Chapter I

“…soulmates?”

“What does it mean?”

“Mom told me that when friends become the best of friends… and promise they wouldn’t ever leave each other, that is when you could call them soulmates.”

“We are soulmates?”

“I think so.”

“Okay! So, can I call you my soulmate?”

“If you let me call you soulmate too…”

“No problem… soulmate.”

The phone was ringing.

She could hear mom calling downstairs.

Dadoong was barking at the mailman…

Dad’s car was pulling out of the driveway.

Her eyes fluttered. At the back of her head, several reminders were listed. It was being sorted out into priorities and obligations. Afterwards, it was carefully reviewed and then stacked in front of her eyes, within mind’s reach. Classic tragedies from her subsequent forgetfulness taught her a hard lesson to plan things ahead. Sadly, sometimes she just couldn’t remember them all. Get up!

Another day…

“I’m comin’, mom!” She hurriedly jumped out of her bed straight to the mirror. Sleepily, she began combing her hair, still going over and over her invisible list. She couldn’t help but yawn as her mother called again. It’s too early to be up when there isn’t a thing to do at school. Two sleepy round blue eyes glinted on the mirror. And a confident oval face with fair complexion framed by black twirls of shoulder-length hair stared back at her.

“Dara! You’ll be late again!”

“I’m comin’.” She looked at herself then hurried downstairs. And as she sat in front of the table, her mind touched on one single reminder, and when she began to focus on its details all other reminders in the list vanished. She stood beside the open window and smelled the beginning summer breeze. The shifting weather fronts characterize the excitement that comes with this season. It had been too cold lately. She is certainly looking forward to spending a more fruitful summer vacation.

“Mom, when are we going to celebrate my birthday? It’s been a week since.” Dara began to eat breakfast.

“If your father will be free this weekend, we can go somewhere.” Her mom began to start the washing machine.

“If…,” was Dara’s frustrated remark, trying to figure out the whereabouts of her psychic list.

Out of the house, a bicycle went straight to the porch breaking a huge pot of rose bush. The biker began to desperately fix the broken pieces.

Dara and her mom looked at each other for a moment, and chorused, “Jiyong!” Dara stood up and went to the front porch scowling. She met a tall lean average guy with deep brown eyes and spiky hair due to gel overuse. He was better off with his usual blue cap than the irksome prickly hairstyle.

“Hi Dara, I’m sorry…” The pieces slid down off the working table breaking even more to smaller bits. Couldn’t he think it’s impossible to fix what he’s done?

“I told you not to use that bike during schooldays,” Dara angrily shouted.

“I thought I was late so I tried the bicycle.” He wrinkled his nose, trying to parry her angry look.

“Jiyong, even if we go in late today there is nothing to do in school.”  At least she remembered one reminder. The list started to resurface. Dara went in the house.

Jiyong stared at the mess he caused caressing the stubbles he forgot to shave, and sighed. “That I didn’t know…”

“Next time, listen to school announcements… scrupulously.” Dara started off back to the kitchen.

“Uh, uhm, by the way Dara… uh, what was the announcement about getting late today?” He heard an, “hmph” remark as the front door closed abruptly. He parked the bike and thought about how to apologize to Mrs. Park.

Dara paced gallantly beside Jiyong, her every stride seemed calculated. She was proud of herself today. Jiyong looked at her and started thinking about their differences. A group of teen girls on a pink Beetle wheezed by and greeted her in vague shouts. Two boys at the pizza stand across the street paused and blared, “Hello, Miss Park!” in a unified chorus. What makes her more popular than me? He was the best (pick-fighter?) in town. Nobody would dare challenge him. Ahem! -except for those bullies on the next street… hahaha

Jiyong held his breath as several hip-hop guys crowded on their parked bikes glaring at him at the next intersection. Behind them was a wall painted with every weird thing in the world Jiyong himself couldn’t even imagine, he sulked at the view. They were the boys yesterday whom he had accidentally bumped into by bike. He smiled carefully and played his eyes on the busy sidewalk. At the next flower shop, Dara paused; bent down on the flowers Jiyong still couldn’t tag the name.

“Uh, Dara, don’t you think we should hurry along?” Jiyong remarked as he saw one of the hip-hop guys walking now towards them crossing the street.

