kpop writer

the summer heat has faded into a breeze with less bite by the time you step outside. you're a few blocks away from the intersection where he can split to go back to his dorm, and you realize you don't know when you'll next see him, if this semester will be anything like the last.

is it worth a repeat? sneaking in to his much nicer room, sneaking out before the sidewalks crowd. round and round you spin on yourself while he rises with the day, easy as the leaves turning orange.

you wrack your brain for what to say to buy you more time to decide, and you decide on the nearest truth. "it was weird not seeing you in the library this summer. campus felt a little too quiet."

"really, you think so?" he beams at that, like he's been waiting for you to say it all along. "I missed you."

"missed you too."

and you did. so did he, but he missed a million versions of you--the conversationalist, the comforter, the convenient call. you missed only him.

that is the fundamental difference between the two of you, you think as he chatters in a comfortable lull; why he keeps coming back, why you keep letting him. no harm, no foul. you cannot alter the flow of time, but you can choose how to decorate it nonetheless, and you will be a lovely memory if he will be a good friend, you decide. lovely indeed.

at the stoplight, he turns toward your apartment's direction.

"i'll walk you back to your place," he says, smirk suggestive he might not leave. a good friend, you decide, and your smile is not nearly as brittle as your resolve.

"wow, doyoung kicked you out this early in the semester?"

his smile twinges a little, and you weigh apologizing--for what, you're not really sure--before he laughs it off, the sound a little forced. "yeah, he has one of our math friends over right now. it's just--we kind of got into an argument before this. she likes him, she deserves someone better."

the twist in his face twists your stomach a little. "someone better... like you?"

"no, what?" and he looks so perplexed, you feel a little dumb. "no, no, it's not like that. she was one of my first friends here. and--you know I love doyoung, but he's gotta get through this semester, work through some stuff first. she's, like, looking for a boyfriend, you know?"

you nod, and he's tense the rest of the walk back; you wonder if he said too much, if you said too little. i'm looking for a boyfriend too, you want to remind. but it's not his fault. it never is with him and you, you suppose. you've never had the nerve to tell him outside of the sound of your heartbeat when he's kissing you.

you invite him in, and he almost looks relieved, but he declines for the gym. and when you call out to him before he turns away, you decide to spare him the cognitive dissonance.

"you're a good friend. she's lucky to have you. doyoung, too."

He tasted like the strawberry candy you loved and the cigarettes you hated, and the next day he walked past your seat like you didn’t exist, greeting Johnny with a hum.

You must not have been discrete with your disappointment, because Johnny frowned and murmured for you to be careful when he left, but you didn’t listen. Not at first, at least. Hungers that can’t be fulfilled require time for you to get rid of them, and one of the only things you like about smoke rings is that they always dissipate, lingering but never satiating.

The other thing you like about them is that Doyoung makes them look pretty sometimes. That his lips purse gently when he blows one.

He is usually smoking on the rooftop when he invites you over, but he turns his full attention to you when you arrive. Perhaps that is what makes it so hard to listen to reason.

“You look amazing,” he usually greets.

“You say that every time,” you return. He is sleek enough to be polished, lopsided grin enticing enough to look reckless, and he is courteous enough to stub out his cigarette and exhale before he kisses you.

But this is no way to live. Johnny never says anything after the first time you got ignored, but you remember his gentle warning each subsequent time it happens.

Doyoung invites you over for dinner one night. You’ve lost track of how many months it’s been since you first snuck into that abandoned hall with him—has it been three months? Four? Logically, you should be ecstatic to be making progress, but it’s dulled by how you stay when you know there will not be more, that Doyoung is content with what you have and doesn’t miss your absence the way you want him to.

As a gift, you buy a pint of strawberries from the farmer’s market a few blocks away from campus, and offer them when he answers the door.

“It’s okay,” he says, inviting you inside. “I don’t like them very much—they’re too sour.”

You feel the internal shift over dinner.

Perhaps you have never seen his apartment this bright before, when it is still light outside. Perhaps the clinking of silverware is too quiet or the kettle is too loud. Perhaps Doyoung has come to the realization that you are waning away from him.

After dinner is over but before he kisses you, you finally find your voice to ask what matters.

“Doyoung. I want to be on the same page as you.” You pause, and brave forward when he doesn’t react. “Do you see us being something more than this?”

Hope has just begun to take root into his silence when he shakes his head.

“I don’t think so. I’m sorry.”

You share the strawberries with your roommate when you return home, and they’re the sweetest fruit you’ve ever tasted.

