In Constant Stars
24 -- o f  c o n f l i c t s

Minhee only needed to see Heeyoung take a step into the shop to know that that would be one order of chai latte. Just like any customer would, Heeyoung liked having her regular orders remembered, so a very satisfied smile graced her lips when she saw that she didn’t even need to place hers. She left a few bills on the counter – likely too much for merely one chai latte – and then made her way to the corner table where I was seated.

“I love this café. I’d almost consider working here too,” she said as she set her leather messenger bag on the ground and sat down, crossing her legs. She was dressed stylishly, her clothes originating from brands of which I couldn’t pronounce the names correctly. It was often that Heeyoung complained about how amusingly superficial she could be, but she never acted on those complaints. She embraced luxury much in the same way her parents did, especially her mother. But I would never dream of pointing out her similarities with her parents without having to face Heeyoung’s fury for doing so.

“Well, too bad for you, Mrs. Hwang just hired a new barista. I haven’t met him yet, though,” I said before taking a sip from my cappuccino, careful not to let the cream touch the skin above my lips.

“I have. You will too, but apparently he’s only starting in February. He’s a quiet one, that guy. I wonder how he’ll be when he starts working here,” Minhee said as she walked up to us, her right hand balancing a tray with Heeyoung’s chai latte. I quirked my eyebrows at the incredible speed she’d finished up the order with, but, well, it was Minhee. She was possibly the best barista in Seoul. “Anyway, how are you, Heeyoung? Are you here to embarrass my dear co-worker again?”

I jokingly glared at her for sounding so incredibly amused. As it turned out, Minhee and Heeyoung had quickly bonded over various things, amongst which also topics like desserts (specifically the ones that Mrs. Hwang made), the various cute boys who occasionally entered the shop and, finally, me. Especially all the various ways of making me feel uncomfortable.

“No,” Heeyoung said with a satisfied smile as she gratefully took her drink from Minhee, “I only do that when her ex is around.”

“Aah, Minhyuk,” Minhee said with a knowing nod, like she’d known him all along. “Yes, well, I can only wonder why you ever let that handsome stud slip away.”

I groaned. “Guys, please, let’s not talk about my ex. Again.”

It was weird how quickly things could change with a little bit of time. A few months back, the mere mention of Minhyuk would have made me feel completely empty inside, in a bad way. It would be a lie to say that sometimes thinking back to him and our relationship could make me feel really sad, but it wasn’t a fresh wound anymore. In fact, because Heeyoung simply insisted, we’d been hanging out more and more with just the three of us like we used to back then. Sometimes things could still be awkward, especially when Heeyoung was in a particularly bad mood, but I still loved being friends with Minhyuk again.

Heeyoung and Minhee shared a wink and then my co-worker turned around to help other customers.

“Gotta love your colleague. She likes teasing you. Anyone who does that is awesome by default,” Heeyoung said as she watched Minhee’s back turned to us. Then she turned to me, her eyes shining as she inquired randomly, for the nth time since the past few months: “So, what’s the deal between you and Daehyun?”

This question, obviously, was just another routine thing and by now I couldn’t even pretend to be surprised that that was one of the first things she asked me. And Heeyoung wasn’t the only person wondering this anymore. Even Yongguk had asked me one day, even though he did duck away in embarrassment after the words had left his mouth.

And I supposed it was understandable that people wondered about it. Daehyun and I were very hot-then-cold, after all. We simply couldn’t make up our minds. Sometimes we’d be discussing whatever thing that didn’t actually matter with extreme passion and fire just to prove the other wrong, but then the next moment we’d be closer than ever. Frankly, I believed that both of us didn’t know what we were doing exactly, either, but that was probably just the flow going on between the two of us. We wouldn’t mesh well if we did actually mesh.

“Well, we’ve agreed to disagree on the cake versus pie argument. I mean, even we ourselves realised that that debate was ridiculous.”

“No, no, you misunderstand,” Heeyoung said, shaking her head. “I mean, are the two of you dating yet?”

“Eh,” I brought out quietly, a frown forming on my expression. “No. Stop asking me all the time.”

