As the season of Spring came to an anti-climatic end, we were left on the brink of an eventful summer.  I turned twenty-one on the second of June, matching his age at long last. On the peek of adulthood, at the end of spring, on the beginning of my twenty-first year, I felt fourteen all over again.

Puberty hit me like a train crash.

I became a woman for the second time.

At the end of this fateful summer, I said goodbye to my twenty-year-old self. So long my predetermined love. Farewell to the hesitant, cowardly, ignorant me.

I have him to thank for that: Kim Jongin.

But, before I do, I have to experience it first.

“Happy belated Birthday.”

He slid the white box across the table’s surface towards me without another word, retracting his hand right after in order to take another sip of his juice. I eyed him suspiciously as I picked it up, mumbling, “I told you you didn’t have to get me anything,” inspecting it for a moment before opening it anyway. I looked between the unknown item and him, brown splotches amidst a yellow expanse so odd at first glance, I wasn’t sure what it was at first.

He merely shrugged, lips wrapped around the straw of his drink as he leaned back in his chair, waiting for my reaction. Since university had come to a close for summer vacation, we had rediscovered each other: Jongin and I. More accurately, he heard about my break up with Taemin. He chose to keep quiet about it. We met up at the dance room coincidentally not-so coincidentally one afternoon, on the last day of exams – I’d be lying if I said I didn’t go looking for him there. So then, after a somber reunion followed by clever quips, witty remarks, and cunning ways to ignore our past, let’s label them as “disagreements,” we became “friends” again.

Just like that.

Just like that, he spoke up to clear my confusion, supplying me with the information of, “It’s a giraffe,” as though I didn’t know.

“I can see that.” I retorted, throwing him what I imagine to be a crooked, sarcastic smile, reaching in and picking up the small plush animal by the black strap atop its head. It was a cellphone charm. But why? “But why?”

He didn’t answer my question specifically, referring to the obvious fact regarding it by going back to its species name instead, “It’s like you. Long legs. A long neck. It stands out so much in a crowd you could spot it from far off, quite literally.” He nodded to himself as he seemingly wallowed in his own pride, his own cunning thoughts that led him to choose such a, to him, well-suited birthday present, before he declared, “It suits you, a giraffe.”

Still, I couldn’t quite tell if he was insulting me or not.

“Should I be happy about that?” I joked.

He nodded, smiling at me from across the table that separated us in this small coffee shop, and I only realized then that I was smiling too, “I hope you are.”

I turned to my phone at my side, reaching out for it before fiddling with it for a while. Soon enough, I lifted it from between my two hands, presenting it to myself and to Jongin.

The giraffe swung back and forth in the air under the dim lights, looking much better than I thought it would. And I thought, in that moment, I wouldn’t mind being a giraffe. With long legs, I could go wherever I wanted. With a long neck, I could see above everything. With a flashy coat, I would stand out immediately to those who were looking for me. How simple would everything be then?

So simple, I wouldn’t mind being a giraffe.

“Let’s go out,” he had said as we parted ways yesterday afternoon. He had kind of blurted it, really. It had no context, really. So, when he provided it with such, when he explained it with, “It’s been awhile since I’ve gone jogging and I’m feeling a bit more prone to procrastination that involves sitting on the couch and eating fried chicken for breakfast. So let’s meet at the park tomorrow and go out running,” I could only manage, in a voice depicting my disbelief with his straight-forward, no-holds-barred statement, “Really?”

Really, how could I refuse when he appealed to my general disposition towards comedic relief? I always fall for comedy. For a laugh. For a smile. For a jog: is what I went to the park with Jongin for. For a jog, I didn’t understand why he was, five laps around the park in, heaving and huffing this way and that – it’s as though he wasn’t exaggerating about having delivery chicken for breakfast.

He reached forward, tugging on the hem of my white tee, stopping me in my tracks. I turned, jogging in place to the beat of the music pumping through my headphones, asking him what was wrong through the act of my eyes scanning up and down his bent over form in wonder.

He said something I couldn’t hear, the bass line of my music too loud.

“What?” I shouted, having to strain my voice to even hear myself. I knew the proper thing was to pull out my headphones before yelling at him such an oblivious question, but I couldn’t help but . I couldn’t help but smile as he reached forward, his hand grabbing onto my headphones and yanking them out of my ears with a visible scowl forming both on his lips and between his brows.

“Your stamina,” he started impatiently, I assume repeating what he said previously judging from the glare he gave me as he hunched over again, palms balancing on his shins, “it’s inhuman.”

