International Gyu day celebratory update! (Part 1)

It's Gyu's birthday in exactly forty  minutes in Sri Lankan time (It's seven twenty in the evening here, in Gyu-land its just around eleven twenty) and here I give you a Gyu-day celebratory update!

Gosh, I wanted to post a photo of my drawings or something here in celebration (Not my face, gyuracios! Though I look much like an indian and he'd mistake me for one, not that he'd see it or anything, whatever) but college , like really.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BABY AND THANK YOU FOR BEING BORN TO MAKE OUR LIVES JUST SIMPLY GYULORIOUS!

Though we never thought it would happen, GYU IS A CRUCIAL PART OF MY LIFE!

Two years and counting, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

This thing about stories behind our lives are pretty strange and at most cases, unimaginable. I remember reading it somewhere that these stories we have about our lives were what which defined us. I often wondered if myself causing my mother’s death and living in the darkness for so long did actually define me. True, it’s from this old persons that the new us are born; through, the past hold so much of significance that we couldn’t move ahead if we leave it behind. But at some cases, I think, although we’re the products of our downfalls in the past, this past could even be too heavy for us to carry along with time. This is the reason why we tend to forget them, or pretend to have forgotten them while we try to push them down the gutter of time and why we tend to not talk about these things anymore. Maybe we are afraid to have our loved ones carrying that same burden of our pasts with them; and that’s why some of us refuse to share the truth of ours with them. Presumably, that much covered up for the reason why Sung Gyu refused to tell me and me alone what his past was all about.

In a haste, I dashed upstairs to my room and changed into a T-shirt and jeans and came down only to see my father stepping into the house with a weary face and a glee smile. He asked me how my day was and I replied to him, telling that it was fine. In addition to that I also said that Woohyun was coming over in approximately another ten minutes. My father didn’t seem to be exactly happy about it all because he usually went to bed at nine also because he was supposed to rest but I had to explain it to him so he’d understand.

“It’s an emergency” I told him, hopping a bit on my toes. “You see appa, I can’t let the love of my life to fly off to some other country and marry a princess there; I have to keep him here!”

“You’d be fine” Said my father, walked off to the kitchen and yelled over his shoulder. “This boy is staying here at the kitchen!”

I couldn’t possibly imagine why he’d even be paranoid about it if Sung Gyu and Myung Soo could actually walk into my room and if Howon can stay at my home over night. Later then it was explained to me when he asked; “Who exactly is Woohyun now?”

Woohyun came over precisely ten minutes later after he called on his bike, all disheveled and moody with three cans of warm coffee in a plastic bag. I pulled him into the house and my father greeted him with a smile. Without wasting any more time though, I dragged him off to the kitchen and made him sit down.

“Okay, spill” I said to him. He had paled a little though and didn’t seem like he could talk any sooner. He placed the cans of beer on the table, took a deep breath, then another and another; all I could do was impatiently wait for him to speak. And he did, a while later in a voice raspy and low.

“Hyung is going to china the day after tomorrow”

The very sense of that statement dropped a metaphorical weight on my head with a pang, and I began to feel a little faintish. “No, what?”

“Yes, apparently there is going to be some kind of voting among the investors of all three branches of SK C and C in china the day after tomorrow to decide upon the shifting of the main branch…”

“But why do they even want to shift it?” I exclaimed in apprehension. “There should be another way…”

“There are, damn it!” Woohyun exclaimed angrily and slammed his hand on the table. “There are, Eunji. I would have been fine if they moved it to India; I mean, despite the distance it’s much safer there.”

“Safer?”

Woohyun nodded and tapped his fingers on one another, mind deep in thought. It seemed that he had had quite a conversation with his best friend and also had decided to commit himself for him in every possible way. I felt so small, all of a sudden. Being the café waitress-slash-hopeless stalker of Kim Sung Gyu, what could I possibly do to help him?

“Safer…because surely, Sung Gyu Hyung’s uncle is fabricating this.”

“Fabricating?” I asked, not exactly getting the point. “How so?”

Woohyun seemed to take another moment to mull over it, and while he was at it, my father walked in cheerily, it all vanished when he witnessed our faces.

“My! Did someone die?” He asked. I shook my head, and as though on cue, Woohyun reached into the plastic bag and took out a can of warm coffee. “Eunji’s appa, why don’t you join us too?”

My father looked bewildered for a moment, perplexed probably by what our faces read and I saw the explanation which he seemed to require.

“Appa, Sung Gyu oppa’s uncle is sending him off to china for whatever the reason and we need to figure things out, might you want to help?”