She shrugged. “Can’t blame me for trying to know. I mean, the two of you are so odd, really. You both keep insisting that you aren’t in a relationship, but whenever I see you two together, it just feels like you’re keeping something from the rest of us.”

It took a while for those words to register in my mind, but when it did I suddenly felt panic well up in me. “Wait, you mean you’ve asked him too? If we’re dating?”

She waved a hand. “No, of course I didn’t, silly. I wouldn’t be so tactless.”

I pressed my lips together in order not to spill the fact that I did, in fact, think that she would be so tactless. Her usual Oopsie incidents aside, when Heeyoung was curious, she could be rather unthinking while searching for a proper answer.

She grinned at my forcefully neutral expression and it was clear that she was so terribly amused by how uneasy this conversation made me feel. As she quirked one brow up, she said: “But I’ve been thinking about how you kept saying a few weeks ago that he has changed a bit, and now I think you might be right.”

“Huh?”

“Well, didn’t you say that Daehyun had been acting really weird before that futsal match that somehow magically made all tension between the two of you disappear?” Heeyoung smiled again, and I didn’t like the way it looked at all. “Well, all tension except for the ual one of course.”

“Heeyoung,” I groaned, “please stay on topic.”

“Anyway, I think you might have been right back then. It’s just – I don’t think he’s really changed in general. He’s just changed with you. That’s why I didn’t notice.”

I felt an odd sense of relief flood over me. It was good to know that I wasn’t just imagining things. If Heeyoung agreed with me on this, it did actually mean that Daehyun had been acting rather odd. I’d already started doubting myself. With a smile, I said: “Right? He’s been acting a little odd. I just wonder why.”

Usually I would have been able to realise that Heeyoung probably knew why. She knew far more than most people thought she did. I should have realised that she’d stayed oddly quiet as I voiced my wonders out loud, but it never quite registered as something weird with me until later that day, when I didn’t get the chance to ask her anymore.

“More importantly, Nana, I have a very nice proposal for you and you’re actually not supposed to say no.”

“Which means it isn’t a proposal by default,” I pointed out.

She clapped her hands together dramatically and I barely contained another sigh at her dramatic theatrics. Her voice went up a few pitches when she said: “Join me in the first week of Christmas break in Incheon. There’s a brand new hotel opening there and from what I’ve heard, it’s a gorgeous place. It’ll be just luxury and relaxation.”

It might be surprising that I actually thought the idea of that was very appealing. It sounded like a week of no worrying and not really needing to do anything at all. It’d be filled with a lot of lazy mornings, relaxing afternoons and fun evenings. It would be great. But it simply wasn’t realistic.

“That sounds wonderful, Heeyoung,” I said, sincerely, “but by the sound of that, I don’t think I can afford it… especially not for an entire week.”

“It’s no problem. My parents were supposed to go, but since they’re out travelling Dubai or wherever they are right now, I’ll be taking their place and I can bring someone along. All you have to do is to ask for leave from work.” She squealed then. “It’s going to be so great! So will you come with me? Please?”

When she saw me hesitate, she knew that she’d already bought me over. Squealing, she pulled me into a hug and I shrunk away a little from her overdone excitement.

“But seriously? The hotel is gifting your parents a week stay for free?”

Heeyoung took a gulp from her chai latte and nodded. “My mother helped with the interior design of a few suites. I can’t figure out for the life of me why they wouldn’t hire an actual professional for that because God knows they’ve got the money for it, but apparently mother did an alright job. Moreover, it’s not that big a deal. Many more big names have been offered the same gift, which isn’t weird since the hotel hasn’t officially opened up yet. They’re probably just using this chance to create some networking opportunities and to promote the hotel.”

I thought it was rather odd that a week’s stay in a hotel would be used as an opportunity of promotion. It sounded like some very expensive PR, the kind that my mother wouldn’t approve of if she were the one in charge of handling the publicity for this hotel. But then again, if the hotel was as extravagant as Heeyoung described it to be, they probably had the money for it anyway.

I drank the last bit of my cappuccino and waited until Heeyoung finished her drink as well – she usually didn’t take very long to finish it; she just loved it too much – before I took the cups, got up and brought them over to Minhee at the bar. We made small talk with my co-worker.

