☆ Second Star

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Back in primary school, a lot of people used to make fun of my name. Who in the world has such a strange double name? Are we supposed to call her Angel now? It's so strange to say her name. It's like repeating her family name. Comments like that had caused me to feel insecure, reluctant to introduce myself. Maybe even afraid to do so. I for sure wasn't named after the attendant of God, nor had my parents thought of an angel when they first looked upon me. My name isn't even pronounced like that. It is true that the first syllable of my name sounds exactly like my family name which is why people typically find pronouncing my name strange. Ahn Anjell. Only Anjell sounds cute, girly, even pretty. But Ahn Anjell... Those identical sounding syllables had only given me all kinds of looks from people.

It was during the cultural festival when my homeroom teacher called out my full name for the first time after I had entered high school, making the sound of it strange to my ears. Ahn Anjell, he had said, turning to me, his face calm, not showing any emotions of embarrassment or stupidity for pronouncing my strange name, for letting those two identical sounding syllables escape his lips. Our class had decided to provide a little restaurant for visitors to sit down and relax, the pastel colours across our classroom designed to soothe the eyes. At the back there was the dark blue canvas – initially created as an idea to be used as the banner, now portraying the night sky – hanging on the wall, white dots sprinkled on top, which was Woohyun's idea. He was of the opinion that people look at stars when their heart is somewhere else. Soft-sounding chords played in the background, coming from the CD player on the counter. It was a piano piece I didn't recognise. My homeroom teacher had assigned me the task to overlook the transition of shifts because my classmates tended to get messy and chaotic when it came to simple things that demanded a bit more complexity.

I heard laughter at the back of the room, and glanced sideways at the boys pooling out from our “staff room” - which was honestly just a curtain draped over two poles – adjusting their wigs with amused smiles, pushing up the socks-filled bras one last time. We weren't just a simple restaurant with the idea of tranquility for the body and soul. We were a gender-bended restaurant, believing in peace originating from entertainment and laughter.

Woohyun appeared behind a tall classmate whose smoky eyes definitely made girls swoon over him. The long, straight hair fell to his fake s, his usually brown eyes now spotting the colours of green and grey. When he approached me, an amused smile on his face, not a hint of embarrassment, I noticed he was wearing contact lenses. His hairy legs were partly covered in stocks, and his muscular arms popped out from his leopard dress, a combination so strange I found it impossible to suppress my laughter.

"Don't laugh. I think it really suits me," he said as he stood front of me, fumbling with his wig.

"Oh yeah, it really suits you,” I returned, a grin on my lips. “Should I call you, Nam Woohyunnie?"

He scoffed, shaking his head several times without any purpose. Then he stopped and stared at me, his eyes boring into mine. "Anjell, you are good at doing make-up, right? Make me look like Female Slash Smokey Eyed Sungyeol, and I'll forever be yours.” He smiled. "I just need some mascara. And rouge. Maybe also some bronzer and highlighter on my cheeks?"

"Yeah, okay,” I said, walking past him to the desk with the accessories and make-up utensils. Halting in my steps and glancing at him from the corners of my eyes, I added, “I guess I will just resist the urge to ask you why you know these things." He followed me with a smile.

We stood in front of the desk, next to a female classmate who was drawing a moustache above her lips, right underneath her nose, and I scanned the collection, mindlessly wondering who brought all these things, who went through the trouble of bringing such an amount to school, when Bomi, my classmate and friend, appeared out of nowhere, positioning herself between Woohyun and me, and said, "Anjell, let me do it. That's my job. You can count on me."

I backed away, naturally, allowing her full access to the female version of Woohyun. Bomi said something about cat eyeliner when he sat down on a nearby stool and entrusted his bare face to her. She took a random eyeliner pen from the desk behind her, told him to close his eyes, and carefully placed it above his lash line.

After the first , he suddenly cracked one eyelid open, meeting my gaze. "Do I look good?” he asked, one corner of his mouth tilted up.

I chuckled lightly. "Very. Almost like Lee Hyori."

With a satisfied, full smile, he closed his eyes again, enjoying being drawn on. Sunggyu, the oldest classmate whom we always called grandpa for no apparent reason, joined my side and nudged me. I looked at him, nodding my head as if to ask him what was wrong. Then he said, without looking back, "If you are free, can you draw my make-up?"

I nodded, absentmindedly letting my eyes wander across his appearance. Sunggyu was wearing a grey-haired wig, old-fashioned glasses with thick frames covering his eyes. His clothes had this distinct smell of old and dirty, reminding me of my own deceased grandparents. I spotted his sneakers peeking out from underneath his long skirt, and laughed a little.

While I was preparing his make-up, taking all the utensils I needed and placing it on the desk next to us, I caught glimpses of Woohyun still sitting on that stool a few meters to my left, his eyes closed and a smile grazing his lips. Bomi in front of him seemed to have told him a joke because he started chuckling wholeheartedly, he even laughed. And he looked fine to me. Almost too good to be true. But he looked fine. There was no trace of sadness or grief because of what had happened yesterday. Was he putting a facade on to prevent people from pitying him? I couldn't tell, for his smile looked too genuine to be a lie.

"Keep still, grandpa," I yelled impatiently when Sunggyu wouldn't stop fluttering his eyelashes the moment I moved the eyeliner pen near his eyes.

"I'm sorry, but I'm scared of that thing."

I sighed, shaking my head a little, and contemplated whether to just put on some purple or blue eyeshadow, but a loud laughter from my left interrupted my thoughts, and I looked to Woohyun and Bomi, who were both laughing while holding their stomachs as if in pleasurable pain.

