Just Over One Month Later

“Is that all you’re going eat?”

I nodded, pushing the half-full plate away from myself, “I’m full.”

My father let out a sigh and motioned for the plate to be lifted away from me. A member of staff scuttled forwards, lifting it away instantly with a little bow towards me. I gritted my teeth at the action but said nothing.

“You are so wasteful these days,” my father griped, tossing more food into his mouth as he did so. “Did you look through those bank statements I asked you to?”

Grinding my teeth together I took in an agitated breath. “I haven’t had a chance to look at them yet,” I icily replied, feeling particularly irritable today due to lack of sleep the previous night.

He glared at my words. Pointing a pudgy finger at me, his tone was sharp. “Mira. Attitude,” he warned.

I sighed quietly, knowing the two of us would likely start fighting at any moment as had become our common habit at the breakfast table. In an attempt to escape that, I asked, “May I be excused? Luhan's collecting me soon.”

Looking me up and down once, my father nodded, “Yes. I’ll be there if I can free up the time.”  I didn’t care if he came or not. As I stalked from the room, I heard him shout, “Put something on your face. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek as I sat in front of my dresser table and applied a little concealer under my eyes. It wasn’t something I used to wear at all, but these days I was going through tubs of the stuff just to look semi-normal. It had been Luhan’s mother’s suggestion initially, and it had been her that had taught me how to use it. My father may have had a point though: I did look particularly bad this morning.

Sighing, I headed to the wardrobe area of my room and saw my graduation gown hanging there; blue with a yellow fringe. I didn’t know why they always made these things so ugly, but I’d never once seen one with nice colours.

I pulled it on over the top of my clothes and shoved the stupid hat onto my head. If I was able to smile at all today then they would just have to take a picture of it very quickly. I paused, looking around the room. It was so big and quiet - how lonely it had seemed lately.

“Miss?” a timid voice called after knocking. “Luhan is here.”

“Please tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”

I grabbed a jacket and bundled it under my arm, feeling like a buffoon as I did so.

Upon heading down the stairs, I found that Luhan was also wearing the ridiculous attire but he was somehow able to pull it off. A thought popped into the back of my mind that I knew someone else who would be able to pull it off but I quickly buried that thought away.

“Are you ready?” Luhan greeted me in Korean with a big smiled, “Big day!” Ever since I had come back home, I hadn’t really spoken in any language other than Korean so all my friends had generally switched along with me.

I nodded.

Luhan’s smile faded a little when he saw how long my gown seemed to be. “Shouldn’t you have gotten a smaller size?” he asked as he pulled the saggy sleeve out to inspect.

“It’s just roomy,” I mumbled.

A worried frown crossed his brow. “Afterwards, let’s go eat something. What would you like?”

“I’m not hungry.” I was curious about how he thought eating more at this stage of my life would make me grow taller – I was far past the growth spurt stage of life.

He sighed, “Humour me, Mira.”

I fought back the snub that ran through my head. “We should go. Wouldn’t want to miss Suho’s mother’s speech.”

The car ride was silent, at least on my part. Luhan chatted away, mostly with close-ended statements so I didn’t have to respond. Tao and Suho came scuttling up to us as soon as we arrived, both in the awful graduation gowns.Tao had accessorised his gown with some sunglasses which was causing a lot of parents to raise their eyebrows – not that he cared. “It’s for the light exposure,” he whined when Suho tried to convince him to remove them to no avail.

“We should head through,” Luhan announced, ending their bicker. “All the guests are taking their seats now.”

Nothing particularly extravagant happened during the ceremony: people got their certificates, pictures were taken, well-wishes were given. It was how I would describe a standard graduation ceremony.

“Well, your mother gave a great speech as always,” Luhan congratulated Suho with a smirk.

Suho nodded along proudly, “Yeah, but I think she reuses the same one every year.”

Zoning out from our conversation, I scanned the faces in the audience. When my eyes met Paz’s though, I knew she had been sent in my father’s place. There was a large camera in her hand, probably so my father could frame any pictures she had managed to catch of this ‘monumental’ occasion in my life. I doubted there were any good ones. 

“How about it, Mira?” Suho cut across my gloomy thoughts.

“What?” I asked, looking between them all.

“Food. Want to get some?” Suho asked hopefully.

I shook my head, "Not really.”

Tao pouted. “But I managed to book a table at that new Michelin restaurant. Come!”

There was no way I was going to be taken to some fancy restaurant – at least not willingly. Small diners and restaurants were no problem, but as soon as you needed more than two sets of cutlery, I was out.

“I actually have plans with Mira today,” Luhan cut in, motioning for me to get into his car. Thankful for the escape, I got in without complaint.

