Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree

#888888

It was our last year of high school when you made me run to the door frantically thinking something happened as the knock grew louder and urgent. I did not even know it was you until I opened the door and your head popped out from behind the door with your stupid grin, widely teasing me.

Triumphant.

I wanted to rub that smug off your face so badly with sandpaper no matter how good that smirk looked on you. I annoyedly glared at you who had your glee blooming the smile on your face more; the face I knew too well, the one you made when you had some 'brilliant' idea brewing in your head, the one we knew would end up in disaster but decided to do anyway.

"Jennie Kim, come to prom with me?"

Out of nowhere, you came with that question.

You stood with your stupid grin staring at me who had my breath jumped here and there. No, not because you just asked me to come to prom with you, but because you just made me practically run for my life. And all that was just for you to ask me if I wanted to go to prom with you.

You were so out of your mind.

I scoffed thinking you were fooling around until I saw your face patiently waiting then I realized that you were not joking.

I remember how I lost my words, letting this invisible cat run away taking my tongue with it. A lot of people asked you to go to the prom with them, I literally lost count. I was not even planning on going but there you were at my door 3 days before prom asking me to go with you instead.

"Come to prom with me, Jen."

"Why should I?"

I almost laughed at the way you inhaled your breath in, readying yourself to spurt the reason you had in your pocket at that time, convincing me to take your hand. It was just a year-end party for me and I never understood why people made a big fuss out of it, I still do not.

But I did not know what got me that night that I deliberately gave my hand in yours, accepting your offer even before you started telling me your reason.

So three days after that, you came knocking at my door with your gown wrapping you, capturing my attention, and pinched my heart.

Black was the color you chose because black was the color I favored, making us unavoidably stood out in the ocean of saturated spectrum. But you did not seem to care with the stares other students were throwing at us; your eyes and all your attention were solely nailed on me. I saw new colors being brought to my presence the moment your eyes found mine and told me stories your lips could never utter. That night somehow my tendency of running away from falling for you vanished and I almost let myself jumped off the cliff if it was not for the stares of others.

Almost.

Until finally we were 5 years older, under the big blue sky, when I finally did not pay any stares any mind and it was only yours that mattered the most to me.

"Why yellow?"

That question popped out of my mouth as we enjoyed the rustling sound brought by the warm breeze of spring early in 1998. We were lazing off on our day off in a small park near our flat. Just you and I and the clear sky above our heads, watching the clouds float by in their own rhythms.

Our perfect day for a picnic.

You, with your head resting on my lap, smiled gently, bringing your own warmth framed between your lips while you stared at me as I was the most fragile soul in the entire world. While my head was thrown back miles away to where we started. Under the old oak tree where you strung your wishes on within those seven yellow ribbons.