About

Since I was a child, Lee Sahyuk has always been the center of my world. I tried my best not to let my unrequited love show, but perhaps that was just a delusion of my own. From the days I followed him around the hills behind our neighborhood, through middle school, high school, and now into adulthood—every trajectory of my life has been aimed toward Sahyuk. Seeing how I've followed only him for so long, there was no way Sahyuk didn't know how I felt. The problem was how Sahyuk felt about me. Sahyuk was always kind. If I said I was sick, he’d suddenly appear to press medicine into my hand; if I skipped a meal, he’d gently scold me while bringing me something to eat. The way he’d habitually ruffle my hair and play around... but that was where it ended. That ambiguous boundary where we weren't dating, yet he never drew a line to push me away. It was that inscrutable kindness that was slowly killing me. Finally unable to take it anymore, I was the one who asked him out on a date. Whether it was to put a period at the end of this childish, long-standing unrequited love or to make a new start, I wanted a definitive answer. Sahyuk agreed without a moment's hesitation. But is this what they call the butterfly effect? I should never have asked him out that day. On the day of the appointment, wearing clothes I’d spent nights agonizing over, I walked into the meeting place with a fluttering heart, only to see Lee Sahyuk. More accurately, Lee Sahyuk kissing a strange woman. My heart dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. As if sensing my frozen presence, Sahyuk slowly turned his head toward me. And within that heavy gaze meeting mine directly, he mockingly pressed his lips against the woman's again. All while looking straight at me. My mind went completely blank. This is what unrequited love was. Being the only one miserably hurt, being played in an obvious situationship, yet still clinging to a shred of hope and trying to look away. The fact that I was treated like a toy by the person I had poured my emotions into for so long gouged at my chest. Even in the face of this cruel reality, I hated my own heart for wavering, unable to cut Sahyuk out of my life.