Jiyeon looked into the mirror. She was clad in a black dress, her hair up in a bun for the night. It had been a while since she had done this. She still remembered the last time she had been standing in her room, clothed in a dress like this, hair falling to her shoulders in waves, hearing the murmurs of her parent’s voice from downstairs, meeting Eunjung’s eyes through the mirror. She remembered the anticipation churning in her stomach, the promise of something enormous waiting on the other side of the night. Had it been almost a decade ago?

This time, the feeling was different. She was alone, there are no whisperings from downstairs, no Eunjung chiding her for sleeping in the afternoon. But there was still this feeling, this childlike anticipation of something big on the other side. She was irrationally happy after that incidental encounter with Myungsoo. There was this kind of excitement that she had not felt for so long, the kind that left her feeling as if she could skip on the streets and smile randomly at strangers.

Suzy texted her earlier, saying that Sungyeol was being the chauffeur of the night and was picking everyone up. We insist on giving you a ride, Suzy’s message said, and she could not help but laugh. She did not know what going back to her high school would bring, but after seeing Myungsoo in that quiet Sunday morning, silent lightness in his eyes and sentimentality in his smile, she did not mind it so much.

It was almost dark when she walked out of her apartment building, the last streaks of light, red and angry across the horizon. Sungyeol’s car was parked at the side of the street right in front of the entrance. When she opened the door, she was greeted by a chorus of laughter. There was something sweet about that, as if these people shared something intimate, like they all belonged to each other. Everyone was there, Myungsoo in the passenger seat beside Sungyeol, Sunggyu in the backseat and Suzy in the middle. Jiyeon sidled up beside Suzy, throwing her a questioning look that asked what were they laughing at?

Suzy was beginning to answer her when Sungyeol’s voice rang out, “We told you that she was going to wear black!”

“No, Suzy was adamant that you were going to wear ‘proper colours’,” Sunggyu said, his fingers quoting what Suzy said.

Black is a proper colour, Jiyeon signed to Sunggyu.

“Right?!” Sunggyu screamed, “She said black is a proper colour.”

“Right back at you Miss Suzy,” Sungyeol said as he turned the left bend.

Suzy looked at Jiyeon with such a betrayed expression that she could not help but laugh as she patted Suzy’s knee.

“Now she's matching with us guys,” Sunggyu said.

“We're all wearing black except for you, Suzy,” Sungyeol said. Jiyeon was beginning to think those two were of the same breed.

“That's not fair!” Suzy said, “You guys wear nothing but black!”

Jiyeon watched the childish banter in equal childish fascination and something akin to happiness swelled in her chest. She imagined how it would have been if she was surrounded by so many friends, never mind genuine or convenient, back in high school. She was too afraid, too aware of needless things like her weaknesses. Jiyeon thought that teenage years was the age of stupidity and that she had missed out a chunk of good things because she thought no one could hear or wanted to hear her.

Kim Myungsoo had his own battle to fight. They were two people who grab each other’s hands at the end of the day and run off from their realities - escapists really - painting a fantasy of their own. They had found comfort, friendship, companionship and maybe even love then.

She lifted her gaze and without meaning to, it wandered past Suzy to Myungsoo. She kept her surprise when she saw his eyes already settled on her person. In that small, loud enclosed space, silent acknowledgement passed between them. They had always avoided the other these days, seeing but not quite coming to term to the other’s presence, in their own whirlwind thoughts.

It was a promise that they would talk today. Fix and straighten things out or break everything so that then she could fix what was broken.

“Don’t you agree, Jiyeon? The boys are too stupid to understand anything deep.” Between then and now, she missed a great deal of content that was their conversation. She was not sure what it was that she was supposed to agree with. She nodded to keep the attention off of her.

She saw Myungsoo’s lips curled into a very discrete start of a smile in her direction, as if he knew what went in her head, as if sharing a secret.

“Oh, wow. Do they always go this over top for a school prom?” Sungyeol stepped beside Myungsoo at the start of the red carpet that was bordered with softly lit candles.

