➼ Reset

-three-hundred-fifty-nine days later-

I had just finished doing my homework when I hear the familiar KakaoTalk notification sound. I reach for my phone thinking it is one of my friends asking me to hang out and don't think much about it. I type in my passcode to unlock my phone - it is still 1219, Brian's birthday - and look at my messages. My heart skips a beat when I see a familiar name at the top of my chatrooms. A name I haven't seen in almost a year.

Burger Kang: Jae, can we talk?

It has almost been a year since he decided not to be my friend anymore. It has been over 4 months since he last contacted me and 16 days since I last messaged him. Which he obviously ignored. But now he is messaging me again? I wonder what he wants from me.
I don't know if I should answer him or not. He really hurt me and it has taken me a long time to be able to finally kind of move on. I can't say I am completely over it but with time it has gotten a little easier to live without him. Over time I have mastered the art of distracting myself. It was hard but I am finally at a point where I can function again. Somewhat. I don't want him to ruin that all over again and push me back into hole I've been in the entire time. So why is he messaging me now? When I finally started to slowly get over the whole thing?
I can't deny being curious. Because I definitely am. I want to know what he has to say. I want to know why he suddenly decided to message me. I want to know if, after all these months, we could become friends again.

Jae: ...sure? you're not going to yell at me again, are you?
Burger Kang: no.
Burger Kang: open the door, I'm outside your house.

When I read his last message my heart begins to race. Outside my house? Right now? Why did he do that? He must have known I would let him in. He knows I wouldn't say no to that no matter how upset I still was. And he was right. He knows me too well. I am definitely going to let him in. I am way too curious about what he wants to tell me to tell him to go away.
I throw my phone on my desk and rush to the door to let him in. My heart is still beating way too fast, it feels like it's going to explode any second now. At the door, I reach for the door knob and take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down a little. It's been so long since I last saw him, I don't want to let him know how excited I am that he is here. He hurt me a lot but I am still happy to see him. It's been so long. Hopefully he didn't come here to be mean to me again.
With my heart still pounding, I take another deep breath and then open the door.
And there he is, right in front of me. My best friend that I haven't seen and talked to in months. My best friend that so desperately wanted to get rid of me a few months ago and hasn't talked to me normally ever since then. My best friend that broke my heart in a way no failed relationships with anyone else I had been with had ever hurt me before. We were so close once but now I don't know what to say. It feels like I'm standing in front of a stranger although it's my best friend – former best friend – that's standing right in front of me.
"Can I...come in?" he asks me after we had been staring at each other in awkward silence for what felt like an eternity.
A year ago, he wouldn't even have had to ask me that question. He would have just come in without even ringing the door bell. At one point he even had my keys for a while. Standing here like this is awkward. Unfamiliar. Strange. I want it to change. I want it to be the way it was a year ago.
"Yeah, sure..." I say and step aside so he can come in. I watch him come inside and take off his shoes. I don't know what to say so I wait for him to start a conversation. My heart is still racing.
"Are your parents home?" he asks me. I shake my head no.
"Can we go to your room?" I look at him and study his face. It's impossible to read. I can't tell whether he is happy to be here and see me or about to get mad at me again.
"Of course.." I say and go back into my room. He follows me into it and looks around as if he was checking if anything was different. Nothing has changed in the past months in which we hadn't been friends. My room still looked the same, I still had the same posters up on the wall, still had the same books and video games lying around and still had clothes piling up on a chair in the corner. Nothing has changed. I haven't changed. But has he?
I sit down on my bed and watch him, waiting for him to say something. But he doesn't say a word.
"You wanted to talk to me?" I say, growing more impatient and anxious with each second that's passing. I want him to finally say something and tell me why he came here.
"You're right" he says while sitting down on my chair by the desk. I guess he doesn't want to sit too close to me and decided to not sit down on my bed as well. It works for me. I don't think I could handle him being close to me.
Again, we just look at each other for another eternity because he can't seem to find the right words to say. I don't want to rush him and risk making him mad again so I just wait for him to start speaking. I can't remember ever having felt so uncomfortable around him before. He takes a deep breath and looks me in the eyes. Up until that moment, I didn't think it could get any more awkward but it does. I haven't seen him in almost a year and now we're sitting across from each other in my room, where we used to hang out every single day, looking at each other as if we had just met for the first time. We went from being inseparable best friends to being strangers that don't know how to talk to each other. And it's all his fault.
