(Present)

The house was almost done; the kitchen, the bathrooms and bedrooms were mostly finished. The only thing left was the living room, some painting and getting the house on the marked. Although Seulgi had stated she was going to use her old home as an investment and sell it, she wasn’t really sure if she wanted to anymore. She didn’t want to live there, but it felt so wrong selling her childhood home to someone she didn’t even know and having someone else living there. It didn’t really look the same; most of the old parts that remained had been repainted or redesigned and although the house was in the same place, it would look totally different. It was weird how fast time had flown since she met Joohyun again for the first time in so many years. What felt like weeks were actually months, and the progress had been way faster than expected.

In the mean time they had sort of got to know each other all over again, although it wasn’t as much as Seulgi thought it would be. Honestly, she almost expected Joohyun to reject the job or give it to someone else in the beginning because they had a rocky past with an unclear ending. The doubt had been lingering deep down, almost to the point where she felt it in her bones, and she felt a bit too happy when Joohyun actually did agree to it. “What are you doing here?” was the first thing Joohyun greeted Seulgi with, her face in a dumbstruck expression while holding onto her bag. There was something a bit odd in her eyes, as if she was the deer in the headlights although there wasn’t really much to be surprised about.

“I’m helping out, silly,” Seulgi replied as coolly as she could despite Joohyun’s odd behavior stabling the multiple boxes in her hand a bit better. She straightened her back before giving a short smile, expecting one back, but nothing happened. Joohyun didn’t return it all, just nodded slowly and walked away to talk to some constructers. Joohyun had been very lost lately, and during the last days she had spoken less and less.

Seulgi had a feeling she knew why Joohyun was acting like this however; she wasn’t dumb. At the same time they didn’t actually do anything. Sure it was a close call, but even if Seulgi really, really wanted close that small distance, she knew her limits. She knew so damn well about her and Wendy and how unfair that would be, but she just wanted to be close to her again. Even after all this time…

Time that day had gone quite slow, and except for the rare moments Joohyun passed by, they didn’t see much of each other. Seulgi had a hunch that she was trying to avoid her, and even through her best attempts nothing seemed to work. It wasn’t until Seulgi heard Joohyun say she was going for a walk to someone in the hall, that she felt she had the chance. “Just need some fresh air,” Joohyun continued saying to the person, and although it seemed as if she was going to go alone, Seulgi couldn’t pass the opportunity.

“I’ll go with you,” Seulgi offered, standing up from her position and painting the last on the wall. Joohyun’s face seemed to lie somewhere between approval and disapproval, and it didn’t surprise her one bit. She nodded either way, actually letting Seulgi tag along, before they both stepped out through the new glass doors that were just built in. Joohyun simply said to follow her, and they began to walk down the path and towards where the gate used to be. It had been torn down and would be replaced with a fancier one of steel instead of rotten, old red painted wood. Seulgi actually didn’t give the idea too much thought until she walked down to notice that it wasn’t there anymore, and that it almost appeared to be an empty space with nothing to define it. Not even the broken lock or the many scribbles where saved, only the remains of the planks being thrown into the dumpster, and for a moment a part of her almost seemed sad although it was only some planks. “It’s going to be nice here,” Seulgi began the conversation during the way, Joohyun walking towards the curb and down the road. She wondered where in the world she was going or what she was even going to do begin with, but she didn’t question it.

Joohyun nodded as a reply, but said nothing, and Seulgi wondered why she was suddenly giving the silent treatment to her. It didn’t help either when they just continued to walk; Seulgi had no idea over where they were going, but she did either way because it couldn’t be too far. Another while passes and Seulgi begins to recognize the houses where their neighbors used to live. Some of them were torn down and rebuilt to new buildings, just like hers was, whereas others didn’t seem to change one bit. The apple tree that was hanging a bit low on the Lee’s house was still there, although there weren’t many apples anymore. She also noticed then that even though it was autumn, the asphalt still smelt as if it was blazing hot, even when it obviously wasn’t. It gave her an instant sense of associations, all the way back to when they were small elementary kids who tried to avoid the lines on the road.

There was one thing however, or rather one space, that seemed to throw her off when they came closer to town. Between two white buildings there was an area with flowers and grass, something she had never even remembered, although she had no idea why it seemed so wrong. “It’s weird, isn’t it?” Joohyun asked as they both slowed down to look at the lilac flowers adorning the distance between the two buildings, a small statue in the middle with a narrow path.  Joohyun seemed to understand Seulgi’s confusion, because the moment she looked over at her and Seulgi didn’t say anything, she let out a sigh as if in deep thought. It took her a second before she continued to tell her about what happened. “Don’t tell me you can’t remember Miss Yoon’s store?” she asked as if Seulgi was dumb, and she only rolled her eyes in reply. Of course she remembered the secondhand shop; she worked there for an entire summer for goodness sake! Yet she didn’t know what that had to do with anything, until she came to think of the fact that… “The building burnt down a couple of years ago, turning it all to ashes, and Ms. Yoon died shortly after from a heart failure,” she said with a voice that wasn’t sad, but rather thoughtful and thinking. “She wanted to be buried here.”

Seulgi felt a bit shocked by what she just heard, almost not wanting to believe it because she had no idea about it at all. Ms. Yoon was an old woman, even when they were young, so her death wasn’t all that surprising, yet it still felt strange to believe that every single trace of her was now gone and buried away. It was then she noticed that the statue wasn’t really a statue, but rather a tomb shaped as an angel, and she had no idea what to think anymore. The surprise hit her like a truck, and even if she wasn’t still super close to Ms. Yoon it was still shocking and depressing beyond words. Maybe, she would had known had she bothered to answer her mother’s calls, but she never did and she had no idea. “No wonder the town felt so empty,” Seulgi mused, her mind scattered everywhere as they stood there by the curb with no large shopping window or weird items on display. Everything seemed like a huge blur, and the only thing she wanted to do was to say she was sorry, although she didn’t know what to apologize for.

