The next morning, I woke up very early. I couldn’t sleep. I kept rehearsing all my moments with Kookie from yesterday. I slipped out of my room early, being careful not to wake Sanduni who was sleeping soundly. Probably still overcoming jet lag.
I shut the door quietly behind me just as the man across the hall was silently shutting his own door. We turned around at the same instant. My eyes collided with Jungkook’s, and my heart began to race. He grinned at me. He was happy to see me. I could tell. I could feel his pleasure in me from across the hallway.
He bridged the distance between us in a moment and came to stand directly in front of me. He was definitely invading my personal space. And I didn’t mind one bit. In fact, my eyes were beckoning him to draw closer. He smiled down at me, and as my gaze slipped from his eyes to his mouth – He started it! He glanced at my lips too! – I began to laugh.
“Kookie, what on earth have you been eating for breakfast?”
He grinned as he noisily withdrew a crinkled bag from his pocket. Doritos. Well, that would explain the tell-tale orange stain adorning the corners of his mouth.
“Would you like some?”
“No, Kookie. Thank you,” I was still laughing. “You’ve got a little…”
I interrupted my own thought to reach up and brush my thumb across his lip in an attempt to wipe off the cheese powder that was clinging tenaciously to his face. I began to laugh as I saw the inevitable meme flash across the canvas of my mind: “Oh, that I could be the cheese powder on Jungkook’s face! I would say (dramatically), ‘Don’t touch me! Never wipe me off! Let me stay here forever!’”
But as my thumb brushed his lip, lightning spiraled through me, and I gasped. Our eyes connected. We were being drawn towards each other by some invisible force. I don’t know why, but at the last moment, I turned my head to the right. And Jungkook’s lips brushed my cheek.
My heart was thundering. I closed my eyes. I felt like crying. If I hadn’t moved my head, would he have kissed my lips? I concentrated on trying to breathe. My heart was hurting so badly right now.
That would have been my first kiss.
His lips lingered on my cheek, tenderness pouring from his heart straight into mine, and he whispered against my skin, “I really like you, Grace. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
I moved my head suddenly to look at him, and our lips nearly collided. “I’m not afraid of you, Kookie!”
Although, my heart seemed to be calling me a liar. It was still racing.
He was so close to me that my eyes were starting to cross as I gazed into his gorgeous, obsidian orbs. He suddenly drew back slightly, and my heart felt another pang.
Don’t go away! Please!
He wasn’t laughing now. He wasn’t even smiling. I could hear every inhalation and exhalation of his breath. He was gazing at me, an inscrutable look in his beautiful eyes. What I saw in them was so intense. I felt scared.
Why? I don’t know. But my heart hurt. It really hurt.
Maybe because I felt more for him than I should. Maybe because I knew there was no future in a relationship with Kookie. Maybe because I knew tomorrow would be the last day that I would see him. I felt tears pricking my eyes. I wanted a real relationship, a lasting commitment with a man who could give me his whole heart. And I knew, deep down inside I knew, Kookie couldn’t give me what I desired. That must be why I was feeling so sad.
Suddenly, he spoke softly, so softly, his breath whispering over my skin. He smelled like Doritos. I almost laughed in the middle of that most serious moment. But his next words stole my good humor.
“It’s ok, Grace. I understand why you’re scared. I am too.”
My eyes flew to his. “You are?”
He nodded. “I don’t want to lose my heart any more than you do.” Then he sighed, once again meeting my gaze. “But I think it might be too late.”
Those words were like arrows piercing my heart. Overwhelming my consciousness. I couldn’t breathe. I drew a deep breath in an effort to force air into my lungs. But a moment later, Kookie stole it again as he reached up and tenderly brushed his fingertips across my cheek.
Was he…was Kookie petting me?
Then he did it again, a faint smile lighting up his countenance. “Your skin is so soft,” he whispered. “I really want to kiss you. But I can’t, can I, Grace?”
His eyes delved into mine.
“How do you always know what I’m thinking?” I asked.
He shrugged, his fingers still stroking my skin and driving me absolutely nuts. “I don’t know. I can just sense your mood somehow. Like right now…you like me touching you, but you don’t know what to do about it.” His eyes left mine to brush my lips, and then he very slowly dipped his head towards mine.
