one in a million
one in a million
Kyuhyun/Seohyun (Kyuhyun/Victoria; Yonghwa/Seohyun); Romance-Hurt, PG ~4,066 words
Oh, yes! There are such times when you think you’re not in love with the person sitting next to you at the park, or the classmate you’ve had since kindergarten, or that one person who always followed you around since middle school. Sometimes we take these things for granted because we know they’re still gonna be there when we return. They’re our lucky stars, lucky catches that make other people jealous because we got them without trying too hard.
→ For Mai Lin, belated happy birthday unnie! Comments are loved as I am a little rusty for lack of practice.
I.
Lucky catch, everyone else always tells both of them. They are each other’s lucky catches, completing what the other lacks, being each other’s sword and shield through all battles. That is why they’re perfect, in every way and beyond; perfect together, perfect for each other.
“Do you believe in that?”
He takes her hand when he feels cold, not because it’s the winter season but because of the air condition, blowing nonstop. Well... he thinks this is the reason but of course it isn’t. It is never because of the cooler that sends chills but at the idea that he may in fact be on his last streak. He is thirty yet he feels like it is like the first time once again.
She keeps a smile, locking both her grip and gaze at him alone. The room emaciates with little colors to nothing but white, as devastatingly pale as she is at the moment. His chances grow weaker as her hand slips out of his. He takes it again, to maybe extend the deadline, to maybe delay the credits from rolling. He knows it’s not going to work, but he sees no harm in hoping it will.
“I believe,” he answers surely, eyes wet. “So you shouldn’t let go, okay?”
But sometimes that particular lucky catch comes into our lives a little too late.
II.
Five-year-old Cho Kyuhyun has too many enemies on his own. He earns them at a daily basis, from pushing them off swings, stealing their seats in class, breaking their crayons, and making them accidentally leak their pants (or skirts, depends on the day he felt mischievous enough to scare the young ladies - it’d be on Thursdays usually).
Coming from an affluent family, oftentimes he is given everything, and anything he wants. He gets them with a snap of his parents’ fingers, naturally investing on him a little more than their first daughter (Kyuhyun thinks his noona hates him for this, being the younger one and all). He goes to church on Sundays, like the good boy he claims himself to be, and is later rewarded with new toys from the mall for behaving at church.
A couple of years onward, it surprises him one day when the head pastor calls for his parents’ attention, and without realizing it the following week, he is no longer sitting with them but behind the big wall where the piano hid, and where the rest of the chapel’s vocals are, where they make music for everyone to sing praise. He peeks from here and finds his parents on the fifth row, along with his sister’s evil gaze (it runs in the blood, clearly). They spot him and he waves back unhappily, sort of in question why in the world is he separated from them.
“How old are you again, Kyuhyun?”
“Eight.”
“You are going to sit at the far end of the bench, since your voice is still not as permanent as the rest of the big boys, okay?” The old lady says and he just nods, going to his position. The pianist assembles himself, and the conductor stands up front.
He realizes that it’s not just him who is shunned away as if they were a useless voice, because he finds this one girl, about probably the same age as him, her black fringes covering her wide eyes, fidgetting her fingers in nervousness perhaps. Kyuhyun taps her shoulder out of curiosity and she turns to him.
“What exactly do we do here?”
“We sing,” she answers, stuttering.
Kyuhyun shakes his head. “No, I mean... why are we over here? Why can’t we be in the middle?”
She smiles and it fades. “Oh because we’re too young. We will let the grown-ups take over the stronger notes while we do the harmony, along with the other ones in this portion.” She gestures to her back, and Kyuhyun sees the other members of the chorale.
“Harmony?”
“You... have not taken vocal... lessons?”
“I was just told to sing,” he shrugged, looking away. “I do not know how to... harmony?”
“Harmonize,” she corrects him, more assured that he stares back. She looks down, her hands busily and restlessly intertwining with each other. “It is to blend and add background to the song. Since we cannot make do with the piano alone, we need to add the vocal appeal of blending with the lyrics.”
He flinches. “I still don’t get it.”
“Just follow what I do when I sing, and I think it’ll be all right,” she suggests.
“Whatever you say then,” he agrees. “I’m Kyuhyun, by the way. You seem smarter so maybe that makes you my noona.”
She lets out a small laugh, as the procession of priests passes through the aisle, the crowd standing up and waiting for the mass to begin.
“My name is Joohyun,” she bows her head at him. “I’m seven years old. You’re shorter so I think you are that young.”
His eyes growing as big as his mother’s China platters, Kyuhyun gaps. “I’m already eight and I don’t even know harmonize exists as a word. Good job.”
III.
With the passage of time, there is still yet any interactions with each other. It appears as though they are not even from the same town, only of the same faith and he thinks that perhaps it is a little weird for them not to be closer than background singers of the same choir.
