It's not easy to forget you.
It's not easy to forget you
“Ji…?” the soft feminine voice calls, I look up from my cup of coffee and face her. “Hm?” she breathes out heavily and closes her eyes tightly, opens them again. The light flickers in her grey eyes, but in the same time it screams out for attention, “What was I talking about?” she asks, I rub my tired eyes and let out a small sigh.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”
“That figures,”
“Mind’s a little distracted,”
“Seungri did tell me about your former girlfriend,” I take a deep breath with a heavy heart, hoping that she might change the topic. I look at her, she gnaws her red lips, like how Dara used to. That blonde headed beauty that once held me upon this world, comes wreathing my mind like mist. Her eyes aren’t grey like Chaerin's, hers are blue. Her eyes were the brightest blue like the colour of the sky on a summer’s day.
“If you’re going to dwell on her, there’s no point of going to this date.” Chaerin says in the most fatigue way I’ve seen, her eyes are tired and just begging to crawl out of this horrible diner at 11pm. “I’m sorry, Chae. I’ll send you home if that’s what you want,”
“No, no. It’s okay. I just want to know what your problem is,”
“You’re my therapist now?” I laugh half-heartedly,
“I can be,” she says coolly as she sips her hot to cold coffee.
“What do you want to hear?”
“About Dara.”
“What’s so interesting about the woman who dumped me?”
“You made this date a boring one, you owe me.”
I shrug, Dara’s figure sits on a bed in my mind. The colour of sunlight dances on her soft fair skin, her eyes in mine, her lips crack a smile as I slowly slip my hands in hers.
“C’mon, Ji! Tell me about her,” Chaerin says with a smile.
“Tell you what, Chae? How she dumped me? That’s demeaning. Really.”
“Obviously not! I wanna know why you like her-”
“Love her-”
“-so much, you know, what’s so different about her that makes the great Gdragon so immune to her that makes it impossible for other girls to seduce you.”
“Oh shut it, Chae,”
“I’m serious, Ji! I mean, I’m your friend and this date, trust me, is the world’s most awkward thing I’ve agreed to,”
“Me too,”
“Now that’s something we have in common!” CL says with a happy face.
I smile and breathe out slowly. This is the first time anyone has asked me about Dara in a long time, the people around me knew well what hurt me best and that is Dara. Anything about Dara kills my day since we stopped seeing each other. I take a deep breath and turn to CL, as I try to hide the hurt, I ask her, “What do you want to know?”
“How did you meet her?” Chaerin asks, she places her palm beneath her chin and her mind stands by curiosity.
“We live in the same neighbourhood.” I answer simply as my mind ponders upon the blue eyed lass who knew right how to pull me back down. I breathe out and face Chaerin as she looks at me and rolls her eyes.
“What?” I begin to feel annoyed, “Is that all? Tell me how you bumped into each other and stuff!”
“We went to the same school, I knew her since we were kids but I only started talking to her in high school.”
“Was it love at first sight?”
“I wish,” I grin as I recall the image of Dara back in high school. The first time I saw her behind the school building with smoke coming out of , sharing her cigarette with her sister Bom. “She called me gay,”
“She sounds like my kind of girl, I mean, if I was a lesbian,” Chaerin said
“Well she was a cool girl, quite a softy.”
“So, she smokes huh?”
“She stopped. I told her to.”
I look at Chaerin as she cracks a smile, I put myself out of everything in my life for a while and notice the smile that I didn’t put my attention to the whole night. I think of the last time someone has ever smiled so soft and so sincere looking, the last girl who has made me stay longer with her out of bed. Dara. Dara was the last.
I look back at Chaerin right in the eyes and notice her staring at me. Her soft smile turns to the kind of smile that sends a sign as if a crime she had done made a good breakthrough. As if she’s hiding something.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Do you still love her?” I pause for a while, the words ring through my ears as I try to gulp down every each one of the syllables, the grammars and the words. The horrible words. I can feel my jaw dropping and I quickly close my mouth. ‘Do you still love her?’ I wonder to myself.
“Chae…”
“I’m serious, do you still love her?”
