Ten days before

                                     I suppose, going off at that moment was the biggest mistake that I did that day. I did go off. Nothing strange happened, nothing caught my eyes all the way to the washroom down the vast hallway outside the reception, passing the fellow patrons who were engrossed in their own worlds. As I approached the ladies’, however, the first person I ran into, standing on the path to the ladies’ was Woohyun, looking as immaculate as ever, one hand in his pocket and the other holding the phone that he’d never changed. He glanced up at me, perhaps perturbed by the possible passerby. He saw me, and his face changed. He was, I noticed, smiling slightly into the phone in his hand. Upon grasping me standing before him, however, his expression perceptibly changed. He went blank, as if I was the last person he wanted to see for the entire day, as if, despite being in literally the same wedding reception for the past couple of hours, he hadn’t even expected the possibility of us coming across each other.

I couldn’t help it. A month apart hadn’t done anything to my poor paining heart. I still liked him, i knew that much. I still had him hovering in my mind like a ghost, a painful memory that would resurface every time I’d see the depth of his empty eyes, like a scab being pulled off a wound, time and time again.

“H-Hey” I greeted. I knew I shouldn’t have done that. Had Sung Gyu seen me, he would have hit me on the back of my head and called me a fool.

I thought Woohyun would pretend that I did not exist. But he didn’t. Instead, he gave me just a ghost of a smile. “Hi”

We haven’t seen each other for an entire month, and seeing him now, happy and blossomed than never before, felt like a spring rain in the eternal drought of my life. Myriad times had I wanted to see him, sneak out of home in the night, perhaps; catch even a slight glimpse of him like an animal in famine. But Sung Gyu had stopped me time and time again. ‘You’re just hurting yourself’, he had told me, his voice deep and quiet, in this way that he always did when he was talking about something that he absolutely meant. And Sung Gyu was right. The very sight of him was paining me. But what if that was all I needed, to know that I was still alive?

“So, umm…” I fiddled with my hands. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh umm” I saw how his ears visibly reddened. I have dated him for three years, spent the best part of my life with him; and that was enough to read him right off the first page.

“I...am with Yoonmi, actually” He continued, rubbing the back of his head; and at that moment, I felt something uncomfortable settling in my heart despite already knowing what it was going to be. He was with Yoonmi. He had accompanied her to the ladies and waited for her to be done with, just like he’d done for me million times. In the back of my mind, a voice was straining to scream at him. It was me you should be doing that for; you should have waited for ME.

But as difficult as it was, i had to accept how much the things have changed. Woohyun did not look at me in the same way that he always did. His eyes did not have the warmth that he first had when he’d taken my hand and helped me into the bus, and somewhere later in our time together, into his arms, into his life. It was as if all the times we’d spent together, huddled under the blankets in cold spring mornings, walking hand in hand along the river bank and warm starless nights we’d sat together searching in each others eyes, had all since disappeared into oblivion. It was as if everything that we used to be no longer mattered now. Woohyun didn’t say anything afterwards, neither did I. And as I passed by him, pushed open the door and eased myself into the washroom, I felt the last string between us finally snap and disappear. There was a sense of finality, him moving forward faster than I could ever bring myself to. I knew that I had to move on. But how? Unable to work out the answer myself, feeling like I was just about to break apart, I headed straight to a cubicle. I spent a little longer inside, allowing my heart to calm down, allowing the moist in my eyes to dry up.

I exited the cubicle a little while later, and when I did, a familiar figure was there standing by the vast Bathroom mirror, now in a dress which was different from what she wore before, her hands carefully removing the rings from her ears.

I halted for a moment, a mixture of emotions stirring inside me.

The thing was, I didn’t hate Yoonmi. I could never bring myself to hate someone that I had loved and cherished. As important as Woohyun was for me, I wouldn’t blame her for taking him away. Yoonmi indeed was charming and beautiful. She was petite and kind and had this warm, tranquil vibe to her that would always make you feel comfortable in her presence. Comparing to her, indeed I wasn’t anything much. I was just nondescript; ordinary. She was everything that I could never be. And in that sense, it was almost too certain that someone like Woohyun; who always seeked for tranquility in life, would choose her over me. I had been too much work for him. He admitted it himself. God knew how Sung Gyu could tolerate me for this long. But then again, our views on most things were almost the same.

“Hey” Yoonmi greeted me, her smile so bright and her eyes crinkling on the corners; she never felt anything against anyone, she was always too pure for that.

