In Constant Stars
09 -- d i v i d e d

"So what exactly is going on between you and Jung Daehyun?"

She asked it so casually that for a moment I almost thought it was just coincidence that Heeyoung was asking me this. Obviously it wasn't. It was Kang Heeyoung we were talking about after all.

I threw my hair over my shoulders and shrugged. "Nothing. Why?"

She narrowed her eyes at me as we rounded the corner of the street. We stopped for a moment to let other by passers through before Heeyoung continued her hasty steps. The sharp sounds of her heels clacking against the tiles would have resonated across the street had it not been for the noise of people enjoying their free Saturday morning. "No particular reason. I just thought the two of you have been giving off weird vibes the past week."

I thankfully didn't have to clarify the 'weird vibes' that she'd correctly caught me surrounded by. I was saved by the sound of her phone ringing.

"Yes?" Heeyoung said half-minded as we hurried on. She listened to the caller for a moment before she rushed out: "Don't be so impatient, Minhyuk. The fact that you're terribly OCD about punctuality doesn't make us always tardy by definition. We'll be there in, like, two minutes. So be a good boy until then and wait, yeah?"

It was kind of a question, but she'd already ended the call before he got the chance to answer. Heeyoung tended to do that a lot. I reckoned it was a bad habit she'd learned from her parents, but as any association to either of them was a terror to Heeyoung, she denied that theory with great force.

"You do know he hates it every time you use that semi-patronising way of speech, right?" I asked as I watched her from the corner of my eyes. A satisfied smirk found its way to her lips. 

"I am aware of that, yes. It makes everything all the more fun."

Ironically, on the one day that I was free from both my jobs, Heeyoung had decided on a little get together like old times with Minhyuk and me, and that there was no better place to do that but at my work place, Corner. In translation that meant that she thought it was about time that Minhyuk and I would resolve our past issues of sloppy breakups and move on from any awkward ex-girlfriend-boyfriend talks. She said that Corner was the best place to do that. I figured the fact that she was in love with Minhee's chai latte might also have been an important factor in her choice of location.

We were greeted by Minhee's brilliant smile from behind the counter. True to her word, she did practically live in the café. Before Heeyoung even got the chance to open , Minhee already said: "Let me guess. One iced chai latte?" And Heeyoung could do nothing but nod sheepishly.

"And you, Nana? Which kind of coffee would you like today?"

I grinned at her and said: "I don't really have anything specific in mind that I want right now. Surprise me?"

"Oh, that won't be a problem."

We both thanked her after paying. We turned around in search for a certain boy who we found was already waving us over.

“Only two minutes late,” Heeyoung said before Minhyuk even got up.

“Colour me impressed,” my ex said with a roll of his eyes. He gave each of us a tight hug and sat down on the most comfortable chair of the three around the table. Heeyoung eyed it and seemed like she wanted to say something about that, but in the end she kept shut. Colour me impressed.

“How are you, Minhyuk?” I asked because I realised Heeyoung was in one of her especially irritating moods. I supposed that was the effect of her parents being back home, even if it were only because they needed to do packing to go on a really expensive trip around the world. “I’m so sorry we dragged you out even though you must be really busy.”

A familiar easy smile appeared as he said: “Nah, I’m not really that busy. I mean, being a trainee is tough, but it’s not slavery work. The company actually allows us a day off every week, so being here isn’t a problem for me.”

“A day?” Heeyoung echoed in disbelief. I had to say my thoughts mirrored hers. A day a week was still pretty terrible compared to his old time table of his first year of university, when he basically had all of the freedom in the world. “Who are you and what did you do to my Minhyuk? The old Minhyuk I knew wasn’t even satisfied with ‘just’ two school days a week off lectures?”

