[TWIST] – [9]

 [INBOX] – [COMPOSE MESSAGE]

 To: Hae Ryong

Subject: Boundaries

                Noona, we’ve been friends for so long I don’t even think about ever being awkward with you. Even about the important things. Through all of it…it never gets to the point where we can’t talk to each other anymore.
                This kind of friendship…I value it a lot. I don’t cry over it, or hide away within the limitations of it. It’s always comfortable and I really like it so much…
                I never realized what liking a friend truly meant until now. How hard it would be to breathe and try to stay as normal and grounded as usual…to be like always, but making things so different.
                Has something like this always been this hard?

                I truly didn’t expect this…If things can’t go back to being how they were before, what am I to do? Is this something I can only move forward in? It’s becoming so hard to tell, but I’m too anxious to go further.
                If you are up to it somehow, I think I need your advice once again… I just hope when you read why, we will still be normal and grounded as always.
                If the messages don’t come right away, please don’t think cowardly of me. You’ll be the first person I tell in Korea and that isn’t something I’ve mentally prepared for.

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[INBOX] – [DRAFT MESSAGE]

To: Hae Ryong

Subject: Boundaries

                Noona, the look on Joon Jae’s face isn’t very good these days. Like a small child he tries to hold in secrets he’s dying to tell and not knowing his face tells all his secrets to the world. The way that feelings show up on the face and give people away…I always thought it was probably a good thing. Without words there are facial expressions and physical gestures to convey all kinds of emotions and thoughts to the world. It is so human and natural and beautiful to me, I really like it so much. If I’m being honest though…it’s not something I thought too deeply about until now. Until Joon Jae. He helps me to realize the importance of these things, looking so desperate to not slip up and say a thing. It makes it difficult to be around him now. Being so conflicted at the heart like this over one another isn’t something friends go through. We know this, that we won’t be able to stay friends so simply because of this.
                A part of me is waiting and wanting him to say something that could change the very structure of our relationship while the other part of me is terrified for him to take on that challenge and hoping it doesn’t show in how I act towards him or the way my face looks. Because of these kinds of feelings, we don’t make use of words much anymore. There is always an underlining expectation in each other when speaking, so we’ve taken to these gestures and facial expressions to tell each other pieces of information about how the other is feeling.
                Every little retraction he forces through his body or act of resistance through his face have become very important, and also very special somehow. To see him fighting off himself like this just so I don’t end up hurt by how powerful his emotions are…it makes me hold back too. I’m scared I let it get this far, scared to admit I knew the risk of it getting this far before he even saw it coming. It’s to the point of almost giving up my plan altogether now.
                This secret communication of ours, despite coming to understand it and even being able to anticipate his next act of resistance or faint moment of slipping up, it still makes me feel like I’m walking on landmines. I keep thinking if these feelings weren’t mixed into this…if Joon Jae could just be seduced and easily slept with than maybe we wouldn’t be this silent at all. But that’s confusing too. What else could we say if it wasn’t the words hiding in our awkward silence? What else would there be to talk about and feel? What kind of relationship could we have had if it wasn’t this kind? I don’t think I want to know, even despite being so unbearably quiet like this.
                If we hadn’t grown into this kind of relationship…I would never had known this kind of beautiful reflective love that he has. I think seducing him is fun, so much so that if I had to pick one person out of the others to lure for an eternity it would be him, but it doesn’t compare to the love he gives when loving someone. It is something so warm and selfless, I keep thinking it’s something I can’t hold onto but should be happy for since I got to feel it. Definitely this love is something I wouldn’t want to hold back from someone who deserve it and won’t play around within it.
                But it might be too late for words like that, considering the state of things. Despite it, I think we could still find a way to separate. To move on and find better connections in this world…to go and find a love that can receive love and give love too. I truly do believe that, although I have no idea how we can accomplish this without someone leaving first. That will be the hard part, leaving and going and turning this back into something familiar and normal. I don’t know who will be the first to go…I just know I can’t even process how badly I want to stay. Right now, at this very second, even in this quietness and heartache I want to keep interacting here with him and it is tearing me apart.
                How could I have walking into such a trap like this? How could he risk his blood to please me when I have done to him so far is try to use him to fulfill my own needs?
                What kind of person other than Joon Jae cold have been so heart-crushingly amazing like this? How will we be able to go backwards if we keep foolishly facing the direction to go forward without even looking at each other’s faces?  

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