"You are the sun in my summers
You are my dreams at night"
                             - the black skirts


“So yeah, I’ll be leaving, and uh, I’ll stay there for a year or something. Maybe learn English.”
Bobby stared dumbfounded at her, not completely registering what she had just said.
“I thought it was just a vacation.” He blurted.
Jisoo stared down at her hand on her lap. Having nothing to say, she reached for his hand and squeezed it.
“Bobby-ah,” her voice was soft and apologetic. “I miss her. I miss my sister…”
“But what about your degree?”
“I can enroll again. Or I’ll just get a job.”
His heart sank even lower. “You’re not going there just for a year, are you? You plan to not come back right?”
He waited the seconds waiting for her to deny, but her lips began to tremble, the corner of twitched and her face reddened as two drops of tear rolled down her face.
Bobby felt a sharp pain rising from his chest to his throat. He thought something sharp had just slashed his insides but found no words to tell her so. He reached for her hand and held her familiar, soft flesh. The sudden realization that he might not hold it again hit him. Abruptly, he pulled her against him, holding her in a tight embrace as though she would disappear into thin air if he didn’t.
 

Jisoo left in winter and left behind a void in the shape of a brownish-Australia-shaped birthmark. He couldn’t bear to look at a map of Australia or any outline resembling it for quite some time. His friends tried taking him clubbing a few times and Jin Hwan even dragged him to a few blind dates. The girls were pretty and sweet and nice, but none of them liked The Black Skirts or street lamps. He spent hours in his dorm room strumming mindless melodies on the guitar and staring off into space. Donghyuk who shared a room with him found their paper bin every morning stuffed with shredded sheets that appeared to have some poems or lyrics scribbled on them.
He still went for classes and completed his assignments, but often made excuses about hanging out with the boys.
Even his friends reminded him of her. All of them had liked her. Loved her, perhaps.
Once, after a basketball game with he and Jisoo as a team and Hanbin and Junhoe as the other, Han Bin had said “Quite a girl, she is, isn’t she.” And Han Bin was not the kind to say those words lightly. Bobby had glowed with pride. He had looked over at Jisoo who was fooling around with Junhoe and knew he had loved no other like he did then.

The winter dragged on with its winter-bare-Yew trees, and he continued taking the usual familiar route to the hillock at the edge of the campus. He played the game of people-watching by himself.
“Look at that girl over there,” the conversation would start in his head. “She’s probably an operational statistics major. But she wishes she could study fashion design instead.”
“No way,” Jisoo would have said. “She’s definitely a fashion designing student. Besides, you probably made up that major just now.”
He’d know he hadn’t made it up but he would laugh anyway, and let her think so.
Sometimes, he would find himself laughing out loud from the dialogues in his head. He was vaguely aware of how crazy it seemed but pushed it out of his head.
 

