May 16, 2014

Myungsoo opened his eyes slowly; adjusting his vision to study the unfamiliar ceiling above. He shut his eyes again, and tried to remember what had happened but it was to no avail. Slowly, he got up, watching the dimness of a table lamp in one corner of the living room and decided that it was really not his house. He took a deep breath and turned his face on instinct, and saw Seul-ki sitting up, hugging her knees and looking outside the closed balcony door. For a moment, he only looked at her small back, and memories of always walking behind her came flashing in his mind. It was as if they only happened the day before; the days they had spent without a care, oblivious to what was going to happen in the future.

He tried to turn his torso to her but once he did, a pain seared across his head, thanks to the booze that he consumed earlier. He hissed to contain the pain which earned Seul-ki's attention. He shut one of his eyes and watched her walking on her knees before stopping a few inches from him.

"You shouldn't have drunk so much," she said, blinking slowly. Myungsoo said nothing, and opened his eye and looked back at her. She stared back before looking away and got up without a word. He watched her disappear into the kitchen, and listened to the sound of her preparing something in the kitchen. It was still dark and when he tried to look at his watch, he found that it wasn't there, so he began to look around the floor. He found his wallet and watch on his jacket that was neatly folded on the sofa just next to where he was sleeping. It was two in the morning and he wondered whether Seul-ki had been awake all the while. And what he had said drunkenly to her came back like a stab to his head and he knew it wasn't because of the alcohol.

She came back a minute later with, walking gingerly while holding a mug that she set on the floor before him. "It's honey with lemon. It'll make you feel better," she said, looking at the mug and not at him. Myungsoo pulled away the blanket that was enveloping him and turned his body towards her, and was just staring at the mug as well.

"I'm sorry for showing up like this," he said, quietly. Seul-ki was only silent, and was still looking down. "What I said before..."

"That's okay," she said, smiling wryly. "It's fine..."

"Is that a no then?" he asked, slowly.

"Myungsoo-ah."

"What?"

"Why do you like me?" she asked, with a little hesitation in her voice.

Myungsoo smiled to himself, rather sadly. "It's hard to explain why."

"Why?"

"I don't know... For me, all of the sudden, I knew that I like you. Suddenly, I was seeing you more than just a friend. Well, more than a fandom friend." He laughed a little, and to his relief, so did she.

"Why..."

"Why didn't I tell you?"

"Um..."

He let a few seconds passed before he spoke. "Because I thought that things would just stay as it was. Because I thought that I'd let you chase down your Kim Jaejoong until you finally get tired, and I thought then I'll just come up to you and say yah, that's enough, don't you think, so, forget it, and, let's just get married..."          

They both went silent, lost in their own train of thoughts upon his words. A slice of wind rattled the balcony door, dissipating the silence after a few moments. Seul-ki hugged her torso and sniffed a little while Myungsoo rubbed his arm in slow motions.

"What would Myungsoo do if I fall in love with someone else while chasing Kim Jaejoong-sshi?" she asked, smiling faintly.

"Well... You were the kind of girl who sleeps with their photobooks under your pillow so that you can dream of them. And you talk to their posters and cut out even the smallest pictures or news from newspapers and magazines about them. I was pretty sure you weren't going to look elsewhere."

"Y-yah!" she puffed her cheeks and glared at him, but couldn't say anything else because he was telling the truth.

"...and even if you do, I will just grab you away from that guy, tell you that he would just freak out if he knows about your obsessions and that I am the only person who is able to understand it, and if you start protesting, I'll just hold you tight and kiss you."

Her stomach churned badly at his words that she immediately looked away. Myungsoo's face turned a little serious as he studied the way she was hugging her torso tighter, making her looked smaller. "But you ended up making someone fell for you, and you fell for him too. So, I guess I was wrong."

"It means that... when I asked Myungsoo what you were going to do after school, all that going to college, get a wife and open a restaurant and everything..."

"I was talking about you."

She shut her eyes and smiled weakly as she opened them and looked at him. "If you were going to make plans about me, you should have let me into it..."

"And would you say yes then?"

