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"Under the theme title Spring is Coming, South Korean musicians will perform a concert in Pyongyang, North Korea,” an announcer on the news show remarks as you peel your eyes away from the dishes you just finished clearing up.
You move closer to the living room and turn up the volume as a multitude of faces flash on screen.
“Top K-pop girlband Red Velvet will be among them. Red Velvet’s Irene, their leader, speaks about their excitement for the opportunity they have been given.”
She looks the same, but also different. The laugh lines you knew her face to have are buried under makeup, and her doe eyes seem bigger with how they styled her.
It’s not the first time you see her face on television, but this particular instance screams something different. As if Joohyun has finally flown far, far away into the open blue skies you will never be able to reach.
You meet her in 11th grade.
It's your first day in a new school, so you keep to yourself. The classes are bland and the instructors are even worse.
Not until several mundane hours after first period do you feel eyes lingering on your skin when you start packing your pens— keeping your favorites in a purple case. Your notebook falls with a smack on the floor as you try to grab another from your bag.
“This must be yours.”
This is the first time your eyes meet. Her black pools are huge, and you feel something somewhere in your soul tug. She's beautiful.
She hands you the notebook while saying your name, gaze passing over your birthday labeled on the information page at the very front.
“Thank you, sunbaenim—”
She tilts her head and it's almost frustrating how stunning she is. “Bae Joohyun,” she insists. “Just Joohyun,” her eyes flicker towards your notebook, staring at the numbers 1990. “Unnie.”
You smile, because that honorific sounds much better coming from her lips than your name does, for some reason. “Would you like to be friends?”
“I would.” Joohyun beams, gently glowing under the rays of the afternoon sun through your otherwise dreary classroom windows.
You didn't know it then, not yet, but this girl was going to turn your monochrome days into ones full of every color shade there is.
-
Of course, the two of you aren't best friends right off the bat.
Try as you might, you aren't able to break through your own personal bubble when it comes to communicating with others. Granted, you're the new kid, so it makes sense to try and be comfortable in your own skin before attempting to go through the big scary world that is high school.
You can't help but look forlornly over at your new ‘friend’ still, wishing you could reach out and discover more about her. The tug of earlier has now turned into a full blown pull at each and every cell of your body, and it almost physically hurts that you can't do anything about it.
With high school come awkward interactions and drab schoolwork, and you're thankful to be free of even if it was just for one period. Gym class. You’re by your locker filling it with your things when the conversation reaches your ears.
“What? How will she have gym class without the attire?”
You turn your head and see her, Bae Joohyun, in the middle of a group of girls conversing as if she isn’t there. It’s none of your business, though. Really.
But you have an extra set because you’re new. And you were going to fill up your locker with it for those days you were in a hurry and forgot your clothes. And it’s not too much of a hassle to lend it, or a far reach, even. And it's not like you need it today when it's an extra set. And—
Drop-dead-gorgeous-classmate looks like she's on the verge of crying due to her lack of gym clothes, so it makes sense that your first instinct is to practically scream please, use mine! in her face.
“Unnie?”
“Use mine. I have an extra set. Come on,” you say while handing the garments, trying to avoid everyone’s eyes and hide your red face. She looks at you in awe and wonderment and you’re half-convinced she’s an angel.
You find yourself at the convenience store not long after school that same day. Joohyun is insistent about treating you to ice cream in thanks, and though you don’t want to let her feel so indebted to you, you don’t want to miss this chance of becoming closer either.
The both of you grab for the red bean paste ice cream together, and something in the universe clicks in place when you share an amused smile.
She’s ethereal in the glow of the sunset. It’s no wonder you let your snack melt all over your hands and have to buy yourself another. How could you possibly take your eyes off someone so flawless?
-
Neither of you have plans after school a few days from now, so when Joohyun’s friend asks her to accompany them to an SM Open Audition in town, Joohyun doesn’t hesitate to say yes.
“It’s not like I want to pass that badly,” she tells you, and you see a challenge in her eyes.
In all the months you’ve known her, there is one thing you’re absolutely sure of: Joohyun is a monster when it comes to competitiveness. If she saw this as a challenge, nothing was going to stop her from going.
