프니엘: I might as well had imitated the girl’s state as I saw her limp figure being carried by Sungjae’s thick arms, like a lifeless ragdoll she was. The horror that took quite a time for me to register was beforehand reflected in Sungjae’s pale, terrified face. How he got to the center of the set and dashed down those stairs from the other building was a miracle.

***

“Umf,” the red-haired invalid grunts in her slumber as she shifts in her position, and stills again, with her hand buried beneath her cheek. Her eyes are tightly shut and those long, thick, curled-up eyelashes touching her cheek makes her even more peaceful. I’m quite far from where she is, standing here now, but my being sees perfectly what’s before it.

Contrary to the patient’s welfare, the watcher looks more sick than she is. Looking at him, I’m undecided whether to laugh, cry, get worried, or all at once; I could swear Sungjae’s face has a very, very light hint of mint green staining his face now. He is so, so worried over Se Na it will only take a countdown for him to pass out, also.

“She’s alright, you know,” I say finally, in a gentle voice, knowing this is what he needs now. I don’t like it when my favorite dongsaeng gets too anxious. Or get anxious, at all, because he’s not that kind of guy.

Sungjae takes this long drag of air I kind of suspect he hasn’t been breathing. He watches the girl closely, with bomb-squad-like care and anticipation, her visibly silky hair in the process. The friendship of these two never ever fails to awe me. “She is, hyung…” he mutters. “But you don’t know what happened there…it’s…it was…absolutely horrifying. She fainted right then and there, before my very eyes, and she would have fallen head-first if I hadn’t been there to catch her. And I’m starting to think what would have happened if I were not there, and—what if this happens again and I won’t be around? It’s plaguing me, hyung. I’m scared. I’m really, really scared,” he says, each syllable following quickly its precedence until he pants at the end of his sentence.

I take a few paces closer to him. “Se Na’s strong, Sungjae.” Apparently it’s the only thing I could say.

His eyes would bore holes into the girl’s face if it were any possible. “She is, but—“

“Hey, come on,” I tap his shoulder, making him whip his head at my direction. “Don’t you trust her? Didn’t the doctor say it was just fatigue?”

Sungjae’s heart eases up at that visibly. Se Na, Se Na. Always Se Na. Ever since his best friend came to town Sungjae barely had time for us. For me. “But…”

“But nothing, Sungjae. Have you ever heard of the fact that stress and depression literally shrinks your brain? You overthink things.” I’m getting stronger in my speech now, really.

 Some realization might have dawned on him and he looks at me.

I offer an apologetic smile. “It’s okay, really,”

Finally, after hours and hours, Sungjae finally manages a smile. He continues to eye his best friend but it’s obvious that the fear is still lingering to him; but this is better than a while ago. For some reason the silence in the room isn’t really awkward; it’s a soft peace that even though only air and breathing are the only ones heard, we are at comfort.

Se Na is alright.

I grab the chair closest to my reach, and settle on the side of the bed, the area where our maknae is. I observe him intently like the way he does to Se Na right here, right now. Something in Sungjae’s eyes—those cat-like eyes that we’ve all learnt to love, makes me feel warm inside, because in that stare…it’s just so full of love and worry.

“You love her?” I blurt out, mechanically, without much thought.

He snaps his head at my direction with this surprised look on his face. “What?”

“You love her, don’t you.”

Slowly, slowly, Sungjae’s mouth curls up in a smile, a very amused one. “Of course I do, hyung. She’s the only girl I’ve ever loved. Well, aside from my mom and sister, of course.”

My eyes land on Se Na once again, as I try to contemplate over this. “Romantically, Sungjae.”

The smile is wiped clean off his face, maybe because of his curiosity. “Courtly love, hyung, you mean? Well, I…” he looks down for a moment. “No. We don’t love each other like that,”

“Then why do you—“ here I meet his gaze again. “I mean, why do we get that vibe always?”

“Um. Because we’re sweet?”

Se Na stirs a little. “I don’t understand you two.” I state.

“No one has to.”

“I feel obliged, though.”

Sungjae grabs the end of the blanket and drape it up to the girl’s chin, probably to buy himself some time. He then dons out his shoe and fold his legs in a pretzel shape. “Se Na is…not who you think she is, hyung. There’s a serious reason why I’m more than ready to die just for her.”

“Wow, that’s deep.” I blink twice. But seeing the guy’s face makes me feel his gravity. “Why?”

He slightly opens his mouth to say something, but closes it again. After formulating a tactful reply he says, “She’s lonely.” I look at him as if to say, is that all? He gets this and adds, “I think that’s up to you to discover that. I don’t think the idea of having someone know of her background story without her permission would please her so much.”

“I don’t think that’ll ever happen.” I smirk, though inside I’m already starting to get disappointed.

“You know what? I think it will.”

“Ahuh? How do you know?”

