This is a poem I wrote before the end of summer.
Spring, summer, autumn, winter
And the one which hurt the most
Summer, stuck as memories
I can only feel the deep scent of nostalgia
Summer is a burning heat
Plotting its deceitful cheat
Flirting with an added treat
I can only feel the deep scent of nostalgia
That is autumn’s optimism
That is the sky’s pessimism
That is everybody’s escapism
I can only feel the deep scent of nostalgia
That was your voice
That was life-changing music
That was the road you walk
I can only feel the deep scent of nostalgia
Summer is a broken memory
Learned wisdom and its treachery
Confessions of a tear, a reverie
I can only feel the deep scent of nostalgia
Spring, summer, autumn and winter
And that which I loved the most
Your ark, singing dyslexia
That deep scent of nostalgia.
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This is a weird thing to admit, but I never knew what touching someone felt like until then. My family is not particularly abnormal, but we aren’t exactly comprised of social people. I never received much physical affection from them growing up. But maybe too little of that stuff is better than too much. My mom didn’t really express love in that way, except for when she would grab my arm in a crowd. (Not my hand; my arm. Mom was a weird person) Of course, I heard plenty of verbal affection. That’s why I grew up into such a cunt. It probably wasn’t her fault though.
So on our way from school, I was going to the record store with Song Sori. I followed her footsteps and saw her back. Her hair was around chest length, and it let out a sheen when the summer sunlight shined on it. The shoulders of many people passed by, yet the only thing on my mind was the girl in front of me. I never would’ve gone through such a crowded route in the past.
We saw a crosswalk and stood next to each other. When I stood next to her like this, my heart would pound so hard that I could die. Not even thinking about couples; even if you’re just friends, when she’s right next to you and you can’t even see her, what do you even do? Just don’t say anything? Sometimes give her a look or something? Or maybe just act ‘natural’. I had no idea what these words even meant.
The progression of how I saw Song Sori went as thus: ‘Irritating girl -> Weird girl -> ??? -> The girl I like” - up until that point. In every stage, I sort of saw her as someone not in the same realm as mine. Standing next to her needs no explanation; even seeing her was such an abnormal environment. So the fact that we can stand by each other as ‘friends’ - that we can be on equal footing - it was so confusing. Especially because in my heart, I knew I wanted to take this relationship one level further.
As we waited for the red light to turn green, my tension would heighten.
When it was almost time, I tried to move my feet but felt some sort of weight being wrapped around my left arm. When I turned my head, what I saw was Song Sori linking her arms with mine. It was already a hot day, but my left arm started to feel like it’s burning. The heat went all the way up to my head. I could picture my face getting redder in my head. Before I could finish that thought, I pushed away Song Sori’s arm and got her off of me.
The light turned green and the people around us started going ahead first. Song Sori didn’t look offended; just confused. I didn’t mind us doing stuff like that. I even wanted to hold hands with her. But when I thought about doing something like that with so many other people around, I suddenly reacted with disgust. It was a kind of self deprecation - how dare someone like me be seen with Song Sori like that? If there’s something funny though, it’s that nobody looked when we crossed arms. But when I pushed her away so dramatically, that’s when I could start to actually feel people’s gazes.
“Hey!” I raised my voice.
“Yeah?” Song Sori laughed and tilted her head. “What’s up, Sia? Don’t like touching?”
“People are looking...”
“Oh yeah~”
Song Sori laughed even louder. Then she held my hand like she was snatching it away from me, and brought her face close. I instinctively stepped back. I thought I was going to fold, but she held on even tighter to me. I remembered the first time Song Sori reached her hand out to me. That time, she grabbed my arm and pulled me around, but this was the first time we could feel each other’s warmth like this. My world became white. The only thing I could see was that exultant face of hers.
“That’s the point.”
That’s when I learned what it felt like to touch someone. Love was soft, and warm.
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We were overlooking the Han River.
To us, who lived in the city, the vastness of the Han River was our only impression of nature. When you looked down at the emerald green hue of its flow, it felt like you were being hypnotized. It was by no means a sanitary river. It was dark and polluted. Once the novelty of ‘living near the Han River’ dissipated, no merit remained. So I didn’t come often.
But she - Song Sori - loved this river. She had brought me there, of course. She used to say this. “Inside the Han River are memories. It’s flown for thousands of years, accumulating history. But I don’t mean the history you see in books, of great men and women. You can observe people’s everydays in these waters. What these people did in this place across all these years. In a way, looking at this river is like listening to a song. When you listen to a song, you cry at things that are no big deal. People like you, or me, can put their stories into song, and we can understand those stories like we’ve lived it. You look at the Han River and you understand other lives.”
