(Request from Anon Z)

 

You can’t sleep.  You haven’t been able to get a good night’s sleep in……well, you couldn’t remember.  Sitting up in bed, you look over at the dark lump lying next to you.  He’s turned away from you, like he is every night.  Every night is the same, just as every day is the same.  Nothing new or exciting, just haunted memories of what you’ve lost; what you threw away.

 

You get up from the bed, not caring if you wake him and you never do.  He’s always too deep in sleep to care about you leaving to sleep on the couch and sneaking back in bed just before his alarm goes off.  He never notices, so he won’t tonight.  

 

It’s 12:41 in the morning.  You wonder if he is still awake.  You pull your phone off the charger and head down the stairs to the living room.  Opening the screen, you type in your password and click on your phone icon.  Your contacts come up, but you redirect the screen to the keypad.  You don’t need to think as you type in the number that’s way too familiar.

 

The line doesn’t ring for long when he answers.  “Hello?”

 

“Hi Oppa,” you say quietly.  The surrounding darkness makes you whisper even though you know it’s not necessary.

 

“Oh, hi…”-you hear him hesitate and stutter-“Hyung.  Why are you calling this late?”

 

“She’s right next to you, isn’t she?”  A small part of you sinks at his words.  You sit down on the couch and grab a throw pillow.  What’s the point of these things anyway?  They aren’t even comfortable.

 

His voice falls to a whisper.  “No.  She’s in the other room, but she tends to be an eavesdropper.”

 

“I see,” you say, sighing.  “So why are you still up?”

 

“Did you call me at this time just to ask me that?”  Xiumin asked.  You could hear the cold words cut through the phone and stab you in the chest. 

 

“Fine.  Then I’ll hang up.”  You didn’t call him with the intention of listening to his sarcasm.  You start to pull the phone away from your face.

 

“Wait!”-you hear from the receiver-“Don’t hang up, Yeobo.”

 

You hear the endearing nickname and feel a slight thump in your chest, but you immediately dismiss it. 

 

“Since when do you still call me that?” you ask, embarrassed by how high your voice went.

 

“I…I don’t know…It just kinda came out.”  There was a pause.  “Sorry.”

 

“No, it’s fine…It just…” It just what?  “…surprised me.  I would think you only call her that now.”  A vision of her silhouette invades your mind’s eye.  Long straight hair, a small face, tiny waist, big eyes and a small flawless smile.   

 

You hear a long muffled noise over the line and you know he sighed.

 

“I would, except…” his voice trails off.

 

“Except, what?” you ask, giving an intrigued look to your slippered feet.

 

“Well,..” Xiumin hesitates.  “She doesn’t like nicknames like that.”

 

Despite Xiumin’s dismal tone, you can’t help but smirk.  Hearing your x-boyfriend talk about problems with his current girlfriend, which had developed as an affair while you two were dating, was oddly satisfying.  What was even more ironic was that Xiumin never called anyone by their real name; only nicknames. 

 

“That ,” you say, still smirking, but fraying concern.

 

“Yeah.  Speaking of, how’s your boyfriend?  You two fighting anymore?”  Your smirk is instantly gone.  Xiumin’s voice sounded optimistic and perky.  You knew Xiumin all too well to be tricked but his fake enthusiasm.  You could hear a hint of something like bitterness behind his words.

 

“I think that’s pretty much a constant state with us.  It doesn’t take much to piss him off.  Then again, I may be the same way.”  You hug the pillow closer, despite the fact that the fabric wasn’t very soft and kind of itchy.   

 

“That’s not true.  You’re not like that at all.”  

 

You had to keep yourself from laughing out loud.  “And how would you know that?  I might have changed in this past year.”  One year one month and fourteen days.

 

“No.  That’s not it at all.  I know you a lot better than you think I do.”  His voice was serious.  You want to be serious, fine.  Bring it on.

 

“If only you loved me as much as you supposedly know me.”  There was silence on the other end of the line and you knew you hurt him.  You didn’t care.  After what he put you through, you didn’t care how much you hurt him, as long as he was not standing in front of you.

 

~<3~

 

You noticed that something was a little off with Xiumin after dating him for one year one month and thirteen days.  He was always coming home late and making up different excuses.  They were always about work, which was interesting because you both worked in the same office building.  You two pretty much had the same hours and did a lot of the same work, so it was hard to imagine that he would be stuck at work doing things while you were able to go home.  It just didn’t make any sense.  

 

Then there was the lipstick.  One day doing the laundry, you were washing his work shirts and you found a tiny smudge of lipstick on his collar.  It was not your shade.  From then on you knew what was happening, but you refused to admit that it was true.  He won’t do that to you.  He wasn’t that kind of guy.  You’ve been friends since middle school and you always had a crush on him, but you didn’t get up the nerve to confess to him until you were out of college and jumping into your career.  He was shocked, but happy because he had been feeling the same way for almost as long.