Minhyuk shrugged and took a sip of his espresso. Ever since he got into the idol business, he started caring more for his looks. Not only did his skin look great, he also took care of his hair and his clothes. That day he was wearing a neat shirt and a nice pair of fitted pants. For a casual style, the pieces still seemed oddly well tailored. I assumed that, despite the fact that he didn’t listen to his parents’ words of advice, they still supported him financially. Something I knew Heeyoung’s parents wouldn’t do for her if they were to be put in the same situation.

“I don’t really know. I guess you just learn to appreciate the things you have once you realise that it was the devil's work to actually get them,” he said, a little softer, while setting down his cup. Switching between looking at both of us with a serious gaze, he pointed out: “Both of you should know what I’m talking about.”

I did. I was sitting in my own working place, after all. Combining work with school was crazy, but I could do it because I had a goal I wanted to reach. And the closer I got to achieving just that, somehow all my feelings of gratitude for the opportunities I got just became stronger like they could burst. Heeyoung sat back in silence because she understood as well. No matter how much she pretended to hate the idea of setting goals and creating a path in life to follow it, she was a dreamer too, deep at heart. 

"Your brother's here," Minhyuk suddenly said while focusing on something behind me. He did that nod thing that guys always do to greet others from the same gender, something I had absolutely no understanding for. What happened to old-fashioned waving?

I turned around and found that Zelo had indeed just entered the café with his friends. I greeted him with a smile as he waved to the three of us.

"Is he still growing?" Minhyuk asked when Zelo had turned away. 

"Hm, I think he is. It's hard to tell when you see him every day," I muttered.

"Dang, I think he's more than one foot taller than I am now."

I smiled nostalgically at the memory of the first time Minhyuk had visited our home. The instant I'd introduced him to Zelo, he went to stand next to him and asked me to see who was taller. At that time Zelo was still fifteen and, though he was already growing rapidly, had not quite reached Minhyuk's height just yet.

Minhyuk was very well liked in our family. He swept my mother off her feet with his slightly lacking, though conversational Japanese skills. He taught Zelo acrobatics tricks I'd told him not to show to him. (Obviously Minhyuk still did. I supposed all rich kids like Minhyuk and Heeyoung just didn't like to listen to what my wishes were.) My father was also fond of him. I never really figured out why.

“His birthday is coming up soon,” I whispered to them. “I was thinking of throwing him a surprise party, but I’m scared he won’t like it.”

Minhyuk and Heeyoung exchanged curious looks before they said: “Of course he will. Why would he not?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “It’s just… You know, we didn’t get along well for a while, so I was wondering if a surprise party might be out of place.”

Heeyoung turned back to look at my little brother while he and his friends got themselves seated. With a gentle smile appearing on her face, she absent-mindedly said: “You worry too much, Nana. I’m sure he’ll love it.”

I bit my lips. Minhyuk smiled kindly too and said: “I agree. He’ll be crazy happy when he realises what you’ve planned for him.”

“Say, Minhyuk, what do you think about that guy wearing the grey jacket?” Heeyoung suddenly asked while Minhee came to bring us our drinks. My best friend was still sitting with her back turned to me so she could get a better view of the café. “The one talking to Youngjae, I mean.”

I could hear Minhee giggle softly, but I supposed I was the only one who heard that. She turned around and left again in her sashaying strides, completely ignoring the angry expressions I was directing at her.

Minhyuk shot Heeyoung a weird look she didn’t quite catch. I saw a glimpse of her face when she turned back around, and she’d been grinning in a satisfied way that didn’t please me at all.

“Uh… I don’t know him? Are you going on a date with him or something?”

Heeyoung gasped. “Me? Date Jung freaking Daehyun? Don’t think so, honey, but nice try. You’ve once again proven you have no knowledge whatsoever of my impeccable taste when it comes to males. I was really just wondering what your impression of him was.”