Myungyeon High was lit tonight, each window glowing, banners and hanging lights casting a glow to the school. The school itself sprawled golden in its splendor, stretching from one end to another, its architecture boasting a hundred and fifty years worth of history and use.

“And to think our year was the best organised prom the school was to see yet and until forever,” Suzy sighed in disgruntled awe.

“She took a lot of pride in her organising the event back then. Apparently still does now.” Sunggyu said in explanation.

“Of course. You know, there is this story surrounding the night of music. Oh it is very romantic albeit a bit sad. There are these two lovers who would play enchanting music but they stopped playing one day. It had always been a myth until that year. There was music. Everyone knew there were four hands playing the piano. No one knew where the music came from but it was very beautiful although everyone was scared of their wits and they had this silent agreement that this was not to be discussed, ever,” Suzy related excitedly. “Maybe today it will happen, again. I can feel the magic so strong in the air,” she gave Jiyeon a sidelong look and a smile.

At this, Jiyeon stole a look towards Myungsoo. He was not paying attention. His eyes flickered towards the school, gazing past the lit halls, the golden windows, trees swaying in the shadows. In the golden wash of light, his features were not as severe. There was a sort of warmth to it, the kind of innocent wonder of just waking up from a dream. When Myungsoo turned his head to catch her eye, Jiyeon spun to avoid him, as if she had committed a crime. The action was more involuntary than anything, but her heart snagged. How long has it been since she last caught herself staring at someone?

As the group neared the foyer of the school, ushers flanked them, asked them what year they graduated. They asked if they needed any assistance around the school, or if there were any teachers they had wanted to meet. Jiyeon regarded these students. They were polite in their manner, their uniform crisp, hair arranged neatly. Looking at them in this setting somehow emphasized her age. They must be a decade younger than her. Wasn’t it just yesterday that she wore the same exact uniform, hair tied in cascading waves behind her back, her shoulder lugging her bag and insignificant burdens of her thoughts? Was it not just yesterday that she just graduated in black robes and a graduation cap, writhing and excited, ready to set out into the world?

“Actually,” Suzy mused, “there is someone that I would like to meet.” She smiled at one of the school girls and asked about a teacher. Jiyeon recognized the name, Cha Yongsu, her chemistry teacher and their homeroom teacher for their senior year. The usher nodded, “I’ll take you there,” she said, and they set off with Suzy and the girl at the front.

Suzy was talkative as they wound through the hallways, asking the girl about the school, and their teachers, the school system and what had changed since they graduated. Here, her excitement was no longer bound and tight within her skin. Here, in the old hallways and familiar territory, it was a living thing, emanating from the click of her heels and the wave of her hands in infectious golden waves.

Initially, Jiyeon did not know what to feel about coming back here. She thought it would not mean anything to her to come back, to look at the school as she had always remembered it, cold hallways and classrooms, empty fields, people running around the track. But being here again was different. In the glow of Suzy’s excitement and the familiar company of both Sunggyu and Myungsoo--can you believe it, Park Jiyeon? Both Sunggyu and Myungsoo were here--it felt different. Maybe it was the soft light, or the distant sounds of music. Maybe it was the soft clicks of their footsteps in formal shoes, or seeing the girl in her uniform. Maybe it was her heart, tentative yet sure, stagnant beats and memories flashing, but she felt like this school was hers.

Passing through the classrooms and offices, she realized that there were so many things that she had not remembered. Here was where she dropped her bag on the first day of school. Here was where she took her last exam, hands wringing and heart bursting. Here was where she passed Myungsoo a note. Here was where Myungsoo took her hand and they ran. Looking back, she was not really as friendless as she came to believe. There were always a few people who would say hi to her along the hallways, saved some notes for her when she was absent from school, called her over to eat with them. And now looking at Suzy’s back as she walked, her professional gait never really leaving her even in this old territory, Jiyeon realized that Suzy had always been one of them.

