It’s strange how the smallest details could bring such big memories.

That button on that girl’s shirt is the same color as your room. That basketball hitting the pavement sounds like the gunshots in your video games. That airplane overhead reminds me of that field trip we took to an aerospace museum a couple of summers ago. The thought of that summer makes me think of how you pulled my head away from the window and into your lap when I slept. You let me listen to your ipod with you as I drifted off. “Remember this song?” you had asked. Yes, I did. That song… whenever it plays, I think of you. Of our lyrical battles through text messages. Of how you declared that that song would be our song. Of how you made me promise I would think of you whenever it played. Well, you. You’re all that comes to mind when I hear it.

We had art and ceramics together two years ago. And now that I think about it, we were paired up often for partner work, weren’t we? You laughed at my sketches, I laughed at your wheel-thrown pieces (your sculptures were even worse, I remember). After a few times of being put together all the time, you started forcing your essays upon me. “I don’t know, you just seem like you’ll be a harsh grader,” you had explained. I remember shrugging and beginning to read your schoolwork, expecting some half-assed piece of that I would have to inevitably write all over for you, but my mouth had dropped open. You would always ask, “how is it?” with hesitation, as if I could say such beautifully written papers were anything but. So I would always reply with the same thing each time: “Have you ever thought of writing for a career?”

Right now, I hear the sounds of kids swimming in a pool, yelling, splashing, having fun. All I can think of is how you tried to pull me in at Sohee’s party a couple of years back. I remember I almost screamed because I didn’t know how to swim (you knew, you bastard, and yet you tried so hard to bring me in), and I didn’t want to look like an idiot coughing up chlorinated water. The look on your face when Jay came to save me from you will forever be imprinted in my mind. What was it, Jiho? Jealousy? Indifference? Whatever it was, it was amusing to see such a reaction come out of you. Your eyebrows had furrowed – I distinctly remember that – and your gaze lingered at Jay’s grip around my waist to make sure you wouldn’t throw me in. He was a nice guy, by the way; you didn’t have to be so hostile towards him.

By the time we were close enough to be considered “best friends,” people were already pointing fingers and asking if we were dating. You would play along, responding with a nod, “Yeah, she’s my girlfriend.” You shouldn’t have done that, you really shouldn’t have. The way that simple sentence would toy with my heartstrings, pulling and plucking teasingly at them, my brain knowing fully well you were joking. But apparently my brain lost. My brain lost to logic. It lost to what it thought was right. It lost to my heart. Then you had to go and make my brain lose to my heart even more by holding my hand, hugging me in longing ways that best friends don’t really hug by, sending me text messages that made me confused. It confused me. Confused me. You shouldn’t have played with me like that, even though you probably didn’t realize that you were. You shouldn’t have let my brain lose.

Apparently you knew a lot more people than I thought because after your little confirmations of “Yeah, she’s my girlfriend” (when I wasn’t), peers that I never had spoken to before walked up to me and started conversations with me, congratulating me. Were you that important of a person at our school that I would be congratulated for going out with you? The praise didn’t help with the confusion occurring in the inner corners of my conscience. All it did was tug and tug and tug at my heartstrings again and again and again. The more they would be plucked, the more I fell for you. The more I fell for you, the more awkward I started to feel when we were in front of others. Could they see how I would steal glances at you? Could they sense what I felt? That awkward ping in my mind that I would take note of eventually started to appear when I was alone with you, too. Could you see how I would steal glances at you? Could you sense what I felt? It troubled me. I didn’t know what was happening to me. Pluck, pluck, pluck. My heart wasn’t a harp, but you sure made it feel like it was. The closer you were, the more harmonious, the louder the pulls were. Pluck, pluck, pluck. Could you hear them as loudly as I could?

But that day came when I brought up the courage to ask, “Why do you always tell people we’re dating when we aren’t?” Not enough boldness in me to question in person, so I waited patiently for your text back. Ding. Your name lit up on my phone’s screen. Pluck, pluck, pluck. How could the mere sight of your name cause my heart to pound and my hands to jitter? “…I was planning to tell you later, but I guess since you’re curious, I’ll say it now,” you had replied, “and I’m sorry this is through a lame message, but I like you.” Pluck, pluck, pluck. The pounding and tugging and plucking grew louder, louder, louder in my ears. My fingers had trembled slightly when I started typing back, “You… do?” I remember holding in my breath, eyesight never wavering from the screen. Ding. “Yeah, I do…” I almost threw my phone up in the air that day. Pluck, pluck, pluck. I still don’t know how my body was able to sustain that much pounding and tugging that day – I really thought my heart would stop from the intensified rush of blood. Ding. I had paused mid-jump when I looked down to read your new text message, “Would you go out with me for real?” It took me a couple of minutes to process everything, another set of minutes to wait it out so I didn’t seem so eager, and another couple of minutes before I pressed the send button. Yes. I had said yes.

