Til Debt Do Us Part

028

It is two in the morning, but I was on a cab driving to Sooyoung's house. In the entire ride, I was listening to her sobs over the phone.

Sooyoung is one of the strongest people I know. She rarely shed tears, especially not for the men she dated.

Unlike me, there was never an entire year that Sooyoung was single since our College days. She could make men fall for her in an instant. She knew how to pull their strings well. Dating was like a song that Sooyoung had mastered.

Some people would raise brows whenever Sooyoung would introduce a new boy. They would call her names behind her back – any word synonymous to a slut. Sooyoung knew this but she did not care anyway.

People think that Sooyoung was just playing but I knew otherwise. Far from playing with hearts, Sooyoung was a person who is in a constant search for someone who would love her.

She wanted someone who would make her heart swell with so much happiness; someone who could promise her forever. She found the first one in Sungjae but not the second, as Sooyoung had caught him cheating.

"I'm at your door, Sooyoung," I told her over the phone, "Please let me in."

It did not take long before the door opened and revealed Sooyoung.

She was far from the everyday Sooyoung she would project to the world. There were no cosmetics on her face, only tear streaks. Her eyes did not have their usual shine, they were swelling from too much crying. Her hair was in a mess.

Sooyoung looked so devastated.

The phone on her hand was long forgotten as she collapsed into my arms. I hugged her tight in return as she cried over my shoulders.

"I believed him, Dahyun," Sooyoung sobbed, "I believed him every time he said he loved me."

I caressed her back and replied, "It's okay to hurt, Sooyoung. Just let it all out. I'm here now."

I then lay with her in her bed. I held her hand as she was curled in a fetal position. She looked so vulnerable.

"I shouldn't have fallen in love," Sooyoung cried, "Now, it hurts so much. It's not just my heart that feels broken. Every part of me feels the pain."

"It'll be gone," I assured her.

"When?" she asked, "Tomorrow? Next month? Next year?"

"Maybe not so soon," I tucked the strands of her hair behind her ears, "But in time, the pain will go away."

She nodded quietly before she asked, "Did the pain go away for you, Dahyun?"

I smiled sadly at her before I admitted to her and to myself, "I'm afraid not yet, not completely."

When Sooyoung graced her thumb upon my cheek, that was the only time that I realized that I was already crying.

Yet I beamed, genuinely this time, as I promised her, "We will heal."

----------

The morning after, I woke up before Sooyoung did. She was obviously too tired from all the tears she had poured out. I roamed around her unit and cleaned – picking up all the traces that Sungjae had left, everything that would remind Sooyoung of him.

I could still remember the things that Sooyoung had done when it was I who came fresh from a breakup with Jungkook. My world crumbled then but Sooyoung would pick up all the pieces and reconstruct me. In the first months of my break up, she would visit me often with a scolding, but now, I know that she was only constantly checking up that I was fine. I smiled as I remembered that she even prepared a list of the most eligible bachelors in the world, just to prove that I had better options.