the summer of 1993 ── dohwa baek - Chapter 20: Chapter 20

"I want to be a neurosurgeon!"
An innocent discussion was happening among academy friends about what the blossoming youth of Seoul desired in its future; to be an idol, to be an actor, to be rich. Such were the flights of fancy of many.
Y/N's smile was bright as her unexpected answer resonated within the walls of her academy. Some of her peers whistled in awe, while some were confused as to what she meant by that complex term. Not a lot of kids were interested in the medical field at the age of seventeen.
She, however, was interested in anything and everything that was difficult to reach. The harder the process, the more determined she became to wade through the treacle. Her parents were more than happy to nurture her dreams, even if they were horribly expensive. They shone with pride every time she set out her perfectly crafted plan in front of them──high school, college, job, no drop years and no room to falter. She would work herself to the bone if she absolutely had to, but she would rather die than steal the joy from their faces. Now that she had given them hope, she would protect it with everything she had.
No distractions, ever.
"Woah! You're the coolest!"
...Except for her seatmate Nabi.
The students around her nodded in agreement, holding a sparkly glint in their eyes. Y/N couldn't help but mirror their radiance.
She continued. "I'm aiming for Yonsei University."
There were collective gasps of surprise in the small space. Nabi's jaw went slack, hitting the ground like a heavy anchor.
"Their acceptance rate is like, 18%! Are you sure?"
"There's no other option for me. I have decided already, so I guess I'll just have to study hard enough to get into it."
"You're the coolest!" Everyone repeated Nabi's words together, looking at Y/N as if she were the personification of a fabled constellation.
The girl let out an embarrassed laughter at the compliment, trying to brush the tints of roseate away. Her stress had multiplied tenfold ever since the summer vacations dragged to an end, because with the beginning of classes, came tests. She needed to make up for the mess she had made during her last Math mid-term, to never repeat that mistake──her teacher still seemed pretty mad at her for it.
She was forcing herself to focus solely on her studies whenever she went to the academy, actively avoiding the telephone booth on the way. In fact, she had changed her path altogether. It was that serious.
But she was fine. She did not mind walking a little more than usual, thanks to the walkman Seojun had gifted her. And she definitely did not care about that dingy place enough to visit it again. Why would she, anyway? She already had so much occupying her mind; tutoring Eunji on Tuesdays, assignments, her cat, school, Dohwa's fac──
Ugh.
"Wanna walk back home together?"
Nabi's question hung in the air, giving Y/N a much-needed escape from her pesky thoughts. "I need to drop by the departmental store, so I thought I'd tag along with you because you go that way too."
Y/N blinked. "Of course."
She hadn't been taking that route for three weeks now, but she could do it today... for Nabi, obviously. Not because she needed an excuse to see the telephone booth or anything. Nope.
"Neat!"
It was not neat.
Nabi headed home immediately after buying the things she needed, and she just so happened to live on a completely different side of the world.
She had left the anxious girl to her own devices. Which meant her brain sprang into action, chanting the same mantra over and over.
The booth! The booth! The booth!
There was sufficient change in her pockets to use. She had a contingency reserve prepared at all times──because her heart couldn't help but gravitate towards the idea of making one last call. Directly ending a friendship, without communication, over something mildly embarrassing was not her cup of tea. She was supposed to be the mature one. The understanding one. The Grandma. The fossil. The dinosaur. Whatever the hell Dohwa nicknamed her.
She didn't even realise when her feet took her to the old spot, her chest tightening at the sight.
It wouldn't hurt to talk at least once. It...
"Fuck it," Y/N muttered, stepping into the glass-walled cuboid with purposeful strides. Her fingers had memorised the pattern of dialling his number, the impatient coiling of the wire, the nervous trembles. They knew what to do before Y/N herself did. Her gaze darted everywhere at once; at the cobwebs, at the moss around the corners, at the light scratches on the metallic borders. Her ears barely registered the agonising rings, as if protecting her from further nausea.
Don't pick up. Just give me a reason to leave.
"Hello?"
...You just never listen, do you?
A churn in her stomach. An uncomfortable bubble in her throat. A wave of sweat taking over her palms. Her body fell victim to the tsunami of her emotions.
And all of a sudden, Y/N was a dumb, clueless, lovesick fool again.
The moment she heard the familiar lilt, the unnoticeable crack, the scratchy undertone, she understood just how much she... knew his voice. How much she missed it. How much she subconsciously picked on its details──was she supposed to run from it, until she couldn't feel her legs? Was she supposed to embrace it?
"...Hi." She croaked, like a wheezing frog desperately trying to sound casual. "What's up?"
No response came. Only breaths, weak and shallow.
"Dohwa?"
"Um." A cough sputtered out of his mouth, "I... Uh, did you accidentally call me or..."
Y/N wanted to slam the receiver back onto the device and stomp off. But instead, she gathered a few fragments of her patience and attempted to form a much nicer sentence.
"Are you deaf or did you just not hear me say your name ten seconds ago?"
Unfortunately, her tongue was stronger than her kindness.
"Yep, that's my Y/N." Dohwa said with a snort, and that was enough to break the girl's numbing glaciers to pieces.
She rolled her eyes, relaxing a little as the previous tension chipped away. "Right. Why are you so surprised?"
"Well, I thought you'd never talk to me again, so..."
"Honestly? That was the plan until today."
"Hey!" Dohwa exclaimed, "You were actually going to leave me like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like... uh... a loser..." He drifted off.
