Have you heard of Dexter Morgan? Well, before Nam Woohyun entered the picture, I had been in love with the serial killer who killed other serial killers. I had read the book which the series was based on along with being a fervent follower of the TV adaptation. So the following Saturday, when STAR World decided to air a Dexter marathon 10 am onwards, I decided to call off all outings and plonk myself on the couch.

“Really?” Woohyun just stood behind me, his hands on his waist. I nodded with a huge grin plastered on my face, while dancing to the opening instrumental track.

“You said you wanted to get to know me, right?” When Woohyun gave a small shrug, I pulled his arm, throwing him over the couch. “So sit here and watch Dexter with me! You have no idea how important he was to me!” Woohyun sighed and murmured an ‘alright’, seating himself next to me. The title of the first episode appeared and I squealed before refocusing.

“Saya!” I glanced to my left and gave a sheepish smile. Woohyun had covered his ears, his eyes wide open. “You didn’t even do that during the CNBLUE concert!”

“Don’t compare Dexter to CNBLUE,” I whispered and shushed him. Two minutes later, Woohyun had witnessed Dexter’s first killing. Well, not his first killing, but the first episode had started off with him finishing off a child molester and murderer. Despite having already watched the scene, I sat frozen when the confrontation took place.

“Please,” the killer begged. “You have to understand, I can’t control it.”

“Oh I understand,” Dexter said in his raspy voice and I spoke with him. “I perfectly understand.” I burst out giggling and bringing my knees close to my chest, wowed when the knife was brought down on the man’s body.

“WAAH!!” I shouted and jumped up and down. “You saw that!” I pointed at the screen and turned to look at Woohyun. My smile faltered when he gave me ‘the Woohyun’, nodding curtly and furrowing his eyebrows at the screen. Both of continued watching and when Woohyun asked me, “Since when have you been fond of gore?”, Papa passed by laughing.

“Are you sure you know your girlfriend?” he teased and laughed. “During horror movie screenings, the audience would wonder who to be scared of---the murderer on the screen or this girl who was going hysterical!”

I grinned when Papa ruffled my hair, instantly controlling my expression when Woohyun’s face remained blank. “It’s not because of the gore,” I whispered to him, while the third episode rolled out. “The reason why I love Dexter is because of how principled he is.”

“Principled?” Woohyun snorted. “Let’s see. When will they start showing the good side of Dexter?” I sat up straight at Woohyun’s sarcasm. He had hardly been sarcastic with me. What was it that was suddenly irritating him so much?

“Yah,” I said, a smile playing on my lips. “You jealous?” Woohyun smirked and I regretted my words. While he didn’t pass any comments while watching, I could sense a change in the atmosphere. The day was supposed to be fun. When I told Woohyun how Dexter had helped me, I wasn’t kidding. I had always been a loner, occasionally going out with Kairi and a few classmates. I wanted Woohyun to know that Dexter and I were similar in a lot of ways. Through this day, I wanted to introduce Woohyun to a side of me that he had never seen before. But as far as I had seen, he did not like that side one bit.

Thank God for ‘Live Pause’. Lunch time came around and we had already seen five episodes. Discussion time, I told myself while Woohyun paid the pizza boy. I stretched my neck to kiss Woohyun on the forehead and for the first time since the morning, he had a smile on his face. “Double cheese margherita!” I sang and pounced on my piece. Woohyun stared at me for a moment, then chuckled as I gobbled it down in four bites.

“You’re amazing,” he murmured and I tucked my hair behind my ear. “Didn’t get that,” I said and leaned towards him. Woohyun pushed the plate away and placed his head on my lap. I playfully tried to throw him off but he muttered, “Stop it,” and I did. While I ate, Woohyun waited for me and stared at the screen that had paused at Dexter’s face.

“He’s cute, isn’t he?”

Woohyun looked up at me and showed his curled up fists. “Say it again and…” I laughed at his tough act and he smiled at me, removing a stray piece of cheese near my lips.

“Honestly,” I cleaned my hands on the tissue paper and rested my chin on my hand. “What do you think of him?”

