SUGAR KISS [YEONBIN] ✓

eleven

One from each team goes home after the tiny plate challenge. Yeonjun is in the bottom four again, but everyone knows it was the lateness that did it, and he must be an incredible chef because whatever he is making keeps pulling him through, even though the judges obviously want to send him home.

There are sixteen of us left, eight on each team, and tonight everyone is hanging out just off campus, by the actual river. It’s this roaring thing, not at all like the creek, and if this was not a teacher-sanctioned event, I would be very concerned there would be alcohol, which would prompt me to be very concerned that someone would fall into the river and never be heard from again.

But the program heads are here, and even they are all just having soda. There’s food laid out on the table—not gourmet food. Hot dogs and potato salad, and like three different types of barbeque. I didn’t even know there were three different types of barbeque. It’s refreshing, honestly.

Everyone is just . . . relaxed. Juri is flirting with this cute girl in pigtails, and cute girl is laughing pretty hard, which is probably a good sign.

Beomgyu keeps acting like he’s going to jump in the river, which keeps prompting Taehyun to scream, to which he responds, “Taehyun, this is a classy event. Please try to keep your voice down.” At one point, he tries to hit him for it and he catches him by the wrist and smiles, and he blushes so hard I think he might need to be thrown into the river to cool down.

They are so obviously “just friends” that it’s painful.

“I’m trying to keep you alive, Beomgyu.”

He doesn’t let go of his wrist. “Dooooon’t.”

He drops his hand slowly, and it looks intentional. Like if he goes slow enough, he won’t have an excuse to let go. He doesn’t.

“Eavesdropping again,” says Yeonjun in my ear, and then I jump harder than either Taehyun or Beomgyu did. We haven’t spoken in two days. Since he left me standing there alone in the common room, choking on guilt. He tsks and I roll my eyes.

“It’s not eavesdropping if everyone can hear it.”

“Oh, is that the rule?”

“What do you want?” I say.

“To accept your apology.”

My mouth actually falls open and I turn to face him. “What did you say?”

“You know what I said.”

I scoff. “Lord, you’re intolerable.”

“Let’s have it, plum cake.”

I roll my eyes. “Plum cake. You are reaching, my friend.”

“Not until you apologize.”

“What?”

“You can call me friend,” he says, biting into an apple which is just objectively a terrible choice, “after you apologize. Also it’s not reaching.”

I fold my arms over my chest again, which is not a gesture I usually make that often but I find myself doing a lot of it lately. Yeonjun, the common denominator.

He starts off toward the riverbank, and I grab a sweet tea that lives up to its name, and I guess I follow him.

The sun is starting to fall. It’s warm and humid, moisture all in my skin and in my mouth when I breathe.

The crickets are out, too, but they’re hard to hear over the river. Yeonjun sits right there on the wet grass and I sit, too, and pick up a rock and toss it down to the flowing water below. It’s farther off than it looks, and my rock hits dirt. Yeonjun picks one up, too. His makes it. But barely.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He looks over at me, and I pick up a heavy rock from my left, then hurl it as hard as I can. It lands with a splash farther out than his did.

“Bravo,” he says. Then he watches the water.

“I took it too far, okay?” I can’t look at him because even here, just sitting throwing rocks into a river, he makes my blood boil. I still get mad that he started all of this for legitimately no reason, whether or not my retribution has been arguably a lot worse. And I don’t want to see the satisfaction on his face when he gets this apology, but I have to give it. Because it sucks that he’s not wrong . . . but he’s not wrong. “I should have . . . I shouldn’t have gone into your room without your permission.”

“As though there is a scenario in which I would have given it,” he says.

I can’t tell if he’s smiling but I don’t look to see. If I take my eyes off the river, I won’t get this apology out. I’m choking on it as it is. “I’m not sorry I screwed you over. I’m sorry about how I did it though.”

It’s quiet for so long that I have to turn and look at him.

He’s looking at me. Like he’s contemplating. “Okay,” he says.

“Okay, what?”

“I said I came here to accept your apology, short stuff, and that is what I am doing.”

“Okay,” I say.

I look back over his shoulder and see Taehyun glancing our way. Beomgyu and Juri look over here, too, and I’m about to get up and leave to shut down the chance of any kind of weird speculation that I am not here for when Yeonjun says, “Just so we’re clear, I still hate you a lot.”

I’m so surprised by it that I actually snort-laugh. He just raises his eyebrows and I say, “Well. The sentiment is mutual.” He’s rolling another little rock around in his fingers, not saying much, so I say, “In fact, I usually fall asleep thinking about punching you in the face.”

He looks at me out of the corner of his eye and makes a (pretty impressive) throw. “How convenient. As I wake up thinking about wrapping my hands around your throat.” He side-eyes me, deadpan. “Not hard enough to actually kill you.”

“Thank you for your restraint.”

“Well, I’m not a monster.”

The fireflies are coming out now, lighting up the grass. Under any other circumstance, it would be unbearably romantic. I am doubly annoyed now.

Yeonjun stands, brushes off his pants, and doesn’t help me up, which is good because I would have spat on his hand. I stand and say, “I’ve considered just suffocating you with your pillow, Yeonjun.”

He says, “How rude. At least pick a quick or creative murder method. I can’t abide one that’s neither.”

“You really are insufferable.”

We are walking back to the picnic now. “Thank you. That means a lot coming from you. Moriarty to my Sherlock.”

“I mean it sincerely. Brutus to my Caesar.”

He laughs. “High-brow. Vader to my Skywalker.”

“Technically, Vader is a Skywalker.”

“Ugh, spoilers,” he says.

“You are the Zuko to my Katara.”

He stops, raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Well. That changes the dynamic, doesn’t it?”

My mouth clamps shut of its own volition. “I always shipped Katara and Aang.”

He narrows his eyes. “That. Is bullshit.”

I stand my ground.

He just kind of laughs, then turns around. Ostensibly to head back toward the barbecue.

“So this hatchet,” I say, and he looks back at me over his shoulder. “We calling it buried? Or?”

He barks out a laugh. Then laughs harder. And he keeps right on laughing until he disappears into the crowd.

I am . . . I am taking it as a no.