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Ji-yoon begins to follow her around again after that night. Do-hui only feels relieved. She’ll readily take this opportunity to see her friend again, if only in the most dysfunctional of ways.
It helps, too, with the intense loneliness that she feels.
“Ji-yoon,” she whispers at night when there is no-one there to hear her. “I don’t think I can do this. Can’t I join you already?”
If she shuts her eyes tight enough, she can pretend that there is an answer, that her friend really is there beside her. That instead of the silence and the thoughts slowly suffocating her, there is Ji-yoon’s calm voice telling her what she wants to hear.
At the gravesite, Do-hui stares down at the offerings she had brought the previous time she had visited.
Before.
The flowers are sad and withered now, no longer the blushing blooms they had been when she had bought them.
“You were so much stronger than me,” she says, speaking to the essence of Ji-yoon which still lingers about her. “I know that now.”
She wished her eyes would stop leaking water. She keeps running out of tissues.
“Ji-yoon. Why us, Ji-yoon?” she finds herself asking again. “Do you know the answer yet?”
“I miss you so much. I miss you so much…”
Ji-yoon, her wonderful, tortured friend. Do-hui knows in her heart that she was the only one who could ever have helped her through this. Who else could understand the pain she is going through?
It tears at her in new and terrible ways now, though, to think back to what Ji-yoon had suffered through. She cannot bear to recall the things Ji-yoon had confided in her, not now that she has felt an ounce of what that must have been like.
Those memories haunt her anyway. She can pack her schedule as tight as she wants; swim as long as she can stand to; train as hard as her lungs and her muscles allow her…but in the end, they find a way to get to her.
They always find a way.
If she wasn’t so afraid of President Park she would have gone as far as trying drink, or drugs. Just to see if those, at least, would get rid of the thoughts. Or the feelings. The memories.
She is tempted to do so now, more than ever.
When she falls asleep exhausted after each long training day, her dreams are filled with memories of those last years of high school. There are none of the sweet memories: only the ones where she felt fear, anger, sorrow, helplessness. They mirror the way she feels these days when she is awake and not in a periodic state of numbness.
“Ji-yoon? I’m here now, are you going to be long?”
“Oh. Do-hui. I-I don’t think I can make it today. I’m sorry.”
“What’s wrong with your voice? Ji-yoon? Ji-yoon! Don’t hang up-"
Running. Falling, scraping her knees on sharp gravel. Pushing back up, trying to remember Ji-yoon’s address.
Rattling the gates barring her from that house. Pressing and pressing the redial button on her phone. Screaming loud enough for the neighbours to peer out their windows.
“Ji-yoon, how could you still not tell anyone? I’m begging you, please, let’s tell someone-“
“I told you, I can’t do that. Please, stop asking me now...”
“Look what he’s done to you this time! What will he do next time? I’m scared, Ji-yoon.”
That sickening copper scent again. Blood, so much more blood than she’s seen at once. The glaze on her friend’s eyes...
“Ji-yoon, why don’t I stay at your house tonight? Maybe if I’m there-”
“No! No, no, no. Don’t even ask me that. It’s not safe.”
“Then stay with me. Okay? Ji-yoon?”
“Ji-yoon?”
“Ji-yoon?”
“Ji-yoon, I didn’t even get to say goodbye…”
...And enough salt and water to fill up her lungs and choke her.
Do-hui starts to drink more and more coffee, trying desperately to stave off sleep. But it’s not long before her swimming record begins to suffer even further than it already has.
Coach forbids her from continuing her new habit. “You need to sleep, you fool. I don’t care how much you love your coffee. One cup in the morning is enough. Understood?”
She doesn’t respond. She wonders how long she can keep her mask from falling apart.
“How did you do it, Ji-yoon?” she asks her friend who isn’t there. “I wish you could tell me how. It’s too hard. I’m not strong enough for this.”
She thinks about the people around her and finds herself weeping again, knowing that there isn’t a single one among them whom she trusts enough to talk to.
The loneliness which clings to her is harder to stand as each day goes by.
She wishes, fleetingly, that she had spent more time cultivating the connections she had made in high school.
But oh, that medal. That gold medal. She hears President Park’s voice in her head again, there without her permission. Don’t waste your time with those kids anymore. You’re made for better things. How will you ever win gold if you’re busy messing about with your classmates?
She tries, she really does. She can’t let President Park down, not after all she’s done for Do-hui.
But she is only a girl, and her mask is only so well-made, and she can’t keep it up forever.
And so when it gets even worse - she runs, and she hides. If only for a little while.
She knows she can rely on herself, after all. The monsters of loneliness and desolation can swallow her right up if they want. She’s known them for a long time now. She’s been in and out of their clutches before.
Ji-yoon, I’ll join you one day. But not just yet. I’ll follow in your footsteps. I’ll stick around for a while. Just as you meant to do.
I’ll carry on living for both of us.