Stay Sweet Ch. 01

"Yeah, and I never did, because it felt wrong. Guys, please, let Pete have his bed back. I'll be fine on the couch."

"You know, technically it's not my bed; I was barely out the door when they switched the twin out for the full."

"Come on, Pete, you know that's not the point!"

"Relax, Ji-yeong," said Mom. "If you want the couch that badly, we won't fight you. You can use the main floor bathroom to change and shower."

"We just don't want you to think that you're a burden," said Dad.

"Of course I'm a burden," said Ji-yeong. "Just because you're able to carry me...let me get my stuff out of your room." She left the kitchen, and moments later we heard her going up the stairs.

Dad leaned against the doorway. Mom sat down at the breakfast nook, head in her hands. I just stood still. There aren't many moments in life where you and your folks are all on the same page and you react the same way; in this case, a long, awkward silence that's perpetuated because nobody wants to say, out loud, "This is FUCKED."

Instead, I brought up a different concern. "Hey, is there a plan in place if Chad decides to come looking for her? Obviously he's dangerous, but—"

"Chad killed himself a few days ago," said Mom, rubbing her sinuses. Dad looked like he had shit himself; I know I came pretty close. "Yeah, the Songs called us after the Seattle coroner's office called them," Mom continued, off the looks on our faces. "The poor girl's clearly shaken over it. That's kind of what we were talking about when you showed up; I want her to start seeing someone, but she keeps saying she's fine."

"You can't force these things, Ruthie," said Dad. "You can't help some—"

"'—can't help somebody who doesn't want to be helped,' I know, Pat. I'm not really in a place where I can take that kind of advice."

"Wait," I said, "why would Chad kill himself? That doesn't make sense."

"Makes sense to me," said Dad. "Imagine being stuck in a life you despise, that you feel powerless to escape from, and the only thing—key word, thing—you have control over is your wife. Suddenly you lose that, and you don't know where to find her; she's not with her parents. So if you don't know about us, then what's left?"

"Doesn't matter," said Mom, slapping her hands down on the table. "That's one suicide I won't be losing sleep over. The only thing that matters is that we're here for Ji-yeong. If we can't get her the help she needs, we'll damn sure give her whatever help she wants."

* * * * *

Ji-yeong tried.

That's not to imply that she failed. Failure, for her, meant melting down, and for the next couple of weeks, she didn't...not completely, anyway. I remember there was one day where she was just a lump of flesh shuffling from room to room, apologetically asking us not to bother her too much. Apparently there were quite a few days like this before I came home, and Mom told me there was no trick to snapping her out of it. We just had to leave her alone, let her work through it, and hope she'd be better the next day—which she was, thank God. It made a certain sense, but it didn't make it any easier to watch.

Otherwise, we ate together, she smiled, she chatted; she listened more than she talked because there wasn't much she could talk about, but she was a very good listener. Dad got her a temp job with one of his colleagues, receptionist work to keep her afloat while she figured out her next move, and her attitude improved even more. Other than that one day, she was just a really pleasant houseguest...on the surface.

It was obvious to us that Ji-yeong was pushing herself to be good company. We worried that she was bottling things up and priming herself for an explosion. Mom and Dad could only do so much, being personally connected to Ji-yeong. They kept tabs on how she was doing, made themselves available to talk, and every now and then tried to gently persuade her into seeing another professional. She was always polite, but she always pushed back.

I asked Mom why we just didn't make "seeing a therapist" a condition of her continued stay. She told me that they did think about it...when I was at school. "Believe it or not," said Mom, "Ji-yeong's actually mellowed out ever since you came home. I think part of it is that you don't bug her about these things, but, you know...you're kind of special to her, Pete."

