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Chapter 5 – Chronicle with patience.
And I was happy. No matter the change in the lifestyle, I was radiant with happiness. I was in love with Dae-jung.
We spent every minute together. Dae-jung took me everywhere he went and demonstrated himself not only as an indifferent bloke, for whom a girl is nothing more than an ornament to his beloved self, but as an attentive and caring boyfriend, who cared not only what I was wearing, but whether I ate well, how I felt and how my day at school went. In general, my assumptions that with dating him my quiet life had come to an end were not justified, and my risky decision to follow my heart did not bring only disappointment. We visited a huge number of spellbinding places – we went to the aquarium and the zoo, went out of town to open-airs and various parties; many times Dae-jung took me to the cinema and cafes, and even once for di
But there was also a lot of fretting. Dae-jung, although he was not stingy with compliments, never told me about his feelings, and I was lost in guesses when his behaviour was contradictory and illogical. He was not afraid of losing me and never indulged in emotional conversations, arguing that “I already know everything,” and to my direct questions about whether he had any feelings for me, he preferred to either dodge or close my mouth with a kiss.
Often his so-called comrades came to the rescue, who answered for him that “Hey, Dae loves you, you don’t seem to see,” or “Stop nagging, the guy is already yours, you are the one and only for him.” But this was catastrophically not enough for me. We did not have much time for dates because of studies and Dae-jung’s numerous friends who jealously took him away from my already rare moments alone with him, and all this, overlapping one another, made me an insecure, constantly afraid of betrayal girl who, no matter how she asked, was never awarded any confirmation that her feelings were not unrequited. I knew a lot about Dae-jung, but nothing at the same time. I knew everything about his family and character, dreams and fears.
He told me how his mother died of breast cancer and how his father, a mechanic, almost went crazy with grief, trying to accept the loss of his wife. Dae-jung had been working since the age of nine, delivering newspapers and working part-time with his father, repairing cars to somehow make ends meet. Dae-jung himself did not like cars at all; he preferred motorcycles and saved for his own, hoarding every spare pe
He said that he did not care about the opinions of others as long as they did not hurt him with at least some poorly thrown word. That is, fights and skirmishes, as it is understood, have never been avoided. Dae-jung was very handsome, and conversations about his appearance, ranging from classmates sighing for him and ending with envious comments from guys, always went by the ears, but poisonous phrases like “Where is your mom, why not at the meeting?” or “Hello, half-educated mechanic, you are only destined to fix cars” always ended with the separation of the fighting and calling the unfortunate father to school. Dae-jung had never dated a girl in the traditional sense of the word. He was seen with one, then with another, and with none at the same time. And when he publicly a
And there was so much I did not know about him – where he spent time when I was not around, with whom… Why he never shared anything about himself willingly and why all his life, no matter how close I was to him, remained a mystery…
And yet, I was in such a relationship for half a year, at the same time being the happiest and unhappiest girl in the world. And at a moment when I never expected anything like this, I heard the most terrible thing:
‘Why are you looking at me like that? Go away!’ Dae-jung’s half-drunk voice brought me to a standstill.
‘I-I don’t understand, Dae-jung,’ I blinked, my eyes filling with hot tears. ‘Why do you say that…’
‘Are you deaf, Bi
‘What are you saying? Are you breaking up with me right now?’
‘Yes, Bi
I pondered these words painfully, veering between apathetic torpor and hysteria. Dae-jung was sitting on a bench, waiting for his friend, when I approached him. The weather was so incongruous, su
But here I was, humiliated, in tears, and I felt pi
Dae-jung kept hissing me away, but I did not even hear him anymore. I felt like I was underwater. Now I would come up with a breath of fresh, slightly tingling air, as in my childhood, after jumping into the tarn and wash away all this dirt.
I do not have to answer him. His insensitivity infected me enough. I’m coming up to the surface.
‘Bi
‘I heard you,’ I uttered, flabbergasted, and turned to walk away.