Nara, was a godsend. She was there for me from dawn at the music video shoot, keeping me hydrated, driven and confident as I did take after take after take. They didn’t seem to have a firm idea on how the dance should be incorporated in the video. The first couple of hours they did various angles of me dancing solo under a spotlight, this was followed by a shot behind a screen so that only my silhouette was captured.

“I think it needs to be more dynamic,” I told the director as I looked at the playback of my shadow. “The fine movements don’t register in the shot, so I’ll try to tweak it a little.”

“Should we make it a little more static as well?” he suggested.

“I’ll stay in a small circle.” I’m glad that this director, a man in his late thirties dressed in a comfortable sweater and loose jeans, was who I ended up working with. It’s tough, but he was open to ideas, with his casual demeanour making him easy to approach.

“Let’s give it a go.’ He raised his hand for a high-five which I took. The hairstylist came to ruffle my hair up a little more, playing with the extensions they spent a good couple of hours putting on that morning. I gave Nara a wink as I passed her and went back behind the screen to dance.

Zion T finally came in after lunch to the warehouse set with his trademark round sunglasses and checkered suit, ready to film his part.

“You’ve worked hard,” he told me after we were introduced. His voice was different to the tone he used to sing, and I was taken aback by how polite he actually was, like a well-mannered school boy.

“It’s nothing. You’ve got an amazing song; I wish I did it justice.”

“You were amazing; the director showed me some takes. It’s exactly how I imagined it would be. Thanks, really.”

“It’s a pleasure,” I said, grinning from ear to ear. I’m glad that I was able to help out and deliver something substantial to him. The last sets of shots were of Zion T, Crush and I, where I was in the background as they did their lip-syncing to the song. Between their wardrobe changes and mine, the time passed by quickly. Nara came up to me with some water as soon as the director yelled ‘CUT’ for the final time that day, and I felt the exhaustion catch up to me. This was insane.

I tried not to limp as Nara took me to car where Ahjussi was waiting for us the entire day. I gave him an apologetic smile for taking up so much of his time, but he only had concern for me as he saw my tired face.

“Agassi, you did well. You were really beautiful,” he said.

“It was really good, unni. Really. You were amazing,” Nara said beside me, clasping my arm. “Like, really amazing. I wish dad and mum could’ve seen it.” I smiled at her, and wondered if they even knew that I was recording today. They didn’t even ask me what I did in the seven years I spent on my own in another country; I doubt they’d care about any other day like today.

I let Nara do the talking over dinner, nodding along as she explained the details of the shoot from morning until night. You could tell she was excited by the speed at which she was talking. Imo had to slow her down a couple of times so that she could understand the slurred words, and she smiled at me from time to time. I returned it. Today was too beautiful a day to ruin. I excused myself from the table once Nara’s show and tell was over.

“You did well today,” my dad said as I turned around. I think I was afraid I heard wrong, so I pretended I didn’t hear it, but he didn’t stop there. “We’re proud of you.” A little stunned, I bowed to him then made my exit. I didn’t know how to react to his words. I’ve never heard them being directed at me in my whole twenty-years of living, not once. I’m not sure how to feel about it.

Soaking my entire body in a cold shower, I leaned against the screen and let the water cascade over my face. The last time my dad praised me was when he took off the training wheels from my pink bike, with tassels hanging from the handles, and I rode on two wheels for the first time as if I’ve had them all my life.

“That’s my daughter!” he cried as he watched me go. “You’re doing so well!” My mum was clapping beside him, a beautiful smile on her face, and I saw her floral sundress move as she jumped up and down in excitement. They cheered me on, the both of them. It’s funny, the times where I view my dad warmly only happened with my mum’s laughter or calming voice entwined in the memory. They became synonymous really, my mum and warmth. Anything after that is cold and unfeeling, moments in my life I don’t want to remember. I’ve lost that warmth.

I want you to have a place to call home.

That’s what Seung Hyun had said. I closed my eyes and imagined that I was looking into his dark brown eyes and his dimpled smile. I haven’t lost that warmth, I realised.

“I miss you,” I murmured. Suddenly the next week without him felt so long, like it was insurmountable. I took my time untying the knots in my muscles from the pressure of the water, and then washed today’s hard work away. After I wiped the water vapour from the mirror I saw that Ahjussi was right, I did look drained. My feet ached and my eyelids were heavy, yet it wasn’t my pajamas that I ended up changing into and it wasn’t my bed that I wanted to be in either. I reached out to get some black tights, a top and a navy blue cardigan, grabbed my wallet and phone and then walked out of my room. Nara watched me warily as I passed by her on the stairs.

