A Reverie of Da-hye's Past

The damp chill of Shirabad in February whipped Ki-woo's skin as he walked across the intersection between the Jinnah statue and the on-campus grocery store. Next to him, Da-hye was clutching her Moonbucks latte in one hand and her bag in the other. Her henna-hued hair was bound in a ponytail, and she was wearing a parka with steel-grey leggings. Ki-woo found the scent of her unwashed hair comforting, as if he'd just woken up in bed next to her after a long night of cramming for Intro-level Biology.

This Saturday afternoon, the two of them were heading to the common area of Sandhu dorm, right next to the on-campus store, and where Da-hye was living during winter quarter. Ki-woo's dorm was on the other side of campus, but he had lived in the dorm next to Sandhu during the previous year, and he studied with his chemistry lab partner in the Sandhu common spaces as well. So he was already familiar with the area.

As he watched Da-hye reach for the salmon salad in the refrigerated aisle, he wondered why she was letting him accompany her for this much time that afternoon. Earlier that day, she casually mentioned her long-distance boyfriend Deok-ho, interning for Kongo in the Gulf of Azteca port of Gunawan. Ki-woo wasn't terribly surprised to find out she was with someone; the way she crossed her legs away from him when they sat next to each other in lecture and her insistence of not having any more study sessions at Sandhu after the weekend before the midterm suggested as much.

Sometimes he wondered why they continued to study together. Yes, he was a horny nineteen year old teenage boy who was fond of hot chicks in yoga pants. And yes, he was a little isolated, given his introversion, social anxiety, and growing apart from Min-hyuk and Shishir as the demands of his major, courseload, and volunteering prevented him from hanging out with them as much. And the way his on-and-off relationship last year didn't help him feel more secure about trying to ask other girls that he knew elsewhere out on dates.

He thought back to the day he and Da-hye met during the last lecture before the midterm. There was something about the way their forearms rubbed against each other and how their eyes locked as they shook hands that lit his soul ablaze. He'd never gotten turned on like that upon just meeting someone, especially not a fashionable FOB who clearly used her yoga pants to practice yoga stretches. And he'd definitely never asked for someone's number just like that for the pretext of "studying" for a weed-out class like that. But going to college was about trying new things and learning how to be an adult right? So he took up this new acquaintance's offer for a cram session that night, after they both were done with dinner.

Suddenly, he found Da-hye calling out his name. They were sitting at one of the tables in the Sandhu common area. It was just the two of them in the room on that afternoon. Her fork had a bite-sized piece of salmon on it. She had said about some pots that she got for free but had never used, and was wondering if he was interested in taking them. Now that Ki-woo thought about it, he did really want to learn how to make Japanese curry. He couldn't live in the dorms forever, and his other guy friends talked about wanting to learn how to cook for themselves. He had baked chocolate chip cookies and made almond halwa with Min-hyuk and Shishir last year in the dorms. This year it was time for the next step.

"Sure," he blurted out. "I guess I can take a look at your stuff and see if they're the right size for what I'd like to make."

Da-hye smiled faintly as she popped the piece of salmon in her mouth. As she chewed thoughtfully, she crossed her legs again, with her leg muscle definition in full view of Ki-woo's line of view.

"Okay, I'm done eating," Da-hye declared as she closed the lid of her salad. "Would you like to see the pots I have in my dorm?"

Ki-woo's pulse started racing as he grasped the implications of what Da-hye was saying. "Oh my Maxbari," his thought to himself. "She's finally offering to let me into her dorm room." Trying to maintain composure, he ignored the sweat racing down his neck as he murmured "Yeah, I don't see why not."

Da-hye put everything she had out on the table in her bag and pushed her chair in. "Alright, let's take the elevator up to my floor then."

Without warning, a hot flash emanated through Ki-woo's entire body as he woke up in Bandar Roti- over four years and four hundred kilometers removed from the memories he was reliving in his slumber. His body was drenched in sweat, but his forehead and torso were still burning. There was a dull ache in his lungs and a dry soreness in his throat that sips of water and little cups of cough syrup couldn't quench. It had been 72 hours since he had driven home from work with the initial symptoms of the novel pangolin plague, and two weeks since countrywide lockdowns had begun. Since his job dealt with the production of essential goods and services, Ki-woo's job couldn't be done remotely and he had to continue going on-site for work- provided he wasn't sick.

As the memories of Shirabad "Suzuha" Da-hye's unwashed hair and the warmth of the University of Jinnah dorms faded, he was reminded that he might never see his Bandar Roti Polytechnic study buddy "Mayuri" Da-hye in person again swept over him. He chuckled darkly at the irony of falling head-over-heels for another cute, slightly older woman named Da-hye at school who happened to be in a long-distance relationship. (Da-hye was a fairly common feminine name among women in coastal United Brancaland- especially for women of Pasifikan ancestry born between 1980 and 2000.) Ki-woo had enrolled in BRP's post-bac program while working full-time following his bout with depression. Now that BRP classes had gone remote, he would likely never see "Mayuri" Da-hye in person again either. Despite the impossibility of them ever being together, he still enjoyed being able to talk with her after their night classes on the Bandar Roti campus. Outside of classes, the occasional Kakao GamePigeon sessions and spontaneous phone calls from her offered a welcome respite from the subtle bullying he had to endure at his job, and the humiliation of having moved back in with his parents during his mental health episode- none of which were things he could really talk to dating app matches about, or even feel comfortable sharing in that kind of environment.

Now that everything was going remote and their classwork requirements were going in different directions, they wouldn't be seeing each other around the BRP campus anymore. And Ki-woo knew that if things kept going like this, he would eventually prompt "Mayuri" Da-hye to go all the way and cheat on her boyfriend. Both of them were living with family for the time being, but if they really wanted to go there, there was no shortage of empty parking lots at night for hanky-panky. And as much as he fantasized about slightly older femme fatales sleeping with someone who was already taken was a boundary he couldn't let himself cross.

Ki-woo recoiled at the lascivious workings of his feverish mind. His immune system was too preoccupied fighting the novel virus in his body to let him get it up, but still his subconscious insisted on replaying the basest desires for intimacy that he felt like he couldn't access. At the beginning of the new year, he forced himself to abstain from dating apps for 1 whole year because he didn't feel like adding matches on social media and never meeting them in person was a productive way to spend his mobile screentime. He also worried that spending too much time on the app was making it easier to dehumanize prospective partners as just a face and a name on a screen. One unintended side effect of this was allowing himself to feel the full spectrum of emotions that getting to know "Mayuri" Da-hye instilled in him- which made having to say goodbye to the connection they had that much more painful. Perhaps that self-imposed isolation was forcing his subconscious to process his unresolved trauma about his quarter-life crisis and falling for unavailable women. And maybe the physiological torment of the pangolin plague was pushing Ki-woo to dream out his unrealized fantasies as a form of escapism?

Sighing wistfully, Ki-woo took another swig of water from his nightstand mug, illuminated by cloud-reflected moonlight through translucent windowshades. It would be at least another week before he would be strong enough to go for short walks out of the house, and that was assuming there wouldn't be any complications of the pangolin plague. He laid back down under the covers, and waited for the embrace of hale, hearty days back in Shirabad to take him away from the physical and emotional anguish of the uncertain, indefinite present.