“June, did I wake you up?”

“Um,” I groaned and instinctively glanced at the alarm clock beside my bed. The clock was digital, but I still couldn’t read the time.

“It’s four AM, by the way. And this is Dahyun.”

“Yeah,” I crooned. “I figured it was you.”

“I know I shouldn’t be calling you this late again. But it’ll only be for a minute, I swear.”

“What is it?”

She lightly cleared . “I’m writing my essay about Catcher of the Rye. I chose to write about metaphors and symbolism, you see. And I started it about an hour ago, maybe earlier than that. Anyway, the part where Holden thinks about the ducks in the Central Park Pond and where they go during winter. The pond—it’s a metaphor, isn’t it?”

On my end of the line I nodded my head slightly.

“And the way the ducks vanish during winter, but re-appear in spring. That’s a metaphor as well, right?”

“Mhm,” I murmured.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but the ducks reappearing and disappearing every time the seasons change, it’s a metaphor for change, right? Salinger’s saying that change isn’t permanent but something that reoccurs instead.”

“Mhm,” I repeated listlessly.

“But I can’t seem to figure out what the pond represents. I don’t know what to write.”

“Um, how about the transition between childhood and adulthood.”

The line stayed quiet. I opened my eyes for some time and blinked twice.

“Partly frozen and partly not frozen,” I pointed out. “Get it?”

A sigh of relief from the other end of the line. “God, June. You’re amazing, you know? How do you even know these things?”

“I did an essay or two about it back in my old school. Nothing amazing about that.”

“I think it’s still impressive.”

“Hm.”

“By the way, where do the ducks go during winter?”

I chuckled. “Listen, I’d really like to go back to sleep now. I’m drained from baseball, and I’ve got the shop to take care of later. Can you let me go now, please?”

“You played baseball today?”

“Yeah, Hanbin made me play for the team—wait, why am I even telling you this? I’m hanging up now. Really. Goodnight—”

“Are you free sometime later? After the shop, I mean.”

“Sure. I’ll be finished before six.”

“I’ll meet you outside your place at seven,” she said. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

. . .

It was freshman year when I met the five of them.

I should start by explaining that Hanbin and Jiwon, in their second years, met Chanwoo by chance in detention. The two befriended the latter. They were all pretty athletic, with Chanwoo being in the soccer team, so they got along quickly and naturally.

And like me, Tzuyu and Dahyun met Chanwoo through their cleaning duties. Eventually Chanwoo introduced them to Hanbin and Jiwon, and months later, Tzuyu and Chanwoo introduced me to them,

During that time, while teenagers our age were at parties and karaoke bars, we were taking the train to explore places that we took in turn choosing. We watched movies at a small cinema that Hanbin’s grandfather owned; hiked whenever we went to the countryside; played baseball when the weather was nice, and usually—what we did the most often—we gathered at somebody’s house and talked for hours. We never ran out of things to talk about, but even now I couldn’t even recall what those topics were.

The whole convergence between the six of us was something that could only happen once, like a lucky but unintentional chemical fusion. For example, if Chanwoo actually handed in his homework on that day, he would have never met Hanbin and Jiwon. If Dahyun and Tzuyu hadn’t been chosen for the Friday cleaning duty, they would have never talked to Chanwoo, and in return Chanwoo would have never introduced them to Hanbin and Jiwon. If the accident didn’t happen and I stayed in my old hometown, I would have never met the five of them.

And so like I mentioned before, only pure chance had brought the six of us together.

. . .

“I confessed to Hanbin,” Dahyun announced suddenly. Those words felt surprisingly unpleasant, like biting into a bitter apple or stepping barefoot on a piece of Lego. “Yesterday, before I called you. He walked me home, and I did it then.”

Silence fell on us, and all I could do was to stare at her, with her unwavering eyes staring back. To ease the tension, I joked, “I was wondering why Kim Dahyun was actually doing her homework for once. It seemed a little off.”

“Hey!”

“So why are you telling me this?” I asked. Moments later before she could give her reply, a waitress came over to our table and asked what drinks we wanted.

“Iced coffee please,” Dahyun replied.

“Just water,” I said. The waitress smiled at us, told us to have a good meal and left.

Dahyun continued. “I don’t know either, June. You’re the only person I’ve told.”

“Not even Tzuyu?”

“Not even Tzuyu,” she repeated. “Not yet, anyway. I’m still thinking about how to tell them.”

“Hm.”

Dahyun looked at me, as if figuring out my expression. “He said no, if that’s what you’re thinking about.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that.”

Dahyun continued nonetheless. “But the thing is, he didn’t just say no, afterwards he said, ‘I’ll forget about this, so should you.’ Like, what does that even mean? A girl that has liked him since middle school has finally gathered up courage to tell him, and he just tells her to forget about it?” She sounded mad. “I mean, he could’ve just pulled out the it’s-not-you-it’s-me card. What the hell?”

