1. 느리게 하는 일 - 아이유

(Things I Do Slowly - IU)

느릿느릿하게 있는 버릇 드려가죠

조금만더 사랑할게요

I'm forming the habit of forgetting things slowly

I'll love a little longer

“You okay?”

Sooyoung looks up from her laptop to see Kris staring down at her, face devoid of any worries that should have been there had he been genuine in asking if she was okay.

But the truth is she is okay. At least she needs to be okay.

So she nods and smiles without thinking twice, and he smiles back at her—that slight tilt of his lips that she so rarely seen these days. He goes back to highlighting his textbook, and she lets her smile slips away. She unconsciously chews on her lower lip.

So maybe she’s not exactly okay.

Three days and five hours. Not counting, Sooyoung convinces herself. They’ve broken up for three days and five hours—and in every morning of those three days (and this morning also) she still found Kris standing on her porch, his black SUV waiting outside her house. She still found him smiling at her and asking her, you ready? and she still nodded at him and uttered her reply; yeah, let’s go. The first day, she had wanted to ask him why and tell him you don’t have to pick me up every morning anymore but neither of those made it to her tongue.

And she found him still holding her hand when they walked in the campus, occasionally wrapping his arm around her shoulder and he called her as she walked to the bus stop—I’ll send you home, Soo. He kissed her forehead as they stepped onto her porch, before bidding goodbye. The routines—they’re all still the same.

But she feels it, little by little, the pieces of their routine goes missing: the laughter, jokes, grins and teases, they’re all gone. The twitch of her stomach, the sinking feeling, is slowly gone and she feels it; in three mere days, she’s slowly forgetting. All that’s left are subtle smiles and unspoken words, and his trying so hard to make everything seems normal. She wonders if she’s being unfair, because she’s already trying to forget.

“Soo,” Kris calls out. Sooyoung smiles again and looks up. “Want to go watch a movie tomorrow?”

You don’t have to try so hard is what Sooyoung wants to say. You can start forgetting now.

But Kris looks at her and smiles softly, and Sooyoung thinks she sees a flash of hope in his eyes; before she knows it, her words die on and she nods.

“A movie sounds nice.”

Maybe she’s not okay, but maybe he isn’t either.

Maybe like him, she’ll love for a little longer too, and forget a little more slowly too.