“TODAY MY FOREST IS DARK,
THE TREES ARE SAD AND
ALL THE BUTTERFLIES HAVE BROKEN WINGS.”

Is it natural to feel bored when you're not with your friend?

Well, Yoon Min wasn’t exactly a friend. She was a very good friend but he wasn’t quite sure if she considered him a friend too. As far as he knew, nobody liked to be friends with their crushes. They called it being ‘friend-zoned’. Since he was her bias, would she really want to be friends with him?

Seokjin usually didn’t overthink useless stuff. But today was an exception. She had told him she would be busy with work so she wouldn't be able to meet with him today. He agreed in a second but didn’t realize how lonely he would feel. They met every day for a few hours and now without her, he was bored. He lay flat on his back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, thinking about her.

He didn’t have a lot of friends even when he was globally popular. He remembered being friends with all the kids in the neighbourhood as a child. But as an adult, his friendships were all with senior people. As in, older guys. He didn’t have many celebrity friends either, just a number of actors. 

Because he had no friends around his age. Mostly it was his fault; he was shy and reserved and didn’t know how to approach a person. His members were his best friends of course. But they were more like a family. He used to be with them 360 days a year so they felt like his own brothers who already knew him thin and thick.

That's why, Yoon Min was a perfect candidate. She was probably the only one he got right now. And she was a nice person. Currently, they share a relationship of an idol and a fan who are getting to know each other. He wanted to be more than that.

Right at that moment, his phone vibrated under his pillow. He saw her name shining on the screen. Was it a coincidence? He threw the pillow away, sat upright, grabbed the phone, cleared his throat and picked up.

Before he greeted her, she rambled, “Jin-ssi, are you okay?”

There was something unusual about her voice. She seemed worried and concerned. “Y-Yeah?”

Then he heard her sighing in relief from the other side. “Manager Yu Beom is trying to reach your phone. Then he told me to check up on you.”

God bless Yu Beom.

“Ah, I ghosted his calls. It's annoying.”

He could feel she didn’t expect that. “Oh. I'll let him know then.”

With that, she was about to hang up but Seokjin quickly stopped her from doing so. “Wait, wait, wait, where are you now?”

She replied, “Me? I'm going grocery shopping.”

“Done with your work?”

“Yup.”

“Cool. I'm coming with you.”

Yoon Min widened her eyes and blabbered, “What?”

Judging her tone, she didn’t expect him to suddenly tag along with her, that too for grocery shopping. She had no idea he was ready to do anything to spend some time with her.

“Yeah. I think I need groceries too,” he lied.

She was quiet for some time.

“What?”

“Nothing! It's just unlike of you to accompany me to some grocery shopping.”

Clearing his throat, he tried to play hard to get. “Well, I'm accompanying you because I ran out of groceries too. That's all.”

For some reason, she was chuckling sweetly on the other side as if she knew what was he playing. He forgot she could read his thoughts.

“Alright, I'll meet you down at your apartment.”

When they both hung up, he let out the happiest squeal before accidentally falling from the bed.

✦✧✧ - ✧✧✦

“I thought you were gonna buy as well?” Yoon Min threw him a suspecting look.

The duo arrived at a local store and she picked a cart for herself. But he didn’t pick one which was highly suspecting for her.

He gulped down. “I-I...don't like this store. I'll buy somewhere else.”

She stared at him for three seconds before smiling mysteriously at his behaviour. Why does she always smile? It does something to him.

They walked around amongst busy people, pushing her cart steadily and looked around. He started to notice she was placing readymade foods inside the cart and not any ingredients. At first, he didn’t complain and decided to let her do what she was doing.

After walking around, she started to tell him, “My family rarely did any shopping. They preferred to stay at home and order everything online. But when we did come to markets, me and my sister had to stand still in a place. We weren’t allowed to take a look at things let alone choose something for ourselves. All I remember is pushing the cart and watching my parents pick out stuff for themselves and me.”

Seokjin didn’t have to hear that. He already guessed it. Not from her past stories, but from her choices right now. He couldn’t understand why she was putting only readymade foods inside. Did it have to do anything with her parent's behaviour?

He couldn’t hold himself any longer. So he ended up asking her,

“Hey, what exactly are you doing?”

Yoon Min stopped walking and glanced at him.

He gestured at her cart which was filled with lots of cup noodles, ramen packets, triangular gimbaps and hot bars. She followed his gaze and let out a pleased surprise.

“Ah!” she picked up a certain ramen packet and showed it to him. “This is my favorite; Jin Ramen. Hot and spicy, awesome taste. You did an ad for this brand, remember?”

Sometimes he wondered if she was a kid.

“I mean, why are you only taking instant foods? Don't you need vegetables and stuff?”

She didn’t expect that question. Dropping the packet, she grew embarrassed and shyly confessed, “I don't know how to cook.”

Unexpectedly, he didn’t find that surprising. He had been shocked by the stories of her childhood so much that a trivial matter like this didn’t surprise him at all. Not knowing how to cook wasn’t the problem here.

“Does that mean you've been only eating noodles all these years?”

That didn’t earn an immediate yes from her. She thought for a few seconds before bragging, “Oh, the lady from next door brings me some of her dishes sometimes. I babysit her twins and help them in their studies often. A big heart, right?” she smiled widely to distract him.

“That's very unhealthy, you know?”

She only chuckled embarrassedly before pushing the cart. “My mother never allowed me to go near the kitchen. Girls around my age were already experts in cooking. They used to make these delicious foods all by themselves and bragged about it. I just didn’t know why my mother didn't let me learn. She only said she wanted to protect her children.”

That didn’t make any sense. Protection doesn’t mean building walls around us. If you really want to protect someone, you don't hold them back from dangers; you let them face it but you give them courage, you don't leave their sides and make sure they're not helpless.

