“What did you say?” Suzy looks staggered by the boy’s words. Her jaw hangs a little open and her eyes are full of confusion.

“I-,” Kai wasn’t exactly sure why he said that out loud. Let alone why he thought of that in the first place. True, Suzy was someone who would turn heads at one glance, but really? Why would he say something like that in this situation? He even called her ‘one of the saddest wrecks’.

Suzy sees Kai at a loss for words. She stands up and was about to say something along the lines of ‘let’s just forget about this’ when he speaks up.

“How do you know you can’t paint anything beautiful anymore?”

He stands up and expands on his point. “Even a tragedy can turn out to be something beautiful. A story with a sad ending can be a masterpiece. A song with sad lyrics can touch the hearts the hearts of many.” He pauses for a while and goes back to his statement earlier. “You’re a sad wreck Suzy, but that doesn’t make you any less of an artist. I know you’ve quit art because you think you can only create art when you’re happy, but sadness…” Suzy sees the sincerity in his expression and feels the warmth in his tone. “It won’t make your art any less beautiful.”

He deeply gazes into Suzy’s eyes and sees some realization amidst the astonishment. Suzy breaks away from the eye contact and sits back down on the couch. She keeps her eyes to the remote on her hands and starts fiddling with it again.

Kai had made a point. A very valid point.

She slumps her shoulders down in defeat. He made it sound so easy, but was it really?

“I don’t know,” she mumbles. She looks up at Kai who was still standing. “That’s easier said than done. You know that.”

The corners of Kai’s lips tug upward, and his eyes still full of sincerity. He knew he had gotten through to Suzy. It really made him feel exultant.

A thought sparked in his head.

What if Suzy was really the reason why he’s still there? Maybe this was his job - to be with sad, lonely Suzy. Make her happy – be the friend who will truly never leave her side.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Suzy asks.

“Nothing,” he responds but still keeps the same expression on. “It’s just - I know you can do it,” he half lied. Of course he knew Suzy can make it out of her current slump. He just wouldn’t tell Suzy about the epiphany he’s had a few seconds ago. Besides, their situation is currently awkward as it is, he wouldn’t want to come off sounding like a fanatical spirit who wants to stick to Suzy no matter what. That was just too creepy. Even he knows it.

Kai’s smile turns more intentional than genuine, “You’ll just need some time, that’s all.” And maybe just a little persuasion from me, he internally adds.

“Time,” Suzy repeats as she looks away from Kai to the painting. For the past year, time had been too slow, too excruciatingly slow for Suzy. After all that’s happened in a year: Her family dying in the car crash; moving in with the one aunt she has in Seoul; that one aunt telling her to stop pursuing such an unpromising career; her believing that her aunt was right; her slowly falling into depression, thinking that it was that lousy exhibit’s fault why she was orphaned now; and finally her quitting art, even shifting degrees, just to truly get away from it.

“Time,” Suzy gives out a resentful cackle. She then looks at Kai, her eyes seemingly turning empty once again. “Time wasn’t good to me, Kai. I keep screwing things up as time passes,” she harshly emphasized each word. She pauses a beat, and looks away from Kai’s eyes which were now full of concern.

“I made too many mistakes. A lot of things happened since then. I-“ She takes a deep breath in, as if trying to inhale all the courage she can to admit what she denied for the past year. “My misfortune, it doesn’t end in my family’s death. It starts there.” Tears start welling up in her eyes again, and she immediately wipes them off her face with her hands.

She takes another lungful of air. “No matter what I do, I don’t think that things will be back to the way they used to –” She covers both her eyes with one hand, feeling the warm tears dampen her palm. “I don’t think I can ever be, truly happy. Not with this deep void in me.”

Kai looked at helpless Suzy in front of him. She was crying again. Kai looked to the ground and wondered, how many times has Suzy cried already? Just today, she woke up crying, and has cried two times, just because Kai asked about that painting. It pained him to think that for the past year she may have spent her days waking up, crying in realization that she no longer had a family to go to, that she had to live through another day without them; and crying herself to sleep, thinking of the missed opportunities and the ‘what ifs’ that might have happened, if the accident didn’t happen.

It was obvious the accident was the root for all of Suzy’s problems. Kai bit his lip. He could see that the accident has caused a lot of damage in her life, but he can’t quite fathom why it did so. Maybe Suzy just grabbed on to this memory for too long.  She never once tried to forget it. Maybe she did - but something like that definitely is not something that could be erased overnight.

Of course, Kai didn’t know much about this. He has no memories. Unlike Suzy, he had no sad memories to haunt him. Up till now, he had despised his memories being taken away from him. He hated the fact that he didn’t remember any one significant in his life, or if he even had any at all. He hated that he couldn’t recall stories about his life, any experience that he may have held to dearly. He hated that he didn’t even know himself. Who was he? Did he lead on a good life, did he have good friends? Did he have talent like Suzy did? What were the things he loved? He hated?

Why he’s like this now?

There were so many questions that swirled around his head before he had met Suzy. There had been no definite answers to his questions yet, but if his memories were anything like Suzy’s, he would have been glad to obliterate them all away.

