Haply my little speech really did make an impression in her, that for the next days that followed, she was having a hard time trying to move on from it. The next day, after my classes, I went to the Green Thumb Org house to do the promised tutorial sessions with her.

Opening the door, I beheld the sight of Daehyun, Hyosung-noona, and a few people practically lazing around in the room.

“Welcome, new member!” Hyosung-noona cheered, waving her two hands at me. “Thank you for joining the Green Thumb Organization. We will take care of you very well, not to worry!”

“Yeeeyy, new member!” Daehyun clapped, a book in hand.

Two of Hyosung’s “younger brothers” were in the room, namely, Jongup and Zelo. I’ve been quite familiar with them and they’re nearing the definition of ‘friend’.  “Yongguk-hyungnim!” the kid with small eyes exclaimed. “You joined too?”

I nodded with a smile, looking for someone that should be present in the room. I opened my mouth to ask them where she is, but Daehyun beat me to it. “By the way, she’s out. Says she’ll come back later for the meeting. She said you’re going to tutor her…?”

Blinking, I tore my gaze off the wall and replied, “Yes. Also, did she tell you that I’m going to replace Youngjae in the group?” Youngjae. The name tasted like metal in my mouth.

Daehyun seemed surprised at this, so I guess she hasn’t. “You…really, hyung? I thought she was just joking! Oh, gosh, you practically saved us! Thank you so much!!!” Jung exclaimed, breathless. I told him that it was no biggie, and that we should really just focus on reviewing now because the quiz bowl is fast approaching.

“Yongguk-ssi,” Hyosung-sajangnim interrupted. “Isn’t Ji Eun going to join in the quiz bowl too? She’s from the Book Club, right?”

“Yes and yes. Why?” I replied.

Judging from how she avoided my gaze, she seemed hesitant in hatching the question. “It’s just that…really, is it fine with you?”

Finding this funny, I almost laughed, but I merely concealed it with a grin. They really think of it that way? “Of course it is. Why, Sajangnim, I appreciate your concern, but our relationship isn’t what you think it is. We’re just friends,”

“…says all people in the show business,” Daehyun snickered. Glancing at him, I cocked a brow. “Really, hyung, it’s alright. Between you and us—don’t worry, you can trust the people here,”

“How am I going to admit if I have nothing to admit about?” I counter, sharpness intended.

Hyosung-noona snagged my attention back. “Is that true? You’re just friends, really?”

Sighing, I bobbed my head. “I’d tell right away if we were in a relationship.”

“That’s Yongguk-hyungnim for you,” Jongup nudged the other kid beside him named Zelo. Or at least, that’s how the latter wants to be called.

I don’t really know what the significance of all this is, but Hyosung-sajangnim heaved a relieved sigh. I have no idea.

Not so long after that, the door of the clubhouse swung open, and finally, she was present. “’Sup people,” she nodded at no one in particular, and proceeded to settle her bag on the long chair nearby, walking in rapid and huge steps.

Upon seeing her Daehyun interjected her name and instantly said, “Oi, noona, good news, BYG-hyung is not taken.”

She put her bag down and turned her head. “Oh?” and that’s when she noticed that I was in the room. Faster than anything she moved her head to the other direction to avoid my eyes.

Speaking became a struggle for me, but I gladly succeeded in taking out of my mouth, because the sight of her just churn my insides uncontrollably, “You told me to tutor you, right?”

She kept her head down, and nodded slowly. “Uh…yeah…”

“I’ll leave you two then,” the org’s president rose from her seat and brought her things along with her. “Jongup-ah, Junhong-ah, let’s go? Noona will be treating you out,” she grinned at them. “Daehyun, would you like to come?”

“I have to rev—” but then he stopped short in his sentence, and nodded, with a somewhat sly smile on his face. “Oh. Okay. Why, sure, noona!  Is there cheesecake?”

Sajangnim nodded with an amused grin. “It’s a café we’re going to,”

Without another word Daehyun rose from his seat, as if in a jolt, and hurriedly followed them to the door, leaving his possessions on the table, in apparent oblivion that they exist anymore. “You two have a good time, hmmkay?” the guy cheekily said whilst he trotted to the door, and before we could protest they’ve left us two alone.

Despite of what happened last time, of course, I could not let that get in the way of what we were obliged to do at the moment. Turning to her, trying my best to keep my cool, I began, “Where are your things?”

“Uh…here,” she took out her Algebra book and stopped at a page. “Can you…teach me this?”

“I relearned that last night,” I smiled, to ease her a little, and I took her pen and paper. “You know what this means, right?”

