05: to stay afloat

Irene says that she doesn’t need fancy dates and expensive plans to have a good time, and a part of Mingyu is glad that she says that, but another part of him simply doesn’t care because he wants the world for this girl. Unfortunately, all they have is Mr. Lee’s takeout and Mingyu’s couch. It’s not so unfortunate, but his couch will never have a view of the New York skyline.

“Gyu,” Irene draws Mingyu’s attention back to her, “what do you want to do for New Year’s Eve? Do you want to go out or stay home?”

“I want to take you out,” Mingyu answers for the third time. Each time Irene asks him for his plans, this is what he answers with—despite already knowing the answer. He looks at her straight in the eyes and clenches his jaw. “Irene, I don’t care what you say. I want to—I need to take you out somewhere. You deserve more than our torn neighborhood.”

Irene purses her lips and clears though it seems more obvious for her to sigh in frustration.

“Where do you want to take me out?”

“Anywhere with a view of the skyline,” Mingyu blurts out. Of the three times Irene has asked him for his plans, this is the first where she cares to entertain him. “I’ve only seen New York’s in pictures, and-and I really want to experience it with you.”

The thought makes Irene’s lips tilt upward in a small smile. She places her chopsticks back inside her Styrofoam box and puts her hand on top of his.

“Then let’s go. I’m sure we can find a rooftop somewhere.”

This takes Mingyu aback. “R-Really?”

“Yes,” Irene beams. “If it’s what you want, then I’ll have it.”

Mingyu goes silent at her kindness. It’s clear to him that Irene wants to stay home for New Year’s Eve, yet here is she obliging to his vision of showing her the grandiosity of New York. His heart fills up with that warm feeling again, and he really can’t help himself from smiling.

- - - - -

The rooftop of their apartment is anything but extravagant. It’s not exactly clean, and the view it has of New York is small. But Irene brought up a blanket along with some popcorn, and now it’s everything beautiful. Mingyu has his arms wrapped around Irene’s waist, pulling her close to create warmth in the freezing winds. On top of both of them is the large blanket that creates a tent-like structure that resembles a smaller form of home.

Neither one of them say anything, but neither of them have a need for it.

In the distance, fireworks are going off, people are yelling, the sky is smiling, and on that very rooftop, two people are sharing a kiss.

It’s 2019.

This is the first year where Mingyu has someone in his arms.

Irene moves herself away from Mingyu for a short second and places her lips on his neck. He gasps at the unexpected feeling but quickly composes himself in order to not look like an idiot. It doesn’t even last long because Irene moves back away to lean her head on his chest. Her hands are the next to move, and they move to his shaky hands, squeezing and comforting them.

- - - - -

“How was New Year’s?” Dean asks Mingyu after he finishes playing a short riff on his guitar. Today Jennie Kim is on the rooftop with them, painting her nails red and letting them dry in the wind. While Mingyu was initially unsure if he still wanted to talk with Dean at that point, Jennie smiled at him and made him feel like they were friends.

“It was alright.” Mingyu tries to play it off cool, but something must have given him away. Or perhaps it’s impossible to conceal the fact that he’s utterly smitten with Irene, his beautiful neighbor with the softest lips and softest hair.

“Alright?” Dean doesn’t believe it the second it comes out of his mouth. “That’s a load of bull. Jennie and I tried to come up on the roof, but you were totally eating Irene’s mouth.”

Mingyu’s cheeks heat up despite the cool wind. “That’s not true,” he stammers. “It was only a kiss.”

“You don’t have to be shy about stuff like that,” Jennie interjects. She has just finished painting the nails of one hand and is now blowing at it. “It’s normal for guys your age to date.” Her eyes narrow mischievously, and in that moment, she is the old Jennie Kim who yells at him each time she sees him. “She’s a bit too old for you, isn’t she?”

“Jennie,” Dean warns.

“I’m serious.” Jennie stops making a face and tilts her head in question. “We’re all from Korea. We all know the rules for dating.”

“What rules?” Dean scoffs.

Mingyu knows exactly what Jennie is talking about, however. People tend to stare at couples with an age difference between them. He doesn’t care, and none of the New Yorkers would care either (and since when did New Yorkers care about anything anyways?), but he understands that it’s still a little strange.

“I feel weird about some of those things too,” Mingyu confesses. “I feel like she’s seen a good chunk of the world already, and I’m just a college student.”

“Girls like her don’t come out of nowhere,” Jennie says. It’s a true, profound statement, but then she shrugs it off like it’s nothing. “It doesn’t matter. I was just messing with you, Mingyu. If you’re happy with a 40-year-old woman, you’re happy.”

