☆ Twenty-Third Star

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There were several things I only found out about Woohyun after we had entered this long distance relationship without anyone of us having signed up for it. There were things I wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t left, and things I would have eventually noticed about him. There were also some things I thought I knew about him, which turned out to be false, and things I had known all along but didn’t want to acknowledge.

And those were all the things people would say about us at our funeral.

The first thing was, Woohyun left voice mails. He was old-fashioned like that. People would usually just call, realize the person is not picking up, then hang up. But Woohyun left a voice mail. Either he thought it was important or he was being a little bit funny.

For example, once I was at work and couldn’t pick up, so he left me the following voice mail:

“Hey Anjell, it’s your cool boyfriend, Woohyun. Just wanted to call and ask whether you’re free next weekend. I can come over on Friday. But I have to leave the same night. Just call me back and let’s discuss it.”

With this odd habit of his, he only left me more marks to erase after we couldn’t figure us out anymore.

The second thing was, Woohyun was as insecure as I was, maybe even more so. He looked confident at first glance, but when you took a closer look, you would notice the subtle lift of his brows when he stated his opinion or the minuscule trembling at the corner of his lips when he offered a smile. I especially noticed that last time we saw each other. When he had his ‘breakdown’.

The third thing, I wasn’t his best friend.

While he had always taken the spot of being the first one I turned to when something bothered me, I had long ago lost the role to someone else. Who it was, I didn’t know. It could’ve been a girl in his class or a guy friend from uni. It could’ve been his mother or Boohyun, too. But it wasn’t me anymore.

Why and how it happened, I didn’t know either. I just jumped to this conclusion because of the way he had those little pauses mid-conversation when we talked on the phone. They weren’t normal pauses that people would make to think about what had been said, but more like ‘hesitational' pauses, as if they were contemplating whether to spill the beans or keep the secret.

I once asked Woohyun what he was thinking when he made one of those pauses too many, and he just said, “Nothing, really.”

He waved off that matter quite quickly.

The last thing I found out about Woohyun was, he stopped drinking because of me.

In the third year of high school, I met him at the park after his break-up with Soyou and caught him drinking a can of beer. Back then, I had thought it was his first time ever drinking alcohol, which was foolish of me to believe, but truth was, he had been accustomed to the poison since he was eleven.

Woohyun wasn’t by any chance an alcoholic or anything. He tried alcohol for the first time when his father harmlessly offered him a sip of his red wine, but that never made him addictive. Now and then, Boohyun would bring some beer when their parents weren’t home, and the brothers would take their drinks to the balcony and sit back and get a little bit tipsy.

It was all very harmless, but still a shock to me when Woohyun told me that Friday he came back to Daegu.

“I’m saying all this because I think you should know this about me,” he said, wiping off the remaining blood from his nose. When we were watching a movie in the living room, all comfortably sitting on the couch, he suddenly started having a massive nosebleed. We had to stop the TV, turn on the lights and get him tissues and some cold water. Then, to pass the time because we were too surprised by all the blood to continue the movie, he told me about his encounters with alcohol. “I didn’t drink a lot, but I was kind of used to it. So that explains why I never get drunk easily, despite me missing the enzyme.”

“So you stopped?” I asked.

“Yeah, I promised you that. I stopped the day I pinky-swore to you in the hallway after the autumn festival.”

We didn’t finish the movie because it was already half past ten by the time his nose stopped bleeding, and Woohyun had to take the train home. We stood at the door when I kissed him, and he hugged me like it was the last time. In between our feelings, I held our promises close to my heart because he proved me that day he would keep them, no matter how irrelevant they were, and I trusted him. I believed in him and in the way we kept on running in the same direction, with the same pace. I also gave him my telescope glasses for the long train ride back to Seoul. Then we parted ways with a passionate kiss and I Love You’s that don’t matter anymore.

And everything will only be remembered as the last time I ever saw him.

☆

We received the results for our assignments in mid-November, and turns out we all did pretty well. Jackson, who got As and Bs, had the odd assumption that the lecturers were being nice to us because we were first-years. Next year, according to him, was going to be hell, but I was just glad that we had survived those assignments.

“We should do something. Hang out and drink. Sing karaoke,” suggested Mijoo, showing off her Bs.

“I’m down for drinking!” hollered Jackson.

“And we could crash a wedding or something. And get some free food.”

“We should have a trip!”

“We should have a trip,” repeated Mijoo, delighted, “and drive to the mountains or something.”

“And have a bonfire. Eat some s’mores.”

“What are smores?” I asked, joining their conversation with amusement.

“S’mores,” Jackson corrected me. “It’s a staple snack you have at bonfires. It’s a roasted marshmallow sandwiched between a layer of chocolate and crackers.”

“I’m already salivating. We should definitely have that!” said Mijoo.

“What,” began Jackson, a playful remark already placing itself on one corner of his mouth, “your saliva or the s’mores?”

“Both! You’d love it.”

“Let’s call it the MJ s’mores.”

“I ain’t Michael Jackson, dude.”

“I ain’t your dude, bro.”

Mijoo shook her head. “I’m not doing this with you right now.”