He looked at our faces, back and forth and finally pulled out a chair before Woohyun. “Well, of course”

We all sat in the kitchen in a circle, opened our coffee cans and located a bag of chips somewhere in the kitchen. Puppy was hovering around, pinching one or two chips from my hand then and there and getting petted by Woohyun time to time. We discussed what could have possibly happened and what we could possibly do.

“So according to my speculation” Woohyun started after a sip of coffee and held the can in both his hands. “Sung Gyu Hyung’s uncle is shifting the main branch to China with other intentions in his hands.” He reached for his bag then, and pulled out a laptop computer. “He knows this too, Sung Gyu Hyung knows it all but he’s in a very hopeless situation; with the humongous debt he has to pay and all…”

“Wait what?” I asked, and pulled at his hand. “What debt?”

“I’ll get back to it, first of all…” He turned the laptop for the two of us to see. On the screen was Sung gyu’s uncle, his grim-reaper persona buried under a totally fake happy-go-lucky expression and was shaking hands with a rather dull and old man in an immaculate blue suit. There was Sung Gyu standing at the back and it was seemingly at what which looked like a corporate business meeting of some sort.

“That’s his uncle” I said, pointing at the face I was sure to despise my entire life. Woohyun nodded. “Yup, and the other one is an uncle too…”

I was quite losing the grip on the thread with the existence of too many uncles. “Why is he an uncle?” I asked.  Honestly, the day being bad enough for me already, I didn’t think I could handle too much information about too many uncles I didn’t know that existed.

“He’s an uncle because he is…you see, Hyung’s family is some half of a quarter whatever Chinese, and they have quite a number of Chinese uncles and aunties that surely Hyung himself didn’t know that existed”

“That’s quite common” said my father bleakly. “Many wealthy families in China are known to have quite large extended families”

“True” Woohyun said and continued. “So this uncle of his is more related to this uncle than he is to Sung Gyu’s parents…probably a relative of his wife…”

It was my father who quickly picked up the detail from the bomb that was dropped. “So the wife is Chinese”

“She is” Woohyun agreed. “And is also very mean. I have only met her once and she basically treated me like a peasant, anyway. So this uncle from China is some big businessman and the talk is that he’s going to buy a big chunk of the company to himself. You see Eunji, the SK group is not his uncle’s property, its family inheritance and that’s why SK C and C belongs to Hyung. But his uncle is going to play some big gamble and buy it off to himself. Hyung and his family have no power over it, given that they have a massive debt to his uncle’s family that they basically lose their share of it. This was why Sung Gyu’s father pleaded and begged for Sung Gyu to take up the company because it was the only way they could pay the debt by cutting off a certain percentage from the annual income of SK C and C. But what happened was that the sales went down, and his uncle is pissed by it so he’s going to screw it wholly to the Kims”

He ended it there and I had a difficult time coping with so much of details dumped on my head in a rush. Woohyun sipped his coffee, so did my father, so did I; and while sipping it we took ourselves a moment of silence to allow the information to get through. So I did think it through, and all I could achieve by my thinking was the fact that Sung Gyu was basically being robbed of what he was supposed to own by inheritance owing to a big debt that they couldn’t possibly pay without his income. So what could possibly be the reason for the big debt? I asked Woohyun that, and broke the silent moment of thinking.

“Many reasons” He said after a deep breath. “Draws back to a long time of history Eunji; this is pretty screwed up ”

I actually expected my father to complain about language but he didn’t; instead he waited silently, as he always would; probably thinking.

“Why is it so?”  I asked.

Woohyun began to count them off with his outstretched fingers. “Firstly, Sung Yeon Noona, Sung Gyu’s older sister’s wedding, then his father’s surgery, then the biggest of all…”

“What?”

Woohyun stayed silent, the room drowned in silent and we waited with our hearts beating with time.

“The compensation for the allegation….”

Momentarily, blood began to draw southward from my head. My fingers went numb and cold and I was praying for god for it to be a lie.

“The allegation?” Echoed my father with a hint of anger. I suppose he had started to become dubious about my fondness for Sung Gyu and technically he should be; I felt faintish even more so I buried my face in my hands and waited for Woohyun to explain it.

“It’s a false accusation, sir, everyone knows it but Sung Gyu’s uncle and his wife fabricated everything so that it won’t be proved false; they only wanted to get money out of it”

I felt my fingers trembling against the warm surface of the can. I was thinking, thinking who possibly could have been falsely accused but I couldn’t bring myself to ask, I was too shocked to bring myself to even speak. But my father beat it to me.

“Who was falsely alleged then?”

There was silence, and then I realized that Woohyun was only looking down at me, his eyes widened and worried. He took a deep breath then, while I held up mine, and finally he replied in a voice so small that I could hardly hear what he said.