She stared at him, like the way he was staring at her at that moment. There was a streak of light in his eyes, from the table lamp behind her, making his eyes looked fiery and demanding. For all the years they had been friends, she never saw him looking at her in such way and it made her a little scared and somehow sad. It was like she was seeing someone else sitting before her.

"Me, too."

"Yes?"

"I had the same thought, too," she said, looking down again. "That I was going to stay with Myungsoo forever and though I didn't think that I'd get married to you, I was thinking that we were going to be together for a very long time..."

"Did you ever like me, Lee Seul?" he asked, almost instantly.

She smiled to herself. "I feel most comfortable being with you, Myungsoo."

"Because you're used to me?"

"Because of that, and, because there weren't many people who accepted me the way you do. You might think you're spoiling me but to me, it was like having someone who really loves me... And you know that there weren't many people who loved me to begin with... You're really precious to me, Myungsoo..." Seul-ki waited for him to say something but he was only being quiet. "Sometimes... I wonder which is better... To be with someone whom you feel comfortable with, or with someone who makes your heart flutters..."

"But eventually, wouldn't the flutters disappear?"

"That's true."

"But?"

"But it's a nice feeling," she said, shrugging and smiling a little.

"It is," he replied, with a faint smile on his face, and Seul-ki knew what it meant but she said nothing to it. Myungsoo picked up the mug and sniffed in the smell before sipping it a little. "It's hot."

"Sorry."

He sighed and put it down again. "What happens when the flutters disappear, I wonder."

"I guess... you'll become comfortable."

"Does that mean you used to have flutters for me?" he asked, almost smirking. She met his eyes and surprisingly, her solemn expression remained unchanged which tugged his heart a little. He ruffled his hair and took a really deep breath. "I was an idiot, wasn't I?"

"We both were," she said, quietly.

"We could have really made it."

"We could."

"But..." he began, twirling the mug on the floor, "...do you even regret it?" He waited for her to say something but she was only staring at him with the same look on her face. He looked away and smiled wryly. "Of course."

"If I have waited Myungsoo but you end up falling for someone else, it'll be just the same...."

"Not really. You don't love me as much as I do for you."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I'm right." She fell silent again, and couldn't bring herself to look at him any longer. "I'm an idiot, I know. But you don't really have to say nice things to me, Lee Seul. It's not your fault that I'm like acting like this. I'm just hopeless."

"Myungsoo is not hopeless."

"I am," he said, stressing on his words. "First I let you married him, then I clung on to you as if you aren't and now I want you more than I have ever wanted..." he laughed dryly and shook his head, "And it's all wrong. And...  it's such a shame for me to in this limbo all alone because I know for certain that you are here not because of me, but because of him... And it angers me and frustrates me because I feel like I can't do anything about it and it is all because I'm hopeless."

The balcony glass door rattled again, and they both turned to look at the rain that was beginning to pour outside. They could even hear the eerie swoosh of wind as it cut through the buildings.

"You've never liked this kind of weather..." he said, suddenly. "It reminds you of bad memories... On days like this you'll be under your blanket and shut the world out by putting TVXQ on blast in your ears. I remember dropping by your house after school and I was fully drenched outside, calling for you and you only appeared an hour later."

"You were almost dry," she laughed.

"It's not funny. I got sick for a week after that," he furrowed. She bit her tongue and eyed him apologetically which made him laughed sinisterly. "But you visited me every day and I was happy that I was sick after all." Seul-ki pouted and narrowed her eyes at him, and he went on, "I was happy because you were cooking for me and staying by my bed, though all you did were talking endlessly about MAMA-"

"It was called MKMF at that time," she interrupted.

"Yes. Whatever. You were talking about how they won and Kim Jaejoong wasn't wearing anything under his white coat and Choikang Changmin was crying. It was such an ear sore." Seul-ki was looking at him attentively, blinking slowly as she looked into his eyes, making him pulled away slowly. "What?"

"Myungsoo still remembers all that..." she said, quietly. "That was like 4 or 5 years ago..."

"I have a memory of an elephant," he said, avoiding her gaze but she was still looki