Reply Thirty-Six

Summer 2009

The first time Sunggyu called me (yes, the emphasis is on called and not texted) was two days after my request. I was sitting on my bed, legs crossed and spread out on the soft bed sheet, hands occupied with my high school's year book, as my phone next to me started vibrating. Before panic could begin to ruin my calm heart because there was an incoming call from Sunggyu (yes, the emphasis is on call and not text), and everyone knew calls with almost strangers aka acquaintances formed a synonym for awkwardness at a whole new level, I picked up, as calmly as I contradictorily could.

I said, “Hello?”

And he responded with, “This is Sunggyu.”

And I mumbled, “I know.”

Then, he said, “I'm calling because my friend said he spotted your aunt.”

Which made me quite confused about the situation, for reason (a) Sunggyu didn't mention himself as the witness, and for non-existent reason (b) he chose to call me when a simple text would have sufficed. Eventually, I decided some people preferred calling over texting.

“Okay, thanks,” I told him, running my fingers along the shiny surface of the year book. I noticed how I had subconsciously stopped at Myungsoo's page as his face started staring at me.

“What are you gonna do now?” asked Sunggyu, tearing me out of the one-sided gaze I had with the picture book Myungsoo.

“Nothing. There's nothing I can do.”

“Okay.”

“But thanks anyways,” I said once again, hoping one day my aunt was going to change her ways, hoping one day Sunggyu would call to tell me she hadn't visited the bar for a while. Which, if I thought about it, could also technically mean she had changed her favorite bar to another one.

The second time Sunggyu called was on a rainy day. The sky darkened outside, causing my room to look cold and abandoned. The pitter-patter sound of the rain started pleasantly embracing my body like a blanket. A mug of coffee in the middle of summer accompanied my gloomy Sunday when Sunggyu called.

I said, “Hello?”

And he responded with, “Hi, this is Sunggyu.”

And I wasn't going to repeat this conversation pattern so I said, “Oh, hi.”

Then, he cleared his throat, making things a bit weirder before saying, “Um, I'm not calling because of your aunt.”

Which made sense since I could recall my aunt being downstairs, discussing her sudden move to her boyfriend's apartment with my parents. Right after I had tried to knock some senses back into her, she literally disappeared without any signs of returning. Only yesterday did she come back to pack her things, not without emphasizing she was moving because she truly loved her boyfriend. Whatever this meant to her.

“I was wondering,” he began, “I was wondering whether you are still in touch with Myungsoo.” There was a slight pause. “I think you used to be close back in high school.”

At his sudden question, I remembered the conversation I'd had with the said guy a few months ago, and as clearly as I could recollect the scattered words we had shared with each other that night, Myungsoo had told me he used to be friends with Sunggyu back in elementary school. So in the midst of my train of thoughts, I answered, “Ah, yeah, we were. But currently, no. Why are you asking though?”

“Just my curious mind.”

“Okay.”

There was a long and awkward silence between us, one that made pigeons cringe, leaves fall from the trees and rain to sound frustratingly out-of-place. It was the kind of silence in which you didn't know what to say or what to do, a silence that irritated you in an irritating way. A silence in which you wished there would be some instructions on how to beat annoyingly awkward silences. Come to think of it, I was surprised there wasn't a book about it yet. Or maybe there was, and I just didn't know.

Several seconds later, I started hearing some muffled sounds from Sunggyu's side before he suddenly said, “The top drawer.”

And so I asked back, “Huh?”

And he responded, “Oh, no. I was talking to my mother.” Which seemed accurate since I did have heard some strange noises at the other end of the line prior to his answer. Then, he suddenly let a long “Uh...” escape his lips that stopped the moment a crash sound echoed from his side of the call.

“That surprised me,” I mumbled, putting the mug of coffee on my nightstand, as I started staring at my own fingernails that desperately needed a trim.

Deep in my own thoughts, I vaguely heard Sunggyu say in a rushed voice, “I have to hang up now. Bye.”

And he really did. Without even a second of hesitation.