“Sung Gyu hyung…”

I buried my head in my hands, clutched onto my hair and stayed like that for a moment. I wondered why, of all the people, all this horrible things had to happen to him, to Sung Gyu who was perfect outwardly in every possible way; All this horrible things to a person who’s so selfless and insanely considerate that we couldn’t help but deem it all a lie. Why was the world so cruel? Why was it always giving good people so much of pain? I asked myself this over and over again. Anyone who knew Sung Gyu well enough would know it with their hearts and souls that there wasn’t anyone as sweet and soft hearted as himself and none of them would even try and want to believe that such an unbelievable allegation would be put on him this way. I couldn’t believe how unfair and unjust everything was for him. I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t anything out there that I could possibly do for him; nothing but bury my head in my hands and cry.

I cried, slowly, silently because I just couldn’t help myself. So this was what which was stopping him. Realization dawned on him. This was the curse, this was what which was scaring him.

Someone’s hand was on my back then, rubbing me slowly and I began to calm down. I thought of how wonderful of a person Sung Gyu was. I thought of people in general. Suddenly, people didn’t seem like people anymore; people were only drawn pictures, drawn and painted by how people themselves see each other, by how society see them. We were all drawings on paper, living in a flimsy, precarious world which we didn’t know when would collapse.

“There, there” My father was saying, still rubbing my back in a gentle touch. “We all know it isn’t true Eunji, we all know it isn’t true….”

“But he’s hurting appa” I mumbled and tried to lift my head to see them. “He’s hurting and it’s so unfair…”

Then I felt Woohyun shifting to my side, his hand was patting on my head; gentle and slow. “I know it came out as a big shock for you Eunji, but look at how Hyung is coping with it, how his whole family is coping with it; we should be strong too, hmm?”

I managed a nod then, my face still buried in my hands and finally wiped the wet off my face. “Okay…okay…”

“You’ll be fine” said my father, pulled me into him and kissed me lightly on the crown. “He’ll be fine, Eunji, you will both be fine…”

It took us all a while to finally settle down, finish our coffee and resort to a round of warm tea prepared by my father. Woohyun tried to console me wordlessly while he was at it and I let my mind wander off for a while. My father came around with three mugs of freshly made tea then and Woohyun proceeded to continue the tale.

“Sung Gyu Hyung’s uncle’s wife had a sister, a younger sister. Their family was quite wealthy, with property and inherited money and all, they were what you’d call ‘Lords’, chaebols with power and wealth over anything. This younger sister was only a few years older than us, and she was by name, Wu Meizhen.”

Woohyun looked at me long, in his face was a mixture of sadness and concern. I bit my lip, squeezed my hands and urged him to go on.

“Sung Gyu hyung and Wu Meizhen met during Sung Yeon noona’s wedding preparations. Hyung was only seventeen then, Wu Meizhen was twenty two. I don’t how it happened, neither did Hyung tell me but they began dating somehow and became an inseparable couple. I have met her a few times. She wasn’t what you’d call conventionally beautiful but there was a way that Sung Gyu hyung looked at her, with so much of affection…” Woohyun met my eyes then, and broke me a slight smile. “Much like he looks at Eunji now, I guess”

I smiled back, my ears burning in embarrassment. But on the other hand, I was feeling a little strange and out of place. It was a little difficult for me to cope up with all the details I just heard; a young Sung Gyu and a girlfriend five years older than him; it was strange to think and strange to imagine. And I realized, sometimes the tales we all hide behind ourselves weren’t at all defining what we truly were.

“Wu Meizhen was a little strange” Woohyun continued after a sip of tea. “You know, the sad, silent kind. She must have had some kind of a problem; Hyung didn’t know much about them since he was much younger and all; but he was always trying to help. He took her out on dates after school, did so much for her…I have seen. He looked much like a real grown up, doing all that. He says it was because he felt responsible for her; but apparently she didn’t feel the same responsibility for him. He was only the guy she went out with.

“Since he was younger, he did everything that she asked him to do without hesitation. Hyung’s family didn’t approve of the relationship; I mean, who would? But hyung refused to break it off, because he really wanted to help her fix herself. Meizhen’s family didn’t like it either. In fact, they had arranged a marriage for her; some rich but quite old Chinese businessman. She didn’t want to get married to him, she didn’t want to marry Sung Gyu hyung either; nobody knew what she really wanted; she wouldn’t tell even if hyung always asked. On the last day of Hyung’s second year of high-school, he took her out on a date. That’s where it all went wrong”

I had my hands frozen on my mug, and I was trying my best to stay steady though it was getting difficult for me to do so. The responsible Sung Gyu was the Sung Gyu I knew; I had felt it, the responsibility he took as an obligation for me and that was what defined him. I was angered at how they took advantage of that trait of him; how they used his qualities to strangle him and shatter him to pieces like they had.

