Lovefool

The date did the heavy lifting for you.

It always had.

The first of April arrived dressed like a prank, light on its feet, harmless in the way it made everything sound like it didn’t matter. It gave people permission to say things they would never dare to otherwise, to stretch the truth until it snapped and call it humor.

And you learned how to live in that space between truth and laughter.

“I like you, Kim Sooin.”

It was the same line, on the same day every year.

And the exact same escape plan right after.

“April Fools!”

She would always let you have that exit.

That was the thing about Sooin.

She never pushed, never cornered, never made you sit in something uncomfortable longer than you could handle.

She’d laugh, sometimes shake her head, sometimes nudge your shoulder like you’d just said something mildly annoying instead of something that could’ve changed everything.

“Do you rehearse that every year?” she teased once.

You grinned. “Only for you.”

“Liar.”

then she’d laugh again.

It was easy to throw words like that into the air, maybe a bit too easy since she was your best friend. Which meant you already had everything you weren’t supposed to risk.

You knew what she ordered even before entering a place.
You knew which songs she skipped and which ones she replayed three times without noticing.
You knew the exact tone of her voice when she was pretending she was fine and when she wasn’t.

And she knew you.

In ways no one else did.

So you built your routine carefully.

One day a year, you let the truth out for just a second or two.

The other 364, you kept it buried under jokes and familiarity and everything that made your friendship feel safe.

“I like you, Kim Sooin.”

You never shortened her name, never softened the words.

If you were going to say it, even as a joke, you wanted it to sound believable enough.

The first time you did it, she blinked in surprise, asked if it was real before you laughed it off.

The second, she caught on faster.

By the third, she was already smiling before you finished.

By the fourth, she started something from you.

“Just spit it out,” she said once, glancing at her phone before looking back at you, brows slightly raised.

You blinked. “What?”

“Your yearly performance,” she replied, leaning back like she had all the time in the world. “It’s already past noon, let’s just get it over with.”

You huffed a laugh, shaking your head. “I was waiting until we were walking home, y’know for suspense.”

“Mhm,” she hummed, unconvinced. “Sure you were.”

You watched her for a second.

The way she looked at you like this was normal, like knew whatever you were going to say, like it didn’t matter.

“I like you, Kim Sooin.”

She didn’t even blink this time.

Just tilted her head slightly, the corner of her lips lifting like she was waiting for the rest.

“April Fools…“ you added, a beat too late.

“Wow,” she said flatly. “So convincing.”

You would’ve gone ahead with life if there wasn’t a small problem,

She was smiling.

It never broke anything.

No matter how many times you said it, no matter how real it felt when it left your mouth, it always folded neatly back into something harmless.

Something she could laugh at.

Something you could hide behind.

And maybe that’s why you kept doing it.

Because as long as it stayed a joke, you never had to find out what would happen if it wasn’t.