Dear Bae Joohyun, 

Again I’ve come to tell you that you looked really pretty today. And don’t worry that you got in trouble with Mrs. Park because she’s a total tool anyway. Again, I like you a lot. 

Sincerely, Me.

“What do you think of this one?” Seungwan asked, shoving the piece of paper in front of Seulgi’s face. 

Seulgi merely rolled her eyes and took the paper lazily. Seungwan had been sending Bae Joohyun love letters for months now everyday inside her locker. It was cute, sure, but there was only so much Seulgi could take before she threw up rainbows.

“Like you a lot? I thought you love this girl,” Seulgi said when she finished reading it.

“Well that’s just the thing, I do. I really love her a lot. It makes me want to implode. But I don’t want to come on too strong, like imagine some random letter said I LOVE YOU so forcefully like that. It’s not cute, Seul, not cute at all.”

Seulgi shrugged. “I apologize, I guess, for my lack of skill in love letter writing. I have other stuff that I’m interested in.”

“Oh? And what would that be? Papier-mâché figurines hugging trees or something? Or how Van Gogh created the greatest piece of art known to man? Whatever it is, Seul, I swear to you, nobody is ever going to want to talk to you about it with you stuttering twenty times every damn sentence. Is that what your therapist is doing? Telling you how to not make friends?”

Seulgi threw the piece of paper back at Seungwan. “. No, it’s...I’m helping Mrs. Kim on her piece about public speaking .”

“Oh, the irony.” Seungwan laughed. “You, the girl who can’t even string five words together is doing something about public speaking.”

“Hey, I’m speaking to you right now, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, but I’ve been friends with you for eighteen odd years already. We were nursery babies together. If you can’t even speak to me properly, you need to go to an insane asylum! Thankfully, we don’t have to go that far, but jeez.”

Seulgi sneered. “Just slip that stupid note in her locker already. Free period’s almost done.”

Seungwan perked up at the mention of the letter and patted Seulgi’s back. “You’re right about that, friendo.” Seungwan got up and said, “I’ll be back whenever.”

“Don’t wait up,” Seulgi said back, but whatever she said didn’t reach Seungwan as the girl had already bolted out of the classroom.

Seulgi sighed and opened her notebook, finding her own letter staring her in the face. She didn’t want to tell Seungwan how she loved Irene too. It wouldn’t feel right to just ruin their friendship because of it. After all, Seungwan was all she had and she was all Seungwan had, but at least Seungwan could talk properly to people. At times, Seulgi felt sorry that she was bringing Seungwan down, and she had made it abundantly clear that Seungwan could find other friends, but Seungwan was still here all along. 

So no, she wasn’t going to ruin their friendship just because of some girl. 

Seulgi took her pen and scribbled out a word and replaced it with something else before she read it again. 

Dear Bae Joohyun, 

I love how you smile. I know you don’t notice it, but whenever you smile, you close your eyes just for a moment, like you’re savoring the moment and you’re afraid it’s going to disappear. And I’m right there, savoring it with you because I love like you.”

Sincerely, Me

//

“Someone asked out Joohyun.”

“Really? Who? Is it that creepy kid from band? I bet it’s the creepy kid from band, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s just some nobody. Her na—”

“Wait, her? We’re talking about a girl here?”

“I know! Crazy isn’t it?”

Seulgi listened in to the conversation, pretending to care about writing down notes while the teacher taught about kinematics or whatever physics she was babbling on about now. 

“What happened?”

“Well apparently this girl just went up to her and asked her out.”

“And?”

“Well of course she said no! She’s straight as hell!”

Seulgi bit her lip and frowned. No way…could it be? Was that why Seungwan did not come meet up with her at the end of free period? God, this is crazy. Seungwan was never the type to go for it; she was just a background character like she was. She was there, but most people just didn’t notice her. 

“Her name is Seungwan.”

“Wait, Seungwan? The girl who spilled the beans about Ms. Yoo in fifth grade? That Seungwan? She’s ing crazy!”

“I know. What a freak, right?”

Seulgi squeezed her pen tighter and tighter, trying to ease her anger. She couldn’t quite handle what they’re saying about Seungwan, but she couldn’t cause trouble. That meant she had to talk to people, and if she talked, then that would just ruin her.

“I heard she left crying.”

“Good, that needs to learn.”

Seulgi slammed her pen down to the table, catching the attention of everyone in the room, even Mrs. Lee who turned around from the chalkboard to investigate the sound. Everyone looked at her and her heart was pounding out of her chest. Her hands started to sweat and her thoughts were wild as she couldn’t find one thing to focus on.

