Remember Me

Chapter 23

I walked out to his room, and noticed that he wasn't there yet. It was late enough, so I climbed into his bed and closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep, but very far from it. In a few minutes, when I felt the bed shift and the covers raise, I kept my eyes closed, but my heartbeat raced faster.

I dared not open my eyes, even though I didn't know why I felt so nervous. I was normally a little insomniac, so I could only imagine what a long night this was going to be. Finally daring to peek, I opened my eyes to see Jimin less than a foot away, staring right at me. Caught off guard, I immediately shut my eyes, but realized how embarrassing that was, so I opened them again slowly. He hadn't moved an inch, and was still looking at me. I felt blood rush to my face, but was caught in a trance and couldn't move or look away. He looked a little red himself. After a few minutes of me just taking him in, he whispered, "You're on my side of the bed."

I blinked a few times before rolling my eyes. In this kind of a moment, all he could think of was his side of the bed. I said in exasperation, "Fine, I'll move."
Without thinking, Jimin started shuffling towards me and I started crawling over him to switch spots. As I placed one arm to his other side and had one leg over his body, I felt a light grip on my hand and looked down. Jimin was lying there, his eyes narrowed as he looked up at me. His hair framed his head like a halo, and his position under me was all in a show of defenselessness. I realized too late that I was straddling him, even if we were barely touching, and he seemed trapped under me. In a moment of, I suppose, bravado, he extended one hand to twirl a lock of my hair, which reached down to graze his face and neck. I stared at him for a good moment, memorizing this new side of Jimin I'd never been indulged in before.

But then I came to my senses and quickly pulled my arm away, hopping over Jimin's body to my side as he finally shuffled to his. It took me a moment to calm my heartbeat, and I did a poor job at it. We both lay down, facing up at his ceiling. He had stuck on these glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, and I chuckled when I saw them.
"You still put stars on your ceiling?"
"I guess so... I wonder why!" He said slyly.
I glanced at him, "Wait. Why?"
He turned and propped his head on an elbow. "You forgot?"
I stared at him in confusion.
"You don't remember? The very first week we met, when you moved to this city, we were supposed to go camping together. Not just us, it was like 5 families."
"I don't remember going camping..." I said, wracking my brain to remember that time all those years ago.
"That's because we didn't," he grinned. "I'd barely met you, and we'd started off on the wrong foot because Prithvi and Lana wanted to hang out with you and I felt jealous. Your family was staying with mine temporarily, which made us argue more inevitably."

"Ah... that rings a bell. You were so annoying," I sighed.
"Hey! Rude. You were annoying too."
I rolled my eyes and laughed. "And then? What about the stars?"

"Oh, right. Well, the day before we were supposed to go, I got sick. It was bad enough that my parents were thinking of dropping out altogether. But then your dad told our moms that they should go on the trip, since it had been so long since they'd last been united, and offered that I stay back with him or my dad. I didn't want to be all alone, so I started crying inconsolably. Remember?"
"Yeah... you crybaby," I teased him, enraptured by the memories the stories brought.
"Well, you saw me crying and realized that part of it was cuz I was jealous you'd become better friends with the other kids than I was, probably. So you threw a tantrum about not wanting to go, and our parents left the two of us at my house with your dad babysitting.

I was surprised you wanted to stay back, especially since you clearly wanted to go even the day before. That night I was crying because I felt bad about not going, and you snuck into my room to talk to me. That's how we became friends."

"It was something like that, right?"
He laughed, "I remember asking you why you chose to stay back, and you told me, 'I thought you might need the company. It's not like I know the others that well.' I remember crying more because I didn't want you being all nice to me when I'd been mean, so you'd sat on my bed and explained to me in detail why you didn't want to go camping:
'There's these things that I call swamp monsters~.'"
"I did NOT sound like that!" I laughed.

"Whatever! 'They're small and they attack in packs. When you're alone, they suck your blood. And there's really big bears that eat people too.'
I was then inconsolable because I got scared for my parents, and you had to modify your story. 'They only eat kids that hang out alone. The others are always together, so they're fine.'

I'd finally calmed down and slowly realized that you were just trying to make me feel better, so I started feeling bad for you. 'So then what's your favorite part of camping?' I'd asked, trying to console you.
'You can see a lot of stars at night. It doesn't even feel dark at night when you're camping.' You were scared of the dark back then, remember?"

I nodded, surprised at the level of detail he remembered.

"I was fascinated, so the two of us plotted how we'd bring the stars to the house ourselves.
'Impossible!' You'd said at first, angry I was even trying, but you warmed up to the idea soon enough. So we cut paper stars and taped them to the wall as a start.
Your dad saw it was getting late and that you were hanging out with a kid who was very sick and definitely contagious, he pulled you out of my room and forbade you from entering. You were such a good kid you actually listened. But then you kept whispering through the door and sliding stars you cut under the door. We must have drawn and cut like a hundred that night alone.
When your dad noticed what we were trying to do the next day, he went shopping and brought back a pack of glow-in-the-dark stars and helped put them all the way up on the ceiling. That night you snuck in and we had a mini sleepover where we pretended we were camping under the stars."

I laughed at the memories, "You remember everything so vividly!"
"It feels like it happened yesterday."
"Or a lifetime ago..." I smiled wryly. "But anyway, you're telling me you still have stars on your ceiling because of that?"
Jimin nodded, "I'm positive. Those stars from back then are still up on my ceiling back home. And these," he pointed up, "are in that exact formation. I must've paid extra care to put them up when I moved."
"You remember the formation...?" I asked, surprised.
"Well I've spent a lot of time staring at them. They're... comforting. Kinda like you." Jimin smiled his cute smile, his eyes disappearing in crescents.
I stared at him in wonder, no smile forming on my face, but my chest brimming with emotion. I didn't know what to think, or whether I could think straight after such words being spoken so easily. I was caught off guard, so I turned from him back at the stars and gulped.
I felt his eyes on me as I stared at the stars on the ceiling above. Did he expect a response? A reaction? All I felt was my heartbeat quicken and stomach knot and flutter.
After a good few minutes passed, I simply turned to my other side and mumbled to him, "Do your laundry."

He exhaled a laugh in affirmation, and I spoke, barely audible, "Goodnight," to which he didn't respond.