That made sense. When we all ate together, Ji-yeong always seemed more interested in how I was doing, what had been going on in my life. When I was home, she always seemed to gravitate toward me, even if we didn't really talk about much. I didn't think much of it at the time; I assumed a lot of that came down to her already having two weeks to catch up with my parents, and frankly, I was just happy to have even a shade of the old Ji-yeong back. But now that Mom had mentioned it...well, if Ji-yeong tried, then she either tried a little harder with me, or she felt like she didn't have to try as hard, or maybe even somehow both. (I really narrowed it down, I know.)

Either way, it was enough that Mom and Dad felt comfortable leaving the two of us alone for Memorial Day weekend.

They were invited back to The Hamptons by their old friend long before Ji-yeong showed up at their door. They were all set to cancel until Mom brought up an excellent point: Ji-yeong had completely internalized this idea that she was a burden to them, and if they cancelled their plans to be with her and she somehow found out, how was that going to look? Normally, that'd be a risk worth taking, but Ji-yeong and I were clearly reconnecting, and they had every reason to believe we'd be okay together. So,

"Try not to leave her alone for too long," said Dad. "I hate to cramp your style, especially when I don't think she's much of a danger to herself, but I don't know if she's entirely comfortable in her own head just yet."

"No, that's totally fine. What else?"

"I'd keep her away from alcohol if you can; don't parent her or anything, but don't offer either. Oh, and I wouldn't bring up Chad, or anything related to what he did to her. I think she likes that she doesn't feel obligated—"

"—obligated to talk about that with me. Yeah, Mom said something about that a couple of days ago. Anything else?"

"Not really," said Dad. "You nervous?"

"A little," I said.

"Don't think about it too much," said Dad, patting me on the shoulder. "You've got a good heart, Pete. Kinda runs in the family. Just let that show you the way and you'll do fine."

* * * * *

Boy oh boy did that pep talk come in handy when I came down the stairs at 10 AM that Saturday to find Ji-yeong still sleeping on the couch. The only other day she ever slept past nine was the day she was a sadbrained lump.

This time, I'd have to deal with that on my own. Awesome.

All right, I asked myself, how can I make her day special without pushing her too hard? I doubted I could really make a difference, but I felt like I owed her the effort.

Pancakes. Ji-yeong made them from scratch every time she babysat overnight, and before she left for school, she taught me her recipe. I found myself making them every week at one point; when I landed a girlfriend in high school against all odds, I made her Ji-yeong's pancakes after her first night over. That time I put bananas in them because she was a huge Jack Johnson fan. In Ji-yeong's case, I figured there was no sense messing with a classic.

The best thing about pancakes is that once you get used to making them, they're ready to go in no time flat. I had the batter whipped up in five minutes, my first stack cooked in another three, and Ji-yeong shuffling into the kitchen at some point in between, wearing a long sleep shirt the color of faded cotton candy and red pajama pants with white sheep running across them.

"You are making pancakes," she said, as appreciative as she could manage.

"Haven't had them in a while," I said. "I'll never have a better excuse." She took a seat at the breakfast nook, and had a fresh stack of pancakes in front of her thirty seconds later.

After spreading butter on each layer and drowning it in syrup, Ji-yeong cut into her stack and shoveled a forkful of sweet pan-fried goodness into her mouth. Of course, I had fantasized that she'd be overcome with a sudden wave of bliss that would knock the depression out of her, but instead she just nodded, with a smile so faint I can't be sure I didn't imagine it. "Mmm," she said, "it's been a while for me, too."

"Really?" I asked, and Ji-yeong just shrugged. My instinct was to press, except I wasn't sure if the answer would lead somewhere she didn't want to go, so I just went back to making more pancakes and let her enjoy her stack.

"I'm sorry," Ji-yeong said, an expression she'd been quite fond of lately. "I should be over the moon about you making me my favorite breakfast, and I feel like I'm coming off like...I dunno. Just a bad day I guess."

I nodded. "You know what? A long time ago, I remember somebody asking how we'd know what a beautiful summer night looked like without the occasional thunderstorm.'"

