She stared at the moving shadows on the TV.

Her eyes remains fixed. Unmoved.

But her thoughts were elsewhere.

Is she coming back soon?

If she does, will she still remember her?

It’s just been over a year and a half, but still, people change and sometimes memories do fade.

 

=

 

2 years ago

 

Seulgi peek her head out from the music room sliding door. Coast is clear, she grins to herself while she slip the flute inside her blazer as she walk out into the hall, trying to look as innocent as ever. She hoped she did not look that fishy and awkward as her right hand was inside the blazer, gripping the stolen flute, while her left hand flap rapidly as she dash outside to the school garden.

She would usually had her lunch time with her friends, but this time, she told them that she would be skipping and lied them by saying ‘I haven’t finished the physics quiz he gave yesterday, you guys go ahead’ . Her friends were a bunch of hungry human beings therefore they just shrugged and ran off to the cafeteria.

Seulgi went to her usual spot, under a huge cherry blossom tree. It was nearby an unused classroom, as far as Seulgi knows, nobody ever use the classroom, although the windows were always open, but still. Seulgi sat down comfortably and put her lips to the flute. After playing for a while, she smiled in content as she finally managed to hit all the right notes scribbled down on her book this time. Will this be sufficient enough for her to join the school marching band team? Seulgi put down the flute on her lap and held the try-outs flyer.  She sighed dreamily as she imagined herself wearing the marching band uniform with its golden button and neatly polished shoes. How cool

After playing to another random tune that she just made up, she checked her watch and saw that lunchtime is almost over. She quickly stood up, turn around and her eyes were immediately made contact with a pair of doe brown eyes. The girl was looking at the window from the unused classroom.

Seulgi yelped in surprise and so does the girl, except that the shock was only shown in her expression. Seulgi ran as fast as she could, not before seeing the girl holding her hand out as if wanting to call her. But Seulgi knew better, what if the girl told some teacher that she brought a school property outside the class, what if the girl was a prefect. The prefects in her school were pretty nosy on second thoughts. She put back the flute just in time as the bell rang signalling lunch time is over. Seulgi heaved a sigh and made her way back to class.

 

Seulgi hate Wednesdays. Because Wednesday means they have double period for History class. Believe me, Seulgi loves History, but this teacher right in front of her is talking right straight from the textbook and she expects her students to understand. Excuse me, I shall head to dreamland for a moment, Seulgi yawns and put her textbook up as a cover and fell asleep.

 

“Yeah, she’s pretty, but she’s so unfriendly…”

“I greet her once, and she only nod at me and left…”

“How rude…”

“Who does she think she is?”

 

Seulgi’s eye slowly flutters upon as the sound of people gossiping nearby loudens. She rubbed her eyes and unknowingly asked the group, “Who are you guys talking about?”

All of them nod their head to the front, sitting near the entrance, keeping a few books in her bag before straightening herself, preparing for the next lesson. Isn’t she that girl? The girl who caught her playing the flute the other day? What is she—

“Is she new?” Seulgi blurted out to the group.

“She’s been here for two weeks already, and, she’s still friend-less,” Joy shook her head, disapproving.

“Why?”

“Go and ask her for yourself,” Joy insisted.

 

The girl was pretty.

Not just the usual pretty pretty.

She is very pretty and cute at the same time. She has this some sort of a delicate nose and her eyes wrinkled while she silently laughs when their art teacher made his not-so-funny jokes.

Why Seulgi was staring at her, she does not know. Seulgi was having second thoughts whether to greet the girl after school is over—or just go straight back home, like she always do.

In the end, she didn’t choose the latter.

 

“Err….Hi,” Seulgi stood beside the table of the girl.

She was busy stuffing books in her bag. Seulgi’s presence remains unnoticed. Weird. Is she really that unsociable. “Hi,” Seulgi speaks more louder and the girl winced in surprised. Looking up to see Seulgi wave at her a little. “So… you’re the girl from the other day, right?”

The girl nods and her eyes widens, as if quite shock that Seulgi remembers. After confirming it was her, Seulgi placed her hands on the table and bent down a little. Speaking in a hush tone, “You won’t tell me off for bringing the flute outside, won’t you?”

The girl recalled the memory back and grins gleefully while she shook her head. The girl then tore a piece of paper from one of her unused notes and starts to scribble down something. Then she pushed it a little, while Seulgi reads.

 

“You play very well. I always saw you practice secretly  :)”

 

Seulgi smiled at the praise, but then she frowns. “What’s your name?”