Then, after speaking for such a long time, she laughed, saying, “Or is that so?” I never took my eyes off of her while I listened. Not even for a moment. After that, Song Sori got embarrassed, and grabbed my hand to pull me away to the Han River.
So we sat at that hill which overlooked the Han River, watching the river flow.
“This time will pass, too.” Song Sori said.
“Do you want that?” I said.
“That’s not it.” She smiled. “But when that time comes, I don't want to have to cry.”
“I’ll never leave you.”
She laughed. “Thank you. I didn’t mean you’d do that.”
“Then what do you mean? Tell me.” I kept asking her, which was unlike me.
“I don’t know. I think your thoughts would be more fun to hear.”
“I wouldn’t think it strange if you were to stop talking to me. Someone like me doesn’t deserve to be with a person like you.”
“Don’t say that!” Sori raised her voice. Her face turned serious. “Sia, you’re amazing... Your fault is that you always take words at face value. But the way you find emotions like that is cool, too. I can’t do that. I can’t turn other people’s thoughts into my own.”
“Is that so.”
“I don’t want to leave you. I want to believe you feel the same.”
“Of course.”
“But nothing lasts forever... I know that well.”
“Who said that? I need to file a complaint.”
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“Haha...” Sori let out a laugh, a weak one. “You would have to file it to me.”
“That’s impossible, then.”
As we watched the Han River, we had a moment of silence. I looked at Song Sori’s eyes. The flow of the river was being reflected in her eyes. In them was a kind of wisdom that I could not describe in words. I felt like she was speaking from experience.
“If one of us has to leave...”
Song Sori said.
“Then let’s forget together.”
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July was ending too. This day was the second and last time I ever went to Song Sori’s house. It was a pretty average summer day. I assure you, things like fate don’t exist.
That day, Song Sori was particularly more down than usual. It seems like the lackeys that hang around her didn’t notice it. It’s not like I can say I perfectly understood her, either. But there were certainly signs of anxiety in her voice and her face. I didn’t selfishly go up to her in school or something. But something was different after school. Usually, she would wait for me by the school front gate, but instead she was trying to head home right away. I saw that and felt an unmatched sadness. I chased her and blocked her way to home. I just stood next to her without saying anything. Song Sori raised her face. It looked like she was letting out a sigh of relief.
Song Sori didn’t want to go to the record store and I didn’t ask further. Even before she mentioned that there was no one home, I was already following her up the hill.
Being in her house was less awkward than before but it was still pretty weird. Though, this time I decided not to head straight into her room. I followed her to the big living room, which had things like a refrigerator, a television, et cetera. The wall on the opposite end was open and led to a yard. There also seemed to be a door to the bedroom for her parents but I didn’t go there. I sat in the living room, feeling the wind that passed by my ears.
I couldn’t see Sori so I turned around. Sori was sitting on her knees, staring at the floor. I thought she was praying or something. In silence, I watched Song Sori, who had her face down. She was sleeping. I didn’t want to wake her. So I watched the sunlight, and the shadow that sunlight created as it beamed upon the living room.
When she woke up, she gasped loudly. As she stood up, she kept saying “sorry” to me, like she was speaking to her boss or something. I nodded. She sounded like she was about to cry. I think she wasn’t apologizing to me, but rather to herself.
“I can’t sleep well recently.”
“You can’t sleep well?”
I instinctively repeated her sentence about sleeping. I couldn’t sleep well all my life, until I met her and it got better. Perhaps I became afraid it worked the other way around for Sori.
“Are you alright?” I asked a meaningless question.
“Yeah, I’m okay. It feels good to have Sia looking out for me.
“What?”
“Well, you seem like the kind of girl who doesn’t worry or care about anything... Oh, is that bad to say?’
Song Sori smiled and her face became bright again. And, as if a lightbulb lit up in her head, she exclaimed and told me to wait for a moment. I thought she was going to get another record. While she went to her room, I laid down on the floor in the meantime. It was cool and chilly. It was a particularly windy day, so it was even more chilly.
Song Sori came back with a keyboard wrapped around her. When I tried to stand up, she told me it was okay to stay down. Apparently this was one of those keyboards that didn’t need to be plugged in to make sounds. Sori installed the stand, while facing the yard.
She started playing a piano piece without any explanation. It was a digital sound so it didn’t sound clean, but the melody formed a nice tune. I thought I had heard it before, but classical music wasn’t my strong suit, so I quietly searched my memory. But there was no need. It was that song that I heard over the speakers the first time I came to the record store. (I looked this up later, but it was an aria called “O Mio Babbino Caro” from the opera Turandot.)
