Soojung was my best friend.

She was beautiful, popular, and talented. Everyone loved her.

She and I told each other everything—from what we had for dinner the night before to the cute pair of sandals either of us saw on the way to school. I knew everything about her, and she knew everything about me.

One thing she never told me, however, was her infatuation with that one boy named Jongin who loved to dance and play football.

He was a mutual friend of ours since middle school.

How did I find out?

From her letters to Jongin.

//

I walk around her bedroom that still remained the same after all these years. The bed was kept a little too neat, and her items around the room were very organized.

On the night stand beside her bed were a couple of text books and her phone. There was also an old picture frame containing a photo that the two of us took many years before we graduated high school together.

I set down the cardboard box Sooyeon gave me, and feelings of nostalgia filled my body. I knelt and reached out to put the picture frame in the box first before slowly putting more of Soojung’s items in the box. The small urge to cry created a swell in my throat but I held it back and instead smiled slightly to myself.

After tying my hair in a ponytail, I went to her desk to pack up more of her items. That's when I found a box that I had never seen before in the bottom drawer.

It was a simple solid black box with no decorations or colors. There were just three words written neatly on the top of the lid in silver ink.

‘Letters to Jongin’