Relationships can change because of unsurprisingly different reasons. If we take a couple as an example, chances are people would say they broke up because of an incident, an event in their life, a milestone, if you want to. This certain event might be caused by the boyfriend cheating on the girl, or vice versa (because we aren't going into stereotypes right now), or by their parents' disapproval and various other reasons. As stupidly as couples could break up for reasons beyond our grasp, people could fall in love. Or in my case, change their initial impression of them. As experience always taught us, life could be quite unsurprisingly surprising sometimes.

It happened when I suddenly received a call from my dad who was supposed to be at work, telling me to bring him another white, clean shirt because his usual work uniform was splattered with coffee for reasons I could only explain by pointing out his clumsiness. He told me to come over because he was so embarrassed by the coffee stain, people were probably already staring at him with a weird look on their face, so I decided to pull a thin jacket over my shoulders, since it was quiet chilly that night, stuffed the clean shirt, my keys and my phone into my bag, and said goodbye to my mum. I entered the bus, after that the subway, and walked the five minutes from the station to the bank my father was working at. Not to my surprise, he was already waiting outside, his black suit coat covering the coffee stain, as he motioned for me to hurry up as soon as he had spotted me.

“Finally.” He grabbed my wrist when I was standing in front of him, and pulled me into the bank, not caring to look like a kidnapper kidnapping a young girl. “I'm going to change first. So wait until I'm finished and take it with you.” He meant his coffee stained shirt.

I nodded obediently, letting him take out his things from my bag, as I allowed myself to look around the lobby. It looked exactly the same as I had remembered it, except of the plant, which was now moved further into the room. Some advertising posters hung on the walls, a water dispenser right at the entrance. Soon, I got bored by this plain surrounding as my father left the lobby to change his clothes. The bank clerk slightly at the right was staring at me, probably realizing I was his colleague's daughter, so I smiled slightly, showing I noticed him, too. He returned my smile before he looked away as a client started walking towards his counter.

Patiently, I waited for my father to come back, but he didn't. A few worrying minutes had already passed by, and he still wasn't showing any signs of returning. Since I usually knew my dad as a quick dresser, it came as a surprise. He never needed more than ten minutes to get ready for work. Breakfast included. That was just how fast he was. And maybe because he was so fast himself, he was sometimes annoyingly impatient. He would go crazy when my mom and me weren't ready after he was. It was one of the things that made me wonder just why my mother had married him in the first place. Not that she was a saint either, though.

I received a text message from Dongwoo.

Hey Hana, your mom says dinner is almost ready. When are you coming home?

And I replied with:

Need to wait for my dad to finish. Gotta take the bus at 6:45, I think.

Like on cue, my father came back, his dirty shirt folded into a square, which he tried handing to me. But before I took it into my hands, I motioned for him to put it into my bag instead as I turned around, allowing him full access to the zippers and pockets.

As he began opening my backpack, not without having his difficulties, he called my name, successfully gaining my attention, before he said, “Your friend is sitting there. Have you seen him already?”

“Friend?” I asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah, that guy,” said my father as I noticed how he started grabbing my bag as a whole, and turned me around to point my eyes towards the other side of the lobby. It was Sunggyu's back that instantly came into my view, causing me to blink twice. How I knew it was him? It was the feeling around him. You just recognize some people because of their presence, the sensation around them. “He has been sitting there for some while, looking all stressed and worried.”

“How would you know?” I asked sceptically, my eyes fixed on Sunggyu and the black snapback on his head.

“I talked to him earlier.”

“You did?”

“He recognized me, too.”

“Really?” I was surprised Sunggyu would remember my father's face from the Chuseok incident.

“Yeah, and you know I've been living in this world for so long. Of course, I would notice when people are forcing smiles,” remarked my father, now trying hard to zip up my bag.

“Maybe because he wasn't too keen on talking to you,” I suggested with a sheepish smile.

“He was the one who started talking to me.”

“Ah, really,” I mumbled absentmindedly, watching Sunggyu spin his head as if to loosen the tense muscles around his neck, when a weird thought occurred to me. Do you know the kind of feeling you have when you see someone you know, but you guys aren't too close with each other, maybe you only know each others' names, and it still feels like it's special to know the other person simply because you can recognize them? Just the feeling of knowing you know this person, that complexly triggers some emotions in you, makes you feel so strange and yet familiar in this unexplainable way. I don't know how to describe this, but that was just the feeling I had when I saw Sunggyu. Whenever I saw Sunggyu.

