I glance over at the children playing in the park, a stiff smile stretching onto my lips. Tammy whizzes past me as fast as The Flash with her wand clutched tightly in her small hand. She is being chased around by Chu Hua who has to either tag her or Kayla who just giggles in a childlike manner, taunting my little sister. They look so carefree. Neither of them is worried about anything nor are they thinking about what could be in the near future.
Unlike a certain someone, they don't have to submit a portfolio to a university as proof of extracurricular activities.
The only thing that matters to them at this very moment is playing tag.
Sometimes I wish that I could go back to those days.
The days when Hyeong and I would play around this very park, tackling one another instead of gently tagging each other. Then a fight would break out between us, which I would often lose and then I would start fake crying and threatening to tell our mum on him.
The days when I would play in the sandbox and build massive sandcastles which would later be trashed by the other boys. Days when I used to cry my eyes out when grains of sand would go into my eyes. Okay, perhaps all these memories aren't ones I wish to revisit, but there are others, better memories. Now, my days are filled with nothing but confused feelings, guilt, headache and betrayal.
I have tried shying away from it all this time but the kiss that Kai and I shared underneath the starry sky has got me thinking about how I felt about it and more importantly, about him.
God, what have I gotten myself into?
"Zachary, hold on a second."
That all too familiar voice makes me tense and after throwing my head over my shoulder to catch a glimpse of his familiar rowdy hair buried within a hat, I pull a face and quickly hide my face into my knees despairingly, hugging my bent legs to my chest.
"Listen to me before you go. You can go on the swings and the slide but stay away from the sandpit. I'm not going to let you in my car if you're dirty."
"Okay, Nicky."
Although Dominic should be at the hospital with his brother right now, I'm glad he could make it here as soon as possible. I am a bit conflicted about the situation. On the one hand, I am happy to see him but on the other hand, I do not want to drag him away from spending some quality time with his brother before it's too late. I know if I was given the opportunity to speak to my dad before he was gone, I would have grabbed it without a second thought.
However, there are some things I need to tell him, things about me kissing someone else and not regretting it.
I don't know how ready I am to tell him that though.
"Hey," he greets.
Slowly, I tilt my head and look up at him with a stiff smile to find him awkwardly chewing on his bottom lip. I wrinkle my nose distastefully at my conflicting emotions.
After a moment of prevailing silence, I finally gather up the courage to open my mouth and whisper, "Hi."
Everything inside me goes haywire, nerves twisting and tangling my stomach in knots.
He's handsome, as usual. His unkempt hair all over the place, the beautiful, messy mop falling over his forehead and his dark eyes. They intensely pierce through me, making it even harder for me to breathe.
"You look like shit by the way," he states bluntly and just like that, the infamous prick has completely ruined the moment.
"Thanks," I smile sarcastically. "I guess that's the perk of not sleeping until early in the morning and then being woken up by my mum to take the kids to the park."
After staring at me in a way to take in the information he needs to fill in the missing pieces in his mind, he slowly takes a seat beside me, keeping an admirable space between us. I realise that he has always done that. I don't know if it's out of respect or something else. Perhaps he enjoys having enough room between us to breathe.
"You look great, by the way," I mutter under my breath smarmily.
He has the nerve to nod, not even pretending to be humble about his immiscible attractiveness.
After staring at him dryly, I glance back at my sister and her friends who are now sitting down in a circle, possibly gossiping about who their crushes are. I must remember to warn her about having those. They can unknowingly ruin four years of your life. Would she even listen to me if I told her to stay away from boys? My mum already does that. I think I'll just leave that job to her.
"So," he drawls slowly, putting the quietness to an abrupt halt and I glance at him through the corner of my eye to see him laying his head on his knee, looking at me in an interested manner, "why did you leave without telling me? You could have told me that you wanted to go home. I would've driven you back."
"I didn't want to disturb you. Besides, my brother picked me up."
"Yang Jin picked you up?"
"Mm-hmm."
"The same guy who refused to drive us to school the day you ran me over?"
My lips twitch to obscure an obvious grin and I don't miss the amusement glimmering in his eyes when I remain quiet instead of replying to his sardonic response.
"Still, I'm the one who asked you to come with me to the hospital. I would have taken the time to drive you back home."
"Really, Dominic. It's no big deal. I mean, you called Jodie there for moral support and I would have just overstayed my welcome."
"That's not true," he disagrees vehemently and the relaxed smile on my face drops when I glance up at his earnest expression.
"What's not true?"
