In Constant Stars
04 -- s e c r e t

Who was Jung Daehyun, really?

My only connection to him was that I was in the same year as him, and that my little brother was in his circle of friends. Other than that, usually my interactions with him were very little. The only times I talked to him was probably when he was over at our house, and even then we didn’t make that into a habit.

Daehyun was kind of popular? I didn’t really know, to be honest. I would’ve had to ask Heeyoung if I really wanted to know, but I didn’t want to.

I did know, however, that many found him to be very attractive. Even I had to admit that there was something about him that made him seem more eye-catching than most guys. Something about him was rough and messy, even though he always seemed clean-cut in the way he dressed himself or presented himself at school. During the many times that he’d been at our house for the past three years, I knew that he tended to be loud and playful. From the six of them, the loudest would always be Kim Himchan, but Daehyun came in a close second.

According to Zelo, he was a good singer. Knowing that, Daehyun often recorded demo songs at a record company, which apparently paid very well. Other than that he was good at soccer, average with his academics and known as a troublemaker amongst our teachers. He grew up in Busan until he moved to Seoul because of his parents or something. His accent was only to be heard if you paid attention to it.

That was all I knew about him. Therefore it wasn’t all that surprising that I hadn’t known that he actually had a girlfriend from whom he was hiding some pretty big stuff.

“You want me to keep my mouth shut because your girlfriend has no clue, don’t you?”

I didn’t bother calling him or warning him beforehand that I needed to talk to him. As it was, he hadn’t filled me in on things that he should have told me too, so why would I bother? I’d stormed up to him while he hadn’t noticed me and shut his locker even though he was still busy looking for something in his bag. At first he was surprised, then he seemed panicked that I’d found out and then he seemed panicked because I had more or less exclaimed, rather than whispered it.

I wasn’t just angry. I was furious.

After confirming that no one was looking in our direction with curious glances, which meant that no one had heard, Jung Daehyun looked at me like he wanted to feed me to some monster so I wouldn’t make any more claims that would bring his comfortable life into danger.

Perhaps I didn’t know him all that well and I didn’t have any confirmation that he really did have a girlfriend, but the kiss I’d seen him pull Jinae into after soccer practice definitely suggested so strongly. If it were a different time with a different person, I probably wouldn’t have made such bold accusations. But this was Daehyun and he’d attempted to make me shut up about the fact that he’d technically cheated on his girlfriend. I could’ve worried about being a baddie in this situation, but really – he’d started it. I was just fighting fire with fire.

“Can’t you tone it down a bit?” he harshly whispered to me. He didn’t bother with his locker anymore; I had all of his attention now.

“Oh, so people won’t know that you’re a cheater?” I bit back, though softly as well. I was a detached person, yes. I didn’t usually make it a point to particularly care about other people’s reputations, which was why I never bothered with gossip or anything alike. I had enough on my own plate and really not enough energy to care about people who didn’t matter. But even I wasn’t so cruel to ruin this guy’s name with accusations that weren’t confirmed to be true.

Though they were very likely to be true.

As it was the beginning of our lunch period, there were still quite a few people roaming the corridors. Daehyun didn’t seem to feel comfortable with them around. Without replying yet, he nudged his head in the direction of the more deserted hallways. Though I wanted to finish this thing – whatever it was; I refused to call it an ‘arrangement’ – as soon as possible, I realised it wasn’t going to work if I stubbornly stayed in the same spot, so I followed him.

“What do you want?” Daehyun asked once we’d reached a hallway where no one was. He was still on edge, afraid that someone would hear and tell Jinae, of whom I was now sure that she was his girlfriend.

“‘What I want’,” I repeated sardonically, “is that you don’t get me entangled into some messy drama that I don’t want to be involved with. I don’t care if you kiss the next girl who walks by when you’re drunk though you have a girlfriend. Your life. Your business. However, don’t get me into it and don’t make me keep your secret so you won’t get into trouble.”

He seemed disbelieving of what I’d just said to him. What was there not to believe? I doubted that anyone liked being strung in as some kind of ally by someone who mistreated them. His hand went through his hair that was still unstyled from the shower after practice. “What do you want me to do? I was drunk, Nana. I didn’t do it because I wanted to cheat on her. I was hardly conscious, okay? And it’s not like I can magically go back in time and stop myself from reaching for the alcohol.”

