<1>

The night she parted her way from him to her hotel, Jieun caught herself thinking about the first time she hung out with her previous boyfriend in secret. But the difference is that she completely turned her back toward Jiyong, when in the other case she couldn’t stop herself looking back at the one who was standing there waiting for her to go inside. That bothers her, at the fact that these two things are supposed to be different, but it reminds her of each other.

Jieun wonders if she had fun lately, when all they did was walking around, saying some random things which were absolutely irrelevant to what she supposed that they should talk. Jiyong sometimes would look at her like she’s weird enough to present here, and she would glare back at him, saying that she’s still here and she knows that it’s weird. They seemed to understand each other, but they pretended that they didn’t. So when Jiyong said something and waited for her agreement, she hit him in the back with some vague responses.

“I don’t like crowded place. That’s why I’m here. Jeju looks peaceful, right?”Jiyong pointed at the horizontal line which they could see when they sat on a random rock near the stream.

“You do?”

Jieun tilted her head, sensing that he was probably the type of people who didn’t like crowded place, but she doubted it the next second because he had always been the model of guy who loves to party. Half and half of her mind kept fighting each other, and none of them looked like they were giving in.

Jiyong didn’t like what was on her face right now, because it looked like a face that disgusted his words but still tried her best to agree with him. But Jiyong didn’t hate her for doing that, because he knew, she was just being honest to herself, and again, trying to be polite.

“I must look like a bad guy, right? Someone loves to party and have fun…”

Jiyong laughed it off, feeling ridiculous to himself because all of his life, his prior goal was not to make himself look like a bad guy, and now a random person (she was definitely a perfect example of a random person among people in his life) already thought him as a bad guy.

“Why?” She widened her eyes, and the next few things she said left him hanging there too. “What’s wrong with going party and having fun? You’re not a bad guy for doing that. You’re not a bad guy.”

Her eyes were gleaming, somehow flashed by the sunshine coming from the fragile sunset, and he thought at first if he was hallucinating because right at that moment, he swore to God that he had never felt something like that before. She gave him a sincere smile that he almost instinctually removed all of those bad memories of those fake friends lying and laughing behind his back, because he already told himself not to ing believe in any words of anyone. But his mind allowed him to believe her, because her eyes were crystal clear, and her smile was brighter than the early morning dewdrop.

<2>

She’s wearing a long dress with a black hat that looks vintage as if she got at somewhere selling pre-owned clothes. (And Jiyong has a thing with pre-owned clothes, sometimes it’s good but most of the time, those always bother him). But, she looks not too bad overall.

Jiyong rolls his eyes, whether he should tell her that the place they are supposed to go doesn’t really match her outfit at all, but somehow his mouth is numb. When she makes a bow to greet him, Jiyong sighs for feeling too distant from her (again, she has been doing that kind of bows for so long), when he already wants to shrug off the border between them. He doesn’t want to hang out with someone that always bows her head over ninety degree just for a morning greeting, or says sorry when it’s not necessary, or is extremely thankful when he doesn’t do anything at all, just because of politeness.

“Jieun ah…” Jiyong scratches his hair in the back, intends not to look into her eyes but too late he’s already in her eyes.

It’s weird that she doesn’t answer him, but instead just continues to pull him into those eyes, and he feels a bit uneasy.

“Do I make you feel uncomfortable?”

He wishes someone could punch him so he could break out from that gaze, and somehow he manages to move his eyes to the space above her shoulder. Again, her shoulder softly shakes; it looks so small; he wants to stop caring about her (and comparing her small shoulder); until she grins. So, he supposes she’s not that uncomfortable.

“Why do you ask?”

Jiyong glares to the space on her left, supposes she doesn’t see how dazed his eyes are because he’s always a honest person to say what he wants but somehow he cannot, in this situation. Jiyong doesn’t want her to catch him off guard, but he just doesn’t really know that he just did.

“Just asking.” Jiyong turns his body around to move, prays that it would be a good sentence to end the conversation and the situation itself.

The winds are crashing over Jieun’s face when she walks behind Jiyong in the seashore. Jieun looks at the back of the person in front of her, with his hands still put under his pockets, wonders how he makes himself look more comfortable with this solitude impression. Because she supposes that people always look awkward when they’re alone (most of them), but somehow he doesn’t look that way. When Jiyong turns back and looks at her, his eyes are slurping her feelings, as if they tell her to stop judging their owners. They seems scary to her, but they look like the eyes of a young lion who tries his best to threaten the enemy with his angriness despite the fact that he himself is just a weak one.

She shouldn’t wear a dress, but since it’s a long one, she relieves that it could cover her freezing leg. Spring weather surely has the ideal temperature to go out, but to go to the beach in this weather is kind of bizarre. Jieun slowly walks apart from the seashore to avoid the breezes; when she is covering her shoulders with her hands, Jiyong quietly gives her his jacket.