“Aren’t they beautiful?”

Jiyong looked at the flowers and seemed to grow cold. “Uhm, can we do this some other time?”

Dara flashed her eyes on him wanting a comment on the flowers.

“Uh, yes, they are… really are, beautiful… whatever they are…”

Jiyong started to clench his fist as the hip-hop guy with a green knitted shawl, purple shades and a badass aura approached him. The guy was certainly three inches than him, and with a bubble gum which was chewed a lil’ bit noisily. Jiyong looked at him in the eyes. I could lose this one…

He was suddenly pulled away backward as Dara grabbed at his backpack and dragged him on the sidewalk. The hip-hop stranger made an ugly face at Jiyong as the other boys across the street laughed.

Jiyong flushed. “Uh, Dara, would you stop pulling at my backpack, please?” Dara suddenly let go and he fell backwards on the sidewalk. The laughing grew louder…

“Thanks,” he said as he sat up glaring at the hip-hoppers and catched up with Dara.

A moment later, his thoughts re Dara and her too perfect lifestyle.

“Yes… she is a genius… and just very intelligent…,” he whispered to himself. “She is beautiful… uhmmm… no, she is pretty! Uhmmm… she has guts for everything. She can be wild sometimes but… she is definitely serious. Aha! She is ladylike!”

“What?”

Jiyong reposed and smiled, suddenly taken aback by her reaction.

“What you’ve heard is what you get,” he replies placing his taut lips forward, chin up, and eyes straight…

Dara gave her a furious look.

“Ignorance gives birth to nonsense,” she whispered.

“She must really walk like that. She must be as class as she is now. After all, she’s IQ.” Jiyong continues to mutter to himself. “She is IQ. IQs are not afraid of people…” He spotted a dog pawing towards them “… they are afraid of dogs!”

“Jiyong!” she shrieked and took flight behind Jiyong as her shield. The dog was barking but Dara’s outcry superseded it.

Jiyong whistled.

The dog wagged its tail and went past them.

“We don’t smell like delicious bones, Dara.” he started walking again. He heard her mutter something irritably. He just smiled at her.

She winced back..

“If I was a girl, I won’t need to shout,” he said.

“I did not,” Dara shot back, pouting. “If I was a boy, I really would have never reacted like that.”

“You are a girl.”

“That’s why I messed up like that!”

“Then act like a boy so you won’t go shrieking your way to school…,” Jiyong concluded raising an eyebrow.

“As if he wasn’t whimpering a while ago…” Dara remarked and gave a glowering grin.

“What? I wasn’t whimpering. I could have struck that guy with my fist if – ”

“You know Ji…”

He was expecting a ‘you-are-so-right-so-I’m-sorry-and-let’s-go’ answer but instead…

“Women have the last words in an argument. Any statement the man commits after that is the beginning of a new debate.” Dara smiled.

“…and your last words?”

“Those were my last words.” Dara raised her brow in remark leaving Jiyong puzzled behind.

“That is so true,” she heard him say sarcastically.

“Because we boys are gentleman,” Jiyong continued. She didn’t hear him right… After that attendance in school was no longer their priority.

Dara took a book out of her maroon bag and started reading under one of the trees in front of the main school building. This would be her fifth book to finish up this month. She allowed people to call her a bookworm but she in reality isn’t that fond of other books. She was limited to drama literature and adventure stories. Well, a bookworm does owe its name not from the variety of books read but because of the frequency of reading. Dara waited for a moment of silence before she opened the pocketbook.

She was about to get absorbed in reading when a “Hey Kim, can I join you?” from no other than Jiyong himself, of all the people. She muttered irritably.

“I don’t read a book with anyone and you know that. I read alone,” she said closing the book.

“Couldn’t we at least try? I promise I won’t get bored again. Anyway, we’d be graduating months from now,” Jiyong said and gaily sat beside her, over-assuming an acceptance. She distanced herself.

“What’s up, Ji? You would usually stay away from me whenever you see me hold a book.” she said deciding to pry at the prier. If this were another argument, I’d rather take control.

“Honestly, I’m not in the mood to argue or to play things and words with you.” Yeah right, you expect me to believe you. She glanced at him with tired eyes.