"Listen, Jae. I know you probably don't want to hear this... but I'm sorry. I'm sorry for hurting you like that and getting so mad at you and telling you to leave me alone without giving you a reason." He pauses for a moment and I can feel my jaw drop. I quickly close my mouth again but keep staring at him. Did he really just apologize to me? Whatever I was expecting when he told me he had to talk to me, this wasn't it. I never thought he would try to apologize and make up with me. But here he is... finally saying the words I've been so desperately longing to hear.
"Well...I'm sure you had your reasons. So don't worry about it. It's okay." I reply. It is a lie but he doesn't need to know that. He doesn't need to know that it is still killing me inside. That I still am not over losing my best friend forever.
"No, Jae." He shakes his head. "I do worry about it. What I did was and is not okay. I had a reason but that doesn't justify what I did to you. It doesn't change the fact that I hurt you like that." He sighs.
"You're probably wondering why I told you to fuck off and never talk to me again, right?" He whinces but keeps watching me and when he doesn't continue speaking I realize he wants me to reply.
"Yeah, kinda? I mean...who just goes from 'hey you're my best riend' to 'I hate you, please leave me alone and never talk to me again' within a day? It didn't make sense but I figured I'd just have to live with the fact that you won't tell me what's going on." I bite my lower lip. Thinking about what happened 11 months ago is making me upset all over again. I'm trying hard not to cry again in front of him. I don't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry a second time because of him.
"I wanted to tell you what was going on. I really did. But I couldn't" Brian looks away. He probably can't stand looking at me anymore. Not after everything he did. He probably feels too guilty about hurting me to look at me while he speaks. Or maybe he just doesn't want to see me cry again.
"Okay, just to be clear. You weren't able to tell me what was bothering you but it was no problem for you at all to break my heart and hurt me? And leave me? Wow, thanks." I can feel myself getting angry and don't bother hiding it. "What kind of a stupid explanation is that?"
"I know you're mad at me, Jae. And you have every right to be mad. But please hear me out. It took me a long time to find the courage to come here and tell you what I'm about to tell you, so please don't make it harder than it already is. The last few months were hard for me too, you know?"
I laugh a little and shake my head. "They were hard for you? Sorry, but the last time I checked you were the one to break my heart. You were the one who wanted to get rid of me. You have no right to play the victim now." I glare at him. His behavior is irritating me and making me angry. He broke my heart. He hurt me. But here he is, acting like the victim, trying to tell me how hard the past months had been for him and how he never wanted this but 'couldn't' tell me why he did what he did.
"Don't act like this was hard for you. This is what you wanted when you told me to leave you alone and never come back. You wanted this, so deal with the consequences! Do you even know how hard it was for me to let go and move on? It took me months to stop being upset and I am only slowly getting better now. But then you show up and decide to make everything worse again! Why did you come here, Brian? You never wanted to see me again, so why are you here?" I don't want to, but I start yelling at him. All the sadness and anger that had been building up inside me over the past months wants to get out at once. I can't keep it in any longer. And I don't care. I couldn't care less.
He is finally looking at me again. My angry rant must have caught him off guard. I've never yelled at him before so my yelling at him now must have come as an unpleasant surprise. Again, I couldn't care less.
He looks defeated. He knows I am saying the truth and there is nothing he can do about it. The truth hurts, but that's exactly what he needs to hear now. And he definitely is hurt. It was so clearly visible in his eyes. But I still don't care. Although I know it is bad and I shouldn't fell this way it feels good to see him like that. Maybe now it was my turn to break his heart. "Whatever you want, Brian, please make it quick."
Now it was his turn biting his lower lip. It was a habit he picked up from me. Whenever I am nervous or upset my lips start trembling and I end up biting my lip and picking at it. I guess he must have seen me do that often enough to start doing it himself.
"If I promise to make it quick, will you hear me out without interrupting me? And without getting angry at me again?" I just shrug my shoulders. I can't promise anything but I wanted him to go on. He understands what I was trying to show him with that shoulder shrug and continues.
"Okay, here goes nothing." he says.
"I do have a reason for my actions. You probably won't believe me when you hear what it is but it's the truth and the only thing I can do now is to tell you and hope that you will forgive me. I can't force you to do it but I at least have to try to make you believe me and eventually forgive me. Because honestly, Jae" He looks at me for a moment before he goes on, probably making sure I am still listening and not getting mad again.
"The past year has been hell for me. For reasons you probably won't understand because you didn't experience the same thing." He runs his fingers through his hair. I have no clue what he just tried telling me. What he was saying doesn't make much sense. I've been waiting for this conversation to happen for so damn long, why does he have to be speaking in riddles now?
