Chapter Text
There are some cold facts about life that I can’t seem to accept. First is that the huge and the most important part of the princess tales was untold to me: the princess was exceptionally beautiful. That’s why the main guy fell in love with her.
Men are like toddlers or crows; they like bright, colorful and shiny things and they like to follow them mindlessly.
That’s why Kang Dongho doesn’t seem to see me. It’s almost like I’m transparent to him.
We’ve been friends for year. I still remember the day we met, me walking up the stairs of lecture hall, keeping the eye contact with him, and him looking at me curiously. “Hello, I’m Shina. My friend Lena told me that you also like Japanese literature.”
Since that day, we are friends. We weren’t that close until 3 years ago, when we started our internship at the same hospital and same small group. Spending almost every day together got us closer, with the time passing, I realized how similar we were. He was wittier, and more courageous than me but at his core, he was a softie that couldn’t say no to his best friend’s begging for help or couldn’t believe that the girl he met on Tinder was only asking for a one-night stand.
“I don’t get it, Shina, am I too old minded? I start a conversation with this cute girl, and she says she only looks for a fling? Where’s the romance? Where’s the thrill of wondering and expectations? She’s only 2 years younger than me but I feel like she’s from another generation” he asked while munching on fries and sipping from his beer, in a dim-lighted pub we hung out.
While he was inspecting this complex romantic case in his mind, I was evaluating how unattractive I was, compared to all girls on Tinder. I wasn’t shiny, I wasn’t gorgeous, my hair was painfully straight that didn’t hold any iron-made curls. I couldn’t wear makeup because of my sensitive skin that started to burn as soon as I applied foundation. I liked wearing dresses, but they were nice only for the summer, I easily felt cold in the rest of the year. Finally, and the most importantly, I wasn’t physically attractive. He liked all those thin and tall girls while I wasn’t… Well, I wasn’t overweight, my BMI was in normal range, but beauty wasn’t in the numbers, it was in the shape and silhouette.
“What do you think?” he asked, shaking off his daze. Of course, I wasn’t going to spill my thoughts, because as much as I knew my place, I didn’t want him to know I was having pathetic thoughts about myself.
“You know, I don’t know much about dating stuff” I said. He nodded and kept talking to our friend sitting next to us, whom I didn’t like very much but Dongho liked him hanging around with us.
Seeing Dongho in scrubs affected me in the most heating way. Since the start of the internship, the time I realized my feelings towards him, every day was a challenge. His tiger tattoo was always visible but my favorite was the misspelled “Ubiqutous” one, which peeked through the short sleeve whenever he put his arms up or nap after a night shift. Also, seeing sleepy Dongho was another beautiful view. Or tired Dongho. Or hungry Dongho. There were hundreds moods of Dongho and working with him allowed me to witness almost every one of them.
Him keeping a toddler busy? An arrow to my heart. Him bringing a bottle of water to me? Another arrow aimed at my heart. Him complimenting and cheering up a sad patient? Another shot. Him getting aggressive towards a neglectful act of another intern? Fatal shot.
He was beautiful view with a beautiful soul... But it was just him. I wasn’t in the view. I wasn’t even standing next to him. I was a responsible coworker, a trustworthy person, someone he respected, someone whom he could easily say “She’s a good person” and I knew he saw me as a nice friend but it was just that. I wasn’t someone men could fall in love with, I wasn’t that profile.
One day, an old professor who got drunk at a celebration held captive of me to ramble about his thoughts about relationships. “Never marry a surgeon, they’ll be no good to you. Never marry an internalist or pediatrician, as they’ll never visit home, they’re always working.” As he kept on his drunk talk, I kept wondering if I could ever have a chance to choose someone. Because, you know, when you don’t get any attention from the gender you’re sexually attracted to, you start realizing that there may be something wrong with you.
What was wrong with me was that I couldn’t bloom. I was a bud, but I didn’t know how to bloom into a beautiful flower, and he only saw the flowers.
And one day, he saw the flower nearest him.
“Does Lena have boyfriend?” he asked one day.
Shoot.
Gulp.
For the God’s sake… Why she? She isn’t even nice! She’s your daily fragile-looking-cold-bitch. She’s just thin and her hair is long! And she doesn’t even like talking to you! She keeps bad-mouthing about you, she just said you were too easygoing to the point of being a loser and I defended you!