I take a deep breath and rub my temples. Thoughts come bearing my mind, wondering if I still do, it’s been seven months and I’ve been trying to forget her, push the thoughts away and it works at certain times. At other times, it’ll usually bother me wondering over what she’s doing without me around. If she’s out on a dat`e, if another guy is making her happy.
“Whenever she gets nervous, she laughs and she starts blushing. Her face goes bloody red, really.”
“That’s interesting.”
“And you know she gets scared a lot. But when I’m around her, she’s okay.”
“Because you were there. To keep her safe.”
The words slowly crawl through my head as it messes up the whole system. My heart ranges through all the pain I hid behind all this time, wondering if this is right. If giving up was really for the better.
“She had a scar, on her ankle, it look like a crescent moon. It was very pretty. And before we go to bed, I would make her tea. Just in case she wakes up and cry to characters in her novels,”
“She reads?”
“Her favourite book is ‘Norwegian Wood’ by Haruki Murakami.”
“I’ve watched that movie, quite I must say.” Chaerin mumbles. I let out a dry laugh.
“She never watched it,”
“You’re telling me she read it? Just you know, read it? Like no movie at all?”
I look at Chaerin as she looks at me with a very surprising expression,
“Are you okay?” I ask, she laughs loudly.
“Yeah, a little shock to be honest. Never met anyone like that.” She says.
“Like what?”
“The kind that reads the book but not watch the movie!”
I laugh and die it down quickly. “She used to cry every time Naoko dies, she re-reads the book so many times and she never gets tired. I used to worry so much she might get depressed over it,”
“Why would you worry over such things?”
“I worry that she might relate herself to Naoko, Naoko was depressed as hell that her mind began to quarrel all the time. She turned almost insane, Naoko I mean. That’s why I was scared.”
“I’m still a bit confused now,” I take a deep breath and try to put my words right in my mind.
“I was scared that I wasn’t making her happy, afraid that she might think of a different theory when it comes to me and her.”
“Well, was it because of that?”
“What do you mean?”
“The reason she dumped you.”
“That’s harsh,” I mumble, she laughs and rubs her eyes softly.
“Why did she dump you then?” she asks.
Quickly, I look away from her. There was a humming in my heart and a yearning in my head, and the wind carried memories I wanted to snatch for myself. The night my heart was shattered to pieces was the night I can never be able to forget, the night tears fall not by force but by pressure of the hearts that are not capable of taking. The night I realized that I am never capable of taking care of such a beautiful lady who stole my heart with no intention of breaking it at all. Slowly I breathe out and I turn to look at Chaerin again. “I didn’t have time for her, work was overtaking me.”
“Well must be hard, you’re a celebrity! Touring in a band and all, tiring it must be.”
“She was tired. What’s the point of being in a relationship if it’s gonna be just spaces between us all the time?”
[FLASHBACK]
“Dara, I’ve got a plan!” I said as I watch her walk in and out of the room, “What’s it this time?”
“Venice!”
“What?”
“How about a holiday? Venice? We’ve never been to Venice, before have we? No, I don’t think so.” I tried to sound excited but she stared at me by the door and stood there, thinking.
“Dara?” She breathed out and closed her eyes tightly, she breathed in and breathed out again. She began to rub her face slowly as if trying to push away the frustrations that are going on in her mind.
“What’s the point really?” she asked, she rolled her eyes and groan.
“What do you mean ‘What’s the point’? It’s a holiday, pretty sure that’s the point?” she groaned again and she quickly walked out of the room. I got up of my chair and followed her, “Dara, what did you mean?”
“What is the point of this.. this… ‘holiday’ of yours? It’s not like you’re ever there.” She said as she pretends to be looking for something by a shelf. I didn’t understand, I began to feel frustrated, ‘Doesn’t she understand that it’s work? It’s not on purpose?’
“You keep on saying, ‘Oh hey Dara, let’s on go holidays!’ and by ‘holidays’, you mean ‘Dara, how about you wander around an unknown country while I go stop by a foreign studio and do things with the boys.’ Tired, Jiyong. T-I-R-E-D.”
“Well it’s not my bloody fault, isn’t it? It’s not like I want to go and leave you. I never do and you know that.”
“Then stop doing it!”
“What do you want me to do? Quit?”
“Well won’t that be a little helpful for once?” she shrugged.
