Ninth Verse

It started out so simple
baby who would have known
back when we first met
that I would love you...

-translated from “First Love”
from Future Colors' third album Future Perfection

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Time stood still for one perfect moment. Minha thought his heart would stop too. He stopped feeling the rain falling on them and the cold wind blowing around them-- the only thing that he was conscious of was the softness of her lips under his. It wasn't the time or place he would ever have imagined for a kiss, but... it was glorious.

Finally, he lifted his head. Bea's eyes fluttered open and she blinked at him dazedly. They stared at each other, trying to come to terms with what had just happened. 

From the look on her face, she felt the same way I did. I feel... I feel like the earth turned upside down underneath my feet, but at the same time I'm floating in the heart of the universe. 

A heavy roll of thunder startled them both back to awareness of the real world. They looked up at the same time to see the dark sky flashing, the flashes coming nearer and nearer. CRACK CRACK! Arrows of lightning stabbed the clouds. 

“Uh-oh,” Bea said. “We need to run. Fast!” Even as she spoke, the rain began pouring heavily.

He didn't answer. He just climbed up on the dike and helped her up. Keeping hold on her hand as she followed close behind him, he ran the last few meters to the orchard, slipping and sliding but somehow managing to keep on the path. In the orchard they encountered Biboy,  Ana, and Carol, coming back with two umbrellas to look for them. Bea slipped her hand from his grasp the moment she saw her cousins.

Biboy looked Minha up and down and shook his head.

“What happened to you two?” he asked. “We thought you were behind us, so we went to T'yo Freddie, and then when we reached the fishpond and looked back, we couldn't see you. I guess Manang Bebeh's prediction came true-- you fell off the dike, huh?”

Ana clucked in distress. “Oh, Oppa, your clothes! And you're both all wet! We have to get you to the house right now. You might catch cold!”

Behind him, Bea groaned, having remembered that possibility too late.

“If you start saying you're dead, I won't forgive you,” Minha muttered to her.

Mia noona shrieked loudly when they came into the house. As luck would have it, she was in the laundry room, waiting for the tumble-dryer to finish drying some clothes. Although she immediately clamped her hands over her mouth, her voice had attracted the attention of Jungkyu, Junhee, and Jae sunbae, who came running from the kitchen to see what dire thing had happened.

“Take off that wet jacket immediately, Minha-ya,” Mia noona ordered. “Someone get towels, quickly. Bebeh, what happened?”

“Bea's all wet and muddy too,” Jae sunbae interrupted. “We'll save the questions for later. Right now, these two need warm baths and dry clothes. Why don't you take Bea off to our room and the boys and I will take Minha up to their room?”

Before he could help it, Minha began sneezing. Bea was visibly shuddering. Fortunately, Junhee and Carol quickly got an armful of towels from the linen closet. Without further ado Mia noona swathed them both in the biggest towels and hustled them off.

* * *

“Sunbae, don't scold Bea,” Minha said in between sneezes. “I insisted on going with her. It was all my fault.” He'd taken a long hot shower and put on a warm tracksuit, but he still kept sneezing and his head was beginning to feel a bit stuffed and aching. “She kept telling me to go back and she also tried to stop me from taking the shortcut over the dike. I insisted I could do it, but I slipped and fell anyway... and since she tried to help me, she fell, too. The blame is all mine. I'm sorry.”

“And now you sound like you're definitely beginning a cold,” Jae sunbae sighed. “Minha-ya, I don't know if I should be appalled at your thoughtlessness, irritated at this further disruption of our schedule if that cold doesn't go away soon, or amazed at you actually admitting responsibility for your actions.”

“Just don't scold me too much, please, sunbae,” Minha said ruefully. “I'm quite sure I'm going to get a double extra-large share of that from Manager Oh.”

Jae sunbae gave him a half-amused, half-irritated smile. They could already hear the voice of Manager Oh raised outside the door, where Jungkyu was evidently trying to keep him away from Minha. Jae sunbae had put Minha in another, smaller room across the hall from the boys' suite, before the others caught his cold as well.

“I've told that boy time and time again to think before he does anything! To actually think before he does anything! But does he? Did he ever think about how he will disrupt everybody else's schedule, running off with that-- that girl! Again! If he cannot meet his responsibilities as a member of this band, then maybe he should start thinking whether he's worthy to be in it! No one in my band! My band! Should ever shirk their responsibilities! Where is he? I'll give him a piece of my mind!”

