Second Guessing
When I wake up the next day quite early, my phone is lying beside me.
I smile when I remember what Taeyoung did to help me sleep. Then I rise up—the younger girl is still asleep—and quickly change my clothes. When I leave the room I'm startled to see the woman sitting on the couch, watching television on mute. She turns to look at me, instantly getting up and smiling.
"I have to go now," I say in Korean.
"Oh, your Korean is good! You should stay longer." She then continues to speak in Korean, fast and way too complex for me to comprehend.
I blank at her words and turn to leave, saying, "I have to go back and study. Thank you for everything."
I hear her say "study" to herself as I leave. Maybe it is rude to leave so early, but I need to get out of here before I start thinking about my mom.
I take the walk to the bus stop, waiting for the right bus to show up. Then I'm on the hour journey, bus hopping until I'm close to the university.
***
When I make it to my bedroom, I toss my things and immediately jump into the showers. When I get back I text Koko, and she comes to my room.
"So how was it?" She sits on my bed, her hair now cut short to her chin in a way that makes her look edgy.
"Awkward. Like very awkward." I respond, putting away the things that I had brought with me. "He's a restaurant owner." She "oohs" at this. "No, no, it's a run-down restaurant. I was expecting him to be rich—that would have made it easier to hate him. But after seeing how he lives I just, I can't."
"Oh..."
"But he didn't even acknowledge that I'm his daughter, the closest he came to it was telling Seulgi that I'm her half-sister."
"Wait... Seulgi?"
"She's this little brat 16-year-old. Completely rude to me. I felt like she was waiting for me to give up and leave."
"Well, you know what? Props to you for actually showing up," That's what I'm saying, I think to myself. "I probably wouldn't have gone."
While she reassures me for feeling bad for leaving so soon, I still have so many questions. There's no way my father can afford to pay for my tuition, so where is it coming from? And he invited me over but didn't talk with me alone? What was the point? Did he just not find the right time? Was he just nervous like I was?
***
It's the next day. Classes are finished so Koko and I are walking around campus, our stomachs begging for something more substantial than a coffee and cookie to satiate them.
"Sohee!"
I momentarily hesitate. No one calls me Sohee except for four people—Taeyoung, Junwoo, Minjun, and my professor. As much as my stomach churns in hopes of Taeyoung, I know his voice too well now to mistake it for this light, friendly voice. I turn my head towards the sound. Sure enough the soft voice matches an equally as soft face.
"Hey Junwoo."
Koko's words immediately halt as she briefly watches this interaction before checking her phone.
"You have class?"
"Not anymore." I notice someone else from behind him and my eyebrows furrow in confusion when I recognize Minjun's styled hair.
"Why is Minjun hiding?" That's so unlike him—an overtly confident, sexy guy cowering behind his tall but meek friend?
Junwoo seems to finally notice and turns to look at the man trying to remain unnoticed behind him.
"Hyung?"
"Ah, hi," Minjun finally emerges with an awkward greeting. My confusion catapults as I fail to recognize this suddenly timid man.
"Wait a second—" Koko seems to finally wake up a bit, turning her focus away from her phone. I watch her as her eyes spark into an inferno like a flame to gasoline. "You!"
I swear I hear Minjun whimper as he holds onto Junwoo.
"This asshole!" Koko grabs onto his arm as he tries to spin Junwoo around. The younger boy, just as lost as I am, allows Minjun to spin him in circles like a shield.
"Koko? What's going on?"
She quickly turns to glare at me and I back up a bit. Even if the glare is not meant for me I can't help but feel threatened.
"You know this guy?"
"Yeah?" Was that the wrong answer?
"This—" I watch in horror as she pulls on Minjun's ear and successfully gets him to detach from Junwoo. "—dude spilt a whole drink on me at the club last night and insisted on making it up to me by cleaning my shirt for me. Right then and there."
Minjun's Adam's apple visibly bobs and his head is bowed so low that I can't see his eyes beneath his hair. Junwoo still looks lost after the influx of English information.
In Korean, Minjun shouts in defense, "I'm sorry! I was drunk, I didn't know what I was saying!"
It's simple enough for Koko to understand.
"Sure you didn't. That wasn't an accidental slip, you purposely spilt that on me." She tugs on the collar of his shirt aggressively. "You picked the wrong woman to mess with," she says through her teeth.
"이미 알아! [I already know!]" Minjun finally gets brave, coming out of his shell to show himself fully. What I see at first makes me gasp.
"Your eye!" I exclaim as I point to the purple, swollen left eye of Minjun.
Junwoo looks back and forth a bit and seems to catch on. He claps his hands together, an "ahh" escaping his mouth as if he just figured out the answer to a math problem. He looks to me, "your friend, hit," he makes a punching gesture to his own eye, "Minjun."
"Seems like it," I say. Once he gets confirmation, I notice Junwoo slowly move away from Minjun and closer to me. He nervously smiles at Koko who is glaring at him too now.