Before the 4 o’ clock mass when they age to twelve and thirteen (he has grown taller than he originally is from the first time they met), while the other members are out having snacks, he sits beside her by the piano, as she on the other hand plays the melody they are going to sing by lyric now. Being Joohyun, she will always be that timid girl, stage fright even though she isn’t going to face anyone but the pianist and the microphone; she still has the lowest confidence when it comes to letting her voice out.
“You did amazing earlier so you have nothing to be afraid now.”
“No, I did horrible,” she responds at once, pressing the keys stronger.
He notices it and smiles. “Joohyun-ah, do you want something to eat? I can ask my sister to drop by with ice cream.”
Her face brightens, stopping at the middle of the song. “Ice cream sounds good right now. But I... want to practice because they might never give us this chance in the future.”
Kyuhyun evidently looks down on the keys, constantly picking on the lowest F sharp key until Joohyun pinches his side, by his ribs and he squirms away, giggling. “Stop that. It’s irritating,” Joohyun complains.
“It is?” He questions excitedly, and then starts randomly to press any key he sees while she attacks him with pokes until the afternoon break ends, and business begins again.
He glances at her as the two of them duet, her voice raising higher than his to emphasize feminity on the song. She also smiles when she feels his eyes on her and somehow others may have mistaken it as love back then but they both know too well that it will be trouble to be following that path.
The following week Joohyun moves into town, three streets and a block away from where he lives, and she starts going to the same middle school as he does.
IV.
Joohyun’s role does not happen to be Kyuhyun’s best-est best friend in the world, nor vice versa either. Someone else happens to take that title away from her already and she sees the reason for why he can easily get along with the noonas during choir practice.
She hears from Kyuhyun that his best friend has the most devilish smile, like you will instantly know she is up to something. Something horrible, he exclaims.
Across his locker is hers, and they will often bump into each other when the bell rings. As she is about to tell Kyuhyun that she will be leaving for the week, going to visit her grandparents in Incheon and she may not be able to attend chorale sessions on Sunday, she finally sees her for the first time.
She is about the same height as Joohyun, and her smile is too benevolant to be referred as malicious or sly or evil. Her brown tresses cascade down her back, ending by her hips (whilst they are wide hips indeed, adding her curviness), and her jeans tightly hugs her legs down to her ankles. She exceeds Joohyun’s expectations. Her heart thumps hard and she gulps, for a reason she can’t quite explain entirely. She is too beautiful not to be envied by anyone, most especially by a newbie like Joohyun.
Kyuhyun sees her, calling her as he stops in the middle of his sentence. “Hey, Joohyun-ah! Come over here for a minute.”
Slowly she does, but regrets because now she will have to meet her, in which she wishes to avoid because she will feel smaller and smaller, less significant to the world (or to Kyuhyun; yet this understanding is unexplainable to her).
“Qian, this is Joohyun,” Kyuhyun introduces, holding Joohyun’s shoulder. “She’s the one who sang the chorus from church two weeks ago with me, you remember?”
She nods, opening her mouth in a very lady-like manner. “You really have the voice of an angel.”
“Joohyun, this is Qian,” he continues. “She’s been my best friend since we were in kindergarten, and she usually covers for me when I got into trouble.”
“Changmin thinks it’s bizarre that I do covers while we tell on him,” she giggles and Kyuhyun mutters something too, rather happily that both of them are trap in their own world, excluding Joohyun from existing. She feels a pang of jealousy right in the gut but why it is so, she still doesn’t comprehend. Maybe because Kyuhyun is the first person she actually befriends and still remains to be with until that day. Joohyun doesn’t make too many friends as she now recalls, so maybe that is why she feels a little behind with him hanging around with Qian.
She feels more comfortable now that she has met Qian and she doesn’t have to tell Kyuhyun about anything else (that he is her only friend and whatnot - because that would make her look like a loser).
V.
Kyuhyun’s role is not that of Joohyun’s first love, because those kind of things are reserved: first kisses, first boyfriends, first dates and first heartbreaks. Nor is it vice versa, since Kyuhyun stakes his heart to remain as friendly as possible towards Joohyun, treating her like a younger sister when he sees her now all grown-up in high school.
They have not seen each other over a year, because they have that one year age gap and because they have suspended activities as choir members, so when she walks up from behind him, covering his eyes as she stands on her toes, Kyuhyun takes a guess on the first day of school by saying, “Qian, we’re surprising Changmin today, not me.”
Joohyun jumps brightly when he turns around, looking more surprised than ever as she looks slightly different, her hair pulled back to a ponytail, her eyes glistened even brighter. Her smiles are always the same, deeply cut and pulled at the edges in order for her cheeks to be highlighted. There is an exchange of jabbers between the two, somehow the students that surround them become unnoticeable.
He wraps his hands around her in greeting, and it isn’t long before both of them let go and part. He asks how she has been, because he has been too busy with his math-lete competitions.
