The melody washed over her like a dizzy spell and she grabbed blindly for a chair, sitting down. Something about him, sitting there on that couch, looking at his fingers as he played, seemed different. Softer, etheral almost, as if in that moment he could not be touched, as if he was somewhere else entirely, a part of the world disconnected from it, more beautiful and perfect than belonged on their wrecked planet.
(”Oh! You should do the next version with the lyrics! Can you sing?)
The lines on his face were drawn with delicate concentration, his eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings, and around her the world quieted down, until there was nothing but him and the melody or Arirang.
(”Sunny can sing, too, right?”)
She wanted to remember him like this, even if it wasn’t her doing, even if she was not the reason for the way the edges of him softened, the corners of his lips curled slightly upward in the sweetest of smiles. She wanted to remember every shift of muscle, every delicate line, every sigh at a failed note.
She wanted it all, and she wanted it for herself, for her to know, for her to keep.
Her stomach churned. She was despicable. It should be enough, being allowed to watch it, it should be enough to know he felt it, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t enough at all.
That was her name. They were talking to her.
She smiled sweetly, blinking the rest of the world back into focus.
“Oops, spaced out there,” she laughed at herself. Behind her Namgi mimicked draining a shot of soju, so Sunny glared at him and everyone laughed.
“Well, yeah, okay, maybe that’s why,” she pretended to give in magnanimously, causing more laughter. A little later, it was cleared up they wondered if she could sing, and Sunny smiled sweetly again, wishing she could just drop dead on the floor.
“Yeah, okay, sure!” she said.
Jungsuk loved someone else. Why should she care about making a fool of herself? No one would love her, no one would clean up the mess she had become, no one would ever hold her through the panic like he had.
He gave her a smile and started the melody again.
Dear, who abandoned me here, she sang, and her heart sank and her stomach churned and the world spun and her hands shook, but her voice was steady and clear, if a little slurred because alcohol.
His voice and hers together, like somehow, it belonged that way, as if they were saying the same things and thinking the same thoughts. She smiled, like it hurt.
Wondrous time, happy time—let us delay,
Till night is over, go not away.
(And in her mind, Jungsuk is holding her through the haze of her panic, through the night, leaning against him on the stairs as she shatters her world over and over again and he never cuts himself on the pieces of it. In her mind, the moment is eternal and there is no tomorrow to ruin anything.)
Man's heart is like water streaming downhill;
Woman's heart is well water—so deep and still.
(And in reality, Jungsuk loved another, and thought of her as nothing but a kid, a problem to solve, a child to protect, a fragile little broken china doll, a ragdoll coming apart at the seems, and he would love another and another and never look at her at all.)
The trees and the flowers will bloom for aye,
But the glories of youth will soon fade away.
(And she had nothing, nothing at all, just memories of the dark and bullet wound scars barely healed, she had nothing but empty air to wake up to, she had nothing but an idea to protect, she had nothing, nothing at all.)
She stood and made a dramatic bow, hoping it would hide the pain she’s too drunk to conceal in her eyes.
“Wow, well, thank the both of you for making the the most depressing party ever,” Namgi laughed. “Something more upbeat, maybe, yeah?”
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