Oh Seunghee was sitting side by side near the lake alone until she heard footsteps approaching. He sat down, without much noise, blended in with the silence. They were together but they did not sit close enough to keep each other’s warm from the chilly night. Taeyong was quiet the whole time, and when Seunghee turned to look at him, he turned to face her and their eyes met incidently.

“Say,” Taeyong said, breaking the comforting silence between them. “Do you still think of him?”

It didn’t take long for Seunghee to know who Taeyong was referring to. Her heart skipped a beat but she remained composed.

“Who?”

“Shinwon.”

Seunghee frowned and turned to look at Taeyong, but it didn’t erase the jeering gaze off of Taeyong's face.

“You know he’s dead.”

“Doesn’t mean you stopped thinking about him. now does it?”

Seunghee’s expression hardened; the wind blew her long hair as they fell from behind her ear. “I don’t want to talk about him with you.”

“Why? If you feel guilty, that’d be a ing lie.”

“He’s dead, Taeyong. He cannot do anything to you anymore. Stop bringing him up. It’s ing annoying.” Seunghee proceeded to get up, and she didn’t care to express what she felt about this subject to him. Taeyong jerked forward, grabbing Seunghee by her hand and pulled at her.

“Sit,” he said quickly. “Fine. I won’t talk about him anymore.”

She was silent, resilient.

“I won’t,” he repeated. “I promise.”

Seunghee grunted inwardly and sat down as told. She glared at him in a flash before looking away in anger. She glanced at her watch and found out it was getting late to be out.

They both were quiet again, enjoying the thought spiraling in the midnight blue night, accompanied by the sound of crickets. The lake was beautiful under the sloe-eyed moon and Taeyong was reminded of his stay in rehab. No. Not stay. But rather ‘days’. Life. A phase longer than his broken dream.

“He hurt me more than he hurt you,” Seunghee spoke, but she didn’t look away from the view of the lake. Taeyong looked at her slightly and snorted, disgusted.

“There’s no ing way.”

Seunghee’s lips turned. “I know you’d say that. I know I cannot make you believe that. It’s okay. He broke your leg. Shattered your lifelong dream. I will never understand your pain, but I know what I said."

“You stayed by his side till his last ing breathe. Stop talking like your life was any less miserable than mine was. You were not the one who had to take pills to sleep every ing night. You didn’t have to be strapped down to be every time you see hear the sound of ball dunking in the gym.”

Seunghee turned to Taeyong, and under the dim light, his lashes were getting wet and it glazed magnificently. She held her gaze when they met his.

“He had cancer. His dreams were shattered too-”

“Don’t ing defend him! What he did to those kids, to me, was his ing choice! He could choose not to but he didn’t, okay? Look, I don’t want to talk about him, but I don’t know why you keep talking about him.”

Seunghee turned away, and wiped at her tears angrily. “I was not trying to defend him. I’m telling you – he had cancer. He couldn’t sleep without crying and pills, too.”

“Good. I’m glad he suffered till his last breathe. I wish I was there to enjoy his pain but I was too preoccupied trying to fix mine.”

“You both suffered,” she said quietly. “And I was there with him. But not you.”

Taeyong glanced again, and he scoffed in disbelief. “You were, and still are insignificant to me.”

“I heard people talking about you. You were quite famous for being a handsome new student. You came from a big city. You knew all the names to the high-end brands and latest news about, literally, everything than most of us. You smiled to one of my friends and her life was never the same. One evening, when I was getting ready to leave school, she came from behind, kicking me on my back, and before I fell flat of my face, my head hit the sharp corner of the locker door. There were blood on my collar, and on the floor too, but she didn’t stop there. I was kicked in the stomach and spat on. She said thank you for stabbing her back. It was when her sister explained that I knew why she did that. She said she saw you waving at me.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Why did you wave at me?”

“I don’t remember doing that.”

“Did I wave back?”

Taeyong laughed mirthlessly. His ego was tattered and bruised. “Shut the up. You’re starting to piss me off.”

“So you do remember?”

“I said shut up.”

Seunghee raised her brow at him, amused, and shook her head slightly. “You have a bad taste in women.”

“I’m leaving,” Taeyong snapped. He got up, dusting the dirt off his bottom and walked away. Seunghee was alone by the lake, and she remembered how angry Shinwon looked when he noticed her shying away from the wave.