Joohyun always likes to hide things from him, but Kyuhyun lets the flaw slide, so when she shrugs and lowers her gaze to answer, “I’ve been fine”, something is going on with her that she doesn’t seem to open up.
Kyuhyun recalls that Joohyun has been too shy around him, unlike when they are younger, but maybe that’s just because she has grown older, more mature, learning experience one at a time. She has always been very secretive in many ways that he too doesn’t like to uncover more but is force to because he gets worried. Like the time he waves at Joohyun to eat lunch with him and Qian, she presses her lips together and looks for another table. Whether she is avoiding him or not, he can never really tell. When he calls her in the hallways, she seems to answer immediately, like nothing is wrong, or the lunch incident has not happened at all.
It has been like that over the year, holding back and afraid, so frightened, as if both have done crimes against each other, when in fact they are both innocent in every aspect. Her inconsistency is driving him towards suspicion and that kind of doubt is never good for any kind of relationship, their friendship in particular. He is a coward to ask her why the hell does she have to look away and he has to suffer the awkwardness by being ignored.
So when he catches her alone in one of the sophomore’s classroom, he closes the door behind him instantly, shocking Joohyun that she gasps loudly, Kyuhyun keeping a stoic expression.
“My god, you should’ve said something!” Joohyun scolds, closing her notebook.
“Me? You’re the one who isn’t talking to me for ages,” Kyuhyun then replies, the girl still shocked.
Joohyun blanches at the idea, uttering, “W-what... makes... makes you say that?”
“See? See, you stuttered just like that! You’re nervous that I’m here confronting you!” His tone is up the notch, getting Joohyun to shiver by her own fright.
“Yah, no need to shout,” she retorts, also taking the same route of expression.
He sits on the teacher’s table, biting his tongue and looking at the hot sunset drying the sky of its color to a gray. “You’re hiding something from me.”
“I am not,” she replies at once, too fast actually. “What is this confrontation for? I don’t get it. Are we supposed to be in a war?”
“Why are you ignoring me?”
She pauses.
“Why are you asking me that when you’ve completely ignored me for the whole year?”
He leans back because it all comes down now to her answers. Joohyun has always been smart, smarter than him even when he has competed in the nationals for his mathematical abilities. She has the magic to turn things around, to let destiny take her side, having to twist it around one more time is far unfortunate for the person she is attacking. That is Joohyun, because she is more honest when she begins to speak louder, and every bitter truth she spits out is something worth reflecting indeed.
Kyuhyun sighs. “I’m only ignoring you because you are. It’s like every time I want to talk to you, you seem to just shrug it off, walk away.”
“Is there really a need for us to talk? Are we not talking now? Am I still ignoring you?” Her questions are stronger than the bombs during the world war, and as the wounded soldier, Kyuhyun believes his base will blow up any minute now.
“Of course we need to talk, we’re friends. We need to sort out conflicts.”
“That’s it right there,” Joohyun stands, carrying her bag over her shoulder and hurrying towards the door. “We’re just that. So it does not matter if I walk out on you without warning. It doesn’t matter if I ignore you. That’s it right there. We don’t enter conflicts because we’re merely friends, and they can be healed easily through time. There, I solved your problem with me acting like something is wrong.”
“Joohyun, wait -”
His puzzlement comes to a stop when a boy around his age is waiting by the door, knocking as he seemingly comes to pick up Joohyun. With a small greeting, he takes her backpack from her and Joohyun does not look back, but the boy does, and he gives Kyuhyun a long hard look before Joohyun swiftly drags him out.
Kyuhyun then understands that Yonghwa, a boy who has been leaving her love letters in her locker since middle school, is her first love, and they have started dating for a month when Kyuhyun confronts her about getting ignored. He comprehends much that maybe Joohyun is a little unsure of her decision of entering a relationship and is scared to be criticized by Kyuhyun and his unstoppable mouth, making comments about people out of sheer mock.
And yet somehow he thinks that’s not an enough reason for her to be hiding it, or escaping his eyes and his questions.
VI.
“Joohyun, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For being a moron. Will you just talk to me?”
“I am talking to you.”
“Don’t give me this shitty conversation over the phone. I’m graduating tomorrow, you’ll never see me ever again.”
“Am I suppose to take that as good news or a bad one?”
“Joohyun! Can’t we just remain as friends?”
“You’ll always be my friend, you know. So will you quit asking me to resolve what’s already been settled?”
“Do you mean it? About always being your friend?”
“You are, I promise.”
“Okay, then let’s catch up on each other. You never told me about Yonghwa and -”
She puts down the phone and picks it up only to change the subject. So that is where the line is, Kyuhyun finally thinks.
VII.
Now Joohyun and Kyuhyun no longer talk to each other often, and even went to different colleges. He loses a friend during his junior year, and he still keeps the guilt and remorse inside to let him think of the other secrets about life itself. They are just friends but it feels rather wrong that she won’t tell more about her mysterious boyfriend.