You don’t want to discourage her nature, so you nod along. “Imagine if you did pass. Joohyun, you’d be a star for sure.” She turns away and you try not to trip over your own feet at the sight of an ear flushing red. You fail.
As her friend, you can’t help but hype her up. She gets caught up in it too, and soon you two are imagining the big stage with Bae Joohyun in bold letters and being chanted across stadiums.
“You’d be like BoA! Bae Joohyun, BoA’s hoobae in SM!” you grin and tackle her into your bed, homework forgotten on the floor and replaced with wild dreams of fame and fortune. “Bae~chu! Bae~chu!”
“I could buy you all the ice cream you want,” she snorts while poking your side in retaliation.
It must be the magic of being around a divine being, you think, when you’re tempted flop above her and hug her tightly, saying, I just want you.
Ew, that’s super greasy.
“As long as it’s red bean paste.” You snicker and lay beside her, staring at Joohyun’s perfect profile.
“Absolutely not. Those are all mine.”
You gasp mockingly and cover her offensively beautiful face with a pillow, because otherwise you were sure your hands would do something your brain wasn’t ready to make up for. She laughs and laughs and it’s the best sound you’ve ever heard in your short 17 years of existence.
-
You were never much for skinship, but she needed it.
Her frustration is radiating off the walls of her bedroom in the form of hacking sobs, and you know that words will not help. Words won’t take the pain of rejection away. This kind of pain just fades ever so slowly with lots and lots of time, but it will never stop hurting.
Instead of telling her it’ll be alright, you take her into your arms and caress her hair. Soothing her when she cries harder.
“I didn’t know I wanted this so much. This is what I want to do, unnie. I’ve decided.” She sobs directly into your pajama shirt. Her parents allowed you to sleepover because it’s you and Joohyun needs you.
You hum encouragingly and nod into her hair; combing it back so she can breathe fresh air in, hopefully also taking the love you’re trying to pour into her. Because that’s what this is; that’s what you feel. It’s love.
-
You’re lining up for jajangmyeon when you see a male sunbae approach Joohyun in the corner of your eye. The couple in front of you leaves and you have to order next before the other patrons start getting mad, so you get one large for you and Joohyun to share.
“What was that all about?” you ask as you approach her. You were done getting your change and food and Joohyun is still stuck on the same spot, watching sunbae and his friends walk away.
“I…” she licks her lips, “He just asked me to be his girlfriend.”
You pause, the noodles halfway to your mouth. “What did you say?” She turns to you with shining eyes and a bright smile, and you’re absolutely pissed when she tells you she said yes.
You've never been so impulsive, you want to say. But maybe that was it. She didn't want to remain stagnant where she was. Joohyun wanted to change and be better since her audition. Who do you think you are to change that? Besides, she deserves it after the heartbreak she just went through.
So you nod stiffly and hand her the food, watching the older boy’s back as he’s playfully punched by his group of classmates. You refuse to look into her hopeful eyes and start walking home.
“Unnie?” she starts to say, finally moving, and it’s towards you as you pull away.
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
-
It’s not easy to get over it quickly, what with their months of blatant hand holding in school and all of his invitations to noraebang with his and Joohyun’s friends together. You manage to survive it, somehow, and now you’re walking her home because her dumb boyfriend has not one gentlemanly bone in his body.
“It’s beautiful,” she says when you stop at a crossing, looking into the cloudless sky.
Your gaze lifts upwards and you agree. The colors are absolutely breathtaking. It's dusk right now, the soft pink hues of day molding into the blues of night, turning the sky a vivid lilac. Your favorite shade.
It’s not worth it to be jealous, you decide, especially when the subject of your affection is clueless and only trying to be happy. The only person bothered by this entire dating thing is you, but you don't want to break something that's holding her in place— fragile and superficial that it is.
You huff while thinking you could definitely make her happier.
Still, you decide to let it go and make peace. As an olive branch, though she doesn’t know it, you hold her hand like you’ve been doing ever since they'd started going out— first due to your own jealousy and possessiveness— but this time out of care.
“What's your favorite color, Joohyun?” you ask as the city continues to be full of life beyond the two of you.
“I don't have one.”
You hum and smile up at the endless space above.
“What about you, unnie?”
Her eyes are galaxies, you think, turning to roam over her gorgeous face. “Purple.”
