Different (1/1)

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Spring had give way to summer now, and the weather was getting warmer time by time. Summer had always been a great season for me, I was a summer baby, and summer also marked the anticipated Family Day of my father’s company. Every summer, I got to spend my time alone with Joon. Oops, I forgot about Jihye again. However, I was not that jolly at all this summer. My situation with Junhyung hadn’t progressed that much since the C-Day. What was the C-Day, if you may ask? C is for chocolate. C-Day referred to the day Junhyung gave me the chocolate bar, the same day I was called a bitch, I was accused to be pregnant, I found out that Junhyung had feelings for me, and the day Junhyung decided to become a stone in front of me.  Yes, I literally meant stone. After walking away from me at the library, he hardly said anything to me the days after that, even though he was sitting right behind me in class. He spoke very few words when we were discussing our English assignment, just enough for us to work on the project. And I could tell that he purposely avoiding himself from talking to me. There was one time when I was animatedly joking with Hyunseung, and he was right there beside us listening to everything, and Hyunseung tried to include him in our conversation, and he just stood up and walked away. Just like that. I mean, what the heck?  And there was this time when we were passing our test results, and everyone was joking with each other about how horrible our marks were, and as I was passing his paper to him, he immediately turned his smile into a frown. Like I didn’t catch that, Yong Junhyung. And he didn’t call me by my name anymore. He called me Lee, and if he was in a good mood, which was seldom, he would call me Lee Hani. And I’d call him Yong or Yong Junhyung back. If he was trying to be formal with me, I could do the same for him. Phft, like I cared, Yong! Okay, I did care. It troubled me a lot to know that he was trying to ignore my presence around him. I always felt special when I was with him, I always felt that he treated me differently compared to our other female classmates. I thought it was because I got to be closer with him as we were project partners, but since I knew he had feelings for me, the case became clearer. And now, I wanted the attention back as I somewhat felt empty without his attention on me. But then, contrary to Yong Stone-Cold Junhyung, I was actually getting closer to Joon since the C-Day. We met each other frequently, during and after school, he would lent me his ears if I ever needed to release my stress over Junhyung, he walked me home every day, and he would send me at least a good night message before he went to sleep. He wasn’t acting lovey dovey with me (yet), but I liked the way our relationship was progressing. “Hey, are you excited for Saturday?” Joon said to me one day while we were walking back from school. Our father’s annual Family Day would be held that weekend.“I guess. Are you?”“Heck yes! I can hardly wait!”He gave me the greatest grin, and he slung his right arm around my shoulders. I could feel the familiar blush slowly spreading on my cheeks.“What are you so excited about? We are going to spend another weekend on another beach, like we did every year, Joon.”“Yes, we will, but it is different this year.”He was still grinning ear to ear.“Different? I don’t think there is any different from the previous years.”“There will be. Do you know why?” We stopped walking, and he was looking at me attentively.“Why?”“It is because, Hani, you and I, we have become different this time around.”He dropped his arm from my shoulders, his hand was fast reaching for my hand, grabbing it swiftly. He was looking at me enquiringly, waiting for my reaction. My heart went babump, I was sure the faint blush I had on my cheeks turned into crimson, and my lips keenly formed into a shy smile. I didn’t decline his hand. He tightened his grip on my hand, he was almost skipping in joy, his smile couldn’t be wider.“Let’s go home fast. We have a lot to pack, right?”I just nodded, unable to look at him, because I knew if I did, my chest could never stand the fast thumpings of my heart right now.“Y-yeah,” was all I managed to say, and we walked home hand in hand, while imagining the weekend we were about to spend, differently this time.