The scenery seems paused for five seconds, when she has time to look at him. He smiles like a child, with his eyes that doesn’t look inflamed like the young lion anymore, but more bubbly like a gentle cat who wants to play with its owner. She tells herself to get a hold of sense, because, why did she just compare him to some animals, and that isn’t right to compare someone like him to any animal.

“Thank you.” Jieun tries not to touch his finger when she reaches for the jacket; she’s afraid, of something she wishes she never knows.

<3>

“What… do you usually do in here?”

“Um… Breathe?”

Jiyong tilts his head down to chuckle, then again does things with his hands around his face. She tucks her hair to prevent it from blocking her sight, because she is looking at the sea, and him also. She wonders if that’s really just a joke, and how he always makes a joke, but it sounds more like a joke to himself, than a joke to the mood of the conversation. She suddenly feels bad, as if she feels like he could only breathe when he’s here.

“You’re… ok?”

The wave keeps flowing, when the seagulls are harmonizing with those sounds to make the scenery even more oceanic. Two people with different histories, don’t look at each other so often, don’t talk much, most of the time they just look at the same direction, and close their eyes, and breathe. But, they somehow, do understand what is going on within each other’s mind; they have so many things in their minds; they want to break free from those; but somehow they couldn’t. Jiyong turns his head to look at the girl who just asked him if he was ok, when she herself isn’t even sure if she’s ok or not. Why does she care if he’s ok or not, but the fact that he cares about that makes Jiyong feel even more uneasy. Why do things between them become bothering to him?

“Yes… No?”

He looks at her, putting a simulated smile that bothers Jieun, as if he doesn’t even know if he’s ok or not. Jieun supposes she should say something, but at the same time couldn’t move. Somehow, too many things to say and she cannot decide if she should say something or not. She let the waves answer him instead, and he knows that it’s hard for her to think of a response; when again the seagulls make strange noises further away, Jiyong uses his hand drawing some lines on the sand. Jieun chuckles, because he looks like a kid. She doesn’t realize that she has been looking at him, instead of the horizontal line between the sky and the ocean.

“What happened?”

Jiyong turns his head toward her, causing her to startle as if she was caught by looking at him (in a strange way, she supposes). His eyes turn to normal, the eyes of a fierce wildcat who is not afraid of anything. (She wonders why does she keep comparing his eyes.) It should look scary, but she doesn’t feel that. She isn’t scared, she wishes she was scared; because what scares her is that, rather than fear, she might develop something for that eyes.

“Yeah?” Jieun secures , because it looks like he starts to ask her about her problem, and she still wonders if she should tell him or not.

“What happened to you, that makes you cry, that day.” Jiyong gives away his eyes; he supposes he could make her uncomfortable.

“Ah…” Jieun makes a sound, she was still thinking.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Jiyong grins through his nose. “But if you’re still wondering, then I’m really good at keeping secret though.”

That makes Jieun laugh, for real. Her voice sounds like a child, and almost like a tiny little bird who sings some notes in the morning to wake you up. She laughs, and he’s satisfied that she looks better than she did.

“Don’t keep it to yourself. Don’t punish yourself, Jieun ah.”

Jiyong looks straight to the horizontal line, where the sun is going down, where it looks like it’s trying to hide from the truth, an ugly truth that Jieun doesn’t want to accept either. She sees herself in that shadow of the sun; she feels herself draining down just like what the sun does; she smells the salty scent of the ocean, just as how salty her life is right now. Then she wonders, is he talking to the scene in front of her, or to her. Suddenly, the scenery becomes her, and she sees herself all.

<4>

On the way back to the hotel, Jiyong sniffs when he looks at his right side. She was falling asleep, but she looks tired. Not from the ocean, from the walk, nor from the talk, or the winds; she looks tired from her life, he could tell. Her hair goes over her face, and he suddenly thinks of tucking her hair back; because he’s still looking at her face, and those hair bothers his eyes. But he didn’t, he know he shouldn’t. But he wants to.

“Jieun ah, we’re here.”

Jiyong feels dilemma that if he should touch her or not, because she doesn’t look like she would wake up just by his voice. So he makes a mistake that he moves so close to her, to check if she would wake up, to hear her breath when his face is right beside her face, and to eventually touch her hair (and her face).

When Jiyong tucks her hair to see her face, he hears her breath again, but she looks so small right now, and suddenly becomes peaceful. Her head tilts to the window, lays on the seatbelt; her hand tightens each other, her legs are positioned just as similar as how she sat in the studio one year ago. He comes to think that, why are those memories still so vivid to him, why is she vividly there in his memories. He wonders, what are they, what are they to be like this. Why is she here? Why is she here beside him, and he doesn’t hate it.

Jiyong is afraid, afraid that he would start to forget the habit of being alone. Because he’s not alone now, because she’s here now. Right beside him, breathing like a small tiny cat who needs someone to protect.

That night, she dreams of stars, and a sky of pink and purple.