Sojung hated herself for everything.

Sojung came home to go straight into her room.

Kris cooked like he always had done, but she didn’t even enter the kitchen.

Something told Kris Sojung was not okay.

He came in front of her room and knocked on the door. Without her answer he went in.

“Go away,” Sojung declared, “please.”

She had her head turned around but Kris could tell that she was crying.

“Did Sojung have a bad day today?” Kris asked, approaching her.

She shook her head. It wasn’t it.

A bad day.

It wasn’t a bad day.

It was a bad year. And probably even that was an understatement.

“Kris,” Sojung blurted under her breathe. She must have looked so pathetic in his eyes. “Do you hate seeing me like this? Just like a child. I always cry.”

He always know the right things to say. He always saw right to her. He always was so comfortable to be around, yet she felt so wrong at the same time.

She wanted to keep her internal conflicts for herself, but he always wanted to care for her. It wasn’t his intention at the least to make the ambiguous voice in her ceased one moment and the next it growled.  

“I wouldn’t say that,” Kris pat her back. “I think you just have a hard time right now. We all are- If it make you feel better, I cry sometimes too.”

After all, Sojung was Sojung.

But her intuition told her not to. She put her guard up.

Muting, Sojung turned around. She seemed unable to bear looking at him, she gazed at the door. She wanted him to leave.

She wanted him to stay.

She wanted to cry some more.

But she couldn’t say anything when Kris head tilted and lowered to met her eyes, her brown, just plain brown eyes, (or so she was told) no word escaped from her lips, not even a sigh.

She felt the warmness in his eyes, and she was so vulnerable to them.

“Let’s eat dinner,” Kris tried to cheer her up. “I made your favorite dish today.”

 

Kris leaned forward. He grabbed a spoonful of delicious filling and topped her rice bowl. His movement, his thought that really counted sent a wave of guilt and sorrow to her heart.

“So who dared to make my little sister cried today?” Kris questioned.

His little sister.

Sojung lurched slightly backward in her seat.

Kris chose his words wisely. It clearly distinguished everything. It was so clarified, like black and white. There were no shades of gray in the middle.  

Those simple words reminded her that she should delineated the forbidden line between them.

He only saw her a his little sibling. She should have seen that line that he drew, but it was blurry. He should highlight that line, explicitly.

He should have done so in the beginning. But instead Kris was feigning innocence.

Sojung feigned ignorance. Sojung stayed in the mist and she had fallen. Fallen deeper than she should have.

And everything seemed so much clearer now. 

She had two choices at the moment: not answer and let her mind tangled of all the thoughts, or could answer Kris and just cross her finger hoping he would have some wise advice.

"He founded out,” Sojung answered in a volume that just the two of them could hear. The house was empty and silence. The only sound between them except for their breathing patterns was the static electricity ringing faintly in background.

Sojung voice was just loud enough.

“I told him, now he knew,” she confessed.  

Kris continued to gaze at her face, however he did not take advantage of her momentary weakness and discomfort.

Sojung didn’t want Kris to show her his sympathy. It was nevertheless, her fault.

But that was exactly what shown on his face, well that was what Sojung read it as: Sympathy, but mixed with empathy. Why would he be empathy?

“We were good friends, but I did wrong,” a drop of tear landed on her lap. Another tears followed but Kris handkerchief caught it just in time.

“He keeps on avoiding you,” Kris began.

Sojung’s eyes widened, “How did you know?”  

“If he reacted so strongly, then perhaps he has deeper feelings for you. Perhaps he wants to be more than friends.”

“Give him time, that’s what he needs- To reflect on his feelings.”

"You think so?" She asked in a hopeful voice.

Kris nodded silently before lowering his eyes.  

That was what Kris needed.

Sojung misunderstood.

Kris was likewise.