Sublimation(63)

You look away.

“I don’t mean to jerk Yujin around. I wasn’t consciously taking too long, I just—I wanted to get us in the best position. But I grew up. I started wanting different things. It’s too late to change my mind now.”

You look back at her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause a situation that’s pressuring you into anything. Like, I said I’d help, and I mean it. I’m not—it’s not—”

She makes a sharp gesture with her hand.

“I reciprocated.”

She speaks so smoothly. You almost wish you were Soyoung for a moment, with clear-cut problems and goals, not your own messy heart. You rub your eyes.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. My girlfriend broke up with me last month and I don’t think I was ever in love with her but I want her back.”

Soyoung’s looking away from you, out at the skyline. You wonder what she’s thinking.

“I don’t know why I keep wanting to tell you things. I’m sorry.”

She looks back at you. She’s frowning a little.

“I think you’re kind of doing the thing that guys do, when they want to tell their feelings to a woman to get them to interpret their emotions for them, because they seem like a safe person. And I think the way that you’re acting is really, like, this is rebound energy for you.”

“No, I—”

“I don’t mind,” she says, like it’s a surprise for her as well. “I think I kissed you because I wanted to do it, because neither Soyoung nor Rose would have done it, if that makes you feel better. You’re a rebound for my entire life. You’re revenge for the fact that I exist. So this was fine. But it can’t be anything more than—this. Just this, right now.”

She pauses.

“I don’t know if Yujin told you, but Soyoung’s engaged.”

She smiles.

“So, you know. I’m not good people, either.”

Engaged? Yujin never told you, you don’t think, or he had told you in the sort of vague passing that slid in through one ear and out the other. It hadn’t been relevant to your life until now.

“I never understood why he didn’t ask you out.”



* * *



There are three versions of the story behind “Arirang.” In the first version of the story, the man falls into the river and drowns. In the second version, he never tries to cross at all, and instead the lovers sing from across the river in the way that only people in mythology do. In the third version, he steps off the banks of the river and leaves his other self behind.



* * *



When Yujin had started talking about Soyoung, you had thought this was an unspoken girlfriend situation that he didn’t want to disclose to you. You had assumed he just felt strange about it, because you would have felt strange about it, at the time, with the divide between your selves so new. Yujin had just said that he and Soyoung had reconnected in college. That he could have friends without your input. He said it so reasonably, so matter-of-factly, that you hadn’t asked any further. But you knew yourself, so you had been a little surprised that he had never tried anything. Soyoung being in a preexisting relationship would explain that.

Soyoung drums her fingers on the table. She makes a sort of thoughtful noise.

“I think Yujin likes girls … a bit girlier? And Soyoung’s been with Tae during the entire time they reconnected.”

She gives you a look like she’s seeing you here, in your entirety. It feels like she’s looking at you and not seeing Yujin.

“YJ. I’ll make you a trade. I’ll try and look around for you, on floor twenty-six, and I’ll hold off on telling Yujin that you don’t want to reintegrate until you feel comfortable with it. And you let me into the research study that makes sense. And we can be friends.”

You are so tired of letting the sensible, good part of you dictate your choices. You are tired of being lonely. You are tired of being alone. You look away. You close your eyes.



* * *



In the versions of the story where the man risks the deluge, when his desire for connection overwhelms his common sense, the story branches again. Sometimes the man who crosses dies, and the only living instance of him is the one separated by the Auraji. Other times he lives, and there are two versions of him on the bank. In some versions, he is drowned by his lover.



* * *



“But you will tell him.”

“Only if you don’t,” she says. “But it won’t end well, if you don’t.”

“I’m not like you.”

“Well, not yet,” Soyoung says.

You’re quiet for a moment.

“I know that we have some complicated history, and I guess I don’t have all of it yet, because it doesn’t belong to me until Yujin and I reintegrate, and I don’t want to seem like I’m pressuring you into anything. I accept your terms—except for the last one. The—I don’t want to be friends with you by agreement. I don’t want you to take pity on me. I don’t want you to kiss me because you think you have to. So, this is unrelated to the rest of it. All the business stuff. I’ll add you to the research study, and in return I’d appreciate if you kept things quiet with Yujin, and if you could let me know if you see anything interesting in there. But I would like to be friends, without strings. I’d like to have—it doesn’t have to be permanent. It doesn’t have to mean anything. I’d like to see you—like, socially.”