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Seven times.  Yoongi had spoken those weighty and wonderful words to her seven times.  And every time they’d been like a refreshing and warm wave of the ocean crashing over her.  Pulling her towards his center.  Lulling her into quiet and secret realms of his heart.

She sat there frozen as his words whispered over her skin.  

The first two times caused a ripple in the waters of her heart.  An echo that revealed all the counterfeit loves that had crossed her path.  Memories surfaced.  Of boys beckoning to her, charming her, befriending her, only to break her heart.

The third whisper of his love delved deeper beneath the surface of her heart, recalling the boy she’d loved at fifteen.  The one who had befriended her in algebra class only to break her heart in chemistry as they studied the periodic table together and he left the room to talk on the phone with another girl.

Yoongi’s fourth declaration had pierced her even deeper.  All the way down to the tiny girl who had stood on the school playground and watched as the other boys and girls laughed and kidded around together.  Nari had been an outsider.  Unclaimed by any of them.  A witness to their joy.  But never a participant in it.  Not even her twin brother had rescued her then

Yoongi’s fifth murmur of love had awakened a day she had buried long ago.  She had come running through the door that day, her report card in her hand.  She’d earned all top marks.  She had, in fact, received the first spot in class.  She’d outranked them all.  Everyone else in the whole school.  She couldn’t wait to show her appa.  To finally earn his approbation.

But her brother, who had never worked very hard but always seemed to be the apple of their appa’s eye anyway, beat her to him that day.  To show him the mediocre marks he’d made that semester.  He had finally passed all of his classes.  He had charmed their father who had barely glanced at her glowing grades.  Her appa had given her no words that day.  Nothing more than a dismissive glance.  All his attention had been bent on her careless, elder brother.

A sixth time, Yoongi uttered, “I love you,” and he broke past the boundaries she’d erected around her heart to keep men – all men – out for good.  His words seemed to echo until their vibration knocked loose the stones of a decade.  Ones she had set firmly in place as a foundation to all the coming ones.  Born of brokenness, these bricks were meant to protect her heart from a cold world.  Bitterness had been their mortar.  But Yoongi’s love was a blazing fire that melted that acrid adhesive.  And the walls came tumbling down.

She’d been eight years old when it had happened.  The incident that had laid that cruel foundation in her heart.  That year her favorite schoolmate had been a boy.  For a few weeks, they’d been inseparable.  Until one day, another boy had joined their class, and her best friend had ditched her for that new student.  No one else had noticed her private pain, but ever since, it had seemed to her that boys were always being elevated above her.  They were continuously winning the awards that should have been hers.  And the friendships too.  

Her best friend that year had been stolen by another boy.  Her appa’s approval and affection had been appropriated by her brother every year of her entire life.  The climax of such rejection had come years later when his sad report card had won out over her glowing one.  In the intervening years, after her tender, young heart had been broken by that boy who had once claimed her as a friend, she had turned her attention towards girls.  Believing it was safer to befriend them.  But all the girls who had become her best friends had also been lured away by boys.  Eventually, anyway.  Nari had lost every close friendship she’d ever enjoyed to some encroaching male.  Until she had finally been all alone.

Until the day Yoongi had been dumped by his fiancé at Nari’s table.  Since then, she hadn’t been alone.  Not even when she had believed herself to be.  For she recognized with his seventh declaration that he had loved her for weeks now.  Even when he’d failed to touch base with her.  

“I love you, Nari.”  His precious voice slipped into her ear.  As his precious breath slid over her skin.  “I have since the first night I met you, and you brought me a cup of black coffee to help me sober up.  You took the sting out of rejection.  Even the rejection of a girl I was happy to be rejected by.  Your eyes have always sparkled at me, filling me with joy.  Inspiring me to play my piano.  To translate your speaking glances into a melody.”

This seventh time, something broke inside her, and the dam burst, and her tears began to flow in an unceasing tide.