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If anyone ever asked Wonpil if he and Dowoon were ever friends, he would firmly deny it. Wonpil hated Dowoon, and everyone in the school knew it. He would frequently whine about how he hated how Dowoon walked into class each day without even glancing at anyone else, hated how the girls would squeal about him although he ignored them, hated how he could shoot hoops from the 3-point line effortlessly every time they had basketball practice. He hated him. Simple as that.
It wasn’t always that way. Back in 3rd grade, when Dowoon just transferred to the school, he and Wonpil were best friends. You wouldn’t be able to see one without seeing the other, and it was a common sight at the playground to see Wonpil dragging Dowoon by the hand laughing, while Dowoon looked at him with a small smile. Dowoon didn’t speak much back then either, but Wonpil was fine with it. Dowoon was a good listener anyways.
Dowoon once asked Wonpil, “Pillie, will we still be friends when we get old?”
Wonpil looked at him weirdly. “We’re not friends.”
Dowoon seemed to deflate a little.
“We’re best friends!”
“Then will we still be best friends when we get old?”
“Of course! We’ll be together even when we’re grandpas!”
It all changed one summer afternoon, during recess.
“Dowoonie, I want to tell you something!” Wonpil had led Dowoon to their secret spot under the jungle gym right when break started and seemed very excited.
Dowoon fell asleep in class that day and still felt a little drowsy, but tried his best to keep up. “Huh? What is it?”
“I think I have a crush on Nayeon, so I’m gonna ask her to play on the swings with me tomorrow! I might even ask my mom if I could buy ice cream for her!” Nayeon was considered the prettiest girl in the grade, with bright eyes and a bright personality. Almost all the boys liked her, and Wonpil was just one of the newest victims.
“Oh.” Dowoon looked a little sad, but Wonpil didn’t know why.
After school, Wonpil asked Dowoon if he wanted to go to the playground with him. Dowoon refused, saying that his mom said that they would be busy. Wonpil just shrugged his shoulders and went on his way back home.
However, later in the day, Wonpil remembered he left his Iron Man figurine at the playground the day before and set off to find it. But once he turned the corner, he stopped in his tracks. Thunder crashed. A cymbal slammed. Wonpil fell to his knees. Right there, Nayeon sat on the swings happily licking a strawberry ice cream cone, while Dowoon laughed and pushed her. Wonpil felt betrayed. Who was Dowoon? Wonpil didn’t know a Dowoon. Wonpil never had a friend called Dowoon.
For the rest of the whole primary school, Wonpil ignored Dowoon. He tried to follow Wonpil around for a few months after, leaving chocolate and little notes in Wonpil’s desk even though he didn’t know why he was mad at him in the first place. Dowoon eventually gave up after the 34th time Wonpil threw his chocolates in the trash. If Wonpil was determined to ignore him for whatever reason, there was no stopping him.
-
When the two both ended up in the same middle school, Wonpil treated Dowoon with indifference. When the two both ended up in the same high school and became rivals on the school basketball team, Wonpil let those feelings grow into hate. Dowoon always kept on a blank face, and it didn’t seem like he had any feelings at all. They never passed the ball to each other in matches, and would deliberately make sure to stand on exactly opposite sides of the changing room at each practice.
It came to the day of the inter-school basketball tournament finals. JYP High was up against SM Academy, their longtime rivals, and tensions were high. There was only a two-point difference between the two schools, and the audience was bursting with excitement.
Wonpil stole the ball as it rebounded from the basket and quickly dribbled it to the opponent’s side of the court. As he looked up, he saw Johnny Seo, the star player of SM Academy’s team, who was almost 10 whole centimeters taller than him, blocking his way to the net. From the corner of his eye, he could see Dowoon frantically waving his hands, gesturing to Wonpil for him to pass the ball.
Wonpil rolled his eyes and tried to look for anyone else who was free, but they were all guarded by their opponents. The buzzer counted down as Wonpil froze in his place. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Time was up. SM Academy beat JYP High for the champion title, with just a two-point lead.
