{ 17 }

Dara woke up to the sound of her doorbell’s insistent ringing. She barely had time to wash her face before opening the door. There, she saw Bom, TOP and Youngbae, looking nervous as they stare at her.

“Dara-yah?” Bom cautiously called out.

Dara had temporarily forgotten about her fight with her friends ever since she met Jiyong. The only thing which occurred to her these days is that she needs to help Jiyong regain his memories, which is why she was surprised that the three of them really got troubled to go together. All of them were busy. Bom, who’s writing song lyrics for YG Entertainment and also runs a coffee shop, TOP, who was the head of the marketing department of a well-known company and of course, Youngbae, who was now a resident doctor.

“Oh… Why are you guys here?” Dara asked.

“We’re really sorry if we lied to you, Dee noona!” TOP instantly answered.

“Yeah, Dara noona. We feel really bad. This is our first major fight as friends and it certainly doesn’t feel good.” Youngbae added.

To the three’s surprise, Dara smiled. “Aniyo, it’s not your fault, guys. I understand that you guys only wanted to protect me. Besides, you didn’t actually lie since I didn’t ask you anything about Jiyong.”

Bom, TOP and Youngbae curiously looked at each other before eyeing Dara. “Yah, something happened right?”

“Did you meet Jiyong?”

“Have you guys talked?”

Dara nervously tried to avoid the questions. “Yah what are you guys talking about?”

“Sandara, you haven’t mentioned his name that easily in the last five years.” Bom answered seriously. “Even when we last talked in my café, there will always be tears in your eyes whenever we refer to Jiyong the Jerk. Now, stop beating around the bush and be honest…”

The three of them stared hard at her. “Have you met Jiyong?”

Dara sighed, putting her guard down. She doesn’t want to lie to her best friends in the world. She would do her best to make them understand Jiyong. “You guys come in. I’ll explain later, I swear. I’ll just wash up and be right back.”

--

Youngbae cooked breakfast while Dara was in the shower. The three friends discussed about Dara’s possible meeting with Jiyong.

“Do you think they got back together?” Bom asked while chewing on a corn cob TOP bought for her before they got to Dara’s apartment.

“Nope.” TOP said before gulping down a glass of water. “If they did, Dara noona would tell us right away.”

“But she met him already and she didn’t tell us.” Bom counterattacked, still unconvinced with TOP’s answer.

“Yah, meeting him and getting back together are two very different things, Park Bom.” Youngbae replied, easing Bom. “Besides, Dara noona’s sort of angry at us, right? It’s no wonder she didn’t contact us for days. You know how Dara noona is.”

TOP nodded solemnly. “Yeah, when she gets angry, she’s really angry. Jeez, the girl does hold grudges.”

They have only seen Dara angry once, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. No matter how petite and fragile Dara looks, there’s a side of her that only the three and some of her classmates knew about. There was a time that Bom was being criticized by Dara’s classmates, saying that Bom’s beauty was the result of her going under the knife. Dara heard that and she went berserk. She thrashed around and almost clobbered the girls with her heavy book if only TOP and Youngbae came later. She got a disciplinary action for what she did, but she said that it was totally fine since she got to pull the hairs of those who were gossiping about her best friend. Yet, that didn’t end there. Dara pulled a prank on those girls, locking them up on the girl’s bathroom for the night. Those girls were only found the morning after and they were crying and pointing that it was Dara but since they didn’t have any evidence, Dara got away luckily.

It was a sight that neither Bom, TOP nor Youngbae would want to see again. It was an entirely different Park Sandara from the one they usually know. Most people think that Dara was the one who was always protected, but they were wrong. It’s actually the other way around. Dara protects the people whom she cares about.

“What do you think Jiyong told her though?” TOP questioned. “Noona didn’t look like she’s angry at Jiyong anymore.”

Bom sighed. “I don’t know myself, really. If I were Dara, I don’t even know how I’d forgive Kwon Jiyong after what he did to her. He wasn’t even a man enough to tell her face-to-face that he was leaving. He just left. No letter or a phone call. Hell, not even a crappy, hastily typed text message came in!”

“Bommie noona, you know how Dara noona loved Jiyong. Maybe that fact was a big factor.” Youngbae reminded her.

“Tss. I used to love them together, but then Jiyong just had to be a royal jerk. Now I like Donghae more for Dara.”

“Donghae? Who’s that dude?” TOP asked.

“Dara noona’s colleague. I also saw that guy once. I visited noona on that high school and saw them together. Well, I gotta say that they look good together, and noona seems happy with him, but she doesn’t have the same twinkle in her eyes when she was with Jiyong before.” Youngbae responded.

“Whatever! At least that Donghae dude doesn’t look like a jerk.” Bom defended.

TOP snickered. “Yah, why? Jiyong didn’t look like a total douchebag too, but look at what he did.”

Bom was about to shoot TOP a nasty remark when Youngbae stopped the two of them. “Stop it, you two. You guys are like kids.”

When Dara entered the dining room, Bom, TOP and Youngbae were already eating. She sat down on a seat next to Youngbae and sneered. “Tss, you didn’t even wait for me!”