Spring eventually came and began to slip away. The yew Tree still stood bare but the dialogues in his head had begun to die down, and he had recently taken to plugging in his earpiece instead. He still skipped The Black Skirts though.
One Friday afternoon, Han Bin came to look for him on the hillock to find him lying on the grass and staring at the sky through the canopy of leaves overhead.
He walked up and stood in his line of view directly above him.
“How long will you drag on this melodrama?” Han Bin demanded.
Bobby sighed, as though annoyed by the interruption, and slowly proceeded to remove the earpiece from his ears.
“How did you find me?” asked Bobby.
Han Bin scoffed. “I mean its pretty hard to figure out where you have been going to mope for the past three months, right.”
Bobby sat up reluctantly, and said nothing.
Han Bin sat down beside him. “Did she contact you after she left?” he asked.
Bobby did not answer immediately. He picked up a twig and fiddled with it. “Yeah she wrote me an email some time back.”
Han Bin didn’t want to push but his friend had been moping for far too long now. “What did she say?”
Bobby drew random patterns on the grass with the twig and thought about which part to leave out from the email.
“You know what she wrote in that f**king email,” he finally said. “She said she sometimes felt suffocated by my love. Like what the f**k does that even mean!” He flung the twig angrily. “She took so much from me, so what the f**k does she mean by saying that now.”
“And what else?” asked Han Bin calmly.
“Nothing else.”
Han Bin said nothing for a while.
Bobby looked at him pleadingly as though asking him to assure him that Jisoo’s email made no sense at all.
“Dude,” Han Bin began, “I have also been in relationships before and what I have learnt is that expectations can be toxic. It will disappoint you most times.”
“I thought she was the one, you know,” Bobby began tentatively. “She was so perfect. I don’t think I loved anyone before her like I loved her, and I don’t know if I will love another like I loved her.”
“What about her made her seem like the one?” Han Bin asked.
“She was pretty, funny… fun and smart,” Bobby replied. “I loved being with her.”
“Do think she cared for you like you cared for her,” Han Bin asked.
Bobby did not have an immediate answer.
Han Bin bit his lips and Bobby knew he was going to say something he had been meaning to say.
“I’m simply telling you this because you’re my friend,” Han Bin said. “I think you idealized her too much. I know it’s easy to become blinded by a girl as great as she, but you were gonna wake up one day anyway to see that the Universe does not revolve around her.”
After a pause, he added, “It’s not that I don’t believe in true love and all that , but you shouldn’t expect her to complete you. Just as she didn’t let you complete her. Leave some room for yourself and others.”
Bobby let the words sink in but did not respond.
“People come and go all the time,” Han Bin continued. “We can’t help it.”
“From the ones you dated,” Bobby asked, “Did any of them make you feel like she was the one?”
“Of course,” Han Bin answered un-hesitantly. “But that’s why I keep telling you that we’re still young and unstable, that we don’t really know what we want.”
“So does that mean that if I was older I would have known that she was not the one?” Bobby questioned.
Han Bin punched him on the arm.”Don’t twist my words like that!”
Bobby laughed, and Han Bin joined in.
“Come, screw this . Lets go have Kalguksu,” Han Bin suggested, standing up. “On me.”
As they left the hill, Bobby thought he felt a little less lonely.
 

That night, Jisoo received an email that she almost dreaded opening. It was the first time he had responded and she was half-afraid of what he’d say. She waited for her sister to go to bed, and when she had made sure that her sister was snoring, she opened her mail. Hello bunny, the email began and Jisoo smiled in relief. Settling back, she read the rest:

I know I haven’t been replying to you at all and I apologize for that. I have had break ups before, but they were easier probably because we were never friends like you and I are. I do miss you a lot, but I don’t regret it happened. We were both very happy and I don’t think anyone should regret that. This may sound very frou-frou, but I’m thankful for the memories. They feel like a warm spring and I promise to recall them with nothing else but fondness. Initially, I wondered why God would put you in my path and then take you away, but I realize I’m too young right now to understand the whole picture. For now, I just know that our friendship and all that happened after is only teaching me to grow. I hope I will see you again when I’m more mature and responsible. Do stay in touch.

Jisoo was glad that she had waited for her sister to fall asleep for she couldn’t help but weep over the letter. She closed it and went to sleep, dreaming of warm spring evenings and Bobby’s warm laughter.
 

The following Monday, Han Bin, deep asleep on his bed at seven in the morning received a call from Bobby.
“Dude,” his friend’s thick voice came from the other end.
“Yes, what happened?” answered Han Bin groggily.
“What’s the opposite of a hill?”
Han Bin’s immediate notion was that it was a prank. “What nonsense are you spewing so early in the morning?”
“Dude I’m serious,” Bobby persisted.
“Aish I don’t know, I’m sleeping,” saying so, Han Bin ended the call.
Just as he had settled back on his pillow, his phone vibrated again.
Annoyed, Han Bin sat up on bed and practically yelled into the phone, “Ocean, ocean. It’s the Ocean.”
His friend chuckled from the other end. “Thanks chingu-ah. You are truly my friend.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” Han Bin yelled again and hung up the call.


On the other end, Bobby dressed up and not knowing where to go had just gotten his answer. He sent a text to Han Bin telling him that he was bunking classes that day, and then opened his GPS to look up Aquariums in the city.
There was one not very far from the campus. Putting on a baseball cap, he walked out and even dared to play a song by The Black Skirts on the way.

