It Ends with Us • Kim Mingyu

[seventeen]

Hoshi's text arrives an hour later.

Text message

Hamstahh: signed and sealed. Dino's on his own from September 1:)

Today is August 20. I remember looking at the calendar on my desk before leaving the house. August lasts 31 days. Today's afternoon has already started falling into oblivion. I can see pink and marmalade clouds swirled on the dusk sky, reminding me faintly of cotton candies and amusement parks. If I had to count that way, it would be only 11 days until Dino went away. Even less. He'd be busy moving around, shopping, packing, list checking for the last few days, and God knows when I will return. I wonder if I'll get to see him off.

My phone buzzes again.

Text message

Hamstahh: It looks like he's gonna get roommates with him

I stare at the text, trying to decipher what feels weird in my chest. Jealousy? I guess. I can't swallow the fact he'll be living just about the same life, but with other people. It makes me feel like that old phone that got replaced with the new one despite working well.

Hoshi sends another text, but I shut my phone without checking. An old rusty yellow pickup is yelling at us from behind -- well, not really us. The driver is screaming at the long line of cars ahead of us. Earlier, Mingyu said it was a bad idea to take the main road that led to the city because the offices and schools got off around that time. The traffic would be terrific and it would take about two hours, so he decided to take a turn and use an alley instead.

Looks like everyone got the same idea as him, and now we're stuck in a traffic that went from terrific to neverending hell. I can't even get my head out of the window. It's such a narrow alley that if someone tried to stand by the walls, I'm sure they'd get compressed like a flat pastry dough.

Amidst such turbulence, the cars at different lengths have their engines grunting and blaring out horns. The pickup behind us has the worst one I've ever heard. The noise makes me feel like my gut is about to burst open.

"It'd be nice to throw a brick at them," I say to Mingyu.

He grows tall from his spine.

"Something is wrong at the front," Mingyu says. He looks at me, like I can tell what it is, but I shrug. I'd like to know as well.

After a while, the horns and grunts stop reverberating. First one car, then the pickup, and gradually, the air hangs dead silent. It's as though everyone gave up hopes on moving out of this alley for good.

"Can you open the roof? I want to see what's happening," I say.

Mingyu presses a button with a vertical flag sign on it and holds it down for a minute. He looks at me as the car converts -- the windows slowly roll down. The roof folds backwards into the backseat. 

"Still think convertibles aren't worth it?" Mingyu says with a smug.

I roll my eyes. I never had it in me to exalt the existence of sports cars in our garage, that being said owned by one single person. I don't know what makes me feel uneasy about it. I guess I haven't got the hang of it yet. People look at you a bit differently when you get down from these cars, especially in neighborhoods where you don't expect it. They might be dazzled and look at it for a while, but there's something keen in there. I noticed it a few times. Do they wonder,"How on earth does a person owe such things?"

I kick off my shoes and get on my knees on the seat. I poke my head out of the windscreen, squinting my eyes to detect the figures at the front. Some white prada busted its tire at the head of the street. The driver is an old bald man bent from the spine, talking madly into his phone outside the car. The passengers are out too. Two ladies. One probably in her thirties, the other one looks like she could be her mother. They are leaning against the car, gazing at the line behind with a grim anticipation on their faces. The younger one is biting onto her fingernails. The older one looks just about hopeless as any other cars on this street.