“Cooking wasn’t something I had a desire to learn. Not until I learned about your interests and that's when it started to hurt the most,” she glanced at him. “You love cooking. And I don’t even know the basics.”

It was true he loved to cook. It was more like a hobby. He was really good at it. People praised his cooking skills more than his vocals often.

But he didn’t know it poorly affected her mentality. After learning many traits of her, it was a matter of clear fact that her whole life was about him. She built herself that way, to love him and be the person he will be able to love. She concentrated on shaping herself worthy of him despite lacking possibly everything. He realized the more he was improving in many aspects, the more she was getting disheartened.

Because she didn’t even have the chance to try.

They went to a shopping mall next. It wasn’t originally their plan but she needed a few things for herself. He was actually happy they would get to spend more time together without asking for it.

Generally, a girl of her age would visit the clothing stores first. But she surprised him by going inside a gaming store. He found out she loved to play games as much as he used to. Seeing her excitement reminded him of how he used to be obsessed with games in the past. He could play games for hours with no breaks in between.

She told him to take a few things for himself since it’s been a while since he came to a mall. It was true, he did come here after years. As he looked around, he arrived at a clothing store where the female employees all gathered around him and started suggesting to him the latest arrivals. Wearing a mask and a cap helped him to cover his identity so he only looked through the clothes with no intention to buy them. He had tons of them inside his wardrobe.

But Yoon Min came out of nowhere and began to push him to buy clothes. Her claim was he should stop being so dead and buy some latest men's outfits. Being pressured, he started to look through the collection of hoodies. In these years, he had been wearing a lot of hoodies. He decided to have a new one.

While he picked out darker colours, she picked lighter ones for him. And honestly, he liked her taste in colours. They expressed life, joy and hope. But he believed a person should wear his outfit according to his mood. Since his days were gloomy for the last couple of years, he thought he should wear dark colours.

“Who gave you that bizarre piece of thought?” she scoffed.

“No one. It's my own thought.”

“Well then—” she picked a dark blue hoodie and a lavender hoodie. “How about we buy both light and dark? It's a step to erase the gloominess of your sad life and bring colours.”

He smiled at her words and nodded. While she ran off to pay, he couldn’t help but recall the time she was forced to wear only black clothes throughout her entire life and got bullied for it. Like her clothes, her heart used to be colourless too.

But she was trying her best to paint his heart now. Maybe it was an attempt to bring colours to her heart as well.

After they were done shopping for the whole day, they were walking back to his apartment. They had to go through a street market where there were various kinds of shops. Many customers were roaming around and checking the shops for their needs.

“I just had this random thought. Someone, somewhere must be having the best day of their life today. Someone's hearing ‘I love you’ for the first time today, someone's gonna meet the love of their life today, someone's gonna get the job of their dreams today. It's kinda cool how a normal day to us can be special for someone else.”

Why did she think it was a normal day for them? Today seemed like a good day to him. He did some shopping for the first time in a long while and that too, with her. He found it pretty special.

But before he could tell her that, she suddenly squealed, “Look, fish-cakes! I'mma get some!” she ran to a shop where an old woman was selling some street foods.

Seokjin followed her and stood beside her while she ate a few and told the woman to pack her some. She loved to eat, and it reminded him of himself actually.

His gaze soon fell on the next shop which was a floral shop. He unknowingly walked there and started to gaze at the flowers. There was a variety of flowers and bouquets with hundreds of colours and scents.

He wondered if he should give her a flower.

The owner of the shop appeared within a second and flashed a huge smile. “Welcome, young man! Do you like anything you see here?”

Now that the owner was here, he had to take something. He pulled his mask higher and cleared his throat.

“Can I have a bouquet of those?”

The woman saw his selection and immediately praised, “Aigoo, you have very good taste. These are called Freesias. They are popular for their citrus fragrance and long-lasting vase life.”

He took a sharp look at Yoon Min who was still busy chatting with the old woman and eating.

“May I ask who are they for?” the woman asked with a curious smile.

He didn’t think he would have to answer that. It made him feel awkward. “It's for my f-friend.”

“Aigoo, you know your flowers then! Gifting someone a bouquet of freesias symbolizes friendship. Along with innocence, purity and trust. Whoever your friend is, they are sure lucky.”

Was it another coincidence? Or was God really on his side today?

The owner turned those freesias into a colourful bouquet. It looked so magical and beautiful that he couldn’t stop staring at it.

“Jin-ssi! What are you doing over there?”

Hearing her voice, he realized she was coming towards him. He grabbed the bouquet, turned around and held it out for her with a beating heart.

She stopped in front of him and stared at the beautiful flowers. “What, are you proposing?”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

Her lips curved upwards, eyes glowed and cheeks reddened under the sun. She tried to control her shivering smile. Her reaction was all he needed.

“Oh my God, how do you know I love flowers?” she took the bouquet and sniffed in the scent, closing her eyes. He wished he could take a photo of her right now. She looked beautiful and happy. She looked decently very happy which was his goal: to bring a smile to her face.

“Thank you, Jin-ssi,” she hugged the bouquet tighter.

“It symbolizes friendship and trust,” he wanted her to know he chose the right kind of flower.

That made her smile more. She took in the scent again and released a satisfied exhale.

“Do you know what I would've given you?” Yoon Min suddenly asked with a playful smile. She walked to the same shop and picked out a flower before offering it to him.

It was a yellow tulip.

“Yellow tulips bring cheer to anyone's day. They are the perfect kind of flowers to convey happiness.”

She added at the end, “That's what I want you to be. Happy.”

☆THE FAULT IN OUR STARS☆

THANK YOU FOR READING