I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t move. When he was a hairsbreadth away from my mouth, he stopped. His eyes were closed. I could feel his breath against my face. He remained right there in front of me. And I knew he was waiting. He was waiting for me to make a decision.
I stared sadly at that beautiful face. His fingers were still caressing my cheek. Sending a million tremors into my bones.
Why? Why couldn’t you have been born in the same hospital as I? Why couldn’t you have been the boy next door? Why couldn’t we have attended kindergarten together? Why weren’t you the little boy who pulled my blond pigtails to tease me and kissed my cheek on the bus? Why weren’t you the boy in my middle school history class who intercepted my note declaring my undying love for you to my best friend? Why weren’t you the boy who asked me to the prom? Why aren’t you the guy I sit behind in my college lecture class?
Suddenly, his eyes flew open, and he looked at his fingers on my face. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I was crying. My tears had landed on his fingers. I could feel him wiping them across my cheek. Then I realized he was using my tears to draw on my face. I closed my eyes and concentrated.
I…
L…
O…
V…
E…
My heart was in an all-out race for some distant shore. Was Kookie trying to tell me that he…that he…?
Y…
O…
U…
I love you!
His fingers stopped moving, though they remained on my face.
I opened my eyes after a moment. He was staring down at me, a faint smile on his face.
“It’s all right, Grace. It’s going to be all right.” He bent his head so close to mine, our foreheads were now touching. “Really. It’s ok.” His fingers were still sliding across my skin.
Had I just imagined that he had written those three tiny, yet huge, words on my cheek?
He bent his head near my ear. “I really do, you know? I know it’s crazy, since I just met you yesterday, but you opened the door of my heart.” He paused, then a tiny whisper slipped into my ear, “I love you.”
My heart stopped.
I turned my head, and my lips found his cheek. I pressed them against his skin, my eyes closing. More tears were sliding down my face. I pulled my mouth away from him as a sob escaped my lungs.
The next thing I knew, Kookie was pulling me up against his chest, his strong arms wrapping themselves tightly around me. I cried into his heart, solaced by his loving embrace.
It’s just a kiss.
No, it’s more than that.
My heart and my soul were arguing with each other. My body seemed to be paying the price as my lungs burned, and my heart galloped, and my tears stung my eyes.
Jungkook bent his head against mine. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
I looked up at him. “Kookie, you didn’t make me cry.”
He smiled faintly. He stretched out one long finger and removed a tear from my face to hold it before my eyes. “I have evidence to the contrary.”
I laughed. Then, on some absurd impulse, I leaned forward and kissed my tear off his finger. He stood as if stunned, staring at his fingertip.
“I can see her, you know?” I whispered.
Puzzled, he drew his brows together as his eyes met mine again. “Who?”
I smiled sadly. “The girl you’ll eventually fall in love with. The one you will give your heart to forever. The one you will marry someday. The one you’ll bless with children of your own.”
How could I even speak intelligibly now?
“Grace…” he whispered, a warning note in his voice.
I shook my head, a sob escaping my mouth again. “No, Kookie, it’s ok. This whole episode with you…it’s been beyond anything I could imagine…but I know…I know…I know she can’t be me.”
His heart breaking in his eyes, he whispered, “Why not?”
“Because this is all a mirage. Maybe you and I are drunk. I don’t know. I’ve never been drunk before. But I, I can’t wait ten years for you.”
My words spiraled down into his gut like a knife. But it was a blade that was cutting me deeper than it would ever injure him. Somehow, he must have known that because his arms tightened around me and he drew me against his chest once more. I sobbed my heart out on that broad chest for several minutes.
He rested his cheek against the top of my head. He might have been planting kisses in my hair at one point.
“What’s wrong with me, Kookie? There’s ten million girls who would sell one of their kidneys to be with you right now.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he whispered into my hair when I had finally calmed down. “You just know what you want. And apparently, it’s not me.”
A pain lanced me to my core. Just stab me already, why don’t you, Kookie?
“I do want you! I love you!” I whispered fiercely, desperately.
“Do you?” he whispered back. He gazed into my red-rimmed eyes for several moments. That’s when I realized there were tears in his own eyes.
“Kookie.”
He must have believed what he saw in my eyes because he suddenly smiled at me.
“Come with me,” he whispered.