Minha wasn't sure-- Manager Oh's voice was very loud, even though the bedroom door was closed-- but he thought he heard Jae sunbae murmur, “His band, eh?” He turned towards Jae sunbae to confirm it, but the older man was standing up. 

“You better get in bed and under a thick blanket, kiddo,” Jae sunbae said. He waited until Minha had complied. “I'm sure Mia will be up here soon with something hot; meanwhile you keep as warm as you can and try to rest. Tell Jungkyu or Mia if you need anything, all right?” 

“Thank you, sunbae,” Minha said as penitently as he could.

“Let's chase off that cold as soon as we can, shall we?” Sunbae gave him that funny smile again, and went out.

Manager Oh came in soon afterwards with a gleam in his eye, and proceeded to deliver the promised lecture. Minha wasn't really listening. He nodded once in a while and tried to look properly chastened, but his mind was elsewhere. Back to the muddy rice field and the rain and Bea's soft, sweet lips and the look in her eyes. Manager Oh didn't seem to notice that his audience was zoning out. He just kept ranting on and on. Minha wondered fleetingly how many of his past indiscretions Manager Oh had already raked up at that point, but he wasn't particularly keeping track this time.

Mia noona cut the lecture short by coming in with a tray of assorted dishes and a steaming cup of hot tea. She muttered “Hold this,” to Manager Oh and thrust the tray into his hands, then dragged a small table to a spot beside the bed that Minha could reach easily. Manager Oh had to move his foot out of the way quickly to avoid getting hit, and earned a sharp rebuke for almost spilling the tea. He glared at Mia noona. Noona stared coldly back at him, took the tray, and placed it very gently on the table, then sat down on the foot of the bed.

“How are you feeling?” she asked Minha. “Here, have some tea.”

Manager Oh opened his mouth to resume his lecture. Mia noona glared him down until the manager backed out of the room and closed the door. Minha looked at Mia noona with new respect. 

“There,” she said. “I was standing outside your door for a good couple of minutes, wondering if he would ever stop. When he started going on about that prank with the spaghetti way back in your first trainee year I thought I'd better interrupt soon. Especially as I didn't hear you say anything!”

“Sorry, noona,” Minha muttered, and quickly sipped his tea. She patted his knee. 

“Well,” she said. “Try to eat something, and then rest. I'll look in on you again later. Do you want me to lock the door?”

“No, it's okay, noona. Thank you.”

The boys looked in on him next to offer sympathy and encouragement with bottles of water and orange juice. 

“I suspect this will go down in band history as Minmin's famous dike-walking stunt, ten years from now,” Jungkyu observed teasingly. “The one thing I am peeved with you about, though, Minmin-ah, is why you didn't even tell us what you were planning to do. We could have come along, you know.”

Huh. Sorry, Jungie-ya. I'm actually glad you didn't come along. 

“Seeing Minmin hyung landing in a muddy rice field-- that must have been priceless,” Junhee mused with his usual lack of tact, and Minha reached over and rapped his fist gently on the younger boy's forehead.

“Says who, you punk?”

“And... he isn't even complaining about it! Now that's even more priceless,” Jungkyu  said thoughtfully. “Hmmm.” He leaned forward and scrutinized Minha's face closely. “Minmin-ah. Tell me the truth now.”

Minha stared back just as intently, a spoonful of rice porridge halfway to his mouth. 

“Jungie-ya,” he answered, his face serious. “No, I'm not in love with you. But I think I'm about to... sneeze.” He put down the spoon abruptly, and laughed as Jungkyu drew hastily back. 

“You're disgusting,” Jungkyu scoffed as Minha finished sneezing into a handful of tissues and blew his nose. Minha batted his eyelashes at his friend.

“I think I'll need more tissues soon,” he said.

“At this rate you'll use up Mia noona's entire supply,” Jungkyu said, looking at the wastebasket by the bed. “Do you need anything else?”

“A guitar and a notebook and a pencil?” Minha asked hopefully.

“You're supposed to be resting.” Jungkyu scowled at him.

“Just in case.” Minha batted his eyelashes again.

“Ew. Stop doing that. You haven't done that in years.” But Jungkyu was smiling. 

Yoonju noona looked in on Minha for a few minutes with some cold medicine. Even Biboy and Ana dropped by on their way home with a bunch of semi-ripe guavas, assuring Minha that they contained lots of vitamin C.

He dozed off from time to time, and each time he woke up, he looked at the door. Every time it opened, he smiled. But it was never the person he was expecting to see.

Bea never came to see him for the rest of that day.

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Author's Note:

Whoever's reading this, tell me what you think :) I love speculations, long comments, and stuff like that.