"You could never overstay your welcome with me," he says seriously and the look in his eyes has me subtly swallowing while in the pit of my stomach, some form of euphoria explodes within me.
I release an anxious sigh and stare up at the grey sky, wondering if it will rain today. I can definitely feel the warmth of spring and its embrace, but the fresh smell of rain in the wind breezing by whispers what is to come. The trees have lost their brown, orange and yellow leaves and bloomed brand new flowers.
"I have to tell you something," Dominic says, breaking the quiet atmosphere between us.
"Okay," I drawl out, watching him with curiosity.
"And I hope you don't hate me after I say this."
I grin in amusement at this side of him. Why would he care if I hated him or not? "How could you be so sure I don't already hate you?"
"Do you?" he muses and I don't miss the look of concern in his gaze.
Growing serious after seeing the solemn look on his face, I quickly sober out of my amusement and shake my head.
"Even after speaking with Jodie?"
My brows furrow in confusion and I ask, "What do you mean?"
"I know that she and you spoke outside the hospital."
"Okay," I drawl out, still not understanding what he is implying with his words.
"What exactly did she tell you?"
"That she and Savannah were the ones who exposed my letter and posted my videos on the internet. Can you believe that?"
"Nothing else?"
Suspiciously, I muse, "Was there something else she was supposed to tell me?"
He tries to speak, but he just ends up opening and closing his mouth like an idiot who is trying to speak to his crush. His eyes shut in a grimace and I release a small, silent laugh at his expression.
What is he so hesitant to tell me about?
When no sound leaves his lips, he just resorts to pulling a piece of paper which has been folded up from his pocket and handing it over to me. I slowly take it from his grasp and unfold it. The paper is a little bit yellow in colour, almost like it is from a long time ago.
When I take one last glance up at him, I notice that he is doing everything in his power to avert his gaze. Suspiciously, my eyes stray back to the paper. Strangely, his handwriting here is different from his usual sloppy one. It seems way too preppy to be his handwriting.
My Bucket List:
1. Find Kitten a good owner.
2. Experience true friendship.
3. Fall in love.
4. Be loved.
5. Skydive.
A confused frown scrunches my face up as my eyes flicker up to meet his apprehensive-looking ones. That look has me feeling just as apprehensive. It feels like my stomach has been dropped into a deep, dark pit and it couldn't possibly find its way out of such a chasm.
"Why do you have a bucket list?" I ask him, almost afraid to hear his answer.
He shrugs. "Why do people normally have bucket lists?"
"Because they are dying?" I phrase, arching my eyebrows up in question.
"Well, that's one way of putting it."
"But you're not dying," I say with conviction until that statement makes me falter for some reason so I muse, "Are you?"
He remains quiet, not willing to answer my enquiry and that just multiplies my bemusement by ten.
Normally, people would reassure you that they aren't dying. They would tell you that they are just adventurous and have a different mindset, one I do not understand. They would say that they never know when it could be their last day so they create bucket lists which they complete throughout the entirety of their lives.
The look on his face screams foreboding. His eyes are cast downwards, avoiding my questioning gaze at every chance he gets. When he starts playing with his fingers, my face drops in shock.
Dominic is not someone who plays hide and seek with his thumbs. He's not the type of person who doesn't look you dead in the eye when he's telling you something. That's something I would most likely do.
Not him.
Not Dominic.
"Dominic..." I silently demand with narrowed eyes for him to clarify the thoughts racing in my mind.
He inhales an encouraging breath into his lungs, puffing his chest up with the action. The air is held in his body for a while, undergoing gaseous exchange until he finally gains the balls to exhale the air back out.
"Five years ago, Landon was diagnosed with leukaemia."
I blink bluntly, his words not registering in the beginning.
"I was thirteen at the time and it just happened so unexpectedly. I remember how before the news, he was a very happy kid who was always smiling and laughing. That might be the reason why you kind of annoyed me so much in the beginning. You reminded me so much of his former self. The person he was before life decided to take so much away from him and he ended up with…"
When he takes in a deep breath, I watch him attentively whilst simultaneously trying not to depict my sympathy.
"At first, the chemotherapy had been helping, and I actually thought that maybe he would be one of those people who would have survived cancer. But then last year, it spread to one of his lungs and the risk of chemotherapy outweighed the benefits."
He glances down, collecting himself as I sit here in an astounded manner.
"He then selfishly told them to stop treatment. He said that if he was going to live for a much shorter time, he wasn't going to spend it smelling antiseptic day in and day out. My parents were devastated and I could see how unwilling they were to let their first child die without at least trying to save him.
