Is This Even Possible?
Ever since I ran into Chae-yeon, I couldn’t get that moment out of my head. The way she moved so carefully, the way she greeted me in a voice so soft it barely reached my ears.
She was so different from the girl I remembered that I started wondering if the Chae-yeon I’d known back then had only ever existed in a dream.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“If you can’t even do that, what are you good for?”
“What kind of guy is weaker than me?”
That was the Chae-yeon I used to know…
“Hello…?”
And now she was like this.
I guess the saying that people change over time isn’t just empty words. But does it have to be a complete one-eighty? It’s impossible to keep up.
“Mom, where did you put that old photo album?”
“Check the storage room.”
I stepped into the storage room and started flipping through dusty albums. After a long search, I finally found the one filled with pictures of me and my childhood friends.
To look at pictures from my early years, I had to confront my own dark history too.
If this could fix the cognitive dissonance rattling around in my brain, I was willing to endure it.
When I opened the album, a chubby little boy who looked like he might roll across the floor greeted me. It was none other than me.
Back then my curly hair had been even worse—so bad it looked like instant ramen noodles—and since I only ate and never moved, I basically lived as one giant sphere.
Yeah… maybe I shouldn’t have opened this. I kind of want to gouge my eyes out and rinse them with water.
I endured the humiliation and kept turning pages. After the section packed with my own childhood photos finally passed, pictures of me with Chae-yeon started to appear.
Of course, these were from elementary school, so it was only natural that we looked different now.
The reason I’d gone through all this trouble was to see if even the slightest trace of her old self remained.
There wasn’t a single one. No matter how hard I looked.
At this point, I could probably convince myself she was a completely different person.
Come to think of it, I remembered Mom had a copy of Chae-yeon’s high school graduation photo. Her aunt had sent it when Chae-yeon finally graduated.
“Mom, didn’t Chae-yeon’s aunt send her high school graduation picture?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Can I see it?”
“Go ahead.”
In the high school graduation photo, Chae-yeon still had the same face I remembered from elementary school. For the first time, I felt a little relief.
So when exactly had she changed so drastically? Both her appearance and her personality.
She’d graduated, retaken the college entrance exam, and even gone through samsu, so until she was twenty-two she probably hadn’t had time to care about her looks.
That meant the change must have started after she entered university—at twenty-two…
Is this even possible?
They say a woman’s transformation is a sacred right, but I never expected her to change so completely that I wouldn’t recognize her at all.
The action I’d taken to calm the cognitive dissonance in my head had only made things even more complicated.
In times like these, reaching out by message was a good option.
Even though I struggled to hold a conversation face-to-face, texting would probably yield much better results.
I took a deep breath and typed the first words into the pristine white chat window.
It felt like Armstrong’s first step on the moon. That’s how much courage it took for me to send that message.
If I’d texted her right after we met, it would have felt like a natural follow-up. But sending a message days later without any real excuse just felt awkward. So I used the fact that she went to school in another city as my conversation starter.
Before long, the “1” that indicated she’d read the message disappeared.
She came back to Gwangju last week and she’s back again this week. Traveling back and forth must be exhausting. Is home really that comfortable?
If she had asked why I suddenly messaged her, I probably would have died of embarrassment and thrown my phone across the room. I was grateful she gave me such an easy opening after my difficult first step.
I stared hard at the last message I’d sent and began crafting the next part of the conversation in my head. But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with anything that sounded natural.
What was I supposed to do?
Thankfully, the topic Chae-yeon threw out let the conversation flow naturally. It felt incomparably more comfortable than talking face-to-face.
If we kept building rapport like this through text and then met in person, the conversation would probably go smoothly. There was no more perfect plan than that.
It really was the last thing I expected. There were so many other clubs, yet here she was doing something that somehow seemed to fit perfectly with being a Korean medicine major. I never would have guessed.
Did that mean she played the janggu and spun the sangmo? I’d have to ask her about it next time.
Entering university, going to freshman orientation, joining a club.
She looked like a college student through and through. Meanwhile, I…
Aside from going to school, I didn’t really do anything.
It felt like she was trying to comfort me, even if it wasn’t exactly comforting. Whenever I told people I wasn’t doing anything besides going to school, they always reacted the same way.
The conversation that had flowed so naturally eventually came to a natural end. It was so comfortable that the awkward atmosphere from when we’d met in person now felt strange.
This was the first time I’d ever had such a long text conversation with someone of the opposite sex, so the feeling was oddly satisfying. Even with other girls, our chats were usually short and we wouldn’t talk again for a long time.
Maybe she was the type who found texting more comfortable too. She hadn’t been like this before, though.
“Son, come help your mom for a second.”
“Yep.”
I immediately answered Mom’s call and hurried to the kitchen. Even though it was my day off, I would have liked to rest a little, but Mom always tried to make something whenever she was home.
Looked like today’s lunch was braised chicken.
“Mom, aren’t you tired? Take a break.”
“If I don’t cook on my days off, I never get the chance. Then my son won’t have anything to eat.”
“Your son can take care of himself better than you think.”
“Even if you don’t feel like eating, you should still eat at least two meals a day. Otherwise your body will suffer.”
“I’m trying to eat as much as I can.”
“I saw the braised beef I made last time and there’s still a ton left.”
“Uh… I just felt like eating something else.”
It wasn’t that I wanted to skip meals. I just didn’t feel hungry, so how was I supposed to eat?
Ever since my body ended up like this, appetite had become the lowest priority desire for me.
If I felt hungry, I ate. If I didn’t, I didn’t. That was my standard for meals. Because of that, eating only once a day was pretty common.
“Earlier when I went to your room, you were smiling while looking at your phone?”
“Huh?! You came into my room?”
“Yeah. I was going to ask for help, but you looked so focused.”
“You should’ve just said something. How did I not notice?”
“You must’ve been really concentrated. What were you doing that made you smile like that?”
“I don’t know if I was smiling. I was texting with Chae-yeon.”
“You’ve been in touch with her since then?”
“Today was the first time.”
The look in Mom’s eyes changed while she was cooking.
Since my social circle was so small, Mom always listened carefully whenever I talked about friends. In moments like these, I could just relax and spill everything.
“She’s in a samulnori club. It was surprising.”
“Really? I didn’t expect her to be in samulnori. But it suits her.”
“You said it suits her even though you didn’t know?”
“When you think about Chae-yeon, doesn’t it seem like it would suit her?”
“Maybe? I’m not sure.”
Chae-yeon wearing traditional samulnori clothes and playing the janggu. I couldn’t say it didn’t suit her. It might even look pretty cool.
“Mom, are you happy that Jung-woo and Chae-yeon are talking again?”
“Why would that make me happy?”
“It’s nice when childhood friends who drifted apart become close again.”
“We’re not close yet.”
“If you keep in touch, you will be. It’s done. Let’s eat.”
Mom smiled and changed the subject.
To be honest, I did want to become close with her again, but I wasn’t sure if it would go the way I hoped.
Even if we did become close again…
It probably wouldn’t feel the same as it did back then, right?