Every day I wake up thinking, “Where the did I go wrong?” How long has it been now, two years? More? I don’t know. What I do know is I’m not in a very chatty mood. What would be the point in meeting up with her anyway? Everyone already moved on, everyone’s fine now. Everyone except her, that is. Why can’t she just let it go?

“Hey, babe. You okay?” my girlfriend asked as she moved over to spoon me.

“Yeah, why?” I asked back.

“Nothing. You just seem troubled.” I don’t think troubled is the right word. Frustrated, maybe. I’ve been busting my at work for the past week and I kind of just want to stay in for the weekend. I know she said she just wants to catch up but that’s what she always says. I knew all too well that the only thing she wanted to catch up on was about how her ex was doing. That’s not to say she doesn’t try. She usually starts up the conversation by asking me about work. Not the ideal conversation starter but good enough, plus I get to about work. In the end, however, it’s always the same. How’s Chaeyoung?

“I’m fine, Nayeon,” I replied. I turned to lie down on my side, my back faced her. She audibly sighed and let go of her embrace to do the same thing I did.

“Whatever. You never tell me anything anymore anyway.” Every word in that sentence was laced with pain. We’ve been together long enough for me to know that she hates it when I close myself off to her and keep things to myself.

“It’s Tzuyu,” I mumbled.

“Oh...” was all she could say. She was aware of all bull that happened, too aware. At times it felt as if I was overwhelming her with all the details, constantly ing and to her about Tzuyu, Chaeyoung and Mina. I thought that, after the latter two got back together, everything would be fine, but things only got more complicated. In the first few months, Tzuyu tried her damnedest to get Chaeyoung back, but the cub insisted that they were better off as friends. That was actually quite surprising for me, I thought she would outright tell her to stay away or something. Tzuyu, however, wouldn’t have it, she was relentless. During one of our meet-ups, she even devised a plan to break the couple up. A plan that, for some reason, involved a used . Needless to say, that never happened because it was equal parts asinine and disgusting... and there was also the fact that I hit on the head several times with a rolled-up newspaper. Around the same time, the couple weren’t doing all that great. Mina was preoccupied with the new semester and Chaeyoung tried her best to regain the memories she had lost. Every time she came back to the dorm, she would bombard me with questions as if I knew every goddamn detail about their relationship. “Okay then.” Nayeon and I ended up fighting a couple of times because she felt like I cared way more about what was happening to Chaeyoung’s relationships rather than our own. Although we haven’t spoken about it in a while, it’s pretty clear to me that it still bothers her.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s fine. You do what you gotta do.” It’s unfair, I know, but I played a huge part in this whole mess. I made the choice not to tell Chaeyoung about the past and now I’m just dealing with the consequences. I ed up and now I have to take responsibility, even if Nayeon thinks otherwise.

~

There are two things I thoroughly enjoy about our meet-ups, the fact that it’s always at some place fancy and the fact that she always pays for everything. I often think about how lucky Chaeyoung must seem in the eyes of others, because the simple fact is, she managed to make two impossibly gorgeous, and loaded, women fall head over heels for her. I never asked her if she ever took advantage of that. Knowing her, she probably didn’t. Tzuyu was already there when I arrived. Unlike everyone else in the restaurant who wore extremely elegant looking dresses and three-piece suits, she wore slim fit jeans, a turtleneck sweater and a dress coat. Though she’s never she’s never said it out loud, I knew the outfit was for my sake, so I wouldn’t feel out of place. It’s moments like this that remind me that why I put up with her. Tzuyu isn’t a horrible person, she’s actually a pretty decent friend. She can easily notice the signs and vibes that people give off and react to them accordingly. Her actions are often subtle but they do show just how much she cares. She was also a decent girlfriend to Chaeyoung, at least in the beginning. It’s just that Mina came back and her insecurities got the best of her.

Her face lit up the moment she saw me get escorted to our table. I smiled back as I sat down. I noticed the absence of menus on our table and immediately went to ask her about it. As it turns out she had already ordered for the two of us and even ordered take out for Nayeon. I didn’t mind that she did it. Like I said, she was paying, plus I wouldn’t know what to order in this place anyway. The food arrived almost as soon as the waiter left which made me wonder if she ordered our food the moment she stepped in this place. Tzuyu was aware of my fondness for the simple things. She knew that I’d choose things like fried chicken, fries and pizza over things lobster, caviar or escargot. So, I was utterly delighted when the waiter came to our table with the most mouth-watering seafood pizza I’ve ever seen as well as a basket of beautiful looking fried chicken. “Oh, hell yeah!” I shouted, unable to contain my excitement. It managed to get me a few annoyed looks but my young friend just looked at me, amused.

Our conversation started off like it usually did with her asking me about work and me asking her about college. She and Chaeyoung were about graduate, ing finally, and asked if Nayeon and I would attend the ceremony. I told her that we haven’t talked about it yet but that we would try our best. When the topic switched to my job, I was quick to roll my eyes, remembering the week I just had. “Remind me again why you’re an intern now, I seem to recall you having a better job.” She was referring to my time as a performer in a bar.

