⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺
I think Heaven will be like a first kiss.
. ✦ .

Areum

“Seriously? Vanilla?” Jungkook’s jaw drops in disbelief when I choose my flavor, and I confirm for the third time, bobbing my head up and down.

Reluctantly, he buys me a double scoop vanilla ice cream and buys himself a rocky road double scoop with extra nuts, bits of chopped brownie and fudge sauce on top. His ice cream does look a little tempting, but I must admit that it’s much too complicated for my taste. I always like my ice creams simple and smooth in texture, and I prefer to stick to the basic vanilla unless there’s another flavor that I find extremely worth trying.

With the ice cream cones in our hands, we walk beside each other, slowly licking away and savoring the creaminess. Jungkook seems totally lost in his double scoop, tilting his head to one side to bite into a small chunk of brownie that was at the edge of the cone.

His enthusiasm for food makes me smile, and he notices it on our walk down the long and narrow alleyway bordered on both sides by tall brick buildings whose walls are festooned with contemporary street art. Surprisingly, the alley doesn’t smell of urine, but we don’t stop to analyze and appreciate any of the artwork adorning its walls.

“Sorry I never asked. Do you want a bite?” He extends his cone to me, his lips gathering into a cute smile as he chews a mouthful of the chunky elements in his ice cream.

“Sure.” I accept, finding no reason to turn down this tempting offer.

We stop walking, and with the cone still held in his hand, I lean forward and lick away a bit, collecting a piece of brownie and a tiny piece of marshmallow as well. While doing so, I don’t even realize that I’ve held out my cone from which Jungkook steals a bite in the blink of an eye.

“How’s it?” He raises his eyebrows at me, the smile on his lips appearing more like a cheeky smirk now.

“Too good.” I hum and nod in approval, using my thumb to wipe away a small smear of ice cream from the corner of my mouth.

“Do you want to swap? I love yours.” His question, though it sounded innocent, is accompanied by a kind of intensity in his gaze which says otherwise.

There’s absolutely no innocence to it, and given that we’ve both licked away our respective ice creams from every side, by swapping them, we’d be saliva-sharing. Which is an indirect kiss. And his intention behind this is surely not because he loves the vanilla ice cream, going by how his expressions were outright scandalous when I picked the flavor.

A bolt of thrill rolls down my spine, and my breathing quickens while I keep staring deep into his eyes as if infected by his steady and penetrating gaze.

Jungkook catches my entranced faint nod, silently swapping our cones thereafter. While I watch him, he wraps his lips around the ice cream that was mine all this while. It makes me feel a weird sensation within my stomach.

The way he eats it in a sensually tempting manner, makes me feel like there wouldn’t be another sight that I could fall more in love with. With my heart still beating a little out of rhythm, I lick and take a bite of Jungkook’s half-eaten rocky road.

It tastes divine, which I’m pretty sure is because he has eaten half of it, and, a completely unwarranted and visceral thought makes me wonder what he would taste like.

Probably like a mix of chocolate and vanilla if I kissed him right now.

My eyes drop to his pretty lips, memorizing the way they sink into the ice cream, enveloping it and picking up a mouthful. I conclude hands down that Jungkook has the most desirable and attractive pair of lips with a slightly thinner upper lip and a comparatively fuller lower lip. Adding to all my problems of the moment, he swipes his tongue over his lips, causing a breath so heavy to rush out of my lungs that it makes me feel giddy.

Gosh! Is he doing this on purpose?

My thoughts are scattered wildly as if a storm blew away the fallen leaves, making them swirl into restless circles, and I don’t even realize how long I’ve been staring at his lips until I lift my eyes to his eyes and catch his gaze dead set on me. I choke out a small laugh that comes out mixed with nervousness and embarrassment, trying my best to focus only on the rocky road ice cream that I’d have to finish eating soon to prevent it from melting and flowing all over my fingers.

“Never knew you’d look so cute eating an ice cream.” Jungkook’s comment, so sudden like a bolt out of the blue sky, makes me almost choke on what was supposed to go down my throat.

I manage a smile despite the heavy fluttering within my chest, but his expressions are a little too much on the serious side. Apparently, that wasn’t a joke. I think he meant it going by the intensity burning in his eyes. However, it feels like my tongue is finding it hard to form words at the moment.

“Why are you so silent?” He drills deeper, unwilling to make the situation any easier for me.

“Nothing,” I say with a smile. “Just trying to finish this before it melts.” I deliberately keep my eyes trained only on the ice cream.

Was that I who said it? Because my own voice just sounded so foreign to me.

“Areum,” Jungkook’s insistent voice summons my eyes on him. “Truth or truth.” His voice lowers, and then he takes a big and crunchy bite of the cone in his hand.

I don’t give him an answer because there’s no choice for me to make. It’s ‘truth or truth’. His demeanor gives away that he is well prepared for whatever he’s about to ask next.

“What were you thinking just a moment ago?” He asks, taking another big bite out of the cone which is now just a small inch from disappearing.

