PERSPECTIVE

Before Sana arrives the next morning, I spend exactly thirteen minutes in bed convincing myself that I am getting sick. It takes her exactly six minutes to un-convinced me. She's checking my blood pressure, heart and pulse rates before declaring that I am simply love sick.  Sounds funny isn't it? 

“Classic symptoms,” Sana's says, smile lovingly toward me. 

“No I’m not in love. I can’t be in love.”

“And why not Mina-ya?”

“What's would be the point of being in love?” I'd say, throwing my hands up. “I can't even go out from this house for a minutes, can't even see how's the outside world working.  Me in love would be like being a food critic with no taste buds. It would be like being a color-blind painter. It would be like—”

“Like skinny-dipping by yourself.” She says.

I have to laugh at that one. “Exactly,” I say.

“It's just pointless Sana.”

“Not pointless,” she says, staring at me seriously.

“Just because you can’t experience everything doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experience anything. Besides, doomed love is a part of life. You deserve a love Mina.”

“I’m not in love,” I say again, firmly.

“And you’re not sick Mina,” she retorts. “So there’s nothing to worry about.”

For the rest of the morning I’m too distracted to read or doing my reviews. Despite Sana’s reassurances that I’m not getting sick, I find myself paying too close attention to my body and how it feels. Does my fingertips tingling? Do they usually do that? Why can’t I seem to catch my breath? How many somersaults can a stomach do before becoming irreparably knotted? I ask Sana to do an extra check of my vitals, and the results are all normal.

It might be another things. Something that I need to find out precisely. 

By the afternoon I acknowledge in my head that Sana might be onto something. I might not be in love, but I feel like I am. I’m seriously feels like I am. I wandering around the house aimlessly, seeing Chaeyoung everywhere.

I see her in my kitchen making stacks of toast for dinner. I see her in my living room suffering though Pride and Prejudice with me. I see her in my bedroom, her black-clad body asleep on my white couch. My imaginations are going up to higher level. Heol, this is not good for my mind.

And it’s not just Chaeyoung that I see. I keep picturing myself floating high above earth. From the edge of space I can see the whole world all at once. My eyes didn’t stop at a wall or at a door. I can see the beginning and the end of time. I can see the infinity from there.

For the first time in a long time, I want more than I have.

WONDERLAND

And it’s the wants that pulls me back down to earth hard. The wants scares me. It feels like a weed that spreads slowly, just beneath under your notice. Before you know it, it’s pitted your surfaces and darkened your windows.

I send Chaeyoung a message. I’m really busy this weekend, I'd say. I need to get some sleep, I'd say. I need to concentrate on my reviews, I'd say. I turned off my phone, unplug it, and bury it under a stack of books in my drawer. Sana raises a single questioning eyebrow at me. I lower two non-answering eyebrows back at her.

I spend most of the Saturday suffering through calculus. Math is my least favorite and worst subject. It’s possible that those two facts are related.

By the evening, I moved on to re-reading the annotated and illustrated version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I barely noticed that Sana is already packing up to leave at the end of the day.

“Did you have an argument?” she asks, standing beside me while caressing my head.

I shake my head no but don’t say anything more.

"You know you can tell me anything Mina-ya. I'm always by your side honey." Sana says sweetly. 

By Sunday, the urge to check my phone is acute. I imagine my inbox overflowing with questions-full-of-emojis from Chaeyoung. Is she asking more Fast Five questions? Does she want some company, refuge from her family?

The thing is, why she's keep coming into my mind. We are nothing but just a stranger-neighbor-friend.

“You’re OK,” Sana says on her way out the door that evening. She kisses my forehead, and I’m her little girl again.

I take Alice to my white couch and settle in. Sana is right. Of course, I am OK, but, like Alice, I’m just trying not to get lost. I keep thinking about the summer when I was eight. I spent so many days with my forehead pressed against my glass window, bruising myself with my futile wanting.

At first I jus