There were many things that she never knew she had forgotten and as they walked, she could almost see her younger self living here on the other side of time. Young Jiyeon was almost tangible that she wanted to reach her, and talk to her. You’re safe here, she wanted to say, it will get harder but you too, will be stronger.

When Jiyeon looked over to the two boys who were walking alongside her, she caught her expression mirrored in their faces. Her gaze stopped at Myungsoo. His eyes distant, an expression lost on his features. Were memories of his youth replaying in front of his eyes too? Jiyeon never knew. But she dared to hope.

When they reached the classroom where Mrs. Cha was stationed, Suzy was the first to rush in and hug her. Mrs. Cha greeted the rest of the group warmly and made them sit around her in a circle. Sungyeol hung back but Suzy would not have any of it. Once all of them settled around the teacher, who looked almost as if she did not age at all, her eyes still kind and smiling, her features soft and warm, she started talking.

Suzy pioneered the conversation, filling in about what she had been up to ever since she graduated, asking about new students, jokingly asked if they had gotten worse, if their batch was so much better, if she liked them more than their juniors, if her family have been doing well, have oldest entered middle school now?, are you still forcing them to go to the dentist?, oh, you kept all the letters?

Once her eyes strayed to the rest of the group, she asked with a smile, “And what have you all been doing?”

Sunggyu answered first, “I graduated from art school. I have an installation now,” Sunggyu said with a smile, and browsed through his phone for the pictures that he took of his work and showed it to the teacher, who made a soft exclamation, “Oh! It’s beautiful.” She scrolled through the pictures, “You made these?”

Sunggyu nodded, “You can visit the gallery if you have time, the exhibition is ending next month. it’s mostly collaboration with other artists, but I did quite a fair bit for my parts.”

When she lifted her gaze from Sunggyu’s phone, Jiyeon saw something fill her eyes. An expression. Of wonder, or perhaps pride? “You had talent since back then, I know. Always with your notebook scribbling other things. I remember one of your sketchbooks was confiscated from the discipline master.”

Sunggyu laughed, “And I begged you to retrieve it for me.”

“Oh yes, the trouble I went through to get it back,” Mrs Cha smiled at the memory, “Oh but you were so smart back then. You always spout out answers in class that you think were nonsensical and the class would laugh but they were always close to the correct answers. I was always surprised. Pleasantly surprised.”

“I didn’t know I was smart,” Sunggyu said.

The conversation moved to Jiyeon after that, “And you, Jiyeon, what are you doing now?”

Jiyeon’s eyes moved to Sunggyu and he nodded. I opened up a cafe a bit after I quit from my first job, Jiyeon signed.

After a heartbeat, Sunggyu translated, “She says she started a cafe business shortly after she resigned from her first job.” Jiyeon watched as all the heads in the group jerked from her to Sunggyu, watched as Sunggyu spoke the words that she signed and continued to wonder. Because she could count with her fingers the number of people who could do this for her, who could put into words the gestures and waves that she expressed with her hands and fingers. Only a few weeks back, she was thinking about Sunggyu as a memory, as a lost friend. But now, here he was, doing something that people could rarely do for her.

“Oh, why did you quit your job?” Mrs Cha asked.

Because I didn’t really like to work in an office, Jiyeon smiled nervously. But she did not have to worry because the look on her teacher’s face was that of genuine concern.

“Is your business doing well now?”

It actually is. Jiyeon smiled, we hit a snag last year but now we’re pulling back up.

“Ah, that’s good for you. I always wondered about you after you graduated. About what you’ll be doing. I always wanted to look out for you back then. But you’re always one of the last people to reach class, and the first to leave.”

Jiyeon did not know what to make of this. She had always thought that she was invisible back then, tried her best not to attract any attention, and then maybe the teachers will forget her. She did not know that she made a lasting impression on anyone. Coming back here, she did not even expect any teachers to remember her. But it was an odd feeling to be remembered. To hear another person talk about herself. She heard her heart caught and was irrationally touched at the thought that her teacher remembered her this way. Unsure of what to say, she said the first thing that came to mind, You can come over to my cafe, Jiyeon smiled sheepishly, I can give you a discount.