I shiver in excitement, silently swallowing the bite I took out of my cone, not intending to play it unfair by covering up the truth. But voicing out my thoughts would also be an indecent thing to do.

“You can’t lie.” Jungkook cements the only condition of the game as if he just read my mind, popping the last bit of his cone into his mouth thereafter.

“It was something I can’t- I mean…” My hands grow freezing cold, and my legs begin to tremble a little when he takes a step closer to me. “It’s kind of a secret.” I whisper, staring up at him, my pupils wide with nervousness.

“A secret?” His eyes narrow lightly. “Please tell me what it is.” Jungkook whispers, his warm breath now fanning my face.

I bite into the last part of my ice cream cone, chewing the little bit while trying to decide how to tell him the unholy stuff I was thinking about a while ago.

What if he turns me down or worse still laughs at my thoughts?

But wasn’t he the one who hinted at a kiss by swapping ice creams?

It takes me a moment to convince myself to bare my thoughts to him.

“I was thinking how good your ice cream tasted.” The first part of my train of thoughts from moments ago chugs out of my mouth.

“That’s all?” Jungkook tilts his head a little to one side, almost like he’s challenging my honesty.

“And... I was thinking how you would taste.” I confess in a whisper, my shy eyes avoiding him at all costs, and a furious heat spreading all over my cheeks.

“Do you want to find out now?”

My eyes, wide with shock, nervousness and anticipation, shoot up to him. He sounded super confident, but he definitely appears nervous, too, as seen from how he’s taking rapid breaths. His eyes refuse to blink as well, testifying his stance.

Did he just ask me that??!?!?!

“You gotta be kidding me.” I chuckle out of extreme nervousness, but Jungkook doesn’t laugh along. “Here?” My voice is airy and timid with a slight shudder.

Jungkook glances around, twisting his neck from one side to the other and making sure it’s just us in this alley before he brings his Bambi eyes back to me.

“Yeah. Why not?” His question drops like a stone in the silence between us, and I swear it felt like my heart flipped in place.

My first kiss? Oh my GOD!

I keep my hands on my sides, not knowing where else to put them while Jungkook dips his neck lightly, bringing one hand to cup my jaw. I gulp, my mind torn between wanting to keep my eyes open and pulling them shut to keep my nerves in control. However, when he gets too close, I give in and close my eyes, feeling the softness of his lips touch mine a little hesitantly, as if unsure of how much pressure to use. My heart stops beating, absorbing the sensation like a sponge for a couple of seconds before it resumes hammering within my chest.

His lips are still cold from the ice cream, and his hand on my jaw is also cold. I stand frozen, unable to even think what to do next even though I’ve fantasized a lot about my first kiss in recent times.

Jungkook leans back in the blink of an eye before I can make up my mind, and the contradictory feeling of his cold lips leaving my lips and depriving them of their warmth is only the tip of the iceberg. His hand slowly leaves my jaw, and then we both open our eyes to look at each other.

He looks equally flustered, a bright pink dusting his cheeks and his pupils wide and dreamy. My first kiss was underwhelming to say the least, but it has left me with such a strong and rising desire to experience it again and again.

I want to kiss him for more than a millisecond.

“I thought I wanted a taste of you.” I find my voice after a few seconds, making Jungkook suck in a sharp breath; the silence between us accentuating every little sound we make.

“I thought you liked vanilla.” He makes an implicit remark, smirking as he takes a confident step forward, practically reducing the space between us to nothing.

“Yeah, but rocky road is even better.” My comeback earns a soft laugh from him, after which I feel his hands moving up to hold my cheeks.

The eye contact is so powerful that it makes me weak in my knees and it does something weird deep within the pit of my stomach.

Rising to my toes, I gather all my boldness and kiss him, allowing my eyelids to fall shut at the same time. His lips feel a little warmer now, and they begin to move against mine in smooth, deliberate movements. I follow his rhythm, letting my lips obey him and allowing his dominance to take over when he pushes me gently against the wall that’s behind me.

Jungkook’s cold hands hold my face firmly on both sides while I circle mine around his neck, locking my wrists at the back of his neck. His tongue, warm and pliant, teases my lips and causes a shudder under my skin. My lips part, yielding to his insistence and permitting him to invade, explore and taste me just like I desire to taste him.

My curiosity about how he would taste culminates in this moment where I feel his tongue, firm and smooth, moving against mine. He does taste like a delectable mix of chocolate and vanilla, and the intensely passionate sensation of his tongue gliding and pressing against mine causes a shiver in my core.

Lost in the divinity of the moment, I soften in his arms as our tongues continue exploring each other, our bodies brushing ever so lightly. A soft gasp sounds between us—which I’m not even sure was from me or him—when his teeth trap my lower lip and deliver a brief and gentle bite that I wish so desperately to last longer.

Taking his cue, I do the same, taking his lower lip between my teeth and sucking on it. Jungkook emits a low groan and his hand makes a trembling move from my cheek to the side of my neck while his thumb presses down the base of my throat with the right amount of pressure that makes it seem unintentionally hot.

