If You Return (3a/?): Sleepless in Seoul
Chapter IIIa: Sleepless in Seoul
--essage. first message:
Hey. It’s me, Yoona. I’ve been thinking. I-You don’t have to call me. I won’t…I won’t call you either. We need to talk, but-I guess we can talk when you return. I don’t know, Sica. If you want to talk.. If you need anything, just-you can still call me. Ok? I-I-Just take care of yourself. I-I--Bye.
***
The days ran together, and Jessica did not care.
***The first night that they had supper together, Tiffany favored her left hand, and even through her fog of thoughts about Yoona, Jessica could see it.
“What’s wrong?” Jessica demanded.
Tiffany paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “Huh?”
“You’re not using your right hand.”
Tiffany’s fork descended slowly to meet her plate. A smile of sheepish relief broke out on her face.
“Yeah.”
“So, what’s wrong?”
Tiffany hesitated.
“Maybe Sooyoung told you--I shoved the pimp off the unni…and I may have tried to punch him.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yeah, well, now it hurts.”
Jessica shook her head. “You’re on the streets…and you don’t even know how to throw a punch?” Only good manners kept the incredulity in her tone from being too cutting; she could have spoken thus with Sooyoung, but not Tiffany.
Tiffany’s silence managed to sound embarrassed, resentful and apologetic all at once.
“Here. Put your hand in a fist like this. No, not like that. Tuck your thumb outside. That’s right. Now, not too tight. And not too loose. That’s it.”
“…Where did you learn this?”
“My dad’s a boxer.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah! I remember that.”
“He used to give Krystal and me pointers.” Realizing that she might sound more professional than she was, Jessica hastily added, “But only when we were really young. And they were really basic.”
Jessica’s hasty deflection did not stop Tiffany’s glance of admiration. As Jessica settled back into her thoughts, such a glance felt good, and also somewhat familiar, but Jessica did not stop to think about it.
***
Yoona’s voice-message stayed with Jessica all through that day, and all through the week. Running the lips of her mind over its syllables till they ran together in a meaningless stream, the message assumed a weight on her consciousness that Jessica did not push away.
Into this swirl of guilt and attachment, Jessica let herself sink in and wallow, again.
***
The second night they had supper together, Tiffany was still favoring her left hand.
This would not have been a problem, had Tiffany not ordered a bowl of bibimbap which she was forced to mix using only her left hand in clumsy spoonfuls that tossed as much rice out of the stone pot as in it. Jessica watched as another half-spoon of rice, now liberally coated with gochujang, flew onto Tiffany’s placemat. It would be good company for the forlorn mushroom slice it landed next to and its neighbor, a straggling strand of spinach.
As a cure for her depression (non-clinical, she added in her mind; Psych 101 drilled you and more), she could do worse than watching Tiffany apply herself with more vigour than skill to managing her supper. Again, déjà vu nudged at her mind, but failed to gain an answering nudge.
Jessica smiled. She wasn’t cruel, and when Tiffany had called to meet for supper again, she had said that she was hungry.
“I’ll do it.”
Tiffany looked up, and was relieved.
***
Yoona, laughing in the sunlight. Yoona, peering with dangerous intent at a cookbook. Yoona, of the frank gaze, and politely straightforward statements: “Let’s work through this together.” “I’m happy, being with you.” “What you did made me mad, so please don’t do it again.” “I’ll tell you how I feel. And I hope you’ll tell me how you feel.”
***
The third time Tiffany asked her out for supper, Jessica demanded why Tiffany wanted her company, for the third night in a row.
“I told you. Sooyoung and the others told me to take the week off.”
“So?”
“I’m used to being on night duty. I…can’t sleep.”
“Neither can I.”
The ease of her confession came as a surprise to Jessica. She hadn’t talked to anyone besides Sooyoung about Yoona, not that she was planning to tell Tiffany anything. She could shrug it off as insomnia. Tiffany wouldn’t know her well enough to disbelieve it.
***
Yoona was frank. Yoona gritted her teeth and did difficult things even when she was scared, as she had confided to Jessica. Yoona would demand what was hers, when asking for it politely didn’t work.
Except that in the months leading up to Jessica’s application for summer school and her departure from San Francisco, Yoona hadn’t said anything, despite Jessica’s growing abstractedness which stared them both in the face.
Jessica knew that Yoona knew something was wrong, Jessica knew that Yoona knew she knew, Jessica knew-
It was all a mess in her head, and Jessica didn’t know what to think. She thought she had left San Francisco to find the answers she needed, but it had already been a month, and she still wasn’t any closer to knowing what to do.
It didn't take her college education or even Psych 101 to tell her what she knew, that even in Seoul, she had tried to avoid contemplating the messiness of a future without Yoona, of breaking something that wasn't broken in any damn way, and having to explain why she would want to do so. It was enough to make a girl want to stay in bed, pull the covers over her head and to sleep forever.
