OUR HEARTBEAT [BEOMJUN] ✅

twenty-seven

“I cannot think of any way, coded or not, that Yeonjun asked me to the Fall Festival,” Arin said at her house that afternoon.

Arin had the best house ever. It was quiet and big and always full of food. We sat at her kitchen island, stuffing our faces with cookies her dad had made. They had coconut and chocolate and some sort of delicious crunchy rice in them. I had already eaten three.

“Are you sure that’s what he said on the podcast?” she asked me.

“I’m positive,” I said through my mouthful. “Did he spell out the invite in the food the other day or something?”

She smiled. “That would’ve been funny and awesome, but I don’t think so. I guess I just assumed he wasn’t asking because he wasn’t into football.”

“I know. Okay. It’s time to pull out the big guns.”

“What guns are those?”

“You have to ask him yourself,” I said.

“Done,” she said.

I ignored the tight feeling of jealousy in my chest. I wasn’t allowed to be jealous. “That wasn’t hard to talk you into.”

“Did you think it would be?” She raised her eyebrows.

“No.” I looked at the tray of cookies on the island. “If I have another one, will I get the world’s worst stomachache or just the second worst?”

“Have another one.”

“Okay.” I plucked a cookie from the tray. “Now, how are you going to ask him?”

“I have an idea.”

—————

It was bad enough to sit on the metal seat in the dunk tank, behind the glass, in my swimsuit, like I was on display. But it got even worse when Yeonjun and Soobin appeared at the front of the line with Arin. I had no doubt Arin had texted them about an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.

Yeonjun picked up two baseballs. “I wonder if this will be as easy as driving a golf ball through the goalpost,” I heard him say.

“Ha ha!” I shouted.

He winked at me and my stomach flipped. My best friend’s crush or not, Yeonjun was pretty flirty himself. He needed to stop that. He wasn’t allowed to flirt with everybody when he was asking advice about Arin on air. I saw him smile over at Arin and felt a burst of annoyance.

So far I had managed to avoid getting dunked. Sieun hadn’t been so lucky. The baseball team had shown up for her stint, and she was plunged six times. Now she sat at a nearby table, wrapped in a towel, talking to one of the team members. The water had turned her hair into tousled beach waves. And she was smiling. She’d conquered something today, and I was proud of her. I wondered if life was about facing fears. Sometimes we overcame them and sometimes they overcame us. On the days we won, we had every right to celebrate.

Sieun held up a white box and shook it. “Don’t forget to submit anonymous questions for our carnival live podcast!” she yelled to the people waiting in the line.

“Are you ready?” Yeonjun called out, bringing my attention back to him.

“If ready involves sitting here, then yes, so ready!” I called back.

He twisted the baseball once in his hand then threw. I cringed. The ball whizzed by the glass, right above the target. Whew. The line behind him stretched twenty deep so I knew he really would get only the two chances. He tried again and the baseball bounced off the glass.