 

The thing that scared you the most though, was your reaction to the situation.  You would have thought that a girl would be sad and upset when figuring out that her boyfriend was cheating on her, but no.  You were mad.  Flaming mad.  So mad that you could barely contain it.  Yet you still said nothing.  Not until you had more evidence to use against him.

 

It wasn’t long before you got that though.  One night when Xiumin was supposedly working late you got a picture message from him.  It was of him with one of the women from his floor.  He was looking at the camera smiling cutely and she had her lips on his neck.  There was a table full of empty beers bottles behind them.

 

When he came home late that night, you comforted him showing him the picture he had obviously sent to you on accident due to all his drunkenness.  Strangely, he didn’t try to deny it.  When you announced to him that you were leaving, he didn’t flinch and merely watched you as you walked out the door.

 

Despite having such a nasty break up, the two of you somehow started talking decently to each other after about two months.  You did still see each other at work and started talking to each other again.  Nothing too deep though.  You’re conversations didn’t get much past, “What do you think of the new computer system?” or “Can you believe that new policy regarding the paper work?  That’s way too complicated.” 

 

You found out that he started dating that woman and you found a new boyfriend who works at the desk across from yours.  It wasn’t until after six months that the midnight calls started happening.

 

Whether it was you calling him or him calling you, about once a week you two would call each other and talk for almost an hour about stuff and then go about your ways like normal.

 

~<3~

 

 “I do love you.  You know that.  I’ve been trying to tell you that for the past few months and you still push me away.”

 

“Can you blame me, Xiumin?  Whenever you see me at work or where ever you make no attempt to talk to me let alone act like you care.  The only time you seem to care is when we talk at night.  What are you, some kind of midnight Casanova?”  I should write that down.  That could make a good book title or something. 

 

“No.  That’s not it at all.  I do care and that’s the problem.  Yes, I love you, but I still love her too.”

 

You bust out a laugh not caring about your sleeping boyfriend upstairs.  “Are you serious right now?  You cannot love more than one person at the same time Xiumin.  How can you tell me you love me, but you still love her?  Considering who you’re with now, it’s obvious who you really love.  So how about you stop trying to tell me you love me and just tell me the truth for once in your life.”  That was harsh, even for me.

 

There’s silence on the other side of the line.  It stretches on for forever, then you hear a weak voice.

 

“I’m sorry.  I’m the one who did this to you.  I’m the one who hurt you and now I guess I’m hurting you more.  That’s not what I want.”

 

“What are you even talking about right now?”  You’re so fired up, it takes you a second to recognize the sincerity in his words.

 

“There’s a reason why I’m still with her.  And it’s not because I still love her.  It’s just that she’s all that I have now.  I love you so much, but I know I’ll never be able to have another chance with you because of what I did.  Therefore, I’m trying to cling to her because if I lose her, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be with anyone ever again.  I mean who would want to be with a guy who cheated on his true love?”  You heard his voice break and you knew what was happening.  His little crack was followed by a quick and shallow gasp and a sniff.  

 

Suddenly, all the anger seemed to leak out of your pores, leaving an empty shell behind.  You felt…you felt like nothing.  How else do you describe this?  Xiumin continued.

 

“I would give anything to be with you again.  I messed up majorly and if I could reverse time, I would never look at another woman besides you.  I would go back to the night when I was first unfaithful to you and change it to spending the whole night with you.  Eat Chinese takeout sitting on the living room floor, watching some lame movie that we don’t really pay attention to and just talk all night about the future and about us.  I would…”

 

“Stop.”

 

“What?”

 

“I said stop,” you whisper again.  You felt your eyes burning and that was not expectable.

 

“Yeobo, please.  I…”

 

“I’m not your Yeobo anymore, Xiumin.  I haven’t told you the real reason why I’m calling you tonight.”

 

There was a slight pause.  “Why’s that?”

 

“I found another job.  I’m going to working at another business company.  This new place has more opportunities for me.”

 

“Oh.  That’s…great.”

 

“I called to tell you that I won’t be seeing you at work anymore.  I won’t be seeing you anywhere as a matter of fact, because this new job is on the other side of town.  I also won’t be available for midnight calls anymore.  My job requires me to change to a new phone company and I won’t be able to keep my old number.”

 

“You’ll still know mine though.  You just call me once you get the new phone and then I’ll know your new number.”

 

“I’m afraid I’ll be too busy adjusting to the new position that I won’t have time to do that.  And I’m afraid that by the time I do have time, I will have forgotten your number.”

 

“Why are you doing this to me, Yeobo?  I don’t understand.”

 

You pause before answering coldly, “Neither did I.”  You pull the phone away from your face and hit the end button.  Then you power off the phone for the last time, slide it on the coffee table in front of you and stare at it as a single tear runs down your face.    

~Emi