"Were you there too?" She hostilely asks Junwoo.
Before he has a chance to stutter over his answer I speak up for him.
"Junwoo doesn't go to clubs."
Koko laughs, "yeah right. Rule one, don't trust anything that a man says Summer."
I can't hold back the pouting of my lips. "B-but Junwoo doesn't. I heard him last night on the phone," I mumble. He may look sociable but I've come to learn that this boy much prefers to stay home and play games all night.
She doesn't seem to hear me.
"Come on, lets go." Koko holds onto my arm, glare still steady on Minjun as she pulls me away. I trip over my steps a bit as I wave goodbye to them.
"How the hell do you know those guys? It's not like making Korean friends is easy here outside of clubs and I was under the assumption that you've only gone out once, with me."
"It's true! But I met Junwoo by accident at the beginning of the semester. And then found out him and Minjun are Taeyoung's housemates."
"This sounds all too convenient," Koko mutters.
"I'm sure he didn't mean to spill his drink on you." I say this with very little confidence as flashbacks of an infuriatingly flirty Minjun bombard my mind.
"Sure, but the audacity to suggest that I strip for him so he can clean my shirt is something only a fuckboy would say and I don't mess with those idiots."
"He said that?" I softly exclaim. She just nods. My feet begin to drag solemnly. I don't want her impression of Taeyoung's friends to be so bad.
"I don't know what that tall one's deal is but stay away from the cheeky asshole."
I mutter an "I'll try." It's not just men who lie Koko. Being with Taeyoung means accepting his housemates—both good and not so good.
***
After we eat proper food, we head to a cafe to do homework together. We're conjugating new verbs into future tense when she puts her pencil down and stares at me.
"So... that guy."
I look up at her, starting to grow nervous. "Which guy?"
"You know what I'm talking about, Taeyoung, that model-looking guy with the shitty housemate. How is that going?"
My face grows hot, as it usually does lately, "Uh... it's good."
"Just good? Are you guys dating?"
Are we dating? I know we've been on one date, but we've never explicitly talked about what we are, what we're doing. I sit in silence, wondering to myself about what we actually were.
We've kissed, but haven't kissed since then. We've confessed to each other, but no words of "I like you" have followed since. We went on a date, but no mention of the word has come up again.
My heart begins to beat hard in nervousness.
"I don't know... We've been on a date, but he hasn't asked me to be his girlfriend." I trail off, staring off into the distance, becoming more and more worried about what is actually going on between us.
"Well... if you don't know and you want to be with him, I'd speak up sooner rather than later."
"Why?" I look back at her. Her eyes grow dead serious, full of concern, a look I've never seen on her face.
"Someone else will try to get to him before you. Did you see how every girl looked at him like he was an expensive meal that one day?"
And then I realize that she's right. A boy that looks like him, even if it is hard to judge him correctly at first glance, and even harder to break through the brick wall he has around him, will have girls constantly pursuing him.
I'm not able to concentrate on the rest of the homework, and Koko notices.
"Just go."
"What?" I'm pulled away from my distant thoughts.
"Go to him. Figure it out instead of just sitting here. I'm sure it'll be fine, but it's good to establish things so you both know where you stand." Always so blunt.
"Yeah... thank you, Koko."
"Whatever." A smirk forms on her lips as she gets up and collects her things. "But I mean it, stay away from that one guy or else I'll have to paint his right eye too."
I can't help but softly laugh and am relieved when she laughs in return. So maybe she doesn't actually want to kill him.
I grab my purse and leave in a frenzy. I don't even text him, I just head to his place.
What if he's not there? Oh well, someone must be.
Before I know it I'm clicking the button on the monitor. Junwoo's voice calls over the speaker, I respond, and he lets me in.
I open the door to Junwoo's puzzled face.
"Sohee?"
"Hello again. Is Taeyoung here?"
"No..." He trails off, confused by my sense of urgency.
"No?"
"He'll be back soon. Stay."
"Okay." I take off my shoes and make my way to the couch. Junwoo sits on a chair adjacent to me, observing me.
After nibbling on my lip and playing with my hands for a while, I blurt out, "Does Taeyoung have a girlfriend?" I know it's a stupid question, but I feel so out of tune right now with Taeyoung, and with myself. I don't even know much about who he is. He knows about my mother, that I just met my father for the first time, that I didn't want to come to this country. He knows so much about me and my life and I know nothing about his.
"Huh?" Junwoo's head turns slightly to the side, like a puppy.
I try the words again in Korean.
"Ah no. He hasn't for a long time." He responds to me in Korean with a small smile.
"Oh? Can I ask why? 왜?"
He hesitates, pressing his lips together as he thinks this over.
"첫사랑 [First love]," he says in Korean again. I urge him to continue—in Korean—I'll have to do my best to understand. "His first girlfriend broke his heart, badly. He's scared of dating now."
