apricate; enhypen imagines

park jongseong - forever

tw: cursing on part of my narration (like once)

- linden

He was the kind of boy your mom warned you about when you were thirteen, and the kind of boy you crushed on when you were fifteen. The kind of boy you fell for when you were eighteen.

————

You'd known Park Jay all your life.

You were never friends, and you never intended that to change, but he was always there regardless. Part of this likely had to do with the fact that he was your older brother, Jake's, best friend, but it was almost like the universe had collectively decided to stuff all the beauty into one person and throw him in your path every time something important happened in your life.

You still remembered the day when you were both little and you'd finally built up enough courage to remove the training wheels from your bicycle. With no one to keep an eye on you, you started on your own. You rode the wobbly bike down the sidewalk, but only made it a couple of houses down. Your balance shifted and you came tumbling down onto the sidewalk in front of a familiar home.

You hit the ground hard.

The impact scraped your hands up until they were red and your knees until they were bleeding. For a moment, you sat quietly on the hot sidewalk with your legs still entangled with the bike. You made little fists with your hands and bit your bottom lip to stop the tears; an ache in your head was already starting from the ache in your limbs.

When you heard the running, you finally started to cry. A panicked Jake and a worried Jay raced down the incline of the hot driveway in their flimsy flip flops. As if he'd forgotten it was there, Jake was holding in his little hands an ice cream cone.

By the time Jake and Jay reached your wailing figure, the ice cream had flopped off the side of the cone and splashed onto the driveway in a melty vanilla mess. When Jay reached you with Jake following close behind, his first instinct and action was to grab you by the arms and pull you up.

Still with his hands on your arms, Jay had turned his head and was calling for his mom. When Jake dropped the cone and slipped his arms around yours and Jay's, Jay let go for your brother to draw you into a hug.

You buried your head into Jake's warmth and sniffled, staring with teary eyes over his shoulder. Behind your brother, you could see the broken waffle cone, split down the middle with dark cracks branching away from its center. There were still melty bits of vanilla ice cream frosted on its edges and little drops had trailed their way along Jake's path even from the spot where he'd dropped the scoop.

You felt your eyes tear up again. "I'm bleeeeeding!" You wailed.

"Shhhh, shh." You heard Jake softly copy the sounds your mother made to calm you. In that same moment, you felt Jay's hand pat your pack while he pouted. How you knew it was Jay and not Jake, you weren't sure.

"Eomma's getting bandaids." He promised. When you glanced over to look at him, he glanced down at your knees. He glanced back up at you. "See, it's not bleeding anymore."

You sniffed a little and tapped Jake so he would let you go. He took your hand and childishly swung it between you after he released you. You studied Jay from where you were safely standing next to your older brother.

"Have you ever fallen off your bike?" You sniffed.

The older boy smiled at you, his eyes flickering away for only a moment when the front door creaked open, announcing his mom's arrival. You kept your gaze trained on him.

Jay made eye contact with you. "No. I'm just lucky that way." He smiled. He glanced back when his mom came down the driveway in a hurry. "Bandaids are here."