A whistle is blown in order to make some kind of indication. Kim Jonghyun doesn’t know what’s happening. The world turns into an abstract landscape as strangers rush past him and it’s either Jonghyun has an abnormally small stature or every else is just abnormally taller. Or maybe Jonghyun just feels lonely. He picks up his bag with a groan and steps into the train and feels the ferocious wind cease behind him as the doors close. He had deliberately picked the very rear carriage in hopes to find it virtually deserted of any human life. He smiles for the first time that day and sits down and is torn between loving the peace and quiet and hating the suffocating loneliness.

     He leans his head against the cool glass and closes his eyes. His bag lies between his legs, his brain lies in uncertainty and in what feels like will be an infinite state of sadness, and his heart lies somewhere where he can’t find it. 

~~~~~~~~~~

     The words stubbornly refuse to leave Jonghyun’s lips and instead he lets out a breathy gasp and goes downstairs to get a glass of water. He quenches his thirst and then takes his time to get back to his room where Shin Sekyung lays waiting patiently for him. Her lips are a natural shade of red and her skin is as white as cotton. Her hair is wavy and black and feels like velvet between your fingers. Her bangs fall gracefully over her face and at that moment she purses her lips and stares with a conflicted expression at the floor. Jonghyun sits down in front of her and whispers a bashful, “Hi.”

     Sekyung stays quiet. She’s a beautiful girl; fragile but not high maintenance. Jonghyun reckons that what he’s about to say would break her and decides to stay quiet, but then decides that she would probably think he was being a jerk if he didn’t anything. Since Jonghyun doesn’t know whether to talk or not talk, he just kind of lets them bathe in an uncomfortable silence.

     “You don’t have to say anything,” Sekyung tells Jonghyun in a gentle voice and smiles and Jonghyun feels complete.

     “But…I do. I mean, I don’t. I…” Jonghyun sigh exasperatedly and his forehead drops gently so he’s pressing it against Sekyung’s. He looks her in the eyes and brushes the hair away from her face and he tells her, “I’m just not ready to say it. It’s not that I don’t but…”

     “Jonghyun, it’s alright. I get it.”

     Jonghyun’s about to lean in to kiss her but she backs away and gathers her things from Jonghyun’s table. “I have to go.”

     She’s gone after a hasty, emotionless peck on the lips and Jonghyun’s left thinking, ‘I blew it.’

     Jonghyun’s mother and father return from their anniversary dinner and Jonghyun asks how it went and gets raving reviews. His smile doesn’t falter as his mother describes the venue and the food and the slow dancing and all the things Jonghyun assumes happens at all anniversary dinners.

     “So what happened with Sekyung?” his mother asks him unexpectedly and Jonghyun stammers and fails to form some kind of story that doesn’t end in him possibly ing up his once-in-a-lifetime relationship with a-once-in-a-lifetime girl.

     Jonghyun shoots his father a look and in return he gets an understanding nod. His parents exchange a few words and Jonghyun’s mother is disappearing upstairs, her footsteps becoming distant. Once the sound of her heels clinking is out of earshot, Jonghyun’s father joins him on the couch.

     “Hey dad, who said the three words first?” Jonghyun asks quietly, his voice barely even making it out of his lips.

     “What? What’s the three words?” Jonghyun’s father asks in hinted amusement.

     “You know; the words that change a couple’s life forever, the words that determine the course of their relationship. You know…Eight letters, three words—“

     “Oh, I love you.”

     “Yeah…those words.”

     “Well, what exactly does this relate to, Jonghyun?”

     “Can you just answer my question?”

     His father stares at Jonghyun blankly. “What question?”

     “Who said it first?”

     “Well…It’s all very vague now but I do believe that your mother had said it first.”

     “And what did you say?”

     It takes a while for memories to flood back and Jonghyun sits patiently.

     “I said it back.”

     “Straight away?”

     “Yes.”

     “Okay, what does it mean when you’re about to kiss a girl but she suddenly says she needs to go when I know she has no other plans and it’s still way, way, way before her curfew?”

     “Jonghyun,” his father chuckles and places a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Just because you didn’t say it back doesn’t mean she suddenly hates you.”

     “Okay…So…Do I give her time?”

     “You two go on and act like how you were as if the three words were never uttered, and then, when you feel it’s the right time to say it then you say it and she will be happy.”

     Jonghyun smiles gratefully and whispers a, “Thanks dad,” and then rushes past his mother who stares at him, flummoxed.