“Just ignore her, Minhyuk. She’s in one of her weird moods again,” I said with a sigh. This girl and her strange, reckless outbursts.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “You mean the weird mood wherein she takes on a recluse’s life and hates the world, or the one with her shouting food names at anything on two legs expecting them to make it for her, or the one that makes her cranky to the max and she throws things at you for no reason…”

“I mean the one in which she gets so nosy that you wish that she was in her I’m-a-recluse-weird-mood.” As it was, our best friend’s big scale of emotions had gotten its own specific classification system. Minhyuk nodded understandingly.

“Har-har, guys. I’m still sitting here and I still have my black belt in taekwondo so don’t forget I could land both of you in the hospital if you don’t do your best to amuse me.” She took a sip of her chai latte and then continued: “So, what is your impression of Daehyun?”

“I guess he must be an okay guy since he seems to be good friends with Youngjae. Youngjae’s pretty cool.” Minhyuk shrugged and then averted his gaze at the guys behind us back to his own coffee. Raising the cup to his mouth, he asked: “You seem like you’re especially interested in him.”

“Oh, believe me. I’m not.”

She’d done it. Heeyoung could’ve as well made a banner saying ‘Interested in Jung Daehyun’ and drawn a gigantic arrow with it pointing at me. It would’ve had the same effect anyway. If there was one thing people didn’t usually expect from Kang Heeyoung, it was probably the fact that she was the epitome of being indiscreet. No one ever realised how wrong they were. Heeyoung was the walking definition of ‘tactless’. She had it down to a T.

I looked down at the cup of coffee in my hands like it was the most interesting thing in the world. I mean, coffee is very interesting, but it wasn’t worth staring at for a full minute. Yet I still did. I was such a coward, even I kind of had to laugh at it. The worst part was that I couldn’t really deny it. Daehyun irritated me, yes. But it would’ve been a big lie to say that not even one small part of me thought that he was interesting.

“… Right,” Minhyuk muttered after a moment of silence. He coughed and ruffled his own hair, obviously very thrown off by Heeyoung’s comment as well. “In the category of topics that I’ll have to avoid when talking to the two of you: dudes. Is there anything else on taboos that I’m forgetting, now that we’re at it anyway?”

“Nana’s brother complex,” Heeyoung whispered to him.

“I don’t have a brother complex!”

“Yeah, whatever. Just shout it a bit louder and the rest of Seoul will hear you, just like the people in this café.”

“What?” I turned around in stress and saw to my horror that, indeed, a fair part of the café’s current customers were looking at me with either an amused or irritated look. And Zelo looked like he wanted to dig a hole and hide in it for at least a month. I mouthed ‘sorry’ to him and turned back around to glare at Heeyoung.

It wouldn’t surprise anyone if I admitted aloud that, whilst Kang Heeyoung was very much capable of making me a better person, she was also terribly good at landing me with the most embarrassing and awkward situations. Admittedly I had my fair share of contributions to said situations, but it was undeniable that Heeyoung would always be around whenever I did.

Therefore I was confronted with a mix of divided emotions when she got up after a few moments of mindless chatter and announced that she had to go back to her parents with a roll of her eyes. A part of me was happy that she was gone and the chances of me embarrassing the heck out of myself had significantly decreased. Another part thought that I was very likely going to be more awkward now that I was alone with just Minhyuk.

“You’re still blushing,” Minhyuk said with a grin. He leaned forwards with his elbows resting on his legs. His eyes were completely focused on me and it unnerved me. “It wasn’t that bad, Nana. Relax.”

“Sometimes I would like to tie her up to a chair and duct tape her face,” I muttered.

“We both know you don’t mean that.” He was right. I didn’t really make a move to show him that I thought so as well. “I mean, I can’t imagine you without Heeyoung… Or Heeyoung without you. I’m pretty sure being separated would leave both of you in a mess. After all, you used to call her – what was it? Your weakness?”

“Yeah…” I softly said with a smile. “I still call her that, actually. She just is.”

Minhyuk nodded quietly. As I met his eyes, he averted them to the ground, like he suddenly didn’t really want to talk to me anymore. It felt like I’d hurt him just by talking about Heeyoung that way, though I didn’t comprehend how that could be.

