In Constant Stars
10 -- f o r g i v e ,  f o r g e t

The day I turned seventeen, my father only said one thing to me: "Go get your brother out of bed." That afternoon, he left for his once-a-year business trip to Japan. We never quite got to the part where he was supposed to congratulate me.

The hopeful part of me willed my father to suddenly burst out in bright smiles and wish me a happy birthday still when I came back downstairs after I'd woken Zelo up. Even Zelo, in his half-asleep state had cutely congratulated me on my birthday and given me a hug, before he made another attempt to lie down in bed again. When I sat down at the table where my father was reading the newspaper, only silence sounded through our house.

The most problematic thing about that situation was probably that I found I wasn't even really surprised he'd forgotten. Communication in our household, as it was, wasn’t even a special occasion thing. It just didn’t exist at all, anymore.

Ever since my father’s quiet departure, I'd been wondering to myself why I hadn’t really been surprised. Next to the fact that he didn't really communicate with any of us, I realised that a certain process had been taking place – one I wasn't so sure I could take. Forgetting my birthday was really the first step to forgetting me as a person. My father was doing that and the idea frightened me, yet I had kept my mouth shut that moment. Simply because I kind of expected it and sometimes thought I might actually deserve that. 

See, our family was like this. Zelo took after my mother. They were adventurous and outspoken, but not too much. The two of them formed the part of our family that was easier to get along with. My father and I, we were the cold-hearted ones. We were hard to sympathise with. Introverts, so to say.

We were alike in many ways. Just like him, I had the habit of waking up before eight o'clock, always, like both of our biorhythms were built in sync. I had no clue whether things like that had to do with genetics, but it sure seemed so in our case. We did the same things whenever we smiled - we looked away. I even had the same anger outbursts he had. Though mine came in smaller proportions, every time they happened I couldn't help but feel like I was one step closer to becoming him.

I used to think that maybe he was at the very extreme of the spectrum. I thought that he was colder than I was and that I wasn't that bad, perhaps. Now that he was gone, I didn't know what to think anymore. Maybe I was a filter that let all my memories of him slip me by, but still caught all the things that could make me feel like a heartless being.

My father left about half a year after that. He hadn’t been there at my eighteenth birthday either. Even when he wasn’t around, he had managed to make what should’ve been my happiest day of the year into something lonely and cold. Even when he wasn’t around, our family still stayed in its dysfunctional state, like an invisible force was making us like this. Whether my father would or wouldn’t be here, somehow we still managed to be messed up. And that was exactly why I hated my father.

“Choi Nana dating, who would have thought?”

There was this certain tone to the way he said it that automatically made me scowl. It was like he was incredibly sure of himself and so pleased that he’d figured things out, even though he was totally missing the point.

I was aware that Daehyun was trying to provoke me. Despite the fact that we’d become more hostile towards each other ever since the falling out at Jinae’s house, we hadn’t come so far that one of us approached the other just to gloat in their face and bait them. I’d thought that that was something beneath the both of us, but he obviously did not agree.

I was about to tell him that I wasn't dating Minhyuk and that he had misunderstood the situation when he surprised me by suddenly saying: "Look, I actually wanted to apologise for the things I said at Jinae's place that afternoon. You didn't deserve that and I’m really sorry for acting like a jerk."

For a moment I just stood there, still, while staring into the space of my locker, dumbfound by the fact that he’d proven me wrong. He wasn’t here to provoke me. His first line had been some kind of messed up way to at least grab my attention.

Jung Daehyun didn’t make any sense.

I was tempted to just ask him why he had suddenly felt remorseful while the week before he still seemed to hated my guts. In the meanwhile I hadn’t done anything that could’ve logically made him change his mind. It didn’t add up in my mind.

He could read the somewhat suspicious look I shot him. “Look, this isn’t some trick or anything like that, if that’s what you’re thinking. No game. I really do feel bad for what I said that afternoon. And next to that, it doesn’t help that Jinae feels uneasy with the fact that we fought like that. She’ll probably feel pretty uncomfortable the next time the two of you have to meet for your assignment and I don’t want that to happen.”