~~~~~~~~~~

     All the pieces started coming apart when Jonghyun started paying more attention. Jonghyun couldn’t stop staring at his girlfriend who was seated all the way across the room. A kid with large sized glasses that are always on the brink of falling off of the tip of his nose strides towards Jonghyun and pushes him over, causing Jonghyun to almost fall off his chair. “Stop staring at your girlfriend,” bestfriend Jinki sternly orders Jonghyun and then sits beside him.

     Sekyung seems to have heard this because next thing Jonghyun knows she’s looking back at him. He smiles at her and she turns around without returning a smile.

     Jinki leans over and whispers, “What happened?” but Jonghyun has no time to reply because the teacher has finally arrived and for once in his life Sekyung feels so far away from him.

     At lunch Jonghyun boldly approaches his girlfriend and drags her away from her group of equally-as-gorgeous friends. “Jonghyun—“

     “Why are you acting weird?” Jonghyun asks her unnecessarily quiet. The sounds of the indistinct conversations happening around them overpower Jonghyun’s shy voice and Sekyung asks, “I’m sorry, what?”

     “You’re acting weird!” he says, this time unnecessarily loud.

     She scoffs impatiently. “I am not acting weird, Jonghyun. You’re acting weird. What’s wrong with you?”

     He leans closer to her and cups her cheek lovingly. “I hate that I’m hurting you.”

     Her eyes shine as they quickly water and she pulls his hand away from her. “You’re not hurting me.” They’re both slowly leaning in at the same time and everything around them slows down. The noise dies down just for that brief moment. Everything feels right. Jonghyun feels like it's a perfect moment; just him and Sekyung and everything around them being ignored. It's all perfect and still until Sekyung hesitates and backs away, then everything happening around them is pulled back into normal circulation.  

    “What?” Jonghyun whispers, his breath lingering on Sekyung’s lips.

    “You’re not hurting me, Jonghyun,” she says quietly. “I’m hurting you.”

     She leaves him with a heavy heart and a clouded mind and with tears falling from her own eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~

     There’s a perceptible change in Jonghyun’s mood and his mother decides to take notice of this. “Don’t hate him, but your father told me about your little three word problem with Sekyung. Are you two doing well?” she asks him in the middle of breakfast during his father’s absence from the table.

     Jonghyun nods silently without looking up.

     “Jonghyun,” he hears her say in that comforting tone. “I’m here for you.”

     Jonghyun feels a little bit of closure. He knows she’s there for him. She’ll always be there for him. Always. He wishes he had the same feeling with Sekyung. He wishes she’d always be there for him because he’d definitely always be there for her. Instead he feels their hearts disconnecting with each day and each minute they’re not staring into each other’s eyes.

     Jonghyun started noticing all the little things about her. He liked the way her lips would curl shyly, as if suppressing a smile, before actually smiling. He liked how naturally red her lips were. He liked how determined she looked when she was concentrating. He liked the way she’d sweep her fingers through her bangs when she’s frustrated.

     Then there were some things Jonghyun wished he had never had noticed.

     He didn’t like the way Sekyung would look back to look at, not him, but Jinki. He didn’t like the way Sekyung would always stare at Jinki longingly when they passed by in the hallway.

    The doubts of Sekyung cheating on him failed to fully grasp the nerves of Jonghyun’s brain when Sekyung turned to him and smiled only the slightest smile.

     One day Jinki approaches him in the hallway and pulls him aside. “Hey, you’ve been spacing out on me man.”

     “Sorry, just thinking ‘bout stuff.”

     “Stuff like your girlfriend?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Well, she wants to talk to you. Find her after school.”

     With that, Jinki’s joining the crowd rushing past Jonghyun.

     Jonghyun finds Sekyung immediately after school and asks her what she wanted to talk about. She doesn’t talk but kisses him with nothing but sheer desperation and his hands are immediately wrapping around her thin figure. She pulls away but keeps their lips close together. “I’m sorry for being weird.”

     Jonghyun kisses her again and quickly tells her he forgives her and says the three words he’d been too afraid to say since the beginning. The ‘I love you’  doesn’t project as loudly as he had hoped but she hears him nonetheless and they’re back to kissing.

~~~~~~~~~~

     The next few best weeks of Jonghyun’s life end rather abruptly. In fact, it all happens so fast. One day Jonghyun’s walking out of a five minute after-school detention and he just sees it. Sekyung and Jinki are leaning against the wall and kissing each other like their lives depended on it and Jonghyun feels like the entire building is crashing down on him. His knees are buckling and his throat feels like it’s crushed under a large block of cement. He’s suffocating and paralysed and, finally, Jinki opens his eyes and sees Jonghyun and pushes Sekyung away who turns around and that smile, that goddamn satisfied smile, is erased from her lips.

     Jonghyun walks away with much of a fuss from his best friend and girlfriend but he just keeps on walking without looking back.