“Yah, you’re a grown-up woman. Besides, we’re hungry.” TOP answered.

Dara only shook her head and started to eat. The four of them have been talking about unimportant things when Bom suddenly spoke. “Aish! I’ll go straight to the point. Dara-yah, have you met Kwon Jiyong?”

In an instant, everyone stopped talking. They even stopped chewing and focused their gazes on Dara, who feels uncomfortable under the scrutiny of her three best friends. “Yeah.” She answered in a quiet voice.

Even though they have expected her answer, the three still looked abashed. Bom looked like she couldn’t even form a cohesive sentence while TOP comforted her.

“So…” Being the one who recovered first, Youngbae cleared his throat. “What happened?”

“We… talked.” Dara answered vaguely.

Bom couldn’t hold herself. “Of course!” She said in a “duh” voice. “What did you guys talk about? Did he tell you what happened five years ago? Why did he leave? Why didn’t he even tell us? Well, not even us, but why didn’t he tell you? He just left and went someplace. Did he tell you why he acted like an asshole?” She bombarded Dara with questions.

Dara sighed. “Jiyong… He got into an accident five years ago.”

“WHAT?!” The trio screamed. Even Youngbae’s slanted eyes widened.

“Yeah. Did you remember the night when TOP and Bom picked me up in the park?” They nodded. “I’m guessing he had an accident while he was on the way to see me.”

They were all silent for a while, ingesting the information Dara told them. Then, TOP spoke to Bom. “See, I told you Jiyong wouldn’t leave with no reason.”

“Still.” Bom replied. “If he had an accident, he could have called us, you know? Would it hurt to pick up the phone and call his friends?”

“Err, there’s this thing…” Dara hesitated for a minute before continuing. “He doesn’t remember me.”

“Shit.” Youngbae, who was the calmest person possible on Earth and also the one who seldom curses, was the first one to say profanity.

Dara smiled sadly, “Yeah, I know. Maybe that’s the only word to describe my situation right now.”

“You mean… he has amnesia?” TOP asked in disbelief. They thought about a lot of things and most of them were about Jiyong betraying them, but never had an accident and amnesia crossed their minds.

“It’s like that, but not really.” Seeing the confusion evident on the trio’s faces, Dara quickly proceeded to explain. “He has Dissociative Amnesia. He had only forgotten certain vital information about himself. Meaning, among every person he knew, I was the only one he had forgotten.”

Bom, TOP and Youngbae were silent. It took them a while before they finally digested the information. “So you mean he remembers us three,” TOP gestured at the three of them, “but he doesn’t know you?”

Dara nodded.

“God.” Bom muttered. “That’s too fucked-up to even think about.”

Dara sighed. “I know, right?” She laughed dryly. “Right now I’m helping him recover his memories.”

“So you guys kept meeting? Even though he doesn’t remember a shit about you?” TOP’s piercing gaze settled on Dara.

“Yes.”

Youngbae stared at his best friend beside him. “Dara-yah, be honest okay?” Dara only stared at him. “You still love Jiyong, neh?”

Dara felt her eyes getting heavy, and in no time, her eyes were already brimming with tears. Youngbae sadly pulled Dara closer and patted her arms. TOP and Bom stared at her too. Not long after, Bom was already crying alongside with Dara. The two of them went over to where Dara was sitting.

“Dara-yah, are you really sure about what you’re doing?” TOP asked as he kneeled in front of Dara’s chair, now acting like an oppa. Ever since the four of them got together, way before Jiyong met them, TOP and Youngbae had always been the ones who acted like her brother. Even though she was a year older than the two guys, they had always protected her the way an older brother does. The three knows that Dara always misses her family in Busan and she doesn’t have anyone else on her side in Seoul. Even when her family calls, Dara was always cheerful because she doesn’t want them to worry about her. Because of that, they always make it a point to visit Dara as often as their schedules permit. Since Bom was the one who had the most flexible work schedule, she was the one who always visits Dara, but the four’s closeness to each other had never reduced.

“Neh, Dara-yah. Jiyong’s not your responsibility. He lived fine for five years without you, we’re afraid that you’ll only hurt yourself more in the process.” Bom croaked out.

It took a while before Dara replied. “I want him to remember me. If possible, I want him to feel the pain I went through for five years. I want him to struggle with the memories we had together. I want him to rack his brain for every single thing he promised me six years ago. I want him to drown in our memories.” Dara sobbed. “I want the memories to kill him the way it killed me.”

“Was that the only reason?” Youngbae prodded gently.

“This is the only way to stay by his side…” Dara confessed, making her best friends feel worse for her.

“Dara-yah… Can you really handle this?”

Dara looked at them with determination. “I’ll do my best. Please support me, and promise me that you’ll take care of me.” She pleaded, making herself vulnerable.

The three knew that this was a really big decision for Dara. Dara was the kind of person who will never, ever ask for your help because she hates troubling other people with her problems. But now, seeing her openly ask her best friends in the world to take care of her… It broke their hearts.

They all crushed Dara with an embrace. “We will always take care of you, Dee.”