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12
“I had a dream about you last night. I’m not sure where we were exactly, but you were about to get into a cab. And before you got in I hugged you really tight and I think I was crying. Then I woke up with this awful ache inside my chest.”
Chaewon adds a cube of sugar to her coffee, staying silent as Hyunjin’s trembling voice fills the room.
“I guess I miss you a lot. But that’s like a given, you know? It’s hard not being able to see you all the time. Not knowing how you are, if you’re holding up alright. I keep thinking about booking a ticket to visit you for the weekend, but it’s a fourteen-hour flight and the logistics get all out of whack, and then my boss schedules me for another double shift, so what the heck I guess. I don’t know, I don’t wanna make any promises I can’t keep.”
She stirs her coffee with a spoon, watching the dark, viscous liquid swirling languidly inside its cup.
“Uh… I’m not afraid of telling people about my feelings. I used to be, though. I’d act as though everything was fine and try to distract myself from my thoughts. And one day I just… had enough of doing that. Of pretending that I was fine, that I didn’t care, or that I didn’t miss my grandma or my friends when they weren’t around. Because I do miss them, and it hurts like hell to know that they won’t be around forever or that I won’t see them all the time. But I know I can’t be too selfish, since they have their own lives to lead that’ll sometimes take them down a different path from mine. I can’t decide how they want to live and I don’t want them to feel like I’m holding them back, because I wouldn’t want them to do that to me either. But I can’t help feeling sad about it. So I figured that maybe to feel less sad about it, I should just, you know, be honest about my emotions.”
A tentative sip. Thick, smooth, crudely bitter. It could use a bit more sugar.
“I think there’s some sort of knock-on effect going on here too, because now that I’m opening up to people, it feels like they’re starting to do the same to me. I feel like I’m finally getting to know my friends, and in the process, I’m learning more about myself as well. And, who knows? Maybe I’ll be a different person by the time you come back,”
If Chaewon imagines hard enough, she can visualise Hyunjin standing in the room with her, the edges of her smile reaching upwards to her twinkling eyes.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Chaewon finishes her coffee before throwing open the blinds shielding the window, allowing a burst of radiant sunlight to flood her living room. She looks into the glare. Deep stretch, contented sigh. Ready to start a new day.
16
“Here’s another one, it’s in Portuguese, though. Cafuné: the act of running your fingers through a loved one’s hair. Sounds romantic, right? I honestly think it’d be a pretty good name for some obscure underground indie band.”
The bus runs over another pothole, causing Chaewon to jump in her seat and drop her cassette player into her lap.
“Okay, let’s see, what else… ah, here’s one. Limerence: the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one's feelings but not primarily for a sexual relationship. That sounds pretty painful, honestly. Like, the only time I felt like that for anyone was probably you. I’m lucky that turned out pretty well in the end.”
Chaewon covers her mouth with her other hand to mask the smile creeping onto her face.
“Ooh, here’s one more. Lilo: a friendship that can lie dormant, only to pick right back up instantly, as if no time had passed since you last saw each other. You know, I actually wonder how all my friends overseas are doing. Maybe I should give them a call. Ooh, but international phone charges suck, and I’m already burning a hole through my wallet calling you every week. Huh. It’s okay, I’ll figure something out. You know I always do.”
She looks out the window, watching buildings and people pass by in a blur. All with their own stories to tell, all living their own lives. Independent yet inexplicably bound.
Eventually, the bus rumbles to a stop. Chaewon gets off and prepares to live hers.
20
“How to make stir fry. Ingredients: One packet of meat. Any meat. Or do without the meat. It’s up to you. Uh, one bell pepper. One onion. Couple chilis for spice. Three or four garlic cloves. Salt. Pepper…”
Chaewon extends a hand, gently stroking her trusty cassette player. A present from her parents on her seventeenth birthday, she never found a reliable use for it. Until now.
She lives for nights like these. Lying in bed and allowing Hyunjin’s voice to lull her to sleep is fast becoming one of her favourite times of the day.
“...You need to chop the garlic really fine. But be careful when you do it, okay? Make sure the knife isn’t too sharp. My uncle was a chef, keyword ‘was’, and he chopped off one of his fingers on accident. So now every time he wants to flip off shitty drivers, it’s just a stub where his middle finger used to be. Heh.”
Chaewon closes her eyes, feeling Hyunjin’s warmth seeping through her ears, flowing in her veins. Almost like she’s here.
25
“I met an old friend a while back. Found out she was in town for a couple days, so I reached out and we agreed to meet. I had a good time, really enjoyed seeing her again. And you know how after a long time, you meet someone you haven’t talked to in a while, and you just feel like spending more time with this person? Yeah, I wanted to keep seeing them, keep hanging out with them, all that stuff.”
