From then on, I was alone again. I sank in silence. I tried my best to maintain myself. I returned to my life. But inside I found an emotion that didn’t exist before. I was lonely.

I consciously avoided Song Sori. I felt my body heat up when I saw her. I wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment, lust, or both. I just knew to be ashamed of it. I avoided it, and that was to abandon Song Sori.

For some time, Sori tried all kinds of shit to get my attention. She’d pull my chair, or pop out of a corner. This one time, she just stared at me from the opposite end of a hallway. I just walked past her every time. As if we never knew each other. Song Sori would try to bother me in front of me, but she never drew attention to herself by talking to me. She never did anything to draw unwarranted attention to herself. In a way, that might have been the source of her natural, gravity-like pull. It was a power she was losing touch with the more time she spent with me. In due time, she was surrounded by others again, and seemed to give up on me.

I recovered myself but lost something else. It was like something that was always there for me had disappeared. There was a hole in my heart. Had I lost it? Or did someone take it away? Maybe it wasn’t that I lost something, but rather I lost my own place.

When I sat somewhere, I unconsciously left one seat to my side. When there were long periods of silence, my right ear became itchy as if someone should whisper in it. As summer drew its end, the sun would cast a shadow on me, and I felt empty when there wasn’t another shadow next to mine. Most of all, I couldn’t stand listening to music on my own. I listened to the album “Revolver” by the Beatles repeatedly, and I could not hold back the tears every time “Here, There, and Everywhere” would play. Something is off.

Solitude is underrated. Solitude provides many benefits. It gives you time. Time to think. If more people spent time alone, we would surely see more innovations.

But to a human being, it is important to change according to the moment. Before I knew it, what was most important to me was for Song Sori to be at my side. And without her I was like a meaningless story, a worthless tool. My value had vanished.

What did I want at the end of the day? To go out with Song Sori? I liked her. Becoming aware of my instincts had brought me humiliation. Then would I be satisfied if I confirmed that she felt the same way about me? How long could we suspend our summer for? Could we continuously climb up and down the walls of ‘friendship’ and ‘love’ forever? What did I want? I crumbled down because I could not answer this question. I didn’t know what I should do. I had become just like those that I made fun of for being obsessed with love. I knew what I had to do next. I knew I had to tell Sori my feelings. Even though the story was laid out before me, even though the song was written out for me, why could I not take that one step any faster? It’s a foolish thing, to know that you should do something but to not do it.

It’s not like this stalemate would maintain itself forever, though.

It happened in gym class. I felt sick so I just observed. But that was, again, half a lie. It was less that I felt sick, and more that my body was instinctively aware that my inner systems have been rendered dysfunctional. My breathing was unstable, and it was hard to walk. But this is the weird thing about broken machines. Once you get used to it, it’s hard to internalize the fact that there’s anything wrong with it. I had already turned my heartbreak into reality, so I didn’t realize it. But my body knew.

I leaned over a wall, where there weren’t people around. And I observed the other kids. Well, I say that, but mostly I looked at Song Sori. She was playing badminton with some girls not far away from me. She was smiling, running around as she sweat. Her shoulder-length hair was flying in the air. Her gym outfit was too large for her physique, so her small arms popped out of her sleeves like tiny sticks.

I watched Sori like that, looked away in case she noticed me, but then looked at her again. But it’s not like there was anyone aware of me there. The only person who was disgusted with me was myself. When Song Sori was within my sights, I felt dirty. I wanted to gouge my eyes out. When those thoughts overcame me, I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, Song Sori was running from way over there. Flying like a butterfly.

I’m not sure how much time passed while I did that. Then at that moment - probably when I was looking at Sori again - something came flying toward me and hit me. (I learned later that it was a soccer ball.) It should have hit my left eye. The impact was massive enough that my sight was temporarily gone. I couldn’t see, my mind was racing, and my head was in a state of total disarray. I could hear properly, at least. I heard someone’s voice, and someone else’s voice was layered on top of them. But so many voices were talking over each other that I soon became unable to recognize any of them. As that happened, an ear-piercing drone started to ring in my ears gradually. If that ringing was the instrumental, the mixture of voices were like chords. Before I knew it, I was panting madly as if I was suffocating. I held my aching left eye with my left hand and clenched my chest with my right hand.