She looks into your eyes as if they hold the secrets of the universe, then says it’s now hers too.
-
It's the first time in your life you experience morbid delight at another’s misfortune. You watch her now ex-boyfriend walk away from where she stands while you move closer.
“It was inevitable, I think. He's already graduated and won't have time for you,” you say, going over the reasons for breaking up that you and Joohyun thought of together.
“Yeah.”
“You're way too good for him anyway,” you say and shove your hands in your pocket.
She makes a face like you're teasing her, but you swear you aren't. You're too old for that, now that you're in 12th grade. And besides, it's the truth; no one in this world is going to be good enough for Joohyun.
Not even me.
-
“Can we stay a while by the river?” she asks one day while you hold hands and walk home. Of course you bring her. You can never say no.
It's peaceful and quiet when you arrive and something in the air feels light, like a dream, but you pinch yourself and know it’s not. The bench is big enough for more than two but you sit close anyway, legs grazing against each other.
You try to distract her by talking about the future, now without him in the picture. Just the two of you, as if running away from this small place is feasible.
It's been months since their break-up and your lives are revolving around each other more; you're everything to Joohyun just as she's everything to you.
“A house with purple walls?”
“Hey! It’ll be soothing, okay?” you defend yourself, but not really.
She just shakes her head and stares out at the river of your small part of town. She points out at an empty lot. “We’ll build it there because we'll stay here. But the walls have to be something less drastic, like… light yellow, or something.”
You pretend to disagree and frown, until she tells you that you can color the roof purple, and she laughs and laughs and you know. The both of you settle down until the sun starts hiding and the night sky is tinged in plum hues.
This is it. The two of you are about to graduate and the end of a chapter of your life is coming closer. You can only hope that it’s making way for a new beginning.
You say her name the same time she says yours and there are only inches between the two of you. The wind feels like a whisper over your skin and her voice is low and smooth as silk. “Unnie,” she says once more, licking her lips while moving closer.
“Talk to me, Joohyun,” you manage to gasp out when her nose touches yours.
“Only you,” she says, moving impossibly closer. “Only you’re good enough for me.”
Neither of you notice your hand make its way to her captivating face, pulling her in so you can seal her lips with a kiss that leaves both of you breathless.
-
“You… what?”
“They called me back. I’m going to Seoul and training under SM, unnie.”
“What? Uh— How long?”
You imagine her shrugging on the other end of the line. She says you're the first person she called, but right now you feel like the last person whose feelings she even considered.
“Two to four years of training then whatever comes after.”
Fear strikes into your heart, right where pride that she’s been called back should be. Your mind is running a mile a minute; almost too fast for you to follow. All you know is the beginning of something great has been cut off too early, for a life that’s uncertain and devoid of you. And she was choosing that?
“But unnie,” she sounds restless over the phone, “See, you were right. I’m going to get to call BoA sunbaenim. Isn’t that amazing?”
Oh, it’s definitely amazing how you were blindsided by this. Who even calls back after almost two years? What kind of company does that?
“I… wh— this is a little more than overwhelming…”
“Look, I know. I’ve got to go pack, unnie. I’ll… I’ll write to you— and I’ll visit. But I have to go.”
“O—okay.”
“Unnie? You know that this means— I… I’ll make it, but don’t wait for me. You have a lot more to give to the world, so don’t let yourself be tied down by me. We’ll meet again.”
Good God, over the phone. This was so pathetic.
“I have to go.”
“Joohyun— ” She hangs up before you can say anything else.
You should've known to associate the word heartbreak with Bae Joohyun. With that face and those eyes, it should have been a no-brainer. You were young, sure, but you never thought you could be so stupid.
-
Communication between the two of you now is incredibly limited; through letters if ever.
She doesn’t write about how difficult training is, and you don’t write about how much you wish you stopped her from being a slave to the industry. Her fate was sealed the moment she lifted her pen after signing the contract and there was nothing you could do about it.
Another city welcomes you with open arms for university and you meet a nice boy there, all tall and dimple-cheeked while you try to forget a soft smile and high-pitched laugh.
You see her in your dreams but never in person for five, long years.