He gives me a lopsided grin. “I don’t know everything but I know Se Na well. Very well. It’ll take time, but one of these days she’ll open up to you guys. Especially to you.”

I hope you’re prophesying. I think. “Why me?”

“Reasons, hyung.” he beams with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “Reasons.”

We’re taciturn for maybe a minute or two after that, and then I start afresh, “There’s just one thing I hope you can tell me, though,”

Sungjae fixes a misplaced tress on Se Na’s hair. “What is?”

“How did you and Se Na come to that arrangement? The marriage, I mean.”

I let him recall whatever sweet memory is triggered by my question. Had I not been closer to Sungjae, I’d say he’s madly in love with her. But then again he isn’t, not because I easily believed what he said, but I could see it in him. “There’s this story when we were kids…”

There. It’s starting.

“There was this school event and our class was going to do a little role play and Se Na was the lead role of the story. She was a princess,” a pause. “Being the good friend I was, I resorted to checking out on her before the play started, maybe to ask her if she had memorized her lines and whatnot, to which she merely answered with a bored ‘yes’ and a roll of the eyes…”

“How old were you by then?”

“Seven, I think?”

“Wow, you really do care for her.”

His shoulders quake; I don’t know if it’s out of flattery or he’s amused. “Well, yeah. Anyway, after I asked her that she laughed at me. You know why, hyung?”

“Why?”

“She said I looked like I was about to puke. I looked really pale during that,” he covers his mouth to let a faint chuckle escape, to avoid any unwanted waking of his best friend. “I must’ve looked so tensed.”

“What was your role, anyway?” though I can’t really relate to the private joke I find myself smiling.

“Oh, just some peasant whom the princess encountered over the course of the story. I only had, like, three lines? And those were really short,”

I laugh soundlessly, but genuinely happily.

“So, after I vehemently denied at her face that I wasn’t tensed, she took my hand…” here he heaves a sigh. I think he could still remember the warmth now that he’s looking at his hand. “And squeezed it tightly, and asked, ‘how do I look?’” a hush. “I looked at her after that, and maybe it was one of those moments in your childhood when there’s that one girl that really catches your attention…I mean, in that sense when you harbor a crush on her; that kind, hyung, you know? I looked at her in the face dumbly for like ten seconds, not saying anything, just…admiring how pretty and beautiful and gorgeous she was during that time, in that gown and curly hair… that she had to wave her hand in front of my face. Just then I was recalled to reality and when she asked me again; according to Se Na this was how it really happened: I turned scarlet and almost walked away, and if she hadn’t yanked my arm back she would have been worried about how she looked. ‘Sungjae,’ she told me. ‘What’s wrong?’” he laughs a little. “And then I swallowed whatever that was hindering me from speaking and told her, abruptly, ‘Se Na, promise me,’ she looked at me with that signature monotonic look in her eyes. ‘You’re going to marry me.’”

I let that sink in, and, after a second, “And what did she say to that?”

Sungjae looks down at Se Na as if to ask for her permission to end the story. “Simple. She said, ‘sure’.”

I gasp. “That easily? I mean, how did she agree to that?”

Sungjae tries to imitate how Se Na looked back then. He looks blankly into space, rounding his eyes a little, and does a very timid nod. “’Sure.’” He quotes, and then looks at me. “She said it like that.”

“Oh.” I nod, the corners of my lips still not down. “And since then you live under that promise?”

“Se Na can’t seem to forget about it.” Sungjae giggles. “She told me it’s been drilled hard in her head that it’s me whom she’s going to marry when the time comes. Sure that won’t be easy. Anything can happen. But you know the real catch, hyung? Just the other day, when I was taking her home, I asked her what if it wasn’t me whom she was destined to marry. What if she loved another guy?”

I blink in anticipation.

“She said…she’d still choose me. Call it friend loyalty or what, but she said she’d still choose to marry me. Me, hyung. Me. Can you believe that? Despite of the fact that I left her, she still remained with that promise. I told her it’d be alright if she was to choose another guy but she insisted that it’s still me. Though I think I don’t deserve her.”

“Why would you think of it that way? Of course you deserve her,”

 He remains silent. He wants to say something, which I wait for him to tell, but no. So I prod on—

“You’ve done everything a really good friend could, Sungjae. Oh, even more than that. Sometimes I wish—“ I halt myself in time, so I rephrase it. “Sometimes I even wish I could receive that kind of affection from you,” I laugh at my own jest, but inside I’m kicking myself for such a lame remark.

The boy looks at me with a laugh. “Don’t worry, hyung. I care for you too, of course. PenJae?”

“PenJae.” I chuckle. I drive the talk back to the original topic. “But, really, Sungjae. Believe me. Se Na…she…she loves you.” the words taste like metal in my mouth. “And you…well, the feeling is mutual. You think it’s still platonic now but hey—the best love stories start with friendship,”

Sungjae brays positively. “The flattery, hyung.”

