Chapter 7: The Confession

Song - Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi

Joohyun wakes up to Bogum’s arm around her, gentle and protective, his face two centimeters away from her hair, eyes closed in sleep and mouth slightly parted in almost faint snoring. She has waked up too many times in this position but it still feels the same. Her heart still beats the same way and she wonders if she still believes the story she read way back. About dead stars. And how it’s not all electricity and magic but choice.

It’s been three weeks.

Bogum has not asked her anything, has not even talked about why she probably looked like when she came home late that evening and he had no idea where she came from. He simply smiled at her, kissed the top of her head, and asked if she already ate dinner. That night, Joohyun almost told him the truth.

Almost. But she couldn’t. The guilt is eating her and it’s eating her so much because she knows it’s not just Bogum but herself, too. She is not this horrible person. She is not stupid, stupid, stupid. She had bad decisions before but at the end of the day, she is reasonable and she knows the difference between right and wrong. But she clenches her fists every time and reminds herself that Bogum did nothing wrong. He absolutely did nothing wrong.

Love, however, isn’t guilt, or the feeling of righteousness, or even pity. It encompasses all that and reason especially, and Joohyun doesn’t want to believe that. She wants to stay rational and choose the right thing. She knows the right thing is not to hurt Bogum, to love Bogum, like what she promised him in front of the altar that day but not hurting Bogum and loving Bogum are not mutually exclusive. She realizes that when she sees Seulgi again after three weeks.

Joohyun figures she did a good job in those three weeks, staying out of Seulgi’s path despite the city not even being that big, and their workplaces not exactly being that far. She used to visit the veterinary clinic Seulgi was working at a lot times of times before. Sometimes, they would grab coffee together, have lunch, or just pop in to see how her best friend is doing. It’s not even because of embarrassment with what she did that made her want to avoid Seulgi although that, too, is a huge part, but Joohyun just doesn’t know what to do when she sees her ex-best friend again.

It’s an early afternoon and Joohyun just came from a lunch meeting. She turns around the corner, looking perfect in a blush pink dress, black blazer, and heels despite the stress she currently feels because of that particular deal the lunch meeting is all about, putting her phone back to her purse after calling Bogum to update him about her current cause of stress, and just when she looks ahead again, there’s Seulgi, in her colorful veterinarian terno and doctor’s coat, looking right back at her.

She can’t even pretend not to see her because their eyes met and the world didn’t stop but Joohyun’s does and all she can see is Seulgi in front of her which makes it a lot harder to pretend that she didn’t see her.

Despite what happened three weeks ago, they find themselves not on each other’s throat, or the police station with stalking and libel charges, but grabbing a cup of coffee and sitting a feet away from each other, leaning against the flower box that blooms daisies in front of the coffee shop instead of getting a table because of the pack of students inside. But Joohyun knows even if there are available tables, they’ll probably sit outside anyway. She knows this is not going to take long.

“I’m sorry,” Joohyun speaks first, gently shaking the strong cup of Americano and looking at it instead of Seulgi.

Seulgi turns to look at her for a moment and doesn’t say anything before she looks ahead again and simply sips from her own cup of coffee — Caramel Macchiato. Joohyun does the same. The silence between them is not even comfortable but it’s not suffocating as well. It’s a silence that they can bear but it’s also one that can be erased altogether.

“Why did you do that?” Seulgi finally asks, glancing at Joohyun with an unreadable expression. It’s probably a mix of confusion, hurt, and anger but none of that shows in her voice. Right now, she just wants to know why.

Joohyun stays quiet for a long time. After three weeks, she had a lot of time to think, and she realizes that at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how she felt for Seulgi, it doesn’t matter if she is in love with her for years, it doesn’t matter that she’s married now and she realizes that she still loves her best friend. It doesn’t matter that she’s with Bogum now and Seulgi is with Jisoo. All of those don’t matter because the fact still remains that what she did is stupid and she hurt Seulgi. It just doesn’t justify hurting someone, especially someone she claims is so important to her. It does give her reason why she did what she did but it doesn’t justify it.

And so does hurting Bogum in the process. She’s not ‘saving’ him from pain by stalling, by pretending nothing is wrong, by not telling him anything, by allowing him not to ask. She’s not removing the pain by not allowing the pain set in. She’s merely prolonging it and at the end of the day, it’ll hurt more.

“I loved you since we were in high school.” She can’t even tell her everything now but she figures this is a start. Joohyun looks at her best friend, briefly seeing confusion take over before something worse, pity. And the thing is, she can’t hate Seulgi for looking at her like that because she, of all people, knows how good of a person Seulgi is. Seulgi can spit at her, can mock her, can laugh at her for being stupid but Seulgi will not crush someone’s heart for loving her. She will not break someone’s heart even if Joohyun thinks she deserves it.