-
Right when the match ended, the coach shut Wonpil and Dowoon into the equipment room and twisted the lock.
“I’m not letting you two out there unless you guys work out that weird tension you guys have and be friends! Hurry up!”
The tips of Dowoon’s ears were bright red, and Wonpil couldn’t look up from the dusty floor.
“You know, I started playing basketball because of you.” Dowoon started.
“Really?”
“That day in 7th grade, you and Jinyoung were playing at lunchtime. You looked really cool when you shot the ball in the hoop, and I didn’t know how to get closer to you again, so I started playing since if we were on the team together maybe you would start talking to me again…”
“You know, I was jealous of you since you were so good at basketball, and also since back in 3rd grade, I saw you on the swings with Nayeon, even though I told you I liked her,” Wonpil said with a blush on his cheeks.
Dowoon looked up with slight disbelief. “You ignored me because of that? Nayeon’s my neighbor! My mom wanted to go shopping with her mom so we had to wait for them together!”
“Oh.” Wonpil didn’t know how to answer and wanted to sink into the floor. He awkwardly reached out his hand. “So, can we be friends now?”
Dowoon took his hand and shook it, equally as awkward. “Sure”.
Dowoon and Wonpil were friends again, the ultimate combo on the basketball court, the newest ship of their female classmates. Dowoon still didn’t talk much, and there Wonpil didn’t have a problem with that. Dowoon introduced Wonpil to Nayeon, who remembered him from before, and they quickly became something similar to friends, gaming together after the two got off school and eating snacks together at the market. All was good.
-
It had been two days since Wonpil started ignoring Dowoon (again).
Dowoon realized this when he was at the grocery store for snacks with Nayeon, and saw that Wonpil was standing on the other side of the shelf. He was wearing a grey face mask and seemed a little out of it, dark circles under his eyes.
Dowoon stood there for a while, contemplating whether or not he should say something, and finally opened his mouth.
“Hey, Wonpil?”
Wonpil flinched and raised his head. The boy who usually wouldn’t stop whining about trivial things like a 5-year-old was strangely quiet, and once the two had eye contact he lowered his head again, took his things and left towards the cashier.
Dowoon froze.
“Who was that? Wonpil?” Nayeon walked over with a basket full of snacks and slung her arm around Dowoon’s shoulders. “He was wearing a mask so I couldn’t see his face clearly.”
“Maybe he didn’t see me” Dowoon blanked out for a bit, “Wonpil…Wonpil?”
Wonpil faced the cashier and was opening his wallet to pay as if he was determined to ignore them.
Being able to come across a friend somewhere and greeting them was already the extent of Dowoon’s social skills, and when Wonpil didn’t give a response a bright red error sign flashed in Dowoon’s head. He usually didn’t open up to people very quickly, and mostly kept his words and thoughts to himself. Nayeon was like a sister to him ever since he was little, so he didn’t really hold himself back as much, but Dowoon hadn’t talked to Wonpil properly in years, and they had just started being friends again so it was still a little awkward. By the time Dowoon tried to formulate a plan to catch Wonpil’s attention the boy had already walked out the door.
Summer in Seoul was burning hot, and Dowoon had to mentally prepare himself a little to step outside of the air-conditioned store into the sweltering heat. He speedily hurried around the corner to the basketball court.
When he got there, he found Wonpil with a plastic bag in one hand, staring at the ground. Wonpil heard the footsteps coming towards him and raised his head, but once he saw Dowoon he immediately faltered and walked away.
Dowoon: ……
Nayeon strolled over after paying for her snacks, muttering “Leaving without even saying hi? He’s acting really weird today.”
-
“Nayeon.” Dowoon looked out of his classroom window, slumped over his desk. “Do you think Wonpil hates me again?”
“Hates you?” Nayeon spun her head towards Dowoon, whose head was still in the clouds. “Why would you think that?”
Dowoon thought about it for a moment. “After we made up he would always come up and try to talk to me, but for the last few days he’s been avoiding me.”
