Love-ish~~ | | Hwang Hyunjin

17. The Dream

"Yah! Where are we going?" Kari shouts at Hyunjin, getting out of his grasp. "I don't wanna go to your tent."

Hyunjin exhaled angrily, "You're such a nuisance to me."

She pouts, "Stop saying mean things to me. I'm hurt." Hyunjin sighs, running his fingers through his hair, "Alright, I will not. Now, let's go inside. It's cold here. You'll get sick." 

"No!" She sits down on the sand. "I don't wanna go. Can I drink more?" 

"No. You're wasted, Kari." Hyunjin replies.

She lifts her head looking at the tall figure standing beside her. His brows furrowed. He was annoyed and she didn't like that.  She holds his hand softly and pulls him down abruptly making him sit down too. "Yah!" He grunts, annoyedly dusting off the sand off his hands and she giggles drunkenly. "Let's sit here for a moment." She says, looking at the sea in front of them. He doesn't say anything. They sit there for a few minutes in silence. "Never call me Kari again." She says, looking at the sea. "I thought you didn't want  me to call you by your Korean name." He replies. 

"I didn't. But this is more horrible. You only call me Kari when you're serious. When you have no intention of joking around. And that strangely makes my heart race. And I don't like that... That confuses me for days." 

Hyunjin looks at her to see if she's serious. She is. "You never told me that before."

"Because you rarely call me by my name."  

"And what do you mean by confused?" He asks.

"I would go home, lay on my bed, and think of the occurrences we had that day. And I conclude that it's dangerous for me to even think about it, so I just sleep."  She softly says, hugging her knees.

"And when was the first time that happened?" He asks, his heart thumping.

"Middle school, two years ago... I was rejected by my crush. So you made fun of me and I cried a lot and got so angry that I fractured my hand punching a boxing machine at the arcade. Do you remember that?"  

"Yeah," He nods, "You were so foolish. I yelled at you later."

"Yeah, and that was the first time." She says furrowing her brows. "I liked that. That you cared for me...I always knew that and didn't wanna acknowledge it. I didn't want to like it. So I hated you more. Look at the irony." She scoffs, "You are always the one who makes me go insane and also the one who pulls me back into being sane."

"Yah!" He says, clenching his jaw, feeling his face heat up but knowing he'd be disappointed again like in the fruit farm. "You're drunk. Stop confusing me by saying things like that. You'll never say things like this to me when you're sober."  He stares at her. She looks a bit dazed for a moment. Her cheeks flushed with blood due to the alcohol. She closed her eyes and fell on her back, and he was fast enough to catch her head from getting hurt.  She opens her eyes, still dazed, and smiles looking at him. "Look. This is what I'm saying." He didn't know why he did that. It was instinctive. She pulls his arm down, making him lose balance and lie down next to her and then she slides her head onto his arm. "What are you doing?" He asks, startled. She looks up at the sky, "I wanna watch the stars. Can't get my hair dirty." He scoffs, "Thought so. Okay, I can be your pillow for a moment."

While she watched the stars for a long time, he watched her and the stars in her eyes. He turns completely to her side, with his full concentration on her. His heart was beating so fast that he could hear it and he didn't want this moment to end. "Yah!" She calls him, stretching her hand out, pointing at the stars. "Is that a constellation?" She asks.