“He told me what happened that day only tonight.” Woohyun continued, forlornly. “I never knew about this before, nor do I think he ever told anyone else about this. He did tell Myung Soo maybe, because he always does; either it was that nobody had the power to do anything about it, or nobody knew enough to do so. Whatever the case is, I really wish, earnestly, that they had done something about this”

“About what?” Asked my father, entirely saturated in the story.

“Well, what the Wu’s claimed was that Sung Gyu hyung actually forced, you know, to do ‘it’ with her that night; and in general definition, forcing ‘it’ is what we call . That was why hyung was accused of doing that to her. That was the tale that we all knew but I knew that the whole thing was completely out of order, for one; I had been best friends with him for two years by then, and I knew him enough to know that he was a at that time and two, he had sort of a…scare to actually do it. But at that time, he had been too shocked to even say anything. I remember how he looked like when they dragged him home” He went silent then, his eyes distant and filled of pain; as though he was recalling a distant memory which he despised to recall. “It was painful really; I mean, he was only a kid at that time! But they just didn’t think enough…” He sighed heavily then, and pressed his hands together in a tight grip. “So then what happened was, he was still a minor and minors are sent to rehabilitation for ; him being a brilliantly bright child, nobody wanted that so this uncle gave a big chunk of bribery to-I don’t know- everyone and put down the case. But surely he and all the grown-ups too, knew the truth; that it wasn’t Wu Meizhen who was forced into it at that time, but hyung. So technically it was hyung who got . I mean, it was evident! I can still remember how he was after that…poor kid, he was too afraid to tell anyone…”

“So nobody knows?” Asked my father.

“It’s impossible that nobody knows” Woohyun replied. “I might have been fifteen at that time, but I knew that it wasn’t right….”

“Then why was he accused without further investigation?” Asked my father, and I who quite understood and made quite a sensible speculation about it, explained as I how I had understood it.

“When it’s , it’s quite difficult to prove who whom when there isn’t…you know, really, really nasty things involved. And of course, there couldn’t have been nasty things.”

“Exactly” Woohyun agreed. “I think that’s why they didn’t do anything about it. Despite being unethical, there wasn’t exactly a reason why they should take it to law, because they were a couple and there was a possibility of consent too, right? I don’t understand these things…but I don’t think there was even a point of calling it ”

“Maybe because the boy was still a minor” Said my father after mulling over it. “I wonder how it even elevated to the point of calling it that though”

Woohyun responded without a beat. “It’s Meizhen who said it”

“Ah…that makes sense…” Said my father. “When the woman’s side call it that, there is quite a possibility. But I myself believe there must be something else there”

“Certainly there is” Woohyun said and leaned into the table, his hands resting on the warm surface of his laptop. “The strange bit is, the money that they’re actually paying as ‘compensation’ is not legally compensation. Hyung’s parents were tricked. In documentation, the contract which Sung Gyu signed said it was, but there is a forged, real version of it with his forged signature and is also the legal version of it; and it actually says it’s only borrowed money. So technically, Sung Gyu is paying them for borrowing Wu Meizhen for a night; isn’t that just pathetic?”

“Does Sung Gyu know about it?” Asked my father.

“He does” Woohyun replied. “But he thinks that it was all his fault that he doesn’t do anything about it but play alone. You see, the case about didn’t just end there…when Hyung’s sister was all about to take it to the police, Meizhen freaked out and killed herself. It’s because of this that Hyung is still suffering alone. He’s blaming himself for all of it when in reality, he wasn’t the one who did wrong all from the beginning; he was the one who was wronged…” He was silent for a while then, and the din of the conversation slowly began to die out. “To be honest…” He said then, in a low, monotone. “When Meizhen died, a part of Hyung died too; and it’s taking too long for him to be born again as he was.”

“The reason why he can’t love again” I whispered, almost inaudibly. I was holding in the pain with such an intense determination that I felt as though I had suppressed it for too long. I wanted to cry again, let it all out; but then again, what was my pain comparing to what he had to go through alone? And yet, he was still smiling, he was still strong, although knowing that his world was eating him ceaselessly inside. Perhaps he didn’t want to be reminded of the loose ends in his world, maybe he hated to be reminded of that pain. I realized why he’d put everything under the rug and move on. Sung Gyu didn’t want to live in the pain and have it destroy him inch by inch, because he believed that despite everything, he needed to go on living because he had a life. He knew just how important and precious he was. And I had been all so wrong. The only thing that he didn’t want to do was go into a love relationship again, all owing to the pain that he had to endure during his very first.

