Eighty seven. Eighty eight. Eighty nine.

What day is it again? He kept both eyes shut; it doesn’t seem to have any difference at this moment. All is pitch black, sunrise looks like midnight and the dawn appears like an eternity without any sheer of light. Last night, he has another weird dream, a term he agreed with himself to call it as a replacement for nightmare. It’s not frightening, it’s just odd.

In that dream he was standing in an undefined vast space full of shadow passing by and among those absurd creatures he caught a smile. Just smile, as if it’s floating on the air instead of belong to particular face. The smile was familiar for the Jinki in his dream. However, the sober Jinki could never tell who that is which stressed him way too far for a merely form of hallucination.

He stirred under the blanket. The uncomfortable weight of the mounds of cotton forced him to kick the poor duvet. Too heavy, it just flopped back to its position, only to irritate him even further. Palms pressed to his face, he wished the instant friction on the skin washed over the weariness.

But of course he could only wish.

Ninety. Ninety one. Ninety two.

There’s a slight crack on the wooden beams on his ceiling that he noticed just now. After he gave up and checked the life rotating around him. He then wondered, for how long the crack has been there. And how come it didn’t catch his attention before today? Random calculation of the bending moment and load combination suddenly came up inside his twisted mind, occupy the vacant space he’s been neglecting these past weeks.

He blinks, one and two. His vision’s projecting the same image, hypnotizing in a way, hinting a pinch of motion sickness as a precaution. The crack’s there, still, visually concerning, but seemed like it doesn’t bother the whole structure supporting the floor above. From down there, the crack is simply filling the gap, completing the entire system.

He wished the crack in his heart is as static as that. But of course, he could only wish.

Ninety three. Ninety four. Ninety five.

Distorted and obscure, that’s how everything’s pictured behind his closed back eyes. The timeline of his memory is jumbled, it’s patchy at the edge and fragmented inside and out. How it happened, he couldn’t tell. But how it felt, he had at least half of the dictionary to complain about it. About how unfair it is, about how agonizing it is.

One moment in life, he’s seeing how happy Gwiboon talked about his corny jokes which deadly annoying but actually helping her dealing with the pressure of the fashion week at the same time. Any other second, he went red when the fraction of his memory flashed, force him to dredge up how he screamed directly to her face like a mad man, asking what kind of joke she was pulling out. She said she desperately wants to spend their bubble together, a little longer, until the day turns week, and week turns months. Then again she also stormed out the room on the next day, all drenched and broken, mimicking the same hazard occurred inside his chest.

Gwiboon is more than a crush, more than a fling, more than a good catch he discovered across the field. He wished she wasn’t.

But of course, again, he could only wish.

Ninety six. Ninety seven.

Men can only wish, the sky, at the end, would be the one who decide was it worth to be granted or not. He spent a whole night in secluded beach, a hideout place he learnt from his grandfather, screaming to the far high sky, but the wound unfastened wider. At some point he admits, he was partly responsible. He wanted – and loved – the idea of a relationship, but terribly in fear for the actual relationship.

What’s bad for being in a relationship? You idiot, Lee Jinki! He cursed silently, for the thousand times already this week. That if he didn’t count words spilled out his mouth when he was unconscious.     

Ninety eight. Ninety nine.

Jinki can list at least ten reasons in less than five minutes why he didn’t pull his together and man up telling Gwiboon his feeling instead dropping some barricade with the whole being-casual-and-let’s-not-put-any-label-on-it shenanigans. And out of those ten reasons, none of them because of something that Gwiboon did. Or feel.

After all, he has no heart to blame her.

Hundred.

***

It’s easy to put a mask around the house, especially with a father who’s that busy and a mother who recently found a new hobby in her flower arrangement club. Unfortunately, not when a little devil descendant like Lee Taemin is actually present.

Jinki is about to go out, suffocated inside his room and suddenly feeling skimpy with just helplessly cuddling his pillow. He finally charged his phone and took his iPod out from the dock. While the other family members are somewhere scattered between living room and the kitchen, he managed to take a very quick shower and put on some presentable clothes.

Today, he opted to pick brown-maroon sweater, attempt to distinguish his feeling after last week his Mom was complaining about all the black dirty laundry he piled up making her doubling the effort doing the laundry since she had to separate all those clothes to not ruin each other. He snatched pair of jeans carelessly and as if all the constellations are lined up to pinch a joke on him, it happened to be the cropped jeans Kim Gwiboon decided to put her magic on it a while ago.

“Do you like the idea of me making you clothes?”

Jinki looked up for just a second before focused back on the contemporary art book on his hands, “What does that supposed to mean? Sounds really domestic on my ears just now.”

“Oh, please. I just asked permission, like, is it okay if I spice up your wardrobe a little bit?”

“I don’t think I need any.. but if you insisted, then I guess it’s okay. Your hands wouldn’t do something disastrous anyway.”