She half-wanted this limbo in Seoul to go on forever, but she had heard the quiver in Yoona's voice in that voicemail, and she knew that Yoona was waiting for an answer, any answer. That damn vulnerability as Yoona tried to stay calm--so calm--the second time that she called, was what stayed with her.
The way she had allowed herself to drift apart from Yoona, they couldn't even go back to being them.
You can't dip your foot in the same rushing river twice.
It was enough to make a girl yank the covers off her head and stare at the ceiling, haunted and sleepless.
***
The fourth night, Jessica attempted to shake off her spaced-out silence. After all, Tiffany did all the driving, and was potentially saving her sanity by asking her to get out and grab a bite, even if they hadn’t spoken much every time. Being quiet together was much more comforting than being quiet by herself, in her room.
“How’s your hand?”
“Fine, thanks.”
Satisfied, Jessica turned her attention back to her noodles.
***
-She hadn’t brought anything to remind her of Yoona. She hadn’t deliberately avoided doing so, either. She knew that Yoona’s ID-sized picture, a passport-sized photo taken when she was thirteen, was still in her wallet, amongst the many she had of her parents, Krystal, Minyoung unni, her friends. Jessica let it lie there. After all, she and Yoona were friends. Technically speaking.
***“Do you like Ock Juhyun?”
Tiffany stared at Jessica. They had skipped going to a restaurant this fifth night, and Jessica hadn’t wanted to eat at a street stall either. So they had bought popsicles from a convenience store, and stopped by the Han River again.
Nothing in Jessica and Tiffany’s conversation, or more precisely, the lack thereof carried any clue as to why Jessica had voiced the question. As Tiffany continued gaping at her, a bottom corner of her unabashedly, dubiously artificially-pink popsicle, which had been melting quickly in the steady riverside wind, liberated itself and fell to the ground with a wet splat.
Jessica rolled her eyes. You’d think music would be a safe topic, that’s what all those stupid self-help books said about conversation. It wasn’t like she had asked about Tiffany’s views on politics, or God, or heaven forbid, about her mother again.
“I’m trying to make small talk, ok?”
Tiffany laughed. “Yes, I like her. In fact, I’ve met her.”
“YOU'VE MET HER?”
The envious slap which Jessica flung at Tiffany’s back made her yell, and Jessica had to pay for another round of popsicles that night.
***
Jessica shut her eyes and willed herself to sleep.
***
The fluorescent light hurt her eyes. The stark white of her ceiling gave Jessica nothing to contemplate, but she didn’t feel like shutting off the light. It felt odd to be lying in bed at this hour, clean and pajama-clad, instead of eating something highly unsuitable somewhere in the city at night, with Tiffany.
Didn't they say that it took a month for a habit to form? It had only been a week of being driven around by Tiffany, and eating together. No, that wasn’t the whole routine. Tiffany would call her, around eight. She usually asked if she was doing anything that night. Jessica would agree to head out, dress and be ready for Tiffany to pick her up. They had found the Han River so conducive to the silence between them that passed for companionship that they had returned the next two days. Sitting side by side allowed the silence to flow, and gave them more space for the desultory threads of conversation that mushroomed in increasing confidence. It also allowed them to pick up snacks instead of picking at the dishes they ordered at the restaurants. Jessica still woke up sleepy, swollen and resentful, but at least her stomach didn’t feel like crap the whole day.
But now, Tiffany was back into the full swing of things at the women's center. The only glimpse Jessica had gotten of her today was at the café, where Tiffany had nodded to her as she stood in line for an Americano to go.
She could go to sleep, and make up for her sleep debt, salvage her complexion and return, in general, to a sane schedule.
“Jessica Jung, you’re crazy!” Yoona used to say that, with an exasperated smile. So much for being the unni in the relationship.
“Yeah, crazy good.” She would retort.
Jessica swung herself up, and winced at the dizziness. Too fast.
Or she could do what she felt like doing, and enjoy the night breeze outside.
It took only three rings before Tiffany picked up.
“Hey. Are you doing anything tonight?”
“Jess? Sorry, I can't go out tonight, I’m on night duty again, remember?”
“I know. What time do you get off?”
“…We’ve got someone coming in at twelve.”
“Pick--”
“I’ll pick you up at half past midnight.”
***
It was only much later that Jessica realized she had thought of Yoona without the usual attendant pangs of lost helplessness that she had gotten so used to.
***
[End Chapter IIIa]
Teaser for IIIb:
Jessica draped her own scarf ineptly over Tiffany, and hunched into her thin cardigan, keeping herself awake and alert for creepers.
Chapter IIIb: (tell me what I know)
***
Glossary:
Gochujang: Chili pepper paste/hot pepper paste.
A/N: Thank you to my very patient, very thorough beta-readers.