“… Right,” I said slowly. Well, that last part clarified a lot, I supposed. I had to admit that I was surprised by his apology, especially because he was so thoughtful of his girlfriend. Admittedly, I didn’t know much about Daehyun and Jinae to begin with and I was in no way able to judge how well they worked together, but I’d never really expected that Daehyun was this nice a guy to Jinae. In my mind he had always just been kind of noisy, kind of rowdy and kind of childish.

“Yeah?” he asked with one eyebrow raised when I didn’t say anything else.

“I– I… It’s okay.”

He slumped against the lockers next to mine, making it clear that he felt relieved. I half expected him to just take that answer for what it was and leave easily without much chit-chat, but he stayed in that position, his right shoulder leaning on the cold metal. He was watching me quietly, reading into my every movement and I once again couldn’t help wondering when and how he’d learnt to understand me so well.

An uncomfortable silence passed by. I closed my locker softly and hoisted my bag over my right shoulder. I turned to face him and meet his eyes – to confront my own faults.

“I’m actually sorry too,” I said honestly. I resisted the urge to avert my eyes, because suddenly Daehyun was looking at me with slightly widened and surprised eyes. “You were right when you said that I was judgmental. In fact, the other day I was working at Corner and Zelo and your friends came in… And afterwards I realised how I’d been apprehensive of you guys when I first met you, like you said. And I also understood that I still do it now. There was this fraternity guy and I was like ‘He doesn’t look like a frat at all’, but afterwards I realised that that thought was actually petty stereotyping.”

Daehyun was quiet as we held onto the eye contact. Somewhere along the line, our gazes had gotten intertwined with a kind of intensity that made me want to get away from him as quickly as I could. He was the one to break it.

“Let’s walk?”

He pushed himself away from the lockers and didn’t wait for my response. I naturally followed and ended up walking slowly next to him.

The school was still filled with the joy of reaching the end of yet another school day that the students around us were exerting. Happy chatter and laughter filled the hallways, along with the sounds of lockers being slammed. From the few open windows to our classrooms we could still see people hanging around or teachers scolding their students after class. I didn’t like standing out in a crowd, but as we walked, Daehyun was greeted several times by multiple people that I didn’t recognise.

We didn’t get to talking until we left the school building and both took in a deep breath of the fresh air. A boy behind us gave Daehyun a pat on the shoulder with a ‘See you tomorrow’, and Daehyun answered with a lopsided grin.

“Jung Daehyun, popular as ever,” I said casually while watching the guy walk towards the gates of our school.

Daehyun just shrugged. “I can’t really help that I’m good-looking, clever and sociable. It’s natural that people will flock towards me.”

I liked to think that I’d made a wise choice not to react to that remark, be it verbally or soundlessly.

“Hey, you okay there? You look pale.”

I looked up at him after carefully hiding my surprise. By then I should’ve already been used to his mind-reading, but somehow he still managed to stun me every time. I did feel a bit light-headed, but I assumed that it had to do with the fact that we’d just made our way through a crowd. I’d never been good at handling masses of people. I shook my head and he shrugged.

“Y’know, Nana,” he said as he sat down on the bench next to the big door to our building. He set his bag next to him and left the spot right to him open for me. I took my seat as well. “Being judgmental isn’t really a bad thing. Not necessarily, I think. It’s something everyone’s born with, kind of like an instinct… We can’t really help it. It wasn’t like I felt insulted when I realised what you thought of me. People have called me worse. Hell, they’ve called all of us worse before.

“It was just– when we first met, I’d hoped that from that point on we could be friends. Zelo had told us so many things about his sister. That she was kind and caring and smart. Every time people asked him when he’d started skateboarding, he didn’t fail to mention that you were the one who bought him his first board. From then I kind of imagined that we could make really good friends. But after we’d met, you stayed far away from us like you thought we were evil. Initially I’d thought it had to do with your first impression of us, but later on it felt more and more like you just thought of us with disdain. Like you just never wanted to give us the chance to show you who we really were.”

He looked at me, kind of like we were running a relay here and he was passing me the baton, expecting me to carry everything from that point on.

“I guess saying that I was just an antisocial doesn’t really cut it as an excuse, huh?”