There was not really anything Bobby was expecting that day, except for the fact that it was a metaphorical journey for him. He wandered aimlessly around the Aquarium, trying his best not to let his thoughts wander to Jisoo. The thought that he had never taken her to one flashed in his mind momentarily but decided not to think about it. Today, it was for himself.
The Aquarium was practically empty given the time he had chosen to visit, so he could wander around without feeling self conscious. He even decided to accept an invitation of feeding carps with a feeding bottle, an experience that weirded him out a little at how alive the fishes seem, given how they were a popular seafood dish.
He wandered into the Beluga Whales Tank which he had read up online on the bus. However, the first thing he saw was the shadow of a petite figure sitting on the floor by the corner of the tank. The girl whose long brown hair cascaded down her back and whose blue hoodie reflected the color of the water, had her face pressed close to the tank, and she sat there looking lost in the view. It made for a great picture, Bobby thought: a tiny, dainty figure sitting by the blue vastness of the water and shadowed by the enormous, white whales that swam past her nonchalantly. He stood there for a while debating if he wanted to take a picture. Looking around and seeing no one else with her, he took out his phone. What he had not thought about was fixing the settings on his camera, something he realized the moment the shutter snapped and a flash of light burst from his lens. In his haste to put the phone away, he dropped it instead.
He looked up at the girl who was now looking at him. He knew he had to apologize but no words would come out. He swallowed and waited for something to happen.
“It’s ok,” the girl said instead.
Bobby stared at her, wondering if she was being sarcastic. She was now standing up and he watched as she walked over to pick up his phone. Perhaps she’d delete it and maybe slap him. That wouldn’t be so bad than being reported.
“I know you,” the girl said as she stepped even closer. He noticed that she didn’t even glance at the screen. “You’re Jin Hwan’s friend.”
His immediate thought was whether he had been on a blind date with her, but knew he would have recognized her by now if he had.
He opened his mouth but closed it again. He stared at her, and without realizing took a deep, nervous breath. At this, the girl giggled. “Don’t worry. I know you didn’t mean any harm. I said I know you.”
“Have we met before?” he finally asked.
“Not personally,” she answered. “I came once to Jin Hwan’s birthday party, though that hardly counts. I’m actually your junior in the department. Also, Jennie Unnie was my roommate until last semester.”
“Oh,” Bobby felt a bit relieved. If she knew Jin Hwan and Jennie, she might not at least press charges.
“I’ve watched you guys perform often at the University” she continued. “You have a pretty guitar,” she added and then blushed.
Bobby, despite himself, thought it was quite charming.
“And don’t worry about the picture,” she added hastily to cover herself. “Like I said…”
“I’m so sorry,” Bobby interjected. “I just thought it made a great picture. Also, your face isn’t showing. You can delete it yourself right now…”
The phone was still in her hand and now she looked at the screen. To his surprise, she just smiled. “I did think it would make a great picture. Can I have it for my instagram?”
Bobby had to chuckle at her response. “Sure.”
“Don’t you have classes today?” she asked, handing the phone back to him.
“I’m bunking.”
“Me too,” she said. “I just came here to de-stress. I like fishes.”
“Its actually my first time here,” he told her.
They stood there like that for a while.
“Then…” she waved her arm in a motion of leaving, “I’ll get going…”
Bobby stood there, racking his brain and trying to decide. However, before he could decide, he found himself calling after her, “Wait.”
The girl turned to look at him.
“My name’s Bobby,” he began.
“I know,” she said and then bit her lips as another blush tinged her cheek. “I’m Chae Young.”
“Chae Young,” Bobby repeated.
Cautiously, uncertainly, he asked, “Do you wanna get coffee with me or something? That is if you don’t have anything else.”
He watched a deep blush spread from her cheek to her neck, and watched as she bit her lips. Self consciously playing with her hair, she half-whispered, “Um, ok.”
Awkwardly, they stood there for a while. Suddenly realizing what was expected of him, Bobby motioned forward, “Shall we?”
She nodded.
Quietly, they fell into step with each other.
Outside, Spring was slowly melting away into summer.