It’s one of those times when your eyes can’t do anything but stare and your ears can’t do anything but listen even when there is nothing to hear. So you stand there for a moment that is stretched to feel like forever, when in reality, the seconds you use become the seconds you waste trying to interpret what you feel.

And when you finally figure out what it is you’re feeling, you’re dumbfounded to acknowledge that it’s loss.

Because how can a person lose that which she never owned?

People say there are phases a person goes through until they land on the ‘I officially like you’ stage. For me, those phases were supposed to go like the following: Discovery. Attraction. Acknowledgement. Friendship. Flirting. Infatuation.

I feel like I was cheated from the system and went backwards from friendship to discovery – the kind of discovery that isn’t established upon first impressions, but with a revelation between acquaintances.

I discover myself in denial.

He’s opening up, and I refuse to believe.

“That’s the problem,” he says. “With helping you get Nam and Seya together. I don’t want them together, and I know that’s selfish, but so is what you want, and what Nam wants, heck so is what Seya wants, and I don’t even know what that is.

“I was stuck for so long, Junah.” Please don’t say my name like that. “I kept setting all these couples up and I watched them fall in love the way I did, and over and over, with every success story, I’d have to watch people walk away with the happy ending I didn’t get. When they’d come back to me talking about their first date, I’d think about my first date with my ex. When they talked about what they bought each other, I’d think about all the times my ex and I used to buy each other things. I saw her in everything,” he breathed a sigh that felt like he was exhaling the soul of his heart. “I saw her when the couple would hold hands or when they’d talk or when they looked at each other. I saw her throughout it all. And then I saw her less when I met Seya.”

This isn’t the Chanyeol to which I’m accustomed. This is someone I haven’t met. And upon the boundaries of first impressions, I’m not sure I want to know this person. That’s awful of me. I’m supposed to take all of the person, good and bad.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says, smiling. How can he smile like that? If he can smile so wide at a time like this, then how real were all those smiles from before? “I know better. I know not to steal.” He rubs his eyes. “I’ll help Nam, Junah, if he wants me. But I’ll need you to keep me in check. I’m adding to your jobs, aren’t I?” He laughs quietly. “You can still make sure that girls don’t like me. And please also make sure that I won’t find myself liking a girl. I need someone to be accountable to.” He looks down. “Can you do that?”

My eyes feel glazed, so I blink once, and then again. He looks resigned. He needs me, but not in the way I want.

“Yeah,” I answer. My mouth is moving, but my head tells me no. “I’ll do that.”

After Chanyeol leaves, I take a walk around campus to give my thoughts all the room to run free. As the wind pushes my feet to walk toward every direction but the one I want, I come across Bora. 

“Hey!” I shout. She looks up and jogs toward me. “Where were you?” I ask her as she hugs me.

“I had a lot of stuff to print out, so I woke up early to go to the library.” She starts walking beside me. “When did you wake up?”

“A couple hours ago,” I say.

“Are you okay?”

I glance at her. “Yeah. Why?”

“You don’t look okay.”

I think about lying, but she wouldn’t believe me. “Seya and Nam kind of broke up last night.”

“Oh. He texted me about that. How are they?”

“They’re okay, I guess,” I shrug.