“Why he can’t love again…” repeated Woohyun slowly, his eyes focused in a distance. “He changed a lot since then…he turned into a robot. He locked himself up in the room, stayed in there half of the day and we were assuming thousand different things he might be doing in there. So one day we got Myung Soo to sneak inside” He was silent for a while, and a small shadow of a smile appeared on his lips. “He was studying. He was studying without an end. It was incredible! I think that’s the only thing he found as a getaway other than his band events. He was doing those two simultaneously throughout two years and didn’t even spare a glance at a girl. Didn’t talk much, didn’t care for how the hell he even looked like. And later he became the top in his class and also Beat became the top in underworld for his amazing skills!”

My father looked confused. “Underworld?”

I couldn’t help it but break into a smile. “It’s where people who dream, dream…appa…”

He still looked confused that Woohyun proceeded to explain that it was a secret hide-out for singers who couldn’t become professionals. I had to reveal it that I had been going there for a while too, which unsettled him quite; but then he was fine with it because he too was a dreamer who didn’t have the opportunity to dream.

“So Sung Gyu is a singer?” Asked my father.

“There’s nothing he can’t do” Said Woohyun with a smile. “So after scoring colors for his CSATs, he made it to SNU, studied computer statistics for three years and there he went through a real change” Woohyun’s eyes widened then, exaggerating what could have possibly happened. “He finally began to look at girls.”

“He did?” I asked, relieved that we’re finally coming to a somewhat less emotional bit in the tale.

“He did…” He said in agreement. “But not in the I-need-a-girlfriend way. It was rather in the god-she’s-so-hot way….” Woohyun took a deep breath and looked down at his entangled hands. “He began to sleep around”

“Oh…” was all I could say. I began to feel dejected again, and without warning, the first conversation I heard with Woohyun came into my mind, that about sharing their girls. Hot white anger erupted inside me, I gripped my arms; but I realized that the anger wasn’t directed towards Sung Gyu or Woohyun, because Sung Gyu wasn’t himself, and Woohyun perhaps had no choice but play along with whatever he did. The anger was directed towards Wu Meizhen.

“He wasn’t really being himself.” Woohyun continued in monotone. “He had spontaneous girls, partners, I’d rather say. He’d get drunk with them, sleep with them and announce break-up the next day without so much as feeling sentimental about it. Like I said, he was a robot. It was scary in a way, because we were seeing a Sung Gyu that we had never seen before”

He took a sip of tea and looked at the clock. I too, followed his gaze and happened to see that it was past midnight already. But just when I was about to say that he should go home, he continued.

“This went on for two years or so, and I as his best friend had no choice but do whatever he wanted us to do together. Sometimes we did unspeakable things, and I would get really upset about them but Sung Gyu hyung did nothing about it. He lived like it’s just natural. He would get mad at me if I protested; it wasn’t like he was forcing me or anything. He never forced the girls to do things either. He just stops talking and corners himself. I hated when he did that. You know, the shell I told you about” He met my eyes, I nodded in return. “The strange thing was, though…he always rejected without a beat when girls asked him out. The kind of girls he went out with were the girls who’d go out with anyone, but the girls who asked him out were different, and he knew it, so he never ever accepted them. He rejected without a second thought…” He sighed heavily and began to squeeze each of his fingers. “Hyung is afraid of romantic relationships, I think it’s the childhood scar which made him this way. He doesn’t say it, but it is what it is. Though he stopped sleeping around after going to the states, by some miracle; Hyung never got into any relationships after what with Wu Meizhen, and he still does the things that he did with her…the green tea, for an instance. It’s like he’s still living in the past to make it up to her because he thinks it’s all his fault. Hyung is suppressing the fact that he knows the truth. He knows that he was wronged, but refuses to accept it…the only way to get him to do it was to make him speak.”

And that was what I was supposed to do, which I very ceremoniously failed. Woohyun managed to do it I suppose, so I asked; “So you made him speak…”

He met my eyes. “No Eunji, you did.”

“I…?” I began with utter surprise but I couldn’t say anything in the end. Woohyun gave me a nod. “You did. When I went up to his office after you left, he was sitting there like he’s lost everything he owned. When I asked him what had happened, he said that he wanted me to tell you something, and then he told me almost everything that I told you tonight…” he sighed again, and looked into the remaining tea in the cup which had gone lukewarm. “It’s understandable, isn’t it? Him not telling you any of this. He’s still scared, Eunji. You know that theses scars don’t just fade away…”

I nodded, silently, guilt pricking in my throat. I could have done better, I could have been a better escape for him but that wouldn’t have been the right way, because the escape he sought after wasn’t the kind of escape I could give him.

