Sunscreen

“When are you gonna let me see it?” Sunhye asks for the millionth time, nudging your ribs softly enough to not mess up your lines, but hard enough to still annoy you.

You sigh in frustration, hiding your notebook from her view. “If you keep asking, it’ll be never.”

The chirping cicadas fill the impending silence as Sunhye resigns herself to plucking blades of grass out of the ground. Sunlight peaks through the gaps in the branches above, yet the cooling breeze still offers solace against the summer heat. The air smells fresher on this secluded hill you’ve claimed as your “secret hangout spot”, away and untouched by judgemental eyes and prying hands. A simple spot just for the two of you to be who you want to be.

Sunhye lets out a long exhale, resting her head against the base of the tree you consider to be a second home. “I talked to my parents about the Korea trip,” she says.

Your hand freezes in the middle of shading. “What’d they say?”

“They’re still making me go.” She tosses the pieces of grass in the air, watching them flit against the current of the wind before disappearing into the surrounding greenery. “My cousin’s birthday is soon, so I don’t really have a choice.”

“Dammit,” you utter, brushing the eraser shavings off your notebook. “Is it a cool cousin?”

She sighs. “Yeah. She’s pretty cool. She owns a VR headset.”

“So you get to go to your cool cousin’s birthday while I have to spend the rest of my summer alone?!”

“Sorry, bud,” she says, patting your shoulder. A dejected huff leaves your lips as you whittle away at your pencil with your pocket knife, sharpening its tip. Suddenly, the undeniable grumble of a stomach cuts through the background noise. In the midst of the trees where time seems to fade from existence, it’s easy to forget that you’re still human.

“Hm… Ice cream?” Sunhye suggests.

You tuck your notebook under your arm and your tools in your pocket, patting the resulting bump at your side to make sure everything is there. 

“Obviously.”

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Sweet, sweet vanilla, simplicity at its finest. Sunhye has given you more than enough crap for liking such a “boring” flavor, but you’ve learned to tune out most of her yapping at this point.

“…Hello?” She waves her hand in front of your face, forcibly ripping you from your daydreams. “Are you even listening to me?”

Sometimes you forget to flip the switch off.

“Totally,” you say, taking another slow lick at your ice cream. “But on the off chance I wasn’t, you should remind me again.”

Sunhye jabs your arm, making you nearly drop your vanilla cone. “You’re an ass.”

You lean back against the old wooden bench, carefully listening to the octave of its creak to ensure you don’t break through it. “Yeah yeah, my bad,” you offer. “What were you talking about?”

She shakes her head at you. “Nope.”

“C’mon, please?”

“Nuh uh.” A drop of rainbow-colored cream melts onto her hand, leaking through her fingers before hitting the burning concrete below. She takes a moment to lick away the meltier bits overflowing over the top of the cone, ensuring that the $5 you spent on her doesn’t go to waste. “You should’ve listened the first time.”

“I’ll listen the second time, promise.”

“Tsk, fine.” A beat passes before she continues, the silence brief yet noticeable. “The guy in my dance class asked me out.”

“Huh?” Your eyes widen in shock. “Which one? Backwards hat guy or weird jacket guy?”

Her cheeks burn redder than a sunburn from embarrassment. “U-uh, it was, uh, weird jacket guy.”

“Weird jack— What!?” You shoot up from your seat, flinging drops of melted vanilla everywhere. “What did you say to him?”

“No, obviously. He’s, um, not really my type.”

You nod, shifting your gaze to hide the inkling of a grin dancing on the corner of your lip. “Ah. Well, what can you do?”

“Y-yeah, right.”

More than half of your ice cream is reduced to a milky puddle before you have the sense to finish the rest of it. Even as the sun continues to beat down its unbearable heat on your head, the creamy notes of vanilla have never been more refreshing.

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Through all the hand cramps and itchy skin, you don’t stop moving. Create a line, create a few more, hate it just enough, and then erase and redo. Not the most productive cycle, but if every mistake brings you even a smidge closer to some form of “perfection”, then you’ll gladly stay under this tree for a thousand years until your pencil is reduced to a nub and your notebook has witnessed countless errors. Only, you don’t have a thousand years.

Sunhye pokes a stick into the dirt, groaning impatiently as clueless little ants scale the makeshift pole. “Are you done yet? My flight is in a couple hours and my parents are gonna be pissed at me if I don’t get home in time.”

“Just… a second…” you mutter. Sweat beads on your forehead with each drag of the lead against the paper, your work growing sloppier and harsher by the second.

She sighs. “Just text me a pic when you’re done and I’ll see it when I land.”

“Wait!” You grab onto her shoulder just as she moves to get up, gripping harder than you probably should be. Sunhye furrows an eyebrow, yet sits back down anyways, reading the desperation in your eyes.

“Fine,” she huffs, “You get five minutes.”

A breath you didn’t know you were holding empties from your lungs as you release her shoulder from your grip. “Thanks.”

A thousand years wouldn’t have been enough to make it perfect. A billion years wouldn’t have been enough. Time could stand still, only unfreezing when you finally create the perfect drawing, but you would only be cursing yourself to a motionless fate. You wish you could play it cool and show it to her like the past couple weeks of your unyielding efforts were all just some show to build suspense, but you know the truth. She knows the truth — that brief moment of panic spoke volumes, even if you don’t want to admit it. 

“What are you gonna do while I’m gone?” Sunhye asks, waving the stick around aimlessly.

“I don’t know. What I’ve always done, I guess.”

She chuckles. “Lock yourself in your room all day?”

A small grin creeps up on your face. “Yeah. Probably.”

She nudges against your ribs, softly enough to not mess up your lines, but hard enough to produce a laugh from your lips. “If I come back and find you paler than when I left, I’m gonna kill you.”

“Fine,” you utter, rolling your eyes. “I’ll, uh, go on a walk every once in a while or something.”

“Everyday,” she states. “And you better send me picture proof.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then…” Sunhye grows uncharacteristically quiet. A gust of wind rustles the leaves to fill the silence, and for a moment, you two are the only people left on Earth. No trip to Korea, no end of summer, no impending dread, just you and Sunhye in your own little pocket of space.