Our lips separate, and we lean back, my heels dropping back to the ground as we catch our breaths and study one another’s flushed faces. The moment our lips part, his grip on the side of my neck loosens, and he guides his hands back up to my cheeks in the most delicate manner.

Jungkook’s lips curve up in a blushing smile, and so do mine, my heart still reeling in the euphoria of the moments where his lips claimed mine. I look at his lips, convincing myself when I see the color on them that I was in fact kissing them just a few heartbeats ago. It wasn’t a dream.

His kiss feels like such a powerful drug that I’m already craving it and the feeling of floating on the clouds that came along with it.

“Did you find out now?” Jungkook questions me with a naughty smirk, his hands boldly coiling around my waist to bring us closer.

“Just what I imagined, but even better.” I answer him with a shy smile, biting down on my lower lip.

“Yeah, the same. It was even better than I imagined.” He admits with a cute smile that I already feel like kissing.

The silence between us slowly fades when we feel a few tiny droplets of water landing on our faces. Jungkook glances up at the sky, crinkling his nose as if to confirm if it really is the rain.

“Oh no!” He mutters under his breath and grabs my hand in his, making a dash towards the shorter end of the alleyway.

By the time we’re out of the lane, the rain has picked up pace, and it makes us rush to the bus shelter nearby. We do so, somehow managing to stay mostly dry. Within seconds, the rain intensifies rapidly, almost turning into a downpour, and it feels as if the sky has finally found its voice.

Jungkook and I huddle beside each other on the warm seats in the bus stop, with me feeling a compelling desire to kiss him once again. I don’t know if he wants it, but I also think I wouldn’t be able to kiss him boldly in this bus stop where there are others around us. So we just sit there, shrouded in silence for a while until his hand finds mine.

I glance at him and then at our cold hands, slowly lacing our fingers together and holding his hand tight. A smile that I wish to hold onto forever slinks up to my lips, and I say a silent prayer to myself that all of this should be permanent.

A bus that would take me to Min-Ji’s home arrives shortly, and we quickly climb into it. I sit by the window, watching the relentless droplets of rain rolling down the closed window pane while Jungkook pays the fare for the two of us and drops into the seat beside me.

We don’t say a word to each other, but the way he warmly and firmly holds on to my hand throughout the journey is much more powerful and louder than what words could ever express. He likes all of this as much as I do, and I can’t think of anything else except how magical and euphoric it felt to kiss him.

The ferocity of the rain has reduced greatly, and, as the bus moves past the fine, whispering rain, the reality of life begins to slowly settle its weight down on me.

School is over, and, from tomorrow, I wouldn’t be able to go to school just to meet him, watch him play or merely just have lunch with him. I will terribly miss all of those little moments we shared, and how badly I wish I could go back in time and get to know him much earlier. At least that way we could have made a lot more memories together at school.

Nothing ends here; in fact, this only just feels like a beginning. But there’s a kind of uneasiness hiding somewhere within me, spreading its dark wings. The feeling of having to adapt to living away from a loved one, without that comforting sense of familiarity brings back distant dark memories that I wish wouldn’t take shape right now.

When I was younger, this is how I used to feel every time I had to leave eomma or appa and go to the other parent—the feeling of letting go of the familiarity, the feeling of leaving someone I loved only to be with someone else whom I also loved, the feeling of insecurity that I might never again see the parent I left, the feeling of guilt that I was hurting them by leaving them. Those bitter feelings etched themselves so deeply into my mind that I hate it why I’m still absolutely clueless how to help myself whenever they resurface.

I’m feeling the same way now, and I can’t pinpoint why. I don’t want to leave Jungkook and go home or go to a university where I wouldn’t be able to see him or be with him. But my life demands me to do it, and I have no other choices, and I hate it. Would I ever see him again? Would we ever spend time together like we did today? Would I be hurting him if I go to university without him?

My chaotic thoughts make me squeeze his hand lightly, and I can already feel my pulse racing from all the anxiety and insecurities that are building up within me.

“I’ll call you tonight.” Jungkook says softly, breaking my chain of thoughts and making my head snap towards him.

When I absently stare at him for a few seconds, lost in my storm of thoughts, he squeezes my hand back promisingly.

“You need to get down, Areum.” He says, bringing me back to the ground.

No! I don’t want to go.

I force a helpless, lopsided smile and nod unwillingly, practically peeling myself off the seat and dragging my feet to the doors.

Climbing down with the slowest steps possible, I then turn to look at Jungkook who has now slid into the seat by the window. His eyes show a kind of longing, or is it just me who is seeing things?

The rain has gone down to a light drizzle now. As the doors of the bus close, he waves to me with a sad smile and a gaze that lingers on me until the bus slowly moves away and out of sight.

Why does time have to fly like this? Why do we have to leave people even if it’s not forever?

I hate all of this so much that life keeps thrusting upon me time and again.

The feelings of helplessness and missing him sink in already, and a drop of tear slips past the corner of my eye as I begin my short walk towards Min-Ji’s home.

Some drama coming up! I bet you sensed it already.
😏

Published on : 01/02/2025