Chapter 22
September
Iheld the phone away from me as I called up the stairs. “Mum! Do you know where my UCAS paperwork is?”
“What’s UCAS?” Jihoon asked, bringing my attention back to my phone.
He was in a car, heading home to Busan for the week to visit his folks and Grandma. I hadn’t spoken to him in days. He was always so busy. More, these days. Or so it seemed.
“It’s university related paperwork stuff,” I replied distractedly.
“Oh. You sound busy, Ky, I should go.”
I looked down just in time to see him lean his head against the window, closing his eyes briefly. My stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch.
“No, it’s fine, I just–”
Someone said something to Jihoon from off-screen, and he leaned forward to reply, before turning to me.
“It’s fine, Ky. I’m going to go. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Joon, I’m sorry, I’ll–”
He was gone before I finished speaking. I leaned back against the wall and slid down until I was sat on the stairs, looking down at the phone in my hand. I stared at it until the screen faded and then went blank. It seemed like an uncomfortable metaphor for our relationship these days.
I drew in a shaky breath, suddenly not giving a damn about papers or registration forms. I just wanted to be given a set of answers for how to fix whatever what going wrong between us.
October
It was like someone had flipped a switch on the weather. Almost overnight, the wind had picked up a chill that wasn’t there the day before. While the sun still shone brightly, it now had a colder edge to it that seemed to cut through the sparse greenery that clung stubbornly to swaying branches.
Crisp leaves danced across the road, a near-constant hiss as they skimmed over the asphalt or performed acrobatics on an errant breeze.
Mum didn’t rise so early any more. She’d finished her chemotherapy last month, so now she was free to rise with the later sun, and not with the constant ache of her bones or the anxious feeling of perpetual nausea.
I had gotten into the habit of getting up early, though, and I found that even if I wanted to, I could rarely stay in bed past 6 am. I was still taking early morning Korean lessons twice a week, so I’d probably conditioned myself.
So now I took up Mum’s place on the porch outside the kitchen doors, coffee in hand, fresh from the fancy machine. I kept vigil in the garden as it grew darker every morning. Sometimes the crows kept me company, sometimes I was on my own.
I found these mornings to be cathartic. Once upon a time even an 8 am alarm was bad enough. Now, I’ve come to learn that there was something special about the way you could see the day beginning. It was peaceful. I could see why Mum liked it so much.
Sometimes, like this morning, Jihoon and I got time to talk, though not always. More and more, our conversations happened over text instead of calls.
I was trying to be understanding, but there was a distance between us, and I didn’t know how to bridge it. He regularly missed our calls, took hours to message me back, and when we did speak, there was something between us; a shadow I couldn’t put my finger on.
I worried, but I didn’t know how to articulate that in a way that wouldn’t make him feel like I saw him as less than who he was.
This morning, I had resolved to to ask if he had been seeing his therapist. It hadn’t gone well.
I flinched as a stiff breeze cut across the porch and over my skin, and I pulled my feet up onto the chair, folding myself in half, making myself smaller as our conversation played through my mind.
He had looked tired, and I said as much, because he always seemed tired. I was worried, but he had taken it as criticism.
“Thanks,” he scoffed.
I had reeled back, frowning at the bite in his voice.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said quietly, trying to be conscious of the early hour and my parents sleeping inside.
Jihoon sighed and dragged a hand down his face.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I am tired.”
This was something I didn’t understand. GVibes were rarely free. There was always something to do, even in quieter months. But the rush of promotion after the release of their album had faded, they weren’t currently working on a new comeback, they weren’t touring.
Yet Jihoon was always exhausted. That was why I was worried, because I knew that not all exhaustion was related to physical tiredness.
“Joon,” I had said tentatively, biting my lower lip. “Are you–have you been talking to your therapist?”
I knew he had one. ENT insisted on all their artists at least having access to one. I also knew he didn’t consider it a priority. Whenever I’d brought it up with him in the past, he’d been reluctant to even talk about it.
Jihoon’s eyes pinched, and I braced for the rebuke I expected. Instead, he surprised me.
“I know I should,” he said quietly.”
I waited for him to say more, but when he didn’t, the silence between us dragged on. His head dropped, making his hair fall into his face to hide his expression.