Y/N cracked a smile. "I'm glad you're aware that you're a loser."
"Y/N!"
"Dohwa!"
"I'm serious." The blond complained, adding to Y/N's amusement. "You just disappeared without a hint. Do you hate me that much?"
"...Hate you?" She echoed. How in the world did he manage to deduce that from a literal confession?
"Of course! You hung up before I could say anything, and after that, no call, no dream, no nothing... for weeks."
Okay, he had plenty of reasons to deduce that from a literal confession.
"I was..." Scared. "Busy. Leave that. I'm back now, aren't I?"
She was stupid to think that things would be ruined between them because of a few words, stupid to doubt their friendship, stupid to doubt her feelings.
They didn't need to talk about any of that. None of it mattered, at least at this point. What mattered was the beautiful laughter she so dearly cherished, reverberating in the shell of her ears.
Dohwa hummed, a certain softness in his tone. "I missed my unbearable Grandma. Welcome back."
"I also missed my favourite tone-deaf idol. But only a tiny bit." Y/N said with the same gentle cadence, ignoring his noises of protest as he registered the sentence. "Sorry, Dohwa. I didn't mean to... pop out like that. I guess I was just overwhelmed."
"No, no, I get it! Don't apologise. I mean, I put you in a tough position and──"
"It can't be a tough position if I like being in it." She stated nonchalantly.
"Huh?"
"Nothing."
Dohwa released a tumultuous grunt. "You're not leading me on, are you? Because that was definitely a flirting attempt."
"Not at all," She feigned indifference. "You have a lot to catch up on. You know, Seoj──"
"There you go, pissing me off again." He clicked his tongue, akin to a child who didn't get to eat the dinner of his choice. Y/N could vividly imagine the pout on his face. "I don't wanna hear about my competition!"
"Wow, look at you. So confident." She said, sarcasm evident in her voice. "Go back to being shy."
"I... I'm pretty shy!" Dohwa countered. "If I was confident, I would've been much more honest than I am right now!"
"Yeah, yeah. But Seojun was never a competition."
"Was? Did he die?"
Y/N gasped. "Shut it! He just... moved away."
"No way." Dohwa's volume was raised by a few decibels at the reveal, betraying his excitement. "The big bad villain is finally gone!"
"Big bad villain? You're insufferable."
"Okay, you onion peel. You can't pretend that I'm infuriating to you anymore."
Y/N was trying. She was trying her best to not steer the conversation back to the topic they had struggled with. She wasn't brave enough to face it yet──the gravity of her heart's affection, and his. She wasn't brave enough to embrace it, either. They were impossible. They would always be impossible.
Even if they figured out a way, they would just be... timelines apart.
"What makes you think I'm pretending?"
"...You don't dislike the people you want." He mumbled, half of his words blurring together into a mist of incoherence. "Was I that easy to forget?"
Forget? Him?
Y/N couldn't even bring herself to be offended at the blatant accusation, because she was too taken aback by the impossibility of it. This boy was so deprived of reassurance, and her soul was as old as time, well-versed in satiating his qualms.
Knowing him, a few pats on his head wouldn't do the job. The psychology of Baek Dohwa had much more spirals than anyone else's.
"When I was six," She started, leaning her shoulder against one of the sides of the booth. "I got ice cream every Sunday from an old lady's stall. It has been closed for nine years now, but I still remember the taste. Sweet and sour." A pause. "When I went to Haeundae beach a while back, I brought home two shells that looked like hearts. They're still in my room." An inhale, almost unnoticeable. "The first time Eunji fed me her homemade Sulppang, I almost teared up. That was three years ago in the month of February." A shift in her position. "I can recite your phone number like my own name──it's funny, because I never even tried to sear it onto my brain that hard."
Dohwa sighed. "You remembered my number, but not me?"
"I can't forget you even if I wanted to," Y/N answered simply. "I'm built of memories; of people, of places, of everything I've ever loved, however brief."
Leaves rustled outside. The evening humidity plummeted, whisked away by the cold gales. There was a canopy of dark clouds reigning above the city of Seoul.
In both 1993 and 2023.
The duo knew that, how?
Because of the quietness shared between the two. The line exchanged only the susurrated whispers of the weather, the pleasing tunes of the sweet breeze, the air escaping from their parted lips. They didn't have to sail the boat of their language. Their silence was fluent enough.
You basically told me that you love me.
Of course I did. What's there not to love?
"Is there..." Dohwa pierced through the bubble, sounding feeble. Nervous. "Is there any way for us to dream together again?"
I want to see you.
"You never know until you try," Y/N said, staring blankly at the droplets that cascaded down the sky.
Me? Why?
"Good. You better not ditch me."
What's there not to see?
On the bustling street, a bright red truck screeched to a stop. An official one──Y/N noticed upon closer inspection. A handful of people stepped out of it; probably workers, by the looks of their uniform. They were assessing the area, the headlights conveniently falling on the telephone booth and the fire hydrant right next to it.
There wasn't much to see. An abandoned plot, an almost-empty departmental store near the turn, and a long line of street food stalls swarmed with passersby──it was a portion not many inhabited.
Y/N tore her eyes away, worried that she might look like a creep with the way she was observing them.
"I would never dare to ditch a knight who saved me from the big bad villain." She chuckled, sweeping her distracted musings under the rug.
Dohwa's grin was almost visible as he spoke.
"My princess, that's what the knight was made for. To be your shield."
"No."
"What do you mean no?"
She beamed.
"He was made to be someone's first choice."