dream high: halfway-house.  →

you really like hyemi.

this is not a secret. this is not a secret you want to keep from anybody, and if somebody finds out, so be it. it’s not something you want to assert and it’s not something you want to deny, and hyemi isn’t a prize you’re fighting to win, but if that’s what samdong wants then you’ll gladly oblige him. you know that in real life, being childhood friends means nothing much. meeting for an hour and having someone sing you a birthday song because she pitied you, however much you appreciate it till this day, means even less.

japan, you think, is a good place for reconciliation. you forget to watch the view from the ferris wheel because hyemi’s cheeks are red from the cold, and you’re telling her things you never thought you’d tell anybody, things you thought you’d kept locked up and stored away somewhere in the attic of your being, left to be forgotten. you’re crying because she’s crying, or is it the other way round? 

“thank you,” you tell hyemi afterwards, like a weight’s been lifted off your chest. tears are running down her face in the most inelegant fashion ever, and the ferris wheel has the two of you trapped in the air in a wretched imitation of unwanted displacement, taking its time to wheel its way down to the ground. it is then that you realise you’ve spent your whole life afloat. suddenly, you want to go home, back to seoul, back to where you cohabit with the oddest group of people you’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. there’s finally something to go back to; you realise that there always has been.