It goes as any fairytale story goes: Kyuhyun starts having feelings for Qian and turns out that after he finishes his degree in business administration he plans on to marry her. Joohyun on the other hand, after her course in music, stands by Yonghwa’s side as she finishes off her own happy ending, without telling Kyuhyun anything behind most things that go on in her life. He falls in love with his best friend, while she does with her first love: it is something that these two friends conform to as the predictable, as the expected idea, as the trite and acceptable thought.
Life does not let them cross paths until one faithful day in November, years and years after; by the park they see each other, and unexpectedly sparks fly (like every time they meet), although these loud beatings of the heart are often ignored before, covered by the thoughts that they are not meant to be, or they can’t be more than what they already are, because he has Qian while she is happy being with Yonghwa.
Still he lets her hold his hand for the very first time after twenty-two years, and she grips it tightly as they walk around the bricked floor, admiring children fly kites and other people feeding wandering birds. It is a feeling of nostalgia all the more between two friends, not love, most definitely not that.
“I’m going to marry Qian soon,” he speaks coolly and she just nods, rather tired and pale but it must be just the autumn wind. “You’ll attend the wedding, right?”
She knows of course that one day Kyuhyun will fall in love with his best friend. And she is right. So she answers, “I will.”
“And whatever happens here will not alter our decisions, because this is it,” Kyuhyun then starts, his tongue stuck by the cat idiom. He sighs when he can’t spill. “Did you ever happen to have feelings for me, Joohyun?”
“Me?” she grins, looking at him sideways. “Of course I have. You’re my friend. You’re always my friend, a one in a million variety.”
He chuckles. They take a seat now in one of the benches. “One in a million, just like the star I’ve been wishing on. That you’ll be my one in million from the rest of the choices I’d make. But we know that can never happen now, right?”
He knows of course that Joohyun will eventually marry that vocalist of the high school rebel band. And he is right.
“You for me,” she says after. “You for me, I used to imagine it that way. Even now, after seeing you, there is a different rhythm inside my heart, unlike when Yonghwa is around. You see, that’s why I can’t ever face you again or talk about it. Because I will get even more confused and it’ll ruin both of us, our friendship and you know I don’t like expectations. I didn’t like the idea of you and me that much. You and me is a pigment of my imagination, an array of beautiful possibilities and risks, threatening to change reality greatly. I was afraid and I know you were too.”
He nods, putting an arm around her as she puts her head on his shoulder. “There are such times when you think you’re not in love with the person sitting next to you at the park, or the classmate you’ve had since kindergarten, or that one person who always followed you around since middle school. Sometimes we take these things for granted because we know they’re still gonna be there when we return.”
Joohyun holds back the tears as she remembers her very reason why she doesn’t want to hurt Kyuhyun any further, but maybe the lies have to stop now before it gets worse, and he will forever be blinded by the idea of denial.
“They might be there until we return, but what if we don’t return? What if we never turn our backs and completely leave them behind? Would they still be there, waiting for something that is never going to come back?”
Kyuhyun plants a kiss on her forehead. “You know I will be.”
She closes her eyes, scared to admit but in no time at all she does. And Kyuhyun’s heart breaks completely. His once whole heart is no longer at its normal pace (despite getting attached to Qian, despite knowing that Joohyun is Yonghwa’s forever and more, he hears his heart crack) .
VIII.
Lucky catch, everyone else always tells both of them. They are each other’s lucky catches, completing what the other lacks, being each other’s sword and shield through all battles. That is why they’re perfect, in every way and beyond; perfect together, perfect for each other.
“Do you think Yonghwa will wait?”
He takes her hand when he feels cold, not because it’s the winter season but because of the air condition, blowing nonstop. Well, he thinks this is the reason but of course it isn’t. It is never because of the cooler that sends chills but at the idea that this may be the last time. He is thirty yet he feels like it is like the first time once again.
She keeps a smile, locking both her grip and gaze at him alone. The room emaciates with little colors to nothing but white, as devastatingly pale as she is at the moment. She is only twenty-nine, but getting the diagnosis for her to fight cancer on her own is the worst.
“He better,” he answers acidly, eyes wet. “So you shouldn’t let go, okay?”
“I’m not going to let go of you.”
“You promise?”
“Tell him to be very strong, and you don’t cry on me. I’m not your wife.”
“I’m not your husband either. So do me a favor and hold on.”
She lets out a giggle. “You and me. We’ll wait on each other, okay?”
Sometimes we hope too much, sometimes we’re too afraid to admit that our catch runs off, and we’re too late to realize its importance. And the machine that signals him to wait, suddenly beeps, Joohyun out of breathe but still holding on to him like she promised.
She waits for him as he will do the same, even when it’s Qian that he loves, even when its Yonghwa who has the more right to miss Joohyun. Because they’re friends, and they’re each other’s star in a million others.