“What should I do?” He sighed with his face buried in his arms. “My head hurts”.
“Just relax, it probably isn’t that big of a deal. But…he can’t be ignoring you for no reason, right?” Nayeon blinked at him. “Did you do anything to make him mad lately?”
“How could I have made him mad!” Dowoon sighed again. “I didn’t even say much to him…”
“Maybe that’s the problem, he’s always the one who talks to you, but you only say one or two sentences, you don’t make friends like that.”
“Really?”
This was a new revelation to Dowoon, and he decided that he would try to chat to Wonpil that day. He sat there, lost it thought, while Nayeon sat on his desk flipping through her textbook and complained about homework. They never really grew apart during the years and remained strictly platonic friends.
“Nayeon, what should we talk about? How am I supposed to start the conversation without sounding like a complete idiot?” Dowoon looked up sadly.
Nayeon smiled and patted his head. “Haven’t you guys known each other since 3rd grade? You’ll think of something.”
A group of guys walked past the open classroom door, chatting loudly. One of them turned their head and nonchalantly glanced into the classroom.
It was Wonpil.
He looked like he was going to move right on, but hesitated when his eyes landed on Dowoon at his desk, leaning into Nayeon as she patted his head. Dowoon was just about to call out to him when Wonpil quickly walked away as if nothing happened. Dowoon froze.
He blankly turned to Nayeon. “Did you see that?”
Nayeon nodded her head. “You mean Wonpil?”
“Yeah.” Dowoon drummed his fingers on his desk. “It was the same last time at the convenience store. He clearly saw me, but…”
“I think I know why now,” Nayeon concluded, lifting herself off Dowoon’s table.
Dowoon kept staring at the open door as if Wonpil would come backpedaling in. “Why?”
“I can’t say it directly.” Nayeon smiled cheekily. “But first of all, stop making physical contact with your friends that much, it’s a bad habit.”
-
” Didn’t you say I can’t do this?”. Dowoon asked Nayeon as he nudged her arm on his shoulders, “You said having physical contact is a bad habit.”
It was another day at the grocery store. Nayeon wanted to stock up on his favorite snacks (again) and dragged Dowoon along with him.
“That only applies when Wonpil is around,” Nayeon continued scanning through the aisles casually. “But you know why, right?”
Even though Dowoon didn’t fully understand what Nayeon meant, but he still thought that anything that she said would have some reasoning behind it and just obeyed.
He shrugged his shoulders and said thoughtfully, “You know when I get close to people, I like to lean on them and just stick to them in general? I thought about it, and it might be a bad thing. Maybe Wonpil decided to avoid me because I made too much body contact and it made him uncomfortable.”
“Is that what you think?” Nayeon laughed a little. “I swear you’re too cute”.
The two walked back to Nayeon’s house to drop the food off in her fridge and went out for dinner with a few of their other friends. Dowoon was silent for the whole time they walked to the restaurant, looking as if he were deep in thought. Nayeon asked him what was wrong, and if he were still thinking about the Wonpil problem. Dowoon nodded his head and said that they still hadn't said a word to each other.
The idiom “speak of the devil and he will come” was true, just when the group of friends was about to reach the restaurant they walked past Wonpil and some of their other classmates. Dowoon wasn’t sure what to do. Even though he did tell himself to apologize the next time he saw Wonpil, all he wanted to do right now was run back home and hide under his blankets.
As if he had a Dowoon-radar built into the back of his head, Wonpil glanced back at Dowoon’s slumped silhouette. His gaze moved on to linger on Nayeon as she punched Dowoon’s shoulder teasingly, then turned back and kept walking forwards.
Quickly spotting an opportunity, Nayeon pushed Dowoon towards Wonpil. Stumbling a little, he gathered up his nerves and started towards Wonpil’s retreating back, but lost confidence halfway and stopped, face red.
“Hey Wonpeel, I think Dowoon’s looking for you.” Jae, one of their friends from the basketball team, glanced back and tilted his head at the boy still frozen a few meters away. “Haven’t you always been whining about him these few days?”