Time ticked by. I took another sip of the odd, yet tasteful coffee that Minhee had made me, thinking all the while that this was probably the Chocolate Mint Coffee that she’d been trying to perfect the past few days. Minhyuk was playing with the tiny spoon by his empty cup. It was obvious by the way he was frowning that there was something on his mind that he wanted to tell me. He was still figuring out how to.

“What is it?” I asked, just to grab the chance to fill up the silence.

He didn’t stop twirling the spoon around. “I used to wish that I could be your weakness too. Sometimes I still do.”

Here’s the thing about Minhyuk. As hidden and shushed away I liked to keep my emotions, that was how straightforward he was. They say opposites attract; we were the prime example for that. He breathed in and sat back again in his chair. His eyes were set a bit hard, like he was guarding himself from anything hurtful I was likely to say to him.

“Sometimes I also wonder what would’ve happened if I’d just continued studying architecture and stayed around more to be with you,” he said. He was still looking in my direction, but it felt more like he was looking at a space that I couldn’t see. “I’d just lie awake in bed though I was exhausted from dance practice. Instead of sleeping, I asked myself if being a trainee was worth leaving us behind in the messy way I had.”

I had no clue that Minhyuk had remained sleepless because of me. The entertainment industry was harsh and training sessions were long and tiring. The performances had to be perfect, after all. In fact, everything had to be perfect. Of all things, what trainees needed most in their daily life was a good night’s rest. And even that I had taken away from Minhyuk.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” I said genuinely. “You could’ve talked to me, you know… We could’ve talked about it.”

He smiled bitterly to himself. “Nana, let’s be honest here, okay? I know as well as you do that that was just no option. You hated the fact that I was a trainee. I knew what your answer would’ve been if I’d called you and asked you whether I’d made the right decision.”

“I didn’t hate it…”

Minhyuk shook his head. “It destroyed us. Of course you hated everything about it.”

I bit my lips and shook my head. Repeating myself, I said: “I didn’t hate it… It just hurt that you weren’t going to be around as much as I was used to from you. I mean, you and Heeyoung were the ones I could turn to when things got tough. I found it terrifying that that was something that wouldn’t come as naturally as it did at that time. And most of all, I didn’t want to be the selfish girlfriend who’d hold you back from the things you wanted to do. Because it really did feel that way every time I’d call you and you’d pick up while you were still busy catching your breath from practice.”

“Every conversation we had lasted for about two minutes before I had to hang up again,” Minhyuk added carefully.

I nodded. I took a deep breath in and released the pent-up emotions that had been inside of me ever since we’d broken up. It felt like this was my one moment to tell him the truth and then leave it behind us. “I’m sorry I gave up, Minhyuk. I’m sorry I hurt you. But I can’t say I regretted my choice. The sole reason we worked out in the beginning was because you were able to keep the balance. I was too careless to handle a relationship as fragile as ours while you were too busy to. I just couldn’t do it.”

“I think the problem itself here is the fact that our relationship was something we felt needed maintenance. A relationship doesn’t need someone to keep the balance. The reason for two people to start a relationship is because they are in balance at a certain point and they realize that’s how it should be. We were very balanced from the beginning, Nana. We lost it somewhere along the line. Frankly, I think that that’s something we were both responsible for. Not just you, not just me.”

I bit my lip again. I tended to do that a lot whenever I felt cornered, Heeyoung had told me. It was a defence mechanism of sorts. Minhyuk saw and immediately the happy and playful smile returned to his face. Despite how genuine his upbeat behaviour seemed at first, I soon realised it was an act. He probably felt as terrible as I did that moment. He stood up and opened his arms. “Come here, you.”

And that’s just how selfish I was. I got up too and stepped into his embrace. He wrapped his arms tightly around my shoulders. No holding back. That was how Minhyuk was.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he whispered in my ear. “It’s fine, Nana. We’re fine.”