I could only see Song Sori’s back, but her emotions could be heard in her performance. The velocity would become stronger, but the tempo never changed. I was only hearing her play for the first time, but I could tell her talent at first glance. (Or first listen?) The song itself was simple. But that minimalism is how she could attach her own feelings to it. It was as if each note being played from that keyboard had her sweat and tears on them.
The performance lasted for only a short 1 minute and 30 seconds. Sori no longer seemed like the girl I knew. I thought that I had formed some special relationship with Sori by listening to music and talking with her. I considered myself different from anyone else at school. But even I had never heard Sori express herself for 1 minute and 30 seconds like this before. And now that she had shown herself, I felt so stupid. I was no exception; I had approached her with selfish intent as well.
As I had these thoughts, I stared at Sori dumbfounded, and she took this to mean I was left speechless. She laughed by herself. When I heard her laughter after such a long silence, I woke up. I stood up. And I didn’t know what to do, so I just walked in front of Sori. She looked at me weirdly and said, “What’s wrong?”. I couldn’t answer her. Except, those words that came out of my mouth were ones I had been burying deep inside my heart all this time; the same words that I could not let go of.
“I love-”
“...Huh?” Sori interrupted me.
“The performance. I loved that.”
“Oh~ Yeah...” Sori sounded like she was disappointed. “Well, obviously! Thanks, though.”
Sori held both of my hands with hers. I still hadn’t internalized what I just said and what they meant. I just wanted to do whatever she wanted to do.
“Kay, kay. I could play more fun songs. Do you have any requests?”
“Play whatever you want, Song Sori.
Song Sori made a surprised face. “Did you just, call me Song Sori?”
“You don’t like it?”
“No. I just thought... that might’ve been the first time you called my name. Hee hee.”
Song Sori made a weird laughter and started turning some knobs on the keyboard. She seemed to be changing the sound. She soon started playing again. This time, it was a synth sound that sounded like a string instrument. They started forming harmony. The notes seemed to fly in the sky. They were elegant, comfy. Like a mother’s embrace, it emitted nostalgia familiar to the ears. When Sori started playing the melody with her right hand, I instantly recognized the song. It was from Spring Summer Autumn Winter’s first album, “I Guess Everyone Changes.”
It was difficult to not be surprised. I wasn’t all that curious about how she knew the song. I was just surprised it was this specific track from that album out of all the others. But it wasn’t time for me to ask about that. I chose to sink myself into the music instead. Before I knew it, I started humming along. Sori slowed down her performance and looked at me.
“Sia, do you know this song?”
“Huh?” Then I finally realized I was singing along. “Yeah.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. I just remember hearing it once on TV.”
“TV? Like in a commercial?”
“No, the band was playing it. I don’t remember their name. I remember the whole song though.”
“You... memorized all of it?” I couldn’t even believe what I was saying.
“I’m just going off the top of my head. But if you know the song, then it’s perfect! Sing for me.”
“What?”
“I... So I only remember the chords. I don’t really remember the lyrics. You sing it for me.” I didn’t really get it, but I did understand the part about me singing.
“No.” I turned my head.
“Aw... C’mon~”
Sori grabbed my hand with her right hand and started playing the notes with her left hand again. I looked at her face. It was completely different from the one I saw at school. I saw those genuine eyes that only I knew; that smile she made only for me. I wished that she could always make this face. I wished that she didn’t have to fake a smile even after having fallen asleep as soon as she got home because she was that tired. I wanted to provide for her a hundred - no, a thousand more smiles. For that, I thought I could do anything.
I sang, tightly holding onto Sori’s hand. I had the lyrics all memorized since I was a kid. But it was worlds below what Sori had done, learning the entire song just from hearing it once on TV. I kept looking at her and continued singing. Sori was focused on the keyboard. I looked at her face by her side, and it was as if I could sink myself into her. I could not believe I was living in the same world - in the same time as this person next to me. I could not believe that we could meet each other.
When the chorus came, she let go of my hand and started using her right hand to play another melody. Now she was completely focused on the performance. I kept singing by her side. I sang like my throat was going to break. It was embarrassing, but I thought it’d be fine if it was next to this girl. I wanted to believe that she also thought it’d be fine if I was the one hearing her performance.
My lips went dry and my eyelids became wet. For a brief moment, we became one. Changing each other, turning nothing into something.
> “
>
> I guess everyone changes
>
> Yeah, because I changed too
>
> After seeing you change
>
> I had also changed.
>
> “
>
> - “I Guess Everyone Changes”, Spring Summer Autumn Winter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38T7qvWRCw0)
>
>