Wonpil paused a little, forced himself not to look back and muttered: “Then why hasn’t he come yet?”
“He’s definitely too shy, you out of all people should know that.” Jae scratched his head a little. “What’s wrong with you two, aren’t you guys friends now? Are we going to get a repeat of the trainwreck which was the basketball match against SM Academy?
Wonpil ignored him.
-
Dowoon stared at the math notebook sitting on his kitchen table. The words “Property of Kim Wonpil” written in black pen on the cover stared back at him. Before Wonpil had started avoiding him, the two studied for their math test together and Wonpil left his notebook at Dowoon’s house. Dowoon was going to return it to him the next day, but he couldn’t find him anywhere and the book was promptly forgotten.
Dowoon knew that he should return it as soon as possible, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“You can’t just not give it back to him!” Dowoon thought to himself. “It’ll be all your fault if he fails his math test, and he’ll blame you for it, and he’ll hate you even more, and he’ll never forgive you!”
Dowoon quickly slid on his slippers and stepped out his front door, calling out to his mom that he’d be back soon. It was late at night, and the moon hung brightly in the sky. The door shut behind him as Dowoon walked towards Wonpil’s house, notebook in hand. It was only several blocks away, around a 5-minute walk, but the humid air clung to Dowoon’s skin, and he could feel himself starting to sweat.
The streetlights illuminated the dark street as Dowoon approached Wonpil’s front door. Summoning his courage, he scrunched up his eyes and quickly rang the doorbell. Wonpil’s mother opened the door and looked pleasantly surprised when she saw Dowoon at the door.
“Hi Dowoonie, Wonpil isn’t at home right now, he went out for a walk at the old playground.”
“Thank you, Ms. Kim.” Dowoon bowed his head. “How did you know I was looking for Wonpil?”
Wonpil’s mother laughed. “If you’re not looking for him, who in the world are you looking for?”
“N-no, I was looking for Wonpil” Dowoon’s ears burned, and he found it hard to piece his words together. “Thank you so much, I’ll go find him right now.”
Clutching Wonpil’s notebook to his chest, Dowoon followed the familiar path from Wonpil’s house to the playground. Turning the corner, he found Wonpil sitting alone on the swings, his face illuminated in the dark by the light of his phone screen.
Wonpil heard the gate of the playground creak open and looked up to see Dowoon, shock written all over his face. “Dowoon?”
“H-hey Wonpil” Dowoon cleared his throat nervously. “Sorry for interrupting whatever you were doing.”
“It was nothing,” Wonpil replied, “You were looking for me?”
“Yes,” Dowoon held out the math notebook in his hand. “You left this at my house last week.”
Wonpil’s shoulders slumped a little as he took the book as if he had expected Dowoon to say something else. “Thanks then.”
They fell into silence, not knowing what to do. The sounds of crickets chirping filled the air.
Wanting to break the awkward atmosphere, Dowoon blurted out “Do you want to get ice cream?”
-
“Thanks for paying,” Wonpil told Dowoon after tearing open the plastic wrapping on his spoon.
Since it was already quite late, only the convenience store was open. The two boys sat inside eating their ice cream and looking out the window.
Dowoon smiled a little. “It’s nothing, I was scared you wouldn’t forgive me”
“What do you mean? I wasn’t even mad at you in the first place.”
“Really?”
The bright store lights made Wonpil’s reddening cheeks even more obvious. Dowoon thought that he was still hot from sitting outside on the swings and wiped the tomato-colored boy’s forehead with a tissue. The cashier sitting behind the counter a meter away from them looked away, feeling like she was intruding on an intimate moment.
“Why did you think I was mad at you?” Wonpil asked, trying not to make eye contact.
“Because you…” Dowoon bit his lip, his voice as quiet as a mouse. “You didn’t come and look for me anymore.”
“Couldn’t you have looked for me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Since-” Dowoon thought about it for a moment. “I was scared you’d get even angrier.”