“Maybe you should go talk to him,” said my father, the sound of the zippers being completely closed following after his voice. “Maybe he needs someone to talk to.”

I turned around, facing my dad, with a weird expression on my face. “Since when were you so considerate of others?”

“Since forever,” he responded with a smile. Though, I knew it was most probably because of Mom.

Taking my father's advice to heart, I silently approached Sunggyu in this lost and helpless way. To me, the difference between approaching someone who had already noticed you beforehand and approaching someone who didn't know you were even present was immense. The first one was easy, but the second one obviously wasn't. How was I going to strike up a conversation with him? Just starting to talk to him would seem odd and weird. Saying hi all of a sudden was awkwardly stupid. Taking a seat next to him on the big couch where he was sitting on and pretending not to have noticed him until he did was shallow and dumb. There really was no way to approach this situation without embarrassing oneself. Though, Sunggyu made it so much easier for me when he looked up from his seat the moment I stood in front of him.

“Oh,” he said, his eyes widening in the slightest manner. “Hana.” It was weird how he called my name.

“Hi,” I said back, hoping this wasn't going to be one of our awkward encounters.

Sunggyu looked behind, the corners of his lips slowly curling upwards, and I got curious as to why he was smiling so I followed his gaze, and saw my father smiling back at him. It was probably one of the weirdest friendly exchanges I had ever seen. My father and Sunggyu exchanging shy smiles with each other, that is. I guess, my ability to sense the normality of the situation was long ago defect.

“It was nice meeting your father again,” he began, now looking ahead.

This strange feeling of guilt swallowed me up (because he was the one who started a conversation again) as I said, “You guys seem to get along.”

“Do we?” he asked, returning my gaze. “I don't know about him, but he seems like a fine man.”

“Nice to hear this from other people. Makes me kind of proud to have him as my father.”

He chuckled. “You should.” A pause. “I mean, he seems to love you a lot.”

“Well, parents love their children, don't they?” I asked back, looking at his intertwined hands, as I noticed how clean his fingernails were, and how smooth his skin looked. Not rough, at all. (Which I usually associated with male hands.)

Sunggyu tilted his head slightly to the side, looking up. “Not necessary. But yeah, most of them do. At least, they should.”

We said nothing after that, lingering in our own thoughts with him playing with his hands and me looking around. I suddenly remembered the questions I had asked myself the day after my birthday, after Dongwoo and I were about to leave Sunggyu's apartment. The question about the real Sunggyu, the person he really was. Back then, I had come to the conclusion that he had changed, which was still partly true. Something must have happened in his life for him to become the way he was now. But a small part of me was starting to believe he was sincerely like this only to me. If you actually looked back, you would notice it was my fault to begin with. Or maybe Woohyun's. Because he was the one who had told Sunggyu about me not liking it when he called me nicknames, something that started everything between us, from awkwardness to uncomfortable situations. Now that I actually thought back, it was kinda embarrassing.

“Do you want Myungsoo's number?” I asked, breaking the silence, although I didn't know either where I even got the confidence from.

Sunggyu looked at me, a small smile on his lips. “Nah, it's okay. It would be weird to suddenly start talking to him.”

“Don't you want to catch up with him? Like the old times?” It felt more like I was talking to myself, to be honest.

“I don't know,” said Sunggyu, looking in front of him. “It doesn't seem like it's natural to start being friends again. It has been a long time. Sometimes, you just drift apart without a reason.”

“Like you and Woohyun, huh.” I mumbled, wondering whether it was too late for me and Howon as well. Or me and Myungsoo. Truth to be told, I felt like Sunggyu was right about the statement he made. Maybe drifting apart doesn't exactly need a reason to happen. Maybe it just happens, and no one is at fault. Maybe we really don't have any choice than to let go. Because those people were never written in our future, to begin with. A really sad thought, to be honest.

“Sorry?” Sunggyu suddenly asked, jerking me away from my monologue. “Woohyun?”

“Huh?”

“You said Woohyun.”

“Ah, yeah, I did,” I said, nervously fumbling in my head for an explanation as to why I had mentioned his name. “You guys used to be friends, right?” (Simple, but the truth.)