I sighed, I rubbed my temples as she stared down at me. “Look, I don’t do this for fun. I do this because of work, I can’t just bail on work,”
“You can’t bail on work but you can bail on me?”
“Millions of people are depending on me!”
“How about the one person who depends her happiness on you?”
We both stared at each other for a short while, I feel like a ball is practically stuck in my throat as I was lost for words, I didn’t know what to say now and my mind wasn’t that filled with excuses anymore. She sighed.
“I thought so.” She said shortly.
“I’m trying to be there for you,” I said.
“I know you are.”
“Then why are you sort off… pushing me? I’m trying! It’s not easy and I could’ve quit but I can’t, and you know that. I can’t just simply stop working, stop getting all the money and let it all die out of the blue.”
“I’m just really tired, Ji. I don’t feel like I know you anymore. It’s like you’re barely there, you’re there but you’re not there. You get it right? Whenever we talk, it’s like I’m not even talking to the Jiyong I know. What happened to my sweet Jiyong? You used to get into trouble just to make time for me, even though I didn’t like you getting into troubles and all, but you would say that it’s worth it. That I’m worth it and I would feel worth it. You would come home, ask me about my day and pretend like you’re interested. I told you many times, don’t ask if you don’t care. I don’t like it when people pretend, especially you. You’re my boyfriend, my best friend, not anyone else, so you tell me where has he gone to because I miss him.”
“You don’t understand me!” I shouted in anger, I began to feel pressured and annoyed. ‘I’m the one working, not you. I’m the one doing all the work, not you. I’m the one trying, not you. I was hoping more from you.’
“So you’re basically saying I’m not here for your thoughts anymore? For you?”
“Maybe,” I said sulkily.
“Well fine, maybe we should end this.”
We both stared at each other, not knowing what to do or what to say. “I don’t want you to leave,” I said. I could hear her tearing as she avoided my eyes and my heart was beginning to crack and I could feel myself drowning in a thick oil. Pulling me down into the darkness, not being able to feel anything and my heart was numb, I was numb. Her eyes were a memory worth remembering but my heart was shattered to pieces, I no longer knew what to live for.
[END OF FLASHBACK]
“Well that was a good dinner,” Chaerin says as we both smile at each other in front of the entrance of the dull diner.
“Yes, it was.”
“Well this is it. Goodbye, Ji.” Chaerin waves before she walks off.
“Goodbye, Chaerin.” I smile as I watch the figure cross the road, the girl in the pink dress left me alone with no-one to talk to again. I breathe out heavily, ready to walk off back to home. To wherever home is.
I begin to think of Chaerin. Here I am, in front of a diner at 12am with no-one to talk to. I had the chance, but I blew it. If I treated Chaerin well, if I had listen to what she wanted to say, we wouldn’t have been talking about Dara. We would be back at her house, do things that two people who are attracted to each other would do. Things would be easier for me, for us.
I take a deep breath, rub my eyes and throw a dry laugh. ‘Ridiculous’ my mind recites, ‘you’re so ridiculous, what girl would want to date someone as messed up as you are. She’s not Dara, nothing like Dara.’ I silently agree to this, “What is wrong with you, Jiyong??.” I tell myself.
“Everything, probably,” a familiar voice answers.
I stop dead. My breathing begins to shallow. I can feel my heart stopping and falling, falling off to my stomach. Every single one of my memories comes crashing onto me like a terrible accident, I turn to face the figure.
“Dara…”
She begins to laugh, her face is red like an apple. She covers her face with her palm, I can tell her heart is about to fall just like mine. She’s nervous, and undeniably, like me.
“I’m sorry I’m-”
“Nervous.” I cut her off, I begin to crack a smile. My heart that fell into the pit of my stomach comes back to its place, its place called home. Like a rope’s been attached to it all this time, just in case things like this happen again. She stops laughing, she looks at me with her eyes a little bigger than usual, “Y-yeah. I mean… yeah, I’m sort off nervous.”
“You laughed and you were blushing, that’s how I know. I mean, you know, you… you sort off… laugh and blush a lot when you… well, get nervous.”
“Oh…”
“I-I still remember, it just came in my mind. I mean, you know. Is it creepy?” she laughs.