“You’re acting like he exists,” Woohyun said and I waved my hand. “Be serious!” I said and continued. “It’s quite admirable isn’t it? A man who kills bad people because he wants to channel his murderous urges towards a better path.”

“Killing people is still a crime Saya,” Woohyun sighed. “If his bureau found out his true identity, would they put him behind bars or throw a party for him?”

“Everything’s not black and white Woohyun,” I said slowly. “No one can be a saint, everyone has their own evils.”

“I don’t.”

(Listen to 사랑은아야야 by 2NE1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItCK_H-L5ZU)

I froze while Woohyun got up to face me. “That’s the biggest mistake humans make,” he continued while I stared at my hands. “To let go of themselves after each fault by saying, “We’re human, we’re not perfect, we make mistakes.” Life is always about striving to be perfect, not reaching that perfection.”

“Which is what Dexter is doing,” I said in an urgent tone. “Since you’re not going to watch the whole thing, I’ll just tell you. Dexter is a traumatized man, his parents were killed in front of him, their murderer used a chainsaw and he was left in a pool of blood that was two inches thick for two whole days. He was only a kid then, a three-four year old kid. It affected him like this and so the policeman, Officer Morgan, adopted him and showed him the BETTER path.”

“To kill people?” Woohyun looked away and laughed. A wave of annoyance washed over me. “If he was traumatized, he was mentally disturbed, then he should be locked up in rehab. People like him shouldn’t be allowed to walk freely, to ruin the balance of the world.”

The wave grew, this time becoming a tsunami of rage. “Rehab is not the only solution Woohyun,” I spoke through gritted teeth. “I studied psychology and I’ll tell you this right now, almost everyone in this planet suffers from some mental illness. One doesn’t have to be schizophrenic to be termed as ‘mentally ill’. Rehab is the first step, they release you once they know you can take care of yourself and work in the outside world without any extra support. The people who go to rehab learn to be responsible for their own mistakes and they learn to control their thoughts and actions. For me, that is what mentally ill means. People like you can easily make a decision by thinking ‘its right, its wrong’ but there are other people in this world, people who go beyond right and wrong.”

“Let’s play the ‘agree to disagree’ rule, shall we? This argument is unnecessa—”

“Screw the rules!” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath in and opened my eyes. Woohyun looked lost, he couldn’t understand why I was being like this. Tell him, a voice in my head murmured.

“Woohyun…” I started when suddenly he reached out to hug me. He buried my face in his shirt and said, “Ssshh…You don’t have to tell me. I already know.”

My eyes widened. “You…what..how..”

Woohyun heaved a sigh and pulled me away to look at my face. “You’re feeling neglected, right?” I didn’t reply and when Woohyun nodded to himself, something started stirring inside me. Something…bad.

“It’s been so long since you’ve been with your parents, with both of them together.” I continued staring at the man in front of me. “You’ve told me before how fond you are of your father and how you want to find a life partner like him because he’s the only man you’ve ever been comfortable with. I took the English lessons so that things could be easier for all of us and also because I wanted to be at your father’s level. Both of us got along, that’s good right? But I’ve been noticing how you interrupt our conversations, how you suddenly pull your father away about some distant childhood memory…You want to spend time with him, I get it. But you should have told me Saya. I don’t like it when you become like this, it’s not like you. I—”

“Stop.”

I blinked back my tears but wasn’t able to. My dreams, which were slowly getting clearer and clearer, had definitely been prophetic, my fears had been justified. Woohyun tilted my chin so he could look at me and I let him. I wasn’t going to hide anymore.

“It’s not your fault Woohyun,” I said softly. “Even though we’ve been together for almost three years, there are still so many things we need to learn about each other. There’s so much you have yet to know about me. We’ll take it step by step. But don’t… Don’t do this to me.”

“Don’t do what?” Woohyun whispered and I saw extreme anxiety in his eyes. “Saya? What…what..”

I sniffed and released myself from his hold. I steadily walked towards the kitchen bureau and from my peripheral glance, saw Mama and Papa standing next to each other behind the partition door in the balcony. “I’m not doing wrong, am I?” Upon seeing both of them shake their heads with a smile, I took a deep breath and unlocked the bottom drawer. I leafed through the sheets, making sure nothing was missing and walked back to the living room.