He was kind of lying.

“We’re not fine,” I choked out, awkwardly.

He listened to the soft murmurs of the café and the sounds of cups being set back on their porcelain disks. Then he said, honestly and raw: “No, we’re not. But we will be.”

That was how things went with the two of us. The meeting wasn’t as happy as I’d wished it had been. But it had been true and that probably mattered more than anything.

When we left, we passed by the table where Zelo and his friends were seated at. Like an expert I avoided looking even remotely in the direction of Daehyun, because I knew the only look I would be greeted with would be that of a scowl. I didn’t expect it to be anything else. The past days at school, that had been just how we behaved around each other. Rather than just passively ignoring each other like before, we’d both taken a more aggressive approach and just made it outright clear that we disliked each other. Yongguk seemed like he’d taken back his words of thinking that Daehyun liked me just fine.

Minhyuk did that guy nod thing again to Youngjae and Himchan after greeting Zelo with a friendly ruffling of his hair. My little brother looked up with a big grin and greeted him back with an enthusiastic ‘Minhyuk hyung!’

“Hey, man. How’ve you been keeping up with your acrobatics?” Minhyuk asked good-naturedly. He’d originally been lightly leading me forward with his right hand on the small of my back, but he dropped it as we were now standing by the table.

“I’ve been practicing a lot! But that last trick you showed me is really tough. I don’t always land right.”

“Wait,” Jongup interrupted, curious eyes directed at Minhyuk. “You taught Zelo acrobatics?”

His friends chuckled and Minhyuk did too. Though Zelo was my brother and I loved him dearly, even I had to admit that the idea of tall, kind of awkward lanky Zelo doing tricks in the air was kind of weird. But he did fine and he liked the thrill. As long as he didn’t hurt himself, I liked seeing him enjoy himself with acrobatics. Zelo punched his best friend in the arm, though he couldn’t quite keep his grin away either.

In the midst of the happy atmosphere I dropped my guard and let my eyes wander along the table. Youngjae smiled to me kindly and Himchan winked at me suggestively when he saw me look at him for a bit. However, at the end I also ended up looking at Daehyun.

He’d been staring at me first.

As Minhyuk joked along with the rest of them, Daehyun looked at me with one eyebrow arched. He switched between directing his focus at Minhyuk and me. The unspoken question he wanted to ask me was apparent. I didn’t feel like addressing it.

Only slightly, though still perceptibly, I shook my head. The truth was, it wasn’t fair if he got to ask questions. This wasn’t any of his business to begin with. I liked to keep Minhyuk and I’s relationship – or whatever it was – to myself, because it was something that would probably stay forever fragile in my heart. Someone like Jung Daehyun had no right to claim that kind of knowledge, especially not after what he’d made clear to me at Jinae’s home that afternoon. Not after what he’d told me, and definitely not after what he hadn’t told me.

This was what I wanted to say to him, though I couldn’t because there were people around. Daehyun and I weren’t anything to each other, if not antagonists. If, by chance, he still wanted to know certain things about me despite our disagreements, he would have to know that that just wasn’t how things like this worked. Knowing came with the great task of understanding. Understanding wasn’t for Jung Daehyun. Things just didn’t come that easy for him and me.

Minhyuk and I left. Minhyuk seemed to have returned back to his cheery self after the talk about his favourite hobbies with Zelo and his friends. With his usual semi-teasing, semi-serious ways of interacting that used to confuse me very much, he told me I should at least give him a kiss on the cheek. And though I hesitated for a moment, wondering if we weren’t crossing any boundaries, I still did. That was where our ways separated and he turned left and I went right.

Before I turned around the corner, I shot one last glance into the café. Daehyun was still looking at me. He was still wondering the same question. Jung Daehyun, it turned out, was a curious soul. Even so, I figured I didn’t owe him an answer.