“Um, well…x and y. That’s what I know,”

“Yes. And, this one, ‘rise over run’?”

“Delta y over delta x. Change in y over change in x…” she explained what she knew, and whenever she stopped at somewhere, I would fill in and add some more explanation. To this she nodded her head in comprehension, asked questions, which I answered. Soon enough the sour note of last time’s meeting was forgotten, and we were back to our old, easy atmosphere. She laughed, cracked a joke, and when she was getting grumpy in frustration whenever she failed to understand a lesson, I would tell her to focus and that she should never give up else we would lose. Ostensibly the “big brother” type of tutor worked on her, and, after two hours, we realized that we had discussed a lot.

“Oh, good, that’s ten over ten,” I grinned, having checked my makeshift test paper that she answered, and she brightened.

“Really? I got it all correct?”

“Yep,”

She did a little dancing in her seat, and, once again, electrified me when she threw her arms around me. “Thank you, Yongguk-oppa!” I did a mental countdown before she could realize what she had done. “Uh,” she jerked away, blinking, her face turning pink. “Sorry,”

“I-it was n-nothing,” oddly enough, I found myself embarrassed by the same sort of feeling. I clandestinely drew away from her, blinking. “A-aren’t you going home?” I said, just for the sake of saying something.

“Hm-mm,” she bowed her head.

“Let’s get you home,”

“Are you sure?”

“Why not?” I grinned.

“N-nothing,” she got up, sort of clumsily, and gathered her things in a haste. “Kaja?”

I smiled, sensing a sense of shyness that she brought about. “Kaja.”

We walked at a pretty slow-paced rate. We were talking, albeit we both knew that some awkwardness hung gravely over us, that it rather hindered the easy atmosphere to penetrate. We would converse, but as soon as a topic died out, it was a struggle to bring another one; conversations that are mere exchanges of questions and answers—the kind of talk that easily fades when a curiosity is satisfied. She would laugh, but it was stiff, sounding forced, and a tad insincere. I started to regret about confessing to her yesterday but the better man in me remained adamant, saying that it was just the right thing to do. I did it for myself, honestly, but partly I think I had done her a great favor, that is, reminding her that someone still loves her.

“This is where I stop,” she smiles sheepishly upon reaching the front of her house, where we had just stopped.

“Yep,”

“Uh…I’d like to thank you, oppa,” she said, shyly, looking down on the ground.

“Hmm? For?”

“For…you know, tutoring me,”

“It was no biggie, really,” chuckling, I put a hand on top of her head and rubbed it. “It would be my greatest fault if I didn’t. We’re a team, remember?”

“You’re right,”

“I’ll be going now,” I started to bid, taking a step away. “See you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow,” she agreed. I turned my back on her then, now ready to tread my journey home. “Uh—” she squeaked, causing me to turn my head at her with an inquisitive rise of the brows. was half-open, obviously with the intention to say something, but after a few seconds she clamped it down, and merely settled to say, “Nothing. Take care,” it made me relieved, yet a bit disappointed too.

The next two weeks was the time of my life. It was during that fortnight that every day we would meet up to have our tutorial lessons, and I felt like I experienced heaven in two weeks. We got a bit closer than we already were; we were cool, though the issue of me having feelings for her would resurface every now and then, but we both tried our best to conceal it lest we would be back to square one where everything is plain awkward. It turned out, that she had a much, much more complex character than I imagined her to be, and she was a person that was fierce yet soft. That was when I fully understood why she and Youngjae became really good friends; the boy was a tad more mature in nature than she was, and to be put metaphorically he was the calm to her storm.

Every time I remember the tragedy between her and him, and even what happened after it, and its cost, it still stings. Every now and then I would see her looking out the window with this glumly dreamy look on her face, while her cheek is rested on her hand. She would occasionally heave a sigh, and I don’t need to be a mind-reader to know that she’s thinking of the guy who broke her heart.

On our last day of tutorials, we were taking a break and she decided to take a nap. It didn’t turn out as just a mere catnap though. She totally fell asleep.

“Daehyun-ah, you’ve been staring at that book for three hours. Did you ever change the page?” I asked our teammate, who, surprisingly, was very enthusiastic in studying for the quiz bowl today.

“Of course I did, hyung,” he scoffed, injured at my query. “Why’d you ask?”