“Here.” I handed the final report on my last rehab stance and with a shaky breath, said, “Take your time,” and hurried towards my room. I locked the door from inside and collapsed on the floor. A flashback of memories, terrible memories played themselves in my head and I dragged myself to my bed. I hugged the teddy bear that a secret admirer had gifted me during my school days. No one had confessed to me, I still didn’t know who had sent it to me, but I had treasured it for one reason above all. I had never been pressurized to look good for anyone. I had no crushes, no one to impress. So while I was being my lonely self, studying in the library, spending my days in the café reading Murakami, someone had fallen for me. His admiration might not have grown serious and after my rehabilitation, he might have distanced himself from me, even though we were strangers anyway. But I had never pretended. He liked what he saw and he let me know that. He didn’t raise my expectations, he didn’t want anything either. The teddy bear held beautiful meaning for me. It was a sign that someday, someone would like me for who I was, despite all my flaws. That person was probably already married, but his momentary admiration had forever been prized by my bedroom pillows.

I heard movement from down below and moved towards the window. I saw Woohyun reading my report on the balcony swing, quietly reading it the way he read the newspaper in the morning. I recognized the page he was reading, it was a self-reflection essay I had volunteered to write. I took out the photocopy of it from my desk drawer and read through it, trying to imagine what Woohyun would think of each and every word.

Being in rehab has taught me what even five years of advice spilling in from different sources could not. I used to depersonalize, float into another world, become a different person or put myself in a favourable situation. I would hate meeting people, the real world was never going to live up to the expectations that my own world could meet every day. This has been my second stint in rehab. The first one was for depersonalization which was surprisingly, easily treated. Life is about the real world and I realized I was being hypocritical by criticizing other people’s expectations and having a fair share of my own. This time, I was treated for suicide.

Suicide has always fascinated me, I would often think about it. I would never commit suicide, I had told myself, but thinking about it was fun. I felt powerful knowing that my life’s end was in my hands. Poison? Asphyxiation? Bleeding to death? So many paths to take and they all would give me the same result…

I finally did it. I soaked myself in a tub of hot water and slit my wrists. Sorely disappointed when I opened my eyes to my mother’s face, I also realized that I would never be forgiven. Not by my parents, but by myself. There’s a considerable difference between being born as a baby who is as dumb as a rock and being born as someone who is in complete comprehension of his/her surroundings. The same sky, the same oxygen… a different perspective.

Life exists. It’s here. I am different from the majority and it’s a blessing that I’m always going to be modest about. I would make decisions because I feel like taking them. Some of them would be the same as the rest, some of them would be polar opposite to what the group wants. But I ‘ve learnt that I’m a human, we survive through cooperation and compromise. I guess I lost hope when I mistakenly realized that no one would accept me for who I was. For even if they married me, they would forever try to reform me. Relationships, whether with siblings, lovers, parents, teachers are only fulfilling when we transform, when we evolve, not when we try our best to ‘correct’ the other party.

I plan to work in my home country as a teacher and I believe that rather it being a full-time profession, it would be a part-time job. Part-time, because it would slowly and methodically help me to deal with people coming from different areas of life. I am not worried anymore as I have accepted that not everyone can like you. I don’t have to tell everyone everything about myself. I might have only one or two close friends, but I won’t be greedy. I would hope to take care of myself with confidence and allow the people around me to be a part of my life. And if I ever fall in love, then I would pray for one thing and one thing only. I would pray that that person can allow me to have my pitfalls, to commit mistakes. I read in a magazine once how best friends are those that allow you to learn from your own mistakes, for that is what life is about and that is how one learns the best. I want to feel secure, regardless of his absence. The person I spend my life with should be someone who is confident of me the way I am of myself. He should be sure, that when I fall, I would get back up. For whenever I would need his help, I would just have to reach out and he’d be there. But until then, I would entrust myself to one person only – me.

Saya Park,

17 years old