The Unreachable Star
“I know her well. Probably better than any of Narae’s other friends, don’t you think?”
Best friends really were something else.
“Tell me everything you know about Yoon Narae’s family situation.”
“Narae’s family is a deep line of educators. Her grandfather is a KAIST professor, and her father is a professor at Seoul National University. Her mother’s a teacher at a private high school, her younger great-uncle is the principal of a private middle school, and her older great-uncle is the principal of a private high school. On top of that, her uncle is a superintendent of education. That’s about as much as I know.”
“......”
Wow. That’s no joke.
Learning that her family was the kind that belonged in a drama or a movie left me speechless. I was going to have to rethink how I treated Yoon Narae from now on.
Hearing about her home environment made her obsession with academic performance at least somewhat understandable. But that obsession had crossed the line into something that could only be called madness, and more than anything, her inability to refuse other people’s expectations—whether you called it a personality, a conviction, a stubborn streak, or just a habit—was still far beyond my grasp as the root of the real problem.
That was how bad Yoon Narae’s condition had become.
“You said before that Yoon Narae had been a study bug from the moment you met her.”
“Yeah. That’s right. She put academic grades first above everything else. But this kind of situation… this is the first time……”
She was clearly replaying the day Yoon Narae had snapped at her.
I could hear the faint tremor in Jo-hwa’s voice as she kept her head down.
That day was still vivid for her. And every time she remembered it, the anxiety returned—the fear that the friend she loved more than anyone might leave her side, that the vast oasis that had quenched her thirst better than anything else might dry up.
“How about you calm down first? Here. You like strawberries, right?”
I held out the strawberry latte I’d ordered out of curiosity because it was advertised as a spring special. Jo-hwa took it without resistance and drank deeply through the straw.
“It’s sweet. Delicious.”
“Good. Feeling a little calmer now?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Whether she was actually okay or not, her words and actions still didn’t match—she was hanging her head even lower than before—so I decided to give her a little more time. Rushing only made you trip and fall.
We were sitting by the window, and the spring sun was blazing, so the way she turned her head and fanned herself with her hand didn’t match the Jo-hwa I remembered from the past at all. Was this really the same person?
Sometimes she seemed unchanged from before; other times she seemed completely different. We’d been hanging out little by little for over a month because of our deal, but there were still plenty of moments when I couldn’t get used to it.
“Yeah! I’m good!”
She recovered fast, at least.
“So it wasn’t this bad back in middle school.”
“That’s why my head hurts too.”
There were probably many reasons Yoon Narae clung so hard to her studies.
Her family environment, the pressure that grew heavier with time, the question of higher education or employment. She was almost certainly thinking about university.
If you set the family environment aside, none of those things were all that different from what ordinary students faced. And yet Yoon Narae was anxious and restless. That meant there had to be some other reason.
There was no such thing as a result without a cause.
So what was it?
Was there still some special reason buried in the family environment we didn’t know about?
“Is there anything else you know?”
“Hmm……”
Jo-hwa thought hard as well.
Jo-hwa was a genius. No one could match the way her mind worked. The fact that she was taking this much time to deliberate carefully meant the problem was that important to her.
“Ah!”
“?”
She must have remembered something.
“The educator family thing was unusual enough, but there’s one more thing. On her father’s side, Narae is the only granddaughter.”
“Huh……?”
What does that have to do with anything?
“I heard this two years ago. Narae said that because of it, the relatives put huge expectations on her. She even mentioned that she sometimes felt a heavy burden.”
“?”
The grandfather I’d seen hadn’t looked that rigid. He’d been a grandfather who adored his granddaughter—the kind who would laugh “ho ho ho” no matter what result she brought home, praise her for everything, encourage her, and soothe her. A complete granddaughter fool.
Maybe it was an occupational habit, but his speech sometimes carried a slight official stiffness, yet it never seemed like a real problem.
Was that why I’d felt so strange seeing Yoon Narae’s frozen expression during that first hospital visit?
