Bandaids

Staircases

My head rested on my arm as I lay on the table outside my college building. It was a lovely day out, the birds were chirping in the air and I could see in the tree next to me a cute hummingbird was building his nest in the branches.

He zipped around and I found myself wondering what it must be like to be so small but so extraordinarily fast.

A brown paper bag landed in my line of vision, blocking off the nest from my view, and I turned my attention to the person in front of me.

Hongjoong smiled and sat down, opening the bag as I moved to sit upright. He pulled out burgers wrapped up and a couple of containers of fries with a large water bottle for a drink.

"How were classes?" he questioned, unwrapping my burger for me before going to eat his own.

I took a bite and chewed silently before turning to Hongjoong. He looked at me with a smile in his eyes and the same wonder came over me that I felt with the hummingbird. How can someone smile all the time?

Did it feel good to smile all the time?

I tried to recall the last time I had smiled properly. It had been a long time, my relationship with San seemed to have poisoned the idea behind what an actual smile was.

Fingers snapped in front of my face.

"I just asked you how classes went," Hongjoong joked, "Not to calculate what you learned based on the value of how much you care."

I let out a chuckle and let myself forget about everything as we started to talk.

It had been maybe a week since I had last seen San and it wasn't easy. I had done my best in struggling to avoid him, as my outburst on the track field was more than inappropriate and I didn't have the courage to even look at him.

I was embarrassed. It was a moment of weakness for me to shout things at San that I had no intention of telling anyone.

Hongjoong had been a great help with that.

After he took care of me in my apartment that day, he had been coming to see me as much as he could. When he found me hiding from San in the classrooms, he had offered to bring me lunch so I could avoid going to the food court.

This place where we were eating now was perfect. It was rarely used and the only people that came to this part of the campus were my fellow students in my major, so it was relatively unknown to the general population.

The bandaid on my wrist caught my attention as I reached for a fry.

Hongjoong had noticed my bandaids that night, counted all three of them, and said nothing. He had never questioned me even when San had almost blurted out to the world that there was one on my wrist.

I was sporting four bandaids now, one on the back of my neck. It was a reminder of a moment of weakness, covering the pain but not the memory of what had happened.

We were almost finished with lunch when someone came running up to us.

"I freaking knew it!"

My body reacted before I could understand what had happened. I moved further back on my seat, away from Mingi as he stared at Hongjoong with angry eyes.

My friend stood up with his eyes blazing. "What the hell are you doing here, Mingi?"

Mingi stood up straight and the two of them stared each other down.

"San is losing his mind because he can't find him," Mingi stated, pointing at me, "And here you are, eating lunch with him? Lunch that you bought him?"