“Eh, it’s just that…it’s really weird seeing you this serious,” honestly Daehyun can be taken seriously but his loud (and by loud I mean very loud) nature gets in the way sometimes; you’d often think his mouth works without the permission of his brain. He’s also so obscenely honest (one of the reasons why she and him and would always get into arguments), a bit tactless at times, but the mixture of all these traits of his just makes him a one-man show. I’m blessed to have a dongsaeng like him, because, simply put, he adds color to life. He’s the ‘neutralizer’ in the team. I don’t know how much he knows about us two but he catches on so easily; when he senses that it starts to get awkward between her and me, Daehyun intervenes, always ready with a joke, a rant, or both, clustered together in one sentence.

“You mean you don’t take me seriously?” with a matching flattening of the eyes.

“No! I mean, I do take you seriously,”

He took a moment to observe me, trying to figure out something. After a while he snorts, “Okay then,”

“Aren’t you going to take a rest?”

He glanced at our female teammate, whose cheek was puffed up as it was the table’s surface it was propelling against. Her snoring was fairly audible in the room. “I might end up like her,”

I laughed. “Come on; you’ve been studying for hours and hours today. Your brain might not take it all in,”

“It’s a compensation for two weeks of procrastination.”

I was slightly taken aback. Oh, so that’s why he’s studying this hard. “I read somewhere that the best way to remember what you studied is to take a nap after learning,”

He balked. “Really?”

I nodded, and took an unconscious glance at the sleeping girl. I just hope she doesn’t sleep too long that she’ll have amnesia on what she studied when she wakes up. Seeing her from this angle, it’s charming, rather than pretty. There’s a veil of certain peace on her face; light years and light years away from the gloomy expression she puts on when awake. There’s a sense of innocence, something that all the tragedies in her life had failed to mar. I started to dream about seeing this face every waking morning, because really—what I feel for her imagines a future beyond going out, or dating. That kind of love is belittling my feelings for her—a mockery to what I am more than ready to do. I want her to be my wife, to be the half of my life.

“You really love her, don’t you?” I looked up when Daehyun disturbed my thoughts. I was slightly shocked at how forthright the question was, but this was Jung Daehyun I was talking to, after all.

“Very,” with a soft, sad smile.

“Have you told her?”

“I have,”

I was quite surprised when he interjected, “Finally!”

“What? Why?”

He chuckled, and it was the kind of chuckle that hinted he held some certain knowledge. It chilled me slightly, because Daehyun really did know more than he seemed. “I’ll tell you something, hyung,” there was a smug edge in his tone. “When she and Youngjae got together I was a bit unhappy at the news,”

“Why? You like her too?”

“Are you kidding me?” he scoffed. “I love her!” he brayed, but he wasn’t angry. To pinpoint exactly, he was happy. “And if you’re starting to think it’s the romantic, not platonic…you’re right.”

That, practically, made me stop breathing.

He saw the dumbstruck expression on my face, and continued, “But I’m not as, let’s just say, aggressive as you and Youngjae, okay. Honestly I never even knew I would fall for that ugly girl,” he scorned. “But my point is, hyung, and this is not just what I think—this is a given fact—she deserves a better guy than him. Don’t get me wrong; I love Youngjae, but they’re better off as friends, really. And though I know that I love her, it won’t be enough to raise her up. She’s fragile, you know that, right?”

I sighed with an attentive nod.

“Good,” he let out a feathery laugh. “Because noona really needs someone like you,”

At first I was flattered, then I started to wonder, which later coursed into confusion. “You really think so?”

“Yes,” he smiled. “And, of, if you think you’re the only heartbroken guy around here, think again,”

That must’ve sounded painful in his part, but he said it with so much confidence and ease, I almost took it as a joke. “For h-how long…have you been…loving her?”

“Way before you even met, believe me,” he replied. “But don’t mind me; go on. Go get her,”

I blinked. Is this really Daehyun? I just sat there with my jaw dangling, not believing everything I just discovered. There was more to him, to everything, than what met the eyes.

“But do you know the funny thing, hyung?”

“What…?”

“You’re just a bit dense sometimes. You tend to dwell on what had happened; you don’t notice what’s happening,”

“What does that even mean?”

He shook his head with a smile. “Wake me up after two hours, please, hyung? I still need to study,” he then rested his folded arms on the table, and rested his head upon it.

I wanted to prod about what it was that he was talking about, but it’s obvious that he’s already closed the doors. It was up to me to figure out what the matter really was.

***

And that’s the reason why until now, Daehyun is still single.

There are times when I catch him looking at my wife with the same loving shine of the eyes—that never changed even for the years and years that had passed. It doesn’t drive me jealous, or mad, in any way, but rather, it makes me respect him. The girl he has always loved is my wife now, and yet even though this hurts (this I am certain of) him he’s still happy for her, most especially for me.

And then I’m just sitting here still not getting over my insecurity.