It was only until we exited Corner when I finally asked Heeyoung what I’d intended to ask her all along: “So, how are things going with your parents? Anything new happen lately?”

Her expression didn’t really reveal much if you didn’t look for it, but Heeyoung wasn’t a master of keeping her emotions completely shut off from the outside. I only needed a slight twitch of her eyebrows, a suppressed roll of the eye or the barely visible narrowing of her lips to know that things were going exactly the way I thought they were.

“Oh, you know… They’re out travelling, so I’m free from their nagging. Everything is great,” she said casually as we made our way down the street. She didn’t look at me as she said this, but her face was set a little too neutral for someone who was supposed to be very happy stating this. She’d been so ecstatic that she’d thrown a party inviting almost the entire school population when her parents had left, after all.

“Oh really? So was I wrong when I thought that your bad mood during the futsal match last week was because of them?”

Her head snapped in my direction so fast I thought she might give herself a nasty whiplash, but she recovered quickly with a flawless smile. Throwing her hair over her shoulder, she proved to me that she was feeling exceptionally fabulous this day compared to usually. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

This answer was all the more reason for me to believe that I was right.

“Just tell me, Heeyoung. What did they say this time?”

Heeyoung’s parents didn’t do things that upset Heeyoung. The fault always lay in the things they said. When you’re powerful and rich enough to get things done by just talking, it simply becomes the weapon you hurt people with, which was exactly what happened in the Kang family as far as I knew. Kang Jinho’s words were absolute, even if he was a man of few.

Heeyoung’s brisk steps on her high heels came to a halt. I stopped as well and turned to face her.

“Well,” she started, “they somehow managed to discover that I haven’t sent in any applications to universities yet, even though they’re on the other side of the world. And you can probably imagine that my parents were not exactly… thrilled, when they found out.”

“But you’re planning to apply, right?” I asked. “I mean, you’ve always told me about how you’re going to knock their socks off with a great college choice and fantastic grades in all your classes once you’d go to uni.”

She grimaced a little before she said: “That’s the thing. I’m pretty sure now that I’m not going to do that. I actually think I don’t want to go to uni at all.”

“Oh.” The moment the sound left my mouth, I regretted my thoughtlessness.

“Yeah.” Heeyoung crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at her feet, as if to inspect if her heels were still scratch-free and flawless. It was clear that she’d seen my response coming from miles away, which was probably also why she’d been so reluctant on telling me to begin with.

And honestly, I did feel a bit sad at the thought of going to college on my own, without Heeyoung there to hold my hand. We grew up going to everything together. We were born knowing each other and went to the same kindergarten, primary, middle and high school. We were supposed to continue that by entering college together, yet now it seemed that this would not be.

Still, this wasn’t how I was supposed to react. Heeyoung was Heeyoung; she always trusted her own instinct above all. Even if that meant prioritising her own instinct above her parents’ opinion or mine. And after all the moments that she’d supported me, made sure that I’d be alright, the least I could do was to be happy for her now that she’d been able to make this decision. I owed her that much.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I said, “I’m not mad if that’s why you didn’t want to tell me. If you think that going to college isn’t for you or isn’t the best decision you can make, then I support you. Definitely. Actually, I’m really happy for you. You’ve made a choice! That’s a big deal, you know.”

She looked at me long and hard with a blank look before she finally smiled a little and almost shyly started playing with a loose strand of hair hanging over her shoulder absentmindedly.

“You really think so?”

I nodded with a broad grin.

We walked on in silence, the world around us continuing in its own steady-paced habits of content engine hums from cars and low-profile dialogues from our bypassers. It wasn’t long before Heeyoung sobered from her low-profile moment of joy.

“It’s kind of scary, thinking of the future, Nana.”

I thought of mine and how little time I actually spent thinking about it usually. Hadn’t everything been carved out for me to begin with? Finishing school, going to college – though with a change of plans regarding my scholarship – graduate, get a job and live a happy life. What if I suddenly started doubting that and had to tell my Mum that I might not go to college?

I almost shivered at the idea.

