Dahyun's POV
I'm having the worst cold and I feel so alone. I feel like there is no one to help me because everyone is so busy. That's not their fault, though. I don't want to call and bother anyone, so I simply try to entertain myself by watching every movie on my list.
After the third movie, Momo calls me, asking how I'm feeling. At first, I want to lie and tell her that everything is fine. And I do that, but something keeps me from telling her that lie. I decide to tell her the truth. I tell her that I'm having the worst day ever.
It's my birthday and I didn't even make any plans for today. Luckily I didn't, because I would have been so disappointed for having to cancel them because of my illness. I tell her how alone I feel in my apartment and that feeling intensifies with every cough that echoes through the walls.
I tell her how alone I feel with the sounds of joy coming from the people on the snowy streets. A thin layer of snow is covering Seoul. It somehow makes the noises a little muffled, whether it's cars honking or people yelling. All of it gets muffled by the strong winter weather, a white blanket over everything, giving earmuffs to everyone's sounds.
I allow myself to be alone and to feel like I'm the only person in the world who is having the worst day with a cold that I'm not even treating properly because I just don't feel like it. I don't even bother to stay warm, wearing only my thin pajamas that are covered in the multiple cold sweats I got. I've been stuck in these clothes for the past couple days because I don't have the energy to change them. The fridge is empty and I just let it stay that way, ordering food every night.
I tell her that. I tell her every little thing with every stupid little detail and she listens. It's getting dark. My notebook sits on my lap with a blank page open as I watch the city below me swirl white with snow. I'm supposed to be coming up with lyrics, but it's not going very well. Because she is on the other side of the phone and all I can think about is how much I love her.
I love her and I can't tell her. I just can't get it to fall from my mouth so easily, not as easily as the empty words rambling from my lips right now. So, I wait for her to notice, because I've already noticed that she loves me too.
I shiver as I sit upright in my kitchen chair, twirling the pen between my fingers. I'm absentmindedly flipping through the pages, looking at the old lyrics I wrote. I remember how I wrote some of those while thinking about her again and they actually got accepted. I flip back to the empty page and try to focus.
"Dahyuni?" she says.
"Yeah?"
"You still there?"
"Yeah." I continue rambling to her, hoping that the fact I have no filter around her shows her how much I love her, how much I trust her with all the thoughts in my mind. As I speak, I also start writing.
A few hours later, we are still talking, but I'm now sitting by my laptop in the bedroom. I distractedly read the lyrics I wrote in the morning when I was half awake and in a mental haze. I read it and this time, I'm focused. Because it says everything I could never say out loud. Midway, I click right out of the document in embarrassment. The sentences blur my mind just like how our relationship is such a blur of hands and shy cheek kisses.
I blush because it says things that I never managed to say to her. And I probably never will because I don't need to. Surely, it's obvious. She will find out on her own.
The worst part of this year is that the girls aren't here and we can't celebrate my birthday together. At least they posted me on their Instagrams, though. I'm happy about that, I might have looked at the pictures over ten times. Still, I feel lonely without them by my side. Embarrassment flows through me again when I think about crying over something so seemingly small. And worse, while I'm on the phone.