“So about going to China” Woohyun said, going back to the initial topic. “According what we already know, Sung Gyu hyung and his family is going to be robbed of all that they owned of the company; and Hyung will give up naturally because he’s tired of all this . It’s okay too, because I’m tired of all this too. But the downside is, if they do manage to sell SK C and C China, Hyung will be the director of the Chinese branch, and he’d be there stuck with Wu Meizhen’s family, working under that Chinese uncle of his. He’s going to be suffering alone there, Eunji. Hyung has suffered enough. We can’t let him suffer any longer…”

“So…” I began doubtfully. “Is there anything we can do? To stop him?”

“There are” Woohyun nodded. “One, we can get Noona’s in-laws to pay the debt of the money for her wedding. You get it right? Since her husband was the one who should take all the expenses of the wedding, traditionally, and since he wasn’t wealthy enough, he had to borrow it from their uncle, and sadly, it’s from the company’s income that it’s being paid. So that is what Myung Soo was working on, getting his noona to convince them to pay it. They’d been causing a fuss about it; but you can understand right? They have got to pay it off. Two, we can report to police about the fake documents and bribery and the fake accusation of . We can get hyung to really testify, start a full-fledged investigation and square them. Three, we can get Hyung to leave the country, go to the states where he originally worked and get him to never return, which he would never do…so we’re left with option one and two.”

“We can do them both” I said.

“We can…” Woohyun agreed. “But that might be fairly difficult. So as of now, the option we have is doing something with the voting day after tomorrow. We can either stop hyung from going there, or we can get one of the investors to vote against it; which I can try to do through my mother. So meanwhile, Eunji, you I and Myung, we’re trying to keep hyung back from going there”

We made Woohyun to stay over at our place since it was very late in the night when we were finally done, and the next morning, Myung Soo came around in his car to pick up us both. He looked moody and worn out, like he hadn’t slept the whole night like we were. The moment we climbed inside, he wheeled around and asked me. “So you heard?”

I nodded in return.

All the way to college, we discussed the things that we could possibly do to stop him from going there. It was a fairly difficult task, given that they would either reschedule the voting or he’s most liable to post or email his vote in case he was unable to go. According to Myung Soo’s speculation, Sung Gyu was going to vote ‘for’ shifting the company, despite all the pain, as Myung Soo said, he’d give anything to get rid of having to pay all the debts. The ideas that we came up with, we placed them in an order in a way we could do one after the other in case the former ones failed. So the first we came up with and first in the line was I writing him a rather romantic letter.

“Since we know he was the one who wrote you the letters” Began Woohyun, as though we were planning to break into the blue house. “It’s sensible that you write him one. You know, telling him that you know everything and that he doesn’t need to go. Just tell him that we can do something about the whole debt issue…”

I nodded in agreement and added quite gravely. “Or I’m moving into china with him; that would shut him up.”

So during the first lecture which was boring as it was, Myung Soo and I pretended to take down notes while in fact I wrote down the letter while he took down notes for the both of us. I wrote it just as Woohyun asked me to; mentioning all that I know of. About his uncles, Wu Meizhen and the debts and also mentioning ‘did you know, oppa? You were tricked into writing letters to me while in reality, you were the one writing letters to me; you are the secret admirer’. I wrote everything that could possibly matter and at the end of it I added; “So after all of this, if you still want to move into China, oppa, I’m moving in with you. Period.”

We didn’t attend the afternoon lectures; after having lunch, Myung Soo went off to see about the deal with his noona and the debt and I took the bus to go to SK C and C. Woohyun was already at Yeollie’s when I went there, and without a question, I gave him the letter that I wrote. He nodded, smiled, tousled my hair and went off. I stayed at the café, feeling anxious and excited. I helped out with the work though, and took up the counter because Sung Yeol was apparently having a quarrel with Chorong unnie and she didn’t want him to be within the proximity where he sat; so without saying anything, he moved into the kitchen. Chorong unnie and I sat in the counter, feeling lonely and totally dejected. Sung Jong came around after a while, handed each of us a cold Americano and we talked.

Chorong unnie had been trying to get hold of Moon oppa, apparently; and it had ended up as a sheer futile attempt. Sung Yeol had found out apparently and he had made a scene in the kitchen saying that she should just bloody forget him because there are other bloody fish in the bloody sea. I knew he was referring to himself, the other bloody fish in the bloody sea. Chorong unnie hadn’t actually caught up with it, so I didn’t say it either, for the sake of keeping Sung Yeol’s trust. Sung Jong asked me what my problem was, and I said that I had no problems because the shifting of the company was supposed to be confidential.

“I know you’re lying” He said, when he realized that his coaxing was doing no good. “But it’s okay, because sometimes, somethings are better left unknown”

And then the evening came.

