A PLAN FOR LOVE ✓

twenty eight : beomgyu

Even though it’s well after dark by the time we get back to our place.

Even though I’m completely exhausted.

Even though my ankles are aching from two straight hours of roller-skating.

I’m not quite ready to say good night yet.

So instead of dropping Yeonjun off at the red door of his apartment building, I park across campus, right outside the Cathedral, where it’s usually fairly quiet, away from the bars and nightlife.

“Good call. Make the date last longer,” Yeonjun says, looking over at me as he unbuckles his seat belt.

“Yeah. Totally,” I reply, trying to act like that’s definitely what I was doing.

We step out and start walking down the quiet sidewalk, bumping shoulders every once in a while. Yeonjun has been unusually quiet since I returned with the bag of ice at the roller rink.

“You good?” I ask, checking in.

“Yeah. I’m good,” he responds, followed by a big sigh. It doesn’t seem like he’s good, but after a couple of minutes of silence, I hear him laugh and look over to find him shaking his head at himself.

“You thinking about limbo?” I ask with a smile.

“All of it,” he replies, and soon we’re both just cracking up over all the things that happened tonight.

“I think this is the first time that I actually feel a little at home here,” Yeonjun says, catching his breath from our last bout of laughter.

“I know what you mean,” I reply.

There’s something about this night…

It’s everything I hoped college could be but never actually believed it would be after I walked into that single on move-in day.

It’s everything I’ve been waiting for but somehow so much more.

This is definitely a night I’ll remember. Yeonjun, too, if that bump on his head scars.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever actually felt at home… anywhere. It’s nice,” he says, a lump in my throat forming over the fact that he’s never even felt at home at home.

“I’m glad,” I reply, bumping into him lightly.

Yeonjun makes a left, taking us farther away from his apartment and toward the park, the university arts building glowing in the light from a large stone fountain out front.

“Come here,” he says, his voice slightly fried from all the hours we’ve spent yelling and cracking up today. He takes my hand in his and pulls me onto the concrete steps of the Carnegie Library. I don’t even ask why we’re going to the library so close to closing time on a Sunday. I just let him tug me the rest of the way up, because I’m learning that good things happen when I let go a little.

He releases his grip on me when we make it through the glass doors and into the vestibule. It actually feels odd not to have his hand in mine after pulling him around the rink for so long. I chase him through the main floor, past the coffee stand where he cut me in line, and toward the stairs, huffing and puffing behind him as we jog up two flights and come out on the top floor, where I’ve never been. He walks slowly through the dusty stacks, autobiographical works giving way to historical fiction. There isn’t a single other person up here with us, and I’m about to ask him what we’re doing, when he finally stops in the middle of an aisle and turns to face me.

“Do you hear that?” he asks, his chest heaving under the buzzing fluorescent lights.

But the only thing I can hear is the sound of both of us trying to catch our breath.