Daehyun chuckled. I found myself smirking along. Then, more seriously, I continued: “Do you know how a lot of people say that I’m like my father? Not just the way I look, but also in behaviour? I used to be convinced that that was good. My father used to be my hero, because he was always very resolute. A man of few words, but he got his jobs done. People looked up to him. I did too.”

A shocked quiet ensued. Daehyun knew where I was going with this. He didn’t want to break me by saying anything carelessly, as the chances of stepping on a landmine were enormous.

“I’m not going to lie. I was afraid that Zelo was going to be getting himself into trouble and do all the wrong stuff. That’s what I couldn’t help but think when I first met you guys. I didn’t have a clue what to think, but to assume that the things that other people said about ‘gangsters’ and whatnot were true. And when my father seemed to think the same thing too, I thought that my assumptions were true.”

“Do you still think that way?”

I shook my head. Right that moment, the wind picked up and blew my hair away from my face. I had no curtain to hide behind. “I don’t. Not anymore since that evening when Zelo didn’t come back home and I panic-called all of you.”

Daehyun nodded. He, too, could still remember that evening very well. We were both sixteen and one evening it was just Zelo and I. Our parents were in Japan to visit family; Zelo and I had stayed in Seoul because of school. On the third evening without our parents around, my brother still hadn’t come back home at eleven o’clock. He’d left his phone at home. There was no way for me to reach him.

I’d called all of his best friends to ask them if Zelo was with them or if they knew where he could be. The first one I’d called, Daehyun, calmed me down and told me to stay home and that he’d go find Zelo. Eventually the group returned almost two hours later, Zelo in tow.

“Still can’t believe the idiot was locked in the school building. Just because he forgot his homework there and took too long finding it,” he said softly.

“I know…” I almost felt like smiling fondly at the memory. Almost. “But my father hated it. He didn’t believe Zelo’s side of the story and grounded him the moment he got back from Tokyo. It was kind of a trigger for all of the fights that followed after that. And he blamed you guys. Said that you were the ones who turned Zelo into a delinquent or something. From that point on I realised that I’d been wrong all along.”

We both stared at the hordes of students exiting the building. I asked him if he had soccer practice, but it turned out they couldn’t with the artificial field being wet, making injuries very easy to sustain. We returned to silence. Daehyun was drawing circles in the gravel underneath our feet with his black shoes.

He was aware that he’d hit a nerve when he’d called me judgmental. It wasn’t the idea that I was flawed in general that had hurt me and made me angry. It was the fact that I was flawed in the exact way my father had been. I doubted Daehyun had a full comprehension of the extents of my hatred towards my father, but he’d made it a point not to bring him up anymore after I’d mentioned the similarities. I think Daehyun was doing that reading thing again, when he understood me far better than I wanted him to. And for once I was thankful that he did.

“So what is this surprise party thing that Yongguk hyung told me about?” he suddenly asked, out of the blue.

I felt the ghost of a smile appear on my lips. “I was thinking of throwing Zelo a surprise birthday party for his 17^th birthday. Admittedly I couldn’t think of a better present this year because he keeps insisting he has everything he needs already.”

“Sounds like a pretty awesome gift to me.”

“Why thank you,” I said playfully, finally feeling the smile break through.

Daehyun grinned back, dimples showing, eyes crooked at the ends. The eye contact didn’t last long though. He looked away suddenly and his lips. His feet hadn’t stopped drawing shapes.

“So what were your ideas?”

I looked straight ahead while in my mind I tried to recall my visions of the venue. I’d had the sports hall next to the school in mind. Apparently the smallest hall could be rented once in a while, and the costs weren’t even that high. I was all in for exaggerated decorations and maybe even a ridiculous disco ball, because I knew Zelo would love the extravagance to it all. He’d always been kind of flashy, though he didn’t want to admit to ever being a word like ‘flashy’.

I told Daehyun about that idea, along with the suggestion of inviting all of the kids in Zelo’s class and perhaps some more people from his same year. Daehyun probably knew some of Zelo’s skating friends, too.

He nodded all the while as he thought along with me, once in a while throwing in some of his own ideas to make it even showier.