I was again at the counter, billing a dozen of cupcakes for someone’s birthday when Woohyun came around, his face sporting something in between graveness and excitement. He sat and waited patiently until I was done, and once I had sent off the client, I asked Yeosob to take up the counter and went off to the staff room where Woohyun led me to.

“I gave the letter” He told me once we were inside, something white and warm spread through me in a rush. “You did?”

He nodded. “Yeah, he took it and read it right there”

I was beginning to get impatient. “What did he say?”

“He said he’s in no position to change his mind right now and that he was going to China tomorrow no matter what. And also he said you can move to China to work at SK C and C in another year after obtaining a degree and until then, you should just focus on your studies…”

“Oh…” was all I could say. Typical of him. Honestly, I couldn’t have expected anything any better; I was glad that he wasn’t entirely against the idea of moving into china with him, which, in other words implied that he acknowledged me. Of course he did acknowledge me, because liking me, for him, was an understatement.

“So” Woohyun began and threw his hands in air impatiently. “There went plan A, moving towards plan B…”

Sung Gyu was scheduled to take his plane at two thirty in the afternoon so he would be traveling from the Seoul city to Incheon at least three hours ahead of the due time. So what our plan was to delay him from going to the scheduled flight. We thought of all the things we could do for it, including punching holes in his car wheels and hiding all his clothes; hiding his tickets and passport was fairly impossible given that he had them in his possession through day and night except for the time he sleeps, and when he does, Myung Soo didn’t like to sneak into his room or have anyone sneaking into the house in the middle of the night because he wanted his due beauty sleep. The last option that they came up with was well, me. Seducing him.

“What do you two take me for?” I asked, angered by this revelation. “I do not seduce people”

“But you do seduce hyung!” Myung Soo pointed out. “Eyy! It can’t be that hard!”

“It is!” I huffed and folded my hands on my chest. “Especially given that I haven’t seduced anyone in my life!”

“Myung, you can lock him up in the house” Woohyun said.

“No can do” He answered gravely. “Hyung has his own key to the house and I don’t know where on earth he hides it.”

“That’s terrible” Said Woohyun and turned to face me. “Eunji that is the only thing we can do without getting caught.”

I rolled my eyes without saying anything and riveted my attention back to the fried chicken I was devouring on.

It was late in the evening, just a few hours before Sung Gyu oppa’s departure to China; and we were in the abandoned children’s park of Myung Soo’s apartment building having chicken for dinner; discussing the next plans for tomorrow. Sung Gyu hadn’t returned apparently, and we had already searched the house for tickets, passport and flight details only to find none. We looked for his spare key too but it wasn’t there either. The only good thing about searching in his room was finding the sea-shell wind chime hanging against the wind above the French windows. It was also fascinating to find his room all tidy and cleaned up; but later Myung Soo told me quite irately that he had to clean the whole bloody place because it was too revolting to look in there. In the end, after we have found nothing, we just decided to have dinner and just head on our respective ways.

“Here’s what you can do” said Myung Soo, gaining my attention back on him. “He’s going to be at home all morning, getting ready and taking calls or whatever. All I know is that he’s going to be at home the entire morning. So what you’re going to do is come here at around eleven in the morning, go to his room, do a very emotional act, you know, crying and ‘don’t-go!’ and all? Then you kiss passionately or whatever and just…just ravish him”

“Ra-ravish him?” I echoed in utter horror. I didn’t know a thing about ravishing people let alone actually doing it. How could I possibly do that only to keep someone from going abroad? I really wished Myung Soo wasn’t talking drunk; but when I took a closer look at him, he looked all very serious and determined. So I didn’t need much to realize that he did mean it when he said I should be doing it.

“Not exactly that…” Said Woohyun, making me feel a little better. “You just…you know, be all girly and lovey-dovey with lots of touching and all? He’d do the ravishing part himself…” He took a gulp of his drink and made a face. “You know, like in movies; when the guy is about to go abroad, the girl go whining and the guy do it on the carpet or the car’s bonnet or whatever? Like that…”

“Oh god” I muttered, and buried my face in my grease covered hands. I couldn’t believe that they actually expected me to do these things, already knowing that I couldn’t. I had humiliated myself already, twice, and that much had already tainted my rep bad enough; I was certain that Sung Gyu was seeing me in a different light now, the light he would see a bloody stalker in. The next thing I would know would be him turning me into police for stalking him. “Do you guys not understand?”

“Understand what?” Asked Myung Soo. Trust Myung Soo to be the blandest, most clueless man on earth.

“Idiot. I’m a girl and girls don’t go…seducing people!”

