Last night Doctor Jisoo and I had a long, intimate talk until five in the morning, after which she high-spiritedly patted my ass and said, “I’ll go prepare the endorsement for the next shift, I’m off-duty today.”
By the time I slept, I had no idea whether I was asleep or awake. In my drowsy state, it was as though there was a person standing right in front of me, I even asked him if he was a ghost. It also seemed as though I’ve explained to him about the karmic relationship of involving third parties when settling things.
This kind of sleep akin to being in a trance was the worst, past memories was running rapidly in my brain, not even neglecting the smallest of details. I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or remembering the past. Many people would say there’s no worth looking back at one’s past, but my past is very worthy. It’s the most proactive, lively, cheerful, morale booster, inspiring, reverse courtship in history, and can be called the, “The Successful Story of a Bright Girl*”. (T/N: referring to Jang Nara’s 2002 drama)
I had a crush on Jungkook that time. It was after one week of careful deliberations that I combined information from novels, manhua, and dramas, and was able to come up with three plans; a love letter, by word of mouth, and a direct confession. It took yet another week of conducting a comprehensive analyses of these three plans. The disadvantage of letters; first, I wasn’t good with words, and second, Jungkook would often receive letters but he would always, never read them. The disadvantage of word of mouth; first, it’s easy to pass on the wrong message, and second, from what I’ve gathered in the numerous love conspiracies in novels and dramas, I found out that the person who would pass on the message will end up with the male lead, so in the end, I was left to walk with only this path — to confess.
We always think that there are countless possibilities in life, afraid of doing this, afraid of doing that, but in the end, there would still be only one remaining possibility.
I flipped through the Yellow Calendar*, and picked an auspicious burial date to confess to Jungkook. He was on student duty at that time, so I was following him from behind and then I called him. He turned around, along with the broom he was holding, giving me a mouthful of dust from the action. (T/N: a special calendar which gives information whether a particular day is propitious)
I said, “Jungkook, I like you, puh, puh, puh.”
At first, he gave me a blank stare, and then furrowed his brows saying, “puh, what?”
I was very vexed and hurriedly explained, “I’m not puh-ing at you, I just ate a mouthful of dust, I said, I like you.”
He furrowed his brows further, two creases of skin were scrunched in between his brows, making him look really good.
He said, “I don’t like you.”
It was an era where everyone loves to engage in ambiguous relationships, and at that time, there wasn’t a song that tells about the grievances suffered by people entangled in such relationships, so even though it’s not really what they feel, most of the people would opt to say, “I’m not suitable for you, you deserve someone better.” or, “We’re still too young, we should study well and enter a good university first.”,
and such nonsense. Jungkook ’s chop the nail and slice the iron* rejection made me think that his ruthlessness really stands out from the rest. Hence I’ve decided to become even more determined in liking him. (T/N: firm and resolute)
So Jungkook was pestered by me. Every day, I’d wait very early in the morning in the alley between our houses. When Jungkook would come out, I’d put on a bright smile with the radiance of spring, and say, “What a coincidence, I’m on my way to school too.” I’d also pack my things before the dismissal bell would start ringing, so once it rings, I’d rush to the stairs, wait for Jungkook to walk past me, and then I’d say, “What a coincidence, I’m also leaving school.”
I was so muddleheaded that I choked on my own saliva, I woke up, blinked my eyes at the ceiling a few times, and began to get in a trance again. I saw myself on the stairs, smiling at Jungkook. In the blink of an eye I was pulling on Jungkook’s bag, pleading him. “Wait for me for ten minutes, okay? I’m going to hand over my work to our English teacher.”
He pulled back his bag, “What were you doing during our English class? Yeri is waiting for me downstairs.” After a pause, he added, “We’re going to buy some things for the class meeting.”
It was probably for the reason that I’ve been disguising as someone virtuous and submissive for a long time that my heart made a little rebound, or it was just simply because I was becoming crazy from anger, I aimed for his shins and gave him a kick, “Go find your Yeri!”
He probably didn’t expect it, and yelled while hopping on one foot, “Lalisa, you lunatic!”
I leaned on the railings afterwards, watching Jungkook and Yeri walk towards the school gates. It was near dusk, an orange sheet was draped in between heaven and earth, looking as if someone knocked over a bottle of Sunkist in their hurry, dyeing everything in orange.
I was only 16 years old that time — the first time in my life when I felt irrevocably sad.
The scenes in my dream kept on switching over randomly. This time, I was standing on the classroom door blocking Jungkook, “I have something to say to you.”
He gave me a quick glance with his arms folded across his chest, “Speak.”
After kicking him on his leg, his responses to me were even less than before. I let love and pride battle it out for a few days. Later on, love annihilated pride so I bounded over to apologize.
I bowed my head and said softly like a whisper, “I shouldn’t have kicked you that day, I’m sorry.”
He didn’t give me an answer for a long while, so I looked up and saw him looking absentmindedly at the basketball court downstairs. I got angry again and shouted loudly, “Jungkook!”
He lowered his head to look at me, “I’m not yet deaf, you said sorry, right? It’s nothing.”
After saying that, he turned around and walked away.
I was looking at his fleeing back, my heart was suddenly filled with deep sadness, like when my mum burnt the braised chicken wings and how its thick smoke irritated my nose leaving it with a tingling sensation.
I subconsciously rubbed my nose and called him, “Jungkook.”
He looked back.
I said with a bitter laugh, “Hehe. Do you think, I like to be unlucky?
He stared dazedly at me for a moment, and replied, “I just want to go down to play ball.”
I said nothing, the deep sadness in my heart made me think that it would be better for this heart to die from such sadness.
He stood in front of me for a long time, and finally said with a slight anxiousness, “It really isn’t serious, our team is losing very quickly.”