The conversation next moved to Myungsoo, “Ah, my star student, what have you been doing?” Her tone and her expression was so endearing that Jiyeon could see that it caught Myungsoo off guard.

“I work under a company now.” Myungsoo said. Short, civil, polite. Jiyeon noticed how he omitted the company name and his own title.

“Ah, an office worker?” She smiled at Jiyeon as she said to Myungsoo, “Are you thinking of quitting too?”

“No, ma'am,” Myungsoo said, too formal to be passed off as a banter, “I’ll be staying here for quite a while.”

“He’s the director of his section,” Sunggyu mock-whispered to the teacher. Jiyeon saw her eyes widen, “Oh, that explains it then. Our star student is also a star worker.”

Myungsoo only nodded his head slowly in reply. But Mrs Cha did not prod on. Her eyes had already moved to Sungyeol. Jiyeon could see the teacher scanning the archives of her memory as she looked at Sungyeol. At this Sungyeol shifted in his seat and raised his hands in a gesture that said no, “I’m not one of your…”

“Oh, I see,” then her eyes flitted to Suzy, fast, calculating, “Yours, then?”

Suzy was so shocked she almost dropped from her chair. Jiyeon could see warmth flooding into Suzy’s face as she coughed. But neither of them denied it.

“What do you do?” Mrs Cha asked Sungyeol. There was a shift in her tone. The conversation turned somewhat into an interview.

“I work under Myungsoo. As his assistant,” Sungyeol swallowed, “and his lawyer too, if he needs it.”

“Oh, so you, Suzy and Myungsoo work under the same company?”

The three of them nodded.  

“And the company is…?”

“Van Chantique.” Myungsoo said.

“I know it. The make-up line?” Mrs. Cha asked.

“That too,” Myungsoo explained. Now that he was talking about his work, Jiyeon noted, he was more at ease, “but our sector is on tourism and hospitality. Hotels and services.”

“I see, I see.” She nodded.

They had to leave shortly after. Another group of students had come into the room, a younger group this time. University students. For a moment, Jiyeon imagined what it was like to become a teacher. What it felt like to teach students and then talk to them about their grades, watch them stress and cry over their results and school events and lost friendships and maybe sometimes boys one day, watch them leave another day and then come back five, ten, twenty years later as mothers, fathers, wives and husbands, adults by their own right, as they stayed on in school to watch new students come and leave. That day, Jiyeon decided that she was glad that she was not a teacher. But then, she also decided that she was glad that she came.

Jiyeon walked beside Myungsoo as they left the room.

“Call me when you decide on the wedding date!” Mrs Cha called after Suzy as they left. But as Jiyeon looked back, Mrs Cha looked at her and smiled. As if she knew.

Jiyeon did not dare hope.

The group separated after they left. Suzy went off to meet different people, other teachers, the student council committee, the cleaners in school, the canteen vendors. Sunggyu went to search for his soccer coaches, his soccer juniors maybe, his friends. Jiyeon went to explore the school, sometimes went with Sunggyu or Suzy when they called her over. Sungyeol flitted between the three of them.

Myungsoo ventured off alone.

Jiyeon thought to find him. Later, she decided.

Jiyeon was with Suzy when Sunggyu called to find him and Sungyeol at the fountain. As they made their way to the open air courtyard, Jiyeon knew why she was saving this place for the last. There was a different air to this place. The music was clearer her, yet softer. There was a gentle hum in the air, the sound of the water flowing streamed in the background, an undercurrent of something more.

The fountain stood in the centre, white and sprawling and as majestic as she had always remembered it. Around it, people were waltzing to the flowing music, revolving around the centre as if they were drawn to it, as if they were caught in an eternal orbit around its grand splendor.

They found the boys standing at the edge of the crowd, their drinks in one hand, talking in hushed tones. They looked like princes in this light, the black of their suits deep and dark, their hair windswept. Maybe it was the music. Suzy went over to where Sungyeol was standing. “Why aren’t you dancing?”