Kyuhyun/Seohyun (Kyuhyun/Victoria; Yonghwa/Seohyun); Romance-Hurt, PG ~4,066 words
Oh, yes! There are such times when you think you’re not in love with the person sitting next to you at the park, or the classmate you’ve had since kindergarten, or that one person who always followed you around since middle school. Sometimes we take these things for granted because we know they’re still gonna be there when we return. They’re our lucky stars, lucky catches that make other people jealous because we got them without trying too hard.
→ For Mai Lin, belated happy birthday unnie! Comments are loved as I am a little rusty for lack of practice.
I.
Lucky catch, everyone else always tells both of them. They are each other’s lucky catches, completing what the other lacks, being each other’s sword and shield through all battles. That is why they’re perfect, in every way and beyond; perfect together, perfect for each other.
“Do you believe in that?”
He takes her hand when he feels cold, not because it’s the winter season but because of the air condition, blowing nonstop. Well... he thinks this is the reason but of course it isn’t. It is never because of the cooler that sends chills but at the idea that he may in fact be on his last streak. He is thirty yet he feels like it is like the first time once again.
She keeps a smile, locking both her grip and gaze at him alone. The room emaciates with little colors to nothing but white, as devastatingly pale as she is at the moment. His chances grow weaker as her hand slips out of his. He takes it again, to maybe extend the deadline, to maybe delay the credits from rolling. He knows it’s not going to work, but he sees no harm in hoping it will.
“I believe,” he answers surely, eyes wet. “So you shouldn’t let go, okay?”
But sometimes that particular lucky catch comes into our lives a little too late.
II.
Five-year-old Cho Kyuhyun has too many enemies on his own. He earns them at a daily basis, from pushing them off swings, stealing their seats in class, breaking their crayons, and making them accidentally leak their pants (or skirts, depends on the day he felt mischievous enough to scare the young ladies - it’d be on Thursdays usually).
Coming from an affluent family, oftentimes he is given everything, and anything he wants. He gets them with a snap of his parents’ fingers, naturally investing on him a little more than their first daughter (Kyuhyun thinks his noona hates him for this, being the younger one and all). He goes to church on Sundays, like the good boy he claims himself to be, and is later rewarded with new toys from the mall for behaving at church.
A couple of years onward, it surprises him one day when the head pastor calls for his parents’ attention, and without realizing it the following week, he is no longer sitting with them but behind the big wall where the piano hid, and where the rest of the chapel’s vocals are, where they make music for everyone to sing praise. He peeks from here and finds his parents on the fifth row, along with his sister’s evil gaze (it runs in the blood, clearly). They spot him and he waves back unhappily, sort of in question why in the world is he separated from them.
“How old are you again, Kyuhyun?”
“Eight.”
“You are going to sit at the far end of the bench, since your voice is still not as permanent as the rest of the big boys, okay?” The old lady says and he just nods, going to his position. The pianist assembles himself, and the conductor stands up front.
He realizes that it’s not just him who is shunned away as if they were a useless voice, because he finds this one girl, about probably the same age as him, her black fringes covering her wide eyes, fidgetting her fingers in nervousness perhaps. Kyuhyun taps her shoulder out of curiosity and she turns to him.
“What exactly do we do here?”
“We sing,” she answers, stuttering.
Kyuhyun shakes his head. “No, I mean... why are we over here? Why can’t we be in the middle?”
She smiles and it fades. “Oh because we’re too young. We will let the grown-ups take over the stronger notes while we do the harmony, along with the other ones in this portion.” She gestures to her back, and Kyuhyun sees the other members of the chorale.
“Harmony?”
“You... have not taken vocal... lessons?”
“I was just told to sing,” he shrugged, looking away. “I do not know how to... harmony?”
“Harmonize,” she corrects him, more assured that he stares back. She looks down, her hands busily and restlessly intertwining with each other. “It is to blend and add background to the song. Since we cannot make do with the piano alone, we need to add the vocal appeal of blending with the lyrics.”
He flinches. “I still don’t get it.”
“Just follow what I do when I sing, and I think it’ll be all right,” she suggests.
“Whatever you say then,” he agrees. “I’m Kyuhyun, by the way. You seem smarter so maybe that makes you my noona.”
She lets out a small laugh, as the procession of priests passes through the aisle, the crowd standing up and waiting for the mass to begin.
“My name is Joohyun,” she bows her head at him. “I’m seven years old. You’re shorter so I think you are that young.”
His eyes growing as big as his mother’s China platters, Kyuhyun gaps. “I’m already eight and I don’t even know harmonize exists as a word. Good job.”
III.
With the passage of time, there is still yet any interactions with each other. It appears as though they are not even from the same town, only of the same faith and he thinks that perhaps it is a little weird for them not to be closer than background singers of the same choir.