Dean scoffs at that, and he lights up his second cigarette.

“I wish you’d stop smoking.” Jennie wrinkles her nose and makes an effort to move herself away from him so that the smoke doesn’t blow in her face.

“I’ll stop smoking when I’m dead,” Dean says with a laugh. He takes a long drag of his cigarette and blows the smoke upward in the air. The sunset is already here, and it makes the gray smoke look a little red before it dissipates entirely.

“You idiot,” Jennie mutters. “Smoking will kill you.”

“If it does, then it would be a pleasure to be killed by something I love.”

“New song lyric?” Jennie retorts.

Dean winks. “Well, now that you think about it…”

While Jennie rolls her eyes and Dean laughs, Mingyu looks on at the beautiful couple. He’s not entirely sure how they still came to be, but what matters more is that they are together. The two of them are great complements of each other; there’s classy and chic Jennie with edgy and alternative Dean. It’s as if a spring day met the winter solstice.

- - - - -

“What are you most afraid of?” Irene, with her head on Mingyu’s chest, asks him when they’re wrapped up with her blankets in her bed. Tomorrow is a Monday, the first day back at university for Mingyu, but he doesn’t care because he’d rather listen to Irene run her mind.

“Dying, maybe.”

“Death is too overrated to be afraid of.”

“Death and dying are different things.”

“Oh yeah? What’s the difference?”

Mingyu runs his hand gently through Irene’s hair as he stares up at the cracking paint on the ceiling.

“Death is a blanket. It’s burying yourself six feet under where it sounds like cool silence and feels like soft rest. Dying… Dying is a hospital bed where needles poke into critical veins, and your feet have gone numb from too much bed rest.”

Irene rises up from her position to stare at Mingyu. He doesn’t understand why she has to look at him like that. Her eyes are wide, she’s frowning, and her open is slight ajar. It’s like he said something wrong, but he doesn’t know what.

“What?” he asks, confused. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” Irene shakes her head and quickly lies back down. “I guess it took me by surprise.”

“So, what are you afraid of?”

“Me?” she murmurs. “I guess I’m afraid of goodbyes.”

“Goodbyes? Why?”

“The thought of things ending…” Irene mumbles into Mingyu’s shirt. “I know everything has to end. It would be immature to want things to last forever, but I want some things to never end. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah.” Mingyu nods, understanding every bit of philosophy and worry in Irene’s voice. This is what he likes about them. Nothing ever feels off when they talk about things like this. “I wish some things lasted longer.”

They don’t say anything after that. Mingyu doesn’t even feel himself fall asleep. The next thing he knows, he wakes up in the same position with the view of Irene doused in light, her hand resting on his chest.

- - - - -

Wonwoo slaps Vernon in the back as they laugh.

“Dude, I ing knew it.” Wonwoo grins as he holds up Vernon’s test in the air. “You actually ing set the curve, holy .”

Vernon smiles, pushing Wonwoo away. “Okay, okay. I get it. Shut up. You’re embarrassing me.”

Indeed, the rest of their classmates have started to stare at them.

“Let’s get food,” Seungcheol says indifferently. While he knows how prestigious it is to set the curve for the class, he doesn’t care as long as he gets a decent grade in the end. “Let’s go to the place Mingyu likes.”

“Hell yeah, I’m down.” Mingyu agrees. “Come on guys.”

And the four of them, laughing and smiling, head to Koreatown to Mr. Lee’s famous restaurant. Mingyu hasn’t felt like this in so long, it’s almost foreign for him to walk with a hop in his step.

- - - - -

“Do you ever wonder where some of these words come from?” Mingyu asks Irene. They ditched Mingyu’s fire escape for the much more attractive rooftop. “I mean, why is a plate called a plate? Even if it has Latin roots, who invented Latin?”

Irene who had been reading The Great Gatsby looks up and frowns at him.

“You ask the strangest questions when you want to avoid studying,” she notes. “And I don’t know. Perhaps you should be a history major.”

Mingyu wrinkles his nose. “I wonder how much of my life has been spent studying for tests.” His eyes narrow, and he begins to smirk. “I wonder how much of my life will be spent kissing you.”

At that, Irene sets down her book and looks up at him with flushed cheeks.

“Mingyu,” she giggles through her words, “you should just be quiet and start studying.”

“No, I don’t want to.” Mingyu grins, closing his textbook.

