lay down beside her after tucking the letter into her bag. She’ll see it in the morning, maybe read it on the subway on her way to work, or at the living room in her pajamas if she decides to call in sick.
For now, I hold her close and pray this angel’s wings doesn’t get clipped once again.
Untitled, a response to the prompt: “This sky where we live is no place to lose your wings.”
Verse: Paper Planes Back Home (AU) | SkylAnna
1,289 words
The alcohol is coursing through her veins, and she can feel it pulsing under her skin, washing over her like the overwhelming bass of the dance music pounding through the speakers. She raises her arms over her head, beer bottle in one hand, lifts her face toward the ceiling rafters, the colored strobe lights vivid against her retinas. G's somewhere there, she knows, but right now she doesn't care. Anna feels like a fucking queen. This moment is hers for the taking, and take it she does.
She gives out a happy little whoop as she shimmies in her spot, and she hears a guy whisper something in her ear. "No thanks," she yells over the sound system, trying to move away from the stranger. The man doesn't give up, and he reaches out to take Anna's arm.
"There you are, baby, I've been looking all over for you," a familiar voice suddenly comes from her other side. She whips her head around as a hand finds the small of her back. "Hey, hey," Skylar says as he pulls her close to him, away from the guy with the grabby hands. "It's me, it's okay."
Anna releases the breath she didn't know she was holding. "Hey, you. What took you so long to find me?" She's always thought of Skylar as a pretty upstanding guy, and here he is, proving her right. Thank god for great friends. She throws her arms around his neck and hugs him so she can hide her face from the creep.
"Okay, sleaze is gone," Skylar murmurs against her hair. "The coast is clear."
She finally breaks away, smiling. She takes a big gulp of her beer before she grins at him again. “My hero!” she proclaims. “You, sir, are awesome. I coulda handled that though, but I’m grateful for the assist.”
He returns the grin. “I knew you could’ve handled that, but that’s what buddies are for, right? I’ve got your back.”
“Sweet,” she says, taking another swig from her bottle. “You are too sweet.” She tiptoes a little to give him a kiss on the cheek.
She never quite sees this one coming, what with the lights flashing, the bass throbbing, the alcohol in her bloodstream burning: his lips on hers in the next instant. There’s a pause, a nanosecond of sudden muffled sound, before she finds herself melting against him, mouth against eager mouth, bodies flush against each other. It’s as if all her blood rushed to her head, leaving her dizzy and breathless, and she knows that this isn’t the liquor taking over; it’s like instinct, the most natural thing in the world. She doesn’t quite understand why that is, but right now she doesn’t care. She’s hyperaware of his touch, his scent, and she feels a hunger she’s never really felt before. She falls into the moment, reluctant to break the kiss, but she knows they both need to come up for air.
“What took you so long?” she breathes.
Is it bad that every time I look at her face, my gaze just naturally falls on her lips and I feel thirsty? Because I’m not kidding. . . that’s exactly how I feel. Every. Single. Time.
G and I, we’ve been together almost two weeks. My friend Skylar seems to think my First Kiss Coupon has expired exactly fourteen days ago. Pffft. I don’t really mind if we haven’t kissed yet.
I’ve been wanting to kiss her since that afternoon at the lake several months ago. It was the day I heard the word “divorce” being so casually thrown in an argument between my mom and dad. Unacceptable. I was so angry I had to walk out of there and shut their voices out of my head. I brought my guitar to the lake, tried to play. . . but mom’s crying and dad’s yelling were just too much, too loud for my strings to drown out. I got mad at my guitar too, for being useless to me at that moment. It bore the brunt of my anger and ended up in pieces before I could stop myself.
I never thought the way she held my hand—tentative at first, and then firm, eventually—would be able to calm me down. She never even said a word.
Then. I’d been wanting to kiss her since then, and on many other occasions when she’d just take my breath away. It’s just like now, when she sat down across from me at the table with her lunch tray. She has this bright smile on her face, the kind that reaches her eyes. It’s hard to catch her showing her teeth though. She has ugly teeth, she said.
Nothing about her is ugly, I can tell you that.
“Is that all you’re eating?” I asked upon scanning the contents of her tray. Sandwich. Apple. Orange juice pack.
“I had a big breakfast at home.”
I don’t know if she’s aware. . . she does this thing where, when she’s too focused on doing something, her lips just naturally pucker a little. It’s like a tiny pout that quickly disappears when she’s accomplished whatever it is she’s trying to do. Like now. She tried to unwrap her sandwich but she can’t pull the tape off from the plastic wrapping on account of her short nails.
