Blog

Namjoon was floored.  She’d written him over four hundred typed pages of letters.  No one in his entire life had ever done anything like this for him.  Just from the few snippets his eyes had captured and his mind absorbed, he could see that she had bared her soul to him in this book.  It read more like a journal than a simple letter.  Letters were to share the mundane events of life with someone.  This was something altogether more.  He felt like crying.

He was compelled to read them.  He was torn between two conflicting yet related desires.  Wanting to remain in her presence enjoying the light of her countenance and her smiling eyes as he listened to the sweet melody that was her voice.  And longing to find a corner to hide in, so he could inhale all four hundred pages at once.  Finally, he raised his eyes to her own.  And he saw fear in them.  She was afraid he’d reject her.  He rushed to reassure her.

She was so nervous she felt like throwing up.  She was so grateful she hadn’t eaten that cinnamon roll. It would have been a rock in her belly weighing her down now had she.  She might have tossed her roll all over the table if she had eaten it.  To add to the pressure in her stomach, her heart was racing, making her feel dizzy.  But then he glanced up into her eyes, and she saw the tears pooling in those beautiful, chocolate orbs of his.  Her heart lurched.

“Breeze,” he breathed her name like a prayer, full of confident expectation of good.

Tears suddenly sprang up in her own eyes.  He could say her name that way for the rest of her life.  She blinked, and a tear escaped to begin rolling down her cheek.  She wiped it away hurriedly.

“Thank you,” he breathed again. Was that awe she kept hearing in his voice?

“This is the most thoughtful gift anyone has ever given me.”  

He was sitting still in wonder.  He was flabbergasted.  He didn’t even know how to respond.  How should he respond to a girl who had served her whole heart up to him on a silver platter?  His only option was to cradle it gently and caress it softly, treating it like the precious gift it was.

“I’ll treasure your words.  I can’t wait to begin reading this.”  One of those rebellious tears now slid down his own face.  He ignored it.

Though he was eager to devour her words on those pages, he found he was even more reluctant to leave her presence.  Precious as her words were, she herself was even more tempting.

“Do you have some time this morning?  Would you take a walk with me?”

She couldn’t breathe.  Namjoon had just used his last breath to inhale all the air in the cafe.  She looked around to see if anyone else had passed out.  Nope.  They were all sitting there, sipping lattes and caramel macchiatos like the world hadn’t just been born anew.  She inhaled a long, slow breath, discovering that apparently there was still enough oxygen in the room for both of them.  She turned her eyes to his again.

“I’d love to.”  Where had this calm, cool, collected girl come from?  Breeze felt elated and terrified all at once, yet Namjoon would never know.  Her demeanor hid it all.

Namjoon stared at the beautiful girl before him as he let out the breath he’d been holding.  But when her eyes met his, he saw both euphoria and trepidation in their depths, and he knew she was as nervous as he was.  He smiled to set her at ease.  And those two darling dimples of his assaulted her senses.  Had her heart not slipped from her grasp into his long ago, it would have departed today.

He got up and walked towards her.  He pulled her chair out for her.  Breeze was stunned.  No man had ever done that for her.  Her heart had gone completely still.  She turned to stare up at him.  That sweet smile lit up his face again.  She returned it and bent to retrieve her backpack from the floor beside her chair.

“No,” Namjoon responded as his hand reached for it too.  “Let me carry it for you.”

She let her hand fall, and he pulled the pack onto his back.  Then he held his hand out to her.  She stared at it in shock for a moment.  But then his voice attracted her attention to his face.

“Can I hold your hand?” he whispered, an odd note of vulnerability in his voice.  He was clutching her book in his other arm.

She swallowed her heart which had just flown up into her mouth as it tried to ascend into the heavens.  She nodded and reached for him.  That’s when they were both struck by lightning.  Their eyes collided as they all went wide in shock.  Darts of electricity were floating along every nerve ending.  

Breathe, Breeze.  Breathe.  It’s just a guy’s hand.  No, it’s not!  It’s NAMJOON’s hand!

Breathe, Namjoon, breathe.  She’s just a girl.   No, she’s not just any girl.  She’s amazing!

He couldn’t get her words out of his mind.  He had read her first words on the top page.  The ones that had followed “Dear Joonie.”  And he’d felt his heart fly from his chest to be cradled in this girl’s gentle hands.  He knew he was safe there. Just three small words had done that to him.