May, 2008

It had been a year, but what Yongguk told me during our summer trip still lingered in my head. The fact was I still had no idea on how to process what he told me. Half of me was still in disbelief for what he said. And as for the other one, it knew that what he said was the truth I had waited all this time.

I knew that I was curious about myself. Yes, I was born in a family where they were very used with my power. But still, even though some people understood about me, I felt myself to question who I was actually and why I possessed the power. Was it a coincidence for me to be in the same family with Yongguk? Was there any actual reason on why I had to be someone important in his life?

 In my family, I was used to help Mom and Dad if something important came up. Yongguk rarely asked me and even if he did, he usually ditched his question after two answers. In short, he only used my power to confirm something that he was not sure about—even when he had done several checks by himself.

And then, there was me. The weirdest thing about my power was I couldn’t apply the power to myself. I somehow became blind whenever I tried to help myself. I became a blind girl who asked another blind girl about the color of everything around us whenever I tried to use it on myself.

Yongguk and Dad mocked me about this, saying that I was the one who blocked my power to help me surviving through my life. Mom had never commented on this matter. The only comment she ever made about this fact was, “What a pity! Now you have to study extra hard for every test since you will never be able to use your power.”

I didn’t know if I should be thankful for their lack of interests on this amusing fact – well, at least it was, for me—or I should be upset for the lack of empathy they showed me.

This issue was also very sensitive for me. Especially if Yongguk was the one who brought it up. I really hated the fact that I could not help myself and therefore, I had to be caught up with situations I wished I would never be in.

Yongguk often told me how he was saved from bad situations thanks to his power. He could easily win a competition because he would use all of his energy to focus and helped him winning. Me? I was the exact opposite. Instead of showing myself to the world, I preferred to stay hiding.

Yongguk told me once that he had never told people about his power. I had never done that either but of course, Mom favored Yongguk and his sometimes too depressed state – I had told her thousand times it happened because he was in his ‘puberty’ phase—and not me whom was always too cheerful in everything.

Yongguk had made Mom to be silent over this matter, except for the family. The entire family would discover this anyway, sooner or later, and he didn’t need to do anything about that. It was not like they were going to brag about it proudly to their friends or people they met.  It was also because Dad and Mom’s family didn’t really take interest on him or me.

However, the most disappointing part was he had never told Mom to do the whole “my-son’s-power-is-a-secret” thing to me.

That was why when Mom had the chance, she told almost everyone about me. I didn’t care at first. I mean, why should I? It was not like I would meet them every day and even though they asked me about something that will have to go through Mom first.

All I have to do was answering them, through Mom, of course. I didn’t have to feel pressured about this. Or so I thought.

Turned out, everything I expected was the exact opposite. People took a little bit of too much interest on me. Tons of questions went to me whenever Mom came home. Mom had never told me to answer; the only thing she did was, asking those questions to me and explained the questioner’s condition and what they expected me to answer.

At first, I didn’t mind. I answered them gladly, thinking that if I put my best, I would discover who I really was and the real purpose for my life. Sometimes, I even gave her more than enough explanation about the questioner’s questions.

But things got too much to the point those people now called to home. I had to face them alone and squirmed in discomfort whenever they asked something. Although I couldn’t see their faces, but I could recognize the demanding voice from across the line. They waited for answers and more often than not, I just stared blankly on the wall, not even knowing what they talked about.

I used to think that when Mom told people about me, my friends would never hear about this except if I decided to tell them. That fact put me at ease. I meant, it felt great to actually have two kinds of live.

One was where I was exposed to the world and one where I could hide myself and just enjoy what live gave to me. This was important for me as when I had no one to understand me; I could switch to the other one and gather all of my shattered energy to become normal again.

However, I didn’t want to explain to people how sometimes it just killed me whenever I had to take too much responsibility and how sometimes my ability hurt my pride despite of everything I could to save my image—something no one would understand. It was too bothersome.