The Name // Park Junhee

; six ;

My shaking fingers successfully typed in his number on the screen as my hand slowly brought the phone to my ear. A few rings and still no answer, “Sorry the number you have dialled…” I hit the red button as the woman’s voice hit my ear.

I ran a hand through my morning hair, getting frustrated. I opened up our conversation from last night, “last seen 10.30pm”. “Kim Donghun please. Don’t do this to me.” I whispered to my phone, to myself, more like praying to every God there was that nothing bad had happened.

I decided to take a quick shower before went outside to look for my lost love.

My eyes were wild, looking at the road, and my phone at the same time as my fingers were busy trying to call our bestfriend who went to our high school and happened to attend our university as well. “please pick up” I talked to myself as the line rang a few times before a deep voice answered my call.

“GOD FINALLY!” I screamed to the phone, not even allowing him to finish his “hello”. “What the fuck it’s only 8am and you’re already screaming?! Did your pet die or something?” Sehyoon asked, obviously annoyed that I interrupted his beautiful weekend morning.

“Worse. Donghun is missing.” I made a turn at the traffic light to drive into the university – it was weekend so there were not many cars around which means that I will not get into a car crash or anything for driving while talking on the phone. Maybe something came up at the university that he had to stay the night here or something.

“You’re talking about Kim Donghun, a grown-up, a university student, the most responsible person I know – missing?” sarcasm was evident in his tone. “I’m serious! Did you see him yesterday? Last night?”

I pulled over, not caring how badly my car was parked. I still need to find my boyfriend so I decided it was not a wise choice to talk on the phone while driving, especially when I’m talking to someone like Sehyoon. “I saw him yesterday evening and that’s it.”

“What time? Where? Did you guys have a proper conversation? What did he say? Did he say something about me? Did he say he didn’t want to be with me anymore? He didn’t want to come home? Did he say anything? Just fucking anything?!” At this point I was crying, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I just wanted to see Donghun and hug him and make sure that he was fine, that he didn’t hurt himself, that he still want to be with me, that I was just being paranoid.

“I don’t know, I think it was around 6 in our faculty, probably having a project discussion or something.”
“Is he with a girl? Do you know her?”

“His classmate.”

“His soulmate?”

“Wait, you know about Sua?” I heard noises from his end of the line, probably him getting up from his bed now that the conversation is getting interesting.

“Yea we talked about it the other day. Did he say anything to you though?”

“He asked me about knowing someone with the name ‘Soeun’ or something and that it’s weird now that you already got your soulmate’s name.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Know anyone named Soeun?”

“No. Is she…” he stopped, trying to find proper words to finish his question.

“my soulmate? Yes.”

“oh…” was all I got from him.

“Anyway that’s not important. Do you know any of his friends? Classmates or anything that maybe saw him last night? Or maybe do you have Sua’s phone number? She’s probably the last person he saw last night.”

“That I can help you. I’ll send you Sua’s number. Or do you want me to call her for you?”

“Send it to me. I’ll talk to her myself. Thanks.”

“Yea, no problem. Just call me if you need anything. Oh and I have her address if you want.”

“Better. Send both to me and yes, I will.”

We ended the call and not long after that I received a text from Sehyoon with a contact number and address attached. I punched in the address into my car GPS and drove off to wherever it took me without second thoughts.

I decided that it would be better if I call her first so I took a deep breath and let it out with a loud puff, making sure my voice was not as shaky as before, that my cry was not evident in my voice, before clicking on the contact name. I brought the phone closer to my ear and a voice answered the phone after a few rings, sending chills to my spines.

“Hello, who’s this?” It was Sua’s voice. What was I expecting? Of course it was her, I called her.

“Hey, this is Junhee. I hope you still remember me.”

I stopped my car almost immediately when the GPS notified me that I had arrived at my destination.

So she lived in a housing area near campus, the house was big, bigger than a normal student could afford so I assumed she is quite well-off. There were two cars parked in front of her house, one was a black Ford and I couldn’t see the other one as it was covered by a tree.

“Oh yes, of course. How could I forget? Can I help you with anything?” her voice was low, she sounded sick, though I could hear she was trying to sound more cheerful. Did something happen to her?

“I fixed you something to eat.” A familiar voice said in the background, it was too familiar that I felt a rush of tears, that I could break down anytime. I miss that voice.

“Thanks.” She replied to the person before coming back to me

“Sorry about that, what was it again? Oh yea, can I help you with anything?” she asked again, all too casually.

“Umm.. I just want to ask, if you…” I stopped, right at that moment I saw a familiar figure came out from her house.

I felt like throwing up. I shook my head in denial. I felt a lump in my throat, tears threaten to come out anytime.

“Hello, Junhee? You there?” she asked again. “Actually, nothing. I’m… I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

I ended the call as the tears that welled up in my eyes rolled down my cheeks. “Fuck the name, I love you and it will always be you” his voice played in my head like a broken record. “It will always be you” the voice repeated,

“yet here you are, spending the night at her house?” I questioned rhetorically, more like monologuing to myself, trying to deny the reality.