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G, B, D
Many seasons passed, as did the months upon her calendar, before she could catch a glimpse of Wonpil, the pianist from previous years and a friend subjected to inconvenient spaced moments. Time was the only thing that kept them apart, she hoped.
Hate was such a strong word because it applied to only a few things in her life, now as a recent graduate of secondary school. Her hatred was mainly divided between school and her jerk ex-boyfriend, Jaeyong.
She hated him and everything about him but perhaps excluding their child as she had gotten pregnant in high school. All of this seemed uncharacteristic of Bae, but considering the phases she zipped through by the end of her secondary school years, it was coming.
(He'd left her upon the news of her pregnancy, which wasn't left unanswered: she, Younghyun, and his pal, Dowoon, all figured out his whereabouts. Younghyun sent him to the hospital with less than three punches. Their father agreed that that sufficed his lesson.)
It had been a year since Wonpil and Bae had last spoken, a heavy feeling reverberated within them each passing day. At least she hoped she hadn't left his mind completely. Boys could be so forgetful. Though she was anything but ungrateful for the several glances they shared throughout school, as they managed to meet only through eyesight as they walked past another or exchanged smiles before falling into reality where time was of the essence.
Now, near the end of her first semester as a university student, she was now the mother of Juny, her eight month old daughter. By her own luck, Wonpil, along with most of her secondary school class had no idea of her having a child at 18 but it didn't avert the looks she got from everywhere she went.
They might've not been judging her for being a young mom but more so to her looks since Bae had changed. Heavy eyeliner inked the fine edges of her almond-shaped eyes, dangling earrings dotted the lobes of her ears, and a kurambik curved scar dipped right upon the edge of her eye, like an inverted shadow, producing light in the depressions of her flesh.
That might have been the reason the elderly couple across from her and Juny whispered amongst themselves, unfailing to meet her eyes.
The two were running late to class, Juny's daycare morning sessions, and her first period, which would be a lesson on some complex trigonometry.
"No career...stupid kid...pathetic," she could make out the exchanged phrases passed from the man's mouth and it barely occurred to her that they saw past her, through her, morelike.
Juny continued fingering the loopy monkey doll in her hands, rocking into her mom with each bump the bus made. Bae took this chance to look behind her, nearly dropping her jaw with the hot tea in her mouth.
Upon that broken stratus shield Wonpil sat on, emerging like a crack of night through a storm. He, a constellation, sat cross-legged, thumbing through his textbook on communication skills, propping up a keyboard case between his knees with music sheet packets enveloped in an arm as he snuggled up against the corner.
Warmth. He was so close. She could almost touch him though he sat a meter away.
"Aimless..." The woman spat back and Bae returned her gaze to them, scowling her curled upper lip, as well as flexing her scar. Thunder pulsed through her heartbeat in her ears though the sun sliced the dimmed bus windows.
"You know what's aimless? Having nothing better to do than to judge those still living a life you've passed and missed, by simply being ignorant. You know nothing about other people's lives other than your own. He could be the next Shakespeare, Beethoven, Princess Diana, or he might create his own category of human.
"If anything, judging by the past fifteen minutes you've exhausted on criticizing, you should judge people like me, or at least...do it behind people's backs. You don't even have that decency. How dare you be so picky and indecent to live like this? Seriously, you grandma and grandpa, be kind or get lost," The couple's faces went slack with shock. Juny's mini ponytails bounced at the bus' sudden stop.
"Good day, old people." She declared, rising steadily with a harsh stride yet still cradling Juny in her embrace.
"How dare you, punk, ta–" The man began.
"I said good day!" Bae enunciated, flexing her scar even more dauntingly. It was their stop.
The sun broke over the sky through the dispersed cumuli of the clouds, as if it were yolk, as the duo turned round to exit and just as they did, the night bled into their day, as Bae met with the glinting constellations.
Wonpil's stare aligned with hers, within their brief contact–time seemed to stop. He met Juny's momentarily but returned to Bae's gravitational pull.
"Kang Baewon," that fountain of a symphony moved, calling her and forming those familiar winks of a dimpled smile.
"Hey, get off the bus, lady!" Someone exclaimed.
Symphonies upon symphonies seemed to heighten within that interlude, choirs of angels dangled within earshot, all at the sight of him. The same prospecting galaxy still glittered in his eyes.
"Wonpil," she breathed resolutely, already smiling. Juny babbled her echo, something of a 'warble'. "I — "
But, she was torn from that dream, for it was all too good to be true, as the bus driver hurtled towards her, before she twisted and leapt off the steps, finally through the cracked open doors, like a butterfly escaping its chrysalis. They had made their stop.
Despite the momentum and shifts within their orbit, they had not been ripped of their eye contact, as Wonpil had even subconsciously ran towards the window to stay in this moment. Bae's cheeks began to cramp from the intensity of her smile.
However, with the glowing characters, flashing the next major stop, a sting of truth revealed itself to her.
If Wonpil shared the same university as she did, what can she ever say about her life and her undeniably, swelling, and sweltering feelings? How can she say?
⌄ my first update since seeing/meeting day6. ps, looking at wonpil will make you go cross eyed. thank you for coming to my ted talk and for reading and for the support. i love you!