Without another word, he leans forward to capture Irene’s lips in his. Mingyu wraps his arms around Irene’s smaller figure and pulls her in impossibly closer, as if he can’t get enough. Irene feels as light as a feather, the sun warms up their cool skins, and they’re both smiling into the kiss. It’s perfect. Why would anyone want to study if they can do this instead?

- - - - -

Dean is smoking on his fire escape again. Why he is’ there, Mingyu doesn’t know, but Dean is his friend, and he’s always more than happy to accompany his cynical friend for absolutely no reason.

It’s almost funny—Dean smoking on the fire escape. That has to be some sort of metaphor. Biting the hand that feeds you? Drowning the person who’s trying to rescue you? It doesn’t matter; it’s a funny scene regardless. Two, drowned out individuals with nothing better to do than smoke and study on a fire escape. Honestly, it’s more poetic than it is funny; it’s cinematic.

“You said you came here to study,” Dean breaks the silence, “so you brought out your textbook and camera. For the past 20 minutes, you’ve been on that camera.”

“And?” Mingyu points the camera towards the adjacent building’s windows. “I’m trying to do something here, Dean.”

“Not saying that you aren’t. I’m just saying what you’ve been doing.”

“Yeah, well, I’d appreciate if you didn’t make me feel bad about it.” Mingyu, after fixing the settings of the camera, starts to film the building’s lit up windows. “What about you? What are you doing? It’s been 20 minutes and that’s your third cigarette.”

“Introspection,” Dean replies without missing a beat.

“Intro-what now?”

“Introspection.” Dean grins in the corner of Mingyu’s eye. “It’s a fancy term for thinking about yourself.”

“So, you’re doing some self-reflection? Why? Did you do anything bad?”

“Why does a person need to do something bad before they want to think about themselves?” Dean scoffs and tosses his burnt-out cigarette onto the street. There must be a pile over there of all the cigarette butts he has thrown. “Anyways, I was just thinking of what I need to do. I mean, this isn’t my life, Ming. I have to better than what I am now.”

“And where is this coming from?”

Dean looks over at Mingyu as the latter stops filming the building across.

“With you and Irene,” Dean starts, “does your relationship ever make you think of the future? Like the ‘who will we be two years from now’ sort of thing?”

Mingyu thinks it about only for a few seconds before reaching the answer. “Yeah, I think about stuff like that. I think it extends out of our relationship too. I’m always wondering who I’ll be.”

“Well, I don’t really do that,” Dean confesses. His eyes have a faraway look in them as he stares at the ground several stories below them. “I live on a day-to-day basis. I,” he pauses and coughs, “just think about tomorrow. Never two months from now or two years from now. But… But after Jennie, I’m beginning to ask myself questions. Like, when will I ever make that album? When will I make that record company? When will I move out of here?” Dean looks back up Mingyu. “I’m old now Ming, and I’m not even 30.”

Mingyu steps backward and leans on the railings of the fire escape. It seems like Dean is having an existential crisis.

“Look, you’re fine,” Mingyu tries to reassure him. “It’s normal to be anxious of the future, but you don’t need to pore about it. Things will happen as they happen. Just wait.”

“I guess.” Dean shudders, and Mingyu’s not sure if it’s from the cold or if it’s because of his thoughts. “I thought I’d be living on top of the world by now. I guess 10-year-old me was a ing idiot, huh?”

“No. Just a big-eyed dreamer.”

Dean whistles. “Damn, Ming. For the first time, you’re the opposite of depressing.”

“Am I usually sad?”

“Usually?” Dean’s chuckles turn into a laugh. “You’re sad often, but you’re not sad often anymore if that makes any sense.”

“Uh, I guess it does.”

“But yeah, I’m just…” Dean takes another long, cinematic pause. His eyes look to a point in the horizon a million miles away. “I know I can be better than what I am now. It just that I’m not yet there because it’s within my grasp. I know I can, but it’s…” He sighs. “Dreams are dreams.”

“Don’t worry about it, Dean.” Mingyu pats his friend’s back. “We’ll get there.”

- - - - -

“Vernon is not going to be here today,” Seungcheol informs Wonwoo and Vernon on a Wednesday. “He is really tired from his job and wants to sleep all day.”

“Okay,” is Wonwoo’s answer. “I’ll send him pictures of the notes.”

“Is he alright, though?” Mingyu asks Seungcheol. He wonders why Vernon didn’t inform anyone else but Seungcheol, but at this point, they’re all close friends, and he really doesn’t need to worry about inner drama.

“He’s okay,” Seungcheol answers with a shrug. “Are we going to Mr. Lee’s again today?”