Before the 4 o’ clock mass when they age to twelve and thirteen (he has grown taller than he originally is from the first time they met), while the other members are out having snacks, he sits beside her by the piano, as she on the other hand plays the melody they are going to sing by lyric now. Being Joohyun, she will always be that timid girl, stage fright even though she isn’t going to face anyone but the pianist and the microphone; she still has the lowest confidence when it comes to letting her voice out.
“You did amazing earlier so you have nothing to be afraid now.”
“No, I did horrible,” she responds at once, pressing the keys stronger.
He notices it and smiles. “Joohyun-ah, do you want something to eat? I can ask my sister to drop by with ice cream.”
Her face brightens, stopping at the middle of the song. “Ice cream sounds good right now. But I... want to practice because they might never give us this chance in the future.”
Kyuhyun evidently looks down on the keys, constantly picking on the lowest F sharp key until Joohyun pinches his side, by his ribs and he squirms away, giggling. “Stop that. It’s irritating,” Joohyun complains.
“It is?” He questions excitedly, and then starts randomly to press any key he sees while she attacks him with pokes until the afternoon break ends, and business begins again.
He glances at her as the two of them duet, her voice raising higher than his to emphasize feminity on the song. She also smiles when she feels his eyes on her and somehow others may have mistaken it as love back then but they both know too well that it will be trouble to be following that path.
The following week Joohyun moves into town, three streets and a block away from where he lives, and she starts going to the same middle school as he does.
IV.
Joohyun’s role does not happen to be Kyuhyun’s best-est best friend in the world, nor vice versa either. Someone else happens to take that title away from her already and she sees the reason for why he can easily get along with the noonas during choir practice.
She hears from Kyuhyun that his best friend has the most devilish smile, like you will instantly know she is up to something. Something horrible, he exclaims.
Across his locker is hers, and they will often bump into each other when the bell rings. As she is about to tell Kyuhyun that she will be leaving for the week, going to visit her grandparents in Incheon and she may not be able to attend chorale sessions on Sunday, she finally sees her for the first time.
She is about the same height as Joohyun, and her smile is too benevolant to be referred as malicious or sly or evil. Her brown tresses cascade down her back, ending by her hips (whilst they are wide hips indeed, adding her curviness), and her jeans tightly hugs her legs down to her ankles. She exceeds Joohyun’s expectations. Her heart thumps hard and she gulps, for a reason she can’t quite explain entirely. She is too beautiful not to be envied by anyone, most especially by a newbie like Joohyun.
Kyuhyun sees her, calling her as he stops in the middle of his sentence. “Hey, Joohyun-ah! Come over here for a minute.”
Slowly she does, but regrets because now she will have to meet her, in which she wishes to avoid because she will feel smaller and smaller, less significant to the world (or to Kyuhyun; yet this understanding is unexplainable to her).
“Qian, this is Joohyun,” Kyuhyun introduces, holding Joohyun’s shoulder. “She’s the one who sang the chorus from church two weeks ago with me, you remember?”
She nods, opening her mouth in a very lady-like manner. “You really have the voice of an angel.”
“Joohyun, this is Qian,” he continues. “She’s been my best friend since we were in kindergarten, and she usually covers for me when I got into trouble.”
“Changmin thinks it’s bizarre that I do covers while we tell on him,” she giggles and Kyuhyun mutters something too, rather happily that both of them are trap in their own world, excluding Joohyun from existing. She feels a pang of jealousy right in the gut but why it is so, she still doesn’t comprehend. Maybe because Kyuhyun is the first person she actually befriends and still remains to be with until that day. Joohyun doesn’t make too many friends as she now recalls, so maybe that is why she feels a little behind with him hanging around with Qian.
She feels more comfortable now that she has met Qian and she doesn’t have to tell Kyuhyun about anything else (that he is her only friend and whatnot - because that would make her look like a loser).
V.
Kyuhyun’s role is not that of Joohyun’s first love, because those kind of things are reserved: first kisses, first boyfriends, first dates and first heartbreaks. Nor is it vice versa, since Kyuhyun stakes his heart to remain as friendly as possible towards Joohyun, treating her like a younger sister when he sees her now all grown-up in high school.
They have not seen each other over a year, because they have that one year age gap and because they have suspended activities as choir members, so when she walks up from behind him, covering his eyes as she stands on her toes, Kyuhyun takes a guess on the first day of school by saying, “Qian, we’re surprising Changmin today, not me.”
Joohyun jumps brightly when he turns around, looking more surprised than ever as she looks slightly different, her hair pulled back to a ponytail, her eyes glistened even brighter. Her smiles are always the same, deeply cut and pulled at the edges in order for her cheeks to be highlighted. There is an exchange of jabbers between the two, somehow the students that surround them become unnoticeable.
He wraps his hands around her in greeting, and it isn’t long before both of them let go and part. He asks how she has been, because he has been too busy with his math-lete competitions.