“Give it.” I reached for the sandwich, and she just threw me a glare before clutching the sandwich to her chest.
She is so cute, I can’t stand it.
//
I walk her home often after classes even before we got together. I feel bad when I have basketball practices that end late, because then that would mean she’d be going home alone. It’s a good thing our streets are well-lit, and she’s been here long enough to manage not to lose her way.
To be really accurate, it’s a ten-minute walk from our school to her house, add five more minutes, and that’s when I get home. However, we’ve tried walking different routes every so often, and we’d end up walking twenty, thirty minutes instead. Since we’re not in the same class this year, we usually talk about what happened in each other’s class during the day, if something eventful has happened. We’re in highschool. Something’s always happening.
Today, she told me about how Lana Turner and Oliver Newman were caught kissing at the back of the classroom before homeroom. G had always chosen to sit at the back of the class since she came to our school last year. It was easier to disappear that way, she said.
“So you actually saw them?”
“How could I not, when they were only a seat away from me?”
“Fair enough. You should’ve warned them before Mrs. Houston came in, though.” Her hand was in mine, and I squeezed it firmly, as if to serve as a punishment for her negligence.
“I didn’t know what they were doing until Mrs. Houston came in.” She squeezed my hand too.
“I thought you saw them.”
“Only when Mrs. Houston came in,” she said. “I was reading all the while with my earphones plugged in.”
Right. She does have the tendency to shut the world out while reading or listening to something. She did that to me a lot before, when I thought she’d been listening to me but it turned out she was more focused on her English textbook to actually care.
“So what happened?”
“What do you think? They got detention.”
I clicked my tongue. “For kissing? Ah, it’s an act of love. . . it shouldn’t have been sanctioned,” I joked, glancing at her with a smirk on my face.
“They should’ve done it someplace else.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And maybe Lana should not have been sitting on Oliver’s lap.”
For a moment, I blamed my adolescence for the mental image I conjured. Okay, fine. I might have had that tucked away at the back of my mind all along, but hey. . . I’m seventeen and there’s this girl I like, okay? Sue me.
I cleared my throat. “So. . . where do you think is a good place to. . . kiss?”
The look on G’s face when she raised her head was a contemplative one, like she really seemed to mull over my question. Yeap. There it is again. That accidental pucker. Jesus Christ. Does she know what she does to me?
It’s not like I’m scared to just swoop in and kiss her. No. For some reason, holding back is my natural bodily reaction to her. That’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, she’s my girlfriend now. It’s only natural to be all touchy-feely.
So far, all I’ve done is hold her hand and kiss the top of her head.
“Someplace private,” she finally said. “Somewhere other people can’t see.”
“Does. . . that mean you’re not going to kiss me in public?”
Her face turns pink, as if on cue. “No.”
Great. My dreams have just been crushed.
“Why? Do you want to be kissed in public?”
Again, I cleared my throat. “Sure.”
“Won’t you be embarrassed?”
“Why would I be? If it’s you kissing me, I’d be proud.”
She slapped my arm with her free hand and frowned. “Aaron Kyle Tveit.”
I was going to say “kidding!” but that would’ve been a lie. No, seriously. What guy wouldn’t want to be kissed in front of his friends, by a girl as wonderful as the one holding my hand? None. Ever. “I said what I said. . . and I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, as we’d gotten to her home then. I pulled her in for a hug. “Your hair smells like strawberries. How the hell is that possible? You had P.E. today. You should smell like sweat.”
G just laughed. We said our goodbyes and I let her go.
Nope. No kiss just yet.
//
Days went by, and still, no luck with that First Kiss Experience. Skylar asked “What is wrong with you?” maybe three times a day now, and I don’t understand why he is so hellbent on my making a move on G. His persistence frustrated me even more.
She wore her hair down yesterday, and her pitch black hair just framed her gentle, pale face perfectly. I’m pretty sure that was just lip gloss she put on—it’s almost winter, and her lips started chapping up—but man did it make her lips look. . . ah, what is the word? Scrumptious. Like an apple.
Today, they look redder than ever.
“You okay? Is that a cut?” I pointed to her lower lip, which seemed to be bleeding.
She bit on it and frowned. My poor G and her precious lips.
Fuck. What am I on, really?
“It’ll be fine.”
We were backstage at the auditorium, sorting out clothes for our upcoming winter production. It was Pride and Prejudice this year, and I memorized my lines while she minded the costume and prop inventory. If I had it my way, I’d only have her as my Elizabeth Bennet.
