Collection 2017, Spring: Unperturbed

d

I think it's rather shameful to discover that the person you treasure the most doesn't know you well enough to be a passable friend. Or that you aren't well-acquainted enough to be as close to your said most treasured person as you wished you could. But what's even more shameful is that you are already content with the way things are, even if it can be different and you can make it different but just don't. What I mean is if I had been more talkative or open to him, we would be running around on the top of the daisy hill or chasing each other through the wildflower meadow and playing hide and seek among the sequoia trees under it. We would have been best friends. I still believe I can make it happen, but I just don't. Because of my foolish contentedness of staying quiet and mysterious with him. The contentedness of being someone to bring serenity and company to him instead of effervescence and positive energy. It's strange. We choose to mind our own businesses and keep our stories to ourselves but give each other the needed comfort when we collapse. I'm here, a few hours after Sunday sunrise. I wanted to be at our place for the whole day. My house is getting boring.

It's been a while since I touched my sketchbook. I've been coming here without it for a few weeks (maybe three?). The Sunday after being without him, he showed up on sunset, surprising me with a thermos of conch soup and a bottle of soju right after I finished writing an entry. He proudly said that his colleague had cooked it for me when he told him about a friend (namely, me) who was in distress to feel warm inside and it was his specialty. He watched me eat it up slowly and then grinned while opening up the bottle. And an hour after that, the sky turned a few shades of orange darker than the light pink it used to be, and we became completely drunk. Nevertheless, I think I can remember some of the things we said.

"How old are you?" He rambled on, "I don't even know your age and yet assume you're legal to drink. But the argument that our place is in the middle of nowhere and it would take at least five hours to go back to the city on foot made me believe that you have your driver's license even though I've never seen your car. Speaking of which, how are we going to go home tonight all tipsy without ending up in jail?"

"I don't know."

"How old are you." It sounded more like a sentence than a question.

"I'm twenty one."

" '95 or '96?"

" '95." He smiled at my answer

"Me too."

"Why did you bring soju in the first place when you haven't thought of how to deal with being drunk?"

"I have a high resistance for alcohol. I'm probably super tired right now, that's why it's getting into me so fast."

"I've only ever had alcohol with my employees during office parties. And even so, I only take two shots each time."

"You work already? Don't you go to college first or something?"

"I run the family business and I got homeschooled about it during my senior school years so as soon as I graduated, I was put in an office. You have a colleague, what's your job?"

I don't suppose he heard the last question so he nodded.

"That's cool," he added in praise. I cut him off. I was drunk, so I just said what I was thinking and didn't regret.

"It's stressful and hard and tiring and uninteresting and I don't like it."

"Oh."

We lied down to heave a breath of sunset air.

"I hope you find your happiness soon," he said.

"I have."

"That's cool too."