“Seulgi, what was that?” Her teacher asked.

Seulgi froze up. ! Oh god, this wasn’t what she wanted at all. 

“N-Nothing! M-Mrs. L-Lee. I w-wa...w-was j-jus...jus...jus…”

“Okay enough,” Mrs. Lee said, clearly displeased with Seulgi’s inability to speak. “Just don’t do it again.”

Seulgi only nodded several times, not daring to speak another word to risk embarrassing herself again. She wanted to hole herself up and never be seen again. And, well, that won’t change a thing. If she disappeared, would anyone even notice? 

“Stuttering freak.”

Seulgi lowered her head and clenched her fist. No, it wasn’t worth it. 

//

Seulgi found Seungwan perched on top of the hill overlooking the school. Her friend was lying down, staring up into the sky. When Seulgi got closer, Seungwan pointed at the sky and said, “That looks like a bunny. I like bunnies.”

Seulgi followed her finger and the cloud looked nothing like a bunny. It was just some blob. She looked back at Seungwan, who looked like she had been to hell and back again. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying and her sleeves were wrinkled, probably because she had been using them as tissues. It hurt to see her like this. “Never told me you like bunnies.”

“Irene’s a bunny,” Seungwan said as a matter of fact, still looking at the cloud. “She looks like a cute and pretty bunny.”

“Ah, is that so?” Seulgi then thought about it. Yeah, Irene did kind of look like a bunny. “I heard something interesting happened during free period.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, you’re going to have to face it sooner or later,” Seulgi said as she laid down right next to Seungwan, staring up at the sky with her. She pointed at a cloud, “That one looks like a hamster.”

“Oh, really? I thought that was a bunny.”

Seulgi nudged Seungwan playfully, smiling as she did. “All you see are bunnies.”

“It’s the one that matters most.”

Seulgi hummed, not bothering to refute that statement. She wouldn’t want to be subject to Seungwan’s ten thousand reasons why Bae Joohyun is the greatest woman of our generation speech. Because all in all, she could name everything Seungwan was going to say and go even further than that. If Seungwan had ten thousand, then she would have ten thousand and one. It was that simple.

“I asked her out today,” Seungwan said suddenly and Seulgi tore her eyes away from the hamster cloud and onto Seungwan, who did not dare look Seulgi in the eyes. “After I left the note in the locker, I was making my way back to you and bumped into her. One thing led to another and I asked her out. Got rejected, hard. She didn’t even look sorry. She just said no and walked away. It was just…” Seungwan pointed at a cloud. It looked like a tree branch with it’s swirling tendrils extending from the base. “...I felt like I was a twig and she just stepped on me. It was like I didn’t even matter.”

Seulgi didn’t say anything in reply but merely held out her hand. Seungwan finally looked at her and grasped her hand, finding warmth and strength. “You know how she is. We’ve known her for years now. She’s like that, but you know she doesn’t mean it.”

“I know she doesn’t. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. It really does. I love this girl and she just…” Seungwan sighed.

“Look, it might do you some good to distract yourself. How about we go to the arcade? It could be fun.”

“Oh, you mean it might do me some good if I win for the fifteenth hundredth time in a row against you?” Seungwan said cheekily, nudging Seulgi in jest. 

“Shut up. I’m trying to make you feel better here!”

“I know you are, thank you. It means a lot.”

Seulgi smiled. “No problem.”

“But I don’t want to go to the arcade. I just want to stay here and look at some stupid clouds with my best friend.”

Seulgi didn’t say anything to that, but merely squeezed Seungwan’s hand tighter. This was right, it was just the two of them against the world.

//

And then Seulgi noticed Joohyun’s sullen face the next day, a frown marring the once peaceful exterior. She looked closer as she usually did and found her looking at the note Seungwan left inside her locker. After reading it, she looked inside her locker for something else, shoving aside books and other things to find it, but couldn’t. Was she expecting a new note today? 

There wasn’t going to be a note or any note in the future. Seungwan said she wasn’t going to write anymore. She wanted to get over Irene as fast as she could, she said. 

Then Joohyun gave up and huffed. She took her books and left without that spring in her step that Seulgi had noticed so often before. 

Seulgi thumbed over the piece of paper sticking out from her notebook. She looked down at it, biting her lip if she should do it or not. She shouldn’t, she thought, but she hated seeing Joohyun like that. 

“I’m stupid, aren’t I?” Seulgi said as she took out her own letter and folded it up. She walked forward and discreetly slipped the letter in the slits, like some sort of guerilla warfare type of mission.

