SOUR

'Stupid, emotional, obssessive, little me,'

milli.

"I don't want to see a single piece of glass or trash around here," Olivia yells to all the people cleaning the beach.

We were all given a trash picker and a bag and we divided the sand into sections for each partner.

"I'm kind of surprised you're here." I say to Sunwoo. He gingerly picks up a banana peel and places it in our paper bag.

"Me too." He answers and shivers from the cold.

The beach is completely empty, because as fall turns to winter, people prefer to stay inside. One day though, I'd like to go swimming in the ocean in the complete cold. Maybe even to watch the sun rise.

"Why did you then?" I ask. "It seems like you'd rather be in your room listening to music or something."

Sunwoo shrugs. "I told you, I thought this was a paid job."

I hum and we continue digging for trash in the sand. After a while our bag is nearly full, but neither of us are watching is as a strong gust of wind blows, and the bag begins to fly close to the shore.

"Oh gosh," I rush forward to grab it but it blows just out of reach and goes into the freezing water.

"Don't." Sunwoo grabs my arm as I start going after it. "Just leave it."

"There's plastic soda rings in there," I say. "Any animal could choke from that."

He opens his mouth to argue but I jerk my arm away and I wade into the water. My legs immediately grow goosebumps from the cold, but I continue towards the bag floating away.

"Come back," I yell to it, as if it would listen.

I hesitate for a second, but since I'm already in the water I push forward. A small wave soaks my shirt, but I manage to grasp the handle of the bag and pull it out of the sea before the trash could fly out.

Sunwoo stands there, watching with his hands in his pockets as I jog back over to him.

"Was that really worth it?" He asks.

"Of course it was," I say.

"You could have gotten knocked out. Do you see how big those waves are? That could take you, easily." Sunwoo points to the roaring waves that look daunting from here, but I went in too quickly I hadn't even noticed.

"I'm alive aren't I?" I say. "And I got it,"

He shakes his head and I hug myself, because every small wind gust makes me shiver.

We pick up trash for another hour, and I guess Sunwoo gets tired of watching me nearly freeze to death, because he unzips his jacket and holds it towards me.

"N-no," My teeth chatter. "You're only wearing a short sleeve."

"And you're going to get pneumonia." Sunwoo rolls his eyes and shoves the jacket closer.

"No, really I'm okay." I say.

He sighs. He puts his claw tool down and grabs the sleeves of my soaking wet jacket.

"Arms up." He says bossily.

Reluctantly I hold my arms above my head and he pulls the jacket off. I expect him to just hand me the jacket again, but he puts both sleeves on and zip it up to the very top.

"So you do have a heart," I smile at him.

"Don't look at me like that."

"But that was a nice thing for you to do! Thank you," I say. We begin to head back to the group.

"Only because if you had died of the cold they would probably charge me for murder for being here." Sunwoo says.

"Mhm," I grin at him.

He looks straight ahead with a blank face as we find Olivia again. She gives me a knowing smile, and I smile back, assuming she just witnessed Sunwoo's kind gesture.

"Alright, come on freshies. Let's head back." Olivia brings everyone back into the cars and blasts the heater up.

As we drive back to school I look out Sunwoo's window at the scenery passing by. The world is so beautiful once you step outside of your little bubble. Seeing the bigger picture like this makes me put the whole Mj thing in perspective. He just wants what's best for us, I know he would never do anything to hurt me, or put our relationship in jeopardy.

I feel a soft thud on my shoulder, and I glance to my left--Sunwoo has fallen asleep, and he's resting his head on me. At first I'm shocked, and I consider waking him up, but then I remember he must not have had a good sleep last night since he slept on his desk.

I feel my lips smiling a bit, and then I'm hit with the guilt. This feels so wrong for some reason. Smiling at another boy like this that's not Mj.

But I can't bring myself to disturb him, because he looks so peaceful here. For once his straight eyebrows aren't scrunched. I wonder if there was ever a time where he wasn't hurt.

What were you like back then?

I remove my eyes from him, but it's hard, because seeing his soft hair against my shoulder is impossible to stop staring at.

I catch Olivia's gaze in her rearview mirror.

"You sure you guys aren't close?" She asks, quietly so that she wouldn't wake him.

I don't have an answer to that.

"Seems like he's a keeper." She adds.

I'm about to ask her what that means, but then she turns on the radio and puts her eyes back on the road.

When we get back on campus Sunwoo springs out of the car. He mumbles an apology to me and practically flies back up to his room. I kind of laugh at him, I've never seen him so panicked before.

But my smile fades when I get in my room and I see Sora preparing the largest bouquet of black roses, maybe 100 flowers in total.

She asks me if I like it, and if Sunwoo would. I tell her yes, though really I can't imagine him liking it. I catch myself feeding her more lies, as I tell her I'm happy she's found her person. And when she asks what's up with Mj, I tell her we're fine.

Lies, lies, lies.

It's as if it's a survival instinct. that if I'm honest with my feelings out loud I might hurt people, and I'd rather take bullets than have my friends be wounded.