☆ Twenty-Fourth Star

_________________________________

January. No voice mails. No calls. No text messages. Constantly just the Hi, Whoever Is Calling Me. I’m not there right now, so please leave a message after the beep. Thanks. No answers. No callbacks. Just the Hi, Whoever Is Calling Me. I’m not there right now, so please leave a message after the beep. Thanks. Always just the Hi, Whoever Is Calling Me…

When my parents asked me during Christmas, I just lied and said he was busy. I didn’t mention the unanswered messages. Call it being embarrassed. Nothing mattered anymore. Caring was for the people that still hurt. I wasn’t hurting. I was pissed off. I was disappointed.

I met Sunggyu once. And I told him. He said, “Something might be happening right now. You never know. You trust him, don’t you? He might have a good explanation for this.”

And I said, “When does he think is the good time to explain it to me then?”

And Sunggyu: “I can try calling him. But I doubt he will answer.”

We tried nevertheless. Hi, Whoever Is Calling Me. I’m not there right now, so please…

And that was the beginning of his betrayal.

☆

There was a girl with her boyfriend at our shop, and she was looking at lipsticks. Her blonde hair reached her lower back, and I couldn’t see her face, but considering how her boyfriend looked quite handsome, I concluded she must look pretty herself. She showed him two colors - I personally found the right one better - and asked him which one matched her skin tone. He picked the left one. The wrong choice. The bolder red color looked better on her skin. I knew because I was trained for this. Her boyfriend couldn’t know because he was a boy.

They were probably still in the early stages of their relationship because the girl then picked the lighter color and walked, giggling, with her boyfriend in tow, towards the check-out counter. She greeted me with a smile - and yes, she was pretty - then pulled the exact amount of money from her wallet before her boyfriend stopped her and said he was going to pay for this.

Yes, they were still in the honeymoon phase.

I put the lipstick into a small paper bag and sealed it with tape. Accepting the boyfriend’s money, I calculated how much change I had to give him back. Mijoo already finished her break and was emerging from the staff room. I turned to her to whisper, “You missed the best part,” then gave the boyfriend his change before saying goodbye to the couple. They left the shop, giggling.

“You have to stop doing this,” said Mijoo.

“Stop what?” I asked.

“This judging thing.” She turned to me, a frown between her brows. “Stop assessing every couple you see. Isn’t it tiring? It’s annoying, Anjell.”

“I’m not judging every couple I see,” I lied.

Mijoo dramatically rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop it, would you? Of course you are judging them. You are mentally already calculating their doomsday. You are  basically comparing them with your relationship.”

“I’m not!” I protested angrily.

“Of course you are,” spat Mijoo, and I wondered why she was getting so mad. “God, Anjell, you have to decide how you’re gonna feel about this. You can’t just be angry one day, then sad the next. You can’t be pretending nothing is wrong when deep down you feel like struggling him, or whatever.”

Suddenly I regretted having told her about all of it. Suddenly I regretted having showed her my vulnerable side. One day, when everything had been too much for me, when even Sunggyu realized it was all too hard to swallow for someone as fragile as I was, when everything had reminded me so much of him and so little of how happy he used to make me, when suddenly my world turned upside down and I felt nauseous, I cried in front of Mijoo. We were in the staff room, finishing up for the day, when something broke in me. And I told her. About his last voice mail. About him never once contacting me back. About how angry and betrayed I felt and how much this didn’t even make sense. I told her, while crying, how my whole body sometimes shook and hurt and prickled with pain. I told her everything. I let her in. I opened the door to my heart for her. I hadn’t even let Sunggyu in.

And then she hugged me. She was crying, too. And for a brief moment it was okay. It was alright to feel like this. Until I returned home, and everything broke down once again.

But now I regretted it. Could I even trust her? Could I trust anyone?

“Anjell,” began Mijoo softly. She approached me and took my hand. “I’d rather have you cry in front of me, then stay in denial.”

“I’m not in denial,” I insisted.