“And what, embarrass myself in front of the entire student body?” she asked when I encouraged her to audition. Her English was still far from perfect, but she speaks it better now. I’m so proud of her.
I sat beside her in front of the dresser mirror, watching her while she ticked items off a list. When she lifted her eyes to look, I pretended to read my script, but continued watching her as soon as she went back to work.
“Have you read the book?” I asked. I had to do something to disturb her. That pout was doing nothing for my concentration.
“Hm?”
“Pride and Prejudice.”
She looked at me through the mirror worriedly. “I’ve been trying. It’s so hard to read.”
I smiled and reached for a lock of hair by her cheek. I pushed it back, tucked it behind her ear. “So help me with this. It’s pretty long.” I tried not to snicker when I handed her the script.
“Where in this page?”
I pointed to the spot. “Just listen to me and feed me the words when I stall.”
“Easy enough.”
I straightened up in my seat, cleared my throat, and began, in the most noble tone I could manage. “In vain I have struggled. It will not do,” I paused. “My feelings will not be repressed.” I paused again and pretended to have forgotten the next line.
She was quick to rescue me. “You must allow me to. . .”
“You must allow me to. . .” I echoed.
G looked at me and nodded, waiting for me to say the next lines. I gave her a blank look and she shook her head. “I thought you’d memorized this!”
“It’s a lot to take in. Come on just give me that sentence.”
She sighed. “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
I grinned. “Yes, I give you my permission.”
“Wha—hey!” She caught on, and I just laughed when she threw the script at me. She grabbed her pen and started to write on her notebook again, stopping only when I chucked the script on the dresser and started with the lines again.
“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you,” I recited, and went on and on until she finally looked up from her work. I leaned in, and almost whispered the lines to her ear. “Almost from the earliest moments of our acquaintance, I have come to feel for you a passionate admiration and regard, which, despite all my struggles, has overcome every rational objection.”
“A—”
“And I beg you, most fervently—”
I heard her swallow a lump in her throat when she turned her head to face me.
“—to relieve my suffering and consent to be my first kiss.”
To be completely and utterly honest, I had only meant to tease her. I had only meant to see her cheeks turn pink, or maybe frown at me, or maybe give my cheek a light slap like she does when I pull a small prank on her. The request was earnest though, and the feeling in my stomach could not even be described in words when she closed the gap between us and pressed her lips against mine.
The biggest meteor could have hit earth in those next ten seconds and I wouldn’t have noticed.
Untitled, in response to the prompt: "I’m sure people just kiss each other."
Verse: Highschool!GiAaron (AU)
1,942 words
 He wakes up to find her gone. There's that skip, a split-second tightening in his chest, when he realizes this. He sits up on the side of the bed, sighing softly, and he's greeted by a happy bark. It's Mozzie (Mozzarella, like the cheese), the eight-month-old golden retriever she adopted earlier in the year.
"Looks like it's just you and me again, girl," he murmurs as he gives the dog's head a grateful stroke. The dog is hers, but Mozzie stays with him most of the time for reasons only known to the dog.
Mozzie barks again, moves toward the door that leads to the rest of the apartment, then turns to him again.
"Hungry?" Mozzie's bark is sharp, as if telling him to hurry. "Okay, okay, I'm getting up." He sighs again as he leaves the bed, his gaze falling on her pillow.
He should be used to this, he knows, but he still isn't. He doesn't think he ever will. He shuffles out of the bedroom and into the living room as Mozzie streaks past him. He absentmindedly listens to the dog barking as he walks into the kitchen.
"Oh. Morning. Did Cheeseball wake you up?" he hears her say.
He looks up and sees her sitting at his counter island, eating cereal from a bowl. "Mozzie, what did we talk about last night? We do not wake people up before noon." She clucks at the dog, making a mock stern face, to which Mozzie just whines at before lying at her feet.
"I thought you left," he finally manages.
She gives him a small smile, just a slight lift of the corners of her mouth. "I wanted to stay a little longer. Didn't wake you in case you wanted to sleep in." She gets off the counter stool and moves to the fridge. "What would you like? Eggs? Or just cereal?"
He doesn't answer, grinning when she turns her back to open a cabinet. He slides into the seat she just left and spoons into the bowl she was eating from.
"Hey!" she calls out indignantly when she sees. "Get your own bowl!" She shoves him off the stool.
"But it always tastes better when we share!"
"No."
Mozzie nips at his toes and nudges her ankle.
He turns his head and watches her silhouette by the window, beautiful, even in just a blanket draped around her. The smoke coming from her cigarette adds to her mysterious aura. He doesn’t stir from the bed.