Start off like he did now. A blank sheet to be filled with new , new colors: new memories.

“Suzy.” Kai calls her name gently, finally breaking the silence between them. The girl looks at him, her eyes still wet with tears.  “Maybe you need to start off anew,” he carefully suggests, basing from his thoughts. “Starting now.”

The girl doesn’t say anything, a questioning expression remains on her face.

“It’s not gonna be easy, but I think, you need to forget the past-“ the boy pauses. “And make more memories. Happier ones... I’m not asking you to erase the memory of your family, just…” he struggled to find the proper words for it. “I don’t think they’ll be happy if they see you like this.”

“You’ve carried on the burden of guilt long enough, don’t you think? You have a future, and I think your family would have liked to see you have a happy one. Not like this.”

Suzy sniffs. She knew Kai was right.

He was right.

Suzy’s gaze went from Kai, back to the painting. Her mind goes back to when she was 12 years old. Filled with excitement as she first used the newly bought easel her parents gave her, and used real cloth for a canvas.

Everything was going fine, until she had made a mistake. She had dipped her brush in black paint instead of the evergreen and started the color for the hills. After that, she steps back, realizes that she got the wrong color and drops her paint bush on the edge of the easel in frustration. As she was about to chuck her painting off the easel, her mother passes by and asks if she was done painting. Suzy says she’ll re-do the whole painting because she made a mistake, then her mother asks if she could see the painting, and asks why she would do a thing, since she’s already spent the whole day on it. Her mother sees the thick black that was now dripping on the painting and says that’ll be okay. That Suzy could still fix it. Her mother advices her to let the black paint dry first, then paint over the area with white. She follows her mother’s instructions, and sure enough, her mistake was no longer evident. After that, she continued the painting, now using the correct colors.

She did fix it.

Suzy snaps back to the present. Her focus goes back to the anxious Kai whose gaze never left her.

“You’re right,” Suzy finally admits. “My mistakes – I can still fix them,” she wipes the last of her tears with the back of her hand. “My mother – my family, would have wanted it that way,” she finishes the statement with a sniff and tries to pull on a smile.

Kai looks back at her, eyes filled with amazement. His eyes then crinkle on the side as the corner of his lips pull up. “That’s good to hear,” he said with a tinge of relief in his tone. 

He had gotten through to Suzy.

“Thank you,” Suzy says for the second time that day, but now, she didn’t seem as shy.

“Can’t I go to school with you?” Kai sits quietly on the red leather arm chair, pouting as he observed Suzy fixing her bag. It was 12:28pm, Suzy usually takes around 15 minutes to walk to her university. She was going to leave home soon.

“Of course you can,” she answers as she puts a notebook in her brown leather shoulder bag. She looks at the boy who was slouching defiantly in his chair and adds, “Just, don’t stick by me when you’re there.”

Kai grunts. “That would be no fun.”

“Kai,” Suzy sighs. “School isn’t fun. It doesn’t make a difference if I’m there with you or not.”

“Of course it does!” the boy sits up and argues. “You’re the only one there who knows I’m around!”

“And?” Suzy raises an eyebrow at him. “It’s not like I’ll talk to you there anyway.”

Kai’s jaw drops in disbelief. “So you’re just going to ignore me?”

“Well… Yeah,” Suzy shrugs. “It’s not like I have a choice. I wouldn’t want to look crazy again.”

The boy slouches in defeat. He forgot about that. “No fair,” he mumbles to himself as he crosses his arms. She’s the only friend he has and she wouldn’t even talk to him in public.

Suzy shakes her head in amusement after seeing Kai’s reactions. He was a bit cute… Kind of. How he wanted to stick by her side. It wasn’t as annoying as yesterday when he acted like creep. Now, he just somehow reminded her of a puppy.

She was about to finish fixing up but she checks her phone first before putting it in her bag. “One missed call from Aunt,” she reads the notification aloud. “Wonder what she wants…” she presses on the call button on the screen and puts the phone on her ear. 

“Hello, Auntie,” Kai sees Suzy talking on the phone.

“Yes Aunt,” she says while nodding. She pauses and attentively listens to the other line. “Okay,” she answers once more.

 “But isn’t that store the opposite way from home?”  Her conversation on the phone continues.

Kai’s head tilts a little in thought. A thought suddenly pops in his mind.

“You want me to do what?”

“Come on! That’ll totally work!” Kai excitedly says after telling Suzy his idea.

“You want me to put a phone on my ear while talking to you,” she repeats what Kai’s ‘brilliant’ plan hesitantly. “So I won’t look crazy?”

Kai nods cheerfully. “I got the idea after you talked with your aunt on the phone a while ago.”

Suzy squints her eyes at the boy. “I’d rather not talk to you.” She then puts her bag on one of her shoulders and proceeds to the door, leaving the boy in the living room.

“Come on! Please?!” Suzy gets quite a surprise when she sees the boy in front of the door as she opened it.

“Sh-,” she almost curses. The boy flashes a wide grin and stays where he is. There is no stopping him, she thinks after seeing how persistent he was pushing through with this. “Fine,” the girl gives up and looks in her bag for her phone. She takes it out and places it on her ear. “Is this good enough?”