The first time she's on television, you almost cry. Your boyfriend asks you what's wrong but you shake your head and stare at her, hair dip-dyed pink, beside three other girls you've never seen but have become a bigger part of Joohyun’s life than you have ever been granted.
-
When she returns the same time you're back in town, winter is just starting and the snow is dancing around her who's at your doorstep.
She now moves with a different sort of grace that Seoul has drilled into her, but she's still here. She's still yours, somehow, and it almost feels like nothing’s changed though in fact everything has.
“Joohyun-ah,” you say, breathlessly, watching snowflakes melt on her eyelashes.
“It’s Irene now, unnie.”
It’s said with such a lovely look on her face— a little cheeky, a lot proud. You let your eyes roam over her features; eyes now double-lidded, face a little thinner, but still the same expression.
One look and you're a goner. You feel something snap and tug once again, breaking your ties with everything that isn't her. You forget even your own name.
She leans in and kisses you slowly, as if you have all the time in the world. Steadily, like the movement of the Earth itself has frozen with the waters just for the two of you.
-
She visits every time she can, even when she’s blonde and you have to hide her under your big beanie and heavy sweater. She acts grumpy and yet you know she likes it when you pamper her. She’s the oldest of Red Velvet, but she’s still younger than you, even if just by a year.
“What are your members like?”
You watch her eyes light up when she mentions them. Yeri, their youngest, and how she’s their variety show star. Seulgi, their ace, who can be put into any group and always shine. Joy, their honey-voiced Jeju native, whose talents go even into acting. Wendy, their foreign doll, whose sharp intelligence and knowledge of playing various instruments keep them awestruck. You smile and think she leads a powerful team.
Then she talks about Yerim, Seulgi, Sooyoung, and Seungwan. The real people behind the names. How Yerim is still trying to figure herself out but she always has the rest of them to fall back on. How Seulgi is crybaby behind the need to be a pillar but they always hold her through it. How Sooyoung is a perfectionist and insecure but they’re always ready to remind her of her worth. How Seungwan is always worried and tense but they touch her and her brain slows down.
“And what about Irene?”
She pauses and looks at you questioningly at first, but then a small smile blooms on her face while you raise a brow. “She's SM’s poster girl for the perfect girlfriend. “
You nod encouragingly, waiting for her to say it. “And Joohyun?”
“She's your girlfriend. Every inch of her is all unnie’s.”
-
You watch Music Bank religiously. When she visits next, with hair dyed brown and on a day that isn't a Friday, you have no idea what makes you say it.
“Park Bogum-ssi seems nice.”
Her face scrunches adorably as you play with your food. “Don't be gross, please.”
You laugh and joke around with her but you feel your heart clench at the same time, knowing that her spending a suspicious amount of time in Daegu is ringing alarm bells back in Seoul.
She tells you of how ridiculous it is to pretend to be flustered when they cite her and Bogum’s apparent closeness. It was, according to Joohyun, insulting to think she'd be that clumsy and awkward.
“Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb,” you sing-song, laughing all the while she slaps your arm.
“It fits you more,” she teases. You recall a dropped notebook and melted ice cream and tripping over nothing; admitting defeat as your heart flutters in your chest.
“I’m glad I can come back home to this,” she says, placing a warm palm over your fingers.
Red Velvet has downtime for a few months due to reasons you aren't informed of. You don't mind. It's company policy. How can you complain when your days are full of Joohyun?
She visits more often now, but that also means she leaves just as much. Her phone is always ringing and unfamiliar names leave her lips, talking about how she’s in her hometown and she's on break. She says all of this with a grumble, but you can see the smile that's threatening to occupy her face.
You guess that, to her, home is probably already in the spotlight. It's not your little corner of Daegu down by the river anymore.
-
“One of these nights, huh,” you say, side-eyeing her as you kick your legs and sway on a swing set at a public park.
She looks at you as if she knows what you're saying. You've always been an open book to Joohyun, you think, and there's nothing you can hide from her. A tale of two lovers who can only meet once a year. It's fitting, even though you see each other more often than that.
“Joohyun.”
“Unnie?” You close your eyes and feel the night breeze flow through your hair. She holds your hand like it’s a secret and a promise at the same time.
“Sing it to me,” you say, and she does. Her husky voice makes the song sound even more melancholic.
You kiss her before she can finish, desperately, hungrily, as if this is your last chance.