The girl was about to write again, when Seulgi gripped her wrist, “Are you…unable to hear me? Are you de—“

The girl gently remove Seulgi’s grip and continue scribbling down on the note.

“I can hear you but I can’t say anything back. My name is Joohyun, but you can call me Irene.”

Seulgi look at the girl in sympathy and confusement after reading what Irene wrote down. So, the reason she has been so silenced is because she is… partially deaf?

“How?”

Irene smiled and wrote a rather short answer compared to the previous. She had a timid yet anticipating expression when she passed the notes back to Seulgi

“Would you walk back home with me if I tell you?”

Seulgi put thumbs up as a reply to the girl, and Irene’s face splits into a smile. A very attractive one.

 

 

That’s sad. To be taken away the pleasure to speak—more saddening since it was at an age where girls starts to get head over heels over boy groups, idols and such. Irene told her from the notepad she wrote and Seulgi learns that Irene was involved in a car accident at the age of 12 and she had vocal cord paralysis due to it, thus immediately affecting her ability to speak.

It was hard for her and also for her parents to see their one and only child, being from the bubbly kid to the inaudible kid who only smiles and nod feebly. It was a shock for Irene as she woke up from the hospital bed and seeing her parents hunched nearby with teary look in their eyes, and it’s more upsetting when she calls out for her mom and nothing, nothing came out. Except for pointless effort which brought her to huge tantrums and silent sobbing.

Irene had a therapist by her side for a year and a half. She also did home-schooled  for 2 years before finally assuring her parents that she could manage herself in a normal school. But things did not really turn out well as she was bullied and mocked for her disability. She tried to hide it from her parents, but somehow, the adults, they noticed. She had switched to two different schools and the current, now, is the third. And hopefully the last.

 

Seulgi wiped the tears streaming down to her cheeks, using her blazer’s sleeve as Irene chuckled soundlessly beside her. They were at an empty bench near a small park, not far from the school compound.  “Why are you crying?” Irene tilts her head and covers , supressing a silent giggle.

“Because if I were you, I don’t think I can cope with what you’re facing…” Seulgi looks at the girl who was looking at her ever so gently. Irene then scribbles something on her notepad, but she was a little bit hesitant to show to Seulgi and Irene quickly place it on Seulgi’s lap before looking away.

“Can we be friends?”

“Of course...”

 

That was how they started to become friends. Starting that day, they would walk back home together and separates at a junction. Irene would always accompany her to her secret escapade at the cherry blossom tree, while Seulgi practice playing the flute. Irene had become her number one supporter as she keeps encouraging Seulgi to enter the audition. And when Seulgi passed, Irene was the one who had waited outside the classroom—pacing back and forth to know the result, and she gave Seulgi a congratulatory hug—a hug where Seulgi starts to feel something new brewing inside.

Their friends acknowledge the new friendship between them both and gradually, they become friends with Irene too. Irene seems livelier than before and Seulgi being the person who always gets distracted, she could not help but to stare at Irene who was sitting at the front, when her eyes were supposed to stare at the whiteboard ahead.

After 2 months of constant training with the marching band team for their Annual Sports Day, Seulgi finally look at herself in the mirror with the standing red collar and the shining gold buttons line up in one row. She put her shakos on top of her head and admired the eagle emblem at the front. Her phone buzzed to see an alarming message from Irene asking her where is she—and she yelp to see that she was almost running late.

 

With sweat forming around her forehead, she marches, circling the school field with the team. The sun scorched above their head while she plays the flute cautiously—trying not to miss a tune. Her eyes still manage to catch Irene above the stands beside Seulgi’s parents. And her heart soars.

 

 

“My mom invites you for lunch this weekend :)” Irene passed a note, but her eyes remain fixed at the front where their chemistry teacher was explaining about their final pairing project before summer break.

“Sure :) :) :) ” Seulgi passed back the note. Irene gaze down and smiled to herself as she saw the answer.

 

Her heart thumps unsteadily as this will be her first time stepping inside Irene’s house. Before this, if Seulgi accompany Irene back home, they would just part ways outside. And seeing that Mrs Bae is inviting Seulgi to lunch—there must be some sort of thing she wants to say to Seulgi, right? Adults can be quite bizarre at times, Seulgi thought as she thinks of her own parents. Anyway, she and Irene would be discussing their pair work project too on the other hand.

Seulgi chose to wear her plaid red-black shirt and navy blue jeans before rushing downstairs to see her mother packing some freshly baked vanilla muffins.