“Since then, I’ve been trying to reach out to her more. You know, because, I wanna become better friends with her, get to know her even better. But for some reason, I don’t know why, they suddenly became super distant. It’s like they don’t even want to talk to me anymore. I know they can see me trying to reach out to them, and I know they’re not so busy to the point that they’d just completely ignore me. I think they just… don’t wanna talk to me. And I’ll be honest; that hurts. Knowing that you care a lot about someone who doesn’t really care about you.”
“And obviously I don’t wanna make it out to be anybody’s fault. It’s not her fault for not being interested in talking to me, you know? But it hurts when your effort to maintain a friendship just doesn’t get reciprocated. I know she’s not obligated to care about my feelings, and it’s also hard for me to just unload all of my issues about her, to her. But I don’t wanna hurt our friendship by making her feel guilty or by making things weird between us. So I guess I’ll just have to accept that, you know? That this is how things are and you just have to move on from it, as painful as it might be.”
One onion. Chopped garlic. The pan sizzles and pops. A wonderful aroma fills the tiny kitchen space.
“We never really established that kind of friendship before this, you know, the kind where we talk often and hang out all the time. That was what I wanted. But since I got a pretty shitty response, I can take a hint. I’m frustrated. But I’ve gotta have some self-respect, right?”
“It’s like that word, uh, the one I told you about. What was it again? Lilo. Lilo. That’s the one. You know, I wanted to be more than just distant friends who see each other once every couple of years. I wanted to become closer than that. And I was willing to make that effort. But I guess being distant friends is the only thing we’ll ever be. And that’s… I’m not happy about it, but I can’t control how someone feels about me. And we’re living our own lives, we’re walking our own paths. And I guess I’ll… just have to start living mine.”
“Something smells good,” Hyeju pops her head inside the kitchen and inhales deeply. “I thought you said you couldn’t cook.”
“I do now,” One bell pepper. A packet of noodles. Chaewon smiles wryly.
“Have you tried stir fry before?”
31
Everyone has bad days. Chaewon tries keeping herself busy, a concerted attempt to stave off the darkness. But being hopelessly alone in a foreign country, halfway across the world from friends and family, inevitably gives rise to bouts of despair every now and then.
“I’m recording this the night before your flight. Felt like the summer passed by in a blink. One day you’re back from school, and the next you’re already leaving. And I’ll have to wait another nine months for you to come back.”
Chaewon wipes away the tears brimming in her eyes. Great timing, Hyunjin. As if she couldn’t make Chaewon miss her any more.
“Remember when we first started dating? You admitted that you didn’t think we’d last. That you’d be going away soon, that we didn’t have enough time. And I told you to give us a chance, even though it might’ve ended in tears. And yeah, you turned out to be right. We didn’t have enough time, and we won’t have enough time for a while. And some nights I lie in bed alone wondering what it’d be like to have you here next to me. But I guess missing you comes with the territory. It’s hard not having you around, but I just…”
There’s a sharp pause, followed by a shaky sigh.
“Sorry. I don’t know. You’d think a whole year of going long distance would make it easier to accept, but it doesn’t, you know? And I don’t wanna complain too much, because I don’t wanna worry you, and you know I’d never stand in the way of your ambitions or anything like that.”
“I guess I’m just trying not to leave things unsaid. You know, we keep telling ourselves that we wanna do this or say that and go here, but we never end up doing it. Then tomorrow becomes yesterday and by the time you realise it, it’s too late.”
“So I love you. I’ll miss you. And I can’t wait to see you again. But until then, I hope these tapes will help when you’re missing me. God knows I will.”
“Tape’s running out. I’ll see you at the airport tomorrow, okay? Make sure you're all packed. Uh, yeah. I love you.”
There’s a sharp click, and all that’s left of Hyunjin is the crackling static of running tape, and the faint remnants of her voice floating through the air.
The silence becomes unbearable. So Chaewon pops out the cassette, dives into her bag, and finds the tape with a ‘1’ written on it with permanent blue marker.
She clicks it into the player, and lets Hyunjin drag her into the burrow of her warm embrace once more.
1
“Hey, Chae. It’s me. I just got home from seeing you off at the airport. And now I’m recording on this cassette tape, just recording my thoughts about life. About us. I don’t know if you’ll ever hear this, but since you’re not around, I thought I could use this as a way to say all of the things I wasn’t able to tell you before you left.”