When the first snow falls, you pass your math class with an A, and when Johnny is in your Real Analysis class, you work on problem sets with him again. In the spring semester, you stop going to parties—the downtown bars are more your style anyways, you find, and when bad nights happen, they’re usually salvaged by a strawberry daiquiri. You see Doyoung in the quad or the library occasionally, and you wave and say nothing. Sometimes he says hi; sometimes he passes by unbothered. But you always wear your smile purposefully, for your time spent with him will only be wasted if you do not choose to change for the better.

“Sorry,” he replies at a much more reasonable volume before returning to his video game with Jisung, and you settle into your seat. A long day of judging this year’s state championship awaits you, the time in between rounds spent catching up with your old teammates and offering support. You see a few old faces from other schools—Ryujin, home for summer break, and Yedam, wrapping up his gap year—and many more new ones. Jaemin arrives around nine a.m. on the second day, and you have enough time to catch up and judge the same PF round before you see Mark.

From a distance, he almost passes as a stranger, but the curve of his smile is still unfailing familiar, and you see it grow as he walks over.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Jaemin leaves in the middle of your conversation about college life and majors, but the mood doesn’t sour or turn awkward. You and Mark are just two people, and you think that in this instance, it’s more powerful than being two ex-lovers.

“Yeah, I’ve been enjoying learning more about some parts of business too, actually,” he says after you describe how your Business Law professor piqued your interest. “I was wrong to butt heads with my parents so quickly. I’m really interested in—”

“Mergers and acquisitions?” You can’t help yourself.

“No, business ethics. I’m thinking of switching to an anthro minor to make philosophy one of my double majors instead.”

“Huh.” You must sound evidently impressed, for Mark smirks a little, but it’s devoid of smugness. “That’s really cool. You could be a good astronaut, y’know. You have the brains and the morals.”

“I’ll be sure to remember those qualities when NASA comes calling,” he grins.

You smile at him for a moment too long. “Will you stay for awards?”

“I could potentially, yeah. Will you?”

“Probably not. I was thinking of heading back.”

“Oh. Do you need a ride? Are you in a hurry to get home? I can drive you back.”

He looks nervous in his confidence—wide eyes, squared shoulders, and hands stuffed in his pockets. He looks different, but lovely all the same.

And the weight of everything that went wrong hinges upon your answer—but you’re okay now. If you say yes to his offer, it will not be because you are still in love with him, or because you want to love him again, because neither explanation is true. You’re strong. You’re different. He’s changed. You’ll be fine if you get heartbroken a second time, and you’ll be okay if you choose to walk away.

“That’d be nice, Mark.”

The conversation to his car is light. You discuss summer plans, how your internship is starting in a week, and what he looks forward to the most about his job at a nearby museum.

“You said you’ll be here the entire summer?” he asks as he pulls out of the parking lot.

“Yeah,” you reply. “After the internship ends, I’m staying at home for two weeks before school starts.”

“That’s cool. I’ll be in-state until the week before school.”

You nod, lapsing into silence and unsure if you’re accurately deciphering his intentions, until he hesitantly speaks up again, carefully enunciating each syllable. “I… missed you, and I think that I’m a better person than I was last year.”

You observe his face carefully. His face is free of the harsh tension it carried in high school, replaced with something less youthful but more peaceful. College looks good on him, like it’s given him a life more fulfilling than he ever imagined in his dreams, like his life on the other side of the country is completely different from yours but has taught him the same lessons that you’ve learned.

Mark doesn’t rush you, just drives while you sit and reflect and choose the best words to respond with.

“Slow down,” you finally decide. “Take me out to dinner first, and then we can see.”

“How about getting dinner now, once we get back in town? If you don’t need to be somewhere, that is.”

You like that he’s direct this time around, that he’s clear with his intentions and doesn’t let you hide. “I’d like that.”

He smiles broadly. “Hey, what happened to being in a hurry to get home?”

“What happened to staying for awards?” you fire back.

“Touché.”

“So,” you clarify. You’re not nervous, just excited, because what is there to be scared about? “Dinner—just dinner. If that’s where it ends, then that’s it. And if not, we… see how it goes, I guess.”

They say summertime makes a person fall in love, and it’s true—but this time around, even when Mark is around, you fall in love with yourself, not him. Sometimes, when the sunlight dances across his face and highlights the liveliness of his eyes, you catch yourself longing for who he was to the person you used to be. But now, you look at your memories without the rose-tinted glasses, and you feel a bit sorry for your former self. The only way Mark could have completed you is if you weren’t enough, and in the process of losing a lover, you have gained yourself.