“I don’t think she’s ready for a relationship” I said because this was the only fact he could stand hearing. The others? I didn’t want to break his heart to the point where he’ll think I’m sabotaging his possible love.
“What? What kind of a nonsense is it?” he said.
Because everybody is emotionally available to a relationship at any time?
“I think she’ll say no. I wish she said yes” which, in fact, I didn’t wish, but go on, “She’s just… Not ready for that.”
“I’m going to ask her anyways” he said. I KNOW, I KNOW THAT A HUMAN HEART CANNOT FALL FROM ITS PLACE but that was exactly what I felt. I kept flipping the lab results in my hands to make me look unaffected but I didn’t see anything on the paper. I wanted him to be happy, fuck, I wanted him to be the happiest person alive. And I was never the one who was given the opportunity to make this happen.
I was never given the opportunity to hold his nicely shaped hands, which nearly forgot the surface of ivories, as he didn’t have time to play piano as he used to. I was never given the opportunity to put his head on my lap as he napped and pet his hair. I could never cook a meal for him or knit a scarf to protect him from cold winds.
I wasn’t allowed to. I was only allowed to approach him until a line. The line drawn between love and friendship. And while I was always on the friends’ zone, there were many women on the love zone. And I wasn’t tired of being jealous for all of them.
By the way, he messaged her while she was next to me. She immediately rejected him, even though I told her he was a very good-hearted person.
He fucking mourned. He was heartbroken. HELLO! Being heartbroken is my role, not yours. You’re the handsome and cheerful one. I’m the unseen and depressed one.
Yes, I know that my self-deprecating thoughts come from my depressive mood. My depression causes me to feel bad about myself. And me feeling bad about myself causes me to neglect my skincare and beauty stuff. Medical school isn’t the place to heal from depression, it causes the depression. Honestly, I couldn’t understand how he could stay so positive during the school years.
By the way, I thought we would part ways silently when we graduated… Boy, was I wrong. After breaking my heart again in the graduation ball, by asking me if Lena would dance with her, I really decided to delete him from my life. I was preparing myself for that, really.
I was going to bury his friendship and memories, not into my heart but into the soil. I’m a believer of objectifying feelings, because my heart is stupid, and it prefers keeping every kind of feeling. Trying to forget him? No, cannot do that. So, the morning after the ball, I took a paper, wrote “My love and feelings for Kang Dongho” AND I BURNED IT. I watched it being taken by the flames and turning into ashes. My heart was like, “I guess we’re really done?”, and I was like, “Finally! After many many heartbreaks…” and my heart said, “Yeah, I couldn’t really let go of him, but now that he turned into ashes…” as the stupid sh*t she was. I mean, you belong into a smart organism which can realize its existence and do many highly intellectual stuffs. You, my heart, belong to a Homo sapiens, not a Golden Retriever.
Whatever, I cut the contact with him and spent a few months finding a residency program to get accepted into. I got accepted into a clinical microbiology residency. I realized that, setting a course of my career reduced the uncertainty about my life and made me relieve a bit. I also started going to gym and bought new treatment for my skin care. A few weeks were spent before that incident.
I saw him at the entrance of the hospital. He jumped with joy and waved his hands when he saw me.
“This must be a joke” I thought to myself. “I wish that you could stay in my memories.”
“Hey, Shina! What are you doing here?”
“What are You doing here?” I asked back.
“I work here! In general surgery! What about you?” He was very happy to see me so he couldn’t see my hesitancy.
I didn’t want to see a happy Dongho at my workplace because I knew my heart would take this the old way. “He’s so cute, why were we trying to delete him?” my heart asked me with her stupid, amnestic self.
“I’m working at clinical microbiology,” I answered to suppress my heart’s voice.
“Great! We always need consultations from your department! We’ll see each other a lot. There aren’t many people here from our school so I feel very lucky that you’re here” he started bubbling. He literally looked like sunshine in the form of human. How could he look so sweet with those huge biceps and wide shoulders?
“NO!” I screamed inside. I have burnt all my romantic feelings towards him. I have my pride! My priority is myself and I won’t fall into previous patterns anymore!
“Dongho, I think you’re forgetting the time, you’ll be late for your morning round,” I interrupted his chain of talk.
“Heck! I really forgot! I gotta go fast, I’ll call you, we should meet up again.” He said before running.
“Don’t tell me you’ll call, don’t give me hope,” I whispered to myself.
And this was how I went from “You Belong With Me”- Taylor Swift to “First Love / Late Spring” – Mitski.