“You are angry. And hurt. And I can understand thisㅡ”

“You can’t,” I interrupted.

She sighed as we heard the bell signaling a customer had entered the shop. To me she said, “I’ll come up with something.” Then she let go of my hand, turned around and greeted the customer with a smile. As if nothing had happened. As if nothing ever hurt her.

☆

On my way back home from work, I decided to sit down at the park near my house. It was the same park where he drank his can of beer and the one we visited to stargaze. There weren’t any people here. It was already quarter past eleven after all. I was the only one, and that suited me quite right.

I sat down on the swing. The seat was freezing cold, but I could endure it. I was just going to leave a voice mail. That was it.

Taking off my gloves, I held my phone in both hands and stared at the screen. His name was staring back at me. Three characters staring at me hard as if they were asking what are you doing?

What was I doing?

My heart pumped into my wrists, and my vision suddenly got blurry. I wasn’t crying. Spots in my eyes only prevented me from seeing clearly. But I told myself I am brave I can do this I know I can I am brave after all.

I jumped over the obstacle that was only in my head and called him. I was ready to say it. I practiced the lines over and over again. I trained myself to be ready for this, even if I wasn’t. But I was. I was going to be brave now.

Waiting for the line to connect me to his voice mail, I counted from three down to one. Again and again. It was a strategy to keep me calm. I couldn’t be sure if this actually worked or whether that was just the placebo effect. But at least the counting calmed me a little.

I waited some more when:

“This number you dialed is incorrect or doesn’t exist anymore. Please refer to the manual for more information on…”

I hung up.

☆

It was the beginning of February when snow started littering all around Daegu. I was in my room, watching the tiny, white flakes hover with the wind and slowly land on the ground. The heater under the windowsill kept my hands and my cup of tea warm, and I cleverly pressed my feet against it so they, too, wouldn’t freeze all too much. My mom was in the bathroom, and my father was clearing the snow in the drive way. I watched him a little. He almost fell twice because it was so slippery. Wearing the dark green hat that my mother had bought him for Christmas, he pushed the shovel into the blanket of snow, and scooped it over to another pile.

I heard my mother’s footsteps appearing at my door. “Is Sunggyu picking you up?” she asked. I turned around to face her, and it suddenly occurred to me how beautiful she looked despite her age. My father once said that to me, how beautiful my mother always was, but I only realized it when I looked at her, really looked at her. She didn’t look like an actress or Miss Korea. When I looked at my mom, I didn’t see just an old woman who had raised a child. I saw a battlefield. A victory against the world. I saw a fearless woman who fights everyday. Who fights for her family. Who cries sometimes at night. Who despite the tears overcomes it all.

“Yeah, he is,” I said, smiling a little. “Another friend is coming, too.”

My mother sat down on my bed and nodded. She straightened my bedsheets with her hand, then looked at me. “Tell Sunggyu to drive carefully. It’s snowing in Seoul, too. The streets can be dangerous. Especially at night. If you must, stay in a hotel and come back tomorrow morning. When it isn’t snowing so brutally.”

“Yeah, we’ll do that.”

“You could also stay at Woohyun’s place, but don’t burden his mother.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll give you some cash, just in case.”

My mother stood up to leave my room, but I stopped her quickly. “It’s okay, Mom,” I assured her. “We’ll be fine. I have money from my part-time.”

She looked at me, and sighed, her eyes clouding with worry. I forced a smile but truth was, I didn’t really feel like smiling. Dad was calling us from downstairs. He said Sunggyu was there. I squeezed my mom’s arm reassuringly before downing my cup of tea. Grabbing my bag, I walked towards the door. My mother smiled at me.

“Call me when you’ve arrived.”

And then she pressed her lips on my forehead, and by that time I really couldn’t hold it in anymore. The lump in my throat was growing, feeding on my anxiety and need for motherly love, and I just told myself not now not yet don’t.

I quickly walked out my room, ran down the stairs, said goodbye to my father with a kiss on his cheek, slipped into my boots, grabbed my coat and my scarf, then rushed out into the passenger seat of Jieun’s car. Sunggyu was watching me carefully. I noticed that from my periphery. So I turned to him and smiled. He smiled back, of course.