“Like I would want to keep working there. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of fun and I have no problem performing, but I wanna produce . I went to college for God’s sake.” Honestly, I just don’t want to feel like I’m wasting my credentials.

“But you’re not making any money.” Sometimes I forget how brutal Tzuyu could be.

“I will... soon.” Please let it be soon.

“Okay, unnie,” she said with a giggle. “So, um—"

“Oh, here we go,” I cut her off.

“I haven’t even finished yet!” she exclaimed.

“Chaeyoung is...” I paused, realizing that I don’t actually have anything to share. “Honestly, I don’t know. We haven’t been talking to each other lately.” My remark made her raise her eyebrow in confusion. “Oh, no. We’re fine. We didn’t fight or anything. We’re both just really busy lately and I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

“Oh, that’s all right I guess.” It sounded like she was telling the truth but I went ahead and asked her anyway.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she started, “the reason I invited you out today is to tell you that I’m giving up on trying to get her back.”

“So, you’re over her?” I asked.

“Um... I dunno. Probably not, but I’m giving up anyway. She made it clear numerous times that she’ll never get back together with me. It’s time I accepted that.” This should’ve been the point where I get hit with the feeling of relief, at long last, I would finally be able to relax and not worry about whatever issues they might have, but something about the tone of her voice bothered me, the way she woefully looked down onto her lap. She might have given up, yes, but that was a mere baby step. I knew my job wasn’t over yet.

“Tzuyu, why didn’t you give up earlier? Why were you hell-bent on getting her back?” I wondered myself why I never asked her this a year ago. She sighed and awkwardly rubbed her arm before she spoke.

“I’ve only been with two other people before Chaeyoung, I cared deeply about both of them but, as you can tell, they broke up with me eventually. Before Chaeng, I was single for years and during that time I kinda played the role of love doctor which is actually pretty weird. You’d think people would want to get advice from people in long term relationships, but they came to me. I was actually pretty good at it, if you can believe that. I gave advice, listened to their problems, sometimes I straight-up offered solutions.”

“What exactly did you get out of it?”

“I learned from them, from their stories. I learned what to do and what not to do in a relationship, I learned about the complexity of emotion, the importance of communication. It dawned on me that it was all just a formula, a formula that I gradually understood with each new problem presented to me. When I met Chaeyoung I was confident enough to start again, thinking that I’d get it right this time... but then she broke up with me too.” She paused for a moment to drink some water. “It broke me when it happened, you would know. You saw how insane I was.”

“Yeah, no .” We both chuckled at my comment.

“There’s nothing wrong with the formula, unnie. Flowers, chocolates, serenades, romantic dinner dates and celebrating things like anniversaries, they all work. Not always, but they do work, we’ve seen them work for a bunch of people countless times. So maybe it’s just me... maybe I’m the problem. Maybe, no matter how much I love someone, I’m bound to screw it up eventually. Maybe I’m not cut out for it.” The sight before me broke my heart. She looked like she was on the verge of tears. This should’ve been the part where she tells me she doesn’t want to get over her then lays out her plans to get her back, but this was something else entirely. She believed in every word she just said, that much I could tell, and it was depressing to see. “I think I’ll just steer clear of relationships for a long while. What’s the point of doing it if I still don’t understand love, right?”

“Tzuyu,” I started, “I’m going to tell you something that I bet you haven’t heard before.”

“What?” she asked, chuckling a bit. She probably assumed that what I said would lead in to a bad joke.

“Nobody understands love.”

“That... is definitely something I haven’t heard before. What do you mean, unnie?”

“Nobody actually understands love or what it means to love. Why do you think the definition keeps changing every few years? I mean, come on, there was a time where battling to the death was a declaration of love. Do you understand how ed up that is?” She laughed at my remark. “People who claim they understand love are the who are idiots too blinded by it, wannabe poets or philosophers and s trying to justify their own selfishness. Love can never be understood, just felt. The sooner you accept that, the happier you’ll be.” I paused for a moment to hold her hand. “It’s not fault. It’s okay to make mistakes or feel like we messed up. It feels awful, I know, but that’s the makes us, the that helps us grow. Don’t worry too much about getting it right, ‘cause if you do then you’ll probably just it up even more.”

“Thanks, Jeongyeon unnie,” she said as she nodded and smiled.

“Screw the meaning love. Stop chasing after unanswerable questions and just focus on being you, okay?”

“Okay, unnie.” With that, we continued with our meals and talked about other things like recent films and series. I ended up talking a lot about the Netflix show, I’m Not Okay With This. I became obsessed with it when I binge watched it with Nayeon that one night. It was a lot like, The End of the ing World, and maybe that’s why I liked it. Tzuyu on the other hand just started watching, How I Met Your Mother, and went on and on about how funny it is. We spent the remainder of our time genuinely enjoying ourselves, laughing the afternoon away and not caring about the angry looks people shot at us.