“,” Wonwoo murmurs, lightly chuckling. He has had his textbook out this entire time, but it seems like he’s following their conversation more than he is taking annotations. “Did it make that good of an impression on you, Seungcheol? Do you want to get fat eating there all the time?”

“Yes.” Seungcheol’s reply is serious despite the teasing tone in Wonwoo’s question. “Are we going? Let’s go.”

It throws Wonwoo off, but he shrugs and closes his textbook. “Alright then, let’s go.”

- - - - -

When Mingyu gets back home from another outing at Mr. Lee’s restaurant, he knocks on Irene’s door to see her since he hasn’t gotten the chance to do so all day. She doesn’t answer, and he immediately gets curious as to why. Irene doesn’t usually go out, and when she does, she’s usually back before 8PM.

“Irene?” He knocks on the door a few more times. “Are you home?”

Mingyu takes out his phone and calls her. Her phone rings a few times, and he can hear it ringing from within her apartment too. Then her door opens.

Today, Irene doesn’t look like her normal self. For starters, she’s crying.

“Irene!” Mingyu exclaims. He steps forward and engulfs her in a hug despite her soft sobs. After pulling away and closing the door behind him, he seats themselves on her couch to get a better look at her. Her eyes are puffy and red, and by the sweatpants she only wears indoors, she hasn’t been out today at all. “Are you okay?” He pushes stray hairs away from her face. “What’s wrong?”

Irene doesn’t say or do anything except cry more. She leans forward and rests her head against Mingyu’s chest as her sobs shake her body. Although her movements are gentle and slow, Mingyu can feel the desperation in them. It’s too much like that time he had a breakdown in her presence.

Mingyu knows at this point that it would be much, much better if he shut his mouth and let her cry. For all he knows, she could have been suffering all day without having anyone to talk to; he might be the only person that knows she has been crying. Therefore, he hugs her tightly and runs his hands across her arms to silently comfort her.

She doesn’t need to talk if she doesn’t want to, and he doesn’t either.

- - - - -

It takes Irene until Thursday evening when she’s ready to open up to Mingyu about why she was crying. At that point, Mingyu doesn’t care to know why—all he cares about is that she’s alright.

“No,” she insists anyways, “you deserve to know.”

“Okay,” Mingyu says in an effort to get her restlessness to stop. He had a long day, and it is only now where he really needs to study that she’s bringing this up. “What’s up?”

“Mingyu, close your book.”

Mingyu stares at her. “Irene.” He knows that’s it important now. “What is it?” His mind immediately starts to form theories. “Is anyone bothering you?”

Irene sighs, shakes her head, and leans over to close Mingyu’s book. She takes his hand and leads him to his fire escape. There the wind is cool compared to his stuffy apartment. The metal of the railings is so cold that Mingyu has trouble gripping onto them without shaking.

“I was crying for a lot of reasons yesterday,” Irene says after taking a deep breath. “One of them has nothing to do you. The other…,” her voice gets shakier by the syllable, “is all about you.”

“What is it?” Mingyu tries to comfort her by cupping her cheeks, but she pushes him away and shudders.

“I don’t know how to go about bringing something like this up.”

Mingyu knows the feeling all too well.

“What if I tried guessing?” he suggests. She looks at him with wide, interested eyes so he continues. “I’ll guess all the things I’m worried about first so you won’t have to worry about me getting upset.”

Irene ponders it for a second. “But what if you guess it?”

“Then you’ll feel better that I figured it out, and you wouldn’t have to physically say it.” Mingyu shrugs. “It’s always worse to say something out loud than have someone find out.”

“Okay,” Irene says with a hint of hesitance. “Go.”

“Did someone physically harass you? Just shake your head.” At Mingyu’s words, Irene shakes her head. “Are you physically ill with something serious?” Shakes. “Are you getting blackmailed?” Shakes. “Are you bankrupt or can’t pay rent?” Shakes. “Are you worried that you have a stalker?” Shakes. “Are you… Is there anyone else?”

Irene doesn’t shake her head, but she doesn’t nod either.

“Irene.” Mingyu can already feel his throat closing on itself. “You can tell me. It’s o-okay.”

At that, Irene stops looking at the distance and snaps her head towards Mingyu. “What are you talking about?” she demands angrily. “It’s not okay!”

“So, there is someone else?” Mingyu swallows his dry spit and wonders if he even wants to know something like that.

“No,” Irene hurriedly states. She shakes her head and looks back into the distance. “It’s quite complicated, but I’m not cheating on you. There’s no one else, Gyu. It’s only you.” Her words bring a wave of relief to Mingyu, but it comes as quickly as it left.