"I told you to leave me alone and never talk to me again because... I..." He seems to be struggling to find the right words. Whatever his reason is it must still be bothering him a lot. I can feel myself calm down a little. He is obviously struggling with the entire situation just as much as I am. That makes it a little harder for me to hate him and be mad at him. I never liked seeing him upset. I don't even like seeing him like that after he broke my heart and I should have been happy to see him suffer the way he made me suffer. But for some reason, I feel bad. I feel bad that he is so clearly hurting and that I can't do anything about it. To make things worse...I am the reason he is hurting so much. And as much as I hate him for leaving me seeing him so upset -because of me - is worse than being upset myself.
"I told you to leave... because I love you, Jae." I gasp and then stare at him in disbelief. His words take me by surprise. Whatever I was expecting, him confessing his love to me definitely wasn't an option. Weren't confessions supposed to be more romantic? I don't know how to react, what to say. So I just wait for him to go on. Which he does.
"I fell in love with you a long time ago and didn't know what to do. I could never figure out how to deal wih that. I thought you would never love me back. Not like that. I thought you would judge me for being in love with you. But even if you didn't judge me and hate me and actually loved me back, I knew we could never be together. It's just impossible for two boys to be together. It'd have too many negative consequences and I didn't want us having to deal with that. I didn't want to lose our precious friendship because of that. So I thought...if I made you hate me and leave me I could maybe put some distance between us and stop loving you like that. I was hoping we could go back to how things were before I left you. After I sorted out my feelings, of course. I was being a selfish coward and I only thought about myself and couldn't admit my feelings. I never bothered thinking about your feelings because I thought this would be the easiest way for both of us. Which I know totally doesn't make sense. Because in the end we lost our precious friendship anyway even though I tried to avoid that from happening. Ironic, isn't it?"
I see a single tear forming in his left eye. The moment I notice the tear I decide I will forgive him and leave what had happened between us in the past. All my anger and frustation suddenly disappears and I feel nothing but sadness and empathy for him. Brian rarely cries and when he does it is always sincere. He only cries when he is truly emotional, whether it is being emotional in a positive or negative way. Because of that stupid single tear in the corner of his eye I know he means everything he says. He isn't just making up a ridiculous excuse. He hurt me so much but he was hurting, too. I know that now. And we both care about our friendship too much to not try to move on and let this go. However, before I can say anything and reassure him that I don't actually hate him he goes on.
"But with each day that passed I realized what a fucking stupid mistake I made. I shouldn't have done what I did. I should have dealt with it differently. I shouldn't have hurt you – and myself. I was so confused and frustrated because I couldn't be with the person I loved. I didn't know what to do. I love you so much but didn't know how to deal with it. I am so sorry, Jae. I hope you don't hate me..."
The single tear that was still clinging to the corner of his eye a moment ago is now running down his face. Another one follows. And another one. I get up and walk over to him and hug him. Tight. I missed doing this so much. Without wanting to I take a breath and inhale his scent. He still smells the same. He still smells just like he did a year ago. He smells like my best friend. Like home.
"It's a lot to take in right now so please don't expect me to properly reply to everything you said right away, okay? Give me some time to think about everything. But don't worry... I don't hate you. I never did. I always knew you had a reason, however stupid it may have been. I am hurt and upset. I won't deny that. But at least now I know your reasons... and I can kinda understand why you left me. I don't think it was the best way to deal with the situation. But to be honest, I probably would have done the same. I would have run away as well."
I let go of him so I can look him in the eyes again. There is something in his eyes that makes me lose every last doubt I may have had about him not telling the truth. It is something I have never seen before. It's worse than the defeat that was showing in his eyes just a few moments before. Whatever it is, it is making me want to forgive him right away. I know Brian is really telling me the truth about why he left me. I can't recall him ever having looked at me like that and it is scaring me because I don't know how to deal with it. He has never looked so damn heartbroken before.
A few moments pass and neither of us says a word or even moves. We just keep looking at each other. Me with a confused look on my face, him looking heartbroken and defeated.  
Slowly we lean in closer to each other. I don't even notice it at first but suddenly Brian's face is right in front of mine and we are both leaning in for a kiss. The second our lips meet I close my eyes and wrap my arms around his neck. Brian gets up from the chair and stands up making me straighten up along with him. He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me closer to him.