“How do her family members actually see her? Have you witnessed it yourself?”
“Of course. Her parents love her so much. They treasure her just for existing. And her grandfather is the worst of all. Total granddaughter fool, I’m telling you. When Narae collapsed for the first time as a kid, she caught a glimpse of her parents getting chewed out badly. You saw it yourself that time, right? How much honey dripped from the way her grandfather looked at her. He comes running even if she just catches a light cold. He sighs and sighs when she’s not around.”
So my guess had been right after all.
Then where was the problem?
“Do the other relatives bully her or anything?”
“I’ve never seen how the relatives treat her, so I don’t know. But even if they had complaints, they wouldn’t be able to say them easily. I heard her grandfather’s influence in the family is absolute.”
So what was the reason?
No matter how hard I thought, nothing came to mind.
I wanted to dig it out myself, but my own physiological limits made it impossible. Damn it!
Why had Bu-myeong noona ever thought someone like me—someone who trembled like a coward and hid behind fear the moment he tried to close the distance with others—could form real connections with people?
Had she truly believed I would be able to build relationships going forward?
Had she expected it just because I’d reconciled with Jo-hwa?
I didn’t know.
Jo-hwa had been a special case; only after all kinds of twists and turns had we barely managed to start over.
I’d been thinking about it for the past few days.
Why did I feel such resistance even to learning about someone else’s family situation?
I didn’t need long to find the answer.
Because my own—our own—family situation had been so bad. That was what I believed.
A family’s private affairs were an organic staircase far too sensitive and fragile for outsiders to set foot on.
That was why I, why I……!
“Jo Yul?”
“!”
“Are you tired?”
“No. I’m fine. Just thinking for a second. So in the end, even the relatives can’t touch Yoon Narae easily?”
“That’s how it is.”
Then only one reason remained.
Yoon Narae’s misunderstanding. Her delusion.
Of course that wasn’t a certain answer. It was simply what was left after eliminating everything else one by one. From here on was the real work. And Jo-hwa’s role would be far bigger than mine.
For a while this would be Jo-hwa’s stage.
I needed to step back into the audience seats for now.
“You said it yourself, right? That you hated just sitting still. Perfect timing. From now on your role is the biggest one.”
“My role?”
“From this point on, I want you to play a major part in clearing up Yoon Narae’s misunderstanding.”
“!”
Her unfocused, trembling pupils told me exactly how she felt.
“I understand how you feel. Honestly, no matter what outcome Yoon Narae faces, I can just look away and be done with it. It wouldn’t be easy, but still. You’re her best friend, though, aren’t you? The kind of bond you can’t lose easily. You’re tied together by a stubborn connection!”
“……Yeah.”
“You want to save her, don’t you?”
“B-but……!”
“Throw away the fear!”
……Who was saying that to whom……
“Where did the bold, confident Jin Jo-hwa I know disappear to? If you really want to save her, then overcome it. That’s the only way you can protect your own paradise. Do you truly want to save Yoon Narae?”
“Of course I do!”
“Then stop shaking. Don’t be afraid. People are creatures who wound each other and heal each other at the same time. The fact that nothing had happened until now was the real miracle. Regretting without even trying versus regretting after trying. Which one do you think is more profitable?”
“I… I……!”
She was still wavering between hesitation and fear. I didn’t fail to understand. But to solve this problem, she had to overcome it.
She had to choose one of the two options.
“Regretting without even trying is what a coward does. Success rate zero percent. Profit zero percent. But no matter how low the success rate is, the moment you challenge it, the moment you start, the success rate rises. The possibility isn’t zero! Choose the one-percent chance over a zero-percent success rate!”
“......”
Please don’t make me see that worst scenery from the past again.
“All right. Choose. What’s your choice?”
“My choice is—”
Don’t make me feel my own powerlessness and patheticness again by forcing me to watch that worst scenery from the past once more.
Don’t let me feel the wound.
Let me see a beautiful ending.