𝐬𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 ☾︎ soonhoon

C H P - 2

"Yeah, I... just suppose."

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"Hey... Did you know there was a saying about dandelions?" young Soonyoung asked softly, his nervous gaze trailing upwards to meet his friend's own. His cheeks were already burning, and his heart was already pounding. He curled his fingers around a little dandelion and plucked it from the grass. "Jihoon?"

Lee Jihoon, the other's childhood friend, looked down from the bright blue sky, to face the male who had called for his attention. The clouds floating up above casted faint shadows on the ground. "What? There's a saying?" He, too, yanked a dandelion from its roots and pulled it close to the tip of his nose, getting a better look at it. "What is it?"

"Well..." 

Soonyoung sighed softly. He was beginning to wish that he hadn't started what he had planned to be his confession--but it was too late for regrets and second thoughts. No matter what, he had to say it. With shaky hands, he slid the dandelion behind his friend's ear and said, "Apparently, if you rub a dandelion on someone and there is a yellow mark left behind, it means that you like them."

Jihoon's thin lips parted in surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah."

The other quickly retrieved the bud from behind his ear and pulled it down, so he could see it clearly. His wide eyes studied it in awe. He didn't know that the weeds everyone thought were so annoying could do something so important. It was crazy. "Here." He gave the dandelion back to Soonyoung--who took it clumsily--and uncurled his fingers, allowing his palm to be accessed. He was curious, now--and not just innocently curious. No, he wanted to know. "Rub it on my hand."

Soonyoung's innocent eyes grew larger. He had already planned on confessing using this method, but having Jihoon go along with it like this? He hadn't expected it at all. It almost knocked the air out of him. "I... okay." He gulped and gently ran the bud of the flower over his friend's palm.

And just as he knew there would be, there it was: a streak of yellow.

Soonyoung looked down to his lap bashfully, his cheeks and ears burning with more of an intensity than they were before. His heart was pounding as he waited for the rejection, but it never came. 

"Okay, my turn." After a few moments of silence, the other retrieved a single dandelion from the grass and pulled Soonyoung's hand over to him. He grasped the stem of the weed between his thumb and index finger, and froze--but then, with a slight nod to himself, he proceeded to run the bud across the male's open palm.

Soonyoung gasped.

Yellow....

"Now you know," Jihoon said, smiling softly up at him. 

"Yeah, I..." Soonyoung watched his friend's warm eyes: warm and kind like the summer heat around them. The organ within his ribcage had slowed with relief, and he knew then that nothing would ever beat this moment. "I guess I do."

With a quiet gasp, Soonyoung jolted awake, the bittersweet dream still fresh in his mind. However, it wasn't a dream so much as it was a memory: a memory from long ago, when he was oblivious and happy, when he was with him. His tired eyes glazed over against his will, and with only a sigh to disturb the silence, he rolled over and once more shut his eyes.