“Unni?” she asked me. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Yeah, I’m stepping out for a little while.” I gave her a hug then made my way out the front door, through the garden and into the street to look for a passing cab. The back-lit digital clock on the dashboard of the car said 11.02 pm as I stepped inside, and I watched as the minutes ticked by as he drove me across the city. I’m glad the driver wasn’t much of a conversation holder, only asking me my destination and letting me rest on the backseat quietly for the journey.

I must’ve fallen asleep. I woke up groggily to the sound of an unfamiliar voice telling me that I had arrived and I saw the familiar street that the car had parked on. It was deathly quiet, there was only the sound of the cab driving away as I looked at the brightly lit exterior of the apartment villa. I’m not sure why I thought coming here would somehow appease me, as if it would somehow bring me closer to Seung Hyun when in reality he was still thousands of miles of away. Wrapping my cardigan around me a little more tightly, I walked inside and made my way to his place.

“1203”, I repeated as I pushed the code in at his front door. The sound of ascending beeps came as promised and the door clicked unlocked. It was dark and empty, only a single sensor light came on as I took my shoes off at the entrance. Feeling the walls for switches, I tapped all of them on, suddenly putting this entire place in a blaze of golden light. I’ve never been here alone before, it was the two of us or three of us at a time. Now, by myself, it felt a little hollow. I prodded along the marble floor just looking at everything again under a new set of eyes. I couldn’t believe I missed it before. These wide open spaces, the indoor garden which connected the bathroom and bedroom, they’re details that he remembered and brought to life from my naïve words so long ago. He’s been waiting for me to come back all this time.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and my heart leapt as I saw his name on the caller ID.

“Hi,” I said.

“Did something good happen?” he asked. “You sound happy.”

“Yeah, I had a good day.”

“The director said you were amazing.”

“He did? It was tiring, but I guess I was.” I found a seat on the armchair that he cuddled me in and folded my legs to my chest as we continued to talk on the phone. It was pointless chatter really, we talked about our day, took funny jabs at each other when we could, but it reminded me of the long conversations we had when we were teenagers. Then, insignificant events seemed special and there was always a reason to pick up the phone.

“Guess where I am now,” I said to him.

“Where?”

“Your place.” A silence came for a while from the other end.

“And how is it?” he asked me finally. I looked around at the high ceilings, the artworks on the wall and the plush rug under me.

“It doesn’t feel like home unless you’re in it.”

“Funny, that’s what I thought as well when I first got it.”

“Yeah?”

“It only started to feel like home that night when you slept in it for the first time. I saw you sleeping so soundly with your hair flayed all over the pillows, those satin sheets wrapped around you and I thought that this is what I’ve been working so hard for.” I swallowed. My skin was tingling from the thoughts he had spared for me and my heart was beating into overdrive.

“You still don’t regret letting me go?” I asked him.

“…I regret not finding you sooner.”

“Then why didn’t you look for me?”

“Fear? For all the good intentions that I let you go with, I was scared I may have hurt you to the point where it was irreparable. Looking at us now, I guess my fear wasn’t unfounded.” I heard him let out a breath and lean back.

“I don’t trust men anymore,” I said, I rubbed my hands over my eyes. “You and my dad have made it really hard for me to. You’ve both hurt me so much, and yet I still look towards the both of you for solace. He said he was proud of me today.”

“Your dad?”

“Nara’s trying so hard to rebuild burnt bridges and I think he’s swayed by her.”

“It’s not Nara he’s swayed by. I think it might be you. He’s always been proud of you.”

“You don’t know him.”

“We’re both people that watch over you, so I know a little, and what we see is a woman who thrives no matter what gets thrown in her way.”

“Huh, you always know just what to say, don’t you?” I chuckled, tiredly sighing.

“Not all the time. Sometimes you make me lose my words.”

The morning sun came in through the living room windows and into my eyes, prying them open. I groaned. Sleeping on an armchair may have seemed plausible when I was young, but now I could feel my back aching and my joints getting stiff. Slowly I stretched out my back and greeted the new day with an enormous yawn. With dazed eyes I took a look around the empty apartment. I guess this was the sight that Seung Hyun woke up with every morning. There’s nothing here to accompany him except the monotonous ticks of the wall clock and the low buzzing of his refrigerator.

“You’ve had it hard Choi Seung Hyun,” I said to myself.

