Jeongyeon to Jihyo
—

We were in the room — crowded room perhaps. People are watching me, every move every glance. Perhaps they know? I don't know. But all these eyes are on me but my eyes are only pinned on you.

Probably a stolen stare, but totally a longing glance. Something that has been in the past, something that could express why I want the world to stop, but even if it doesn't, all these eyes watching me and all that they could see is the confession of a pining heart. But you will never know because there is a solemn promise of putting a hand on a hand — I whisper you a silence "sorry for breaking the oath," and I constrain myself. You don't have to know, but my secret is spilling all over this place because friends don't look at friends that way. And perhaps they know, you look at me specifically how textbooks would describe platonic. And perhaps they know, you have kept your end of the bargain. And for the first time, I hated it when you kept your promise.

Why were they watching me anyway? All this was a failed love story that never even had the chance to start. It is a sad person's lullaby to bring themselves to sleep, the writhing cold that the blanket could never ease, it is a piece of a heart that has never been found. And you are the home that I never got to rest into.

But maybe they weren't watching. It is the feeling of not wanting to make a mistake, to look perfect, and to be on the sidelines. To stay safe, to make everyone feel they are closer to what seems close, but really — farther than what goes. To protect what they see as bane but really is just as normal as other people do. For this might be better, for this world to stay by our side — even if it meant that my own world collapses. For, even if having the look that friends should not have when they look at their friends, it is better to keep you in my life than never to have the right to look at you. And along with our promise, I cross my fingers wishing that in another lifetime maybe I am free, and maybe, finally, you would look at me the way I look at you.