“No, no. Not creepy. Totally not at all.”
We both stare at each other, both grinning like idiots. My heart races again like how it used to, seeing that beauty that I’ve been hiding from for 7 months.
“So…” she begins.
“So!”
“What are you doing here?”
“I… I don’t actually know?”
“You don’t know? Well, it’s obviously a diner, so I guess… the food?”
“Yes the food!”
“So… so what are you doing here?”
“Me? Oh Christmas! Days to go! Very excited!”
“Oh yes, Christmas… Almost forgot.”
“Yes, Christmas…”
We both pause for a little while as I stare at her, her eyes avoiding me completely. I let out a small sigh as the awkward silence between us devours our time, I can feel my heart beating so fast that it pleas to burst.
“Jiyong…”
“Yes?” I look at her immediately and our eyes meet unintentionally. Her blue eyes are big and beautiful, in the same time revealing fear. “Will you be coming back to Seoul for Christmas?” she asks with a shiver in her voice that makes me want to desperately hold her.
“I will,” I answer with a smile, hoping it will put her at ease.
“Good! I mean… whatever I mean. Anyways, I’ll be throwing a thanksgiving dinner. I would appreciate it if you come. I mean if you want to! I’m not forcing you or anything, I mean I’ll be happy if you come. Oh wait… no! I don’t mean it that way you know, if you want to invite your girlfriend or whatever-”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.” I cut her off. “It’s not easy forgetting you.” I confess simply, I can hear the icy edge in my voice over my broken heart and the scar that’s opened again to uncover my wound. Her cheeks flush crimson, she looks at me with weak eyes as if saying, ‘Don’t, not now. Not like this.’ The atmosphere is familiar, like we both have been through it before. The silhouette of memories pass by, like the night our eyes revealed the pain that was kept for too long and our hearts were torn and still are. That scent that lingers after a nice rain is called “petrichor.”
“Dara!” A man calls from the other side of the road, he looks older than Dara and I. I look back at Dara, she quickly wipes the tears that were falling. He runs as he crosses the road, “Dara my sweetheart, we’ve got to go. Bom is going mad with all those clothes, come on!”
Dara looks at me with her jaw half dropping, she blinks quickly as my heart’s being pulled out by an invisible figure with burning hands. I can slowly feel something inside of me shutting off, like my soul’s been out wandering around for a better life.
“Can you go first? I’ll catch up.” Dara gives a weak smile, the guy looks at me and nod to Dara.
“Alright,” he mumbles.
“I thought you don’t like to be called ‘sweetheart’ and such,” I said.
“I don’t. He isn’t my boyfriend,”
“Oh really? Then who is he?”
“TOP, Bom’s boyfriend. Bom, my sister, just in case you’ve forgotten about her.”
Dara rolls her eyes as I look at her, I let out a huge sigh and run my fingers through my hair. I begin to feel a pinch of regret over my rude tone of disgust, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not easy to forget you, either.” Dara said.
I quickly turn my eyes to her as she looks down to the floor looking almost scared, the tone of my voice is stuck somewhere between my throat and my heart calls for despair and joy at the same time. She quickly wipes away the tears that have no chance of falling, she takes a deep breath and proceeds to smile nervously, “I’ve got to go,” she says.
“I know,” I say.
“Will I be seeing you next week?” she looks at me hopingly. Slowly, I begin to feel happiness, a chance, a light that will bring me back to the days where all is good.
“Dara, I will be there. Right in time.” I grin, she giggles and quickly run her fingers through her undeniably beautiful blonde hair. She comes closer at me, my heart beats faster than ever as she takes each of her steps, “Goodbye, Jiyong.” Proudly, I look at her as she stands upon her tiptoe and gladly, she plans a wonderful kiss on my cheek.
I look at her as she shows a little wave and she walks away swiftly, my heart counts her steps and my mind stays in disbelief of the moment that just passed.
Anchorage. The desire to hold on to time as it passes, like trying to keep your heart to stay upon the happiness that once lift you up as if there is nothing but goodness in this world. Convincing yourself that the life you once hold is still there. Slowly, a whisper in my head tells me to let go of what had been demolished, but start again with the same person as a better person who can love someone better after the things that I have done.
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macie <3
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