1970
bae joo-hyun is 27

the cracks in our relationship were evident. she kept mending them, smile and forgiveness at the ready, glueing every surface; i kept breaking them, heart of stone and logic like a knife, convinced that i could no longer stay in that place i once called home.

it's funny how you could achieve everything there was to a relationship and still watch it fail.

but... even though i heartlessly damaged the relationship time and again, i could never bear to let it go. humans love comfort, and i was nestled in the comfort zone of being a lover — that is, if you could call someone who was being loved one-sidedly as that.
 

***
 

"hyun-ah."

attention broken from the comedy i was watching on tv, my smile took a 180-degree change. i grunted in reply, mustering just enough irritation in my voice, perhaps just enough to hurt her.

how far do i have to go for you to leave on your own accord, seungwan?

feeling a sliver of guilt for thinking that way creep up my spine, i shook the thought off and chose to focus on the show before me. i wasn't going to look at her, and hopefully that was enough indication that i wanted to be left alone.

instead, i felt the couch beside me sink and i groaned inwardly. what the hell did she want? refusing to acknowledge that the obvious answer was that she wanted some form of interaction, of communication, i immersed myself back into the tv universe filled with light hearted drama and easily lost myself again.

of course, escaping has always been the easier way out.

in the show, the main characters were having a sleepover and telling ghost stories when the lights went out at the worst possible moment of the story. they spent the remaining time scaring each other unintentionally — the injuries inflicted on each character being a culmination of the worst overreactions possible. finally, a late friend arrives at the house and after hearing screams and shouts after his door knocking; he kicks the door down, revealing a bunch of crazies with mussed up clothes and traumatized expressions.

i snorted at the visuals, clapping my hands in glee. it sure felt like a long time since i last laughed so hard, but just then, just as quickly as it had come... the glee was snuffed out.

a light touch could bear the heaviest weight — she placed a hand on my head, ruffling my hair affectionately as if she had found my chortle adorable. i felt the color go from my face in a wave of self-loathing.

adorable? you're disgusting, bae joohyun.

i trained my eyes on the tv. it felt like the longest moment in my life before she dropped the arm back to her side, but i refused to look to her nevertheless, dead lost on how to react.

maybe, if it was possible to break down from sorrow seconds after having just laughed my lungs out, i would have reacted that way.

there were many should haves, would haves, in those mere few minutes of my life.

i acted on none of them.

i saw the usually gentle hand on her lap clench into a tight fist before she left my side; i only saw her fist, because i had my eyes trained ahead stubbornly. if she had paused or looked back before stepping out the door, i didn't know. if she had seen me purse my lips into a tight line, stopping myself from blurting out "don't go", i never found out either.

instead, i soullessly bore my stare back on the tv screen, any ongoings on it having lost its color and meaning.

just how far had i gone for her to leave on her own accord?
 

***

bae-halmoni got up, hovering unsteadily over little yerim as she tried to gain some feeling in her numb feet, rolling her ankle to regulate her blood flow.

"all i knew then and all i remember now was an echo of her loving — it still rings in my ears whenever i least expect it," bae-halmoni sighed, realizing she'd done it too many times in the past hour.

she took a deep breath and looked into the distance.

"when she left, all she left me with was, 'i will always love you, joohyun-ah,' ...seriously?" bae-halmoni chuckled dryly as if it was funny.

indeed, it was anything but. bae-halmoni swallowed her bittersweet laughter and gently fixed a stray strand of yerim's hair, silently wishing the young girl would be wiser and braver than she had been at that age.

***

the duo had shifted to the yard, with yeri following bae-halmoni almost wordlessly, atypical of how she usually acted at the house. it was the first time she was silent enough to notice the swish of roasted barley tea as bae-halmoni poured it into their cups, coupled with the rustling of the old gingko tree as it shed its leaves in the wind.

she slowly realized too that she could hear herself breathing, the rhythm of each inhale and exhale getting more irregular the more she paid more attention to it. while she was curious to death about knowing more about bae-halmoni's first love, a sense of worry nagged at the back of her mind. is it okay to pry so much about this?

bae-halmoni had always been private. anything yeri actually knew about the old lady previously had been the product of aegyo-loaded interrogations, and even those answers she got from those were often accompanied by a roll of the eyes, or eventually ended with the old lady stuffing snacks at her and telling her to mind her own business. for her to be sharing so much... this truly had to mean a lot to her.

yeri willed herself to stop overthinking it and she picked up a cup of tea, pressing her palms tightly around its warmth.

"did you ever see her again?"

she had to stop herself from cringing in regret when bae-halmoni's expression soured, her wrinkly forehead creasing into a frown and lips tugging downward.

"i did, many years later, at a time when i had already forgotten her, and she should've probably forgotten me, too. i'm not sure whether it was unfortunate that we met again, but we did."

