THE TRAGEDY OF YOUTH, jungwon ✓

07 | shedding tears

I didn't see Jungwon too much after that. I hit fourteen by myself in my apartment with a few cousins and friends in attendance along with aunts and uncles, and of course my parents. I found myself desperately wishing he would show up last-minute, but as I did know all too well, he was busy, off training at Big Hit Entertainment, reaching for his dream of being an idol.

A dream I didn't even know he had. A dream he never discussed with me. A secret he managed to hide so well from me for so long, and it had never crossed my mind. Happy, taekwondo-loving, street and book-smart Yang Jungwon, my best friend, trying for an almost impossible dream of being an idol? Not a possibility I even dreamed of.

I told my mother what had happened, and all she did was look disappointed and hug me. I don't think she was disappointed by the fact that he was becoming an idol, maybe; I think it was because he had been avoiding me and everyone else due to that, and also, the look of hurt on my face.

I was really, really hurt. When I went home, I cried and cried like anything. My mother let me be, because all I needed was to be alone and cry to my heart's content. I somehow managed to cry myself to sleep and didn't wake up until late the next day. That was the last time I had ever cried over Yang Jungwon. I promised to myself I wouldn't, not ever again, not until he apologized to me and tried to make it up to me.

Upon waking up, I had a text message from him: are you feeling okay?

I scowled, but my response was, yeah, I'm feeling fine.

To which he replied with, good to know.

And that was the last time we texted each other for the next two months. Us two, who used to text each other so much—it was a surprise, but at the same time, not really. Not anymore. I missed him like mad whenever he wasn't there, and eventually, by the time I was fifteen, I learned to ignore the lump of hurt and misery and pain in my chest.

Of course, I still saw him every once in a while, and he only grew more beautiful every time, truly fitting the image of the idol he was going for. He wasn't a bad person. Never in his life was he a bad person. He just had his flaws, and this was one of those. He had a good heart and a kind nature; he still does. It was just that after he well and truly had his big mess-up, our relationship was strained.

When we entered high school, we ended up getting accepted into different ones, which also limited our interactions further. By then, we'd pretty much stopped interacting too much of our own free will, the two of us. Especially me. It was just too awkward and too hard to keep up a decent conversation.

And you know what? The most ridiculous thing about this whole mess is that I still, in some way, cared about him. I still cared about Yang Jungwon very, very much. Even if we weren't close anymore, at least he didn't exactly ignore me; and maybe that's just me fixating on the few good things he did. So what? The boy was my best friend once. I'm not going to just let go of him, even now.

Our text messages were reduced to a few 'hi, how are you doing' duty-texts every few months. I loved those messages; it was a reminder that he hadn't forgotten me, that he still did find some time, however little, for me in the middle of his no doubt extremely busy schedule. I know I should have stopped caring so much a long time ago.

But I didn't, I still don't. I still care.

In 2019, he told me he had signed a contract for an upcoming survival show, a sort of last-ditch attempt at trying for debut. I had given him my best wishes, of course, and I also told him I knew he was going to make it. Ever since he was young, Yang Jungwon had had a beautiful singing voice, and sometimes he sent me clips of him dancing. I'd watched and saved them all, though he wasn't to know that.

I even told him I would watch it for him, except when I-LAND did air in mid-2020, I never did. At the exact moment I picked up the TV remote to tune into Mnet, I felt a sudden sense of resentment. I didn't want to watch him with other people who weren't me. People I knew were the people he had trained with while I had cried up in my room. It wasn't their fault, and it never would be, but resentment works in a funny way, doesn't it?

I ended up unplugging the TV every time I-LAND aired, because I had no intention of watching it at all. However, secretly...I did vote for him. Without having ever seen the actual show or Jungwon in action, I voted for him. I just picked random others when it said to pick three contestants. What was the point, even, in doing that? I don't know. Maybe some part of me still wanted to give Jungwon some of my blessings.

But I did see Jungwon in action, just once—a clip of him during the survival show's theme song, apparently. I asked around and it was his part in the pre-chorus. I thought that his singing had improved tremendously since I'd last heard it, and that the pretty combination of the blue-and-white of his stage outfit suited him very well.

I ignored the way my heartrate still sped up a bit when I saw him looking so confident, so...in his element. He looked like the Jungwon I knew, the one I really knew. Maybe he looked like that in other clips, too, but I just couldn't be bothered to watch any of it at all. I just didn't want to end up crying.

If the show didn't make me cry, I knew very well that the presence of Jungwon would.

Near the end of September, while I was buried in schoolwork and half-asleep as I tried to scribble sensible answers on my math worksheets, which I had fallen behind in due to my pet habit, procrastination, I received a text message from Jungwon, the first since months before I-LAND started filming.

I debuted! I'm a part of ENHYPEN!

I don't know how to precisely explain the tidal wave of emotions that surged up within me as I read that message over and over and over again. I was proud of him, of course I was. I was so, so proud that his hard work had paid off. But I was also angry, because I knew what it meant. I knew that it would be even harder for us to maintain any kind of friendship at all.

I also realized that the way this message was phrased...he probably knew I hadn't done good on my word. He probably knew that I hadn't watched I-LAND at all. Was he mad at me? I wondered for the next five minutes. But I didn't care, I decided. If he was mad, let him be mad. I didn't think he was, anyhow.

Congratulations!!! So proud!!! I sent back with a smiley face. It was a lot more enthusiastic than I felt. He promptly sent me back a thank-you with a heart that both made me smile and get angrier.

I put the phone by the door to charge, stuffed my worksheets into my folder file, crawled into bed, and just lay there staring at the ceiling with a scowl. Tears formed in my eyes, but I didn't cry. Even as they slid down my face, I took deep breaths and made sure I wasn't crying. Shedding tears was okay.

But crying wasn't.