It was around winter, when I decided to wear the bracelet Wooyoung sent me. And it was around that time, when Suzy’s heater broke. Sang Moon refused to share his room with her, and she didn’t want to disturb our parents. Once again, she shamelessly invaded my bed, and bid me good night.

“How are things at school?” I managed to ask. The steady hum of my electric heater filled the silence. Our eyes were fixed on the bare ceiling. We lay close beside each other.

“Do you remember the girls I told you about?” she asked back in reply.

“Hm.”                           

“One of them is really having a difficult time at home. I caught them talking in the toilet. It was my first time seeing them cry like that.”

“What did you do?”

I glanced at her. She had a nonchalant smile on, and afterwards, she stuck her tongue out for a split of a second.

“I stormed out of the cubicle, saying impulsive things like, ‘Why’d you keep it all to yourself after all this time?’ and ‘Just cry it out! You’ll feel better afterwards!’”

I chuckled. “They must have looked at you weirdly.”

“Well, they did,” she carried on. “They were utterly stunned, but I took that opportunity to hug all of them. And then we all sobbed together. We were a mess, oppa. It was nice, though. At least I can understand where they’re coming from. And just think: we all prayed together. It’s been a pleasantly unique experience.”

I patted her head. “Well done.”

“But aren’t we really blessed?” she whispered, stirring beneath the thick blankets. She placed the back of her right palm against her forehead. “As a family, we do argue, but that makes us stronger, right?”

“Right.”

“But is it really weird?” she rolled over, and looked at me straight in the eye. “Because I want to share the love I have for everybody. I want to listen to them, and let them know someone up there cares for them a lot.”

“You’ll get hurt, if you give too much,” I replied. It was funny, having that kind of conversation with the twelve year old Suzy. For someone so young, her insight was deep. It had always been like that. Despite her bubbly personality and countless feuds with Sang Moon, whenever we’d find ourselves alone, our talks became interesting—as if the childish façade she wore was removed, and the person in front of me was a different side of Suzy.

“Love isn’t supposed to be painless,” she simply reasoned out. “And I think I’m ready for that, because God is my source. Even if I give, and give, and give…I won’t run out of love.”

Truth be told, something swiped at my heart, when I heard her say that. There I was, at the healthy age of seventeen, playing it safe. Suzy, on the other hand, was borderline reckless. No, not reckless. She simply had faith to generously give. Not because she was expecting something in return, but because that was how she simply was.

Suzy was the kind of person who would not refrain from sharing.

We talked for a bit more, and soon, she fell asleep. I stretched my arm to reach her notebook, resting on the drawer near her. It contained incomplete stories, but with potential nevertheless. I enjoyed reading through them, subconsciously correcting her spelling and use of certain words. Perhaps, that was one reason why Suzy could keep up with deep conversations. Her thoughts were clear, because she wrote them down.

Suzy moved, once again. She scratched her cheek, and patted the bed until she came in contact with me. A dreamy smile graced her lips, and she embraced me tightly, as if I was the banana pillow in her room. I could feel her breath against my chest, stable and calm. With a sigh, I pulled her closer, and began patting her back.

“When you ever go to a slumber party, the other girls should watch out,” I whispered.

“Hm…”

I smirked, upon hearing her respond.

“You sleep talking?”

“Hm…”

“You hug people too much. Do you know that, Suzy-yah? You should be more careful. Other guys can take advantage of you like this.”

“Hm…”

“Good night, Sunshine.”

“Hm…”

<:>

A piercing shriek woke me up from my slumber. Alarmed, I sat up, and focused on Suzy, tears emerging from her eyes. She was sitting on the bed, sobbing.

“Don’t look,” she croaked. “Don’t you dare look.”

My bedroom door flung open. It was Sang Moon, wearing a black shirt, paired with gray jogging pants. “What happened?! Should I call mom and dad? They just left!”

Suzy shook her head. “I’m just…Sang Moon, leave for a bit.”

“But noona, you screamed—”

“Sang Moon, go on ahead,” I cut in. “You’re going to be late for your baseball practice.”

He cocked his head. “But is noona okay?”

“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” I assured him. “So, go.”

He shrugged, and not long after that, we heard the main door close. I turned to face Suzy, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Her face turned red, and she attempted to hide from me. Of course, she failed. I clocked the way she sat, as if she was trying to conceal something. I scratched my head.

“Your unresponsiveness will get us nowhere, Suzy-yah.”

“But…” she reasoned out. “It’s embarrassing.”

“What is?” I gently pushed.

She quickly wiped the tears with her sleeves, and slowly stepped out of the bed. Eyes downcast, she removed the duvet, and what greeted me was a huge, brownish spot on my sheet. I glanced at Suzy. She didn’t dare lift her head. With trembling hands, she clutched her pajamas. It was a strange feeling, knowing firsthand that my little sister was turning into a maiden right before my eyes.

“Well, would you look at that!” I exclaimed. “It’s like the Korean Peninsula, when you look at it closely.”

“It’s not funny!” she cried. “I…bled on your bed…”

“Isn’t that a relief, Suzy-yah?” I asked. “You’re a normal, growing girl. You didn’t have to scream so much earlier, you know.”

“I was shocked, okay? Of course you wouldn’t understand. You aren’t a girl.”

“Well, dearest maiden, I suggest you go and freshen up while I change my sheets,” I said. “Mother has pads in her room.”

“You…aren’t mad?” she finally asked.

I paused to look at her, and with a laugh, started tousling her disheveled hair. “Why should I be mad? What happened is natural. It just so happened your heater broke, and you had to crash into my room.”