“I know, Heeyoung. I know.”

When I came home, the first thing Zelo asked me to do was to cook him something because he was starving. Anything. Boy knew how to eat, but he sure didn’t know how to work a stove if his life depended on it.

Flipping the scallop pancake that I was making him, I asked: “Do you have any plans for Christmas break?”

Zelo was seated on the counter top next to me. Our mother actually forbade him from doing that, saying that anything on the counter might leave a stain on the of his pants. Not that she was ever around for him to feel like he should really oblige.

He took a quick swig from a bottle of water, before saying: “Nope, not really. Himchan wants us to keep it free though.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he has a surprise or something. It’s bound to be one of his stupid ideas again. It’ll probably be something like going camping in the wilderness even though everyone knows Himchan hates bugs.”

“Just like Heeyoung,” I said, amused.

“Just like Heeyoung noona,” my brother confirmed. “How about you? Any plans yet?”

I didn’t reply before I finally succeeded in shoo’ing him away from the counter top so I could reach for a plate in the cupboard behind him. “Well, Heeyoung just invited me over for a week’s stay in a new hotel that’s opening in Incheon. I haven’t decided if I’m going to go, though.”

“Why not?”

He eagerly took the pancake once I’d had it served on the plate and cut it in small pieces so we could share. He grabbed two pieces for himself.

“I just…” I sighed. “It’s Mum. I don’t know what her plans are for the end of the year, but I don’t want her to be alone this Christmas.”

Upon hearing this, Zelo shifted his attention from the pancake to me. He had a thoughtful look on his face as he finished the remaining bits of the two pieces. When he chewed, he pushed all of the food to one side so his cheek would resemble that of a hamster’s. He’d be a half hamster, really.

Finally, he said: “I wouldn’t be so worried about that. Didn’t she say that uncle Kazu’s family would be here visiting?”

I groaned. “Having family visiting us is all the more reason to stay here. Mum wouldn’t let me go.”

Zelo pressed his lips together in thought, giving me the feeling that he didn’t agree. “I don’t know, noona. Spending time in a new hotel sounds like the right kind of relaxation that you really do deserve. Mum probably thinks you should take a break for yourself too, just like I do.”

I opened my mouth to protest, all the while realising that we’d fall back in the same old pattern of either Zelo or Mum insisting that I was overworking myself and then me disagreeing furiously. But Zelo stood up abruptly, holding out a hand to me.

“Hold that thought. Except if you want to tell me I’m wrong. Again. In that case, just forget what you wanted to say. Anyway, gotta pee.”

I scrunched my face in slight distaste, but he didn’t see it as he immediately turned around and ran for the toilet.

Weird.

I took a piece of the pancake too, for the sake of knowing whether the taste was right. Down the hall, the sound of Zelo whistling resounded and I had to suppress the urge to roll my eyes.

Zelo’s phone started buzzing. I could feel the vibrations through the wood of our dinner table.

The pancake was rather bland. No wonder Zelo dashed out after just a few pieces.

The vibrating created an oddly loud sound against the table and I picked up Zelo’s phone to set it on a soft coaster. I hadn’t intended to peek at his screen because his messages were his privacy, of course, but it happened inevitably.

‘Choi Sanghoon’. As in Choi Sanghoon, our father.

I didn’t feel anger at first. I suppose I was too taken aback by seeing his name flash there to instantly feel angry, even though somewhere in the back of my mind it felt like I’d known that Zelo had been talking to him. He was too secretive around me. He mentioned him too often, too subtly. He didn’t flinch away at the thought of our father the way my mother and I did. Zelo was too intent on going back to the way things used to be to not allow our father back in his life.

The anger did come to me pretty quickly once I realised that. By the time Zelo was standing in the doorway to our kitchen again, all he could probably see from my expression was just anger.

“Is this who you’ve been secretly calling all the time?” I asked quietly, the phone still in my hand. I watched the name that stayed on the screen for another two buzzes before our father gave up. Then I finally looked up at my brother.

The look on his face was enough, really. He didn’t need to say anything. But I wanted it out there, in the open, so maybe this situation would make more sense. Maybe if he actually admitted it out loud, I might be able to understand just the slightest bit why this happened.

