A PLAN FOR LOVE ✓

thirty seven : yeonjun

I turn the page of the book I’m holding, but the words all blur together. Every sentence I’ve tried to read for the past hour is impossible to retain.

Letting out a sigh, I close it, surprised to see a flash of red when I turn my head. It takes me a minute to register what I’m seeing.

Beomgyu. Here. In a red formal attire.

He looks… beautiful.

And happy. His smile practically outshines his dress.

He’s probably made things official with Taehyun at their little art museum gala. Maybe they even kissed, tucked away in the corner of an exhibit on pastels or watercolors.

I clear my throat and stand, sliding the book back into its place on the shelf. “I didn’t pin you for a red formal outfit kind of guy,” I say, my eyes fixed instead on the book’s gold lettering along the edge, the peeling tape sitting over the faded label.

When he doesn’t say anything, I know it’s my time to talk. To apologize.

I take a deep breath, slowly pulling my fingertips off the spine of the book.

“I, uh. I took my mom to rehab last night,” I say. “And the whole ride back to Seoul, all I could think about was how you were the only person I wanted to tell and how I’d screwed it all up. How sorry I am for what I said the night of the concert. Because you were right. About Soobin. About everything. But I didn’t want to hear it, so instead, I just tore it all down and hurt you.” I let out a long sigh and turn to face her. “Beomgyu, I didn’t mean what I said—”

“Is she okay? Are you okay?” she asks, and I can’t deny the tears that swim into my eyes.

“Yeah. She ran a car into a telephone pole, but… she’ll be okay. We’ll be okay,” I clarify. “But I want us to be okay too.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then he takes a tiny step closer.

“Did you ever think we’d date?” he asks over a ragged breath.

I freeze, his words catching me off guard. “What?”

He raises his eyebrows at me, and I notice his chest is heaving, a pair of shoes hanging in his right hand. Was he running?

“Me and you,” he says, pointing between us. “Did you ever think we’d date?”

I open my mouth, struggling to find the right thing to say. All that comes out, though, is a single word. The truth. “Yes.”

“Do you still?” he asks, rubbing salt in the wound.

I shake my head, pulling my eyes away from his. “You like Taehyun.”

He’s silent for a long, heart-pumping moment.

“Every second I’ve spent with Taehyun this past week, I was thinking about you. About how I wanted to be with you.” I hear him let out a long breath of air. “It was like you talked about. Real versus fantasy. It took me a long time to realize, too long, but being with you made me feel better than any fantasy I’d ever played over in my head. Like the person I never knew I could be. The person I am.”

I lift my head to see him taking a step closer.

“That’s how I knew you were lying that night. I know the real you. Just like you know the real me,” he adds.

His face is inches from mine, his eyes warm and earnest, the air between us buzzing with electricity. He parts his lips, hesitating before he speaks around his smile.

“It was always you, Yeonjun.”

And with those words, the barriers I’ve put up to shield myself from the world are finally knocked down. The boxes where I’ve locked my feelings away completely disintegrate. Until it’s just Beomgyu and me and that force that’s been pulling me toward him since the very beginning. But neither of us is fighting it anymore.

I close my eyes, frozen in place as Beomgyu stands up on her tippy-toes, and I almost entirely forget how to breathe. His lips barely graze mine, but somehow they manage to set my whole body on fire.

I reach for him, but before I can even pull him closer, he lunges forward, knocking me back into the shelves. A few books fall onto the floor with scattered thumps, but he doesn’t stop kissing me. I wrap my arms around him, my hands grabbing on to his hips as I pull his body up against mine. I hear his shoes hit the floor, and then his hands are sliding up my neck, into my hair. There isn’t a single inch of space between us, but somehow he still doesn’t feel close enough.

I’ve kissed… plenty of people, but it has never been like this. The floor and the ceiling and the stacks of books all melt away, everything fading except for the two of us, the feel of his clothes beneath my hands, my heart hammering so hard in my chest that I’m sure he can feel it.

When we eventually pull apart, he rests his forehead up against mine, and a small smile dances onto his lips as he sways back and forth in my arms. “You know, you never told me what step five is,” he says.

I laugh and give him a small shrug. “That’s because I’ve never gotten to it.”

He pulls away, raising his eyebrows at me. “What is it?”

“It’s pretty simple,” I say as I reach up to run my fingers on his hair. “Step five: tell him how you feel.”

My hand slides down to rest against his cheek, my thumb gently tracing his skin.

“And how do you feel?” he whispers, like he doesn’t know he stole my heart, piece by piece, that first day in biology class, and that night we got frozen yogurt, and at our roller-skating date, bruised forehead and all.

“Like I’m so in love with you, Choi Beomgyu.”

And… it feels right. The words I’ve been so scared of for years suddenly come easier than I ever thought possible.

“I love you too, Choi Yeonjun,” he says, and it’s all the things I never knew an “I love you” could be, meeting me exactly as I am, without a single condition.

It’s coming home instead of running away.

His hands unlock behind my neck, sliding down in between us. “Well, I guess I got the guy after all,” he says.

“See? I told you my plan would work.”

“Shut up.” He laughs and reaches out to grab the collar of my T-shirt, tugging me into another kiss.

And for once I actually do.

THE END