“Hey Yoonmi” I greeted back, holding my hand underneath the motion sensitive tap. For a moment, it was only the sound of water running and the light tinkle of Yoonmi’s jewelry. I glanced at her surreptitiously through the mirror, feeling extremely self-conscious. I realised, subconsciously I was comparing myself to her; the shape of her eyes which were nothing like mine, the brilliance of her skin a deep contrast to the paleness that I had; how her hair shimmered like a waterfall while mine remained a dark wavy mess. In the back of my head, I ticked off everything that I had never been for Nam Woohyun. Indeed, it was why he left me for her. I’d been nothing compared to the perfection that she was.

I hadn’t realised that I was staring at her through the mirror, the motionsense tap turning off and on again and again. She smiled at me warmly as she met my eyes, and I felt my cheeks heating up, embarrassed. I wondered if she felt it too, that I was seeing all the flaws of myself against her.

“Saera there’s-,” She piped up suddenly, and I turned to face her. She took a slow step towards me, her hand reached out, her eyes focused on something on my shoulder. She then dusted away what I could only see as cake crumbs. God, Sung Gyu must have spilled it all over my head.

“How did that get there?” Yoonmi laughed, a sound which reminded me of distant wedding chimes. “An odd place for cake crumbs to be”

“Sung Gyu, probably” I said grimly, recalling the way he’d held the plate of cake over my head a couple of minutes ago. He’d always been a messy eater. He’d probably dusted it all over me as he ate.

“Ah” Yoonmi raised her brows and proceeded to wash her hands. As she did, she met my eyes, a strange look in them as if she was seeing right through me. “So how are you guys?”

“Who? Sung Gyu and me?” I reached for the tissue dispenser and pulled out a sheaf of it.

“Yeah?”

“We’re good” I replied, and almost unconsciously, at the thought of him, a fond smile spread across my lips. “It’s his birthday, actually. Old man’s turning thirty two”

Yoonmi laughed. “He looks nothing like it” She reached for the tissue dispenser herself.

“Yeah, he looks like a kid” I laughed, and the memory of him squeaking at the vouchers for the games made me laugh. “He acts like one too”

Yoonmi joined in, laughing herself. “So true, he does!”

A moment of quietness as she wiped her hands off the paper towels, and then she added, almost too naturally. “And I think you two look good together”

I halted, the damp tissues turning cold in my hands. Something shifted inside me, something warm and unfamiliar. But then I dismissed her with a laugh. “Sung gyu and I?”

“Yeah...you are so much alike” She replied as she concentratedly dusted her cheeks. “In a good way I mean”

I mulled it for a moment. It was true, in a sense; we were too much alike, Sung Gyu and I. But still-,

“I haven’t really thought about it” I shrugged. “He’s my best friend anyway”

“That doesn’t mean things couldn’t change” Yoonmi looked at me meaningfully, her eyes bearing into mine as if she was trying to plant that thought inside me. She left me for my own thoughts after that point, the tap by itself, the water running and filling the quiet of the room. I gazed at my own reflection for a little while longer, at where the cake crumbs dusted my shoulders, at where the champagne spilled and stained my skirt. I mulled over her words for a moment, over how things changed; how Yoonmi and I went from Best friends to just friends, how Woohyun and I changed from lovers to strangers. All of a sudden, I was seeing the possibilities, as images of the Sung Gyu I had always known and cherished filled my mind. I was seeing the possibilities, of how the line could be blurred, the line between best friends and lovers, until there was nothing, nothing at all.

“Saera, there you are!” Sung Gyu called me as I made my way towards the table that I’d left him in. “Jesus, for a moment I thought you’d slipped into the toilet”

I glanced down at Sung Gyu, at the ripples of brown and dark in his hair and Yoonmi’s voice echoed in my head.

“You look very red in the face, were your really soaking?”

There, that’s probably the reason why we wouldn’t fit.

“You’re horrible” I reached out and hit him on his arm. He was laughing, his eyes disappearing into crescent moons, his laughter a sound so pleasant in my ears. But then it dissipated, his eyes focused on me. His gaze fell into mine, then; and for a moment I could feel him seeing right into me. I knew what this meant; he was quietly scrutinizing me. He was sensing things, the kind of things he wouldn’t have wanted me to be feel, sensing that I’d done the kind of things that he wouldn’t approve of me doing. He bit a corner of his lips, which I watched, feeling acutely aware of his presence than ever before. Then he placed his hands before him on the table and moved closer.

“You met him on the way, didn’t you?”

I stayed quiet, gazing down at my clenched hands, and by the corner of my eyes I could see him looking across the hall where they were setting things up for the last bit of the occasion. He turned to face me.

“I don’t have loads of time right now; but tell me, what happened?”

