The One Who Got Away

Chapter 11

Finding out about the packages that Soonho was sending to Dara, behind his back, was like opening Pandora's box for Jiyong. All the feelings he tried to suppress are now out and are making their presence known again. But unlike Pandora, it seemed that for him there was no hope left in sight.

Tam-Tam, Dara's once beloved stuffed rabbit with the disproportionate arms and legs came out of his socks drawer where it had been hiding all this time. He stole it from Dara when he was on a fit of jealousy years ago during their happy times together. He meant to give him back but they broke up before he got the chance to return it.

He smiled at the stuffed toy. The two of them used to have a love-hate relationship with each other. He hated the rabbit at first sight. And at second sight. And all the sights thereafter because Dara seemed to treasure the thing more than she did him. But despite the constant disdain he used to regularly feel towards Dara's baby, Jiyong had come to love Tam-Tam as his very own. 

It's a measure of the depths of despair into which he has sunken that he had to resort to seeking comfort and understanding from a crude child's toy. When he finally realized how much he'd lost by letting Dara go, he had lost the courage to talk to his friends about Dara.

He knew between him and Dara his friends would choose Dara over him. They always treated Dara as if she was their very own sister. They protected her wihout him having to say anything. He hated himself enough already. It would be like adding salt to his injury to see the reproach in their eyes if he told them how he had hurt Dara. 

They thought all along that the break up with Dara was a civil one where both walked away from each other unscathed. He was too much enthralled with his infatuation for Kiko at that time that he didn't say anything to correct their assumptions. 

So when the realization of what he had lost finally sank in he had no one left that he could freely talk to. Tam-Tam became his secret companion and confidante during his darkest hours. The inanimate object's unblinking mismatched eyes seemed to communicate to him, "It's okay. I get you. I miss Dara, too."

There was no one he could turn to for comfort. But Tam-Tam was there for him. He was there to listen to all of Jiyong's woes. After hating the thing at first sight he never thought that he would have a change of heart. It was funny how Tam-Tam would turn out to be his lifeline all these years.

Tam-Tam was instrumental in how Dara and Jiyong met. He was on his way to the acting workshop that YG wanted him to attend. He was dragging his feet to the location. He didn't see the need why he had to attend the stupid classes. He knew why he wanted to enter the entertainment industry and he had no plans of becoming an actor.

As he stepped into the workshop, he gazed uninterestedly across the room looking for his friends. They haven't arrived yet. He found an unoccupied seat and dragged it into a quiet corner. He was not in the mood to talk to anyone. 

As he was dragging the seat across the room, he heard someone scream. "Noooooooooo!!!!! Stop!!!!" He kept on going. 

A scrawny girl ran in front of him and pushed him aside. He didn't know someone that puny could have the strength to push him and make him stagger sideways. She knelt before the chair, lifted it a few inches from the floor and took something that was apparently stuck under its legs. She cradled the thing tenderly in her arms and bawled her eyes out. 

He looked up and found all eyes were on them. They looked at him in accusation, as if blaming him for making the girl cry. The tears were streaming down her face. She looked as if someone she loved dearly had just died. 

'Huh??? Is this already part of the workshop? Are they testing our acting abilities already?' He looked helplessly around. 'Otokke?'The girl kept on crying. Everyone kept on giving him accusatory glances. Some were starting to glare at him.

He had to do something. Anything. So he knelt beside the girl and tried to summon his most gentle voice and expression. 

"Excuse me, miss. A-are you okay?" The crying stopped abruptly at his words. She turned her head and gave him a murderous glare.

"You're a murderer!" She accused him in a loud, clear voice that could be heard all over the room. Everyone gasped at her words.

He fell on his butt at her unexpected words. He wasn't expecting that at all. "What? I don't even know you! I'm just trying to help you and then you accuse me of that?"

"You can't deny your crime! You have to be punished for your sins!" She looked at the thing in her hands and the waterworks started again. "You murdered my Tam-Tam!!! My baby!!! Waahhh!!!"

Now he was getting more and more confused. The lady is clearly crazy. She turned back to him and shoved a black scraggly toy right to his face. He leaned back . "Look at him!!! You killed him!!! And his eyes!!! He lost one of his eyes because of you! How will he survive the afterlife with just one eye?!!?"

He focused once again on the object she was holding. It was definitely not a thing of beauty. Dirt was smeared all over its body. It had one button for an eye. A thread was hanging loosely beside the lone button. Its arms were almost non-existent and its legs were unremarkably long for its body. How could something that ugly generate so much grief from someone he just couldn't understand.

But he had to pacify the crying lunatic in front of him or else he'd always be labelled as the jerk who made the cutest girl in the group cry. He gently took the thing from her hands. "I don't think he's dead yet. He can still survive this. Tam-Tam is strong and..." He searched despetately for other words to say. "And Tam-Tam's brave. In fact he's the bravest bunny of all." He couldn't believe the utter nonsense this freak is making him say.

The loony girl turned a hopeful face at him. "You think so?" He nodded vigorously at her. He'd agree to anything at this point.

"I think so. I know someone who can revive him. He's an expert on these things." Soonho hyungnim had better know something about sewing and cleaning stuffed toys, he thought. He was bluffing his way around the girl. At this point, he'd say anything to make her stop crying.

What she did next completely surprised him. She sprung at him and gave him the fiercest of hugs. "Thank you!! Thank you for saving my baby!!!"

His head was whirling from the extreme shifts of emotion the girl was throwing at him but he couldn't help but smile when she hugged him. He could get used to these hugs.

He wasn't aware that his friends had already arrived midway between their bizarre interaction. They were laughing their asses off at him the whole time.

Soonho followed through with the Tam-Tam revival. He was dependable, as always. He came back an hour after and Tam-Tam was already spotless. How he did it was beyond Jiyong. He had a replacement eye but had to make do with a mismatched button because Soonho couldn't find an identical one in such short notice.

Later after the workshop, he found that the girl's name was Dara. She apologized for causing such a scene. Tam-Tam was given to her by her best friend who had to move away to France years ago. It was all she had left of her friend. 

He found out later that she was a former child actress. She was psyching herself up for the acting when he accidentally dragged Tam-Tam across the room. She was already in the zone when he came in, that's why her emotions were so freaking crazy and all over the place.

She was sorry for embarassing him and told him that on ordinary days she wasn't usually that crazy. On usual days, she laughingly told him her craziness would just be up to 50%. He never thought he'd have fun at the workshop but because of her he did.

Jiyong smiled at the memory of their first meeting. He sat Tam-Tam beside his laptop and stared at the screen in front of him, contemplating whether he should send another confession or not.