June 21^st, 2015

It has been at least 3 months since then – although it is weird to write it like that, I mean, I wrote about her almost every day in here. I don’t need to remind myself that but whatever.

We had so much in common that it kind-of baffles me. Where has she been all my live? Jeonju is a small place and yet fate decided to have us meeting in the capital instead. How funny.

As I’ve written in the past few pages, she had been visiting the bookstore frequently. I was expecting her to come by once or at most twice a week but she has been coming by everyday with exceptions when she had to stay overnight at the library to do her assignments.

As much as we are alike, we have our differences too. Unlike me who owns the bookstore, she’s struggling as a college student to pass her exams and unlike her, I’m not particularly interested in investing on my future. If I’m able to pay the rent, keeps the bookstore going, then that’s enough. I don’t want to have to think about complicated stuff and if possible, I want to lead a quiet mundane life, as boring as it can get. Thinking about it, Hyejin seemed like a total opposite of me and yet it also felt like she’s my soul sister, or even another me born in another body with energy and passion that is absent in myself. As crazy as it may sound…

Anyways, I was humming to myself as I cleaned up the store and I must have missed the jingle on the door because next thing I heard was another voice humming along with my lead and surprise surprise, there she was standing in the doorway, wearing the best smile I’ve ever seen, nodding her head to the beat of the song. Her eyes, so mesmerizing and so clear, looked straight at me as if she was staring into the depth of my soul. I, for one, don’t like cliché but I admit, it felt like the time paused, the world stopped spinning and there were only the two of us and music. Before long, I was no longer humming but was singing out loud and again, dislike cliché but, it felt like harmony existed to describe us. When the song ended, she kept staring at me with her jaws slack and disbelief all over her face so I turned around pretending nothing happened but then I heard claps.

Her: Wow, Wheein-ie, damn voice!

Me: Mine can’t compare to yours.

Her: Of course it can’t. That voice is so much superior

Embarrassed, I threw the crumpled piece of paper on the table at her, successfully hitting her on the forehead. She laughed it off and I began to regret throwing it at her when she unfolded the creases.

Her: Again, wow! Why’d you throw this away?

It was a sketch I did last night when I can’t sleep. Honestly she bothered me so much, filling my every waking hours with thoughts of her, and so I ended up doing a sketch of lion and puppy out playing in the field. Problem is, it’s not a real lion but rather a person wearing a lion onesies and that person is her. The face was incomplete but of course it’s easy to guess the identity of the person WHEN I BLATANTLY GAVE(?) HER THE NICKNAME…. I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M GETTING MAD AND WRITING IN BLOCKS BUT ARGH!! SHE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO KNOW SO I SNATCHED IT AWAY FROM HER AND THREW IT INTO THE BIN.

Me: It’s nothing. Look, if you’re done teasing, why don’t you go over to the kitchen and help me take out the brownies?

Excuses I know. I can’t possibly confess that I threw it away because I don’t want to accept the fact that she’s haunting me day and night. I stopped myself from completing the “sketch” because it would feel as if I’m accepting her as someone important to me.

I…I’m not ready to take that step, not yet.

She may be the answer to all the questions, the solution to all the problems, the oasis in the desert, my other half, but I’m not ready for all of those. I’m not ready to commit, knowing that betrayal hurts. It hurts a lot. I don’t want to have to worry. As long as she’s by my side, I don’t want to have to worry about getting hurt. I would keep her by my side, but I would build a wall around me, build a barrier to protect me. And ultimately, her.

I'm too broken to be mended and if she came any closer, the shards would only hurt her and that's the last thing I would want to do to her. That baby lion, she looked like she has been through some stuff too. The least I could do is protect what we currently have and hopefully, for both of us, we can let go of the past and embark on a new journey to the future. Together.

…if nothing goes wrong

The words in her diary were left unread; the emotions engraved in each line were dying down. The ink paled against the yellowing paper despite not meeting the outside world for months already and the book cover pathetically failed to guard the pages that it was entrusted to care for by the owner. The diary was rotting away in the cabinet, baked under the harsh UV rays every morning and it has became too fragile that simply touching it created the fear of ruining the book which would crumble apart. Besides the diary, there was a piece of A4 paper - it's condition practically similar to that of the diary - but one could still see the faint lines tracing the outline of two figures drawn on it.

It was faint, barely visible, but it was there.

A lion and a puppy.

Two beautiful smiles.

Eyes laden with love.

Embracing.

It was Ahn Hyejin.

Of course.

With the diary's owner.

Jung Wheein.