I nodded in understanding, “Go quickly, fighting!
He turned around and ran back towards me, after running a few steps, he suddenly stopped and called me : “Lisa.”
“Why?”
“Help me go to the corner store to buy a bottle of water.” He said with a smile, his dimple was filled with the rays of the setting sun.
Before I could respond, he took three steps and then two steps, and ran back down the stairs.
I still went to the corner store. I was torn between Yi Li water and Nongfu Spring water for quite a while but eventually picked Nongfu Spring as it was 50 cents cheaper.
There were a lot of girls at the sides of the basketball court, I even saw Yeri. She was holding a bottle of energy drink which was more expensive than my Nongfu Spring by two and a half bucks.
During halftime, Yeri called Jungkook so that she could hand over her drink, I absentmindedly followed her from behind, and was panting as she was walking at lightning speed and scurrying like she was about to fly.
Jungkook didn’t accept her drink, instead, he gave me a quick glance and said a bit awkwardly, “I already told Lisa to bring me water.”
“I bought a sports drink with added electrolytes. If not you then who else would be able to drink it, it’s quite wasteful.” Then she smiled softly and tenderly.
I thought I couldn’t let her be this embarrassed, so I placed the Nongfu Spring on Jungkook’s palm and closed it with a squeeze, snatched the energy drink from Yeri’s hand, twisted the lid open, took one big gulp, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand saying, “Not wasted, not wasted. I just ran over from the corner store and sweated a lot, thank you very much.”
She bowed her head in shame.
“LISA ! LISA ! LISA !” My mum’s continuous shouts roused me from my shy lotus flower dream. I rubbed my eyes and yawned. “Mum, making loud noises is prohibited in the hospital.”
My mum gave me a sideways glance, “Just now you were talking about losing face in your sleep.”
“What did I say?” I asked her while removing the eye gunk at the corner of my eyes.
“Lotus, shy or something.” She replied.
“‘The tenderness when you bend your head low, is like a lotus flower too shy to stand the cool blow.’ A poem by XZ. Indeed, our Lisa is like me, possesses the sentiments of a poet.” My dad thrown in his input on his side of the hospital bed, looking immensely proud.
I turned to look at him, and talked nonsense, “I dreamed of my language & literature teacher in Senior Year, she asked me to recite ‘Second Farewell to Cambridge’.”
My dad’s face suddenly turned black, “This is not ‘Second Farewell to Cambridge’! This is ‘Sayonara’!”
(T/N: Both are poems by XZ)
My mom chimed in, “Jang Nara right? I know her! The actress and singer!"
I looked at my mom in a different light, she puffed out her old chest, “Ever since our home has been installed with the internet, the housewife has become liberated.”
As a member of the lurking club for a long time, I was prompted by a sudden impulse and logged in to 'End of the world' Club. I discovered that I actually replied to a lot of forum posts, not only that, most of them were about handsome guys. I initially thought that I was just honestly confronting my inner desires while sleepwalking, only to find out later on that I accidentally enabled our home computer to automatically log in to 'End of the world'. The saddest thing in the world that nothing could ever surpass is to have a 'End of the world' Club mom.
After eating lunch, my 'End of the world' Club mom shoved on my arms a bag of fruits that my dad’s colleague brought over this morning, and forced me to look for Jungkook to express gratitude. I was thinking that if we have to go by sentiments and by logic, I ought to earnestly and seriously thank Jungkook, so I went out and carried the large bag of fruits.
When I got to the doctor’s office, only then did I begin to get a bit nervous. This is Jungkook and I’s exclusive and first official meeting after not seeing each other in over the last three years.
I knocked on the door, the reply coming from the inside was, “Please come in.” I pushed the door open and found Jungkook buried in his desk writing on something, he also raised his head to give me a quick look, and said dully, “Find a chair to sit on.”
As an ex-girlfriend, in the face of such a generous ex-boyfriend, I felt immense pressure.
I placed the bag of fruits on the table, pulled a chair to sit face-to-face from him across the table, and pleasantly said, “My mom asked me to bring some fruits for you.”
He casted a look at the bag of fruits and said, “Thank auntie for me. I went to take a look at Uncle Manoban this morning, his condition is very stable. I reckon that he can be discharged in two or three days. He can come back after a week to get his stitches removed.”
When he was done talking, he bowed his head down again to write some things with an “I am very busy” look. I awkwardly sat for around two minutes and then got up to leave, and also to conveniently express my gratefulness to him. In the end, I hypocritically and politely said the lines, “Thank you for your help this time, I really don’t know how to repay you.”
He actually stopped twirling his pen, smiled at me and said, “Then introduce me to a girlfriend.”
I carefully observed his expression, he really wasn’t joking, that it made me feel depressed. This action of asking an ex-girlfriend to introduce a new girlfriend was somewhat inhumane. Like when you’re fired, your boss would still write you a recommendation letter; or when caught cheating, your teacher would offer you the answers; or when remarrying, you’d ask your ex-wife to be one of the bridesmaids……
All sorts of feelings were welling up in my heart, like, in his mind, just how magnanimous does he think my personality really is…….
I heaved a deep sigh, and forced a hollow laugh, “What kind of girlfriend do you want?”
He sized me up for a while, my heart was caught in my throat as countless lines were flashing through my mind such as, “Someone who is just like you would be good.” or, “Actually, I’ve never forgotten you…..”
“A little taller, and thinner than you would be good enough.” He said.
My unrequited, little precious heart quickly resumed its normal beating, I smiled stiffly, “Your requirement isn’t very high, I’ll help you look around.”
The pen on his hand was twirling beautifully between his fingers as he said, “Then, I’ll thank you in advance.”