Because things are going so well and you know in your heart you never did anything to deserve it. That was why what happens the next time you see her does not surprise you in the least.
-
There's a buzzing in your head you can't quite comprehend as you watch her face, enveloped by the glow of the cafe at midnight. She's saying her career is at stake.
“I'm sorry,” she says, and she really does sound like it. You'd be lying if you said you didn't understand. “We can hopefully still be good friends,” she says, biting the lips you've spent entire afternoons just thinking about.
You want to fight. We can hide, you’d say. It was her second year after debut and the seventh year of her ten-year contract. I can wait.
But then you remember the furrow in her brows when a call takes too long. The stress lines appearing on her face. The fact that it probably takes a much bigger toll on her than you see, behind doe-like eyes and perfect lips.
“We've always been friends,” you grimly reply. The noises can't get any louder.
In their next comeback, she dyes her hair purple. You don’t know whether to laugh or cry or rage— so you do none of those. You just watch.
-
“What ever happened to him? Your ex.”
You can't believe she's talking to you about this, over the phone too, like the coward that she is. Didn't you leave him behind months ago, when you finally realised Joohyun was yours for the taking?
“You should get a boyfriend, unnie.”
You give in, for once, and throw your pillow against the wall. What the hell is going on? What does she want from you? “Would that please you?” you grit out, angry beyond belief.
“It's not for me,” she has the audacity to claim.
Everything I do is for you, you want to scream, but you don’t.
-
You ring her up and put on a brave face— one she hasn't seen in months. The frustration in your heart has disappeared along with the image of Joohyun in your mind after you stopped talking since the last phone call.
She picks up on the fifth ring and sounds scared and hopeful at the same time, but you’re probably just projecting your own feelings onto her.
“I saw him at the market a month or two ago. We were both surprised. He was apparently in town for a family thing… and then he stayed.”
“Him? As in, your boyfriend in university?”
“Yes,” you reply, leaning against the door frame by your living room. She stays quiet on the other end of the line while you look out the window, trying to remember what she looks like.
“Oh. What a coincidence.”
You tell her that he’s nice and very polite. The months since your break-up were good to him, apparently. He said that it got him thinking straight; that he started considering things about the future more and how it didn’t hurt to look back on what the two of you had, because he was happy with you and he would never regret that. Joohyun is silent.
She calls you more often after that.
She says she feels like she’s chasing after your ghost, and admits that she wishes she didn’t have a schedule halfway across the world and was instead in your arms again.
You don’t know what to say, so you just hum instead of saying what you want to; that out of the two of you, it’s always been her that chooses to leave. That it was about time you tried to move on as well.
-
You don’t hear from her for months.
Instead of waiting for a phone call, you spend all your hours working at your stable-income job and going on dates with your university sweetheart after your coincidental reunion. He’s good to you and meets your every need.
Except the hole in your heart shaped like Joohyun.
-
“He proposed to me,” you say into the phone as you stare out at Daegu’s skyline.
You try to convince yourself it makes sense, because you’re nearer to 30 than you are 20, now. You met him when Joohyun left for Seoul— a four year long relationship. A few confusing months and a spoonful of her wasn't going to mess up his similar views, taste, and wavelength with you.
In a different life, you'd have been convinced he was your soulmate.
The night is young but cold and the weather has nothing to do with your clammy hands. When she doesn't respond, you tell her that you accepted, in a tone almost too soft to hear. How could you say no? What was waiting for you on the other side had you denied him? Did you even want to know the answer?
You hear an intake of breath, and hold your own. Her reply comes after several beats, but it’s not what you expect. “Do you love him?”
You close your eyes and imagine her face, the one that speaks volumes with just a look, saying, no, don’t marry him, wait for me, because I’m always going to come back home to you. You give a heartless laugh. Maybe that reply belongs in your imagination, where forbidden wishes are allowed to come true.
“I think… ” I don’t know how to love anyone that isn’t you.
She heaves a deep sigh, cities away, and you feel your throat clogging up with the conglomeration of your feelings since you were seventeen and Joohyun was still close enough to caress.
You change the subject, and she lets you. The two of you talk the night away until she has to go and you have no more chance to say I love you and I'll always be waiting.