He didn't answer, and started looking in front of him, a small smile etched on his lips. It was the kind of smile you would put on when you were reminiscing good memories of the past, maybe even the sad ones, a smile that looked so distant and far, you wouldn't reach it even if you were to run the fastest you could, a smile that made the person watching it wonder about its reason and cause. He had that kind of smile on his lips that made you envious of him finding peace in his past while you were stuck in the cold present. Sunggyu was someone whose secrets and stories were written on his lips, but you would never be able to read them because he was the secret and he was the story.

Sunggyu then turned around to face me, his mouth agape, as if he was about to let my name escape his lips, as he caught me staring at him, right then and there. I immediately looked away, pretending to have stared at the black leather couch all the time. And maybe he was just so good-hearted that he didn't addressed the matter, saving me some embarrassment, or maybe he just hadn't noticed at all.

“Um, don't you have to go home? It's late,” he said to me, looking at the watch around his wrist. “Or are you waiting for me to walk you home?”

At which point, I almost spat my saliva at his face if not for the playful smile on his lips that made me realize he was just joking. To be honest, I was really surprised by his sudden sense of humor because I was convinced we were too stiff to act normally around each other, not to mention to joke around. We were just too uncomfortable with each others' presence that made it so difficult to be ourselves. But maybe now, I could proudly say we had solved the problems in our relationship, had erased the awkwardness. Or maybe Sunggyu never felt awkward around me, and it had been just me all the time. Either way, it was refreshing to see him being himself around me.

I smiled in return, without an ounce of feeling weird in doing so. “I really should go home.”

“Take care, then.”

“Aren't you going home?” I asked, standing up from my seat. “Why have you been staying here for so long, anyway?”

He looked up at me, smiling. “Reluctant to go back.”

I wanted to ask why, but it didn't seem like he wanted me to ask so I just nodded, adjusting the backpack on my shoulders before holding my palms up to wave at him. (Don't ask me why.) He gave me a smile in return, his eyes decreasing in size in this charming way, before I turned around, and left.

I was sitting in the subway station, next to a pregnant woman in her late twenties, when I waited for the train to arrive. As far as I could remember, Dongwoo went over to Sunggyu's place to hang out. My mother was at home with my grandparents, and my dad was at work. My aunt had successfully moved out, Eunji was in Busan, and Sungyeol admired her. Sometimes, I figured, I had to repeat these things in my mind to keep track of my life. It was sometimes so messed up, I needed time for myself to revise the things I had to remember. Of course, there were also some events I would purposely forget to mention.

The woman next to me was reading a book about being a parent, and I would secretly look over to see at which page she was. Her hands were really slender and elegant, her belly round and soft. Naturally, I was too young to even think of having kids. Though, the thought of little babies crawling over to you was just as pleasant as a free Monday was. The future was still uncertain, but imagining the little details of it wouldn't hurt. I definitely could see myself being pregnant in ten, fifteen years. But again, I was too young to even think about it.

A young man took the empty seat next to me, his legs stretched out, as he pulled out his phone from the pockets of his jeans. I discreetly glanced his way, noticing he was quite good-looking. This sudden urge to take a photo as an evidence to send to Eunji was really strong, but he already left before I could take out my phone. At last, I resumed my curiosity of watching the pregnant woman reading her book before the train finally arrived, she stood up, and I decided to follow after her. Then, the oddest thing happened to me.

I saw Myungsoo.

The very same guy, standing there in his blue plaid shirt and his black jeans, his hands wrapped around his phone, his gaze fixed on anything but me. He entered the arriving train, just before the pregnant woman, as I remained in my position, watching him offer a seat to her. The doors to the train started closing, and I was still not moving an inch. A strange kind of panic grabbed hold of me, refusing to leave me alone, as I was hoping he wouldn't notice me. My brain was very well aware that I shouldn't feel so scared of approaching him, but I just couldn't help it. Because the moment I spotted him, my body had already decided to take the next train instead. After all this time, I still wasn't ready to face him yet. And maybe that implied he had never been written in my future, and he would never be a part of my life in ten years. A really, really sad thought, indeed.