“Where’s Mijoo?” I asked, looking at the backseats. “I thought she would come with you.”

“She told me to pick you up first. We’re going to her place now.”

“Okay.”

I glanced at the entrance of my house, and saw both my parents standing there, watching us, my mother slightly leaning against my father’s shoulder, which was when I knew it was going to be okay. Sunggyu waved at them, then started the car. Almost out of the driveway, I caught one last glimpse of them holding hands tightly, as if they were each others' lifeline, as if everything depended on this one touch.

☆

After picking up Mijoo, we hit the highway to Seoul. Mijoo was in the backseats, feeding Sunggyu his sandwich because he had to focus on the streets and keep his hands on the wheel. Both of them were talking about Jieun and how the heck she allowed her younger brother to take her car, something Mijoo and I didn’t really understand.

“We made a deal,” explained Sunggyu confidently. “I would help her out at Liebling.”

“No !” exclaimed Mijoo in surprise.

“Yes . And she has two free passes for a massage.”

“Can my mother adopt you?” asked Mijoo.

“If she’s rich, yes.”

“She’s not rich, but you could be my personal slave. Isn’t that something?”

Sunggyu smirked. “What an honor!”

There was a moment of silence in which both of them comfortably sat back and relaxed. A lazy smile spread across Sunggyu’s lips, and when I looked at Mijoo, she was grinning at me.

“Thanks for coming with me,” I said then.

A pause. Sunggyu was the first one to react. He almost averted his eyes away from the streets to look at me. “Helping out at Liebling or giving a massage is not a big deal to me,” he assured. “And I like driving. And Seoul is a cool place. I’m considering moving there one day.”

“I’m just coming along because I have nothing better to do,” said Mijoo, biting into Sunggyu’s sandwich.

“And alsoㅡ” said Sunggyu. But then he stopped suddenly. “H-Hey, you’re helping yourself from my sandwich!”

“The point is,” interrupted Mijoo, ignoring him, “we are here not for you. Not everything revolves around you, Anjell.”

By that time, I couldn’t stop laughing anymore. And when I did, I cruelly felt tears threatening to drop from my eyes. So I pinched the loose skin between my thumb and my index finger, and I looked out the window. In approximately three hours, I would (possibly) see him. In just under three hours…

“Are we going to buy your boyfriend a cake, or whatever?” asked Mijoo when we were on the road for quite a while now.

“No, he doesn’t deserve one,” I said nonchalantly, as a joke.

Sunggyu was observing me from the corner of his eyes. “I’ll tell you when we’re almost there,” he said to me, changing the topic. To Mijoo, he added, “Then you have to type his address into your phone.”

“Why, this car doesn’t have navigation?”

“Does it look like it would feature such luxury?”

“Jieun is the manager and she can’t even afford navigation?”

“Your mom is the owner and she can’t even buy you a car?”

“Do I look like someone who would even bother getting a driver’s license?”

“Do I look like someone who would even bother knowing?”

“Stop it, guys,” I interrupted. “My stomach hurts from laughing.”

Mijoo suddenly looked all smug, and leaned forward, hooking her arm under mine. “Entertaining you is the task I was given by Jackson.”

“Who is Jackson?” asked Sunggyu, seemingly trying to stop himself from joining me. His lips were pressed together tighly. 

“A funny classmate,” I said.

“And Anjell’s admirer.”

I gave Mijoo a look. “He’s not my admirer.”

“But you’re his muse.”

Sunggyu quickly glanced at me and smirked. “You’re still popular with guys, I see.”

“I think you’re mistaking me for someone else,” I said.

“Not to sound mean or anything,” he began, not really listening, “but a lot of guys find you pretty. Even in high school. You just don’t know it. And those guys don’t dare to approach you because you always seem so cold and judgmental.”

“See, I told you! You have judgy eyes,” accused Mijoo.