I knew it that he had indeed sensed something. I could lie to him, dismiss him for the moment, tell him that it was nothing and that he needn’t worry that he could just move about with whatever tasks he had in hand. But knowing Sung Gyu, I realised that there was no way that I could get away from him. For one, he simply wouldn’t let me until he got to the bottom of everything. Secondly, well, I didn’t really want him to.

I stared down at my hands, acutely aware of Sung Gyu’s gaze unwavering on me. He was going to hate me for this, I was certain.

“I met Yoonmi in the ladies’” I admitted. I couldn’t tell him about how I had met Woohyun right outside, waiting for his girlfriend like he had done million times for me. It was too painful of a memory to recall that I’d rather not think about it at all. He, oblivious to this, allowed a moment of silence pass between us, perhaps, urging me to continue. When I didn’t, he moved even closer.

“And?” He asked.

“And…” I bit my lips and let out a sigh. I couldn’t help myself, he had let the floodgates open; like he would always do to me. My innermost thoughts were coming out in the form of words, coated with emotions that I never believed to have felt before.

“She was gorgeous” I replied and looked up at him. He was watching me, his jaw set, eyes bearing into mine, an unreadable expression blazing inside them. His quietness urged me to continue. “Yoonmi’s gorgeous, Sung Gyu; have you seen how pretty her eyes were? They are like...like Bambi’s. And she has the clearest shiny skin, not icy pale like mine...and she just has this vibe that makes you feel so calm and content around her. She smiles all the time, and she has these nicely shaped lips-,”

“Saera” Sung Gyu suddenly interrupted me, and seeing the look in his eyes meant that he didn’t approve or cared about a single word I’d been telling him. “Stop it” He sighed and folded his hands before him. In the way he looked at me, I could tell, he was not about to be kidding me. He meant business.

“True, Yoonmi is gorgeous. So what? You’re gorgeous too”

Something snapped inside me, and I was painfully aware of how that made me feel. The truth was, he’d told me things like that million times, and that was nothing so new to me. But at this moment, with what Yoonmi had told me, with what I had thought about him and then with the way that he had said it just now, the way I felt towards his statement was different. Sung Gyu, unaware of this, however, carried on.

“And again, it is true that she is...I don’t know, whatever she made you feel. But that doesn’t make any less of you. She could make you feel calm or whatever around her, but that doesn’t mean you have to as well”

I looked at him, witnessed the fire in his eyes and sighed. He just didn’t get it, I guess. “That’s not the point” I told him, slightly irritated. “Don’t you see? She’s the one that Woohyun left me for, after all these years. And that’s because Yoonmi was everything that I wasn’t and couldn’t be”

Sung Gyu stared at me for a moment too long, and then he scoffed. He just scoffed. That’s what he did when he thought something I said was outrageous. That’s what he did when whatever i had said made him angry.

“Ridiculous” He said and shook his head in disapproval. Then he turned to me. “That’s not what it is, Saera, Woohyun left you because he was not the one for you. It’s not always about him, you see? It’s about you too” He began to poke at the serviette before him for emphasis as he continued: “You, woman, was not the one for him. Why? Because spending on charity for cats was not for you, going on fancy moonlight dinners was not you, and jesus, the sappy love poems in your wallet every bloody morning was definitely not you! Don’t you see? He probably didn’t even love you for you but for the idea of having you…but you deserve so much better than that”

He finished at that note, breathing heavily and took a long slug of the champagne that he had left. I glanced down at his wrist, at the expensive cufflinks on his immaculate white sleeves; then at his hand, a small silver band around his pinky finger, one that he’d had since his high school days and refused to rid of for so long. I liked it, really. His fingers were pale and long, quite beautiful; and the ring looked breathtaking on him. It was true and real as everything about him, everything that he’d said and done. They didn’t have to be true for the whole world, really. His thoughts were subjective, just like they all usually were with anyone. Regardless, Sung Gyu never held back. He was passionate and sincere, he saw different sides of things and examined them thoroughly like folding leaves of a book; every string and fiber until he had understood it all. And today, what he’d just said was perhaps truer than anything I had so far believed.

I never liked what Woohyun and I used to be. I hated that we had to go on inexpensive dates and spend hours in cat shelters scooping their turds into plastic bags just so that I could support his charity-related dreams. I wanted spontaneousness; I wanted adventure. I wanted late night drives and and dancing in the rain, getting drunk on the sheer contentment of being myself and sometimes a dozen of beer bombs. Woohyun never approved of them, of course; he never liked the kind of lifestyle that I led. And indeed, to accommodate him, in the fear that he would leave me, I had to change myself too. I realised, for three years, I was hardly being myself. I did whatever that he wished, he wanted, and was slowly I was beginning to lose myself. I was unhappy, not because our relationship was in strain, I realised. I was unhappy because I was not myself anymore. And I missed me, I missed me.