The kitchen remained as empty as it was when Nara and I left this place a few days ago. There were some bottled drinks in the fridge and his wine collection in a large display cabinet nearby, but that was honestly it.

“Should I make something?” I mused. There was a small grocery store about a block away from here which could be worth a visit, maybe something to make his pantry a little less lonely. A heart-warming ahjumma owned the place, sighting that I was an unfamiliar face, and gave me half a dozen peaches as a welcoming present to the neighbourhood. I didn’t deny her assumptions and I strolled back home under the morning sun while I swung the grocery bag around.

While I waited for the coffee machine to make my latte I put on some of Seung Hyun’s music which came lightly through the speakers and took a bite out of the sweet peaches. My feet carried me around the apartment, taking me to the three bedrooms downstairs and up the hidden staircase behind the kitchen to the second storey. There were an additional three rooms up here, most of them empty except for one that had been turned into something like an office and recording studio in one. The ceiling and walls were covered in wood panelling, blending well with a large, tan leather couch that took up one side of the room. In the centre back was an inbuilt table completed with recording equipment that sat well-lit underneath four down-lights. I opened the two narrow windows near the sofa to find that it looked down towards the indoor garden, and I kept it open so that the morning sun could get inside. It was good that he lived on the top floor, I realised.

Scanning the small bookcase I found familiar titles, but my fingers stopped on the spine of a little black notebook that I had seen so many times before. It was his lyric book. Carefully, I took it out of its place and carried it out with me. I could hear the smooth crooning of Marvin Gaye as I made my way back downstairs, and went to the kitchen to take a sip of the latte his trusty machine had prepared for me.

I opened that black, leather book as I sat on the edge of the bath tub waiting for the warm water to fill up. It made a small crackling sound, struggling after not being opened for such a long time. The pages were still neat and smooth though tinted a little yellow from age, although his words remained clear. Sometimes it was an entire poem, sometimes a sentence or two with little drawings or scribbles in between, but I was consumed by it all. I remember he was still writing in it when I last saw him back then, and now it was filled with his thoughts from cover to cover. Then, I didn’t want to read what he wrote when I saw him scribbling in them, almost scared that if I did I would interfere too much. Now, my hands couldn’t stop turning the page because in them I found lost time. I saw it as the only way I could find out what had happened in those moments where I wasn’t in his life. I wondered how he filled up these pages. Until which part did I remain still sitting beside him? And when I wasn’t, was someone else?

The water was a perfect temperature. I stripped myself of my clothes and stepped inside, that notebook still in my hand as I sat in the hot water. Seung Hyun’s always been a little eclectic, but as the pages progressed his lyrics became more cultured, rich with references and filled with abstract meanings. He’s really found his tempo, his colour. Then my eyes stopped at a few phrases which lay on a fresh page.

My wandering heart is frightened
Alone and lonely, lying in a lightless room
Thinking of you, remembering you, this pathetic painter
My only masterpiece is our love tragedy
 

I snapped it shut, scared of reading anymore. Putting it on the small table next to me I closed my eyes and submerged myself under the water, trying to clear all my thoughts away. Instead old memories come flooding in.

I lie on his bedroom floor, the ceiling fan twirling leisurely above us not really doing much to get rid of the stagnant summer heat. With my head propped up on his lap, I flick through my Korean literature book as Seung Hyun hums the beat that is carried through the headphones he is wearing into his ears. He scribbles something in his notebook from time to time with a pencil. I gave it to him last month, a beautiful, plain black, leather notebook that he can carry around and fill whenever he feels inspired. The one he had before had given out, the spine no longer being able to withstand the constant opening and closing, nor the rough jostling in his heavy backpack.

“Hey,” I say, tapping his knee to get his attention. Seung Hyun immediately takes off the headphones and looks at me. “Take care of it. Don’t lose that okay? When you’re rich and famous you can look back on it and feel inspired.”

“I think I’ll end up grimacing from the childish things I wrote though.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’ll remind you of the time where you spilt blood, sweat and tears to get to where you are now. It’ll remind you of the time when you and your friends had nothing to eat each day but chocolate pies, and then it will make the future you work even harder.”

“You know what it will also remind me of…”

“What?”

“You.”

“Really?” I say, sitting up to face him, grinning from ear to ear.

“And times like this where it’s just you and me in this crazy hot room.” I lean forward and kiss him. It comes so naturally to us now.

“You really think you’ll still remember when you’re off jet-setting around the world and thousands of girls are screaming in your face? Would you still even recognise me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He caresses my face in his hands as we look at each other. I see his vibrant, youthful eyes filled with hopes and dreams and I say a silent prayer that I’ll be able to always look at them and that I’ll always be able to see myself in them.