“I have not!”

“How could you never have noticed that you were popular with guys?” asked Sunggyu, snickering. “Woohyun chose you among everyone. And you know how popular he was.”

“Wow, so you’re saying he only likes me because I’m pretty?”

I wasn’t getting angry. Not really. But for some reason it hurt my pride. What with everything happening right now. With that changed number and the awful silence. God had a horrible way of messing with me. It was so cruel of him to choose me out of everyone to test his boundaries. My mother fought a battlefield, and came out as the winner. But I was still in this war, weaponless, struggling to stay alive.

“I was just joking,” said Sunggyu then. “He chose you because of you.”

☆

Seoul. The metropolitan city and capital of South Korea. It didn’t look all too different from Daegu or from the last time I was here. It must have been five or six years ago when I came with my parents to spend the summer. My memories would hardly allow me to remember what had happened back then. There were just small snippets of events that could possibly be just an illusion of my brain.

“Turn right here,” said Mijoo, telling us the directions.

Woohyun had given me his address in case I wanted to send him a letter, but I would never have believed I would use it as a ticket to find him. What would I even say when I saw him? What would I even do?

“By the way, do you want us to come with you, or do you want us to stay in the car?” asked Sunggyu, turning the corner.

“Of course, we’ll go with you,” insisted Mijoo. “That’s a given.”

I placed my hand onto her knee for a short moment, and said, “Thank you, but I want to do this alone. I want to face him alone.”

“Are you sure?” asked Sunggyu.

“Yes, I am.”

He pulled into a driveway in front of an apartment complex, and turned off the engine. I grabbed my bag, looked at Mijoo, then at Sunggyu. Opening the door, I said, “You guys can explore the city, if you want. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

Mijoo stepped out of the car with me, and before I could protest, she pulled me into a warm embrace. No words were exchanged. Just the comfort of our silence. Reluctantly, I let go of her. She looked at me with her lips pressed together. I nodded and she nodded. And then I turned around to enter the apartment complex.

His apartment number was 1004. Woohyun once said something about it over the phone. I was in the living room, leaving the TV on, when he suddenly started bragging because his apartment number was 1004. I asked him what was so amazing about the number 1004, and he explained to me that it sounded like angel in Korean, if you read the 100 and the 4 separately. Then he went on illustrating how my name almost sounded like angel too, therefore implying I was always near him. He also said something about me being his protector and stuff, but it was all too cheesy for me so I quickly cut his rant off before I would start cringing too hard.

And now I was standing in front of his apartment. Not knowing what to do or what to say. Having prepared everything in my head. But forgetting all of it. There were just too many possibilities of how this all could end up. Too many branching out into alternate realities. I could only narrow them down to these scenarios:

He opens the door, is surprised to see me, is happy nonetheless and takes me in his arms. He tells me with a big grin that he missed me, ushers me into the apartment, shows me his new world. He remembers that it’s birthday, asks me where his present is, I don’t have a present, he says it doesn’t matter because I am the present. He kisses me. The end.

Or he opens the door, is surprised to see me, asks angrily why I am here. I don’t know how to answer. He tells me to leave, almost slams the door in my face when a female voice interrupts him and asks who is at the door. I ask him who is in there. I demand to see the girl. She appears and asks who I am. I ask who she is. She introduces herself as his girlfriend. I slap her. She slaps me back. He tries to stop us. We all fight. The neighbors call the police. I end up in jail. The end.

Or he opens the door, is annoyed to see me, tells me to come back later and slams the door in my face. The end.

Or, another possibility, he never even opens the door.

Having known Woohyun for such a long time, I would never have seen him as someone who would run away from his problems. He was no coward. I just couldn’t imagine him ever not facing me because he was scared. Woohyun wasn’t fearless by no means. But he was no coward either. He wouldn’t do this to me.

But he did.

He never opened the door.

And that was the end of his betrayal.

