Make A Wish
Make A Wish
Gongchan/Krystal
Romance | 1166 words
-- I dedicate this to mekimigure the proud captain of this expanding ship ♥
I like you.
It’s his 999th note for her (note, not letter as it contains only that one sentence and nothing else). He writes for her everyday ever since he first saw her 999 days ago, one note a day, each bearing the same three words, each he folded into paper cranes which he keeps in a glass jar under his bed. He sent none of them, though, and he doesn’t really have a definite reason for his action (or rather lack of action).
It’s been nine hundred and ninety-nine days since Chanshik has fallen in love with Soojung. He personally thinks that it’s funny how he could fall for someone like her, beautiful and seemingly perfect in a princess way, but detached and somewhat broken, but still beautiful regardless. He finds her fascinating. Junghwan tells him she’s out of his league, Sunwoo says he’s being ridiculous, Jinyoung only smiles and tells him to go for it and he wonders if Jinyoung really means it. After all he’s Chanshik, the shy, quiet Chanshik, a wallflower who blends in the background but observes everything carefully and silently as described by Jinyoung.
It’s been two years, eight months, and twenty-five days since Gong Chanshik has fallen in love with Jung Soojung. Or Krystal, as he once heard one of her few close friends calls her, but he prefers Soojung. He thinks Krystal is the fiercely independent girl at school, the one who seems to have thick walls built around her. Soojung, on the other hand, is the girl who gives up her seat to the elderly on the bus with a genuine smile on her face, the one who goes to McDonald’s and orders the largest set on the menu when she feels homesick (but she doesn’t go there as frequently now, and he wonders if she had started to think of Korea as her home), the one who orders black coffee and sits on the farthest corner of the café and makes the weirdest face as she takes a sip because that’s how she likes to express herself when she’s alone.
(Chanshik knows all of these because he follows her around after school. He likes to think it’s his way of keeping an eye on her, wanting to keep her safe because who knows what could happen out there, rather than being called a stalker.)
They are here at the café again today. Today he ‘accompanied’ her to see the new chick flick at the cinema. Afterwards they had lunch at a noodle restaurant and she eats her meal overlooking the window while he sits at a table far back where he thinks she won’t see him and quietly enjoys his chicken noodle soup. Then they went for a stroll around the streets on Insadong. She stopped by at a stall selling accessories but bought nothing. He stopped by at the same stall and bought a hairpin she picked up earlier and shoved it into the pocket of his coat. By the time they arrived at the café, the sun had long called it a day.
He looks up from the homework he laid out on the table he pretends to be doing just in time to see that grimace on her face again. He quietly chuckles and marvels on the question whether she would get tired of this little game of hers first before she could get used to the bitterness of the coffee. He looks at the note resting on top of the book in front of him and starts folding it. It’s his 999th and on his 1000th he can make a wish. It’s not that he believes that it will come true, but there’s no harm in trying, he thinks. Halfway, his fingers start moving on his own as his thought floats away, remembering the other 998 paper cranes under his bed. What oh what should he wish for? He remembers his grades that barely pass the average mark, but he figures if he puts in more effort and perhaps with a little help from Lady Luck, he will manage to get pass that. He peeks at his old shoes which he has worn ever since he started school, but then school is ending soon anyway.
Maybe, just maybe, he can wish for some courage. Their final examination is around the corner, and soon graduation will follow. And after school ends, he won’t be able to…
Chanshik looks up again and darted his eyes to her seat, but to his surprise Soojung is gone. He didn’t even hear the small bells on the entrance door rang. With a sigh, he glances at his watch. It’s three minutes past midnight, no wonder she’s heading back. Chanshik didn’t realize how time flew, but then he recalls a saying on how time passes quickly when we spend it doing something we love with someone we love. He smiles, then takes out a new note and scribbles another I like you. Like, not love, because although he does think his feeling for her is nothing like a normal crush, he’s afraid love is too much and too early. After all they are just two strangers. He doubts that she even knows his name.
He carefully folds the note into another paper crane, his 1000th paper crane. With his eyes closed and the crane in his clasp, he makes a wish.
“Excuse me?”
Slowly he opens his eyes and silently he hopes to see Soojung in front of him, but it’s not. Of course, he sighs, but still manages to flash a smile at the waitress standing before him. “Are you closing?” he asks.
“No, not that. We’re open 24/7, in fact. It’s just that…” she trails off and he watches as he hand fishes out something from her apron’s front pocket. “I was asked to hand this to you,” she says, giving him a piece of paper folded into a plane.
Chanshik accepts it, dazed and confused, without asking further. Like who’s the sender? Instead, he lets the waitress leaves and retreats to the kitchen. Perhaps this is why he is hopeless, and why he always gets teased by his friends.
Just as he is about to slip it among the pages of his book, something inside his brain yells out an order for him to unfold the plane. Thankfully he listens, and he straightens up the paper only to find a short message written inside, its handwriting beautiful and resembles that of a princess even though he has never seen any princesses’ handwritings before.
How about a real date instead of you following far behind me like a stalker?
Soojung
Life is funny, he decides. It surprises you when you least expect it, like finding a rainbow in the sky although it didn’t rain; like falling for someone and realizing that they might like you back; like not having your wish made on one thousand paper cranes granted, but being presented with a far better gift.