Don’t get me wrong, but Daehyun wasn’t entirely a bad guy. It’s hard to sympathise with a cheater, ever, and I didn’t think that what he’d done or was doing, actually, was okay. But he was a human and that very moment, he’d shown me just how human he was. The answer was that he was just that to the very core. As if with just a snap of the finger, he lost his confident stance when his shoulders drooped. The shame he’d tried to stow away became so clear by the way he couldn’t keep looking at me and had instead averted his eyes to the ground, like his answers could be found there spelled out by dust particles.

There weren’t a lot of things that I knew about Jung Daehyun, but if I had to choose one thing I was certain of, it was this: he had made a mistake and he was unimaginably sorry about it.

“What I need you to do is that you tell her the truth. You can’t use me to cover it up. It’s wrong, Daehyun. I wouldn’t be able to bear that kind of secret. And you know it’s not going to solve anything if you never tell her; it’ll just make you miserable too.”

His nervousness made him his bottom lip like a little tic. There was a moment before he replied, a moment in which he carefully considered my advice and in which I just hoped he would realise how this mess could only become worse if it went on. “It’s more complicated than just cheating,” he admitted to me, softly. “I’m really not proud of it.”

“I sure as hell don’t hope any cheater feels proud for whatever he or she’s done,” I muttered, somewhat drily. “But the important thing is that you have to tell her.”

“No,” he interjected, this time sounding a bit more impatient. The truth was, he was speaking in riddles and I didn’t understand what it was about. I didn’t understand his point of view and I didn’t feel the need to do that, as this was essentially still his problem. I just didn’t want to be mixed into it. “It’s not just about being scared to tell her. It’s not all black and white like that. There’s so much more to it.”

I waited for him to continue. Apparently he never planned for there to be a continuation to it, because he stopped at that. What was with this guy? “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, Daehyun. You’ll need to be clearer if you want me to understand.”

Finally he looked up to me again, but it would’ve been better if he hadn’t. For a slight moment I felt the same urge I got with Heeyoung all the time, which was to reach out and stop his frown. Daehyun hadn’t had me around every time like Heeyoung did. He already had the slight trails of wrinkles at the ends of his lips, pulling them down in a frown. They were the symbol to the ghosts of his past that still chased after him in the present. He was in pain and seeing it made me feel like I was slowly freezing into a chamber that was filled with solely guilt. If that was only a fraction of the emotions he was experiencing, I didn’t even want to think of how he managed to live with it.

“Do you understand now?” he asked.

No, I thought. You’re still speaking in riddles.

But somehow I did understand it a bit. There was no concrete reason for any of this, yet I still knew that something was wrong. So I nodded.

“It’s difficult. So difficult.”

I clenched my teeth until it felt like they would crush each other. I’d felt furious before this conversation; afterwards, I could only feel helpless.

“For the record,” I uttered softly, with the most robotic voice I could manage, “this still does not make things okay. I don’t know what is going on or what your reasons are. I’ll tell you that, as long as you keep me out of it as much as possible, I’m not going to spill anything to anyone, least of all to Jinae.”

Hope shot through his eyes and I knew that it was wrong, so I shot it down the quickest I could: “But know this, Daehyun. Even if this secret would never leave the lips of those who know, she’ll still find out eventually. No matter what, she will know. And if you don’t get your mess together, you will be the only one to blame.”

“Hmm, Kim Jinae?” Heeyoung muttered over the other side of the line. “I think that I share history class with her. With the really long hair you mean?”

“Yup. Really long and straight and shiny and stuff.”

“Your descriptiveness is inspiringly poetic, Nana,” she said drily.

If I weren’t balancing my phone between my chin and my right shoulder, I would have shrugged, but I was busy with sorting out the bags in my hand. I was carrying the groceries I’d done right after school. Heeyoung often told me that I had to stop with my multitasking habits, but the truth was that it wasn’t just a habit anymore; it had become a lifestyle. I figured it was just a lot less time-consuming and since I was able to do it anyway, why not?

“But you mean you didn’t know that they were dating?” I asked as I turned a corner right. Our house was still ten minutes away. The filled plastic bags were so heavy. The plastic was digging into the flesh of my hands, thus I pulled the bags up a bit more so I could hold them a bit differently.

