세나: “What makes you think I would?”

Sungjae takes his eyes off my trunk and pays me a baffled, troubled look. “Why, wouldn’t you?”

I snigger. “You seem to be very smug about this,” I unfold my arms, walk towards my bed and sit on its edge.

He crawls across it and when the space beside me sinks, I know he’s beside me. I turn my head. “Oh. That was a little shameless of me. I… I’m sorry, Se Na,” his pose is like that of an animal.

I heave a weak sigh, and look down the floor. “It’s alright; it’s just that…I feel a little…sad,”

“I know,” he puts his chin on my shoulder and rubs his cheek against my ear and hair. He cuddles like a cat. “Sorry,”

“Stop apologizing, geez,” I chuckle once, still in a tired voice. With one hand I rub his chin, like I’m petting an animal. “It’s okay, really. I really should’ve known better. I was never home all these years,”

Sungjae lets a dull pause pass between us, then he restarts, “But you are willing to go with me, aren’t you?”

I turn my head with a smile. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

His expression transforms from glum hopelessness to a bright grin. He throws his arms around my neck which closely electrifies me, and embraces me tightly. “Thanks, Se Na! Thank you-thank you—thank you!!!” he squeals loudly against my ears. So he still does this, huh. This is exactly how he’d thank me when we were kids. “You don’t know how happy I am!”

I tap his shaking shoulder with a hand. “I should be the one thanking you, you know. You’re finally getting me out of the hell-hole called my own life,”

He draws out and pays an apologetic smile. “That’s too harsh,”

“Why, is it not?” I snicker.

He heaves a sigh, knowing that any argument with me won’t get him any further. “Ah,” he slaps my forearm lightly. “Let’s get working on your stuff,”

It doesn’t take us very long to pack my things. I don’t take much of my personal possessions—laboring under the delusion that I would still be back here, though deep inside I know returning to this house is as possible as never. At this thought I frown deeply, but when the thought that I am to go with Sungjae somehow cheers me up. For one last time I stare at the cleared-up surface of my work-table, and I feel something weigh on my shoulder.

“Let’s go?” Sungjae’s heart-shaped lips curl up in that smile I used to know.

I bob my head. “Kaja,”

We make our way out of the room and then downstairs, and I am shocked to see Ahjumeoni waiting for us there. “Ahjumeoni,” I say meekly, sensing a feeling of hope suddenly warming inside me.

“The van’s waiting for you outside,” she monotonically says, pointing the door with her thumb.

“The van?” Sungjae mumbles, and hurriedly walks to the door. When he swings open the door he’s shocked to see that indeed there is a van waiting. “But I never…”

“I got you kids a van so you won’t have to bother,” she corrects. “Now go,”

“Okay,” Sungjae plainly replies, and picks up my trunk to walk ahead. “Let’s go, Se Na,”

I don’t respond to this. I just look at my aunt with a blank face, unsure how to react to this some sort of generous act. I don’t know what gets into me but I take steps forwards her and mumble, “Ahjumeoni…”

“Go.” Firmly.

“Se Na, let’s go,” Sungjae is tugging my arm now.

I still hold my aunt’s gaze. “Ahjumeoni…t-thank you…”

“Okay,” she taps my shoulder lightly, but even in the softness of her force I know she wants to get rid of me. Now. Once and for all. “Off you go,”

Slowly, oh so slowly, my stare drops, right there on the floor, as a frown finds its way to the muscles of my face.

“Se Na,” Sungjae whispers right in my ear. “Let’s go,” the last two words are as good as rough air being formed in a ramble of syllables.

And my last memory of my aunt is her closing the door, with the same listless face she always wears when she looks at me—no affection, not even a single particle of emotion, at all.

“Are you okay…?” the question comes out more like a plead.

“I have always been; what are you talking about,” I force out a chuckle that sounds pretty convincing.

My best friend purses his lips and decreases the distance between his brows. “Really, you can cry if you want to,” he pulls me towards him with an arm.

“I—“ this is utter humiliation on my part. My throat is starting to tighten. “I don’t—“

Sungjae unleashes a laugh at my struggle. Well, not that sadistic one—but as far as I could recall Sungjae has always seen me as someone who’s trying so hard to be strong, a two-faced person who shows an indestructible façade; firm and fierce on the outside, but corroding on the inside.

“Shh, just let it out...” though I’m not looking at him I know he’s smiling, while he rubs my back. I’m practically wetting his shirt right now since I’m sobbing on his chest. “Just tell me when you’re tired,”

And that is how my best friend comforts me. Well, more or less.

Little do I know that I have fallen asleep; probably tired from sobbing myself to death, that the next time I open my eyes sunlight streams happily down the window of the van. I squint my eyes, letting them adjust to the light, and I remove my head from the pillow known as Sungjae’s shoulder.

“Good morning, princess,” my best friend greets in a singsong voice, and I hear crumpling sounds. He presents to me a plastic bag of taken-out food from a fast-food chain.

“Mmmmorning,” I mumble, rubbing my eyes. “Where are we?”

“We’re already in Seoul,” he replies, still with a smile, and hands me the cup of hot chocolate. “Eat up. We’ll be going to a lot of places today,”

“Hm.” I sip in from the cup. It’s a little disheartening it’s less warm now. “Where are we going?”

He thinks with his index finger on his lower lip. “Question first. A house or an apartment?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just answer me!”

“Fine, fine,” I snort. “Apartment.”

“Okay,” he reclines on the van’s leather chair. “We’re gonna look for your apartment today.”

“What? Don’t you have schedules?”

“I said I’ll be gone for two days. That means we only have this day to kill,”

I groan. “If I know, finding an apartment here is hard! Let me just live in the streets,”

He laughs at that. “Shut up. You know you can’t do that. Besides, I promised Ahjumeoni I’ll take care of you,”

My heart sinks at the thought of my aunt. Suddenly, I feel something ruffling the top of my head.

“I know I won’t be good enough, but just let me be your family, Se Na. Yook Sungjae will be your father, brother, uncle, name it—you got it—from now on,” he chuckles.

“Alright, ahjussi,” I stick my tongue out at him.

“Ya, ya, ya,” his expression changes to a reproachful one. “Call me oppa! Oppa! OPPAAAA,”

“Not in a million years.” I scowl.

“Oppa! Sungjae-oppa! Besides, I’m a year older than you, geez,”

“Yeah but I’m more mature than you.”

“Why you little—“

“—you know if you kids are done yapping I suppose we can go to where you want now? Because I have work back there in Busan.” The driver-ahjussi interrupts, just in time before my best friend could strangle me.

“Mehrong,” I say to Sungjae with my tongue jutting out.

He makes a face at me. Facing the driver which he addresses with “hyungnim” Sungjae gives him addresses to places that are unknown to me. We visit each of those places, and just as I thought—they’re apartments looking for tenants. After a few trials-and-errors we finally find the apartment that suits my taste. Soon enough, Sungjae and I are browsing for things to be moved into the apartment, and with 900 million won, what could you not buy? I’m about to exhaust my monetary resources but Sungjae tells me to allocate, Se Na. allocate. You may need that money anytime. To which I’m forced to agree, because somewhere in me I know there are things in which he is right, and for all I know, as long as I’m with this guy. I’m secure.

Five days since my moving here to Seoul, it’s a little surprising that I’d have an encounter with one of his band-mates, at an unlikely place, an unlikely timing.