“But I really wasn’t angry!” Wonpil raised his voice, then quickly remembered they weren’t alone in the store and looked around embarrassedly.
“But I really wasn’t angry!” Wonpil repeated, quieter this time. “It was just a personal problem, nothing to do with you.”
Even after hearing that it had nothing to do with him, Dowoon still felt the need to apologize. “It should be me who says sorry. I thought about it, and when I become friends with someone and is close to them, I like to hug them and have body contact with them. Before I was always sticking to you, and I might have made you uncomfortable… Sorry about that.”
Wonpil tilted his head confusedly. “You thought I was mad at you because of that?”
“You mean that’s not the reason?”
“How could it be?” Wonpil exclaimed, “I didn’t think it was uncomfortable at-” He covered his mouth looking like he said something he wasn’t supposed to.
“Huh?” Dowoon paused, his spoon of ice cream frozen halfway to his mouth, “Why is that?”
Wonpil cleared his throat. “Forget it. It isn’t that important, the problem’s settled now and that’s what matters”
“That’s good. I was really was worried for the last few days, I thought you were never going to talk to me again.” Dowoon breathed a sigh of relief, “Even Nayeon doesn’t treat me as nicely as you, actually she likes to tease-”
Wonpil’s smile stilled a little, “Nayeon this, Nayeon that, you really do like Nayeon, don’t you?”
“Of course, why wouldn’t I?” Dowoon was obviously bewildered.
Wonpil stood up from his chair and tossed his now-empty cup of ice cream in the bin. “Go talk to her then,” He walked to the door and opened it with a little more force than deemed necessary. “Don’t go looking for me anymore!”
The door slammed shut as Wonpil walked out, leaving Dowoon sitting in the store with the cashier with identical, confused faces.
Dowoon looked back at the cashier. “Did I say something wrong?”
-
Dowoon couldn’t get his head around Wonpil. If Wonpil had ignored him before, for the past few days Wonpil had been actively avoiding him. No matter where he was or who he was with, once he saw Dowoon he would turn right in the opposite direction, even if the other were a distance away.
“Did he really say that?”Nayeon asked after listening to a play-by-play account of what happened that day. “You really are an idiot, aren't you.”
“Can’t you tell me why he’s doing this? I don’t know what to do…”
“How can you still not know?”Nayeon clearly was tired of dealing with the boy’s shit. “He’s jealous!”
“Jealous? What do you mean?” Dowoon was still confused.
Nayeon shook her head, wondering how in the world did she get this idiot as a friend. “Think about it. Why is it that whenever you mention me he’d get mad? Why do you think whenever he sees me with you he gets upset? That was the whole point of the ‘no physical contact when Wonpil is around’ rule, how do you still not get it? He’s jealous!”
Hearing Nayeon’s rant, a lightbulb lit in Dowoon’s head. How did he not figure it out before? All the signs were there, why didn’t he notice!
Wonpil still likes Nayeon!
“I’ll go explain to him right now!” Dowoon said with confidence, “I’ll tell him I would never steal you from him! You and I are just close friends!”
And with that, he turned and ran out of the classroom door.
Nayeon facepalmed and yelled after him. “Wait! That’s not it! Dowoon come back here!”
-
Wonpil sat in the bleachers after shooting some hoops, sipping his water while sweat dripped down his face. It had been more than a week since he had started avoiding Dowoon (again), and now it all felt a little over the top. The two had just gotten back together, and now Wonpil had ruined all that. Why did he care so much anyways? Dowoon wasn’t his in the first place.
Wonpil put down his water and stood up. Basketball in hand, he made his way back to his classroom but stopped when he saw Dowoon coming towards him.
Dowoon’s face was flushed as if he’d been running for a while, and once he saw Wonpil a million apologies spilled out of his mouth. Looking at the flustered boy in front of him, Wonpil’s heart softened and he decided to tell Dowoon the truth about his feelings.
But he didn’t expect the next sentence that came out of Dowoon’s mouth would be: “I really didn’t know you still liked Nayeon, I’m so sorry!”