“Naw,” I shook my head, making my ponytail sway back and forth, sweeping against the expanse of my neck, “I’m just channeling my inner giraffe.”

He jeered, creating a noise that sounded like a sarcastic laugh garbled by a strangled gasp for air.

I stepped towards him, rubbing my hand on his back to soothe whatever his lungs were currently going through. Because, as he said, my stamina is a bit better than the norm. I could only sympathize with his pain, my memory of what it felt like to have your lungs seemingly reaching above your head for oxygen no longer strong enough to draw upon.

“You want to take a break?” I whispered.

He shook his head, speaking in a hushed tone as he curved his back, molding into my outstretched palm, “No, it’s okay. You can go on ahead.”

I caught sight of his face, his pained expression along with it, and followed his eyes as he stood up straight again, breathing more steadily now, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He nodded my way, though I remained hesitant, worried about leaving him even though he could take care of himself, worried he’d leave me because of that very fact. Right then, my headphones which lay dangling from his fingers begun to play Biz Markie’s Just A Friend, and at the sound of said rapper’s blunt opening of, “Have you ever met a girl that you tried to date,” we broke our momentary staring contest. The irony of it all was enough to make me crack a smile. And, despite Jongin’s limited skills when it came to English, judging from the laugh that exploded from his aching lungs, he had a fairly good idea what Biz Markie just asked him.

“Why are you just standing there? I said it’s okay already. I’ll catch up when you come back around.” Reaching up and plugging my headphones back into my ears, he yelled atop the smooth tune, “Go, giraffe, go.”

I scoffed, pushing him away from me, the distance between us much closer than I remembered it being moments ago, “I’m going, I’m going.”

I don’t remember what I thought about as I jogged away. Maybe something about how happy I was. How content and comfortable I felt. How I couldn’t imagine myself pre-Jongin, pre-giraffe. Or, maybe I didn’t think about anything at all. Maybe I was just jogging down the path, one foot in front of the other, following the winding path as bicycles whizzed by and fellow park-goers went about their business.

As the last chorus line of Just A Friend drummed against my ears, Biz Markie’s voice longingly dragging out a throat scratching, “You,” one bike among many rode past, ringing its bell, the owner turning back to spare a glance at me, Biz seemingly reading my mind as he sang out, “you got what I need.”

And in that millisecond, as the future of my summer lay out before me in the form of a late 80s rap song, on the shoulders of Kim Jongin, who spared a glance at me as he raced down the bike lane of the track, leaving me to eat his dust, quite literally, I signed off on my fate.

“You!”’ I yelled immediately, along with a few other choice words as he rode of into the horizon on his rented silver chariot, laughing maniacally, arms held out as he glided down the small hill before us.

He captured me, enraptured me, ensnared me then. 

He caught me in between the space from one fingertip to the other, my long legs struggling to keep up with him. To chase him down. To smile and to laugh.

But I say he’s just a friend.

But I say he’s just a friend.

Spreading his limbs, stretching each aching muscle in his legs as much as he could, he groaned loudly, complaining, “So tired.”

I rolled my eyes, taking a swig of my water bottle before reaching down and picking his up from the ground, gesturing it to him with a vengeful, “Says the guy who bailed and rode a bike for the last three laps.”

He pretended he didn’t hear me, taking the water bottle and hugging it to his chest. “So,” and he leaned to his left slowly but surely as he dragged out that one word, looking like the Tower of Pisa, teetering over the edge of complete destruction, his head finding my shoulder as he breathed out a grumbling, “tired.”

“Get off,” I shrugged him off of me, scooting further down the bench we had decided to catch our breaths on, today’s morning workout ending, the day’s afternoon sunset setting in, “You’re sweaty and sticky.”

I wasn’t looking at him, not exactly. I was glancing at the park’s inhabitants. At the trees planted here and there. The dogs that ran beside their owners. The children who rode their bikes with their friends. The couples walking hand in hand, discussing this and that. I wasn’t looking at him, exactly. But, from the corner of my eye, I could see him. I could see him smiling, because he knew I was joking.

Smiling – because he then proceeded to joke right back.

“Says the girl who jogged the entire time.”

Stubbornly, he closed the distance between us again, burying his thick head of twisted, blond knots into the crook of my neck. He mentioned something about how I must be cold-blooded, because how else would cuddling up to me feel so refreshing? I complained about it being too hot. He called me a liar, laughing that laugh that made his eyes disappear, laugh lines lifting his cheek bones upwards into the sky, and displayed his entire set of pearly whites for the world to see. I told him I was serious, and he gave into my preferences.

