The Boy Next Door

basketball at sunset

"Impress you, huh?" Sunwoo had said.

"Mhm." I returned his similar confident eyebrow raise.

"Alright." He puffed his lips out and nodded. "I can handle that."

"I have high expectations you know." I said.

"For physical looks?"

"Both."

"Okay, well so far how do I match up?" He asked.

"I don't know you that well. It's hard to say," I answered, though really he had matched up very well in my head.

"I meant physically--because you know, you've seen me half naked twice now." Sunwoo said.

I stopped walking through the hallway and gave him a look. 

"I like you." He said, as if I needed his approval. "You're not at all what I expected."

"...what do you mean?"

"I mean you excite me." He said. "And I wasn't expecting that when I first saw you."

Me? Me and my boring life and my anticlimactic youth? I excited him?

"You're being creepy again." Changmin shut his locker gently and it knocked me back to the present.

Spending the first hour of school with Sunwoo, totally not giving him a proper tour, and instead wandering around and talking with each other, was the best time of my life.

"I'm not." I stood up straighter.

"You were literally just staring at him for like five minutes. I drank my entire strawberry milk in that time." Changmin said, and then passed me an apple flavored one.

"Thanks." I said. People were zooming all around us in the hallways to get home or to after school activities.

"Can I just ask you something?" Changmin asked and I leaned against his locker.

"Shoot."

"What do you want from a relationship?"

"I want to speed around in his Jeep along the coast while he--"

"Not with Sunwoo." Changmin said.

"Then with who?"

"No one. I mean in general, if you were to describe your perfect guy, and your relationship with him what would it be like?" He asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"So I can see how it compares with how you progress with Sunwoo and maybe bring you back to your senses."

I tapped my finger against his locker and thought for a minute. "I guess I just want something exciting. Right now the perfect relationship doesn't have to be long lasting or anything. I'm not asking to marry anyone. I just.... don't want to look back at this age and see any regrets."

"And what about the person?"

I grinned. "Just a total hottie with steel abs and good sense of style. You know?"

"Be serious for two seconds would you?" Changmin smacked my arm with his sleeve.

"Fine; I want..." I lowered my voice. "I want a guy who will run after me. Like someone who would take any risk and who you feel sparks around like in the movies. And I don't care if we fight or anything because at least then I would be experiencing something new, okay? I know what I'm doing Changmin. I promise."

He sighed. "Okay." He said.

"You have to trust me."

"I trust you," Changmin said. "Now go talk to your coach."