I understand his simple words, appreciative of his confession to me. It's not like I'd get it out of Taeyoung himself very easily. I find myself relaxed now, knowing that he has no girlfriend, but now I feel sympathetic.
It must have been very bad. Does this mean he won't want to officially date me? Is he just looking for a fling?
"차 마실래요? [Would you like some tea]?" Junwoo asks me. I nod my head, still lost in thought. He returns with two mugs and sits down beside me. He turns on the TV to some reality show, sipping his piping hot tea as if it was cola.
Soon enough we're laughing together at the ridiculous antics on TV. I can feel Junwoo's tension loosen up as he grows more comfortable with me. It's during one of these bursts that Junwoo, mouth full of tea, ends up spraying it out of his nose in an attempt to hold his laughter. Now I'm laughing at the boy, my head held back, eyes closed, mouth open as wide as it can go. Tears make their way down my face as Junwoo laughs with me, shouting at me to stop laughing.
"야 [Hey]!" I yell back, "내가 더 나이가 많아 [I'm older than you]!"
My Korean words shock the boy. I have been learning more about formalities in class, and I am certain that Junwoo is speaking to me quite rudely, informally. I had learned from Taeyoung that I am one year older. His cheeks flush pink as he learns of my new knowledge. He says sorry to me, formally, and I laugh at him again. A goofy look forms on his face as he watches me make fun of him. He whines at me, truly sounding like a child now.
During our chaos, the door opens, but the two of us don't even notice. Instead, I'm mocking Junwoo's whining, tempted to squeeze his cheeks as I've seen Minjun do before. I tell him that he has to call me noona, and this makes him frown even more.
"Sohee?" The word stops my laughter completely, Junwoo's smile also falls.
"What are you doing here?" He says rather strangely, almost hostile.
"I was waiting for you."
There's a tired look in his eyes as if he's come back from a bad experience, but with the blink of an eye, he changes his face. He masks whatever is troubling him and instead smiles at me, making his way over to us. He sits in the tiny gap between Junwoo and me, sitting on the boy in the process.
"Hyung—" Junwoo's voice is winded as he's halfway crushed by Taeyoung. The younger boy manages to scoot over enough so that he's free.
Then we watch the rest of the show, all three of us sitting there in an in-explainable silence. I catch Junwoo looking over at Taeyoung periodically, a worried and slightly scared look on his face. Taeyoung doesn't even tear his eyes away from the screen once. Then Junwoo gets up, grabbing our tea mugs, "누나, 차 더 드릴까요 [Noona, do you want more tea]?"
"Sure," I respond.
Taeyoung's eyes are watching us now. "Noona?"
Junwoo pulls an act of pouting, "She was laughing at me, and is forcing me to call her noona now since she's older."
He looks at me with a small smirk, "Is the power getting to your head? Even making him get you tea?"
"No, we're just having fun," I laugh uncomfortably. Why does this feel strange?
"Well I'm older than both of you, I'm your oppa, remember?"
I almost cough at his strangely arrogant-sounding words. What is up with him?
"What?" He just looks at me with a stone cold look.
"Taeyoung, are you okay?"
He doesn't say anything for a while. Then he sighs, his eyes closing for a moment before pulling my body against his. He grabs my legs and pulls them over his own.
"Oppa..." I mumble out of shock. He's usually not so forceful like this.
"That's better."
I swear I can almost hear him smirk. I don't like this. He doesn't feel like the same person. His hands hold my head up to look at him, his eyes on my lips, thumbs running over my cheeks. I know he's about to lean in and kiss me, but instead I ask, "What are we?"
His eyes move up to my own. "What do you mean?"
"Us. What is this? Why are you holding me all of a sudden like this? We've confessed to each other haven't we?"
An emotion I can't decipher lands on his face. "Why do we need to label this." His expression is cold, distant.
"I don't want to be a fling." I'm almost whispering now in fear. What happened to our confession, our date? His hands leave my face.
"Well, I don't want a girlfriend."
My heart feels like something's hit it, hard. What am I doing? What is he doing?
"What's gotten into you?" I feel my eyes burn.
He sighs, eyes closing as he pushes me off of him abruptly. He gets up and I do the same. I beeline towards my shoes. Junwoo is standing in the kitchen, face pale and hands holding two cups of tea.
"Wait, where are you going?" Taeyoung calls after me, reaching where I am in long strides.
"Home," I mutter out.
"No, stay here." He grabs my wrist aggressively. I yank my hand away, refusing to cry in front of him.
"Talk to me when you've come back to your senses." I look him dead in the eye before I turn to open the door and leave.
He yells back at me, asking me to stay, and as soon as the door closes I hear a loud bang from inside, loud enough that I flinch. Then I hear Junwoo raising his voice.
As I leave the tears finally make their way out of my eyes.
. . .
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