Up until that moment I never would have thought that this is everything I ever wanted. I never would have thought that this is everything I ever needed. I had ignored my true feelings for Brian for so long. I had never even realized that I felt this way for him. But right now, kissing him like that makes everything seem so clear. It wasn't just Brian who was in love with me. I was in love with him, too, and still am, I just never realized it and never let myself acknowledge my true feelings. But the second our lips met, I realized what it was that I kept seeing in his eyes. It wasn't sadness, or anger. It wasn't defeat. It was love. It was passion. It was beautiful. 
Whenever a character in a movie or book describes being kissed by their true love they describe it as a bolt of electricity running through their bodies or sparks exploding within them. But what I am feeling in that moment doesn't even come close to that.  No words could ever have described what I am feeling. It feels like a bolt of electricity, a billion exploding sparks and so much more all at once. My entire body is on alert, every part of my body is tingling with excitement but at the same time I feel so calm. Just like before, when he showed up at my house, my heart was racing and beating so fast I thought it would explode. But this time it is a positive feeling. I feel like I am losing myself in the kiss and I never ever want this feeling to stop.
But still, I pull away and break off the kiss. I keep my arms tightly wrapped around his neck. "Brian" I say, slightly out of breath. "Forget having to think about everything you said.." He raises his eyebrows and looks at me with a puzzled look on his face. "
Let's just leave everything in the past and move on, okay? Let's just start from the beginning...because I think I love you, too." I smile at him.
"You think?" He laughs. "That's so typical of you. How can you think you love me? You should know if you do or not." Hearing him laugh for the first time in almost a year makes me laugh, too. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I missed hearing his laugh so much. And now that I finally hear it again it feels like everything will be okay again. With Brian by my side nothing bad can happen to me.
"Yes, I think. I may need some more confirmation before I am absolutely sure." I smirk at him. He understands. Our lips meet for a second time, this time more passionately. More demanding. It feels like we are putting all of our feelings and emotions into that one kiss. We put everything we missed out on in the past eleven months into that one single kiss. I don't think I ever want it to stop.
I grab Brian's shirt and pull him towards my bed. I sit down on top of it and he positions himself in front of me. We don't break the kiss for even a single second. Both of us don't want to ever let go again. Neither of us cares about running out of breath. The only thing that counts is us being together again. Closer than ever before.
Brian pushes me down on my bed and leans over me. Again I wrap my arms around his neck, trying to pull him a little closer without making him lose his balance. We continue kissing each other passionately until he finally breaks off the kiss. He is completely out of breath and so am I.
"So, tell me Jae. What does all of this mean? Are we just going to let everything ago and forget?" He moves back a little so it is easier for him to look at me. "And more importantly... what are we now? Friends? Best friends? ...More?" His voice gets a little softer and almost turns into a whisper when he asks me if we might be more than friends. Kind of as if saying it out loud is making him shy. It is cute as hell.
"First of all: I think we should move on and forget. We both obviously need each other and love each other. What's the point of talking about this for hours on end and giving each other even more space and maybe even hurting each other again? I think we've been through enough and should just leave it all behind. Or do you feel the need to go over everything that happened countless times?" He shakes his head.
"That's what I thought. Second: If I'm not at least being upgraded back to Best-Friend-Status I'm going to ask for a refund. Because we are definitely more than 'just friends'." I smirk.
"Third: I wouldn't mind 'more' either."
"So...does that mean you want to date me?" He hasn't even heard my answer yet but his face already lights up. I have never seen him this happy before.
"Well, I mean, I just spent the last 5 minutes kissing you and I wouldn't complain about doing that again. But do I really want to date you?" I look at him. I know I am teasing him but I think he kind of deserves that after all the pain he had caused me. I am not planning on saying no but he doesn't need to know that yet. It's fun making him guess a little and worry about my answer.
But he knows me too well. He knows I am just messing with him. He shakes his head and starts laughing. "Fuck, Jae, why do you have to play with me like that? Just say yes already. Don't make me suffer even longer."
I roll my eyes and give him a quick kiss. "Fine, Mr. Impatient. I'll stop." I raise the corners of my lips into a little smirk. "Yes, Brian, I want to date you. Or go out with you. Or whatever you want to call it." Even though he knew it was only a matter of time until I stopped teasing him and finally said yes he seems to be relieved and less tense now that I finally gave him the answer he wanted to hear.
"I want to be your boyfriend no matter what. So you better not leave me ever again. Okay?" I fake an overly dramatic sigh. "You have to stay with me forever now, boyfriend." He grabs my arm and makes me sit up.
"Thank you, Jae." He says and hugs me tight. "Thank you for giving me a second chance. Thank you for letting me come back into your life even after everything I did. I really appreciate it. You have no idea how much that means to me. I love you so much, Jae."
I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his chest.
"I love you, too."