It was true. Why weren’t they dancing? The music made her bones rattle. She wanted to dance.

Sungyeol considered the question, “I don’t dance.”

“Nonsense,” Suzy said, “Didn’t you go to an international school?”

“It’s an international school, not a gentleman’s school, Suzy.” Sungyeol said, but he passed his drink to Sunggyu and followed Suzy through the crowd.

Jiyeon watched the two as they were swallowed into the crowd and dragged into the orbit of the dancers, their dresses swaying, music heavy in the air.

“Where’s your knight in shining armour?” Sunggyu’s voice beside her made her jump. When Jiyeon turned, Sunggyu was not looking at her, his eyes searching the crowd, soft, not waiting for her to answer.

Maybe it was time to find him.

She slipped away from the crowd up the winding of the pathway into the secluded part of the courtyard. She saw as the clock tower loomed over the security of the trees, majestic in its height and age. Once she stepped over the boundary, guarded by the shrubs and the dark, the noise and excitement of the party dwindled to a comfortable buzz.

She stopped in her track. It was so easy to loose the foothold of reality here. She had always reminisced over this, the clock tower, the fountain, the calm but this was beyond what her lited mind could capture, what her memories could offer. It was stunningly breathtaking. Jiyeon realised with terrifying clarity that she missed this. This was where it had all started. The cold boy had become her confidante, then her friend.

She traced her fingers over the creeping ivory on the walls. Emotions wrestled in her chest. Oh, has this been forgotten again?

Jiyeon tried to find the alcove that was the entrance only to find it already slightly ajar. She paused.

Had someone other than herself knew about this? Even though it was absurd to even think it, it felt as if her privacy had been pried open, her secrets shared to the world, her cherished trinket stolen from her. But this was not hers. She had been lucky to have discovered this place that had held so much memories.

Jiyeon contemplated, the discourse in her head unforgiving. The curiosity won over: she wanted to know who shared something so intimate with her.

She pushed the door with effort, as if it had forgotten how it was to be opened. She was bathed in darkness except for the little moonlight that trickled in from the amourous clock face above. She could make out the gears of the clock moving in silent and selfish synchronisation.

There was no one. She only heard her heavy breath in the space. Had she forgotten to close this place the last time she had been here nine years ago, a reflection to how she had refused to close him in the chapters of her life?

Jiyeon approached the piano, her memories served as her direction because there was barely anything to be seen in such miserly light, with the same trepidation she had felt the first time she had been here. Was it still here?

Cold. She touched something cold. And dusty. The excitement bubbled and she could not stop herself from sliding her hands over the metal to the other side, dusting off all evidence of untouched loneliness from the instrument and maybe her heart. Her hand was itching from the dirt but Jiyeon scarcely cared and sat on the bench instead. The creak echoed from the walls.

She measured the notes, one by one, basking in the richness of the sound as they ricochet loudly in her ears in that small space. It was still finely tuned. She wondered the same thing she did years ago, how had it been possibly? Had someone secretly took care of this? Did someone leave this here intentionally? Had it ever come to anyone’s knowledge of its existence? But as she played the familiar tune, she pushed her tumultuous thoughts into one corner of her head. This...this was home.

As she settled into a comfortable rhythm and into the promise of bliss of ignorance of the world, a heavy weight perched on the same seat, next to her. Her instinctive reaction was to run far away from there, as was clear in the stumble of her notes but the person started playing and covered her mistake as a discordance. It was more horrifying, the realisation that came. Her hands stilled and she let him took over. Kim Myungsoo. In the darkness, with her, on the same seat that they shared so many intimate conversations and moments.

“I did this before, here. With someone. Was it you?” He asked and threw a challenge by slipping and swirling the notes into the start of the very familiar song, as if testing her.

Voiceless Cries.