~~~~~~~~~~

     Jonghyun skips breakfast the next morning and heads straight to school before the majority of the students arrive. He feels like the air is pushing down on him and like he’s drowning in an ocean of all the tears that fail to fall from his eyes and all the words that he wants to say but can’t say.

     He manages to avoid his girlfriend and best friend for half the day until Sekyung corners him in an empty hallway before Jonghyun can make it to his third period room. “Please listen to me,” she pleads breathlessly but Jonghyun only looks anywhere where her face isn't. He can’t fight the urge for long and he’s looking at her and her face is distorted with her deceptions and he’s not seeing the same face he had wished he could wake up to every morning.

     “I’m so, so, so sorry,” she says with tears slowly filling her eyes; her once beautiful eyes.

     Jonghyun manages to break away from her tearful gaze and starts walking the other way, her sobs being the last thing he hears.

     Jinki manages to locate Jonghyun after school as he quickly traverses through the grounds. Jonghyun’s just about to leave when Jinki frantically runs in front of him to block his way. “Dude, please, hear me out. Please, please,” Jinki begs.

     Jonghyun only stands there with his feet glued to the ground and it’s harder to face Jinki, his bestfriend since forever, than Sekyung.

     “I…”

     “How long?” Jonghyun tries to ask but the words get stuck in his throat. He swallows all his anger and heartbreak back to speak. “How long?” he asks again, the words coming out stronger than he intended. He inhales deeply. His words drag up his throat like knives and damage his vocal cords.

     Jinki frowns. He hates that he’s been lying to his best friend almost as much as Jonghyun hates the fact that he had been lied to. “I…I guess a while before she told you she loved you.”

     Jonghyun feels all his suppressed emotions about to stomp on him all at once and he tries to hold them all back to at least try and survive the next few moments he’ll spend with Jinki.

     “There’s more,” Jinki blurts out when Jonghyun tries to walk past him.

     “What you ed her too didn’t you?!” Jonghyun yells furiously.

     “I….She never really…liked you,” Jinki says and starts hating himself even more. He had never meant to hurt his best friend. They were practically brothers, for god’s sake. He was only trying to help him. He never meant for this to happen. At that moment Jinki finally realised it was true that people do bad things despite having the best intentions. As much as he hates to see that he’s breaking his best friend, he continues. “I hated seeing you so depressed, man. Girlfriend after girlfriend after girlfriend dumping you, it ing killed me to see you like that and I knew Sekyung was the girl of your dreams so…I kind of…persuaded her into dating you.”

     “Oh my god,” Jonghyun says and then chuckles almost insanely. “Oh my god,” he tries to yell but there’s so much strain in his throat, his heart and his mind that he can’t.

     “And I guess somewhere in the middle of this ed up game of charades she kind of started falling in love with me and…”

     “She never loved me,” Jonghyun says to himself. He repeats the line constantly to himself in that moment until he almost finally manages to convince himself of the harsh truth.

     “Dude, I’m so—“

     “Don’t Jinki…Just don’t…”

     Jonghyun walks away from his best friend and when he gets home he collapses on his bedroom floor and screams.

     Jonghyun goes up to Sekyung the next day and asks her, “Did you ever love me?” he asks her in front of her friends and they stare in confusion. Sekyung asks them to give them a moment and her friends shoot Jonghyun a sharp glance before leaving.

     “Did you ever love me?” Jonghyun repeats, this time slower. He’s about to break down. He can feel his lips trembling and he can feel his eyes water and he’s trying to fight it, so, so hard. “When you said it…” He bites his lip. “When you said ‘I love you,’ did you mean it?”

     The three words feel bitter on his tongue. His lips are still trembling and Sekyung’s face blurs before his watery eyes.

     “No,” she replies. “I didn’t mean it when I said it to you…But when you said it to me that day I realised that maybe I really do love you. I fell in love with you Jonghyun. It may have been a lie from the beginning but soon that lie became the truth—“

     “Liar!” Jonghyun yells and for the final time he’s walking away from Sekyung and for the first time he lets his tears fall freely. At that moment he learns one truth from the situation; lying tongues are clumsy.

~~~~~~~~~~

     One Saturday afternoon Jonghyun leaves a note on the kitchen counter.

‘Mum, dad, I’m going to be gone for a while. Don’t call me. Love Jonghyun’

     He knows the note will worry his parents greatly but he doesn’t care that much. He needs to get away from the house where he had shared his first kiss with Shin Sekyung. The memories are making it hard to breathe or want to breathe. He packs a bag full of clothes and snacks and shoves his phone and earphones into his pockets before leaving.

     Now Kim Jonghyun sits silently on the train, resting his weary head and travelling to nowhere.