***

1981
bae joo-hyun is 38

irene smiled, humming along to a snappy tune playing in the record store that she stepped into.

"i ain't ready, crazy little thing called love~"

bae joohyun now went by irene bae, having chosen to adopt the english name one night all with the help of a novel and more crucially, two bottles of soju. after she had sobered up, she figured a new name didn't hurt since she was looking to start her life on a fresh track, and so it stuck. that period also led irene to meeting her current husband; marriage five years in the counting, and she had never felt more content.

running her fingers down the aisle of cassette albums, irene browsed the titles half-heartedly, whiling away the time while her husband was running some errands.

"this thing called love, i just can't handle it~"

it would've been sweet, maybe cliche, if two once-lovers met eyes with each other as they reached for the same album, but reunions aren't as coincidental as we hope for them to be sometimes.

irene first found seungwan as the latter was singing to herself; too loud for public volume levels but too melodic to be hushed. seungwan was plugged in with headphones to the in-store Walkman player, presumably checking out new album releases. from what irene could infer from seungwan's singing, it was a ballad, and irene shook her head inwardly, lamenting how some tastes and habits never changed no matter how many years had passed.

(she wouldn't have admitted the way she savored how seungwan's voice still felt like velvet on her auditory senses, gentle and gradually warm, and how that had never changed either, and probably wouldn't change, ever.)

they were in their late thirties now, but seungwan's impeccable skin did an impressive job at hiding her age. irene found herself staring at the lady who looked perpetually the same age as when irene had last seen her, only now with a center parting that exuded a graceful maturity. as soon as irene had that complimentary thought though, seungwan's eyebrows raised and lowered comically in a show of their own, even if there was no one around to see it nor about it.

irene felt nostalgia ripping her apart, her heart threatening to beat out of her chest.

seungwan chose that moment to look up, probably having noticed irene's movement from the side of her vision. realization slowly settled into her eyes, and even though the reaction was delayed, seungwan smiled the same smile from when they had first met in the classroom almost two decades ago; the same smile bae joohyun had forgotten she once memorized.

irene found herself struggling not to break down right on the spot, the emotions she had suppressed over time all rushing back in a snap of one's fingers.

felt parched and bitter, and maybe, it was regret inflating her perception, or so she hoped, but irene bae found son seungwan more beautiful than she ever had.

"yeobo, let's go?"

irene snapped out of her near-reverent stare and turned around to see mino with his own brand of tight-lipped smile. charismatic, funny, gentlemanly mino, who treated her better than she deserved and took it upon himself to be an ideal husband, providing for her every need and want but never asking for much in return.

mino placed his hand gently on irene's nape, the action somewhat soothing her.

"are you alright?"

irene weakly nodded, collecting herself so as to introduce them. she mustered all her energy (or courage?) and raised her hand to gesture toward the end of the aisle.

"i ain't ready, crazy little thing called love~"

she let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding.

seungwan was already gone.

***

yeri gasped. "did you tell haraboji about her?"

"yes, or i wouldn't have deserved his trust otherwise," bae-halmoni smiled sadly, "he knew everything from how heartbroken i had been when she first left, to how distraught i was meeting her again that day."

a tear slipped down her wrinkled cheek.

"he was the one who taught me that it was okay to hold onto someone as memorable as a first love. that it was only human. i don't know if i was lucky, but i was his first love. it certainly wasn't by choice that i was his last."

yeri shifted over to sit right beside bae-halmoni, hugging one of the old lady's arms and placing her chin on the woman's shoulder.

"haraboji made you happy, didn't he?"

yeri watched as bae-halmoni's lips tugged into a warm smile, though it didn't quite reach her eyes.

"of course, yerim-ah. it's a pity he passed away too early, too soon for me to truly reciprocate his love for me. i was in love with him, but... did i love him?"

a light breeze picked up in the yard, and bae-halmoni shifted slightly, taking a small sip of warm tea. yeri let go of the old lady's arm and tilted her head in confusion.

"what's the difference?"

with a soft smile at the girl's genuine curiosity, bae-halmoni reached over and took yeri's hand back into her own. "to put it simply, being in love is to enjoy having your hand being held, while loving—‬" she clasped her bony fingers around yeri's delicate hand, "‪—‬is to hold on to that hand. one is passive, while the other is a decision."

yeri blinked and shifted her gaze to a leaf that had flown onto her lap. she tried to recall the countless times she held hands with her best friend, but it was fuzzy who usually initiated it. 

"what if it happens without anyone thinking about it?"

"well, then other things happen. time flies by, circumstances try to pull you apart, and holding hands can get tiring. you have to think about it eventually, if not, you'll let go without thinking about it as well."

yeri's head hurt. the concept was hard to grasp, and the example only served to baffle her further.

"so, bae-halmoni, that first love you had, were you just in love?"

bae-halmoni laughed at the candidness of the question.

"yerim-ah... even up till today, i still don't know."