my yellow | yungi

4

One rainy night, mingi is sitting on his bean bag practising his guitar. He doesn't notice when his mom knocks on the door, and she walks in to place a plate of watermelon on his desk. "Thank you," he mouths, setting down the guitar on his bed.

"No, continue. I wanna hear you play." His mom settles herself on his desk chair, arms folded and a tired smile on her face. Above them, pink, blue and purple lights shine from mingi's star light projector, the one he got for Christmas.

He picks the guitar up and strums a familiar tune, then continues from there, humming along to the tunes where he feels it's necessary. His deep heavy voice creates a beautiful contrast with the guitar's cheerful melody, like the sound of a male and female singer harmonising.

Mingi's mom claps softly when he finishes the last note. "Oh my talented little star. I can't believe you can produce that kind of music, live too." She praises, handing the plate of fruit to her son. Mingi takes a bite of watermelon, the juice tasting a little sweeter than usual.

"Thank you eomma, I've been working on it."

She smiles at him again, scooting the chair closer to the bean bag. "How's school? Your classmates treating you okay? And hongjoong? He hasn't come over in a while."

Mingi giggled inwardly, he knew his mom was bound to asking him these questions sooner or later.

"School's fine. I just need to pace myself and stay on track. My classmates are the same as last year. And hongjoong, well, we're still good friends. It's just... he's dating someone right now, so I try not to bother him too much."

"Hongjoong has a girlfriend? Oh she's one lucky girl."

"Um, that's not- he's not, it's not- yeah," mingi's voice slowly trails off.

She must've sensed something amiss, because she leaned forward, signalling for him to continue.

"I'm not sure he wants people to know, but I trust you. Joong has a boyfriend."

Mingi's sharp eyesight catches the subtle gasp from his mom. Her body tenses for a split second, before she quickly regains herself, crossing her right leg over her left, sighing deeply.
"Is he happy?" She then asks.

"Well uh, he faints everytime he sees his boyfriend."

Her eye twitches at mingi's reply.

"He's happy. I haven't seen him this happy with himself in a long time. It's like seonghwa brought him back to life." He admits, feeling a bit embarrassed that he isn't the one in seonghwa's place.

"Then, that's all that matters. That he's happy. Mingi dear how about you? Is there anyone?"

Another awful truth hit mingi in the face. He pops the last chunk of watermelon into his mouth and shakes his head. His mom doesn't prolong the conversation after that. She takes the empty plate in her hands, gives mingi a forehead kiss and leaves the room with heavy steps.

It makes mingi want to scream. He sets his guitar aside and peeks out his bedroom window, in search for a star to distract his thoughts, but there aren't any in the dark cloudy sky. He wants to be loved so so bad. The kind of love that is so so difficult to find. All the lyrics he's written for his love songs begin to creep up behind him, poking their thorns into his back.

He convinces himself that he wil never find true love.

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Valentine's Day soon rolls round the corner. It's an important celebration amongst both students and staff couples at Horizon High because they believe that spreading and sharing the love with everyone will help bring the community closer. Students would write sweet messages and exchange them with other classes, while some would fold origami hearts or flowers instead. The main highlight was the selling of balloons, cupcakes and real flowers outside the cafeteria. Students would queue up to buy gifts for their loved ones, or even for their friends. Because "I love you" has no limits.