In the realm of dreams

Part 13 - Anticipation of summer

Baek Yoona

The next week passed in a blur. We were ten weeks into the school year and the promise of summer was upon us already. My first summer in Gangwon, I am curious to see what this picturesque town looks like in the summer. I haven't really ventured out of the few surrounding neighbourhoods since moving here and starting school. Maybe in the summer break I could go on a camping trip with my new friends as teenagers often seem to do in the dramas.

But there was still a good few weeks of school left before summer break. The school year was full of interesting events in Gangwon and that kept me from being bored. My school in Seoul was too focused on academics and I didn't have the breathing space to take part in anything besides sports. Here, I am hopeful I will be able to try different things.

We were all eagerly waiting for the match-up against SK high school tomorrow. The school will ferry the supporters in a bus as it is about an hour's drive away.

Today our homeroom teacher called Sooho and I to the Teacher's lounge.

"You are doing study sessions? How is it going?"

"Ah....we were....but we had a bit of a break." Sooho answered.

"Yes, because of sports day preparations. But we are resuming soon. Later this week, in fact", I chipped in, in case he thought we were lagging behind.

"Good. I saw definite improvements in your test scores, so continue with those. At least until the CSATs."

Our school building was an old-style edifice from the 80s which was built before the era of practicality, meaning architects still had the freedom to weave their eccentricities into the design without being reprimanded by their employers. As a consequence it was full of corridors and little nooks of unused space, which no doubt lends to the character of the building but in modern design would have been better utilised as functional spaces. As Sooho and I walked back from the teachers' lounge through those labyrinthine corridors I saw a bunch of giggling girls turn into our corridor. Then I noticed her, the short-haired girl from class 3, before Sooho did. The one person Sooho didn't wish to see. I remember how rattled and annoyed he was after her love confession. We had promised to keep this girl out of his sight until his match tomorrow. I saw a door on my left and without much thinking, grabbed Sooho's hand and pulled him inside the room with me.

It was a tiny janitor's cupboard jammed with cleaning paraphernalia, the room smelled strongly of beach and something musty. There was not much light except for the little amount that filtered through the porthole on the door from the corridor.

'What..' he started asking. I could hear the footsteps of those girls getting louder. I put my hand on his mouth to stop him from asking the question. They would hear us. I pointed my finger towards the corridor, shaking my head. Hopefully that's enough for him to get my drift. Soon they would pass in front of the porthole and they would see us. If I were to prevent Sooho from seeing that girl, I had to move us from our current position.

I pushed him so he was walking backward, moving forward in line with him until his hit the shelves against the wall. We were out of the way of the porthole. The impact of hitting the shelves, made Sooho instinctively grab on to me. We stood still as the chatter of girls floated outside, a ball of excited voices and laughter, until they started fading.

I was suddenly aware of my body pressed against Sooho, his hands on my waist. He was so tall, I looked up to face him and lifted my hand from his mouth. The skin on my palm was warm where his lips had been grazing. I saw his Adam's apple bob up and down. I could feel a blush rising from my neck to my face. I peeled myself away from him.

'It was that girl from class 3 that you didn't want to see,' I murmured and turned to the door.

'Thank you', he said walking past me and opening the door.

Choi Sooho

A few flyaway hairs were tickling my jaw, we were close enough for me to see the deep well of her eyes. A well dark enough to contain secrets. Was everything about her really what you could see outside or did that dark well harbour some hidden truths? Truths that she hid behind her easy laugh and mischievous eyes.

Standing like that, her soft body pressed against mine, our breaths mingling, I felt there are parts of her that she hid very well, perhaps even to herself. Something vulnerable lurked beneath the surface of a cheerful disposition I was sure. I tried to commit the details to memory, the slant of her eyes, the soft roundness of her jawline, a little beauty spot on her chin the colour of coffee beans, the.....the soft curve and swell of her lips.... A little pulse on her face pulsated letting me know her heart was beating faster than usual. She smelled of bright flowers, as though she carried summer along with her.

In these few moments, whilst we waited for the voices outside to fade, the universe contracted to contain only the two of us. I wanted to scoop her face in my palm, trace the contours of her face until her skin melted under my touch. The way, just moments ago, my lips had tingled and melted under her warm touch. Something so intimate but felt completely natural. I hoped my body wouldn't betray me at this moment by reacting in an embarrassing way.

I swallowed. The voices outside had gone. I was about to lower my head when she stepped back suddenly and started explaining why she had pulled me to this closet.

I nodded and mumbled a thank you. Thinking it would be best to leave this confined space that was now thick with the promise of what could have been, I brushed past her and opened the door which moments ago had so successfully closed out the world for us. Giving us a few moments that were exclusively ours, suspended in time, a glimpse of a private universe where only she and I mattered.