I was still awkward with you after that. Did you notice, Jiho? You were my first real boyfriend, and I had absolutely no idea what would be acceptable, what would be weird, what might make you not like me anymore. I wanted you to like me for as long as possible. I didn’t like change. You would suggest hanging out, suggest dates, but all I could do was come up with excuses for each one. I’m busy, I’m not in the mood for a movie, the list went on. And yet you still said you liked me. Your friends would tell me you were whipped. Were they lying, Jiho? Were they lying?

Our break-up came only a few weeks after. I couldn’t take it, I couldn’t take it. I felt like you were forcing yourself to stay with me. Who would want a girlfriend who rejected every single date you tried to make with? Were your friends lying when they told me you were hurting pretty bad after I called it quits? Were they lying, Jiho? Is it bad that even though I doubted their proclamations, the tugging still was as strong as ever? Pluck, pluck, pluck. It was quickly becoming a nice tune in my head at the time, you know. Almost like an ensemble of harpists plucking away at their strings, a nice melody and harmony flowing inside my veins. Pluck, pluck, pluck. I’m sorry for “breaking your heart” – as your friends told me; you were much more nonchalant around me – when mine was playing a symphony for me. Quite a melancholic symphony it was.

The plucking had almost completely faded away when you got yourself a new girlfriend. She was nice. She was nice, cute, and possibly everything I wasn’t (we had a few things in common though: only one double eyelid, on the right side; our taste in music; our height). I had to admit that the green monster liked to visit me sometimes, looming over my shoulder, conducting the harpists next to my heart to perform the symphonies once again. Pluck, pluck, pluck. But this time, the tugs and pulls were mixed with so much more than the usual “I like you.” The symphony sounded off. Sharps and flats appeared when they shouldn’t have. Shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t have told people we were a couple when we weren’t. If you hadn’t, the green monster wouldn’t have messed up the despondent piece. In fact, the green monster wouldn’t have appeared at all; the plucking wouldn’t have started. You shouldn’t have.

The two of you were a cute couple, I had to admit it. I always tried to push out the little green devil from within me when you texted me about her. Talking about her. Remember that one day you told me about your date? You guys were on the boardwalk after having dinner with some friends, your fingers intertwined, what a picture-perfect scene that must have been. I’m sorry to have missed it. But it wasn’t how you described the situation that made the green monster burst out of its confinements. It was the fact that you told me three words that set the green devil off and hurt my ears from the many off-tune notes of the concerto: “I kissed her.”

And that was all it took for me to know that I still liked you. The plucking continued and my heartbeat kept pounding on. Thanks, Jiho, thanks. You don’t understand the torment you put my conscience through. For the second time, my brain was losing its first place title to my heart. My heart was winning once again. But my heart was getting help from the devil. The green monster created a home inside of me, nestled deep in my chest cavity, cradling my heart with its orchestra, its claws plucking at the strings. The green monster couldn’t help but laugh in success when you broke up with your girlfriend. That laughter bubbled up inside of me, and my vocal chords brought it up, my mouth clamping shut to keep the giggles from slipping out. I knew I was supposed to feel bad, but my brain was losing, my heart was winning.

Do you remember how you told me about a month after breaking up with that girl that I was partly the reason why? You said I was confusing you. Confusing you. Apparently you really didn’t know how much you were confusing me. But you said I was confusing you. You told me you kept thinking of me even when you were holding hands with your now-ex-girlfriend, said you thought it was my hand you were holding, said you thought it was my body you were hugging, said you thought it was my lips you were kissing. How many times did you kiss her, Jiho? Was that a tactic for the green monster to keep toying with my heartstrings? Did you know of the green devil lingering inside of me? Did you know? You said I confused you. I said you did, too. Pluck, pluck, pluck. Thanks for causing the green imp to stir and wake.

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Word count: 1969

Date written: 20120413, finished at 1:39 in the morning

Jees