Finale
Unrequited Love
Soojung was beautiful, but not in the ways other people might like to think so. She didn’t have hair that dripped with the color of pure gold. Rather, her long locks stained white clothing with their strands of dark ink. Her eyes weren’t the color of the cold sea, they were more or less the hue of burnt out charcoal. Her smile was crooked and bent around the edges.
Her lips were thin and ever so slightly chapped, especially in the long winter months that dwindled away into hot summer days. Her skin didn’t shine with a healthy glow when it became summer, she stayed thin and pale and porcelain and indoors, not wanting to tarnish her alabaster epidermis. Soojung didn’t have a gentle laugh, nor did she speak humble thoughts out loud, not even on TV or in public, because she was shy and didn’t like the way her voice sounded.
But she was beautiful in the way the waves of the shore kiss white feet, in the way the moon hides itself in the curtain of dark cloud. She was beautiful in the way wind dances in hair, and in the way shy lovers hold hands, and in the way you could see the subtle changes of summer shifting into autumn. Soojung was beautiful in the way of crisp and cool morning air and the lingering aroma of coffee, and the intricate love poems that live and breathe in each broken heart of the world, spilling red oil into blue lungs, suffocating happiness right out it’s hardening shell.
She was beautiful because she refused to taste sadness even when that was the only thing she had left to eat, she refused to give up on the harsh and frigid world that had chewed her up in an instant and spit her back out, in tatters of who she’d been before. Soojung was one of those rare types of people who had the gift of hope, an endless quantity of hope, and she could never be deterred or put down or beaten down hard enough into the earth to stay down. No, Soojung was too stubborn to give up too easily. Especially when it came to the things and people that she cared about.
Things like singing and dancing and eating mangoes. Things like American holidays and singing in English around her house. Things like long distance friendships and love and me. Soojung refused to ever give up on me. Even when there wasn’t any time for us to be together, and we grew more distant as the days blurred into weeks and the weeks blurred into months and the months blurred into years.
Even when she spent more and more of her time with Amber and Kai and people that weren’t me. I guess Soojung thought we could still be the same after all that time of not talking, not looking, and not touching each other. When she kept to herself at her house while I stayed in my room, alone, with Vic out of the room and out of sight as our Umma went out with Luna most days.
I knew that Amber hyung would be there with Soojung, the two of them doing only God knows what behind closed doors of Soojung’s home. I never have liked to think about it. Especially when hyung comes home to the dorm late at night with her hair mussed and her eyes wild and the smell of Soojung’s perfume covering her clothes, the nights that I would pretend to be asleep when she cracked the door to my room open and checked on me, the nights I’d cry myself into slumber after she left.
There have been too many of those nights for me to count, but enough for me to remember every single one of them. The feelings that came back with every glance of the beautiful girl, whether it be on stage when we preformed, when we had rehearsals, everywhere. But I knew that I was starting to give up on Soojung, as much as it tugged my heart strings, I knew it was happening. And I didn’t like it. But it was still happening.
The two of us used to be so close, so inseparable, never leaving each others’ side. Whispering stupid things into each others’ ears just to get closer to each other, hugging each other endlessly, not ashamed by the cameras filming us. Saying sweet things about each other. When the two of us were the real “Jungli”. And now look at us, faking our sweet actions and pretending to be normal in front of the flashing cameras. We’ve almost died down to nothingness, f(x) being the only thing that ties us together anymore, the only reason at all for touching would be when the five of us are on stage. There’s something wrong with us: either it be Soojung or myself, I’m not sure.
But I like to think that it was her that wrecked us and our relationship. We’d been best friends, but we’d always be walking that thin line between friendship and love, nearly tipping over and falling into each other, but not for long. Not before she’d back away and obtain space from me. Soojung never let our antics go too far. I was always the braver one between the two of us. I was always the strongest. Until now.
Where it seems I can’t last much longer without Soojung, and she’s perfectly fine without me in her life. “Say ‘dirty’,” she ordered me in a playful tone, the first words she’s spoken to me in days, smiling at me like there’s nothing wrong and that everything’s perfectly normal, holding a mic in her hand, her eyes sparkling. I lift my own microphone to my lips after a second of comprehending the fact that she’s actually talking to me, and spit out something along the lines of, “Dir-derp?”
She and Amber hyung laugh like a pair of hyenas together, and I look down and blush at the stae floor for all I’m worth: she’s just playing with me again. As soon as we’re off the stage, all of her happiness and affection towards me ceases, and she’s ignoring my existence as she’s hooking her arm through Ambers’ with a poker face on her features as we make our way passed the paparazzi to the cars waiting for us in the parking lot outside the stage. The way she looked at me just then is etching itself into my mind as we drive by the world as it goes on, never stopping for anyone. I glance at her whispering something into Ambers’ ear and sigh, wishing that I had a super power that could’ve stopped time the way we were back then.
My dreams are lucid, filled with her, every single one of them: whenever I close my eyes, she’s standing before me, smiling at me, paying attention to me again, looking at me the way she used to. In my dreams, we’re the way we used to be. We’re holding hands and staring shamelessly at each other. We’re sleeping over at her house, holding onto each other under the sheets. We’re telling each other to shut up jokingly after play-slapping the other, but if anyone listened closely enough, they would’ve heard that there was an “I love you” laced inside our words. I don’t ever want to wake up from those dreams, because I know once I do, I’m back in reality and she’s back to ignoring me. And the two of us are back to square one: strangers living in the same world.
She’s staring at me. I can feel her eyes on my back as we dance to our new single, and I do my choreographed body wave a little more powerful than usual, because I know how much that movement of mine secretley turns her on. Amber’s missing, that’s why there’s the noticeable increase of her towards me. Because hyung’s not here’s the only reason why she’s turning to me again. And I pretend I’m okay with that, because it’s better to have Soojung with me, even if I’m her second choice. Because I love her, and I’ll always forgive her, no matter how many times she’s unknowingly rejected me thousands of times, or hurt me a billion more. Because that’s what true love is.
Unrequited love. She’ll never love me as much as I love her, but that’s okay. I’ll always be there for her when she needs me, I’ll always be what she needs me to be. Because I love her, I’ll always love her. And so I let her be clingy with me, I let the shenanigans go on, I let her shower me with affection, even when I know she’ll never belong to me, even when I know she’s doing it just to have someone’s, anyone’s, attention. She pulls me into a back hug, and I smile a little bit, and let her fingers twine around my stomach. And on accident, the words come out.
Words I thought I’d buried deep beneath the surface came rushing up. “I love you.” Her grip loosens. She steps away. My eyes turn to the ground, and she lifts my face with a finger. Soojung rolls her eyes at me, “Stupid...., don’t you know that unrequited love is never unrequited for long?” She tilts her head up and grabs my neck and tugs mine down, our lips meeting halfway.
And I know she can feel me smiling as I kiss her back, during the moment of bliss of finally knowing that Soojung had always been mine all this time, all along. “Amber was just helping me out....trying to give me advice about asking people out since...well, you know how I am with saying how I feel. But most of the time she ditched me after a while and went out with Nicole, leaving me to think of how to tell you I loved you.” She shook her head and held my hand, “I’m sorry it felt like I’d left you...I didn’t mean for that to happen. I just....” she trails off and kisses me again. “I just love you, Sulli. That’s all.”
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