“Because you’re going to be staying right beside me,” he says. “Like you are right now.”

I opened my eyes, the water blurring my vision as I lay still beneath the surface. The sight of the white ceiling above me is moving and disrupted. I was back in the present, that sweet and dangerous memory having faded. My eyes closed again.

I kick the pebble that is at my feet and see it roll away into the middle of the street. I feel like a fool, waiting outside his dormitory. This was me being desperate; this was me throwing away my pride for him. He emerges from the front door only an hour later, his face distraught and his breaths heavy. Seung Hyun is frantic.

“What’s wrong?” he asks me. “Is everything alright?” He puts his hands on my shoulders and my body as if he was expecting a physical pain. My hurt was much deeper than that. I stand still, unresponsive to his concerns and that’s when Seung Hyun takes a step back. He stands quietly, putting a noticeable distance between us.

“You say to me that you would protect me. You say to me that you would run away with me,” I say. “I get it. You’re busy. You’re doing so well now I see you on television and everything and it’s great, I’m happy for you.” My head stays down, my hair covering my face as I wipe away my tears.

“I don’t expect you to be with me all the time. I’m not one of those girls that always needs your attention. I told myself that just knowing your heart is enough,” I continue. “But Seung Hyun, all I wanted is that when it mattered, when I cry for help, that you would be the one to rescue me.” I finally look up at him, and underneath that flickering street light I show him the bright red mark on the left side of my cheek. He looks at it, and his eyes wander as if failing to register the situation. To him it wasn’t possible. He knows how my dad is, how strict and stubborn he can be, but he also knows that my dad would never strike me. I always tell Seung Hyun, I remind my dad too much of my mother and for those reasons he hates me as much as he loves me.

“Shin Ae…” With shaking hands he tries to move my hair away from my face but I step back. I don’t let him touch me.

“Forget it.” I want to walk away but Seung Hyun blocks my path.

“I didn’t know.”

“It was your job to know!” I shout at him angrily.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.” He clenches his fist at his side and the only thing I can do is look at him helplessly. I don’t need him to my wounds or make me feel better with empty words. All I really wanted is for him to tell me that he loves me, that even if the world turns upside and goes against me, that he still loves me.

“Is this how we end?” I ask. Seung Hyun looks up at me taken aback.

“We’re not ending,” he says firmly.

“But we’re not going anywhere. Life is pulling is apart Seung Hyun. You can’t leave this place; you can’t run away with me. You wouldn’t abandon your boys. But what can we do? I’m not staying here. I’m going far away. My dad is sending me away from you.”

“He’s not. I won’t let him. I promised you I’d take you away and I will.”

“How can you? You can’t. You can’t leave.”

“I can do anything for you. Meet me tomorrow at the station. We’ll go away.”

“You can't.”

“I can, I will,” he says firmly. "Wait for me, I'll be there."

My eyes open again, my environment nothing but refracted light, although through the water I see a hazy figure of a man who slowly drew near. My memories have followed me here, I thought, it’s Seung Hyun. His face is stoic, merely observing me as I rose to the surface. I took a deep breath so that I could feel the air in my lungs again. My hair fell wet behind me, letting heavy drops of water slide down my neck and body as I sat up. Slowly, my hand reached up to touch my image of him, standing there in his coat and jeans, but before I could reach Seung Hyun it’s his warm skin that I felt on mine. He wasn’t a memory, he was real.

“You’re here,” I said dazedly.

He took my outstretched hand to pull me up, his other hand grabbing the small of my back so he could pull my wet, body onto his. Then as if caught in a trance he stared deeply into my eyes, and for the first time in a while I saw it, I saw myself reflected those dark brown irises as if in this entire world of his, I was the only thing he could see.

And he pulled me close and kissed me. The feel of the rough material of his coat and jeans on me was foreign, but it caressed my sensitive skin, heightening my senses and making me lean further into him. My body was still wet, I felt the water droplets rolling down my back but the taste of him in my mouth, his needing and delicate becking took my every thought. I forget about the fact that I am completely , my feet still submerged in water as I wrapped my arms around his neck. His hands made their way down my body until they gripped my thighs and lifted me up. I heard the splash of water as my legs left it and let him carry me away. Wreck me, ruin me, break me... I don't care anymore. I just want you to hold me.

AN: Phew! That scene took a whole lot of thought, hoped you all enjoyed it!