Sunggyu was silent and watching them with his small eyes. After a while, he spoke up, "Soyou broke up, right? If it hurts him, he is good at hiding it."

I dropped my arms, letting them fall to my sides. "I'm not sure, to be honest. I don't know what happened, but he seems too okay with it. Too fine."

"I'm worried he won't tell us."

"Why don't you just ask him?"

Sunggyu looked at me with a bewildered face as if I had just asked him the most ridiculous question. His eyes darted to Woohyun when he said, "I won't force him."

"I can assure you, it's just a phase he is going through,” I responded, not knowing why I thought Sunggyu might need assurance from me. “He will be okay. If not, there are plenty of other girls."

"Like Bomi?" he asked, perking up one of his eyebrows at me. "Because I totally saw you giving up your place for her when she suggested to do the make-up. You are quite the good matchmaker."

"Did she tell you?"

"Yeah. I think she almost told everyone who is at least a bit close to Woohyun."

As far as I was concerned, Bomi had been liking Woohyun since the first day of high school, during the period of time when everyone was new and every guy looked good to her and every little gesture meant affection. Back then, she hated me for being so close with him, obviously a side effect of jealousy. I clarified the misunderstanding, telling her we were only friends, and it somehow caused her to spill all her feelings to me, letting me know about secrets I couldn't bear the weight of. I promised to help her as much as I could, only doing so to prove that really nothing was going on between Woohyun and me, that I felt nothing for him, but Bomi was complex. At one point, she was head over heels in love with him, desiring him much more than all his ex-girlfriends ever did, and the next day, she looked out for other guys. Right now, I was sure, she was chasing him.

I glanced away from Woohyun and Bomi, and said to Sunggyu, "Let's just hope he will like her back and she can mend his heart."

☆

During the whole cultural festival, I had tried my best to offer Bomi plenty of opportunities to get close to Woohyun, so she could pick up the pieces of his heart and put it together, with glue or tape or whatever she was capable of doing. For example, when he had asked me to accompany him to some food stall, I had pretended to be busy with the shift transitions, when in fact, I wasn't. Or when he approached me, one of his arm slung across my shoulders, just to display how close we were, I actually pushed him away, then subtly pulled him to Bomi behind the corner, and I left them there, and I knew she was really grateful for that.

The sun was slowly setting after the cultural festival had officially ended, and I sat in the empty hallway in front of my classroom, waiting for Woohyun because he had told me, right before he followed the other guys and some girls to the restrooms, to stay there and wait for him. They were removing the make-up and changing into the school's uniform. The rest, including me, cleaned the classroom, but it didn't take us too long, so the others already went home. I was staring at the floor, at the gridded shape of sunlight pooling in from the window above me, when Woohyun appeared, and sat down next to me.

"Say,” he began, rubbing a random spot on his forehead, as if he were trying to remove the rest make-up from his face, “do you also get the feeling that Bomi has a thing for me?"

"Isn't this something only conceited people would say?"

"Or you intentionally sent her to me because of Soyou."

I looked at him, and he stared ahead, letting a silence settle between us. I leaned against the cold wall behind me, and listened to his steady breathing, feeling the urge to close my eyes and drift away completely. It took me a few moments to reply. "I didn't."

"Then I'm glad. Because I'm totally fine."

"Says the one who drank beer for the first time," I retorted wryly, looking away.

"Only once,” he said, lifting a finger to emphasise his statement. “I drank beer only once.”

"One time can kill you."

I didn't really feel like arguing with him, because there is no use in arguing with someone about something from the past when it's impossible to change the outcome or the action itself that caused it. So I just tiredly look his way, and found myself watching him soften his gaze.

He said, "Okay, I won't ever do it again. I promise." He held his pinky finger up, and I hooked mine under his, our knuckles touching, and we both pressed our thumbs against each other, sealing the promise with that simple touch.

Down the hallway, where a staircase led down to the first floor, the wall was built with tall window panes, so when you walked down, you were able to spot the gates to our school and the yard before the school building. Looking out there, I noticed how the setting sun mixed the colours of orange and pink and purple together, perfectly creating a blending effect on the clouds. The window above our heads was slightly tilted forward, thus letting distant noises of still lingering students in. When my gaze landed on Woohyun and his closed eyes, on his chest that rose with every exhale and fell back with every inhale, I remembered that time at our middle school where we often stayed in class, when we could have gone home, to draw stars on each others' notebooks. He would always claim the orange pencil while I would keep the purple one to me, and we would exchange notebooks and we would flip to the last page and imprint onto it our own version of the starry sky in Seoul, sometimes even interfering with each others' drawings. As 12-year-olds, we never even once wasted a thought on what could happen between us in the future when we both were old enough to truly understand a relationship and tension between a girl and a guy, and when one of us were to fail grasping accurately the word friendship. Back then, he was just my stargazing partner.

"Do you think I should try it?" he asked suddenly, breaking the silence. He opened his eyes to look at me. "A relationship with Bomi, I mean. Do you think I should try dating her?"

"Yeah. Even though she is not really consistent. She can be sweet, and she's pretty."

He stared at me in silence and for far too long. He seemed to be having something to say, words left to utter or spit out, but he wouldn't open his mouth. Then he looked away, and finally said, "Actually, I'd like to keep some distance with girls for now."

I was confused. "Because?"

"Because I don't believe in friendship between a guy and a girl."

"What does it make us then?" I asked, a furrow between my eyebrows.

The dim sunlight from the window above our heads cast a faint glow across the outline of his hair. Underneath his fringe, the shadows on his face told me stories I didn't understand, stories I couldn't grasp yet. And instead of answering me, he gave me a smile that never quite reached his eyes.

☆