“I’ve actually been meaning to do this for a while now. Since last year, when you first left for school. Letters kinda suck. They take weeks to arrive and I never seem to find the right words, so I just end up writing a bunch of crap. And don’t even get me started on international phone charges. All that money for such an awful connection? I couldn’t stand it, honestly. I figured that this was the next best alternative. You know, it’s like a piece of me you can carry around with you everywhere, so in a way, I can always be with you. Even when I’m not.”
“Nine months. Nine months is… a long time. A lot of shit can happen. Like, I don’t know what I’m gonna have for dinner tomorrow. I don’t even know if we’ll still be here in the morning. And it’s scary, you know? Not knowing what the future’s gonna look like. But I guess that’s the point. Nobody really what they’re doing, so we’re all just stumbling about in the dark searching for a path. And we cling to any light we find to illuminate the way. And then somehow, eventually, we do find a way.”
“Sorry, I’m rambling a bit. I guess what I’m trying to say is; that I’m really, really gonna miss you. And an entire summer with you isn’t enough. It will never be enough. And knowing that I’ll have to be without you for three more years is hard. It sucks. But the first year wasn’t too bad, right? And if last year was alright, then this year will be too. And the next. And the next. And… you know. I know it’s kinda cliched to say, but I think we’ll find a way. We always do.”
“I, uh… I think I’m gonna do this recording thing often. Maybe every couple days? Just talking about what’s going on in my life and my thoughts, stuff like that. It’s pretty therapeutic too. Honestly, I should’ve started doing this a long time ago. Then I’d have way more tapes to give you when you come back. But I guess the second best time to start something is right now, so that’s what I’m doing.”
“I know you’re scared of planes, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be on the flight to keep you company. Maybe in another universe, I would’ve uprooted my entire life just to come to London with you. I haven’t really thought about school and how I’m gonna get a job but, I’m sure I’ll figure it out, right? Heh, I don’t know, just a nice thought. Maybe once I’ve saved up enough money, I’ll ditch school to fly over for a visit. Without telling you, of course. Wouldn’t be fun if you knew, right?”
“I’m gonna stop the recording now. It’s been a long day, and I’ve got an early shift tomorrow. I hope you’re having a safe flight. Get some sleep. And in case you somehow forget, I just wanted to say: I love you.”
13
“So, you know how people like to call me an overthinker, right? I overanalyse every action, every word coming out of somebody’s mouth. That kind of thing. It’s kind of torturous, honestly. Mainly because it isn’t even true! And it’s making me second-guess myself and I’m wondering if I’m even doing the right thing. But then the next question that pops up is: What is ‘right’? How do we determine what is ‘right’? Is it decided by the self or by the people around you or–okay I see why people call me an overthinker now.”
Chaewon pushes away from her paper-strewn desk, turning to look out a frost-layered window. There’s a park right outside her apartment, where she goes for walks in the evening, with a lake with ducks she feeds on occasion. The lake’s frozen now, just like the ground, all covered in a layer of star-dusted snowflakes, falling on dead tree branches and shriveled grass like a rain shower.
“I always believe in the power of timing. Like dropping a joke at the perfect moment. Or timing your walk to the station to catch the train when it comes so you don’t have to waste timing waiting for it to come. Or we’re in the car and the light from outside hits you at the perfect angle and I lean in for a kiss. Sometimes it’s luck, sometimes it’s agency. Sometimes it’s both.”
“I hope that when you eventually listen to these tapes, something I say will apply to whatever you’re doing at the moment. Maybe you’re trying to fall asleep and I’m humming you lullabies. Or you’re learning to make a new dish. Or maybe you’re studying for an exam and you need white noise. It won’t happen often, I doubt it. But I think the universe plans for certain things to happen to us at the perfect time, and we just have to be ready to listen.”
There’s a faint beeping noise sounding from the player. Chaewon smiles. She remembers this part.
“And that,” Hyunjin laughs. “Is the universe’s way of telling me that dinner is ready. Talk about timing, huh? Alright, I’ll see you soon.”
Chaewon barely turns the cassette player off before the doorbell bell rings. She startles. Did Hyeju forget her keys today? But her four p.m. lecture doesn’t end for at least another hour. So who…?
When Chaewon opens the door to find Hyunjin red-faced from the biting cold, snowflakes coating her jet-black hair, eyes twinkling like an ocean of stars, glowing smile bright enough to light up a corner of her room, she mentally slaps herself; because who else could it possibly have been?
“Surprise!” Hyunjin cries, extending her arms wide in eager invitation.
Chaewon gladly falls back into the familiarity, no longer just a voice, but the real thing this time.