"That I did not say it, that I swallowed that poison down, that I was quiet, that I looked towards the ground, that silence and I became very best friends, that I lost my voice, that I had to, because you were overwhelming and demanding." 

October 3rd, 2015

Sometimes before Doyoung goes to sleep at night, as he tumbles around the lonely cold sheets of his bed in the search for heat, he dreams that he’s a clementine.  One of those extra orange ones. Doyoung loves clementines, he’s loved them for a long time now. They are simple, and sweet, and orange — so happy, so carefree. So many things that Doyoung yearns to be but never was, never is, never can be because Doyoung is no clementine, he’s a human. And humans are far more complex.

Tonight is one of those nights.

Doyoung’s dreams come to him even though he’s more than awake, more than conscious.

Doyoung muses over his naive thoughts, but he’s already determined. If he can be reborn again, he’s going to be reborn as a clementine. A clementine that sprouts in cold October and perishes before even colder February. As a clementine, he isn’t going to have many worries besides being eaten up, but he imagines that even then his death will be quick and nowhere near as painful as that of a human’s. 

Besides, even as a human, he can get eaten up.

“There is a bird living inside of my ribcage.

It has eaten my heart and occasionally throws up the chunks. I can feel the old remnants of it beating against my bones, like an old far away song. She flaps her wings and tries to fly upwards from my throat so I swallow her down and tighten my spinal cord to keep her there.

She sings her desperate lullaby against my throat and at night I hear the faint loneliness of it. When I open my mouth, I speak in music. When I close my mouth, she throws herself against my ribs pulsing out her own keening rhytym.”

Doyoung pushes a hand against his chest, over the spot where his heart hides under layers of skin and blue veins. Its thumps are violent enough for him to be tricked into thinking he’s dying; but Doyoung’s got a smart head on his shoulders, he knows he’s not dying. It just feels like he’s dying and it’s not much better than the real thing. 

Violent heartbeats, irregular pulse, short breaths, rosy cheeks, and numb hands     from the lack of warmth offered by his meager blankets — Doyoung’s senses are on the edge. He’s ate about three clementines by now; his stomach has no more space but his tongue remains greedy. Greedy for anything to get rid off the taste of Jung Jaehyun’s sour mouth.

There were many loves before Jung Jaehyun came barging in a few hours ago. Or maybe he never even loved them, Doyoung isn’t so sure. He isn’t so sure if he’s been in love or just thought he was, because everyone describes it so differently.

To some, love is precious; to some, love is toxic.

From the novels to the movies to the dramas to even your own grandparents — youngsters are taught by everyone that love is magical and that everyone must love; youngsters are taught that humans aren’t humans without love; they are told  love can solve every one of your problems, but never do they  speak of the many consequences that love causes. You just have to love someone, because that’s normal.

And then we are told that in order to complete one’s love, one must get married, and one must bear children, and one must build a home together. Because that’s normal.

But none of Doyoung’s loves worked as such.

At the age of fourteen, Doyoung began to date the first person out of three that he may or may not have loved so far. Precisely as her name suggests, her name being Boram, she has been a valuable person to Doyoung. One of his closest buddies, one of the only ones that reached out to him and closed the .

Students and teachers, just about everyone, said that they would make a cute couple. Because people said so, Doyoung agreed that it must be true. He told her he has a crush on her and she accepted his heart; she also has a crush him, she'd said. 

Not much happened besides that. They kissed, once or twice, and they would hold hands at school. They went to the same Hagwon and lived in the same neighbourhood, so most of their weekdays, and sometimes even their weekends, were spent together whether they wanted to or not. It was a normal, carefree relationship which their classmates teased them for and adults cooed over. 

But Boram broke up before a hundred days could come. She broke up on the ninety-ninth.

January 9th, 2011

“Sorry, I’ve thought hard about this and I don’t want to date you anymore.”

Boram shoots out a quick apology, tracked by a blend of mumbles as they trudge up the snowy path to Hagwon. Doyoung knows what is coming before she’s even stumbled onto her next sentence. 

“I thought I should hold out so we can celebrate our anniversary, but it doesn’t feel right. You’re a good friend, so I don’t want to lie to you anymore. Even if it’s white lies.”

“Ah.” Doyoung exhales, as he starts to make sense of things. Boram must never have cared for him as he cared for her. She only said yes because she pitied him. Must have been tiresome for her to pretend for so long. “Okay, I don’t mind. Let’s break up.”

“Seriously?” she gasps, shocked. She pauses midway up the road; her small hands latch onto his shoulders, squeezing his blades tightly. “You’re not even angry? Why aren’t you angry?”

“Why would I be? We have more fun as friends anyway.”

Boram shakes her head. “But you liked me, you should be angry!”

“Why?”

“Just because!” she retorts, stomping ahead of him. 

Doyoung watches as her big Winter jacket and oversized beanie disappear around the corner. Her words echo in his head. 

Just because implies that it's obvious, that it is something everyone knows but Doyoung still doesn’t understand. He never does, maybe because he’s younger. It’s only a year, not much if you ask most, but it also means Boram’s got one more year of experience. One more year of heartbreaks, and happy moments, and hardships.

It’s in moments like these that Doyoung sees that and he suddenly feels far away from her. 

October 3rd, 2015

Doyoung does not understand at that time, he understands much later. He understands that some people sometimes say things to some people, and these things may sometimes not always be something true; they say these untrue things because they hope the person understands them enough to search beyond the surface.

It’s dumb, but it’s what humans do. Humans aren’t dumb, but they do dumb things.

Sometimes.

Boram explained to him, a couple of years later on an early Summer day; it had been on a day that Boram decided to wear a dress for the first time, the day Doyoung showed her his braceless teeth for the first time in a long time, on the Summer that his mom had decided to go on yet another one of her never-succesful diet adventures pretending she couldn’t remember the countless of times she's made such promises before.

When Doyoung thinks about those simple days and the comforting scent of mint that always clung to his best friend, he misses his hometown more than he likes to admit.

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