THE PAST, THE PRESENT, & THE FUTURE, txt ✓

03. Letter Three, To Choi Soobin

to choi soobin, the one who most deserves an apology from me...
____________________________________________

I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry I ever, ever dared to do it. I'm so sorry I used you, Soobin. I'm so sorry that I used you to block out my own pain and never stopped for a second to think about how you would feel.

You were right, Soobin. We would always have been better off as best friends than lovers, even if it meant you would have had to be heartsick than know that I didn't truly love you even if all my actions said otherwise.

Do you remember how we started off as friends? Just a pair of scrawny teenagers inside a ninth-grade classroom. Our friendship started off with me feeling like I really wanted to slap you – you overheard me talking to Nayoung about how I literally couldn't help liking Choi Yeonjun, your close friend, and found it incredibly funny.

What did you do? Hang it over my head like any jerk teenager would, of course. I always knew you didn't really mean any harm, that you were too nice to actually tell Yeonjun how I felt about him. But I sure felt very annoyed whenever you would sidle up to me, just to tease me by saying, "hm...is today the day Choi Yeonjun finds out how much Kim Nari likes him?"

I would scowl at you, and you would laugh at me and then walk away. One day, though, you stayed and after a few minutes of silence, I asked you what you wanted. You admitted after a while that you were struggling with English, and wanted help.

I raised my eyebrows and asked why you didn't just ask Yeonjun, who had lived in California for two years, and was the star of our English classes. You told me that Yeonjun was really busy with the sports tournaments coming up, plus, in your own words, 'the idiot also decided homework is useless and fell hopelessly behind so he's been awake for three nights in a row, which is why he either shows up late or looks a little brain-dead when he comes in'.

I had to giggle, and said, "alright, bring me your book."

It turned out you sadly did not have a very good grasp of the English language. I helped you with that, though, teaching you the correct usage of tenses, grammar, punctuation, and so on. I even helped you with your pronunciation, and you got better at it so fast I was impressed.

I don't think I told you I learned English through kids TV shows and grammar books.

It's true – my teachers were the classic characters of all the shows we 2000s kids grew up with. At one point I decided I wanted to make my English better so I read through my older cousins' grammar books and one of them even gave me lessons. It's not easy to lose track of it with the number of Western media I consume every day.

Perhaps it was through these small ten-to-fifteen-minute periods where, even if we didn't have any English work, I helped you through the subject, that we became friends. Soon, we were talking quite a lot. Nayoung didn't mind including you in our conversations, and neither did I, so you ended up spending a lot of time with us.

I very vividly remember both of you ganging up on me to tease me about my crush on Yeonjun, and then to tease us both about our relationship. I don't even know when we elevated to the status of best friends—it just happened, crossing the unwritten codes of social relationships as far as I knew it.

Suddenly, we were both attached at the hip. We talked about anything and everything. Well, anything and everything Yeonjun and I didn't talk about once we started going out. Did I push you away, even a little bit, Soobin? When I started dating him, did our bond falter even a little bit? When we meet, tell me honestly. If it's true, then I'm really sorry, Soobin. I didn't mean to, and if I had realized it, I would have made more effort to spend time with you.