Sublimation(103)

“Why do I like you?”

“I wouldn’t put it so high school. But—I guess, what were you hoping for?”

He leans back on the couch. Stares at the ceiling. Soyoung looks around the room. Where’s his wallet? She doesn’t suppose he has it on him when he’s at home. It’s probably where he keeps his keys. Her eyes dart around the short hallway. There—on the side table. Next to the key ring. His wallet.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the future,” YJ says. “If I don’t reintegrate. If I don’t go back to Korea. If I do go back to Korea. All the combinations. And I was thinking about what you might want, after. I know Soyoung’s in love with someone else. But I guess I kind of hoped that there was a chance that Rose and I might be—compatible. After.”

“Compatible.”

“It sounds bad when I say it like that, I guess. I just meant—I like you. I like you a lot. And I know you like me—some amount. Some amount of liking. As friends, as—me and you, it felt like we had some sort of connection, right? Like if we met at the right place, the right time, I could—”

He sits up. Rubs his face. His cheeks are red.

“I’m really pouring my heart out here, Soyoung.”

“I thought this was a rebound, for you. Something casual.”

“If it was anyone but you, it would be,” he says, and each word is enunciated perfectly, like he’s pulling teeth.



* * *



When the man on the other side of the Auraji wades to the side where his lover stands, he must expect some kind of homecoming. Something commensurate with his efforts. He must think that his desire is matched, that there is a reason for him to leave. But it’s just a story. Maybe instancing for unrequited love is more romantic.



* * *



“So, um. I guess this isn’t reciprocated.”

It is. That’s the thing. It could be. She likes him, bad decisions and all. He’s indecisive, he’s too much of a people pleaser, he doesn’t always know what he wants. He waits too long and lets the world happen to him in the meantime. But every version of him is kind. He is the sort of person who helps his friends, when asked. Underneath everything, he’s someone she would be happy to come home to. She’s not yet in love with him. She could see a world where a version of her loved him.

“I’m not saying it’s not,” Soyoung says. “I’m just saying—I don’t know how Rose will feel, after.”

“Okay,” he says. He’s smiling a little.

“But you shouldn’t have let that dictate what you were going to do, with Mitosis.”

“Soyoung, like you said, it’s all personal.”

They could fall into an argument again. They could end up circling the drain, arguing in circles. But she thinks this is enough to lure him into a false sense of security.

“Can I actually get that cup of tea?”

“Sure,” he says.

He gets up for the kitchen. Soyoung walks over to the bathroom and while her body is covering the motion of her hand, she swipes his wallet from the side table.

She closes the bathroom door behind her and locks it. She sits on the toilet. Stealing his wallet was easier than she thought it would be. She pulls out the cards. Credit cards, ID, small change. Sandwiched between the credit cards there’s a blank white piece of plastic, and a second card that has YJ’s name and photograph. He looks a little sad in the photograph. Soyoung feels bad for a moment. But not that bad. She takes both cards and slides them into her back pocket.

Soyoung closes the wallet. She flushes the toilet, runs the sink. She opens the door with the wallet palmed loosely in her hand behind her as she smoothly walks past the side table and redeposits the wallet on the table before walking back.

She leans against the counter. Studies YJ. The line of his body. The way he moves his arm while grabbing a cup. This is the last time she’ll see him. She won’t exist, soon. This is the last time they’ll interact. She should go. It would be less suspicious, to leave. To go home, and spend a couple of hours pacing before she goes into the Mergebreak offices.

He glances at her.

“What?” he says. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

She’s going to miss him, that’s all. She’s going to miss being the her that can miss him, the way she feels about him now. She’s never going to see him again. She just doesn’t want any more regret.

“Come over here,” she says, and he walks around the counter, and she pulls him close, and kisses him on the mouth, and his hands land softly on her hips, and then grip harder, as she uses her fingers to unbutton his shirt, one button at a time.



* * *



There must have been a length of time, if only the length of the walk between the center of Eden and the gate, where Eve had thought about all she was going to lose. Everything she would never see again. The trees and the animals and how she would never be able to look at Adam naked without knowing that he was naked.



* * *



She leaves, after. He wants her to stay. He’s falling asleep, he grabs softly at her wrist when she lifts from his body. But she goes. She has things to do. She kisses him, open-mouthed, while he’s still lying naked in bed, and she pulls on her pants, her bra, her shirt, her socks, her shoes, and then she leaves.