Ji-yeong grinned, swallowing a bite of her pancakes. "Sounds like a wise Asian lady."

"Whoa! Easy with the racist stereotypes!"

Ji-yeong laughed quietly; I took it.

"So," I asked, "what's the plan for today?"

"No plan," she shrugged. "You got anything going on today?"

I didn't, not really. But I thought it'd be nice if there was something she could tag along with me for, something she could look forward to, and then I remembered: "Hey...are you interested in Inside Out at all?"

"Um, yeah. I like Pixar movies, it seems like fun...why?"

"Well, I saw the trailer with my girlfriend at the time, and we were pretty excited about it, but since we broke up...I mean, I'm not really hurting or anything, but it'd feel weird if I saw it alone." I was kinda feeding Ji-yeong a line here; Rachel was way more psyched to see Inside Out than I was, and if I really wanted to see it, I'd have no problem going alone. "So I was wondering," I continued, "I mean if you'd rather stay home that's cool, I get it, but I just thought if you wanted to change it up—"

"I'd love to go on a date with you, Pete." Great, awesome, I was getting Ji-yeong out of the house for a

Wait.

"Okay, awesome," I said. "It's not a date, though."

"Oh! Of course it's not a date, I was just being cute!"

"I mean, you are cute WERE cute, I mean, it was cute." STOP HITTING ON YOUR BATTERED FRIEND, ASSHOLE. "But yeah, I'm just...taking you to a movie."

"Right." Ji-yeong's voice was down-pitched, but she was still grinning.

"...and maybe treating you to dinner afterwards."

"Let me guess: At the Italian place with the low lighting where they play all those Italian covers of 80s power ballads?"

I was all set to go along with the joke when I suddenly had a better idea: "Or we can just go to Dairy Queen; that's something else I haven't done in a while."

Maybe those were the magic words. Or maybe all my little quips and kindnesses just built up through the morning or over the last two weeks. Either way, as soon as I brought up Dairy Queen, her face lit up in a way I hadn't seen since I came home, in a way that used to happen all the time.

"Oh wow," she said, "Dairy Queen would be perfect."

* * * * *

I mean, it was dinner and a movie.

Or, well, a movie and then dinner.

Look, my point is, nothing really interesting happened on our non-date, at least not until we got to Dairy Queen, and even then it was more like the thing that got us to the thing. Now, there were little things about our night out that, in retrospect, turned out to be important signposts; namely, how much I liked looking at Ji-yeong in her black-and-white tie-dye joggers and her heather grey tank top embroidered with the number "90" on the front.

Hey, did you know women have breasts? You'd think I'd know that, but I'm pretty sure Ji-yeong has been a woman for as long as I've known her, and yet somehow, I was never aware of her whole chesticle situation. It's not that she was flaunting them; the tank top was cut high and I could tell she was wearing a bra underneath. Still, I guess she never wore anything even remotely form-fitting around me before, and, uh, wow. I was pretty sure they were slightly larger than perfect handfuls, and that I was going right to Hell for imagining myself fondling my emotionally fragile childhood friend.

The thing was, however, we ended up leaving about ten minutes later than we agreed, and a lot of that was down to Ji-yeong getting ready. I was so busy chiding myself for my inappropriate thoughts, that I didn't ask myself why Ji-yeong had taken so long to get changed into such an uncomplicated outfit.

But we went to the movie. We loved it. On the drive over to Dairy Queen, we were both calling Pixar a bunch of emotional terrorists for the whole Bing-Bong thing, and...you know, she just seemed like herself again. Smiling. Excited. Open. I refused to delude myself into thinking she was all better, but I was grateful for even just tonight.

Ji-yeong touched on something like that while we were having our burgers at Dairy Queen. "You're like a walking depression cure, you know that?"

"I wish," I said. "That's my entire bag of tricks, right there. Next time you hit a valley, you're gonna be real disappointed when I try the same thing again and you're just bored."

