The weekend passes by without me remembering much of it.

On Monday I leave the apartment before Ayeon and Huiryong arrive. My roommates have been sending me nonstop messages but have not threatened me with coming home before they’re supposed to. I hope it’s because Jae has explained that I need alone time. Because that’s exactly what I need.

Furthermore, I did assure Jae that I’m not in any immediate danger to myself. Immediate life-threatening danger. I promised I wouldn’t be. At least I told him as much the next afternoon when I woke up. Following that, I’ve had time to think. I’ve decided. I’ll just have to fail Professor Park’s class. I’ll figure out a way not to take Sungjin’s class next semester because I don’t think I can face him. Or maybe I can find a way to skip those credits or take something else.

Life hasn’t been difficult, after all. Perhaps it’s time to admit I’m just not as good as they believe I am. Also, I’m a mess. Maybe work on that, too.

After about four rounds walking around the courtyard, I gather enough courage to climb up the steps to the main building and up the stairs and down the hallways to Professor Park’s office. But I take a few more rounds back and forth the hall, and then a trip to the bathroom before walking up the the department. I knock twice then poke my head in. Without looking up, he gestures me to come in. He’s on his desk, grading transcriptions.

“Good to see you, how are you?” he asks, pulling off his reading glasses and folding them and tucking them into the chest pocket of his dress shirt. “How have you been doing? Have a seat. I’ve been hoping you’d show up.”

Without removing my backpack, I take a seat on the chair across his desk. I open my mouth to tell him I won’t be submitting my final project, but what comes out is, “I’ve been writing.”

“That’s good to hear. You disappeared.”

Again.

And right now I want to disappear one more time. How is it that when everything is going according to plan, I still freak out? “I’m okay. Just overwhelmed.”

“The offer with Dr. Choi still stands, if you want it. When you’re ready for it. I can put in a good word for you should you need it. Did something happen?”

“Just a lot of stuff.” Like Joonyoung. Like Sungjin. Music. Radio. My friends. Friends? They’re still my friends, I think. What if Dr. Choi asks me to let go of everything? What will be left for me? “But I’ve been working on my music.”

His face lights up in that paternal way. “That is good news. I am so happy to hear that. Sungjin hasn’t been driving you too hard, has he?”

Of course, they’re both involved. My throat goes dry and I swallow the lump forming there. “Slave-driver,” I say, attempting levity. “I feel like he squeezed my brain dry until there’s nothing left.”

Professor Park chuckles to himself. “That sounds like him. You have them with you? Your songs?”

I feel the thumb drive burning a hole through my backpack. I do have it with me. Not because I intend to submit the work but because I can’t just leave it anywhere. I fidget with the sleeves of my jacket and pull them over my fingers. “They’re not…ready yet. I’m starting to think maybe this is for me.”

“They don’t have to be perfect. No song is perfect the first round. Give me something that’s true. Give me something real. That would be enough. You’re very talented. More than talented, you work hard. You’re a promising producer. A promising artist.”

Have I been working? “Maybe I’m better just curating playlists and mixes and other things that don’t require original thought. I know that’s what I’m really good at. I’ve been working on some things and that’s really where I know I can thrive.”

Professor Park leans forward on his desk and rests his weight on his elbows. “But your work has always been excellent. I’ve told you this, you have a natural ear for these things. I’m already setting you up so I can hire you even before you graduate. That’s how good you are. That’s how good you can be.”

Here we are again with people seeing something they want to see. Wanting me for something I’m not. Something they think I can be. Someone they can turn me into to fit into their perfect ideal.

“Your music,” he pushes, “it makes people move. It makes hearts quiver. It begs to be danced to, to be cried to. It might not be brilliant yet, but the potential is there. There’s so much more for you to learn and accomplish. Why are you resisting?”

“I’m not. It just feels like when I make my own music, it’s flat. I know how to make someone else’s music bold, how to bring out the best parts of someone else, but creating something out of nothing is like trying to catch moonbeams in your hand or trying to push sunlight into a black box with glass walls to break it.”

“That is how it feels like,” he says patiently, “the creative process is scary. It’s okay to not know what you’re doing or to feel like you’re making up the rules as you go along.”

“I don’t think I’m cut out for it.”

“You don’t think you’re capable, or is it that you’re afraid?”

What’s the difference? “I just think that some people are made to stay in the shadows so that other people can stand in the spotlight. I like it when people hear what I’ve done to their work and they say they’ve never even thought about mixing it that way, and that it sounds like how it should have all long. I like being the one to bring out the best in people’s work.”

Professor Park taps his pen thoughtfully on his stack of papers. He looks like he had some kind of epiphany, but he’s holding back on revealing what it is for now. “That is a veritable career in itself, but what about you? What about your own music? I’m afraid you’re never going to discover your own voice. That you’re afraid of how loud you can be. Are you afraid of being heard?”

Being out there means being subject to people’s gazes and their thoughts, and being at their mercy hurts. Of course, I’m afraid. I look away and force myself not to tear up. I glance at the door. Escape feels so far away all of a sudden.

“Do you have it with you? Your EP?” Professor Park’s gaze seems to look through me. See what’s true even as I try to hide it.

I nod. Certain now that he has some uncanny ability to make people do his bidding. “But there’s too much Sungjin,” I say, “there’s too much of him in the songs and not enough of…of me.”

He nods, a smile brewing on his face. “I can understand that. I can hold your grade until the end of the Summer Semester. I can hold your grade until the start of next term, even. Report to Sungjin? Find a regular schedule for progress updates.”

That is already more than I deserve. “Thank you. Thank you, but I’d rather not work with Sungjin, if that’s alright.”

“Did something happen?”

I swallow back words that aren’t really words. “It’s not that. I just…I’d like to…” I can’t believe I’m saying this, but “Can I just go straight to you?”

He smiled. “That’s even better.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Professor park dismisses me after we work out an arrangement and what exactly I need to submit to him at every report. I leave his office with a weird sense that I both did something wrong, but also something right.

At least I didn’t cry.