“Then what is it?” he presses. “Why are you so stressed about it?”

“Because,” she whines, “it’s…unorthodox and maybe it’s illegal, I don’t know.”

“Are you involved with the mafia?” Mingyu blurts out. He doesn’t know of any mafias in New York, but perhaps Irene has a past with them in Korea. It honestly wouldn’t surprise him; he has watched plenty of movies about beautiful women with unfortunate ties to unscrupulous men.

“Mingyu!” Irene actually laughs a little, but she shakes her head. “It’s not the mafia. It’s not that illegal.”

“Are there degrees of legality?” Mingyu asks. “Irene, cut to the chase. You have me extremely worried.”

Irene sighs again, and this time she has the courage to look at him straight in the eye. It’s funny how it was only a few months ago where Mingyu couldn’t meet her in the eye, but now the tables have turned. However, these occurrences are incomparable; Mingyu was nervous because she was Irene. Today, Irene is nervous because of an external factor.

“When I was living in Korea,” she starts slowly, “I had a past life. You know that, right?” Mingyu nods. “Well, it was a life filled with several things. A large social circle. A big house. Lots of clothes and weekend activities. And…” She takes another deep breath and stares at him. “I have a husband.”

Mingyu blinks, not quite understanding it—but then it falls into place. He vaguely recalls Dean noting a large ring she wore. It’s a wide hole and it can mean many things, but it is now when he realizing this. Perhaps her husband is the reason why she’s crying. Perhaps—Perhaps her husband is the reason why she left. There are many things going in Mingyu’s head, and he doesn’t know how to organize them. But he’s honestly…not surprised. A beautiful woman as elegant and kind as Irene surely is too good to be true. Of course she was—is—married.

He looks at her with a trembling mouth.

If she has a husband, then what does that make him?

“Before you say anything,” Irene says with a hint of familiar desperation in her voice, “I want you to know that I left Korea because of him, okay? I fell out of love, and I felt suffocated. This is why I’m here. With you.” She reaches forward to hold Mingyu’s hand, and he doesn’t deny her of the contact. “I like you, Mingyu.”

Mingyu glances at her up and down. He believes her. Of course, he believes her. It’s Irene. She has more of his trust than his closest friends. But he knows there’s a point where believing people blindly is dangerous.

“So why were you crying?” he mumbles. “Did he do something?”

“No.” Irene shakes her head. “But it was killing me. I fell out of love with him, yes, but I never wanted the worst for him.” She squeezes Mingyu’s hand. “And it was killing me that you didn’t know about him either. You deserve the truth.”

“And is that all?”

“To be honest, no. A lot of my old life makes me cry. But,” Irene laughs a laugh laced with sadness, “that can’t be helped. You have those days too, don’t you? When you’re missing people and things.”

“I do get those days,” Mingyu confirms. He eyes Irene with sadness in his throat. Now that he knows of her troubles, he feels a little sorry for her. It seems like she had everything, and now she’s here with him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” Irene nods, smiling. “I feel a lot better. Thanks, Mingyu.”

“It’s no problem.” He returns her smile with his own.

- - - - -

It comes out of nowhere.

A wave of gray.

It hits Mingyu right as he’s about to fall asleep, and suddenly he’s not falling asleep anymore. In desperation, he turns to the girl sleeping beside him and watches her breathe to coax himself back into sleeping.

The wave of gray washes back into the ocean, and Mingyu holds onto Irene tightly as he tries to back to sleep.

It takes only a few minutes.

- - - - -

“Jesus Christ!” Jennie Kim exclaims at her phone. The three of them—Dean, Mingyu, and her—are on the rooftop yet again. Mingyu has his study materials, Dean has his guitar, and Jennie has her phone—stock filled with all sorts of Korean dramas, apparently.

“What’s wrong now?” Dean mutters over the wind. He has been trying to compose a new song within the past hour, but Jennie makes it impossible with her endless expressions and comments. “Did someone finally die?”

“No!” Jennie glares at him. “I’m watching The Heirs, Dean. You wouldn’t understand.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Girls.”

“You’d like this too.” Jennie pulls her tongue out at him. “Why don’t you write about otherworldly pleasures? That’s a theme in The Heirs.”

“Maybe, I will…” Dean murmurs. The magical thing about being an artist like Dean is that he has the wonderful ability to see everything trapped in nothing. “Maybe I’ll even title it after something worldly and stupid.”

“Like what?” Jennie teases. “Like your own name?”

“Very f