I tried to see with my other eye to the best of my ability. Everything was blurry but I could tell somebody was standing in front of me. My head was aching, like a drill was piercing through it. But I grit through the pain and raised my head to get a better look at them. As time passed, my sight cleared up more. It was some glasses wearing boy I didn’t know. He seemed concerned. Him and the other boy around him seemed to be asking me something. I watched their lips move. But there were so many voices that I could not hear anything they said.

Then the voice of a large man roared throughout the gymnasium and everyone ceased to talk. At that moment, the ringing in my ears finally stopped as well. I lowered my hand from my eye. I could see what was happening more clearly. The boy was looking at someone coming from the side. It was probably the teacher. Then he turned to me, like he realized I was looking at him. That’s when his words sent a chill down my spine. They were three words he had been repeating all this time - “I’m sorry.”

When I heard that, every thought in my head halted. The ache in my head and eye also stopped. My increasingly unstable breathing, and the boy repeating the words “I’m sorry” - that was all I could hear. I clenched my fist. I’m not sure, but my body was reacting to these words with repulsion. I could feel my sweat drench me, and my eyes seemed to be leaking something too. I cannot express in words what kind of emotion I was going through at that time. On one side, it might’ve been that I was touched by the thought of anyone being worried for me. But most of all, I felt insulted. It was insulting and repulsive, to the point that I could not handle that empathy reached out to me. It was a truly irrational response. I was wrapped in a kind of sheer hatred which cannot be conveyed in language.

I don’t know how much time there was in between when I heard the teacher’s voice and when I punched the boy. I just know that beating him up felt like an eternity. I threw myself toward him, shaking my fists and screaming. With a murderous intent, only wanting to kill the person in front of me, I hit that boy whose name I didn’t even know. This probably didn’t even last 5 to 10 seconds. I was soon separated from the boy by the teacher. In my memory, the boy did not attack back at all. It didn’t even seem like he was hurt at all on the outside. As I was dragged away by the teacher, I saw his face. He seemed more confused than anything else. I did not resist the teacher’s arms, but my screaming voice was piercing through the eardrums of every single person inside that gymnasium that day.

When I calmed down somewhat, I looked around. Song Sori was there by my side. She was holding my arm with a concerned look on her face. She was trying to keep me still. I have no idea when she came up to me. Puzzled, I tried to say something to her, but my throat ached so much from shouting so much earlier. To my front, I could see the teacher talking to that boy. Then he looked at us and told Song Sori to take me to the nurse’s office. Sori pulled my arm. “Let’s go, Sia.” We both exited the gymnasium.

The way to the nurse’s office was quiet. Suffocatingly so. On our way there, Sori cleared her throat and asked me something. “Does it hurt?” I answered. “Yeah.” She didn’t ask anything until we arrived.

There wasn't anyone inside the nurse’s office. Song Sori sat me down on a bed and went to find a towel. The only source of water was the water purifier, so she drenched the towel with that and put it near my eye. I moaned a little. Then I took the towel away from her hand and told her I’ll do it myself. I put the towel over my eye. Actually, I took it from her to wipe away my tears. But when the water ran by my face, it looked like I was crying even more.

Song Sori told me to wait here until the teacher comes back. I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t think of anything to say. She stared at me for a long time. It was so awkward that I couldn’t think of anything but to look at her back. We stared at each other and Song Sori seemed to be more nervous than ever. She opened her mouth.

“Sia, did I do something wrong?”
I sighed. “Are you on about this again?”
“Yeah. Because I can’t tell what you’re thinking. Ever since we met, even right now. So I wish you’d just tell me. Do you have a problem with me?”
“No. You’re not the problem...”
“What is it then? Why won’t you talk with me?”
“That’s on you too. You won’t talk to me either.”
“But it’s awkward. Do you really need me to start the conversation? Is that all our relationship amounts to?”