 “I just have nobody to talk to…” He paused and stared away.

“What?” Dara noticed the different approach. Jiyong would usually romance her into believing he’s in some kind of trouble, which sometimes is true, but then it was just a set-up to make fun of her. Is he sending some kind of a warning signal? A different SOS? Or was he summoned again at the administrator’s office for fist fighting?

“About everything.” his voice came through like sunlight over flimsy clouds.

She had never seen him like this before. She had known Jiyong ever since they were in the crib as babies or so… for seventeen years, she had seen him naughty, truly boyish as to be expected to all who is named Kwon Jiyong, if there are other Kwon Jiyong on earth. He was a careless and clumsy human. And they’ve gone through lots of fights because of that and many other opposing ideas especially about gender issues.

 “And what about everything?” was all she could ask.

This could also be something about his latest girlfriend. He ended up hurt thrice, girls dumping him because of his sometimes very stupid apathetic heart. He could even chance at other girls while his so called ‘girlfriend’ observes helplessly. She thought he deserves it. Why men are generally flirts? She had asked that question once with her mom. But her mother retorted she would have never married her dad in the first place if it were that true.

“About life.” His answer surprised her. How come he was suddenly serious? Could he be setting up a trap for me again? She asked herself. But his facial expression seemed sincere and true. When he looked at her, she stared away in a desperate attempt to hide her unmistakable reaction.

He laughed. “I am serious!” he declared boisterously.

“And your laughter denies it all,” Dara replied. “Why choose me to spill your nonsense out on me?”

“Because you are intelligent.”

That was flattering, she thought. She scowled at him to hide it.

“Because you could understand me.”

That is sarcastic…

“Because…” He sighed.

I’m not naïve… but I may be sometimes, she was in chaos trying to keep distance from him.

“…you are my friend.”

That… is profound. She smiled then.

“I never thought you could say that,” Dara said, at last putting her mind on .

“It took me years to do so.” he began to chuckle.

“How dare you?” She dug her knuckles on his back.

“Just a joke.” Her brows met indignantly as he smiled.

“And I thought you’re being serious.”

“I am…”

A faint morning breeze blew across them sending leaves to rustle and some to sail away with the wind.

“Exactly!” Jiyong exclaimed. Dara looked at him puzzled.

“Life is a leaf.” He looked at her. “Once a bud, then a young leaf. The wind will come. The leaf may be taken apart by the strength of the wind. The leaves that stay will grow on. Someday the wind will also take them away.” Vince crunched a dried leaf by his foot. “Because they have grown old, yellow and dry. But they have served their purpose in life very well.”

Impressive, for a person who isn’t expected to become a philosopher, she thought. She smiled at him and remembered something she read on the last book she just finished yesterday.

She took out the book and opened it. “Read.”

Jiyong took it and started reading.

The wind blew across her face as she plummeted to the roaring sea below. There was nothing to live for anyway. She is happy to let the sea take her life away. The wind had given her life once and now it seemed it didn’t want her to die. But it was too late; the cold waters took her in and divested her body. She could feel the stinging pain all over her skin. But the pain was greater in her heart. She thought it would never end. But then she felt released! All heaviness was taken away. And then she was floating; she rose above the waters and soared with the wind. She was free at last…

Dara took the book and put it in her bag. Jiyong looked worried.

“She died.”

“Yes.” Dara nodded. “The will to die is greater than the will to live.”

“Why?”

“Her loved one was married to another woman,” was Dara’s answer.

“That’s unreasonable. Every person in this planet has a destined soul to be with forever,” he stated. He was surprised at his own remark…

“So?”

“There’s got to be somebody else for her,” he concluded.

“But she loved him dearly with all her life,” she said making a face.

“You’re saying it was the man’s fault. He chose wrong.” he squinted.

“Exactly.”

“But the question is ‘why should he marry the woman if he didn’t love her?’” Jiyong asked.

“He had to save his family’s treasures.”

“Unreasonable!”

“You got it, bro!” Dara said and gently tapped his shoulder. It made him look at her in the eyes. “But… how would you know the woman would be the destined soul the man had to live with forever?”

Jiyong searched her eyes. That’s something different. What a question, he thought…

Dara blinked and tried to think of something else to say.

The wind blew again and both broke their stare…