忘情水 （ft. 本月少女：黄珈熙）

Wong Kahei opens the back door to Within Reach, the bar she calls her workplace. The bar is almost full: 8:30pm—prime drinking hours—and the live band on stage right now plays something slow, romantic. Vivi has to bite back a sigh—working on Valentine’s Day sucks when she’d rather be home, sleeping already. Her bills don’t pay themselves, and here she is, out of necessity rather than choice.

It is with a heavy heart that Kahei heads to her dressing room to the back. She sighs when she reaches her room, the name of the bar engraved across the wood, her name beneath it.

She’s no longer within reach.

Kahei sets her guitar down, and she walks back out front. She smiles when she sees Choerry out at the bar, mixing up another one of her wonderful cocktails.

“Yerimmie.”

“Vivi-unnie!”

“One scotch, on the rocks please.”

“Okay!”

Ka-hei is grateful for Choerry’s bright smile. The world needs someone like her, someone exuberantly positive, someone as pure and bright as her who loves without question. Without people like Choerry, the world would be worse off.

When Choerry hands her the glass of scotch, she downs it in one go.

“You seem down, unnie.”

“My depressed mug gave it away, didn’t it?”

“Well… that, and you’re usually never this gloomy.”

Kahei thins her lips and nods.

“Another one, Yerimmie.”

“Not too much, unnie. You still have your slot up at nine.”

“I know.”

Kahei sighs when Choerry pours her the second glass.

“Is this about Haseul-unnie?”

“Yeah.”

Choerry gives Kahei a sad smile. She knows how much her Vivi-unnie hurts inside. Valentine’s Day used to hold so much hope for her at one point, but…

“I’ll enjoy your performance later, unnie. Gotta get back to work.”

“Go on.” Kahei smiles at her favorite bartender. The younger girl has been much of a sister to her for years, and Kahei loves her as one would an actual sibling.

Now, left alone with her thoughts, Kahei ruminates.

I don’t like you that way, Kahei. I’m sorry.

Kahei swallows thickly at the words in her mind, the wound still just as fresh as it was a year ago. Wistfully, Kahei pulls out her phone and stares at the wallpaper on her lockscreen. Most of their little group’s gone and scattered now—Heejin’s a famous artist now, Jinsoul’s a producer for one of the biggest labels in Korea, Choerry’s bartending right in front of her, and Haseul…

Kahei’s heart breaks again when she sees that pretty smile of hers on her screen. She knows she should change it, remove every trace, but she just can’t bring herself to.

Slowly, Kahei nurses her drink. She’s got fifteen more minutes to spare before her set comes on, and she takes in the atmosphere of the bar. She runs her gaze across the establishment—there are many couples around, as expected on Valentine’s, but she notes that there are just as many patrons, if not more, who’re probably just like her—lonely, heartbroken, alone.

Sometimes, Cupid just isn’t kind.

Kahei downs her drink and heads for her dressing room. Another ten minutes to her slot, and she has to get ready.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the next act, Vivi Wong!”

A gentle wave of applause rolls across the bar as Vivi steps up to the stage with her guitar. She thanks the previous act for introducing her, and they return the pleasantries. Once her guitar’s plugged in, she takes her seat in front of the mic and smiles as the cheers quieten.

“Good evening, everyone. My name’s Vivi, and I’ll be your entertainment for the next hour. Please take care of me.”

With a nod to her colleagues behind her, she begins her set.

Kahei begins with a few upbeat, romantic songs first. After all, most people do celebrate Valentine’s Day instead of hating it like she does. She slows down the set later into the night when she approaches the last song of the set, when most of the couples have cleared out.

“To all of the patrons who’re feeling lonely, heartbroken, or sad tonight, I’ve not forgotten you all, because I’ve also been one of you too.”

She’s still one of them.

“This song is in my native language of Chinese, titled ‘忘情水’, which roughly translates to 'forget love water’. I hope all of you enjoy it.”

She smiles when one of the AV staff flashes up the lyrics of her next song. Kahei’s painstakingly done up a slideshow with translations just for tonight—no point singing the song if no one’s going to understand it.

Kahei nods to the keyboardist, and she begins the opening notes to the song. She takes a breath as she takes a trip back through the swirl of memories that envelop her being, to the one name that she can never forget—Cho Haseul.

Kahei takes herself back to the first time she meets Haseul. She was new to Korea, having moved here when her dad took up a job here. She’d been so nervous on her first day at school, but when the teacher directs her to the only empty seat near the back of the class, she raises her head to meet a bright eye smile and a dainty hand reaching out to her.

“Hi! My name’s Cho Haseul, what’s yours?”

—

She starts.

行遍千山和萬水

一路走來不能回

曾經年少愛追夢

一心只想往前飛

(I chased dreams when I was young

My heart only thought to fly

I’ve walked through mountains and streams,

my path cannot be reversed)

Haseul’s pretty. So, so pretty.

At first, Haseul’s just a friend. A pretty friend that Kahei spends all her time around, because they’re seatmates who live in the same neighborhood. Every minute of every day is spent close to Haseul, and Kahei learns about a whole new culture, country, and language with Haseul by her side.

A year and a half ago, Kahei met Haseul. A year and a half later, both girls have graduated, and are getting ready to move on into the next stage of their lives—college. However, they have a long break ahead of them before college starts, and that’s more than enough time for Kahei.

A year and a half ago, Haseul was a pretty stranger. A year and a half later, Haseul is the pretty girl Kahei’s fallen for.