She flashed me a tiny smile, and walking backwards, she exited my room.

“I’ll have to tell this to your future boyfriend soon!” I teased.

“Do you not want me to get married?” she shot back.

I chuckled, and heard doors closing and opening. Soon, she turned the shower on. I stared at my stained sheets, and sighed. The reality of Suzy, not staying as a child forever, hit me straight in the face. She would go to university, have a job and a husband. Just thinking about that, made me miss the moments we shared badly. The long-winded conversations, and the petty arguments. Those moments when I would comfort her, and when she would unknowingly comfort me.

By then, I realized how selfish my thoughts were.

I don’t want to give her away.

I still want her here.

We still have so much to do together.

At the age of seventeen, I was quite confused, as to why I thought like that. I may have been too attached, that I ended up wanting to spend more time with them—with her.

The soiled sheets were placed in the laundry basket. The mattress, thankfully, was not stained. I replaced everything, and was in the middle of preparing breakfast when Suzy went downstairs.

“Tell mother, all right?” I reminded her.

“Yes,” she replied. She settled to watch a show in the living room. After several minutes, I turned the stove off, and called her into the kitchen. Considering it was cold, I settled for stew.

Suzy looked outside the window. Despite the time, it was still dim. “Do you think Sang Moon will be all right?”

“They’re practicing indoors,” I assured her. “And he has his coat with him. He’ll be fine. You worried?”

She froze on the question I asked, and finally, decided to shrug in response. The both of them refused to openly admit they cared for one another. That was how they were.

<:>

The final year of high school came by quickly. It’s nothing but a blur to me now: the pressure we all needed to endure, while taking remedial lessons and mock exams; the sleepless nights; the weight of our teachers’ expectations on our shoulders.

“Sunggyu, do you not feel tired?” one classmate of mine asked. We were in night class, and he brought a pillow with him. The bags beneath his eyes were dark.

“I feel okay,” I said.

“Do you eat steel for breakfast or something?”

“I just don’t worry as much,” I answered, before flipping to the next page of the book I was reading.

Or maybe, I just do not care as much. Of course, at that time, I still attended church, and talked to God. I read the Bible. I did feel anxious, because I never felt enough. Apathy was my greatest enemy during those years, because it felt like if I ever let people come too close, they would just die on me.

Like Wooyoung.

Like Mrs. Kim.

“I wish I could be just like you,” my classmate remarked.

“How should I respond to that?” I asked.

“Well, how do you do what you do, Sunggyu?”

“Just take things step by step, and don’t look at others while running your own race.”

<:>

The final exams were just as I had expected. The late nights paid off, along with the group studies I never planned on joining, but out of persuasion had to anyway. After the heinous days were over, we received our results. Our class average basically rose, and it was proof, that teamwork could indeed be powerful. Many thanked me for helping them out, but I thanked them back, because if they never had the motivation in the first place, we wouldn’t have made it together.

I was a high school student for three years. Fifteen people confessed to me. Roughly put, I received five confessions per year. I turned all of them down, as politely as I could. Simply because I was not interested, and I had better things to do. One of them, I considered to be a good friend of mine. We were classmates for two years, and I found it easy to communicate with her. She reminded me of Suzy, with her boyish attitude and big heart. Her name was Lee Soonkyu. Short for her age. Bright eyes that vanish whenever she smiled. Slightly wavy hair. She was known to not like her name, and so, we called her Sunny.

It was spring, when we decided to eat lunch outside despite the cherry blossoms falling incessantly. We sat beneath a tree; I smelled the lush earth and flowers, blending with the wind.

“Want to exchange your croissant with my melon bread?” she bargained.

“No thanks.”

“Stingy,” she pouted.

I chuckled. “Do that irritating thing you always do—you know, that sickening aegyo—and I may change my mind.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’ll just make fun of me.”

“You know me so well.”

“Do I really?”

“Well, you can ask if you don’t.”

Sunny scoffed, upon hearing my reply. “I can’t be so sure, Sunggyu, if you’d give me correct information or not.”

How sure am I, that you would tell me the truth?

Laughing a little, I leaned my back against the bark, and exchanged the pastries myself.

“Why’d you laugh?” she suddenly asked. “Did I say something funny?”

“You sure did,” I answered, before tearing the plastic packet open. I took a bite from the soft bread, which had always been sweeter than other brands I’ve ever tasted, and remembered that certain day. I began to wonder, how Lee Sunye was doing.

“Sunggyu,” Sunny’s voice suddenly became serious.

“What?”

“My family and I are moving. We’ll still be in Seoul, but this school is too far away. I’d have to transfer.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” she repeated. “That’s all?”

“Not really.”

“Then what?”

“I’m just thinking, this must be a cycle.”

“What do you mean?” she got a huge chunk off the croissant.

“People who doubt me, tend to move away.”

“That must be really convenient for you.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You can be so cryptic, Kim Sunggyu.”

“That’s what makes me interesting, nevertheless.”

She clicked her tongue, but nodded anyway. “And there’s something else.”

“What?”

“I like you.”

She never attended school afterwards.

The only trace Sunny left was a new notebook she forgot to take out from her desk. It was tiny, with a plain blue design. It snuggly fit into my pocket. Thinking of nothing better to do with it, I decided to list down things I would generally love to find in a girl:

I want to meet an honest girl someday—someone who doesn’t have to hide anything and isn’t afraid to speak the truth, no matter how blunt it is.

I was clumsy at that time, but I knew I was merely looking for people who weren’t like me. I was painfully aware of how difficult it is, to put up with a certain person like Kim Sunggyu.

“You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.
- Matthew 5:7