It was no secret that Zelo had wanted to talk about him, but as much as he had wanted to, I didn’t think I could. Talking about him was like rubbing salt in the wound and of all things, I didn’t think that was what I needed. I’d told Zelo so and back then, he’d accepted that as an answer.

I hadn’t known that he hadn’t just wanted to talk about our father, but that he’d also wanted to talk to our father.

“You shouldn’t act surprised, noona,” he said coldly. He did that sometimes, just shutting himself off when he felt that there was no better way to make his point without getting hurt from whatever I might tell him. “You can’t expect me to keep everything inside when it’s screaming to be let out. All the questions, all the thoughts… the memories of having him around. You might want to keep that mess contained inside of you, but I didn’t. I still don’t.”

“So you went to do it behind my back, right?” I asked with narrowed eyes. “Because that’s so fair, isn’t it?”

“This isn’t about being fair or not. Dad told me that you picked up his call that time and just slammed the phone down when you realised it was him. You knew that he wanted to talk to us, didn’t you?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and pointedly shot a look at his phone. “Well, was that phone call before or after you started having pleasant phone conversations with him again?”

“That isn’t important.” But he did take a few steps forward to snatch away his phone. This only further confirmed my suspicions that this had been going on even longer than I had thought initially. “What matters is that you knew that he wanted to talk to us but you didn’t tell me. If it were up to you, you wouldn’t even give me a chance to talk to him.”

“Oh really? So tell me, if I hadn’t been there to pick up his call that day, would you have told me then? About the fact that suddenly the two of you are all friendly-friendly again?”

“If you think that the two of us only exchange pleasantries and that our conversations only consist of me asking him how his day was, then you’re wrong.”

He wasn’t going to give me an answer, which in itself spoke a thousand words to me.

I smiled bitterly and eyed him with feigned innocence, while deep inside, I slowly felt all of the hatred well up. I hated Zelo a bit in that moment, just like how I hated my father. Most of all, I hated myself, because I couldn’t be strong enough to let this go and move on. But there was no stopping this. It was Pandora’s box unleashed, that phone call.

“Then do enlighten me, how is Daddy dearest doing? Is he sleeping with another woman? How has he been spending my college money? And does he occasionally still remember that he has a wife who’s working day and night in an attempt to keep this family functional?”

I barely stopped to breathe before I continued even more harshly: “Don’t you see, Zelo? He ruined this family. Can you blame me for wanting to cut off all connections with him? What good is talking to him going to do to us before he starts showing that he can actually fix this? I’ll tell you what: there is no good because he can’t! He can’t fix this!”

“He made a mistake!” Zelo refuted. “The way you and I make them too, he made a mistake! And I think he at least deserves a chance to explain himself. As his children we owe that much to him.”

I laughed at this, though there was no humour to the sounds coming from my voice. “I bet he’s done a great job explaining considering you’ve been calling each other for… two months? Three? Tell me, brother, what exactly has he told you that’s supposed to make all of this okay again all of a sudden? Probably nothing. I don’t even think he’s told you where is. You have no idea what he’s doing, do you? I thought so.”

He pressed his lips together, opting for silence. Knowing him, he probably wasn’t taking my words for correct, but he was simply trying to get the both of us to calm down. Sadly for him, I wasn’t in for a peace treaty. I wanted everything destroyed, once and for all, where my father was concerned.

“The moment he stepped foot out of this house and never came back, he lost my respect for him as my parent. I only call him my father because it’s easier than calling him ‘that man who abandoned our family’.”

Somehow those words had tasted incredibly stale on my tongue. I took in a deep breath after having said that, realising that I was shaking from anger and sadness. My breath hitched as I gasped in. Still, I forced myself to go on and finish what I’d started.

”Honestly, Zelo? I don’t think I owe him anything.”

With that, I got up and briskly walked past him. He didn’t say anything or make any motion to stop me in my tracks. I supposed that was for the better. I only came back home a few hours later, when it had become dark outside already and Zelo was locked up in his own room. After that followed a week of not talking to each other. He could just go talk to our Dad all he wanted.