Her food is getting cold.

Byulyi leans on her elbows, the coldness from the table burns against her skin, sleeves riding up.  

There’s another bowl of food across from her, a cup of milky coffee lingering.

She’s alone.  

Because she wanted to be.

It feels like eons ago, when Hyejin was sitting across from her, leaning towards her, smiling, stupidly soft and happy.

There’s no one else in the shop, just the blue washed lights, hurting her eyes, stinging eerily close to the feeling of gathering tears.

She sighs, picks up the stringy noodles with her chopsticks.  

The sound of clanging pots and pans drift from the kitchen, echo loudly with the terse conversation she had just had with the other.

Let’s break up.

The words had eaten away from her, until they consumed all of her and escaped past her lips.  The crumbling way Hyejin’s expression had fallen had been a strange, unpleasant feeling. A hot heavy iron ball sinking deep into the pit of her stomach.

The night is dark, the glowing lights of the neon signs blurring past the glass, the fuzzy feeling of her eyes.

The time is 2:15 am.

She should be sleeping, she should be at home, unscathed.  

But 2:15 am has become to mean Hyejin looking at her, Hyejin smiling at her, Hyejin holding her hand and pulling her closer.

It means Hyejin makes time for her.  It meant Hyejin would forgo sleep if it meant spending even just half an hour with her.

The dark creases under her eyes, the sallow tint to her skin, the harrowing sharp lines of her thinning face.

They all meant she loved her.

Maybe a bit too much.

She leaves bills on the table, scattered around the uneaten food.  The rush of the night air hits her, she blinks, holding her jacket tighter around herself.  She walks away from the bright lights, the white noise of people coming and going, dead at night stores, buzzing clubs and restaurants.

She can hear her voice, spilling over her, a sweet curling thick feeling, catching at .  The rhyme and time of her voice, familiar, heart stuttering, a sudden stop.

She shudders at the feeling, terrifying.

-

She wakes up in the morning, she’s not sure how but she does.  A bittersweet win.

A grogginess settles over her, the clock on her phone reads 6:00 am.  Byulyi turns on the television, the morning news on their entertainment corner.  The host points at the giant screen behind her, Byulyi has the volume low, still caught in her sleep.  But she knows too well what they’re talking about. The picture of Hyejin is from last night, a couple of hours ago.  In her silver silk dress and plaid jacket, hair blowing back with the autumn breeze.

Pop singer Hwasa spotted late last night in the streets of Hong Kong, alone and visibly upset.

Byulyi mutes it, but she can still hear the news, can still see the pictures of Hyejin, long hair cascading down her back, hands in the pockets of her jacket.

There’s shots of her hailing a cab, climbing into the back of one.  Byulyi turns off the television, lets the controller hit the coffee table, knocking over the small vase of dying flowers with a clank.  She makes way to the bathroom, turning on the hot water of her shower stall.

When she stands under it, the water is still cold, hitting hard against her skin, painful and biting and unforgiving.

-

Her music is playing from the stores she passes on her way to work.  The sultry, mellowing sounds of Hwasa singing. It’s not different than the day before.  She’s not sure why she expected it to be now. It’s still mesmerizing, still intriguing, addicting.

She bites her tongue, walks faster past the storefronts, into her office building.

She sits on her small cubicle, turning on her computer, watching it lazily boot up.  There’s still a picture of her and Hyejin saved as her phone wallpaper. She stares at it as it fades to black.  Thumb unlocking it again to show the wide smile Hyejin had given the camera.

She leans her cheek on the palm of her hand, listening to the whirring of her computer finally turning on.  

She stares at the columns and rows of her excel sheet, numbers merging together into one big fuzzy black blob.

She clicks in numbers, she calls people for clarification.  She sends emails, drinks coffee, with extra milk, two spoonfuls of sugar.  She lets it get cold and drinks it with distaste.

The day passes like this and she doesn’t think about Hyejin.  Not when she passes the stores playing her music on her way back home.  Not when she gets home and she turns on the television and the music program is showing her latest music video.  Not when she locks and unlocks her phone as she stares into nothing.

-

It’s weeks later that she gets a package delivered to her door.  The paper wrapping is ripping at the seams, the return address scribbled out.  It’s small but bulky. Byulyi tears layer after layer of stiffed paper before it finally unrolls into a cassette.  

She turns it over and runs her thumb over the writing on the label.  She recognizes it easily. Scrawled messages on paper, on pictures, on skin.

wind flower .

Byulyi turns it over again, throws it into an empty drawer where she won’t have to look at it.  The day goes by. She can’t sleep, her phone reads 2:27 am .  She stares at the ceiling, eyes burning.

It’s an out of body experience, how she gets up, throwing the covers off herself, walking into the kitchen, pulling open the drawer.  She finds the cassette player in the closet. She pushes in the cassette, closes the small door and presses the play button. It takes a bit of time before the first notes happen.

My obvious love story…

It’s Hyejin’s voice, just like how she expected but still wasn’t ready for.

The song plays slowly, an upbeat tempo to their stupid love story.

She presses her balled up fists to her eyes, until they hurt and her vision bursts into white, kaleidoscope colors.  A breath escapes her into a shuddering sigh, catching her off guard, vulnerable and weak.

The sickening pressure of tears builds up again, heart stuttering, she thinks it must feel like this when people die.

-

The sky overhead fades into dark blues, inky blackness that paints over the constellations.  She swears she can see some stars, gaping holes into whatever kind of heaven is up there.

The night is on a journey to leaving her behind.  Time ticking away, young people still out, restless bodies trying desperately to burn out energy.

It’s quite enough that she can hear the sounds of the night life, the songs playing, the happy sounds from people.

And then

My obvious love story it’s just a common break up…

Faint, floating up to her, catching her off guard.  It’s Hyejin’s voice, it’s the song she’d heard ages ago.  The cassette still in the player, left without rewinding.

It’s the second time she listens to it and it breaks her heart.

Would they know it’s about her.

Would they listen to the lyrics and say it’s about that normal girl with a boring office job.  It’s about how someone so plain and boring managed to catch her attention. It’s about late night dates that were too much for someone so unknown.  It’s about a heartbroken heartbreaker who finally deserved to break a heart.

It’s about how Hyejin loved Byulyi enough to let Byulyi make her unhappy.

The song fades away but Byulyi can still hear it in her head.