Cha Eun Sang couldn’t sleep even when she finally collapsed onto her bed.  They were so busy at the coffee shop earlier plus two of her colleagues were absent. She felt exhausted in every inch of her body, yet she couldn’t sleep despite of that.

She was listening to Death Cab for Cutie and she thought of Choi Young Do when Your Heart is an Empty Room randomly played from her playlist.

Burn it down till the embers smoke on the ground
And start new when your heart is an empty room
With walls of the deepest blue

Home's face: how it ages when you're away
Spring blooms and you find the love that's true
But you don't know what now to do
Cause the chase is all you know
And she stopped running months ago

And all you see
Is where else you could be
When you're at home
Out on the street
Are so many possibilities
To not be alone

He seemed sad and tired and exhausted. Her jaw dropped and her heartbeat began to race when the memory struck her.  “He hugged me,” she thought. In that moment, she knew that she should push him away because he just might use it against her.  She’d never know, Choi Young Do might file another lawsuit against her, physical injury or something. But when he hugged her earlier, it didn’t even last more than fifteen seconds, but she kind of felt like Choi Young Do let out all the sadness into that hug. It was as if he did that because he must have thought that it would be comforting. She almost laughed at the idea. “The high and mighty Choi Young Do, looking to you for comfort? Don’t flatter yourself, Cha Eun Sang,” she thought.

She didn’t want to pry into what he was doing and why he’d been absent, but, she couldn’t help her curiosity. She was tempted many times during that ride home to ask as to what was up with him, but reined herself.  Didn’t she tell herself to not get involved? She didn’t care about him, anyway. Didn’t she tell herself that she’d remain as invisible as possible until she graduates from Jeguk High? But Choi Young Do was making it difficult for her to be invisible.

She kept on tossing and turning and she let out a sigh of exasperation. She let out a deep breath and decided to get up. She looked down at the iPod in her hands and smiled. “Thanks for staying,” she said. She got her iPod as a gift from her mother on her 18^th birthday. Her mother bought a pre-loved iPod shuffle and it didn’t matter that it wasn’t brand new. She was so grateful that she did all the household chores all throughout her birthday week.  Her iPod still on, she sat down and stared at the wall for a couple of minutes. She just zoned out as she listened to music. She sighed and decided to get up. Holding her iPod in her hands, she walked towards her window. She sat down at her window sill and looked up at the sky. “Wow, stars,” she thought as she hugged her knees. 

She breathed—in and out, in and out—and tilted her head, her sharp kneecaps pushing against her cheekbone. She had always been overwhelmed by starry skies. She would always think about her dad whenever she’d look up at a starry sky. She remembered when she was five years old and her kitten died. Her father arranged a funeral for Tae Hee, her kitten. She was and still is a fan of Kim Tae Hee, so she decided to name her cat after her.

She was still crying by the time her father was done digging Tae Hee’s grave. He father pointed to the sky, “See that bright star over there?”

She wiped her tears and she nodded in between sobs.

“That’s Tae Hee,” he looked down at her and smiled.

She didn’t look so convinced so her father kneeled in front of her and took her face in his hands.  “That’s Tae Hee over there. Don’t you believe me?”

She sobbed and shook her head. “She’s dead. We just had her funeral. She’s down there,” she pointed at her kitten’s grave.

Her father scooped her into his arms and let her sit on his lap. “Don’t you know that when the people or pets we love die, they go to heaven?”

“I know,” she answered, her sobs gradually stopping.

“Tae Hee is in heaven now. Transformed into a star. That star,” his father pointed to the star he mentioned earlier.

Her eyes brightened up. “Really?”

Her father nodded. “Yes.”

“And halmoni,” she paused. “She’s also a star now, right?”

Her father nodded.

“And hal-abeoji”

Her father smiled and said, “yes.”

She let out a shriek of joy and hugged her father tight, “Thank you, Daddy!”

She looked up and laughed a little. Her father had always had an ability to deliver an entire lecture with a single glance. She got the glance. “I mean, thank you, Appa!”

Her father would always tell her to use Korean honorifics even when they live in the United States, and she would always get scolded because she would mostly just ignore that. Well, not now. After all, he made Tae Hee comfortable in its grave.

“Good girl,” he r father laughed as he led her inside the house. The next day, she asked her parents if they could enlarge her window and if they could use a glass window, instead. When her parents asked her why, she said she wanted to always look at Tae Hee and her grandparents.  “Also, I want a big window so halmoni and hal-abeoji can also see me from up there,” she explained.

Cha Eun Sang smiled at the thought and felt the tears well up at the corner of her eyes. That same day, her father fixed her window.  She sighed. She hated thinking about her father in the past tense; her father’s rightful place is in the present, in the now. He should be here. He’d still be here if it weren’t for the lung cancer that took him away from her and her mom.

She was scared of the idea that her memories with her father would sooner or later fall apart.

“If that happens, then I’ll be left with nothing. I’ll be aware of what’s supposed to be there,” she thought.

Her iPod stopped playing. She checked it to see if it reached the end of the playlist, but, she couldn’t see anything. She clicked her tongue. “Dead battery,” she thought.

“I miss you, Appa.”

She looked up at the stars again. Just like the stars, memories have illusions of permanence. They were always sneaking in, flaring up, making their ways in and out of her mind. But at this vantage point, she could at least pretend that things last, that moments last longer than memories.