Listen to: I can feel a hot one – Manchester Orchestra

            I found him on the soccer field, kicking a ball up down and bouncing it on his knees, before sending it straight into the goal. It was still dark, the moon high above us. I checked the time: 2:56 AM.

            “Goooaaaaaallll!” I screamed as Myungsoo kicked another goal.

            When he saw me, there wasn’t any expression on his face, really. It was if he’d grown stoic to that extent.

            “You didn’t have to come looking for me,” he said.

            “I know,” I said. “But I wanted to. Sungyeol is worried sick about you.”

            “Let him worry.”

            “Myungsoo,” I snapped, getting frustrated at his immaturity. “I’m serious. Let’s go, okay? Back to home.”

            “I can’t do that.”

            “Why not?”

            “Because, Naeun. You’re my home.” He now looked at me, and that was when I finally noticed the sadness brewing in his eyes. “You’re my home.”

            You’re my home. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

            Myungsoo started playing with the soccer ball in his hands. He sadly smiled to himself. “You know, I honestly should’ve…I should’ve fought for you, way back when. But I didn’t.”

            I kept my head low, staring at some blade of grass. “I didn’t know if…if we were worth fighting for,” I finally said.

            “Me either. I thought that over the years, as time passes, that we would pass. We’d both move on and be one of those people who go to their exes’ wedding without a problem. There are people like that. I thought I could be one, too.” He was hugging the soccer ball to his chest now, as if it was the only thing holding onto his sanity. “But I couldn’t, Naeun. I thought it would be so easy to move on from you, and I felt like I was doing just fine these past few years.

            “But then I saw your engagement announcement to Hyunsoo. I saw how similar he was to me: tall, fair, witty, not to mention the fact that he enjoys photography. And then I thought about how that could’ve been me.”

            “Myungsoo…I—

            “You deserve to be happy. Hyunsoo is a really great guy. I’m happy for you,” he said, now looking away from me.

            I paused for a moment, wondering how the heck things got this complicated. In the end, all I said was one word before I left him. “Thanks.” And with that, I left. It was probably for the best.

            Wedding day. Funny how just years ago, I was standing with my mother at her wedding. Now it was my turn.

            I’d invited Myungsoo. Only because I felt like I needed to. He was family, after all. But the majority of me didn’t want him to come. I knew that if I saw him, if I looked into those eyes as I stood there at the altar, then my life could be ruined forever. I couldn’t let him get to me.

            It was as if he read my mind because as I was getting ready, I had an unexpected visitor.

            “Great,” I was saying, thinking it was Yookyung, “you’re here. I need help with the…”

            But it wasn’t Yookyung at the door. It was Myungsoo. He was wearing a suit and tie, his hair lazily combed. He looked tired, wasted.

            “Myungsoo,” I said, standing up. “What are you doing here?”

            He looked at my wedding dress, at the veil on my head. He swallowed. “Please don’t marry him.”

            Did I just hear what I thought I just heard? “Are you kidding me?”

            “No,” Myungsoo said, taking a step closer, “I’m not. Naeun, I…I love you. I’ve loved you since you told Doyeon off at the tofu house, since you ran with me in the rain, since I saw you for the first time at the water fountain, since…since you bumped into me the first day we met.” He stepped forward. Tears brimmed his eyes. All I could manage to do was stay where I was, wondering why? Why did you have to tell me this now?

            “Please,” he said again. His eyes looked so sincere, so broken. “Don’t marry him.”

            I bit my lip, now a force of habit, and I hadn’t even realized that tears had been b my eyes, too. “I’m sorry,” I said. And that was all I could say to him without breaking.

            I stared at myself in the vanity mirror, awaiting my protocol. But my mind was preoccupied with something else. It wasn’t Hyunsoo I was thinking about. It was that other guy. The door opened and in came Yookyung. Thankfully.

            “Is it time to go yet?” I asked dully, although I hadn’t intended for it to sound that way.

            “Naeun, I don’t think is a good idea,” Yookyung said to me. “You don’t really love Hyunsoo and I know it.”

            “What are you talking about?” I asked, fixing the veil on top of my head. “I do. I love him.”

            “No, you don’t,” Yookyung snapped. “God, how can you be so stubborn? Naeun, you love Myungsoo. You always have. There’s no denying.”

            I faced her angrily. “Yookyung, I’m about to get married. I can’t have a boy who I used to have a thing with ruin this entire thing for me, okay? Hyunsoo is perfect, we’d actually work.”

            Yookyung shook her head. “No. You guys won’t.”

            I looked at her in disbelief. “What do you want me to do? Be the one that sabotages this entire wedding? There are hundreds of people outside, Yookyung. I can’t disappoint them.”

            “Yes, you can,” Yookyung pressed. “Look, the people out there want you to be happy. And you won’t be happy with Hyunsoo. Because he’s not the one you love.”

            “Does marriage really have to be with someone you love?” I asked. “You know, sometimes you marry someone because they have money or are husband material, or they’re good with kids. Not everyone marries the love of their life. I’m one of those people. Myungsoo and I are too complicated.”

            “Sometimes, love is worth it.”

            “Huh?”

            Yookyung kneeled down next to me, so now we were looking eye to eye. “For years, you and Myungsoo have wondered whether a relationship would be worth it. It took a while to figure it out, but Myungsoo made his decision: that you are worth it. And I know that deep down inside, you know that he’s worth it too.”

            “And how do you know that?”

            “Think about it,” Yookyung said. “Why else would you be having this conflict right now? If you were really over him, you would let it pass, not giving a care for him at all. ‘You snooze, you lose’ right? But you want Myungsoo to be the one up there with you. That’s why you’re getting so angry with me. Naeun, you don’t look at anyone the way you look at him. Face it. Kim Myungsoo is the love of your life.”

           I was never one to believe in signs or omens. But right now, I needed one more than ever. And then, I saw it.

            Just outside the window, by the fountain, was a rose garden. A red rose garden. My mind flashed back to homecoming, when Myungsoo had left me a red rose in my locker; to Valentine’s Day, when he’d told the vendor that I was his girlfriend in order to get a free rose, which had also been red. Red roses had always been his thing.

            “You knew about this,” I said through my clenched teeth, “the fact that we were going to become related. Didn’t you?”

            “I’m just so happy,” my new stepbrother said sarcastically, “that I have a new little sister.”

            “What’s your name again?” I asked. “Kim Myungsoo?” Then I started laughing because Park Myungsoo’s face popped up in my mind.

            “Yah, stop laughing!” my new stepbrother demanded. “It’s not funny!”

            When I refused to stop laughing he said, “If you don’t stop laughing on the count of three I am going to smack you, Son Napoop.”

            I stopped laughing. But not because of his threat. “What did you just call me?”

            He smirked.

            “Well then,” I said, “if I’m Son Napoop then I guess you’re Kim Myungpoop, right?”

            I dashed out of the room, asking everyone I could find just one question: “Where’s Hyunsoo? I need to talk to him.”