#beangyu

His golden locks flew like a perfect wave in the wind as he ran towards me. His brown eyes stared into my soul, laying my deepest, darkest secrets on the table. His voice brought me back to reality when I got lost in memories I’d rather forget. His name was beautiful, but it couldn't show just how perfect he was. Every time I said it I got lost in the happiness he gave me.

His name was Stan.

I remember when I first saw him. When I told everyone about him, they were all excited for me because they knew that he was what I had wanted all my life. At least I thought everyone was happy for me. The one person I thought would be the happiest, the person I thought would be there with me all the way, wasn’t smiling.

Mingyu had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. He was there when I broke my leg. He let me squeeze his arm every time I got vaccinated. He held me close when my mother passed away. I couldn't remember us being apart for more than a week. But this time, he didn’t talk to me for thirteen days.

At the beginning I thought it was just because our schedules didn’t overlap, but after a couple of days it became obvious that he was avoiding me. He didn’t walk home with me, he stopped replying to my texts and every time he spotted me, he went the other way. He was mad about something, but I didn’t know what. Countless nights I thought about what could possibly make him this upset with me, but I couldn’t come up with anything.

I felt alone. When I wanted to talk about how the biggest part of our group of friends obviously hated me for no apparent reason, I couldn’t. Because the last person I thought I could trust, I could build on, turned out to be just like the rest. It felt like there was a hole in me where he used to be. Only Stan and his love were there to fill it up.

I couldn’t just let this continue, I had to talk to Mingyu, whether he liked it or not.

On Thursdays he had his last class in the classroom next to mine. I had come up with a genius plan and it was time to set it in motion. His teacher asked him to stay after class, told him he had to get something and asked him to wait in the classroom for a while.

That was my cue. The teacher tossed me his keys, I walked in and immediately locked the door.

“I’m not letting you out until you tell me why you’re avoiding me.” A soft sigh escaped his lips. “I’m not avoiding you.” Raising my eyebrow I plopped down on a chair. “Then I guess we’re staying overnight.” He gave me a piercing glare. “Not funny. Now let me go, I have basketball practice.” “Don’t worry, I already told your coach you’d be late or not show up.” The way he stared at me made me realize he wasn’t mad, he was hurt. Deeply hurt.

I sighed. “Listen, Mingyu. I don’t know what I did or said to upset you this much, but can’t we talk this out? I miss you. I miss us.” A sarcastic laugh, almost scoff, escaped his lips. “For someone who misses me, you sure found it easy to replace me. Do you have any idea how much that hurts? To watch someone just take your place right in front of your eyes?”

“Replace you? What are you talking about? You’ve always been my best friend. You are my best friend.”

His face startes to become bright red, his eyes nearnly popping out of their sockets.

“I used to be your giant puppy! But then you got Stan from the animal shelter and you stopped giving me that nickname. Don’t you get how embarrassing this is for me?! I’m jealous of a dog. A DOG.”