“Sorry, what did you just say?” Wonpil nearly dropped the ball in his hands.
“It’s a good thing that I know now!” Dowoon smiled that small awkward smile of his. “I came to explain to you, could you stop ignoring me now?”
Wonpil just stared at him. “Yoon. Do. Woon.”
“What?”
Wonpil paused for a moment and inhaled deeply.
“How are you so dense? You’re the person I like!”
“……”
“……”
“…What?”
When Dowoon’s mind finally processed what Wonpil was saying, he turned, and ran away.
-
It had been two days since Dowoon started avoiding Wonpil. Wonpil lifted his pen and crossed out the date on his calendar.
Now the person who was doing the avoiding was Dowoon, and now no matter where he was or who he was with, once Dowoon saw Wonpil he would turn right in the opposite direction, even if the other were a distance away. It was ironic, really.
Wonpil stopped Nayeon as she walked down the corridor, trying to ask her to help with the situation. Nayeon just laughed at him, saying “Oh god, I don’t even know if I should feel sorry for you or not.”
“Couldn’t you help explain to him?” Wonpil whined.
“Explain what?” Nayeon raised an eyebrow, “I won’t help anymore, I’m tired of it.”
“Not even a little?”
Nayeon sighed. “Listen to me. Dowoon isn’t going to talk to you until he figures his feelings out, so either you go up to him, or have him avoid you for the next few months.”
So Wonpil went.
He swore to himself that this was his last chance. If Dowoon didn’t want to be friends with him after what he’d done, he'd leave him alone. Wonpil found the other boy sitting in his classroom, earphones in, staring into space. He cleared his throat.
“Could I talk to you?”
-
Wonpil led Dowoon to the equipment room, one of the only places they could have privacy. Dowoon didn’t have any other choice than to go with him, so he followed with hesitant steps.
Wonpil shut the door, looking around to see if anyone else was inside. Once he confirmed they were alone, he looked at Dowoon.
“Yoon Dowoon.”
“Hey” Dowoon replied awkwardly, trying to look at anything other than Wonpil.
“I want to ask you a question.”
“…Then ask it”
“I know you like Nayeon, your mom, your dad, your dog, your friends and all that… But I just want to ask…” Wonpil shuffled his feet and continued hesitantly, “What about me?”
“In your heart, do I take up even just a little space?”
Dowoon was fiddled with the side of his shirt and didn’t say a word.
It was silent for a couple of seconds, and right when Wonpil thought Dowoon was going to run away again, he heard the other boy say something softly.
“You do…”
“What did you just say?”
Dowoon seemed to gather up his confidence and looked at Wonpil straight in the eyes.
“You do take up space. I just had to think about it for the last few days, and I thought about it, and I found out I might…” He breathed in and paused for a couple seconds, trying to find the right words. “I can’t say it out loud.”
“No problem! Then I’ll ask you!” Wonpil seemed to get what Dowoon was trying to say, and his heart pounded like a drum in his chest.
“Do you hate me?”
“I don’t.”
“Could we go back to how we were before?”
“Yes”
“Have you done your homework yet?”
“Huh? Yes, I have…”
“Then do you like me?”
The tips of Dowoon’s ears went bright red and he turned and buried his face into the wall.
“What type of question is that?” His voice was almost inaudible.
“Come on, say it,” Wonpil tapped him on the shoulder. “I want to hear it, don’t ignore me, Dowoon are you just leading me on? I must be not important at all to you since you’re not even telling me this-”
“…No!” Dowoon turned around and tried his best to explain, “I quite…”
“You quite what?” Wonpil tried to hold back his smile. “I didn’t hear you!”
“I quite… like…”
“You quite like me right?” Wonpil couldn’t resist a laugh as he ruffled Dowoon’s hair, “You’re too cute.”
Dowoon stayed silent, too shy to reply.
“Should we eat lunch together later?”
“Okay”
“Then after school do you want to train with me?”
“Sure”
“Could I not be your friend anymore?”
“What?”
“Could I be your boyfriend?”