Oh, and of course, I despised the silly little poems in my wallet every morning. I mean, God, I had tried to like them and be appreciative every time I found one stuck over the photo of Sung Gyu and me as children (Woohyun hated it, I think. He always stuck it over Sung Gyu’s face) but I failed miserably with Sung Gyu laughing beside me, making fun of the words I could hardly make sense of. He was right. The kind of romance that Woohyun seeked for was not me.

But then what? I felt a heavy pain striking through me. If that kind of romance was not for me, then what was? Who would like someone like me anyway? I had thought when I met Woohyun, the first man to actually and honestly date me, that it was going to be either Woohyun, or nobody at all. Now I realised, painfully, that I had finally come down to that phase in life. It was nobody. It wasn’t going to be Woohyun, so it was nobody.

I didn’t hold myself back. I couldn’t. My thoughts were loud and vocal as they had always been, and soon I was talking again, without restraints. “If that wasn’t for me then, obviously there’s nobody” I shrugged. I felt angry at myself really. Why couldn’t I be like everybody else? Why couldn’t I be cute and charming with huge shining eyes and nice glowing skin with a love for poetry and candle light dinners? Why did I have to be me? It was unfair, honestly. I was angry at everything. “If I’d been cuter, I’d have gotten a boyfriend too” I ended with a pout. Well, I was angry, alright. But how could I be angry at Sung Gyu who hadn’t done anything wrong to me and also while everything he’d said so far was true? So I tried to make it light hearted and stared at him with widened doe eyes.

I knew that I wasn’t cute like all those immaculate picture-perfect girls were. But I had Sung Gyu with me, for whom I didn’t necessarily have to be to remain best of friends.

He stared at me for a moment, a little mystified; this continued on for a moment, and then he scoffed, turning away. “You’re ridiculous” He said and took a large glug of champagne, finishing it off in one go. Then he groaned. “Regardless, Saera, you need to stop with this whole ‘Nobody’s going to like me’ bull. I mean, that was just one guy. And he wasn’t even that great either so to say” He raised his brows and looked down at me. “How can we say really? There could be someone who would like you for you out there…” Then he grinned, his eyes disappearing into narrow slits. “I mean, I’ve liked you for this so long”

For a moment, my heart stopped. I stared up at him, searching for anything that could insinuate anything more than what he’d just said. But then he smiled, not an unusual one; just the smile that I had been accustomed to. The goofy and annoying one that he made when he wanted to piss me off. “If I could tolerate you for like twenty years, I’m sure there’s definitely someone who could for even longer”

“Oh, you” I rolled my eyes, finally my heart returning to its usual pace. Then I sighed. I did wish what he said could be true in any sense. But how? I was not like all of them, I wasn’t the kind of a girl that they were looking for. Besides-,

“You’re my best friend. That’s different” I shrugged.

He was quiet for a moment. I felt him looking down at me, and I felt the same sense of hopefulness once again. I wondered what it all could possibly mean. But before even I could delve into that emotion, Sung Gyu said from beside me. “Well, there’s that” A sense of finality and understanding in his tone.

I smiled, feeling a sort of relief. I was afraid once again, I guess. This was the only relationship I could count on; it felt like a constant, the one thing, one person I could absolutely rely on. And allowing the lines to blur could only mean one thing in my mind; I could probably be letting us fade away.

So I said, just so that I made the atmosphere lighter. “I should probably start searching then...under the rocks and park benches and stuff” I laughed at my own words, hoping he would laugh along. He did, like we always would, and he mentioned that I should definitely look under park benches. We were quiet then, Sung Gyu looking at his watch and me gazing down at his hand fisted beside me. I thought of everything that he’d been telling me, my cheeks warming up, sensing his presence in a way that I’d never before.

“Actually, I’m interested too” Sung Gyu piped up all of a sudden, then. There it was again; his strange spontaneous responses which seemed to make no sense, which came out of the blue. I looked at him, but he was looking back at me in this non-committed way that probably wouldn't mean anything. “Well, while we are in the topic. I was thinking of finding a girl myself” He continued.

“Eh?” I moved away, quite baffled myself. I had thought he was getting at something...different. But this wasn’t what I was expecting, really. I knew that Sung Gyu liked to do a lot of things; but an actual relationship had never really been one of them.

“There’s this girl actually” He went on, looking at each of his cuticles with great interest. “And I was thinking, if there was a girl I liked at my sister’s wedding on my birthday, how do I ask her out without stealing the show?”

It was safe to say that for a moment, I had frozen in time.