“I’m sorry, Joohyun.” Seulgi’s voice is soft and she just utters the only words she thinks is necessary at the moment. Her eyes are the same that used to look at Joohyun when they are talking about silly things, when they are laughing about the impossibilities of each other, when they are themselves. Her hand reaches out to Joohyun’s and she grips it gently.

“Did you — Did you ever have feelings for me?” Joohyun chokes out the words, feeling embarrassed, but she has a feeling that this will be their last conversation anyway and she has to know. She’ll regret it. Surely, she’ll regret not seeing it and not doing anything but it’ll be the only way she can move on. She has to.

“Who wouldn’t like the most popular girl in the campus?” Seulgi chuckles lightly, not letting go of Joohyun’s hand. Then, she turns to her and softly says, “But you know me. I will always choose friendship over the possibility of a romantic relationship. Always.”

“What about Jisoo?”

“I know, even before, that she’s not just a friend. I know she’ll be the person I will be willing to risk everything in order to have something more with her. If I could wake up each day with her and if I could lie down each night beside her, I’ll willing to take the risk.”

“I’m not worth the risk,” Joohyun says with a weak smile. She doesn’t want it to sound too disappointed and devastated but she knows it still did.

“You are my best friend,” Seulgi tells her — reminds her — and there’s this pained expression in Seulgi’s face that just wants to hold Joohyun but also knows that’s not what Joohyun needs right now. She doesn’t need comforting touches and white lies. She needs to hear the truth because Seulgi also knows that somehow, that’s what she kept from her. “And I want you to know that I love you with all my heart,” she gives her a soft smile, “but now the way you love me.”

“I know.” She looks down at Seulgi’s hand on her and glances at Seulgi again, a smile plastered on her shaking face. She thinks she’s handling this better than she first thought but maybe she’s wrong. Her hands are shaking and her coffee is almost spilling. But there’s still one thing. “Hey, Seul, can you please tell I’m sorry to Jisoo, too?”

Seulgi nods and Joohyun smiles again. There’s this thing about smiles that even if it’s not true, when you do it anyway, it doesn’t hurt and Joohyun will even say that it decreases the pain, if that’s even possible. And she realizes it does that because she’s trying to keep other people from hurting and that’s why it hurts more for her. She can literally feel herself crumbling if she doesn’t have a coffee in her left hand and Seulgi’s hand on her other.

Joohyun leaves with her heart carefully placed in a beautiful box Seulgi made, with flowers from twenty-four years of their friendship in it and the feelings she had for her best friend. Seulgi had given everything back to her with all tenderness and care that it is almost impossible for any of it to break.

Almost.

She plucks the flowers out of the box one by one and feels herself bleeding each time. Joohyun can only hope that after this, after the pain for herself, she can stop hurting the people around her, too, especially those who gave her their life — his life.

She stirs on her side of the bed and Bogum shuffles to allow her to move. But she doesn’t leave the bed like she usually does. She sits down and gazes at Bogum, his arms on her waist, his face on her chest, his life on hers. She brings her hand up to move some stray locks out of his face and gently touches the smoothness of his cheeks, his defined jaw, cheekbones…

Bogum slowly blinks his eyes, escaping from the hypnosis of sleep, as he feels something wet on his forehead. He looks up to see Joohyun’s eyes on him. “Love?” Then, he notices she’s crying and the wetness on his forehead is, in fact, from her tears. “Hey, love, what’s wrong?” He’s immediately sitting up and reversing their position a few seconds ago, her arms on his waist, her face on his chest.

“I fell in love with someone else.”

She watches the play in Bogum’s face that she expects will end on an abandoned side of bed, coldness, and fury but instead, the arms that are holding her only tightens, not letting go, and he buries his face on top of her head, muffling whatever words he is telling her. But she knows what he’s telling her. She understands him even without words.

He’s telling her it’s alright and that he loves her away.

She doesn’t know if she hears it right or if it is what he is even talking about but she also hears him tell her that the stars aren’t all dead.

Bogum’s hand reaches for hers and even though Joohyun knows the stars are, in fact, all dead, she allows herself to believe him for that moment. She allows herself to be embraced, to be held, to be loved, by this beautiful, wonderful man. And then, she’ll do the right thing. Hurting Bogum and loving Bogum is pretty much like hurting Seulgi and loving Seulgi, Joohyun realizes. She can do both, she can do them at the same time, but she doesn’t have to.

The stars are already dead since a long time ago.

-

A/N: Perhaps I should explain. There's this story from one of my college textbooks in Literature. It's a short fiction about lovers and I'm not sure with the title but I think it's called "Dead Stars" or something and it told about how love isn't electricity like in the movies. Love should be love even without electricity, thus, dead stars. I might have ruined the story with that bad explanation but it's a really good short story and I remember it until now because it hit somehow.

Also, guys. I thank you for reading my story even though I update with no regularity. I appreciate your comments and knowing how the story is going for you.