I saw him talking with Suho and Tao for a moment before the pair of them attempted to look in at me through the tinted windows. I didn’t know what he was saying, but it was probably some spiel about how I was sick. He seemed to say that a lot these days.

Getting into the other side of the car, he smiled at me encouraging. “I hope this is ok. I didn’t think you’d want to eat at that restaurant.”

I agreed with a nod, “Thanks.”

“How about we go get some of that – what was it called?” Luhan trailed off, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Oh!” he exclaimed suddenly, “Alley food!”

“Do you mean street food?”

He snapped his fingers, smiling brightly. “That’s it! Let’s go get some.”

I knew he hated the stuff. “I just want to go home,” I told him quietly.

He let out a long sigh, hopeful smile fading slightly. “You need to get over this, Mira. It's all over now.”

“It’s not like I’m not trying to,” I shot back, suddenly on the defensive. I was trying, I really was. It was hard though, impossibly hard at the moment. But I was sure there was a saying that time was the greatest healer. I would just have to wait a while to see if that was true, although I wasn’t sure if that applied to guilty consciences as well.

“Please, Mira,” Luhan implored, staring intently at me. “You hardly eat, you hardly sleep. I’m worried – we’re worried.”

“Don’t be. I’m fine,” I repeated for the thousandth time this month. With another sigh, Luhan told his driver to take me to my house without further complaint.

Luhan ended up coming into the house, but I didn’t protest that much.

“Is your father around?”

I shrugged, “I have no idea.”

“I’m going to go check – I should say hello if he is.”

“Fine,” I said dismissively, yanking my graduation gown over my head and dropping it onto a nearby chair. I got myself a glass of water, drinking the whole thing at once to try combat the throbbing that was beginning in my head. It seemed that this afternoon, much like a lot of the other ones, I would be dealing with a headache.

My phone buzzed on the counter beside me. Looking down at it lazily, my hand relinquished its hold on the glass, dropping it into the sink with a smash when I read the name of the sender. I lifted the phone closer to my face to make sure I had actually read it right. It seemed that I had.

A member of staff came scuttling through then, clearly alerted to the sound of the glass smashing. “Are you alright, Miss?” she asked, clearly concerned. “What happened?”

I turned the phone to her, startling her a little. “What does that say?”

“O-one new message, Baekhyun.”

Taking the phone back to within my own radius, I stared at it for a moment. Had it just been an accident for him to text me? Even so; it was a text, it was something from their world.

Absentmindedly strolling away from the kitchen, leaving my mess behind me, I clicked it open. It was a short text, but sending it had clearly been no accident.

It’s Baekhyun. Do you still use this phone? We graduated today. If you meant what you said that day, text me.

I stared at the screen for a moment, rereading it several times. That day. Did he mean my last day at their school when I had broken down in front of him? If so, then yes, I had meant ever word of it.

Luhan appeared before me then. “Your father says he’s sorry he missed the ceremony but he wants to take the two of us out for dinner. I told him I had other plans and . . .” His voice grew quiet when he saw me staring at my screen, not totally paying attention to him. “What is it?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. I’m going to my room. Have a nice dinner.”

“I’m not going to dinner,” he said, eyebrow rising.

“Have a nice lunch then.”

Luhan hesitated as I started climbing the stairs to my room. “I’ll call you later.”

“Sure,” I replied, still staring at the screen.

I fidgeted and fumbled with the phone whilst lying on my bed for a while. It was hard to know what to send in reply to that. In the end, my message sounded awkwardly formal but got the main points across.

Hi. Yes, I still use this phone. Yes, we graduated today too. Yes, I did mean it.

When I hit send I just stared at the screen, waiting for a reply. Either Baekhyun was a slow replier, or he was also having trouble working out exactly what to say.

Almost twenty minutes had passed, and I was beginning to think he wasn’t going to reply, when his message finally came through.

How have you been?

I was relieved that he had replied, but wasn’t so thrilled about having to answer his question. How had I been? Depressive to be around, irrational to speak with, impossible to please – I was just a bundle of joys right now.

After several minutes, I was finally able to reply with something that sounded vaguely ok.

I’ve been better. How are you?

This time the reply from Baekhyun was quicker.

I’ve been better.

I gnawed at my lip uncertainly. There was something I wanted to ask really badly, but something I didn’t know if he would answer for me. Like me, he might have thought I didn’t have the right to know.

After twiddling my thumbs around the phone keys for about ten minutes, and deleting and retyping my message several times, I finally pressed send. The moment I did, I felt nervous uncertainty bubbling within me unpleasantly.

How are the others?

It was the most direct I could be without actually saying his name. Baekhyun took longer this time once again.

Kai and Chanyeol are alright.

It felt like I had blocked off from what I wanted to know. Another message popped through before I could reply,