13.
I believe in you.Your's Pov:
I went back to an empty house. My grandmother came home after a few hours. Had she been seeing things as well for the past 4 years?
“Grandma,” I asked her in Korean dialect. “Do you remember Chorong ?”
“Ne, of course.” She replied.
I looked around the living room. It was empty except for her and me. I pointed to the empty sofa and said, “Chorong’s here.”
She made an effort to look at the sofa then turned back at me. Her answer sent chills down my spine. “Ye, she still looks so beautiful. I’m going back to my room. You have a nice chat with her.”
“Can you… chat with me?” I requested. Since omma’s death, I had not had a decent chat with my grandmother. We had a “hi” & “bye” relationship. She had earned her living through collecting cans and donations from the residents. All my allowances came from her and from my auntie.
My grandmother rolled her eyes. She ambled to the sofa and sat down, patting the seat beside me. She must have forgotten that Chorong was “there”.
L.Joe had called me a few times but I rejected all his calls. I felt that he was just putting on a mask.
“I’m feeling very lonely.” I told my grandmother. It was just so weird. I meant, my grandmother had always been so close to me, yet I had always consigned her to one side, as if she did not exist.
“How old are you already, Minnie ahh?” she suddenly asked. Minnie was the name that my parents used to call me. It had such a forgotten history that I nearly couldn’t remember that was my nickname.
I told her almost everything about myself. My age, my school and my life in general. I did not tell her about Chorong and my curse. Instead, I found myself talking to her about L.Joe. It just came out of nowhere.
“He’s a very nice and handsome guy.” I said. “Tall, tanned and always smiling. I always tell myself that I had not fallen in love with him.”
“Wae?” Grandma asked.
“Because… Mollayo. I knew I couldn’t love him. Grandma, what does love feels like?”
My grandmother took a very long breath. However, I could tell that she was not thinking. She was preparing for a very long chat. “Easy. Tell me, two hours ago, who were you thinking of?”
I thought back. “L.Joe.”
“Who are you thinking of now?”
“L.Joe.”
“And if you’re still thinking of him two hours later, you’re in love. Minnie ahh, love is a simple thing. It’s either you love, or you don’t. You can try everything, almost everything to prevent yourself from loving, but it all boils down to this: Either you love, or you don’t.”
I pondered on her words.
“Doesn’t matter how long the love lasts. You’ll be contented once you know you were in love before. Have I told you about the magnet theory?”
I shook my head.
“You’re like the North Pole of a magnet bar, and L.Joe is also like the North Pole of a magnet bar. There’s no way for both of you to be close together. There’s a force that’ll always push you both apart. This force is called the obstacle, like interest differences,
communication problems and etc.
“However, if you put a metal bar in between, both you magnets will stick to it. And you’ll be close to each other. That metal bar dissolves the force that pushes both of you away. And that metal bar is what we called love.”
What a load of bull.
However, when I realised I was thinking of L.Joe two hours later, I began to ponder her words again. Our metal bar… where can we find it? I wanted so much to ask my grandmother about it again, but she was asleep. And so I went to bed as well.
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