-
That night you dream of desires you've never let unfold in the daylight. Her disembodied voice is still ringing in your ears, but the body of the woman is under you, right now, carefully woven in fantasy land.
“Hyun-ah.”
“Unnie, please …”
You fuck her with all the rage and fire burning in your blood that you can only release here in your imagination. You mark her neck with your teeth to show the world she’s not SM’s Irene, she’s not Red Velvet’s leader, she’s yours. You pin her down in your fury and chant mine mine mine.
When your frustration passes, you caress her face with light pecks.
She quietly asks you to touch her, and you let your hands move along her milky skin, using your lips to kiss open heavenly thighs with the sureness of a life-long devotion to the most beautiful girl you’ve ever laid your eyes on. Your fingers graze along her gently and you hum I’m yours I’m yours I’m yours like a prayer.
You don't want to wake up, but you still do anyway.
You turn off the television when the news has moved on from Red Velvet and North-South Korean peace talks to regular local reports.
It really strikes you then that Joohyun— your Joohyun— has become something much bigger than either of your high school dreams could ever conceive.
The world is finally at the tips of her fingers as she builds bridges between borders, and now more than ever do you think that the name Irene fits her best. Irene, the goddess of peace, who stops wars and reconciles countries. Irene, whom your filthy mortal hands have never touched or tarnished.
Because she’s not Joohyun. Not anymore. She hasn’t been your Joohyun in a long, long time.
-
Your smile reaches your eyes, but it’s a sad one, when you answer the phone.
“Did you like my gift?”
“I did,” you tell her, staring at the tiny cleaning robot dancing in your kitchen, hard at work after weeks of use. “It's very practical and thoughtful. Thank you, Joohyun-ah.”
You talk a little bit after that. About their performance in North Korea and how she had to have her other members— mostly Seulgi and Yerim— tight on a metaphorical leash lest they get lost. How never in her wildest dreams did she think she'd ever shake hands with Kim Jong-Un.
You tell her about your recent job promotion and all the wedding gifts you received months ago in October, not more than a week after you got married. Her present is five months late. You don't know whether it was because she was busy or… something else.
It wasn't until you run out of things to say that she dives onto dangerous waters.
“Unnie…” she starts reluctantly, and you feel your heart drop. Her tone gets under your skin and you almost beg for her to stop sounding so heartbroken.
She has the world. You were just a girl— a woman now— too afraid to jump into the unknown. She was always ahead and you were always satisfied just watching.
“I hope you’re happy,” she finally says.
You sigh and place your hand on the counter, thinking of years gone by because of giant aspirations that you both never thought would come into fruition.
You imagine what she’s doing now, Irene the nation's visual and leader of an irreplaceable girl group, then think of her as she was a decade ago— Joohyun, your drop-dead-gorgeous, favorite-color-stealing classmate— back when dreams were just dreams and the nights you looked forward to were under the stars with her hand in yours and not the static noise behind a long-distance phone call and a voice that haunts your every waking moment.
She must be happy now. She needs to be, because to have both of you unhappy would make it so unbelievably tragic.
You take a long breath and feel the door to your heart creaking open the same time you mouth the words you've been keeping locked behind it. “I think there’s something else you want to say.” There is silence on the other end. Until suddenly, there isn’t.
“I could love you better, unnie.”
The chains wrapped around your heart start tightening once again, but you need to tell her. Tell her. Tell her. For the love of God, just tell her.
That you never stopped thinking of your high school days, when you were young and invincible. That you keep every letter from her that she manages to send, whether they be simple greetings or long essays. That you wish you could go back and change something— anything— everything— if it meant she'd be here with you right now and you had a wife instead of a husband.
That it's her it's her it's her. You are hers just as much as she knows she's yours and not even fame and fortune and years being apart will ever change that.
But you close your eyes and let fear and responsibility kick in instead, hanging up the phone abruptly.
Joohyun is too far away in more ways than one, and you both already chose your paths. You stare at the device and ready yourself to pretend the reception is the worst in your new kitchen, in your new house.
It’s two stories high, with cream walls and a violet roof, near the river where you had your first kiss with a girl that's long left you behind.
I’m going through heartache longer
than the times we loved.
past the milky way, in a faraway place,
I’m combing through our white memories.