He was there. Just there right across the field. My heart thumped louder when my eyes caught his smile, that beautiful smile directed to his group of friends and I smiled along silently from afar. His smile was contagious and I wonder what would happen if that smile was for me. I could be grinning like a fool, like a man head over heels for love.
I started noticing him since my first day of school. His figure captivated me, but what made me fall deeper and deeper for him was not just his look. It was his personality. The way he smiled at everything, the way he perfected everything, the way he made everything so radiant. Everything. Everything.
But he and I were just too far away and far too different, so I let my feelings go. He was so near me, yet I just cannot seem to find any courage to reach him. And he just drifted further and further away from me. And my feeling for him just started to fade, sinking deeper and deeper, locked in the deepest part of my heart. That was until one big and unbelievable miracle had happened. This miracle changed my life upside-down and inside out. Because he just came into my life.
“Are you into soccer?” Those were the first words he had spoken to me. I was taken aback when he had suddenly approached me and asked me that question. And here I thought that he would never notice me despite my worst stalking ability ever -- as told by my closest friend.
But gladly I wasn’t that into him when he first talked to me, so I managed not to stutter and behaved more like a friend instead of a girl crushing on a boy in silence.
“Totally.” And that was my cool reply. Yes, I thought I was cool. Despite the nerd looks exuding from my bespectacled face and tucked in shirt. Yeah, I’m very cool.
“You play?” Then I heard him asked. I just shook my head, totally acting like I couldn’t even be bothered to engage into a conversation with him. But he still beamed happily.
“Cool. Our team could use another member here, and you looked like you need some extra work on those… cute muscles. So care to join us?”
And from then on, our friendship just escalated. He technically dragged me to practice every single time when I made it clear that I was not into sweats. He spent much of his time trying to get me to practice and made me talk to the rest of the team members, which I found it annoyingly adorable.
Well, I was an outcast. Not a bullied one, just simply one of those outcasts that never put forth any effort to be socially active and just effortlessly became the most low-profiled student ever. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have my own troop, it just that I couldn’t find one. Honestly speaking, my personality wasn’t really that bright and I truly had the lousiest attitude ever when I was alone. That literally made me an unapproachable bastard in the eyes of many. But I wasn’t always like that. It was just because I never found that one person that could bring the best out of me.
And I thought Hyukjae was one of those people either. One that could never make me open my heart up and just be free, and be myself. Never have I thought that I could be so wrong in my own life. Because Hyukjae just did.
His dragging, his endless chatters, his smile, his laugh, his kissable pout, just his everything could become the sole key to the extrovert side of me. He unlocked my heart and gave me wings. And I never felt so alive. Time flew and before I realized it, we already talked. We laughed, we cried, and we conversed. Just like how a best friend would. And I never asked for more. I never did. I was contented with the friendship we had. I never took notice on how I behaved around him. Until that one time.