“Really!”

When his laughter subsides,  Sungjae, in a more serious tone, says, “Hyung, one question.”

“Hm?”

“Do you like Se Na?”

My heart suddenly finds the quickest shortcut to my stomach. “How come this conversation’s turned to me all of a sudden?”

“Come on,” he teases. “Just answer me.”

I’m hoping my face isn’t red now, though I feel that it’s really, really warm.

“I won’t pummel you or anything,” he promises. “Just tell me honestly what you think of her.”

I would lie if I say I hadn’t any difficulty in answering that. Not that I was scared of the best friend/brother, but it’s something…something I couldn’t exactly name. “She’s…okay.”

“’Okay’?” Sungjae snickers. “What kind of okay?”

“She’s…she’s fun...quirky. She’s really smart and really…cute.” Realizing the last word I’d said I instantly find it hard to look at my dongsaeng in the eyes.

“And you like her?”

I’m groaning inside. This is embarrassing. Beyond embarrassing. “Would you mind if I do, though?”

Sungjae doesn’t answer. There’s this smug look on his face that hints some sort of certainty, like he’s affirmed of something. I don’t know what to do, or to say, either—I feel like someone’s known of a secret of mine that I didn’t even know was present. My face warms up at how easily he’s confronted me, how smugly he’d taken the truth out of me without my guard. I keep my eyes fixated on the floor until I hear Se Na shift in her position, which ostensibly makes us look at her.

She’s whimpering and thrashes in her pose, that Sungjae has to lean next to her and to stop her movements, he embraces her and sort of taps her hip several times in comfort, repeating the sound shhh over and over again. Her whines tone down a little until it comes to a full stop, and the peace is back again.

“She was…having a nightmare.” I state dumbly. Sungjae nods, not failing in eyeing her with wary watchfulness.

The silence in the room is deafening. Though reluctant, I decide to break it. “Really, Sungjae, would you mind?”

He looks at me, brows up. Then he gets that the hanging question is still present. Manfully, slowly, he shakes his head with a tender smile. “Just…take care of her, alright, hyung,”

“I don’t get it.” I scoff in bafflement. “Why are you saying this—all of this? Are you giving her away?”

“No. It’s not that. It’s just… Se Na…there may come a time when she’ll have to break our little foolish promise hyung. But, if ever that’ll happen—there’s only one thing I know. I…I want her to break that promise with you.”

And my smart reply to this is an out-of-tune, “What?”

“You are so clueless, hyung,” he laughs.

I examine myself, and feel internally ashamed that maybe what he’s saying is true. I am clueless. “But—really—you don’t mind?”

“Nope. I wouldn’t even mind if you show her. It’s nice to know that someone aside from me loves Se Na,”

I want to tell him don’t put it that way yet. But if he wants to labor under that delusion, why not let him? Because, after all, I know better.

Se Na…she’s tied to him. I don’t know what really binds these two but something beyond romance will bring these two together. And as to the matter if someone would ever understand Se Na like Sungjae does, I highly doubt it. It’s a simple reason: Se Na is more than what meets the eyes and ears. Whatever the things that are on the backdrop of the girl’s being are only available to Sungjae’s eyes. They’ve shut out everyone else from their little world, and even if they’d try to make room for someone else, it’s gonna be hard for that third party.

Too deep? You can say that. But I’ve always had that kind of vibe whenever I see them together.

“Hyung, can I ask for a favor?”

I look up from what I’m reading. “Hm?”

“Can you please look over her while I’m gone? I’m going somewhere.”

“Where are you going?”

Sungjae looks at where the nearest clock is. “Out. To buy food. Se Na will look for something spicy immediately when she wakes up.”

Finding no reply for this, I nod. “Okay.” And Sungjae gets his jacket, and goes out of Se Na’s unit.

Now being left with the girl whom everyone warrants that I like, I find myself recalling what had been our first meeting. At the café near the dorm. I could clearly remember, I was immediately intimidated by her. Then I smile, remembering how much she teased me by not telling me her name. then before I knew it, I discovered it, even though in a sour note.

Se Na lets out this discomforted whine and snuggles with herself under the cover, but I see that it’s not enough. Even with the thick cloth she’s shivering inside. Well I cannot just sit here and watch her, of course. So I crawl slowly, carefully, beside her, taking what Sungjae’s place had been, and do the best means I could think of. Placing a warm hand on her cheek, I think she’s comforted a little and she thanks me with, “Your hand’s really warm, Jae,”

My eyes slightly droop at that in a smile, undecided whether to laugh or feel sad. I want to tell her it’s me—me—her “Penpennie”, but I couldn’t. Because this is one of the reasons why I keep on telling myself that these little feelings for this girl, though may take time, will just pass.