“Well, I’m not close with either of them, am I? Admittedly, Daehyun is quite good-looking, but definitely not my type. And Kim Jinae is… how to put it? She’s just Kim Jinae. Perfect girl with impeccable manners and nice looks, but not exactly a social butterfly. Before your little incident, I never really found either of them very interesting,” Heeyoung rattled. The way this conversation was going, it was starting to turn a bit into gossip already and I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at that.

“I figured that people would at least be aware of them?”

“Nah. I think they’re not very open with it, like they don’t rub it in other people’s faces. That would explain why not a lot of people know.”

I nodded, though Heeyoung couldn’t see that. It would make sense for Jinae not to hang her relationship all out in the open. Just like I was, she wasn’t a very outspoken person, though in a different sense. Kim Jinae didn’t give off a very unfriendly vibe – apparently I did, whatever – and so she wasn’t unapproachable as a person, but she preferred to stay in her own vicinity of safety and comfort.

“Anyway,” I sighed to Heeyoung. Eight minutes left until I’d reach the house, and only if I kept walking at the same pace. But the bags were getting heavier by the minute. “Can you not tell anyone? I don’t know what Daehyun is playing at, but I have this weird feeling that it’s not our secret to tell.”

“Sure. Hey, you okay there? You’re all huffy. Are you running or something?”

“Just carrying the groceries. I need to hang up soon.”

“Oh, okay. One last thing, though. Don’t forget about the business party tomorrow evening, okay? I won’t survive that if you’re not around to make sure I won’t get bored out of my mind.” Not even bothering to hide my displeasure, I groaned. She ignored me and continued: “Just wear that dress I gave you for your birthday.”

“Heeyoung, your parents will hate that dress.” This was the truth. It was a hideous dress. I had no clue what had gone through her mind when she gave it to me. “You hate that dress.”

“That’s not true! I love it, so I bought it for you.” We both let that lie settle in as I walked on with an eyebrow raised. As if she could feel my judgment seeping through her phone speakers, she then admitted: “Okay, so the only reason I gave it to you was because I knew my parents would hate it. But I did give you a nice new bag as your real present, so I see no problem.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. I never said that there was a problem with your gift.”

“But you implied it! Gosh, Nana, you can be so –”

I never discovered what exaggerated form of one of Heeyoung’s colourful adjectives I was, because right that moment I heard from behind me: “Noona!” accompanied by the sound of wheels rolling on the concrete. Zelo stopped next to me and grabbed two bags from my right hand.

I looked up to him gratefully while speaking into the phone: “Whatever, Heeyoung. See you tomorrow.”

“I’m not done –”

“Yup, love you too.” And I hung up. I threw my phone into one of the two plastic bags in my left hand, hoping I would still be able to find it back undamaged later.

“How did you manage to buy four large bags of stuff?” Zelo asked, seeming mildly amused.

“Do you want me to be honest? Because I swear at least two of them are filled with your snacks, Choi Junhong,” my immediate, teasing response sounded. The moment the words had left my lips, I regretted them. It seemed like such an innocent comment that it hadn’t even processed in my mind what the undertone to it all was.

First off there was the use of his full name, which he hated because he was now Zelo and the only one who used to still call him by his real name was our father. Secondly, it wasn’t supposed to be me buying our groceries to begin with and me knowing all the snacks that he wanted to eat every week. It was supposed to be our parents, who were both MIA.

The worst part was that having things this way had already become so natural to me, that I didn’t even realise how unnatural it was to Zelo. He hadn’t seen me doing the groceries before, nor had I ever asked him what he wanted to eat since I already knew. I doubted that he’d been actively aware of the fact that all of the snacks he’d gobbled down this whole time were actually bought by me. That was, until now.

Something froze in the way he held himself. The look in his eyes, now cold, told me that I’d ruined things big time. If this morning at his soccer practice was a sign of any progress between the two of us, I’d definitely destroyed it and we were back to the distant, invisible sibling relation we had before. Softly yet somewhat harshly, he said: “I’ll go ahead.”

I watched him speed away from me on his skateboard with the two white bags in his hands, the navy tie of our school uniform floating behind him, up and down, up and down. As I followed the movement until he was so far away that I couldn’t tell which way it was soaring, I thought back to all the moments when he would give me a big bear hug every time I bought him something and the memories of him smiling when he would talk to me. It wasn’t a long time ago when things like that had still seemed normal to me. But in reality, it felt like ages.