Seulgi’s hands felt clammy when she did it. That was normal, she just wiped the sweat off on her jeans as she walked away. This always happened whenever she had a thought about Joohyun. Joohyun just did things to her, made her feel things she had never felt before. But maybe, she thought, maybe this could be good. Maybe she could do this to help Joohyun. Everyone needs something to get them through the day. For Joohyun, it was these letters and for her, it was Joohyun herself.

She took a deep breath. This was the start of something new. She needed to get used to it. She was never good at new things and she was scared of pretty girls and starting conversations. 

But, Seulgi suppressed a smile, at least Joohyun would smile today.

//

KSG. The syllables of her name, like the shotgun. She joked once that if she ever turned into a zombie, Seungwan should shoot her with one. Seungwan didn't find it too funny, but rarely anything Seulgi said was funny apparently. Maybe it was just that one joke since Seungwan hated any subject that contained her dying, or death for that matter. Death, right. 

Seulgi liked to imagine it as that black-robed figure that came to you at night, or the kind of death in The Adventures of Billy and Mandy that she used to watch when she was a kid. She didn’t like to imagine it as that all powerful being that took you when you least expected it. No, she liked cartoons and fantasies. That was where she had no stutter, no anxiety. It was where she could speak freely with people caring about what she said. She liked writing, stories and letters. Letters, she liked writing letters.

Dear Bae Joohyun,

I hoped you loved liked my letter yesterday. Sometimes, I wonder how lucky I am to be in the same school as you. I’m just that kid in the background of an anime bobbing their head to some music or whatever. But you, you are the main character. So thank you. At least my story has something good in it for once. 

Sincerely, Me.

Seulgi looked at the final draft of her letter, seeing if the grammar and what she said is what she wanted. Looking up, she scanned the classroom, a bit self-conscious that she was writing a love letter in broad daylight, but she found nobody even paying attention to her. Seulgi almost laughed. She actually considered people caring what she did. 

She tucked the note just inside the cover of her English textbook and all she was left with was the time in between now and the time she put the letter in Joohyun’s locker.

She felt a buzz in her pocket, a notification from her cell phone. She took it out, stealthily of course, and read the message behind her textbook. 

I booked you a session with Dr. Kim on Friday. I thought you could use it. Remember: Seize the day! Go and talk to someone. Try, at least, okay?

Love, Mom. 

Dr. Kim was her therapist, tried and true. She helped Seulgi’s mom through the divorce and now all her mom had ever done since then was what she called, “seizing the day” like she was from the Newsies or something. When Seulgi was in seventh grade, she met Dr. Kim for the first time, although she kept on urging Seulgi to call her by her first name: Taeyeon. And ever since then, it was just “tell one good thing about yourself each morning” or “imagine talking to that boy you like and practice”. This happened every Monday or whenever her Mom booked her for a session.

Sessions usually consisted of nodding and shaking her head, giving out monosyllabic answers like yes, no, or eh. Meanwhile, Dr. Kim would ask her if she talked to any new people, tried anything new and exciting, or even write the list of good things about herself that she asked her to write two years ago.

She still had the list, stuck under the bottom of the textbook she was reading. She slid it out for a bit, and there it was in all its glory.

Good things about myself

1.

She had been working hard on a reason lately, but she couldn’t quite lock it in as an actual good reason. Over the summer, she worked as an apprentice animal keeper at the Redding Zoo, worked with crocodiles and all those wonderful beasts that could eat her alive with no problem. Over time, she learned a lot of things: animals were great, they couldn’t understand her and so her lack of speech skills really shined there. Some of them cuddled, especially the bunnies they had. And lastly, she hated being there, because even when she was there, she was all alone.

That was when she realized that running away from people didn’t make her anxiety less than it was. In the end, she still had to live with herself and her thoughts and that was more than enough.

So Seulgi slid the piece of paper back inside her textbook, hoping she could find at least one reason that she really meant.

Dr. Kim also talked about boys, never failing to mention it. As in, do you like any boys in your class? Ever tried talking to them? Stuff like that. 

First off, it was Joohyun, always had been. Second, she couldn’t imagine talking to her crush of ten years. Yeah, ten whole years. She didn’t say anything, of course. Her? Kang Seulgi confessing to the prettiest girl in school in elementary, middle, and high school? Downright unrealistic. Even saying hi to her would be an achievement. 

There was no way she could ever speak to Bae Joohyun.

//

“My name is Joohyun.”