She stays silent for a time, savoring her cigarette, savoring the quiet this night has offered her. From where she stands, the city lights look like stars in a pitch black sky, and they slowly die, one after the other. Each of those lights have a story behind them, don’t they? She’s often wondered the same, perhaps even written her own story, her own version of why that little house near the church turns its lights off always, always at nine-thirty, or why that hotel room never turns its lights off, even in the morning.
This hotel room—the one she’s in, the one she’s sharing with a stranger she’s known for years—is dark, only dimly lit by the moonlight and the streetlamps outside. . . but she looks at him, and he’s glowing when he’s not supposed to be.
He’s not supposed to be the light she should be seeking. He’s not supposed to be a lifeline. And yet in every encounter, she craved him more.
That’s not supposed to happen.
She crushes her cigarette into the ash tray and turns to see him watching her. Fleetingly surprised, she smiles at him.
“I thought you’d fallen asleep.”
“Last cigarette of the rest of your life?” he asks with a sly smile.
She scoffs. Of course. He would never think she’d quit this life she—they had lived for years. “Going cold turkey seem like a good idea?” she replies with a question and joins him in bed.
He welcomes him back in his space with a kiss to her neck. “Maybe not. Nicotine gum would help, though.” He stares at her broken lip and cringes. It was his doing, after all, but it wasn’t like he knew he was going to see her again today. He touches it gently with the knuckle of his index and she turns away.
“I’m sorry, okay?”
“Fuck you. My ribs still hurt.” She turns her back against him and closes her eyes.
“You shot at me!”
“Missed. Too bad.”
She feels his arms around her, protective like always. It’s a funny thing, this. . . whatever this is, trying to kill each other one moment and then making love the next.
Insanity.
Madness.
Love?
She doesn’t hold him, but she doesn’t move away either. She lets him hold her like he always has, listens to the sound of his breathing, noting how warm his lips are when they go about the ritual of adoring her skin. Tomorrow, she’ll wake up and walk away from him and this life. Tomorrow, she’ll erase everything she knows and start anew.
“Are you sleeping?”
A tear makes a sojourn to the pillow as she closes her eyes.
Tomorrow, this. . . all this will be a yesterday that will remain unspoken.
Untitled, a response to the prompt: We'll always have yesterday
Verse: Espionage!ShiroHyun
504 words
I'm sure people just kiss each other. I'm sure that sometimes you're talking and somehow two people move closer and closer to each other and then, they just kiss. I'm sure it happens all the time. But I'm also sure that a kiss is never just a kiss.
It’s only half past seven in the morning and he has already decided: This is going to be the longest day of my life.
He doesn’t pay attention during first period, but their teacher always drones on and on anyway, and never really looks up from his book during any lecture, so it’s easy to not get caught. He taps his foot impatiently through second period, and flashes Skylar a deer-in-headlights expression when he’s tapped on the shoulder.
Skylar narrows his eyes at his friend. “Dude, it’s me.”
 Should I go see him?
Why did I even run away when he was only saying hi?
She only smiles when she hears an invitation to go eat lunch together. She signals: go ahead.
 Their classmates quickly desert the classroom for the cafeteria. Even Skylar is ready to go, but Aaron isn’t leaving his seat.
“Man, are you sick?”
“No.”
“Why are you acting so strange?”
“I confessed.”
 She takes a longer time putting her things away, almost like she’s touching every book and pen for the last time before placing them back into her bag.
But what if he tells me again that he likes me?
What am I supposed to say?
I like him too. . . but. . .
Wasn’t he just joking around?
 Split-second silence. And then Skylar slides into the seat in front of Aaron. “Seriously? When?”
“Yesterday, after the movie.”
It’s the look on Aaron’s face that gives him away. “Oh man. Did she reject you?”
“No.”
 Right. Why would he?
She slings the bag up her shoulder, walks to the door and stops to take a peek down the hall.
Aaron’s classroom is two rooms away.
Why would he like me?
Should I ask?
 Skylar frowns. “Then why do you look so upset?”
“Because she’s avoiding me.” Aaron sighs, finally closing his book. He never understood what he’d read, or rather, scanned during class anyway. “I mean I understand if she’s not yet ready to have a boyfriend, but. . . man, I knew I shouldn’t have confessed!” Exasperated, he slams his forehead against the closed book.
“And what? Let that Andrew guy get to her first? Or Henry? You know he’s putting the moves on her.”
“Henry is an asshole. She’s not going to—”
“Girls like bad boys.” Skylar shrugs.
