sim.jaeyun → macarons & motorcycles

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An hour later, I was obviously curious as to who called. I guessed ultimately it must've been Heeseung, but I never asked him anything about it, nor did I bring the topic up.

We scavenged around the small town, there wasn't much to do, especially on such a random day, but while laughing, talking with each other, we were stopped by a woman, handing out leaflets with a desperate look on her face.

Of course we stopped, I mean, she looked pretty much like she was willing to do anything to get someone to grab the leaflet.

Jake took ahold of it, before passing it onto me so I could read.

"Excuse me, do you have some time?" Her eyebrows knit upwards, she seemed to be in her early thirties, possibly late thirties, either way, she seemed pretty stressed.

Jake glanced over to me, before looking down at the mention of time.

No, we don't have much time.

"Yeah, is everything okay?" I gave her a light smile, scanning the leaflet she just handed out to me.

It seemed as if some volunteers were trying to recruit more volunteers for this event more over into the afternoon.

"Two of our main volunteers for the painting section of the day had to leave, we're expecting a bunch of children coming to us to learn how to paint, learn some basic math calculations and more." Her eyes begged into both mine and Jake's.

"It's nothing hard, you will just be sat the front, you know, just kid things. Teach them how to finger paint, draw something - I don't know - a house of some sort?" She seemed a little out of breath from how fast she was talking, and then her eyes met mine.

She had this tired motherly look, the kind of look I usually have when I finish a long shift at the bakery and I want something from Jay, but I'm too lazy to get it myself.

"Please?" Her eyes bore into mine, glittering with at least some hope.

I looked up at Jake, wondering if he wanted in too. I would do it he would, after all, I just want to be with him.

Jake's eyes gently stared into mine, softening. And with that, came a light smile, as if to say he wanted to do it.

"I mean, yeah, sure." I replied back to the woman, and the smile she gave was unearthly. You can tell she's been stood here for a while, becoming more hopeless as more people passed by, ignoring her.

"Thank you, I promise it will be fun." She then proceeded to guide us elsewhere.

-

And she was right.

I could tell from the moment I walked into this open area, full with different stations with different kid-like activities to do, that this would be that memorable experience I yearned for with Jake.

We were in charge of the painting. I don't know why me, because I wasn't particularly the best at painting, but to be fair, these kids were like 5 years onwards.

It wasn't time for opening yet, so there were just the volunteers and organisers. It was an open play area more or less, fake grass was the majority of the floor, an exclusion of a sandpit other people were in charge of.

I was sat on a decently thin wooden slab beside Jake, with a large flip book in my hands, paints beside me. Jake had the exact same thing, he already began to mess around with the cheap paints, already drawing whatever.

We were in front, obviously, there were smaller paints and smaller flip book pages arranged in rows.

I leant over Jake's shoulder, looking at what he was doing. I almost had my head on his shoulder, and I did, the second Jake leant his head partially on mine.

I just watched, as he drew two stick figures, stupidly cute looking. It was dumb, yes, it felt like puppy love even, but anything was better than that feeling of being ripped away from someone like velcro.

The second I heard the cheering and chattering of kids, I lift my head up from his shoulder, as did he, and Jake flipped his page over revealing a fresh, blank piece of paper.

A few volunteers guided a group of children over to us, where they just started, bedazzled with the two of us sat at the front.

They began to sit down, say some nonsense neither of us understood, but regardless, after they all settled in, we began with the teaching.

Initially, I took the lead, because I felt that Jake felt a little nervous, dealing with young children despite him being some 'bad' boy, or at least he thinks he is.

I'm not sure anymore, ever since I saw him play with sand, I'm starting to think that his 'bad boy' persona is a facade.

I guided the kids initially, how to deal with painting and the first sketch we should do. As one kid didn't understand how to draw the shape, I got off the slab, grounding to the level of the, evidently, frustrated child, and gently sketching the shape on his flip book.

I stood back up, checking whether everybody had the same step on their page, and as they did, I sat back down at the front, beside Jake, who seemed mesmerised by me.

His head just faced me, eyes scanning my whole face and a sweet smile stained on his face.

He looked at me as if he didn't recognise me, as if he saw the epitome of purity captured in my face alone.