2012

Krystal’s presence in our lives began during our freshmen year in La Sorbonne.

After she came, nights and days that we used to spend with just the two of us suddenly changed drastically. She was always—by always, I meant always—by our sides. We walked side by side in the morning to the university and came home together later at night. After dinner, we had lots of talk; from people to politics, cynical jokes to rhetorical questions, psychology to philosophy, or anything that suddenly came up from the air. Her flat was just next to us, but she often spent the night staying over at ours.

Sometimes in between our busy college days, Krystal went with us to our family’s vineyard in Bordeaux, spending several days with bottles of wine and lots of laughter in the meadow.

I couldn’t really recall our first encounter with Krystal or how we became close friends, but the most important thing was, she was the only girl who ever slept on the same bed with me and Taemin without us doing anything to each other. Somehow we just did it casually, like waking up to each other was a natural thing for us.

It was one amongst other few things that I and Taemin could agree on:

Krystal belongs to both of us. Not his, not mine, but ours.

But little did we know that years later, the words will betray us back like a double-edged sword.