Jackson just shrugged and laughed it off, casually wrapping an arm around Mijoo. Which was when I realized how compatible they were. They weren’t dating yet. At least I hadn’t taken notice of anything secretly going on between them, but if what was happening right now wasn’t considered flirting then I didn’t know. They were definitely flirting. And it made me quite happy for some reason. I really liked both of them. Mijoo for being Mijoo. And Jackson for keeping everything so simple, for making my problems seem so small.

“What do you think we should do?” he asked me, putting his other arm around my shoulder. “Go for a drink. Crash a wedding. Or MJ s’mores.”

“You decide,” I said instead, smiling contently at everything before us.

Jackson started dancing a little, and, being in the good mood that he was, he chanted, “I’ll do whatever you wanna do. We could even go and visit your boyfriend.”

“That’s fine. We already made plans for Christmas break.”

“I know what Anjell loves,” Mijoo chimed in. “Sitting down and just talking.”

It was indeed something I preferred doing. I was surprised she knew that about me.

“Then that’s what we shall do,” sang Jackson in a high-pitched voice, making us all break into laughter.

☆

We played rock-paper-scissors to determine where to go. If Mijoo had won, we would have gone to a bar near her apartment. Jackson’s win meant his house. If I had won, we would have sipped some tea or coffee at a cafe or something.

We played thrice because Mijoo accused Jackson of cheating, and each time he proved her wrong.

“I’m the king of rock-paper-scissors,” bragged Jackson, playfully nudging Mijoo with his elbow. “You’d never win me.”

When we entered his house, I was surprised to see his father there. Jackson told us his father worked abroad, in Hong Kong. So when I saw him for the first time, greeting his son with so much love and adoration, I couldn’t help myself. It made me so happy.

We were in his room when I tapped Jackson on the shoulder and asked, “When did your father come back?”

“A few weeks ago,” he answered. “My old man missed his awesome son too much.”

“The awesome part is a bit subjective,” snorted Mijoo.

“You sure?” Jackson stepped closer to her, puffing his chest. “Look into my eyes and say I’m not awesome. And actually mean it.”

I was really close to asking whether they were dating, but decided not to disturb their playful banter. If I thought about it, it actually didn’t really matter to me whether they were together or not. Mijoo was still Mijoo when Jackson wasn’t around, and Jackson was Jackson when Mijoo went missing in action. It was just me who changed. I was someone else when I was alone.

“Is everything okay at home?” Jackson asked me when we sat down on his bed.

Mijoo was rummaging through his stuff, having no respect for his privacy or whatsoever, but he didn’t seem to care. He was paying close attention to me, a wariness preventing him from forcing the truth out of my mouth.  But to be honest, the thing about my parents wasn’t a secret and I never intended to keep it as one. Maybe it was slightly disturbing to let family members know about what was going on behind closed doors, but Mijoo and Jackson were just Mijoo and Jackson and they didn’t know my parents personally. They weren't really involved. So that made me decide to say it.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Yesterday I saw my parents holding hands for the first time after their huge fight. I think everything is okay now.”

“That’s really good,” said Jackson, meaning it. “I sometimes find it disgusting when my parents publicly show affection in front of me, but in your case it’s really good.”

“Would you guys want to know why your parents are fighting? Or would you rather be let in the dark?”

“I would want to know,” replied Jackson. “I would want to understand.”

I looked at Mijoo who was observing us the whole time. “What about you?”

“I don’t think I would want to know.” She sat down on the floor, away from us, and stared at her hands. “Because in the end it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t change anything. In the end, you’re not the one to blame. It’s never your fault. You always think it’s your fault, that you are the reason for their divorce, but it never is. My parents are divorced, and it sometimes, but there’s nothing I can do or say to make them understand what I’m going through. Adult make their own decisions.”

“And they have money, meaning they have power, so they’re basically kids with money and power,” added Jackson, making everything lighthearted again.

“I suppose so,” said Mijoo. After a moment’s pause, she started laughing. “If I have kids one day, I’m going to teach them to toughen up. From the very beginning, I will teach them that life is unfair. I will offer them a cookie, make them all excited and happy, then cruelly tell them that there is no cookie. I will teach them to never trust anyone because human beings are traitors. I will hire a professional actor or actress that will make my kids fall in love with them and then break their hearts just so they know what heartbroken means.”

“I think your kids will hate you,” remarked Jackson.

“Even better. Then if I ever divorce my significant other, it will be easier for them.”

“You’re coldhearted.”

“And realistic,” I added.

“You know what’s important though,” began Jackson, looking at me, then at Mijoo, “the fact that they once loved each other, even if they don’t anymore.”

But I didn’t agree with him. I would rather not have a past be marked by a person I once loved and find out that we weren’t compatible after all. I would rather not invest so much time on someone only to realize that we weren’t meant to be.

☆

On the first day of winter break, I got one voice mail. Only one. From Woohyun.

“Anjell? I can’t come back for Christmas after all. Something cropped up. I have to stay in Seoul for a bit longer. I’ll tell you about it when we see each other.”

And that wasn’t even the worst part yet.

☆