Moondust Chapter 6

Song For This Chapter// To My Youth by Bolbbalgan4

"Those beautifully beautiful memories were so painful.
I was hurting and hurting but the pain wouldn’t go away.
My friends, all these people, they’re only looking at me.
This isn’t how I really am but I keep getting farther away." 

YooJung’s POV

8 weeks.

I counted the days and the deadline to pay back all the debt would on the same day as my piano concour. My fingers raked through my long hair as I scrunched my face up in utter worry. I glanced over at a sleeping JooHyun. She had it all. An emotion I hated was envy, but I couldn’t help myself from being jealous of JooHyun. Not only was she privileged, but also she was kind and had a loving family. I had that once or did I think I had it?

Designer purses and clothing filled her b wardrobe and she was busy going on dates with her boyfriend to even study much. When I was working on my piece, she would come over and ask me to help her pick out which photos to upload onto her social media account. She was an avid social media participant, amassing over several thousand followers for her beauty as a college student. She had such a comfortable life. The only worry she had was over the amount of likes she received on her selfies.

Due to her urging, I even made an account, but I still hadn’t posted any photos on it. The only people I followed were SoHyun, Sungjae, BoGum, and JooHyun. I saw the photos Sungjae posted of him and SoHyun. They were finally dating, which was delightful news. I wasn’t in the appropriate state to be posting social media photos when my life was at stake over the debt my parents left me with. I was only here to win the competitions and get my life back. But sometimes I just wanted to stop fighting so hard. Every day is just so draining. However I endured and endured, putting on my dauntless guise every morning.

I shook my head vigorously as if that would physically shake off the thought like shaking away a fly. I recalled what SoHyun told me before. It was a beautiful metaphor about wallets and envy. What do you have in your wallet? Some have thick wads of cash, while others have an abundance of love, family, or happiness. No one has it all although we may think that they do. We never know what someone is enduring until we take a walk in their shoes. JooHyun may have money and a comfortable lifestyle. But I had my friends and my passion for classical music. We were both rich in different ways.

I practiced and practiced till my fingers were almost worn out from all the use. BoGum used to always massage my hands whenever I practiced for long hours. But now he doesn’t want anything to do with me. It was understandable. Sighing, I took a hold of the pencil on the music stand to fill in the blanks of my composition sheet. The bell rang from inside the hall, alerting the students that it was lunch- time. I placed my sheet music and notebook back into my tote bag and got up from the piano bench.

To my surprise, Sungjae was waiting for me outside the practice room with his backpack hanging off one shoulder like always. BoGum would always tell him to wear it properly or he would suffer from an imbalanced shoulder. Sungjae silently raised his hand to wave at me and then he motioned me to follow him.

“Where are we going?” I asked him after several minutes of us just walking without exchanging words across campus. Sungjae suddenly stopped in his tracks and faced me.

“To eat lunch. You should eat well while you’re practicing. That way you can get through this and everything can get back to normal.”

“Thanks.” Sungjae led me to the school cafeteria to get our lunch. SoHyun waved at us from across the cafeteria as we went over to her with our trays. Sitting down, I could see BoGum in my line of view as he sat across a girl at a different table.

“What is she like?” I asked my best friends, whom I had to wait for to finish chewing their food.

“Who?”

“That girl.”

“BoGum’s girlfriend. Her name is Bae JooHyun. She is in the same grade as me and she comes from a wealthy family. She transferred majors and she started dating BoGum around a year ago. She’s nice, but… sometimes she can be a bit insensitive.” Sungjae explained to me. JooHyun was BoGum’s girlfriend. Ahh. I was glad that he was able to move on.

 “Oh and thanks guys.” I told them, quietly as I looked down at my tray.

“For what?” SoHyun asked with a light tap on my shoulder. She was always so insistent on looking people directly in the eye when talking to one another.

“I know you guys purposely sat with me and not with BoGum today.”

“Ahh… You caught