Joohyun always likes to hide things from him, but Kyuhyun lets the flaw slide, so when she shrugs and lowers her gaze to answer, “I’ve been fine”, something is going on with her that she doesn’t seem to open up.
Kyuhyun recalls that Joohyun has been too shy around him, unlike when they are younger, but maybe that’s just because she has grown older, more mature, learning experience one at a time. She has always been very secretive in many ways that he too doesn’t like to uncover more but is force to because he gets worried. Like the time he waves at Joohyun to eat lunch with him and Qian, she presses her lips together and looks for another table. Whether she is avoiding him or not, he can never really tell. When he calls her in the hallways, she seems to answer immediately, like nothing is wrong, or the lunch incident has not happened at all.
It has been like that over the year, holding back and afraid, so frightened, as if both have done crimes against each other, when in fact they are both innocent in every aspect. Her inconsistency is driving him towards suspicion and that kind of doubt is never good for any kind of relationship, their friendship in particular. He is a coward to ask her why the hell does she have to look away and he has to suffer the awkwardness by being ignored.
So when he catches her alone in one of the sophomore’s classroom, he closes the door behind him instantly, shocking Joohyun that she gasps loudly, Kyuhyun keeping a stoic expression.
“My god, you should’ve said something!” Joohyun scolds, closing her notebook.
“Me? You’re the one who isn’t talking to me for ages,” Kyuhyun then replies, the girl still shocked.
Joohyun blanches at the idea, uttering, “W-what... makes... makes you say that?”
“See? See, you stuttered just like that! You’re nervous that I’m here confronting you!” His tone is up the notch, getting Joohyun to shiver by her own fright.
“Yah, no need to shout,” she retorts, also taking the same route of expression.
He sits on the teacher’s table, biting his tongue and looking at the hot sunset drying the sky of its color to a gray. “You’re hiding something from me.”
“I am not,” she replies at once, too fast actually. “What is this confrontation for? I don’t get it. Are we supposed to be in a war?”
“Why are you ignoring me?”
She pauses.
“Why are you asking me that when you’ve completely ignored me for the whole year?”
He leans back because it all comes down now to her answers. Joohyun has always been smart, smarter than him even when he has competed in the nationals for his mathematical abilities. She has the magic to turn things around, to let destiny take her side, having to twist it around one more time is far unfortunate for the person she is attacking. That is Joohyun, because she is more honest when she begins to speak louder, and every bitter truth she spits out is something worth reflecting indeed.
Kyuhyun sighs. “I’m only ignoring you because you are. It’s like every time I want to talk to you, you seem to just shrug it off, walk away.”
“Is there really a need for us to talk? Are we not talking now? Am I still ignoring you?” Her questions are stronger than the bombs during the world war, and as the wounded soldier, Kyuhyun believes his base will blow up any minute now.
“Of course we need to talk, we’re friends. We need to sort out conflicts.”
“That’s it right there,” Joohyun stands, carrying her bag over her shoulder and hurrying towards the door. “We’re just that. So it does not matter if I walk out on you without warning. It doesn’t matter if I ignore you. That’s it right there. We don’t enter conflicts because we’re merely friends, and they can be healed easily through time. There, I solved your problem with me acting like something is wrong.”
“Joohyun, wait -”
His puzzlement comes to a stop when a boy around his age is waiting by the door, knocking as he seemingly comes to pick up Joohyun. With a small greeting, he takes her backpack from her and Joohyun does not look back, but the boy does, and he gives Kyuhyun a long hard look before Joohyun swiftly drags him out.
Kyuhyun then understands that Yonghwa, a boy who has been leaving her love letters in her locker since middle school, is her first love, and they have started dating for a month when Kyuhyun confronts her about getting ignored. He comprehends much that maybe Joohyun is a little unsure of her decision of entering a relationship and is scared to be criticized by Kyuhyun and his unstoppable mouth, making comments about people out of sheer mock.
And yet somehow he thinks that’s not an enough reason for her to be hiding it, or escaping his eyes and his questions.
VI.
“Joohyun, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For being a moron. Will you just talk to me?”
“I am talking to you.”
“Don’t give me this shitty conversation over the phone. I’m graduating tomorrow, you’ll never see me ever again.”
“Am I suppose to take that as good news or a bad one?”
“Joohyun! Can’t we just remain as friends?”
“You’ll always be my friend, you know. So will you quit asking me to resolve what’s already been settled?”
“Do you mean it? About always being your friend?”
“You are, I promise.”
“Okay, then let’s catch up on each other. You never told me about Yonghwa and -”
She puts down the phone and picks it up only to change the subject. So that is where the line is, Kyuhyun finally thinks.
VII.
Now Joohyun and Kyuhyun no longer talk to each other often, and even went to different colleges. He loses a friend during his junior year, and he still keeps the guilt and remorse inside to let him think of the other secrets about life itself. They are just friends but it feels rather wrong that she won’t tell more about her mysterious boyfriend.