Kai’s smile gets bigger in satisfaction. “Yes,” he steps to the side and gestures her to walk forward. “I’ll be accompanying you then.”

Suzy nods. “Just – no more surprises like that.” She walks away from the locked door still holding the phone against her ear.

Kai smiles as he sees her figure walking away. “Right.”

“Do you always walk to school?” Kai asks as they pass by a group of commuters waiting at a bus stop about two blocks away from Suzy’s house. It had been a pretty quiet walk, this being the first time Kai talked to her outside. Her arm was almost getting numb from holding the phone up.

“Yes,” Suzy answers after switching the phone to her other ear. She doesn’t look at Kai who was walking beside her in the same pace, but instead looks in front, being aware of the environment. There were a lot of people out during that time, probably because they were all still in their lunch breaks.

“You know, I usually don’t want my phone out in public because a thief might snatch it up from my hand,” she lied, wanting to see the boy’s reaction. Their neighborhood was pretty safe. There was a police station just around the corner, so there was really nothing serious to worry about.

 “Oh.” Kai’s face fell. “You can put it back in your bag if you want to.”

“Let me just see if your idea works first.” Kai didn’t expect this response from Suzy. She smiles almost mischievously and continues to walk with the phone held up to her ear. “There are lots of people here, but none of them are looking at me weirdly… Yet.”

“What do you mean 'yet'? Of course they won’t look at you weirdly. You just look like you’re talking with someone on the phone.”

“Is that so...” Suzy tilts her head. “But wouldn’t it look weird if I stopped talking and just held the phone on my ear?”

“It would.”

“Then,“ she glances sideward to look at Kai. “I should have someone to keep talking to on the phone right?”

Kai looks at her, dumbfounded. Suzy smiles and looks forward again. “My arm was getting tired. You should keep talking to me before I put my phone away.”

The boy’s gaze remains fixed on the girl as a smile forms on his lips. “Okay then, what should we talk about?”

“What about we talk about you now? Since we spent half the day talking about me,” Suzy pauses. “Sorry about my inappropriate fits, by the way.”

“I told you, I don’t really mind that.” Kai reassures her. “Plus, I really can’t talk about me. No memories, remember?”

Suzy nods. “It’d be nice to start off without memories though,” she smiles sadly. “Nothing weighing you down, no regrets.”

“Yeah, I have been thinking that while ago too.” Kai puts his hands in his pockets. “But having no memories has its downsides too.”

“Like almost being named Spacey?” Suzy asks teasingly.

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “Not knowing your legitimate name has its downsides.”

“I wonder how we’ll figure out your identity…”

The boy sighs. It was a difficult job. It wasn’t like Suzy was a detective. But, then again, Suzy was his only lead. He figured that there was more to Suzy being the only one who could see him - that there may be some mystical force working on the two of them.

“Suzy,”

“Mn?”

“Remember the whole ‘unfinished’ business thing we talked about?”

“Yeah.”

“I think,” Kai gathers his nerves. “You’re my unfinished business.”

Kai waited for Suzy’s respond to what he just said. He expected some shock or some rejection from the girl, but instead he sees her keep a calm face and nod.

“I kinda figured that this morning, since the nightmare thing,” she shrugged. “It’s just – I don’t know, but in a span of half a day, I already told you the details of my tragic life which you probably know more now than my aunt; you have that ability to somehow read me well; and you kept counseling me with advice I actually listened to… Then there’s the fact that I’m the only one who can see you… It doesn’t take much of a genius to figure that out.”

“Oh.” Kai was actually speechless at how Suzy was so cool about all this. “Then you don’t think it’s creepy?”

Suzy thought about it for a while. “It’s odd but, I don’t really mind,” she says whilst tilting her head to the side. “That’s another thing. You have this certain…” Suzy tried to find the perfect word to describe him.

“Charm?” Kai fills in the sentence for her.

Suzy shakes her head. “It’s like that, but –,” Suzy looks to her side to eye him from head to toe. “Charms are more of the lines of something lovable.”

“Aren’t I lovable?”

Soon afterward the two both chuckle at Kai’s suggestive remark. “You really want me to answer that?” Suzy raises an eyebrow at him.

“It wasn’t a rhetorical question,” Kai shrugs.

“No – not really.” Suzy gives out a lighthearted laugh.

“Ouch,” Kai jokes as he clutches on to his chest. The girl gives a small giggle at his gesture and he continues to ask, “If it’s not my charm, then what is it?”

“Maybe, it’s your presence?”

“Presence?” Kai repeated. “Don’t I lack that? Considering no one else can see me,” he jokingly asked.

“Maybe ‘presence’ isn’t the best word to use for you,” Suzy gives a couple of nods. “Then, maybe it’s something about your aura?”

“You give out this aura wherein I feel I could trust you,” she expands further. “Like I can tell you anything? It’s weird.”

“But I guess you don’t mind?”

“No.” Suzy then flashes him a smile. “I guess that could also be a charm.”

Kai lifts his head in pride. “I told you I was lovable.”

Suzy giggled. Maybe just a little.