I wasn’t lying. I wasn’t joking. It was hot. Already, it was too hot.

“Hey, Jongin?” I managed after clearing my throat, pretending to look down at my running shoe clad feet, watching him from my peripheral instead. I usually didn’t feel this hesitant around him. I usually wouldn’t even bother to mention what I had planned to. I usually couldn’t think in such a complicated, jumbled manner when I was with him. Usually, I didn’t, wouldn’t, and couldn’t. But I had a feeling that right now, our situation was anything but usual.

He hummed in response, his lips busying themselves with taking another sip from his water bottle.

“Are you still dating that second year?”

He lowered his water, pondering the question for a moment, as though it didn’t have a definite answer. His eyes focused on anywhere and anything but me, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, precariously dangling his water bottle between two fingers. Then, after awhile, after he seemingly found a way to phrase his words correctly, he turned to me and said, “Naw. We broke up a little before you and Taemin did. Two weeks, maybe?”

I figured as much. Things wouldn’t be back to how they used to be if he hadn’t. We wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t have the time to be. We wouldn’t have excuses not to be. In other words, Jongin wouldn’t be my “friend” again, just like he used to be.

“Really?” I questioned, despite not doubting him in the least.

“Really.” He replied, mimicking me, because my question sounded less like a question and more like a statement.

More like an easy way to fill the silence that then followed, even if for just a millisecond. We sat there, together, staring at the view in front of us. Not saying a word. It wasn’t an uncomfortable moment. It was just a moment. A moment of self-reflection that allowed us time to pull ourselves together again. To carefully sweep away the shattered glass of our collision. Because he was just as fragile as I was, he couldn’t ask his next question easily without the help of a little silence proceeding it.

“Hey,” he still didn’t look at me, his voice distant, so distant I would have thought the question was for himself had he not said it out loud, “why’d you break up with Taemin?”

It didn’t take me long to formulate an answer. It was one I thought long and hard regarding. So much so, as I practiced it almost every night since three weeks ago, when university ended for summer vacation, when I broke up with Lee Taemin, my boyfriend of over five months, I was able to say it without stuttering or pausing.

Without feeling hopeless hope.

With a renewed feeling of freedom. So much different than the cathartic feeling of sprinting across a large, restricted patch of green grass. So much better for me, in the end.

“Remember what you said before, about us changing each other for the better?” He nods, so I continue, “I don’t disagree. But I also don’t think any amount of change could keep us together.”

“I get it.”

He said, though with the kind of long period of wordlessness following it that made me question if the statement was shallow or deep. A question I soon received an answer to, once more proving that Jongin and I are two peas in a pod. That he always understood me and my miniscule struggles – in the grand scheme of things. That he always knew what to say to make me rise and fall. And he chose to make me rise then, to comfort his fellow companion stuck in this pod of ours, in our perpetual collision course.

“But he really liked you.” He didn’t look at me, he just sort of stared off into space, his head sinking back down onto my shoulder, a heavy sigh leaving his pale, parted lips, “I just thought you should know that.”

“I really liked him, too.” I leaned my head onto the top of his in turn, the smell of salty sweat filling my lungs and fluffy tufts of blond tickling at my lips, “Really.”

We were walking down the city sidewalk, arm in arm. Talking about the little things. Commenting on the silly things. Laughing at both. The moon had already risen into the night sky, the nightlife of the capital bustling around us. Family members, friends, and couples all enjoying the fact that the sun was no longer looking to torture us all with its hot, summer rays.

But the time for us to part ways was coming soon. Just a few blocks down and I’d take a right, and he’d keep going straight. Our families’ homes were much farther apart when looked at in retrospect to the distance between the male and female university dorms. And yet, neither of us said a word about it. We’d most likely see each other tomorrow anyway. For lunch, maybe. If not, then at least two days or, at the most, three days from now, we’d go jogging again – and we did. However, there was no denying the fact that for tonight, in the next five or so minutes, we wouldn’t see each other again.

And maybe that’s what prompted it, as I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket and checked the time, that plush giraffe phone charm dangling back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Jongin decided we shouldn’t go back and forth anymore. That he wanted me to follow him straight down the star lit rode, the stores and the streetlamps providing a view of that which we couldn’t see above the crowded city.

He turned to me, called my name, stopped us right there, smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk, and gave me a choice. A choice to turn right or blindly jog onward.

“Let’s go out,” he said.

And I knew what he meant.

And I didn’t have to clarify anything with a silence filling, “Really.”

And I, simply, said, “Okay.”