Sungjin wasn't kidding when he said he’d help me get this EP done. His phone call wakes me up first thing in the morning and, for a moment after I take the call, I don’t understand what’s going on until the words make sense and it dawns on me that this is real. Sungjin is set on proving a point, and I’m set on proving him wrong.

“In twenty minutes, I’ll be downstairs waiting for you,” he says. How is anyone this happy in the morning?

“What are you talking about?” I check the time on my phone. It’s not even eight a.m. From outside the my bedroom, I hear Ayeon and Huiryong just about to leave for work. If I get up now, they’ll suspect something weird because there is no reason for me to be up before they’ve left the apartment.

“I said I’ll help you write your songs, remember?”

“I remember. How is this helping?”

He sighs, but I can hear him smiling through the phone. “We’re going to look for inspiration.”

“At eight in the morning?”

“It’s the best time of the day.”

I roll my eyes at the ceiling. “No, the best time of the day is after ten in the evening, what’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? Are you an owl? Hurry and get up it’s a beautiful day. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

Sungjin wasn’t kidding about the fifteen minutes. I’m barely into my jeans when he calls again to say he’s already sitting out on the steps. Not that I had difficulty choosing something to wear because this is so not a date. It’s just that I haven’t organized in my closet in a while and with the weather being what it is, hunting for something appropriate so I don’t freeze as soon as the sun is down became a little challenging. Also, I need to look human, at least. Not some anthropomorphic personification of someone’s favorite root crop.

“Do you know what they say about poking a sleeping bear?” I ask as soon as I walk out the main door and Sungjin looks up at me.

He gets up and dusts off his shorts. “Are you a bear?”

“Yes,” I shoot back, annoyed because now I’m not really sure what I’m feeling. “Yes, I am. And the thing they say about poking sleeping bears is don’t.”

“So, noted.”

“Where are we going?”

“I told you,” Sungjin says, leading the way down the street. “We’re going to look for inspiration.”

“And how do you propose we go looking for inspiration?” Is there an advertisement for this I haven’t been aware of? Is Inspiration really just a Google search away and I’ve been in the dark all this time? Has it, all this time, been something you can order of a menu somewhere? 

“We’re going to take a walk.”

“I hate walking,” I mutter after him.

“Now I know you’re lying,” he says to me from over his shoulder. “Look, I know it’s me you don’t want to be around. So the easiest way to get rid of me is to finish this project. After this, I promise you I’ll leave you alone.”

That’s not necessary, I want to say. But he’s right about wanting to avoid him. If only to avoid my confused feelings for him.

“Because, you know,” he continues. “If you fail this class, you’re just gonna have to take it again. And you really don’t want to be my student again, do you?”

“I get it,” I mumble. “You’ve made your point. Let’s get this done.”

Sungjin’s first stop is an old record store that sells vinyl LPs and second-hand acoustic and electric guitars. The place looks like it never left the eighties, with posters of Queen, Guns N’ Roses, Scorpions, and Deep Purple on one wall. Electric guitars cover the other wall, as it does most of the floor plan. Everywhere you look it’s rows upon rows of guitars and boxes of LPs stacked at the center aisle. Sungjin is about dying in rapture.

“How does this help, exactly?” I ask.

“I bought my first guitar here,” he says with a nostalgic smile. “And my first record. Sometimes I just come here to enjoy the view.”

“Of all the things you can’t have?”

He tuts at me. “So negative. Sometimes looking is enough. Just knowing something exists should be good enough. It makes me happy. What makes you happy?”

“Sleep,” I tell him. Not ironically. “I like sleep. I like it when people don’t wake me up to drag me into a totally unnecessary walking tour around the city.”

“I know snark is your best defense mechanism, so I’m gonna let that slide.”

Guilt slides into my consciousness. “I'm sorry.”

“What was that?” he says with a smile. “I didn’t hear you.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I said I’m sorry.”

“Are you really?” He’s still smiling, but there’s more depth in what he’s saying.

It hits me all at once, this sick feeling in my stomach. It’s like all my worst days coming back to haunt me, nights I spend staring at the ceiling because closing my eyes played a endless loop of all the times I failed and/or embarrassed myself. Now showing is all the times I’ve been a jerk to the people who care about me. People who’ve gone out of their way to make sure I was okay. The sick feeling rises to my throat and heat floods my eyes.

I’m a terrible person.

This is why I avoid all human contact. Sungjin doesn’t deserve this negativity from me. No one deserves this kind of treatment—

“—you’re not even listening to me, are you?”

“What?” I focus on the tip of Sungjin’s nose to feign eye contact. “Sorry.”

“I said you’re spacing out. Do you need to step outside for a moment? Should I have scheduled breakfast first?”

I take in each sentence one at a time. “Breakfast. Yes, please.”

I wasn’t hungry when I said so, but now that we’re sitting across each other with food between us I’m beginning to feel the need for sustenance. “I really am sorry,” I tell him.

“I know you are. It’s okay.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

“You’re going down another negative spiral. Snap out of it. I know you’d rather avoid than confront, but I’m not the only one worried about you.”

If only it were that easy. “Don’t psychoanalyze me.”

“I’m really trying very hard not to. But you’re not okay and you’re not talking about it. I don’t know how to help you if you don’t let me.”

My instinct is to run away. Tell him I’m fine, get this over with and leave him before I get worse. But something about the way Sungjin is trying so hard is making me want to try. For myself. So I can be a better person for all the people who are here for me. I have to try. Even I get tired of my own whining. 

“Can we start over?” I ask.

Sungjin nods.

“I didn’t peg you as the vintage rock type of guy,” I say a while later as we’re walking towards Sungjin’s next destination. We spent breakfast in silence, mostly comfortable silence.

“What type of guy did you think I was?” h