[1] Gone Groom | Seonghwa ✓

six | thin line

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MY PHONE READS TEN-OH-SEVEN. SITTING idly for three hours, give or take, I've detected no change, and halfway through my fifth glass of Zero Coke, I realize the only striking difference are the accumulated calories induced into my system from surviving on the black soda drink. Yet, I know full well: Even if I want to stop, I can't. I do want to stop.

   With deadly diabetic prospects comes regret. Then I'm done wallowing in said regret, I want to up and leave. Now, here's where an urge kicks in.

   One that has Bae either six feet under or sleeping with the fishes.

   She refuses letting me leave, still clinging to her own bad advice—another realisation—that I need to move on. Pronto, she'd said. The dimwit doesn't give a hoot whether I can achieve it or not. I can't. She knows too, Bae is just unwilling to accept it.

   It's inhumanly possible.

   My grip around the perspiring glass of refreshment slackens when nausea rises up my throat. My belly is ridiculously full, and I encounter a similar experience to having a snake rising past my oesophagus. I could throw up at any minute and not feel sorry. I come to understand I didn't need excessive alcohol in my system to achieve such feat.

   'I'm starting to think your idea was not unselfish after all. Typical of you.' My eyes, in slits, try staring Bae down. I'm yet to know if into nothingness or not. It pisses me off to see she is hardly affected by it, if not at all. 'You want something.'

  Seeming offended, she flips long, dark strings of hair off her shoulder. 'Never mistake kindness for manipulation.'

   'With you, there's clearly a very thin margin between the two,' I respond casually, finding momentary solace in the shock that clouds her expression. 'Again, what are you up to?'

   'Oh, for chrissakes, Sonny,' her voice raises a smidgen. With the background music, it's still only loud enough for just my hearing. This time, Bae doesn't entirely conceal a look similar to hurt. I. won't. buy. into. it. 'I'm trying to be a good friend. You're not even making an effort.'

   By effort the ravenette means getting my butt off the stool and going to mingle. On the dancefloor, at the other side of the bar, at a booth—anything. However, just like I'd planned from the start, I would do no such thing.

   A cold drink (or drinks) is all I need. Not from the fridge or around the corner supermarket, but Gikwang's expertly hands. There's just something about the friendly bartender laying hands on my drink that gives me a kick; hits the nail right on the head.

   Plainly, he is a gifted mixologist. Irrespective of the fact that my order is only straight out of a bottle, untampered. The effect is always there: anytime, anywhere.

   Still on the topic of Lee Gikwang, Bae is incredibly infatuated by him. I like to think it goes two ways, given the subtle glances, the extra hospitality, the discount on our drinks—yeah, I noticed. And now, I see lover boy, practically flying to be done with the customers at the other end of the long counter.

   Then he would be back.

  Then a night of endless dallying would commence.

   Then ... then...

   I stiffen—it's brief but feels awfully momentous. My brain kicks into gear despite its flaccid state, tries to simulate something, sifting through every information garnered since Bae stepped into my apartment. Then I put two and two together: I get four.

   'Why, you little...' My eyes are in a livid line once again and Bae spares me seconds, away from ogling Gikwang.

   'What now?' She frowns, still offended, however, knowing Kang Bae for half my life, acceding to anything she says takes arduous effort. She's conniving, manipulative, though she appears believably serious right now. Maybe I was wrong? 'Still trying to squeeze the truth'—she air-quotes the word—'out of me?'

   Technically, I'm not supposed to feel in the wrong for any of this, but I do even if she is the guilty one ... I think. Still it doesn't stop my tongue. It would seem the tiny muscle is on fire with bluntness and catechizing this evening.

   'We're here because of him, aren't we?' I cast a brief glance at the fine muscular man—she always liked them buff.

   Like a fish out of water, lips enameled with dark red open and close. I watch as her tongue betrays her, withholding any lie she could've fabricated in seconds, and her momentary muteness makes me acutely aware of music playing in the background. I don't like it and don't hesitate to tune it out, again. Bae finds her voice and speaks up. Even in the dull lights, I still see the exact same colour of her lips peppered across her cheeks.

   'I was killing two birds with one stone?' Her response is marked by chagrin, and her eyes make it a task to avoid mine.

   However, I cannot find it in myself to be mad. Currently, all my anger is slanted towards one soul in particular. A playful huff escapes me as I settle back on my stool, my body leaning against the cool, marble surface.

   'Well, I'm not mad,' I say, more to myself even though I'm looking straight into attenuated orbs. 'However, I'd appreciate some action,' she frowns, 'between the two of you. You both are practical relationship sloths. At this pace, the wedding could be ten years from now.'

   Ugh, weddings! She can definitely do without it, as far as I'm concerned. Take it from someone who met their baneful demise before they ever got a taste of what life after the bells held, but, in the end, it narrows down to being her choice. And if wearing a ridiculous white gown is the confirmation she needs to know they were eternally solid, okay: waste money, drag me into it, precede her down the aisle as tradition demands, live the lie I never get to live.

   Because it is a lie. Everything's a lie.

   'I love you,'—it's a sham. Marriage is a scam. And love...

   That's the biggest joke of all.

   A month ago, Seonghwa had gotten down on one knee, a cute mess of nervousness: bottom lip caught between white dentures, blonde hair bouncing with each indecisive head shake, ears matching colours with the ripest tomato in mother's backyard garden, eyes—fearful and consternated. He blurted out the very words theorized to change everything. Someway, somehow. And I'm not going to lie, I was happy, ecstatic even. I didn't hesitate to say yes, to kiss him senseless, and so on, yet, that hideous head of doubt breathed over my shoulders, reminding me of what was up, giving a foordination of what was to be.

   I had seen it all, as clear as day; I hadn't wanted to think about it.

   Big mistake it was to overlook everything: that flicker that told me Seonghwa wasn't just anxious of my answer. It was supposed to change everything, back to the way they were; to right his wrongs. Stupid me had overlooked all of that.

   I ignored it ... didn't listen ... did not end things before they started—my thoughts ring noisily in my head.

  When Bae says something, probably in response to my statement, I don't hear because I've long since tuned her, everything and everyone, out.

   Hazy eyes make me out. Hazy eyes that call out to me and I'm willing to react to in a heartbeat. Most of him is cast in darkness from where the dim light doesn't hit. His lean figure slouches in the isolated booth as long, artistic fingers strain against a bottle of some alcoholic brand; the eccentrically carved brow of light brown, the unshaded one, is raised slightly. His eyes are a different story entirely. My gaze drops back to the bottle, that spiffing organ squeezes in my chest (that's all it knows how to do these days), and it dawns on me.

   Seonghwa never drinks.