We're at a cafe, drinking coffee. Me and Jaemin and the girl he's going to marry. How crazy is that?
Luna texted me this morning and insisted that I joined them. She seems to have set her heart on making me her new best friend, in addition to being her maid-of-honour. I told them I'd meet them at the cafe, but late, that I'm helping my mum with grocery shopping. It's hard, but I can't think of any good reason to wriggle out of the invitation. And I want to see him again. Yeah, I know. I'm a sucker for torture.
It's the last day of my holidays. Tomorrow, it's back to school. Tomorrow, he and Luna are going back to campus. I won't be seeing them until spring. Until the wedding.
So here I am, sitting across them at a table near the window. It's pretty cramped, and all the tables are taken, but we managed to squeeze into this bench, which is way too small for three people. Jaemin is sitting in the middle between the two of us; it's ironic, in a way, but apt, he's sitting with the two most important people in his life, the girl he loves, and the girl he's marrying. Seriously, how much more twisted can it get?
Jaemin and I are sitting close, almost thigh to thigh, and close up I can clearly see the toll recent months have had on him. Those dark circles, the high set of his shoulders as if he's always got his teeth clenched. He looks in need of a hot bath, chicken soup and my bed for a week. Hah. I'm so miserable I'm even beginning to see humour in my misery. That's good, right, Kim Mina? Laughter is the best cure for a broken heart. Looking up wise quotes for heartbreak is a new hobby of mine. The net is swamped with billions of them. I guess billions of people get their hearts broken every second. That's comforting in an odd way. It helps to know I'm not the only one who's crying.
Luna gets a call midway, and says, "I have to go, my mum wants me to accompany her for lunch at her women's knitting club. Sorry, guys."
"Knitting?" I say.
"Yeah," she grins. "They practically raised me, my mum and her knitting gang. They've been knitting for like the past twenty years. She used to bring me to all their meetings. You won't believe how many knitted sweaters and scarves I've got."
"Oh," I stare at her. "So, um, do you knit?"
"Yes, I do. It's a great hobby. It keeps me focussed." She points down to her yellow sweater. It has a goldfish in the middle. "I knitted this. Isn't it cool?"
Wow. Okay. No wonder she doesn't have friends. Soon, she'll be knitting goldfish sweaters for Jaemin. I imagine his face when she makes him wear it. I giggle. I must be getting better. That's the second time in ten minutes that I've wanted to laugh. She kisses me Jaemin on the lips, a quick brush, and I don't feel like laughing anymore.
"Bye," she says, "I'll see you later", and rushes off with her goldfish.
I stay silent for a while, looking into my americano.
Around us, the cafe is bustling with office workers grabbing takeaway lunches and mothers bouncing babies, and we sit amongst them, drinking in each other's presence. We sit there, huddled together, watching as the first flakes of snow drift down from the cloudless sky. Just two people, about to part ways, about to let each other go.
"Do you remember the first time you spoke to me at the locker?" I hear my voice say slowly, coming from far away, almost as if it is not my voice, but someone else's altogether.
"Yes." His smile is slow, crooked. "Of course I do. Right from the first time I saw you."
I draw in a sharp breath, trying to keep my thoughts inside my head, but they seep out, like water through my fingers. "The first time you saw me?"
"On your balcony. When you danced." He had told me that he had always loved me, but if he had had to pinpoint an exact moment, it would have been then. I was fourteen, and he was sixteen, and I danced on my balcony, and he caught his breath watching me, transfixed.
"On my balcony?" I breathe. "You remember?"
"Yes," he says quietly. "I remember. You were an angel, delicate and ethereal, unreal, magical. I couldn't take my eyes off you..." He looks at me, at my face, and smiles a little. "And at the locker, when I spoke to you for the first time. I plucked up my courage and spoke to you, because I had wanted to speak to you for so long." His eyes soften. "It was summer and you were hiding behind your locker, pretending not to see me, and I walked right up to you, and I said, 'Hey'. My heart was beating so hard, and I was pretending to be so cool, but I was so scared that you would ignore me, and slam your locker in my face, and walk away, but you didn't, you looked up at me, and you looked so beautiful, and I kind of stopped breathing, and you said, 'Hey', and I was so happy I could have thrown myself off the ledge or jumped off the damn building right there and then." He stares into his latte. "You smelled like summer flowers. It's my favourite smell in the whole fucking world."
I close my eyes and tears dampen my lashes.
"I miss you." The words don't register as my own, so much so that I almost look behind me to see if there is someone else here.
I open my eyes, and he's looking down at me, and his eyes say all the things he cannot. His gaze holds mine, and I silently tell him that I'll always carry him in my heart, and he silently tells me that in another place, another time, we'd have been pretty damn close to perfect.
"Will I ever be okay?" I say tiredly. I sound about twelve years old.
"Yes, you will." He reaches for my hand, and his warm fingers wrap around my cold ones.
"How do you know?" I whisper.
"Because you're you." My hair falls over my face and he smooths it back behind my ear. "Because you're wonderful, marvellous, beautiful you."
Tears run down my face. "And you're you. Stubborn, annoying you."
Oh God, why does it hurt so much?
"We were good though, weren't we?" I whisper.
If this were a TV show, this would be the part where we lean into each other, and he kisses me and says, "You're the one I love. I'm going to marry you, to hell with the whole fucking world." And the screen would freeze on us kissing, safe and warm in each other's arms, and fade to black.
But this isn't make believe, it's real life, and in real life people don't live on memories and love alone. I raise my head, and if he kisses me I won't have the power to stop myself from kissing him back, because to me he looks exactly as he did that day at the locker, and for a second I'm that girl in high school again, his dad is fine, and he isn't Luna's fiance, and there are stars in my eyes.
"Really good, Mina. Close to perfect, for a while."
"I always thought we'd love each other for ever, Jaemin."
"Yeah, me too." His voice is so wistful and sad I have to bite my lip from moaning out loud.
"I don't want to say goodbye," I whisper.
"Let's not do it yet," he says. "Just sit here with me for a bit longer." He holds my hand tight, as if he's clinging on for dear life. "I'll always be proud of you, Mina. I'll hear about you from someone, somewhere, about how great you're doing, and I'll think there she is, that dazzling girl who changed my life." His voice breaks. He's crying too.
"And I'll watch you on TV, how you saved someone's life, and I'll think there he is again, that brilliant man who changed my life," I say.
'See?' He wipes my eyes with his thumb. "We can't leave each other, not even if we try. I'll always be in the background of your life, and you'll always be in mine. We've been too much a part of each other for too long to stop now."
I am wavering, searching his face. I can't imagine what my life will be like without him in it. Who I will be.
"I could - I don't mind - we could - " I hear myself say. I could be with you, even though you're with her. I don't care. I won't mind, as long as I get to be with you. When have I become this shameless, selfish bitch? When have I sunk so low, prepared to be the other woman, the third wheel in someone's life?
"No." He jerks back, his face white. "There's no way in hell you're doing that. I won't let you." His face is twisted in pain.
"Kiss me then," I whisper. "For old time's sake. Give me something to remember you by."
"I can't kiss you, Mina. I can't."
His words land on my heart like hailstones. What in God's name am I doing? What kind of hideous lowlife am I? I need to get away from him.
"Oh God," I whisper, panicked, pressing my shaking fingers against my lips. I'm on my feet, scrabbling for my bags and half running out of the cafe before I really know what I'm going to do, and it's only when the bitter-cold air hits me that I realize I don't have my coat and it's snowing steadily.
"Mina! Mina, wait up."
He's out of breath, my coat clutched in his hands as he catches hold of my sleeve. "Please, just stop a second, will you?"