☆

I took the elevator back down to ground level, and decided not to call Sunggyu or Mijoo. I needed time for myself. Time to think. To rethink everything that was between Woohyun and me. I needed to figure out how I was going to deal with all of it, calculating the option that hurt the least. There was no time for me to cry. There wasn’t even time for me to really make sense of what was happening right now. Clueless and lost. He left me like this. Clueless and lost…

When leaving the apartment complex, I was shocked to see Jieun’s car still parked in the driveway. They must have noticed me because Mijoo stepped out of the car, followed by Sunggyu, their faces filled with pity and something else. Snow was falling down from the sky, landing on everything and creating this layer of pure whiteness everywhere. How ironic! As if god were watching. Mijoo opened her arms wide amidst the heavy snow and she was about to cry - yes, someone who didn’t know how hurt felt like was about to cry in front of me - but I wasn’t going to let her. I wasn’t going to let her touch me. Before she could come closer, I screamed.

“No! Don’t come near me!”

“Anjell,” she pleaded.

“Leave me alone!”

“Anjell,” tried Sunggyu this time. At least he wasn’t moving from his place.

“I said leave me alone!”

I ran. They weren’t following me because the only thing I could hear were my footsteps and the cars passing by. But I ran faster anyways. I ran and ran and ran. I ran until my lungs ached for air. I ran until my legs swayed a little. I ran, leaving everything behind. I ran because I had to preoccupy my mind with something. Something other than what I had to figure out. I had to run because I was going to cry sooner or later and I decided later was a better choice. I ran because that is the thing you do when fear grabs you and stares you in the eyes.

I must have run a lot because I somehow found myself in downtown Seoul. There was a university close by with the name of Hongik, but other than that I had no clue where I was. I walked a little more to carefully slow down my heart rate. A small park was situated in the middle of the area. I climbed up the slide, pushed all the snow off the platform, and sat down. Pulling the hood of my coat over my head, I suddenly remembered I had left my scarf and my gloves in Sunggyu’s car.

Whatever.

The snow didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon, and it was getting dark and cold and I was freezing. But the frost failed to interrupt my train of thoughts. I was still thinking about everything. About life and Woohyun and his lies and my parents and god and the snow and Woohyun and his lies and his betrayal and Woohyun.

I loved him. I really, really did. I meant everything I said to him. The exact moment I realized he meant more to me than my desire to touch the stars, I knew I loved him. Even his shortcomings. I loved him despite his cheesy remarks and his naive thinking. I loved him despite his nosy nature and his past with alcohol. When I really love someone, I love them for who they are. I don’t love them for their name or their status or their looks or their body. I love them for their soul. I love everything that makes them them. I loved Woohyun for Woohyun. I chose him because of him. And we made a promise. Even though no one had ever kept a promise and promise were hard to keep, I still believed in his words. But he was cruel and gave up on me. He was the monster that fed on my fear.

Later in the evening, I called Sunggyu. I told him approximately where I was hiding, and he said he was going to come for me, and I hung up before he could hear the crack in my voice. The snow had stopped, but I was still freezing. Some random high school student started singing with his guitar nearby, and his friends used their phones to substitute lighters. The sky was getting dark. There were no stars. Sunggyu called me again, and I told him that I was near the students who were singing. He said he could see a girl sitting on top of a slide. I said that was me. He hung up. 

My vision started getting blurry, the lit up screen of the phones creating bluish spots in my eyes, when Sunggyu appeared and looked up at me. He didn’t say anything, and I felt childish to be simply slipping down the slide, so I stood up and walked towards the steps, carefully climbing down because it was slippery, before I faced him.

Sunggyu was a head taller than me, and when he wrapped my scarf around my neck, I noticed the worried furrow between his brows. He handed me my gloves, and finally spoke up, “You’re not alone in this. You think you have to fight this alone, but it’s not just about you anymore. It’s about all of us. It’s about everyone now who cares about you. We’re not letting you fight this alone.”

“I don’t think I can do this alone,” I said, breaking all at once.

“And you don’t have to,” said Sunggyu. “We’re here to share your pain. You won’t ever be alone in this anymore.”

☆