Sori’s voice became sharper as she questioned me.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked her.
“I think you are my friend, Sia. But I don’t think you think of me as a friend. Is that right?”
“...” I couldn’t think of an answer for a moment.
“If I’m not the problem, then what is it? I’ll listen to anything. Honestly.”
“You’re not the problem. If anything, I am.” I looked down at the floor.
“Huh? Why would you be?”
“That’s...”
“You’re always like this. Why do you always blame yourself? Why do you lie to yourself, and degrade yourself?”

Sori came near me and crouched down. And she breathed in deeply and said this.

“How can I get you to love yourself?”
“You are one to talk, Song Sori. You deceive yourself too. You have no right to lecture me on deception.”
“What...?” Song Sori gasped and let out a sound.” How could you even say that? Sia...”
“What is it? Are you sick of me yet? Hard to be friends with someone like this? Then throw me away. It doesn’t matter to you anyway.”
“That’s not true, Sia. I wanted to be friends with you. That will not change, no matter hard you are to deal with.”
“Every single problem you can find from me, I learned it all from you. The deception, the self deprecation; all of them.”
“Can you even believe these words yourself? How could you even...”
“Am I wrong? Can you say you are any different from me?”
“...”

I kept staring at Sori. She wasn’t saying anything. She looked anxious.

“That’s right.” I said.

Sori stretched her back and stood up. She looked to the side. Looking at her face from an angle, she had a face filled with many emotions; sadness, regret. I heard myself panting. It was hard to breathe properly.

“Then...”

Sori said after deep thought. I don’t think she heard my rapid breathing.

“Why? Why would you... imitate me?”
“Because...”
“It is as you said. I am not admirable. Then why?”
“Why...?”

Ahh. I see. It was this moment. Now I remember.

My mind went blank. I realized with my instincts. I cannot answer this. Out of every question in the world, this is the one I mustn't answer. But I already could not think properly. My breathing grew louder. It was like the words would burst out of my chest. That was a bomb in the shape of language. And my voice was the match to light its fuse.

“Because I... love you!”

And then - kaboom. The sound of my love crumbling down.

I yelled, I cried out. Song Sori’s eyes went open side, and she looked at me once again. What kind of face was she making? There was some shock in there - even looked confused. In a way, she looked hurt there. For me at the time, what that face meant wasn’t of much concern to me. I continued to cry.

“I wanted to imitate you because I loved you. I wanted to listen to your music, become just like you. No, I wanted to BE your music. Just as my life was yours, I wanted your life to become mine as well.”

I gulped. I wasn’t even sure what exactly I was saying. I coughed and my throat ached. But I never stopped looking at her. My head started to hurt again, and there was a weird sound inside my ears.

“I... I...”

I? As the bomb went off at this very moment, I realized these feelings that I didn’t even know of myself. It would have been nice if my confession didn’t play out like a nervous breakdown. In that moment, it was as if the world around me was breaking down. All of it was swallowed up in a black void; the only thing left standing was Song Sori. And, as I fell down in that bottomless pit, I was dedicating my dying words to her.

“I didn’t want us to just stay as friends.”

I could not think of anything more to say. No, I could not think of anything, period. I had thought my life was basically over at that point. I lowered my head and covered my face with my hands. My face was incredibly hot. That’s when I realized my body had been feverish since some time ago. My head was spinning a bit but that wasn’t a problem. I wanted to die. That’s a thought I’ve had at various points in my life, but never have I meant it so seriously than at that moment.

I heard Sori’s voice.

“I’m sorry.”

I heard a door opening and closing. I lowered my hands and looked to my front. She was gone. I could only hear my unbalanced breathing. I quietly cried more in that place. Then the nurse came by and looked at the mess that I was. She cleaned my face and applied something. She probably thought I was crying from having been hit.

That was the last conversation I ever had with Song Sori.