I stayed quiet for a while. “Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to ruin the harmony within the group. Maybe after rejecting you, the only way he could maintain keeping the six together is to forget about it. That way, things won’t be so awkward anymore.”

She looked at me again and sighed. “I don’t understand boys,” she said.

I placed my hand on the back of my neck. “You’ve liked him since middle school? I thought you guys didn’t know each other back then.” And then our drinks came, along with our food. I had parmesan lasagna, while Dahyun had her normal order: spaghetti carbonara.

“I knew him, it’s just that he didn’t know me. I told myself I’d forget about him once we start high school, but then a year later, freshman year, he suddenly appears behind Chanwoo. The way things happened just stirred me, you know? I mean, why wouldn’t it stir things in a sixteen year old girl when her middle school crush just happens to be in the same high school, in the same group of friends? It’s like fate or some .”

“He didn’t lead you on, but instead you were just stirred by him? Fate?” I laughed.

“Shut up, June,” she snapped back, took a bite of her food and kept on talking, “But you know what? I guess that’s why I chose to tell you first. You’re honest with words—you say what you really think. I like that. It sounds mean to say but had I told Chanwoo or Jiwon first, they’d be like, ‘Oh, god! That’s terrible! What a terrible person Hanbin is for rejecting you like that!’”

“You’re exaggerating again. And talking with your mouth full is gross. Maybe Hanbin rejected you for that,” I teased.

“Whatever,” Dahyun shot back. “And besides, even if he rejected me, he’s leaving for university this year, what can I do now? At least I said what I needed to say, right, June?”

“I wonder.”

“You know, June, I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but I think he’s still got those high walls around him.”

I ate my food and kept on being quiet.

“Back in middle school he was really different to what he is now, you have to understand. He was the ace of the baseball team back then, and everybody treasured him like he was some sort of saint. He was nice to people, on top of his studies, always won awards on top of that, and smiled at everyone—god, he smiled so much I had to wonder if his jaw had started to hurt. In a way, Chanwoo reminds me of the old Hanbin. Except Hanbin… God, I don’t know how to put it.”

“He had some sort of halo above his head.”

Dahyun shot me another look as if to say, How the hell did you guess that? “That’s right.”

“Jiwon told me about it once.”

“I see. Well, that’s pretty much it—so the high walls,” she said. “He suddenly put up those walls after a girl left him. I mean, he is still the ace of the baseball team now, and many girls still confess to him. But it’s not there anymore, you know? It’s like his glow has faded out… along with her.” She stopped and stole a glance at my direction, before jerking her head back to her food. “I shouldn’t have been telling you this, sorry.”

“Jiwon already told me about Hayi, too. Don’t worry. He only said that much as well.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, this isn’t what I originally wanted to tell you about.”

“It isn’t?”

“No, it isn’t,” Dahyun confirmed. “I came to ask you for a favour.”

“I’m not going to teach you chemistry equations again.”

“I’m not talking about that, idiot. I’ll ask you now, but you don’t have to say yes now. I’ll give you a day to think about it, okay?”

“Okay.”

“But, June—really—you must think about it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance I’m giving to you, not Chanwoo, not Jiwon, but you. And I understand if you don’t want to, but many guys would want to grab this chance.” Dahyun took a deep breath and said, “Go on a date with Myoui Mina.”

“What?” I felt my cheeks turn red.

“That’s right,” she said, with a satisfied smile embracing her lips. “I expected that reaction, you’re only a guy after all.”

“Myoui Mina?”

“Myoui Mina.”

“That Japanese transfer student everyone keeps trying to hit on?”

“That Japanese transfer student everyone—”

“So what’s the catch, Kim Dahyun?” I asked.

“You have so many questions,” she sighed again and played with her chopsticks. “The catch is nothing. I simply told her I’d find a nice guy for a blind date and I chose you.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? It’s Myoui Mina.”

“I mean, I barely know her. And with nobody to look after the shop except from me and my mother, I’ve got no time for dating. Senior year is coming up, too.”

“I understand. But please make up your mind soon. She’s a nice girl, she really is.” And then she shot me a look. “You’ll still help me with chemistry, right?”

Because of the rain outside, we ended up staying a little longer than planned in the restaurant. During that hour, Dahyun talked about a new novel she finished the week before, how the author’s writing had really intrigued her, but how the ending still seemed average, and when she said everything that needed to be said about that book, she latched onto another topic and talked about new music she discovered, and then moved on to another topic again. I only talked when I disagreed with what she said, but we settled on most things, so I just listened.

Before the rain stopped, it started hailing, and we watched it from the windows that our spot had to offer. People underneath umbrellas stopped on their tracks, some were plenty surprised at the hailstones. While most people ran for it instead.

“Hey, June, isn’t it fascinating how it seems like that thunderstorm wants to break the world but the world refuses to break?”

I wondered what she meant by that. I really did.

. . .

tonight, i'm afraid of the dark //