“Give it to Mrs Bae will you?” Her mom reminds her and Seulgi mumbled okay with one muffin inside as she ran outside and pick up her bicycle and place the packed muffins on the basket, cycling away with a hammering heart.

 

“Seulgi!” Irene mouthed as her eyes sparkled before hugging the girl. After releasing the hug, Irene’s eyes wandered to the pack on Seulgi’s grip and she inquires with her eyes, “Oh, my mom made vanilla muffins for you and your parents.”

The corner of Irene’s eyes wrinkles as she mouthed ‘Thanks’ before pulling Seulgi in. The living room was vast and squeaky clean and one word forms in Seulgi’s mind about the house—neat. The white and black interior makes everything looks twice spacious. Rows of pictures arranged on the wall, from Irene being a day year old baby to her current age now—well she is the Bae’s one and only child.

“Ah, Seulgi…” Mrs Bae greets her with an apron attach on her front. Seulgi gulps as she saw Mrs Bae—now Seulgi understood why Irene is so pretty, she got it from Mrs Bae. The soft features and doe like eyes, they resemble each other a lot.

 

Seulgi bows politely and Mrs Bae gushed, “Irene was right. You are indeed very adorable. No wonder my daughter keeps admiring you non-stop.” Mrs Bae chuckles as Irene turns wide eye and slap Mrs Bae’s arm playfully, hiding her embarrassment while Seulgi just stood and scratch her nape timidly.

“I’ll leave you two at the living room. You guys have a pairing work right?” Mrs Bae asked and Seulgi nodded, “Well, once lunch is ready, I’ll call the both of you. Have fun.” Mrs Bae then walks away back to the kitchen and Irene turns to look at Seulgi with an apologetic look.

“Your mom is nice and she looks exactly like you!” Seulgi states before Irene flips her hair proudly and both of them laughed before settling down on the table. They look at the set of questions for their pair work and both of them hung their head low.

After an hour, Seulgi gets dizzy seeing all the equation she scribbles and lays her head on one side, as she gaze at the focus Irene who was muttering soundlessly while her eyes scan the reference book on her grip. Seulgi sighed with a heavy heart. Seulgi knows, by now—that she has started to harbour feelings for Irene. Just a small, slight touch from the latter could make her blush madly and the way Irene looks at her with gentleness and tender, could drive her crazy.

Seulgi was not sure if Irene felt like how she felt. They are—best friends. Crossing the friendship line sounds scary but tempting at the same time. Lately Seulgi have been pondering whether she should confessed before summer break starts or not—but her low self-esteem gets in the way and she pushed it back out of her thoughts.

Seulgi was startled when Irene passed a note from one of her pink memo-pads, “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Like what?” Seulgi asked as she sat upright and raise her eyebrows. Irene took back the note and was about to scribble something when Mrs Bae called them both for lunch.

 

Mrs Bae somehow made a small feast for them; baked pork with honey-mustard sauce, sweet potato, pickled radish, egg and scallion soup with rice. After all the reading and writing, Seulgi really got hungry and seeing what Mrs Bae prepared for them, made her starve even more.

“I replace chicken with pork, since Irene doesn’t eat chicken. I hope you don’t mind,” Mrs Bae spoke as she pick up the slices of pork with her chopsticks and put it on Seulgi’s and Irene’s bowl.

“Her chicken trauma will never come to an end,” Seulgi teases, earning a kick under the table, Mrs Bae failing to notice as she chuckles.

They had a hearty lunch with a variety of conversations being converse at, from telling more about Seulgi and her family’s background to how she and Irene became friends. Later, Irene excuse herself to the washroom and that is when Seulgi is left with Mrs Bae alone at the dining room.  Mrs Bae then clears before speaking in a gentle tone, “Thank you Seulgi.”

After seeing Seulgi puzzled expression, Mrs Bae chuckles, “ Now I know why Irene always told me you resembled like a bear. I’m sorry—anyways, I’m just fill with gratitude. It has been quite a while since Irene has a friend. You know, with her condition, people don’t really know how to communicate with her—and it breaks my heart—“

Mrs Bae sighed with a gloomy expression hung upon her face, “It was truly our fault. If it wasn’t for the accident—she would still have her sweet, soft voice. She came to acceptance with her state much faster than me and my husband did.  When she said she wanted to attend school normally, I was very worried, but she insisted. She had quite a rough time at school and we transferred her to a different school a couple of times—and now, fi