The following week I’m waiting in line for a snack and a hot tea at the coffee stand on the main floor of the library when a lanky figure with a black hood pulled up over their head cuts right in front of me.
I stare, burning holes in the fabric of their sweatshirt as they reach into the display cooler to snatch an orange juice and a cinnamon bagel wrapped in plastic.
Hey, pal, there’s a line.
I open my mouth to say it but decide to just let it go. There’s no point getting into a fight over it, especially in the middle of the library.
“You’re just gonna let me cut like that?” the hooded figure asks in a voice I somehow know all too well.
“Oh my God. Don’t you have anyone else to bother?” I ask as Yeonjun turns around to face me.
“You know, you can quit pretending that you don’t like me.” He pulls his hood down, giving me that grin like he thinks he’s so clever for making an entrance like this.
“Noted,” I reply dryly, selecting a shrink-wrapped sugar cookie from the wicker basket on top of the cooler. “What are you doing here? Other than getting on my nerves.”
“Ouch.” He cringes, placing a hand over his heart before showing me the book that’s tucked under his arm.
“What’s it about?” I ask, turning my head sideways to inspect the one-thousand-plus-page fantasy novel.
“Don’t know yet.” Yeonjun shrugs as he places his OJ and bagel down on the counter in front of the cashier. “I just grabbed one off the shelf on the top floor.”
“You just grabbed a random book off a random shelf, and you’re going to read it without any idea what it’s about?” I ask, incredulous.
He shrugs again. “Isn’t the point to read it and find out for yourself?” He hands over a few bucks and steps aside, making room for me to check out.
“Could I have a medium Darjeeling tea, please?” I ask the cashier, then turn my attention back to Yeonjun, who is unwrapping the bagel with his front teeth like an animal. I look down at the book again, with its faded cover, knights and mythical creatures all twisted together under a green sky. It seems like something my brother would be into, but definitely not me. “Looks… interesting.”
“Didn’t your mom ever teach you not to judge a book by its cover?” he asks. “Speaking of, have you gotten Taehyun’s number yet?”
“Why ‘speaking of’?” I ask, looking quickly around as I take my tea from the barista. I drag Yeonjun into a quiet corner. “What do your weird reading habits have to do with Taehyun? And can you please stop shouting his name in public!”
“Well, you like him because he’s got a nice cover,” he says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. He must notice my blank stare because he finally follows up with “He’s hot, right?”
“No. I mean yes, but that’s not… I like him, everything about him.”
“Well, you don’t really know that. I mean, you’ve barely said two words to him.”
“Yes, I have.” I can feel myself getting upset. “I’ve been in school with him for four years.”
“Yeah, but did you ever even talk to him during those four years?” he presses.
I decide to ignore that. “I still heard plenty about him. Besides, I sat by him all night at the party. We both want to be writers. We have tons in common.” I catch myself smiling at the fantasy future I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. We both become writers. Then we move back to the suburb where we grew up to be close to our families and…
“Well, I mean, you know her about as well as I know some celebrities. I know what I see on Instagram, what they puts out to the world. Just like you really don’t know Taehyun. At least not yet.”
I take a deep breath, reminding myself who it is I’m talking to. This is Choi Yeonjun, the person who flirts with random guys who aren’t his boyfriend. Of course he thinks looks are what matters. “Look, you just wouldn’t understand. Okay?” I swing my backpack around and slip my cookie into the front pocket for later.
“And why wouldn’t I understand?” he asks. I laugh, brushing his question off as rhetorical because it seems so obvious. “No, why wouldn’t I understand?” he repeats.
“Well, you clearly don’t feel as strongly toward your boyfriend, or else you wouldn’t be flirting around with Taehyun at a party.” I shrug. “If you felt the way I do, you wouldn’t have even wanted to, because you’d already have everything you could ever want.”
He watches me silently for a few seconds, the look on his face shifting from anger to hurt to indifference.
“Okay, maybe you’re right,” he says finally, his face hollowing as he bites the inside of his cheek. I can tell it’s not really what he wants to say, but he moves on anyway. “So, did you get his number yet?”
“No.” The truth is… I have been trying all week. Every time I see him, I come up with some game plan to talk to him, to work up the confidence to maybe ask him for his number. But getting out of my head is much harder when I’m dealing with Kang Taehyun and not just some dude from my high school. I haven’t gotten any farther than a smile and a wave. Unless you count this past Wednesday when I saw him outside of market. I was about to tap him on the shoulder to say hi when I tripped over absolutely nothing and fell flat on my face at his feet. Not exactly the best time to ask for his number. “I still haven’t found the right moment,” I tell Yeonjun, but I know I sound defensive.
“You know every day that you don’t get his number is a day he could be giving it to someone else,” he says, and takes a sip of her orange juice while my heart plummets into my stomach. He’s right. I need to get this done. And soon.
“Can’t you help me?” I beg, looking up at her, but his face isn’t showing any sign of sympathy.
“First you insult me, then you pull this?” he asks, but his face softens. “Beomgyu, I already helped you. At the coffee shop.”
“I need it to be more direct. Can you help me at least make the moment happen? You’re the mastermind behind all this, aren’t you?” I ask. “Isn’t there something in your plan?”
He huffs out a laugh. “Of course it’s in my plan. The plan is airtight. Solid. Like concrete.”
A text pings in from my mom, a picture of Haru wearing a yellow raincoat. My eyes dart to the time at the top. I sigh. “Shit.”
“What?” Yeonjun asks, ripping off another giant bite of his bagel with his teeth.
“I’m going to be late for class. Someone dropped Intro to Fiction, so I got into the open slot, but it’s all the way on the third floor of the Cathedral.” I pocket my phone. “Tell me about this solid concrete plan later?”
“Yeah, yeah. Sure.”
I try to remember which way the building is from here. As I turn toward the south exit, Yeonjun grabs my shoulder and turns my body in the complete opposite direction.
“Cathedral is… that way, Choi.”
“I know,” I lie.
I walk as fast as I can through the door and across the street, trying to leave everything he said behind. All that bullshit about how I don’t really know Taehyun. I didn’t ask for any sort of opinion from him. He’s only supposed to be around for the plan, to teach me how to do these things that I’ve never done before. That’s all I need from him. If he can just give me that, everything will work out in the end between me and Taehyun.
I check the time on my phone again. I shouldn’t have let Yeonjun distract me like that. Now I’m probably going to be late to a class that I already missed the first week of.
Awesome.
YOU ARE READING
A PLAN FOR LOVE ✓
FanfictionYeonjun and Beomgyu made a plan to get their love of their life to fall for them, though, they both begin to wonder if maybe they're the ones falling for each other.