Moments like these made me wonder if it was really possible for Jung Daehyun and I to be friends. Admittedly, our situation was weird to the max. We’d kissed and saying that that didn’t faze me in the least would’ve been a lie. I tried not to let it get to me, since he was drunk after all and my description of it as ‘just two lips moving against each other’ pretty much covered it all. It was nothing deep, but sometimes it still bothered me how it was something we both seemed to avoid talking or maybe even thinking about.

Did that mean that we could never be friends? Did it mean that that screwed up Wednesday evening would always be blocking us from getting along with each other?

We’d just finished discussing our ideas on the cake (‘Layered. Kind of like a wedding cake but with ridiculous rainbow sprinkles and a marzipan skateboard on top or something.’), when he said: “I’m in, absolutely. Buddy deserves to have a really awesome birthday this year.”

The echo to that line was that Zelo’s past birthday had been a drama. I didn’t want to relive those painful memories too much, but if my past two birthdays had been sad, Zelo’s had been even worse. My smile disappeared.

The silence returned again. It seemed like a constant in my relationship to Daehyun. Like we just didn’t always find the right words for the right moment, because he and I had a knack for making things uncomfortable. The silences we shared were always ones of unspoken truths, filled with tension and things that should have been said, but weren’t said. It didn’t mean that we both didn’t know about these things. It was just that both of us were trying our best not to be confronted with them yet.

I didn’t confront him with his business with Jinae. He didn’t confront me with my father.

Or so I thought until he got up, patted off the dust from his pants and held out a hand to pull me up as well. When I took his hand, he said: “Nana, you’re not your father. Don’t ever forget that.”

And I let go of his hand like it was on fire.

Daehyun looked down at me with shocked eyes, as if he didn’t understand what he’d just said either. It took me longer to regain my composure than it did for him, because within a split second he seemed to go back to his old, calm, unreadable way. He sighed lightly and then repeated: “You’re not your father. You’re stronger than that.”

He took my hand again and pulled me to my feet. He handed me my bag, hoisted his own over his right shoulder and with a final, curt nod, he turned around. As he walked away from me, I couldn’t help but feel confused and wonder who Jung Daehyun really was.

After school and work, I came home and decided to just make kimchi fried rice for dinner. I wasn’t in the mood to really make a hearty dinner with side dishes. At work I’d been screwing up orders to the point that Mrs Hwang just suggested I’d leave early and that she’d handle things with Minhee. Usually I would’ve protested and tried to convince her to let me stay, making sure no mistakes would happen again, but I felt so tired that I couldn’t really help but think that that was a good idea.

I was thinking of calling Zelo to tell him that I was almost done cooking when the house phone rang. I dried my hands with a dish towel on the kitchen counter and pressed the green button after reading the phone number I didn’t recognise.

“Hello?” I called while fetching a wet towel to clean the counters.

For a moment everything was quiet. Then: “… Nana?”

I felt the chills run down my spine. I dropped the wet towel, held the phone away from my ear to look at the little screen with shock.

It couldn’t be.

Yet it really was him.

I could recognise that voice from miles away. I’d wondered a few times if I would ever forget it because that would’ve lessened the pain, but this moment pulled me back to reality. It was engraved in my mind as something I probably would never forget. I hadn’t heard his voice in almost a year by then, but I could recognise it and it upset me that I could so easily. Automatically.

My fingers were trembling as I lifted the phone back to my ear again. He repeated my name, but the sound of him pronouncing it made me angry and very, very sad.

With an uneven, but cold voice, I deadpanned: “Don’t think of calling ever again.”

And I hung up.

Fifteen minutes later Zelo came back home. He looked like he’d been running, because his hair was all dishevelled and he was still catching his breath when he entered the kitchen.

“What’s with you?” I asked with fake cheerfulness. “You look like you’ve just run a marathon.”

“Didn’t want to be caught in the rain,” he said offhandedly.

Even as he complimented me on the food, Zelo seemed to be all over the place. He was stumbling over his words and his table manners were practically non-existent. Still, I didn’t call him on that, especially because my mind was a mess as well. I wasn’t any better. Not after my father had decided to call again.

Praying for Sewol ferry disaster's victims, as well as the affected family and friends. I hope everyone will stay strong.