"Landon was stubborn though. He was constantly trying to secretly fly off to all these different countries to do extreme things before he died. My parents went along with it and they decided to go with him in case something happened. They would luckily be there."
"So," I glance down at the paper in my hands in realisation, "this is your brother's bucket list."
"I found it a couple of weeks after we first found out about him having cancer and I decided that I wouldn't let him die before completing it on his behalf. And that's how you came into the picture. That's how Jodie came into the picture. The person I would fall in love with and could easily love me back."
My breath hitches at his words and I look at him with enlarged saucers. I release a harsh breath, glancing away at all this information. "Wait, so are you telling me that you didn't actually like Jodie when you first came up to me?"
He visibly tenses up from my enquiry and then after heaving a sigh in preparation, he reluctantly nods his head in agreement. "Which is the reason why I didn't tell you when I found out that Jodie and her friend were the ones who shared your love letter to Edward with the whole school."
I stare at him in disbelief, my heart pounding in my chest. My voice trembles with a mix of hurt and anger. "What do you mean?"
After a few seconds of silence go by, he sighs heavily and his shoulders slump, "I didn't want to sour your relationship with her any further."
His words catch me a bit off guard and my mouth parts slightly. "So you knew this whole time that she took my sketchbook? That she and Savannah were the ones responsible for leaking everything?"
Reluctantly, he nods.
"When did you find out?"
"During that same week when you were avoiding me."
The revelation hits me like a ton of bricks and I release a breath of surprise, blinking in surprise. I find it hard to keep my gaze on him with the sudden overwhelming feeling of betrayal. Pressing my lips together, I shake my head.
"I can't believe this," I choke out.
"I wanted to tell you. I was going to tell you but... in my mind, this was the only way I was going to be able to complete the bucket list."
"Is this some kind of joke?" I muse while blinking in shock. I slowly stand up from the grass, trying to ignore the anxiety bubbling in my chest. "If it is then it's not funny."
He mimics my actions slowly, standing before me. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kept it away from you."
"Yeah, you shouldn't have," I agree with a sense of scorn in my tone, narrowing my eyes at him angrily.
He blinks at me apologetically. "I'm sorry."
Still, my hardened gaze does not waver and I cross my arms over my chest stubbornly.
He takes in a calming breath, averting his gaze guiltily. "I'll admit it, I was being selfish and I rationalised it by telling myself that I was inadvertently doing it for your sake but believe me, I did not do it to intentionally hurt you. It just... fucking sucks that I have to lose my older brother like this."
When I hear the emotion in his tone and his voice begins to crack a bit, I gulp and my gaze softens the slightest. My eyes follow his, unwilling to let go of the sadness pouring out of those eyes, the eyes I am so used to being dull, impassive and emotionless. When they start to glisten with tears, my anger dissipates and I slowly drop my arms.
He blinks, not allowing himself to cry.
"I just don't know what to do. I feel so helpless. It's like with my parents moving us around and having to break and rebuild relationships and friendships over and over again. At some point, I started wondering, well, what is the fucking point? What is the point of connecting with people when we're either going to move or they're going to die eventually?"
I bite onto my bottom lip so hard that it almost draws blood. My heart throbs in my chest, breaking for him.
A traitorous tear slips onto his cheek and he buries his face deep into his palms, shaking with a sob.
I move forward to rub a hand down his arm comfortingly.
"It's not fair," he whispers and his voice cracks with emotion.
I gulp again.
He peeks up at me through his dark lashes, coloured with his salty tears and when he sees my sympathetic gaze, he averts his gaze to his shoes, wiping an embarrassed sleeve across his tear-stained face. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay, you don't have to apologise."
Again, he glances up at me and my lips tilt up reassuringly. For the longest time, his gaze punctures into me fervently and my brows furrow in wonder, eyes flickering with curiosity. It doesn't come as much of a surprise when I feel the pressure of his lips on mine, but my hands do go up in shock. Before he can close the distance between us, my breath hitches in my throat and I gently push him back.
Silence ensues.
He seems confused by my actions and internally, so am I. Why did I just push him away?
"We shouldn't," I say.
"Why not?"
Slightly caught off guard by his question, my mouth stutters open and shut like a fish's would. "Well, I mean, you were just crying and I was just comforting you as a friend would."
"A friend?"
Nervously, my hand comes up to scratch the back of my neck. "We need to talk."
"About what?"
"Us."