“Good. Because I already did,” she handed him back the jeans she stole from his wardrobe few days before, “Your jeans are all the same and I noticed you kept wearing the same ones over and over again I almost sure if I assessed it a little bit more attentively I would find holes at some point. That’s boring and I don’t want my man’s boring. So give that a try and thank me later.”

He looked himself at the mirror, his eyes struck on both his ankle when the end of the jeans hanging with jumbled strain of threads, the vivid evidences that once, Kim Gwiboon existed in his dull life. To entertain his boring life.

Boring.

Yeah, maybe that’s why she left me, because I’m boring, Jinki thought.

He thought she would be forever, they would be forever, because finally Jinki thought he found someone who leveled very well with his obduracy without coercing themselves too far. Turned out, this time is not any different with the previous relationship that he head, got his hope high then spitted out back to the earth right on the top of rocky valley. Not like the thing he had with Gwiboon could be entitled a relationship anyway. He wouldn’t dare to call it that.

If only I could muster up some courage back then and just asked her out in a very proper way, I would feel so much worthier than merely a buddy.

He pocketed the car keys, inhaled a very deep breath, practiced his auto-reply smile before exited his dungeon. And there he is, waiting by the corner of the breakfast island, the devious Lee Taemin who’s always up to roast his own brother.

“Oh, hello universe. The grad student is finally showed up! Congratulation!! We need to celebrate this very soon! Should I buy some champagne?”

Jinki kicked the stool where he sit furiously before poured himself a good amount of orange juice, the bright yellow liquid vanished in less than thirty seconds.

“I heard from your Mom, Buddy. Finally, you’re going.”

“It’s not in anytime soon, Dad. I just got accepted. Barely finish my final project here.”

“But you can still take the long distance single course for the first semester right?”

His father had been busy coming back and forth among Seoul, Tokyo, and London. There wouldn’t be any chance left for him to go through in his courting mode and interviewing his mother because the woman would shower him with the story of her new club before he could ask anything.

“Who told you that?”

“Your brother.”

He shot a glare to Taemin who stopped middle air from shoving a piece of taco to his mouth, “Don’t blame me. That man come to me with new pair of shoes, of course I surrendered.”

“That man is your father!” his mother slapped the back of his head which attained an annoying squeal from the youngest son.

“I am worried a little bit about you, Jinki.”

There’s a reason why his father now became a very famous attorney. His instinct works beyond human shield.

“Don’t be, Dad. I will be fine. It’s just too handful a bit now, with the final project, preparation, and also adjust the online course and everything.”

“If only you picked London, I have lots of acquaintance there who can actually help you.”

“That’s in some measure, the reason why I picked Chicago. Too many people we know in London, Dad, they might judge as well while stretching a helpful hand. Besides, it was my first choice since the bachelor but the beautiful lady over there was begging like a toddler seven years ago for me not to go there too early. I won’t give up my dream twice.”

Thanks to cousin Minjung and her obsession on NBA when they’re in the grade school. Whenever she visited, she gushed about this Chicago Bull’s to the siblings and triggered a very young Jinki to go to his father’s library and checking some books about the place along the Lake Michigan. Soon enough, he fell for the Windy City and dreamed to move and work as an architect there.

“And yet, see how stubborn you grew up into. So much effort I pulled to keep you grounded next to me. At the end you’d flee away still.”

“You better go sooner or she reenacted the same scene again, Buddy,” his father winked to him, knowing Jinki would be at least smiling on it.

“Roger that, Pops! I’m going!”

Taemin looks dejected on his seat, this is the first time since forever Jinki’s finally leaving his sanctuary that he’s witnessing and he didn’t even pay attention to him. Is he okay? Did he find another girl already? Taemin is way more worried than he used to be.

“Where?! For a date?! Why?! How?! With whom?! Why did you leave me here?! Why didn’t you say anything to me?! Dude!”

“Stop the commotion right there, Lee Taemin. I called Junghee this morning both of you are going with me to shop for my next club gathering.”

“Why on earth you called her?! And how do you know her number?! Mom!!”

The scene left Jinki shaking his head and chortling, somehow, a bit of pleasant feeling occupied his hollow core. That might be the one he would be missing so much when he’s alone abroad. However, the excitement of finally leaving all the traces screaming Gwiboon’s name whenever he turned is all that he can think about now and then. What a perfect excuse. He can’t wait to run away from every single memory of her in this house, this town, this time zone that had been hunted him ever since she asked him not to see each other anymore.

***

Jinki stood right at the check-out desk, dropped his favorite red bean buns and pulled out the wallet from his back pocket. The first thing greeted him when he opened it was the silly picture of him and Gwiboon they took one day at the photo box near Jinki’s favorite arcade because it was suddenly pouring hard. He still has no gut to throw it out because deep down he realized when he took it out, when he finally took it out, it means he needs to let it go everything and he hasn’t down for it any closer yet.

“That’s all?”

The question of the boy in front of him breaks the bubbles inside his head. Jinki’s eyes went pass him and caught the rack full of cigarettes behind. How tempting in so many ways.

“Yeah. That’s it.”