You still have a lot of big emotions, but they’re smoother around the edges now, less volatile and more of a steady presence you’ve learned how to carry. Such is the price of growing older—such is the loss of childhood innocence and the shouldering of adult choices and responsibilities. Your emotions are still jumbled around in your chest, but you’re not sure where the liberation starts and ends, where it dips into nostalgia and longing before crossing into hope for the future. You are reborn now, gathering the parts of you that aren’t tied to Mark and reclaiming the ones that he touched.

You still have a lot of big emotions, and Mark is still understanding of them. You don’t discuss it—don’t know if you could verbalize them even if you tried—but there’s no need, for he’s quietly understanding and lets you dispel the lingering tension between you once you no longer care for it. But he’s not the only person who understands, not when your friends are undergoing similar growing pains. He’s not the person who understands best, not when that person is you.

So you are more than content to be with Mark when the universe so decides, sharing a unique sense of peace that only you two have emerged from, stronger. You are happy to see him grow, to hear occasional updates on how he’s mending his relationship with his parents, and watch the spark in his eyes grow when he explains astrophysics to middle schoolers in between activities. In the end, you were never meant to last by crashing together. Love is gentle and caring and second nature, and now, he cannot give you the type of love that you deserve, not when you are better off growing apart.

“Do you think we would’ve worked out?” you almost catch yourself asking on the second to last day of camp. It’s dark, minutes before midnight, save for the flickering campfire in front of you.

“Not like this,” you imagine him replying. It’s an answer you’ve made peace with a long time ago, back when you were still in love. “We ran our course. We were unhappy. I couldn’t do something that was bad for us.”

“I’m glad we met,” you say instead, breaking the comfortable silence that’s settled between the two of you. “I grew a lot, and I like who I am. Thank you for coming into my life.”

“I am too,” he replies, his voice full of memories but free of longing. “I’ll always be grateful for how you’ve helped me. Don’t… be a stranger once school starts, yeah?”

“Yeah.” You tried your best, and you trust that Mark did, too. “I won’t.”

To be honest, you’re really not sure why you came to this debate tournament, why you’re preparing last-minute for a topic you don’t care about in an uncomfortable plastic cafeteria chair. No, that’s a lie—it’s because Mark is here, doing LD instead of PF with you. Perhaps you’re more confused as to what you thought this was going to accomplish. You’ve talked a handful of times since the breakup—folded and texted him two separate times, responding to his messages once—but it’s been a week since the last time you contacted him.

“Stop with the deflecting quips,” Jaemin sighs, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, you’ve got to be honest with yourself, sooner or later.”

Caught, you fumble your words before you decide on the right ones. “I—I want to talk to him for closure. To ask for confirmation that it was real, that… I’m not the only person that’s hurting, so I can move on.”

“Then tell him.”

“No,” you retort, falling back into the same argument you’ve had for the past week, the reason why he’s so fed up with your decisions. “What the fuck do you think this is, a k-drama?”

He glares, and belatedly, you realize how bad of an idea this was.

“So why’d you come here, then?”

You can’t answer, shame constricting your throat.

“Hey.” Jaemin’s voice is gentle this time, and when you look up from the edge of your computer, his eyes lack the judgment that was there before. “Why are you here? Do you know why?”

“Yeah.” The background chatter still muddles your senses, but in your clarity, it doesn’t pierce through your thoughts anymore. “Unfortunately. I probably shouldn’t have come.”

“It’s okay.” He reaches across the table to pat your shoulder. “You’re here now. Might as well debate. Maybe you could even advance to finals.”

“Nah, this isn’t my element. Plus, I wasn’t exaggerating when I said my case sucked ass. God, it’s horrendous.” You slam your laptop shut in a burst of emotion and turn to Jaemin, eyes wide and determined. “You know what I think? I want us to have been so good that it hurts every time he remembers how we’re no longer. He’s my only reference point for a relationship, but I want to be the happiest, healthiest one that he looks back on.”

“I think you’re still trying to hold on,” Jaemin notes quietly, accurately. He stands, scooting around the table so you can rest your head on his shoulder. “And maybe this isn’t the best mindset to be in right before the tournament starts.”

“Yeah. Maybe not.” You close your eyes, taking deep breaths to collect your swirling thoughts into a single place between your palms, letting the ache flow through your body and out of your chest.

When you feel like yourself again, you open your eyes and sit up just as Mark walks over.

“Hey,” he greets hesitantly, briefly nodding at Jaemin. “Turns out, coach switched us over to PF. Are you down? I can, y’know, tell her to drop us if you’re not. No worries.”

And you might have loved his smile once, but nothing is that simple anymore.