Anxiety swam through my veins. It had become familiar – that almost painful pinch in my gut before a rush of nervous energy. A need to do something, to fix something. Anything.
“Tell me about the fan calls today,” I had blurted out, hating myself for avoiding the painful conversation.
It took a moment, but I watched as Joon reeled himself back in. He lifted his head, brushed his hair back from his face and refocused on me.
“Most of them were fine–good,” he corrected himself, “but…”
“Was she there again?” I guessed, seeing the way his mouth tightened.
Recently, there had been one girl who somehow kept winning fan calls.
They were supposed to be randomised – mostly – but there were so many different ways to win them, and no one seemed able to figure out how she kept getting them or was inclined to.
Fan calls were proving to be an absolute cash cow for the industry.
This particular fan, a young woman, had already been on three calls.
It wouldn’t normally be a concern. Enthusiastic fans were an expected, welcome part of the industry – provided they didn’t cross the line from enthusiastic into saesang.
However, this person had become well-known in the Viber community, not just because she regularly posted edited videos of her fan call interactions with the group, but because she’d recently started to claim she was the ‘dark haired girl in the rain’.
“Yes,” Jihoon had answered tersely.
“I don’t understand why the managers don’t vet the calls,” I said angrily, then immediately hushed my voice as I looked back to the still dark kitchen. Seeing no sign I’d woken my parents, I continued, but quieter. “They surely know who she is, why don’t they do something?”
“Like what?” He said drily. “She has done nothing wrong.”
“Joon, she–she’s…” I gestured inarticulately, feeling my face grow red.
“She is not breaking the rules,” he said firmly.
I gaped, mouth opening and closing as I tried to think of a good response.
“But, it’s not okay,” I said weakly. “Are you okay with this?”
He’d scoffed. “No. But It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Of course it matters!” I launched upward, the motion the only thing stopping me from shouting. I felt like I was losing my mind! Why didn’t he care? “She’s claiming to be your secret girlfriend! She’s pretending to be me!”
“Is that what’s upsetting you?” He asked, his eyes sliding closed as he ran his fingers over his forehead.
I paced up and down the wooden boards of the porch, trying to arrange my thoughts, because yes, that did upset me. It was probably ridiculous, honestly. It wasn’t like it was true.
“I don’t know how to explain it.” I took a breath, giving myself a moment to make it make sense. “I know it’s silly, I get that. I can’t help how I feel about it. It makes me feel… invisible. Replaceable.” I opened my mouth, then shut it, because that’s exactly what it was. I felt… replaceable.
Joon looked at me, and for the first time that morning, I felt like he was really looking at me.
“Cheonsa, hear me. If you remember nothing else, remember this. You are never replaceable. You never could be. You are it for me.”
The rush of relief I felt running through me, under my skin, was intense, and I took a big, gulping inhale. Muscles I hadn’t even realised had been tensed were suddenly looser, and I relaxed back into my chair. I hadn’t known I’d needed to hear that.
“No matter what happens.”
The rush of warm relief in my veins turned to ice as unease prickled my skin.
“What did you say?” My words came out too quiet, and I cleared my throat to try again. “What–”
“I’ve got to go,” he said abruptly. “We have plans this evening. I’ll try to message you later.” A moment’s hesitation, and then– “I love you.”
The screen went blank, showing only the reflection of my own face, displaying an expression I didn’t recognise.
Days passed, but my discomfort didn’t settle. Speaking to Jihoon after that didn’t help. I’d asked him point blank what he’d meant by ‘no matter what happens’, but he’d shrugged it off.
I felt as tightly strung as a guitar string. I felt useless. I felt so far removed that it was like I was being erased, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Sitting in the garden usually gave me a measure of calm, but not this morning.
I needed to hear the situation from a different point of view, so I called the one person I could rely upon to give me a dose of reality.
I called Becka. It was late for her, but she answered anyway.
“I don’t understand why this time is different.” Frustration edged my words, and I dragged a hand down my face, trying to hash out how I was feeling about the distance I was feeling from Jihoon.
Becka scrunched her face in sympathy.
“I think you need to realise this time is different,” she replied.
“I know the separation is longer, believe me, I know.” I said pointedly.