Jung Daehyun, how do you deal with it?

It takes a lot more than bravery to win over that.

As to the matter whether he’s asleep right now, I am more inclined to the answer that he is. Why wouldn’t he be, when it’s the wee hours of the morning? It’s incredibly still, this silence, it’s almost deafening. Blindly tapping the bedside table several times to search for my phone, I get it, and unlock the screen. I squint my eyes upon the intense white brightness. I then peruse through my contacts, and carelessly call Daehyun.

Hearing the continual ringing of the other end, it’s somewhat agonizing, and I feel foolish. But much to my huge surprise, the owner picks up. “Yeoboseyo?” as if my surprised couldn’t get any bigger, it’s a female voice.

“Um, who’s this?” I blurt. Daehyun lives alone, for Pete’s sakes.

An uncertain, small yelp comes from the other end, and the next thing I hear are scratching sounds, and I hear a low mumble of “Oppa, oppa,” followed by a grunt. I wait. After a while, Daehyun’s on the line. “Yeoboseyo?”

“Daehyun-ah.”

“Yongguk-hyung?”

“Yes, this is me. Can I ask something?”

His voice is rough, and a bit grumpy. “What is it?”

“Who was that?”

“That? Oh.” He chuckles. It sounds sinister. “We were on a date, and I took her home, and…meh, you know what happened next.”

“Tell me something. How long have you been doing this?”

“Doing what, hyung? You mean hooking up with girls every night? It’s been years now. Too long; I can’t even remember how it started,”

“But I thought you were single?”

“I am,” the gruffness of his voice disappears with each and every syllable he exerts. “But that doesn’t save me from having every night, you know?”

“Every…night?”

“Not every-every night. Around, thrice a week? Like that,”

Something gets caught in my throat, and an overwhelming sense of remorse takes over. Why do I suddenly feel…responsible? “With different women?”

“It varies. When someone gets lucky enough she gets to my bed for more than once. Anyway let’s stop talking about this. Why’d you call, hyung?”

“I…” I was going to talk about my wife, but this had stymied my intention, and now I’m confused if I should carry on with it. This is making me feel worse. “Daehyun…why?”

“What? Why what?”

“Why are you doing this?”

He snickers. “Hyung, are you worried?”

“If I should answer honestly, yes,”

“Hyung, this isn’t about me. This is about you. Both of you. I’ve been getting laid with women for years now, it’s just the norm to me. Now, why did you call?”

“No, wait. Is this because I married her?”

“It’s not because you married her. It’s because she’s married,”

“Exactly.”

He snorts, and I could imagine him ruffling his hair in exasperation. “Hyung, you love her. She loves you too. And I don’t blame you, okay? There’s only room for two in a marriage. Just…don’t mind me. I’m fine, really,”

“Daehyun-ah…” I heave out a breath. “What…what have I done to you?”

He laughs. It’s caustic; chilling to the bones, weakening to the soul. “You really want to know what I honestly think, hyung?” his voice cracks, but he conceals it easily, instantly. “It kills me. It kills me every freaking day. But what can I do? She’s married to you. And there’s nothing I can possibly do within my power to get her from that. But I don’t regret anything! Why? Because she’s happy with you. When she’s happy, I’m happy. And what are you doing now, Yongguk-hyung? Why are you letting it slip? I can’t threaten you that I take her away if this continues, but do me a favor. Please. She’s all I ever wanted. Now the least you can do for me is getting her back. Make peace with her. Apologize. That’s all, hyung. Really. I know it’s not easy, but if that problem you have with Youngjae won’t be addressed now, when? If you don’t fix it, who will? Definitely not me, not Himchan-hyung, not Zelo—heck, not even your wife. It’s up to you. Do you not remember what I’ve told you before? Go get her.” I could hear his subtle panting after that long speech. Daehyun seldom talks like this, but when he does, he’s dead serious.

I am then robbed of the ability to speak. That made a great impact more than I would admit. It hurts to see Daehyun like this—ing himself time and time again in the pathetic search to have someone to love again. To completely move on because I took the girl he loves away from him. Sure, I had his permission, and I had every right to claim her, but Daehyun’s a brother to me. I love him that way.

It must’ve taken me too long in moping over this matter that I’ve spent a good moment of silence. Noticing this, Daehyun bids, grumpy but positively stern, “Talk to me when you’ve made up with her,” and he hangs up.

And I’m left with the deafening silence of our room, the black peacefulness that seeps through my skin, piercing it with its sadness. First, Himchan. Now, Daehyun?

It scares me to broach this problem, but I’m more scared of losing her.

Of course, I only have one choice.