Woohyun folded his hands, looking bored while Myung Soo stared at me blankly. “Girls do go seducing people”

“But I don’t! Besides seducing is for couples…”

“You two are a couple!” Myung Soo pointed out, making it sound like he was telling me that the sky was blue. “He likes you, you like him, and you kissed…what more is there?”

I threw him an irate look. “How do you know that we kissed?”

Myung Soo widened his eyes then, amused and surprised; so did Woohyun, and I realized the mistake I had just done. They never knew that we kissed.

“So you did?” Asked Woohyun, excitedly.

“Well we…”

“Who started first?” Asked Myung Soo.

I sighed, looked at my hand and finally replied. “It was…me”

Both the men pulled back, laughing and definitely happy; they almost hugged each other despite the small disagreements they had between each other.

“Excellent” Said Myung Soo, wiping his greasy hands on a paper towel. “So that’s what you’re going to do”

Woohyun put an arm on my shoulder then, and pulled me into his embrace; the manly breezy scent of his was seeping into my lungs. “You don’t have to do much, princess.” He said to me, slowly but genuinely. “Just convince him, in a way that he would listen to you…”

Later that night, after Myung Soo and Woohyun had played a round of ball in the abandoned court, Myung Soo dropped me off by his car. It was just as we drove out of the parking lot that Sung Gyu’s vehicle pulled in. I could catch only a slight glint of him, and the very sight of him really broke my heart. He looked as though he couldn’t sleep for days; disheveled and unsettled, eyes mirroring nothing but pain. Myung so saw it too, and looked at me apologetically as though he had anything to do with it.

“We’re going to help him, don’t worry” He said encouragingly, and placed a hand on my thigh. “We’re going to keep him home.”

After Myung Soo had dropped me off, I stayed up the entire night doing nothing more than thinking. I thought of Sung Gyu the most, and about the turmoil he had gotten tangled himself in. It was too much of a labyrinth which didn’t seem like it would solve it itself, and unless his uncle got a or something, it didn’t seem to have an end either. I thought of how people behaved, how people soughed after the kind of things which weren’t exactly necessary to go on living. It would have been thousand times easier if Sung Gyu were born into an ordinary family; he wouldn’t have to run a company against his will and be pushed and pulled around to fulfil other people’s desires. He would have been an independent soul, just as he always swished to be, and we wouldn’t have trouble being in love. But then again, everything connected in some strange way; one wouldn’t happen if not for the other, a chain of steps in life. Stepping stones. Would we move to the next stone if the first one didn’t exist? We couldn’t decide where we need to go if not for where we stood at that moment. Life was all about connected moments, connected situations. Maybe that was what fate was all about too, connected moments, the moments being already pre-determined. Life was strange indeed.

Next morning I woke up with a start, my phone was ringing right by my ear with Myung Soo on the other end of the line. I had barely had a blink; it was as though I was pulled awake the moment I fell into bed. My head was ringing and my eyes refused to open. Groggily I felt for my phone in the darkness behind closed eye lids and answered the phone.

“Five minutes!” I muttered in desperation.

“No five minutes. Out of bed, now.” Said Myung Soo sternly from the other end, and strangely, I could hear him in double, and a lot more firmly and clearer. It took me one groggy moment to realize that he was already in the house, standing in my doorway, clad in jeans and a plaid shirt while sporting an amused smile.

“Get out!” Was my first response, followed by a pillow thrown at his general direction. He caught it in his hands effortlessly, grinned cheekily and said. “Well, good morning to you too!”

I couldn’t believe that he wanted me to do the weird things in the stark day-light early in the morning; what was more unbelievable was that I had instinctively agreed. I stepped down the bed, my bare feet touching the sun-kissed woolen carpet, spread my limbs for an early workout. The sun was already up by then, and it was warmer than any other day, implying the approach of a warm summer. Myung Soo walked over and petted puppy who lied on the floor while I blindly searched for my slippers. However, when I had them in my hands, I hit Myung Soo’s back with one of them and shooed him out of the door.

It was right and fair that I was forced to wake up early because I took a good share of time just to get ready to fit for the moment. Myung Soo was being persistent; ordering me around with what I need to do; wear make-up, wear the right shoes. For the moment, I actually thought he was being such a girl. Woohyun turned up after a while, man-handling a bag of what seemed like pastries, followed by my father who sported a look of utter horror. Surely, he was imagining other unspeakable things but I didn’t say much for it seemed all fair that he did. He left us alone however though, and invited all three of us for breakfast afterwards. Woohyun proceeded to explain things with a fabricated tale while we feasted on omelet and toast. I didn’t think my father believed half of it, especially what with accompanying ‘officials to the airport’ but he didn’t say anything contradictory to my utter relief.

And after the clock ticked eleven, we set off.