Seulgi stared at the outstretched hand in front of her, waiting for a handshake. That was what normal people did, wasn’t it? Handshakes and greetings. Oh, god. Joohyun was speaking to her and she was asking for a handshake. And she knew Joohyun wanted that handshake because why would she be waiting for it for so long? It had been like ten seconds already and Seulgi was just staring at her like some sort of statue. A real pretty statue, but her hand was so sweaty just thinking about shaking Joohyun’s hand. 

Seulgi wiped down her hand on the side of her jeans and reached out to shake Joohyun’s hand, but Joohyun had already set her own hand down. So Seulgi immediately switched her hand from “handshake mode” to “scratching the back of her head like she was busy mode”.

“J-Joo...Joo...Joohyun.” Thank god she actually finished her name.

“You’re Seulgi, right?” 

“Seulgi?” What? Seulgi? Who was that? 

“Isn’t that your name?” Oh , she was Seulgi. For a moment there, she forgot her own name. 

“Right! M-My na-name is Seulgi.”

, she had forgotten to take her Prozac this morning. If it got too bad, Dr. Kim said she could take a Celexa too. Seulgi wasn’t too sure she would be even prepared for this type of situation even with those two drugs in her system. Maybe a third one would do, like Ativan or something. Lexapro? Zoloft? Ahhhh! It didn’t matter. Bae Joohyun was talking to her right now! No medication could ever help her with this.

“You’re friends with that Seungwan girl, right? 

“Seungwan?” Seulgi raised her brow. Joohyun asking her about Seungwan?

“Yeah, she’s your friend. I’ve seen you guys hang out together. Y’know? On the top of the hill over there,” Joohyun said as she pointed at the hill overlooking the school.

“Oh…w-w-we do. A-Aft...After sch...schoo...school.”

Joohyun perked up at her answer and immediately took a piece of paper from her pocket. She held it out and Seulgi didn’t miss the chance like last time and took it. She looked at it, finding it familiar before realizing it was the letter she wrote this morning. 

“T-This i-is…”

“A letter she gave me. I have my response attached to the back. Can you give it to her?”

Seulgi’s mouth gaped before she nodded. 

“Great, thanks a bunch!” Joohyun patted her on the shoulder before leaving with happy bounces. 

Seulgi held a hand to where Joohyun patted her, like it was some holy place that needed a UNESCO World Heritage site label. She looked down at the letter and opened it.

Hey,

I know I rejected you, but I realized you’re the one writing all those letters. My favorite was the one you gave me yesterday. I’ve never had someone notice that about me, about my smile. Nobody’s ever looked close enough to see. They just say I’m pretty and nothing else, nothing so personal as you wrote. So I change my no to a yes, if that’s okay with you.

Sincerely, Me.

P.S. Why do you put Sincerely, Me as your ending?

Seulgi clasped a hand over mouth, not believing what she was seeing. She remembered something her mother said to her this morning at breakfast. 

“Honey, you should be able to talk to people. No running away and avoiding. We’ve got to build your confidence! Look, it’s your Junior year and we’ve got to start it off right. We shouldn’t give up before we tried, okay?”

And yet it had been three weeks and nothing had changed. It was the same old thing, her inability to voice her thoughts without messing up along the way, and she was stuck with no other friends except the one who could tolerate her. And now, Seulgi was about to be alone, again, as she was sure Seungwan would devote all her time to making Joohyun feel loved (as she should). 

She hated being alone, her thoughts plaguing every single moment that she was. Her thoughts were like the angel and the devil on her shoulders except the angel had taken a life-long vacation and she was left with the devil voicing out its morbid thoughts. Stuff like,"I bet you this year will be the same as the rest. You, alone, nobody noticing what you say or do. I bet if you tripped and fell over, nobody would even come and get you." But Seulgi wasn’t alone, that was the thing. She had Seungwan, at least, but now all that was about to change. No after school hangouts at the hill, no laughs and watching tv shows together. Seulgi was about to lose the only person she felt comfortable with. The only person other than her mother to know her, not the stuttering mess everybody else knew. It was about to be just her.

Just her alone with her own thoughts. 

For a moment, she had half the mind to throw this letter away and take away Seungwan’s chance to have a happy ending, but she just couldn’t do it. Just like the letter she sent to Joohyun, she knew she was merely a background character. Who cared if she had a happy ending? 

So Seulgi tucked the letter inside her pocket, planning to give it to Seungwan later at the hill. 

If she couldn’t make her own, she could at least make two happy endings. That was only right, right?