It goes as any fairytale story goes: Kyuhyun starts having feelings for Qian and turns out that after he finishes his degree in business administration he plans on to marry her. Joohyun on the other hand, after her course in music, stands by Yonghwa’s side as she finishes off her own happy ending, without telling Kyuhyun anything behind most things that go on in her life. He falls in love with his best friend, while she does with her first love: it is something that these two friends conform to as the predictable, as the expected idea, as the trite and acceptable thought.
Life does not let them cross paths until one faithful day in November, years and years after; by the park they see each other, and unexpectedly sparks fly (like every time they meet), although these loud beatings of the heart are often ignored before, covered by the thoughts that they are not meant to be, or they can’t be more than what they already are, because he has Qian while she is happy being with Yonghwa.
Still he lets her hold his hand for the very first time after twenty-two years, and she grips it tightly as they walk around the bricked floor, admiring children fly kites and other people feeding wandering birds. It is a feeling of nostalgia all the more between two friends, not love, most definitely not that.
“I’m going to marry Qian soon,” he speaks coolly and she just nods, rather tired and pale but it must be just the autumn wind. “You’ll attend the wedding, right?”
She knows of course that one day Kyuhyun will fall in love with his best friend. And she is right. So she answers, “I will.”
“And whatever happens here will not alter our decisions, because this is it,” Kyuhyun then starts, his tongue stuck by the cat idiom. He sighs when he can’t spill. “Did you ever happen to have feelings for me, Joohyun?”
“Me?” she grins, looking at him sideways. “Of course I have. You’re my friend. You’re always my friend, a one in a million variety.”
He chuckles. They take a seat now in one of the benches. “One in a million, just like the star I’ve been wishing on. That you’ll be my one in million from the rest of the choices I’d make. But we know that can never happen now, right?”
He knows of course that Joohyun will eventually marry that vocalist of the high school rebel band. And he is right.
“You for me,” she says after. “You for me, I used to imagine it that way. Even now, after seeing you, there is a different rhythm inside my heart, unlike when Yonghwa is around. You see, that’s why I can’t ever face you again or talk about it. Because I will get even more confused and it’ll ruin both of us, our friendship and you know I don’t like expectations. I didn’t like the idea of you and me that much. You and me is a pigment of my imagination, an array of beautiful possibilities and risks, threatening to change reality greatly. I was afraid and I know you were too.”
He nods, putting an arm around her as she puts her head on his shoulder. “There are such times when you think you’re not in love with the person sitting next to you at the park, or the classmate you’ve had since kindergarten, or that one person who always followed you around since middle school. Sometimes we take these things for granted because we know they’re still gonna be there when we return.”
Joohyun holds back the tears as she remembers her very reason why she doesn’t want to hurt Kyuhyun any further, but maybe the lies have to stop now before it gets worse, and he will forever be blinded by the idea of denial.
“They might be there until we return, but what if we don’t return? What if we never turn our backs and completely leave them behind? Would they still be there, waiting for something that is never going to come back?”
Kyuhyun plants a kiss on her forehead. “You know I will be.”
She closes her eyes, scared to admit but in no time at all she does. And Kyuhyun’s heart breaks completely. His once whole heart is no longer at its normal pace (despite getting attached to Qian, despite knowing that Joohyun is Yonghwa’s forever and more, he hears his heart crack) .
VIII.
Lucky catch, everyone else always tells both of them. They are each other’s lucky catches, completing what the other lacks, being each other’s sword and shield through all battles. That is why they’re perfect, in every way and beyond; perfect together, perfect for each other.
“Do you think Yonghwa will wait?”
He takes her hand when he feels cold, not because it’s the winter season but because of the air condition, blowing nonstop. Well, he thinks this is the reason but of course it isn’t. It is never because of the cooler that sends chills but at the idea that this may be the last time. He is thirty yet he feels like it is like the first time once again.
She keeps a smile, locking both her grip and gaze at him alone. The room emaciates with little colors to nothing but white, as devastatingly pale as she is at the moment. She is only twenty-nine, but getting the diagnosis for her to fight cancer on her own is the worst.
“He better,” he answers acidly, eyes wet. “So you shouldn’t let go, okay?”
“I’m not going to let go of you.”
“You promise?”
“Tell him to be very strong, and you don’t cry on me. I’m not your wife.”
“I’m not your husband either. So do me a favor and hold on.”
She lets out a giggle. “You and me. We’ll wait on each other, okay?”
Sometimes we hope too much, sometimes we’re too afraid to admit that our catch runs off, and we’re too late to realize its importance. And the machine that signals him to wait, suddenly beeps, Joohyun out of breathe but still holding on to him like she promised.
She waits for him as he will do the same, even when it’s Qian that he loves, even when its Yonghwa who has the more right to miss Joohyun. Because they’re friends, and they’re each other’s star in a million others.