He raises his head to glare at Skylar. “Fuck you.”
“No thanks. I like tacos.”
 She takes the direction towards Aaron’s classroom, but she stops halfway through.
But what if he does say he was only kidding?
That would be heartbreaking.
 Both boys turn their heads when they hear a knock on the open door of their classroom. The moment he sees who it is, Skylar takes the cue. “Oh hey, Gianna! You heading for lunch too?”
She smiles at him, timidly. “Yeah.”
“Aaron’s asking me to come with him but I remember I had to help coach out with the lockers. . . I guess I’ll see you both later, huh?” He doesn’t wait for any of his friends to say anything else and just zooms out of there like his life depended on it.
Aaron gets up from his seat as well. “I, uh—”
“I’m sorry for running off earlier,” she says, not really making eye contact. In fact, she isn’t looking at Aaron at all. She fidgets with the straps of her bag, and she could swear her heart is in hyperdrive just seeing him approach her. She takes a step back, and Aaron notices.
“You don’t have to. . .” He clears his throat. He’s not really okay with what he’s about to say. “You don’t have to have lunch with me if you’re uneasy.”
“Right.”
His heart drops. “But why did you come to see me?”
Finally, she looks up at him, but only for about three seconds. She is all red in the face, and Aaron feels sorry that he’s made her uncomfortable. He contemplates taking back what he said the day before. Should he pass it off as a joke?
“I just wanted to ask you something.”
“Was it about what I told you yesterday?”
She nods.
Aaron smiles, tries to play it cool. He opens his mouth to speak, and he is so ready to say “Come on, G. . . I was just kidding!” until she looks at him with those dark brown eyes that seem to plead that he be honest. He can’t lie to her. Not about this. Especially NOT about this.
“Well. . . it is what it is.”
“But why?”
The look in his eyes was incredulous. Is she really asking him why he likes her? He has his reasons, plenty of them, in fact. . . but he never thought she’d ask.
Now all these reasons start to overwhelm him.
Because you are so beautiful. Because you’re gentle, and kind, and the sound of your laughter is something I want to listen to all day long. Because you cooked that soup for me on my birthday when you didn’t have to. Because you bought me that guitar to encourage me. Because you held my hand when I needed someone the most. Because your smile is like the sunshine to me, and I need it in my life. Every day. Every hour. Every minute, if ever possible.
And then somewhere in his head, this thought appears: You are going to freak the hell out of her, Aaron. Get a fucking grip.
“Why. . . not?” is all he comes up with, or all he allows to escape through his lips.
Gianna shakes her head. “We are so different.”
“So?”
“So. . . a bird and a fish aren’t exactly—”
“Who’s the bird, and who’s the fish?”
She has to laugh at that. “You have to ask?”
He shrugs, then sighs. “Listen, G. I don’t know why you think of us this way, if it’s because we come from two different races and countries, or whatever other reason. What I said was simply that. I like you. A lot. If you don’t like me, that’s fine. . . just, can we be cool about this? Like. . . I don’t really want to lose you as a friend.”
There’s a long pause. “Me neither.”
“Yeah,” he nods, relieved at least that they are on the same page as far as friendship is concerned. “So uh, shall we just go get some—”
“I like you too.”
“—lun—WHAT?”
Aaron shakes his head in a manner that one does when they suddenly feel dizzy after getting hit by a basketball right on the face. He stares at her while she smiles, almost embarrassedly. “I never thought I would be able to say that, ever.”
He steps forward, suddenly confident. She likes me too! Nothing about this can go wrong! “Why not?”
“Because I’m a fish, and you’re a bird. Fish can only stay underwater and admire birds while they fly. And no bird falls in love with a fish. That’s just ridiculous.”
Confident enough to take her hand now, he stares at it wide-eyed when he discovers it’s ice cold and sweaty. “Hey…”
Gianna looks at him, her eyes a mix of uncertainty and relief.
“I like ridiculous.” He gives her hand a squeeze, pulls her gently in for a hug. “Let’s be ridiculous together.”
Untitled, in response to the prompt: tiptoe
Verse: Highschool!GiAaron
1,232 words
When I stare too long at the sun then close my eyes, you’re the white that explodes: spreading, surrounding the darkness at the back of my mind (my eyes-) that’s you. You make me wonder. I never know where you come from, or how you manage to take over everything of me, my consciousness, everything I see, I know, I trust, I remember… how I always open my eyes and miss the burn of that explosion of you. Burn me again tomorrow, love. Explode for me, give me warmth, you can stay at the back of my mind (my eyes) forever. Turn me to ash.
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