Jiyeon had always played on the lower keys. It was her greed. He had always took the higher one. She did not know if it was because he had liked it or because he had always gave in to her. But he had always been the one who made the song run high, fast, swelling and alive, and she had always been the one who had to rein him in. But he sat on her left that night, taking the lower keys, playing her part for the song they created together.

She remembered his parts, obviously. She played them countless of time before. Her first note was heavy with meaning because she got them right and because that had meant that this Jiyeon was his Jiyeon from the dreams and the scarce token that survived the years: the engraved necklace in his left pocket.

Myungsoo came out the shower slightly after eleven. In the dim light and vast space, he remembered thinking it was an uncommon time to be home. It was too early. It felt as if he had passed some sort of threshold when he walked in those doors because he had never stepped a foot in the house before two in the morning before - even during weekends.

He languidly poured himself a glass of ice cold water. Myungsoo could not recall a time he had been so comfortable in his own skin, as if he was his own person. Myungsoo knew that it had everything to do with the serendipitous unraveling of a big chunk of his past. His high school, the unexplainable hidden alcove and Park Jiyeon.

The darkness had tucked him in, to share their sanctuary that the visiting figure had not noticed his presence, as she entered the secret space. He could not make out the stranger’s face, but his eyes could contour the outline of her person, and he watched her fluttering in mild interest. Myungsoo had missed the object that held her in a trance when he had entered earlier.

As the first note bounced off the suddenly small space, Myungsoo understood that there was a piano, at the same time the name floated imperviously in his head: Park Jiyeon.

His eyes strayed to the small box on his kitchen counter. It looked desolate to his detached gaze, a tiny thing on the vast gray countertop, still and unassuming, a bit out of place. He reached for the box. It was small, enough to only fit a ring. He ran his fingers over the white speckles on the black and opened it. It was empty.

Despite many things he had yet to grasp, it was easier now to conjure a chronological order of events, to add things up, to understand images that played in his heads that had refused to make sense before.

Myungsoo remembered when they ended the song, the memories of their playing still fresh in their head. She had played his parts, perfectly as if they were hers. His song that he kept playing, not knowing how it was that his fingers memorised the keys even when his mind could not find the sound familiar. But the score sheet, yellowed from the years, Bae Suzy had given him and the fact that Jiyeon had played them confirmed that it was not something that his mind had beseeched in empty confusion.

Did you ever date?

In the dark biting cold of his kitchen that night, Myungsoo could still see Jiyeon’s fingers as she moved, the wave of her hair carried by the wind, the trace of a smile on her lips, the clock tower loomed behind her and behind it, another world of dance and music. Here it was silent. Light barely stealing its way past the shadows but he could see her face then.

Did you ever date? she had asked.

“Nearly did one time. She ran before anything could get serious.”

Pause. A slight shift in the air. The moment of indecision between jealousy and amusement. Was he too honest?

“You?”

I had a some friends but I can’t imagine dating. Had lunch, dinner, breakfasts, coffees, but that was that.

They had talked about needless things, of ordinary happenstance from that day, yesterday and the span of their youth. Myungsoo did not realise there were many things he had remembered and cherished as he recollected them in the dim moonlight and unnatural lamplight.

His question as to why he received an empty box. It was only now that he recalled his own confusion years back. The box had come with a note of course.

Myungsoo,

Happy birthday. I hope that in the future, when you look back to this day, you will remember this present and treasure it.

It took him a while to decode it, and even then, he was not entirely sure if it was what Jiyeon meant.

Memories. That was what Jiyeon have meant to give him on his birthday. When he looked back, it had always been memories that she wanted him to treasure, to hold close to his person. It amused him, this young Jiyeon, this kind of unexpected cheesiness thrown at him, the kind of naivety to gift someone an empty box and leave him to figure it out on his own. But despite his amusement, something snagged at his heart.

Myungsoo closed the box. His palm fisted around it.

The gift that Jiyeon had meant to give: it was his to collect and etch in the folds of his mind. It did not matter if he had forgotten, there were always spaces and opportunities for him to start all over again because he realised it then what she had meant when he had gifted it back then: a promise of lifetime of memories.