“Come on, let’s go,” Joohyun said after a minute or two of absolute silence, both in their own thoughts. Seulgi barely remembered how to walk, her body in a mild state of shock, but she tried to shake it off. Even if she did feel a bit normal after the first ten steps, there was this heaviness lingering over her shoulders from something she couldn’t explain. The silence between them stretched on for the most part of the trip, even on the way back to the house. It was a type of silence that left a heavy cloud between them even if they didn’t argue or say much, but Seulgi was in her own thoughts that she couldn’t even make sense of herself, and she had no idea with Joohyun.

Darkness began to fall over them both after the sunset and the sky began to turn into a dark shade of blue. The eerily silence continued until they were just close enough by where the red gate used to be, until Joohyun finally broke it with a stop and a question. “Do you know why I asked you to follow me?” Seulgi shook her head then, not really knowing, her high heels echoing through the silent and almost empty town. She felt a bit confused as to why Joohyun was doing this to put it mildly. “I asked you to follow me, without saying what was going on, because you used to do the same to me,” she began a bit coldly and Seulgi felt even more confused as to what that was supposed to mean. “You’d lead the way, and I’d always follow like a lost puppy.”

Another while of a tense silence passed, tightening on Seulgi as Joohyun turned around to face her. There was a look of stone in her eyes, which seemed to shield her, although Seulgi could still see the vulnerability deep inside.  “I showed you that building because whatever we had burned into ashes, and you know it because you were the main reason,” she began. “And I have no idea of what your plan is with all this appearing out of nowhere and suddenly speaking to me again thing is, but you should know that I’m not the Joohyun I was back then.” Seulgi could only swallow a bit toughly by that, watching the cold façade in Joohyun’s eyes as they stood there on the road that separated Seulgi’s property with what used to be Joohyun’s house when they lived there. Both so close, yet so far away at the same time.

She waited for it. Seulgi waited for when Joohyun was going to ask her why she came back and why she decided to appear back into her life after all of those years. “Why?” Joohyun asked then, although Seulgi didn’t know why she was asking that specific question. However, what she said next was not what she was prepared to answer. “Why wasn’t I good enough?” she continued to ask, and despite her harsh face there appeared to be tears b at the edge of her light brown eyes. “Why wasn’t I worth it? Why wasn’t I worth the ing chase?” she continued standing there, barely holding onto herself. “I waited for years Kang Seulgi, for you to find me and tell me you made a mistake because we both know you did. I waited for so damn long for you to come after me when you had the chance, but it’s been one and a half decade and the moment I finally find happiness with someone else, whom I love, you come back out of nowhere, as if everything is fine and nothing happened.”

Seulgi had no idea on what to say to that because Joohyun was never, ever, not good enough; she was, as cliché as this will sound, perfect in every way she could be. Sure, they had their opposite opinions and they were two totally different persons who would crash together a time or two, but that wasn’t really the reason for why they couldn’t be together. She was scared and terrified to other’s reactions; to the point that there was almost no cure for her. Even if she had let herself believe it could be fine, she knew it wouldn’t be, because no one would accept her for her homouality. No one would understand that she would rather love a woman than a man, and she had to get over her as quickly as she could. She had no other choice.

“It’s ing crazy,” Joohyun nearly spat, the tears running angrily down her fair face, her petite hands wiping them away before Seulgi could.  Her posture was a bit unstable, as if she had been drinking although none of them had a single drop of alcohol in their systems. “At first I used to sit up at night and work because if I fell asleep, I would dream of your stupid face and your stupid voice. I used to think about you every single moment I wasn’t busy, and I drowned myself in work.” The wind howled between them, the bitter cold seeping through as Seulgi could barely hear her heart beating. Still, there was this heavy pressure going down to the core of her bones, making her almost feel paralyzed the more Joohyun spoke, making her feel more pain. “Then I met Wendy, I finally got to know her and I gave her a chance after so many years even if I always declined because I thought you would come around… You never did, and after a while I forgot about you and I began to live my life normally again. I fell asleep without dreaming about you and I could touch Wendy without thinking about you.” Joohyun took a shaky breath then, another tear rolling down her cheek. “Then you came around again, and about me screamed that I hadn’t forgotten about you one single bit because I dreamt about you again, and for God’s sake I almost called out your name instead for Wendy’s and I… I couldn’t take it.”

The long monologue Joohyun held came to a halt yet again, her chest heaving up and down as her words went on full speed through the call. The other workers must have noticed that they were there or even heard them, although she doubted it through the constant noise, but that thought only remained for a short while as she was more focused on the slowly broken down state Joohyun was in. It took a while with more shock and rewinding images to the last time they had such a conversation, many years ago, before Seulgi parted her lips to answer. To answer over how stupid she really was and how cowardly she’d been and how she should have never done the things she did, but nothing came out except for her breathing, and she was at loss for words to help her. She hated how she could improvise everything except for what her ing thoughts were about.

“I’m building this house for you because I once promised to,” Joohyun had calmed down, the tears gone as she stood there with that stoic expression again. It made Seulgi think of that one time they sat on the hill with so many other memories Seulgi could never forget. “I keep my word, and after this I don’t want you to ever ing speak to me again, because I’m done, and that Joohyun you used to know isn’t coming back.”