"You're saying that I could get bored with Dairy Queen. That really is the most depressing thing I've ever heard."

"I'm just saying, diminishing returns are a real thing."

"Why do you sound like either one of your parents right now? I thought you wanted to make video games!" There was a touch of frustration in her voice, but it sounded like she was mostly trying to tease me.

Still, I took her seriously. "I do!" I said. "But I think psychology is kinda cool. I can't help but pick a little bit up from them." After going back over my words, I added "And by the way, you know I'm not anything like my parents because my parents would be smart enough to not directly refer to the 'next time' you feel depressed."

Ji-yeong nodded. "Well, don't kick yourself too hard," she said. "I'm pretty sure I'll survive it. Mostly I'm just glad you're here." She raised her soda cup in a toast. "Cheers!"

"Cheers!" I tapped my soda to hers and we took a pull from our straws. "How do you toast in Korean, anyway?"

"With my parents it'd be 'geonbae,' but between us, I think it would just be 'zzan,' two 'z's. Why?"

"There's this guy in our gaming club, Jason. Mostly he annoys me. Whenever somebody sneaks some liquor into our game nights, we'll pour some out for everybody, and he'll shout 'Kanpai!' before throwing his shot back because he's a pathetic weeb who's never gonna know the touch of a woman." Ji-yeong groaned and shook her head. "Anyway, I suddenly thought of that, and I was just curious."

"Hmm. You know what I'm curious about?"

"What's that?"

"What women you've known the touch of."

"Oh, here we go."

"You're so hot, Pete!" Ji-yeong had her arms open in half-mock, maybe eighth-mock protest. "You're like Hollywood's idea of what a computer science major should look like, and I can't get over it!"

"Thanks," I blushed. I had neat dark hair and sharp green eyes on an appealingly stubbled face, and I got myself into the habit of blowing off stress at the gym. Don't get me wrong, I'm nobody's definition of the term "cock diesel." But the computer science program at Bedford can be very stressful, so...

"Let's start with the ex that you were supposed to see this movie with. How did she screw that up?"

"She didn't," I said. "I might have hinted that we were closer than we really were. I was worried that if you stayed home, you'd think it was weird if I also stayed home."

"Oh wow, so you just wanted to take me to a movie."

"...more like I wanted an excuse to get you out of the house?"

"Ah. Doctor's orders?" She seemed more amused than upset, referring to either of my parents since they both held doctorates. (Mom practices under her maiden name, but goes by 'Mrs. Flaherty' among my friends and the neighborhood kids to avoid confusion.)

"Nah, entirely my idea," I said. "I like to think I would've understood if we had this whole night together and it didn't make a difference. I just couldn't...do nothing, you know?"

Ji-yeong shook her head in disbelief. "You are amazing," she muttered. "And if I took those glasses off, I'm pretty sure we'd blind everyone in this restaurant with your hotness, so seriously, what kind of woman would have the nerve to think she could do better?"

"It was a casual thing with Rachel!" I laughed. "We both kinda agreed that we ran our course; we're still friends. I'll tell you what, though: Rachel was actually a rebound from my other ex, Melissa, who cheated on me with her ethics professor, I shit you not."

"Wow!"

"Yeah, that was, uh, that was a day, or really, a month. But before Melissa, back in high school, I was with this girl Bernadette. We broke up for a lot of reasons, but the main thing was her going to NYU. You would've liked her; really nice, total MSTie like you."

"Really?"

"She was more into Joel than Mike, but she still respected what Mike brought to the table. We actually watched the Twilight Rifftrax for our first date."

"That's cool! What's Rifftrax?"

I didn't know if Ji-yeong just didn't have her eye on the Internet like I did or if fucking Chad kept her sheltered, but either way, I was shocked. "You've never heard of Rifftrax?" Ji-yeong shook her head. "It's Mike, Kevin, and Bill—the guys from the Sci-Fi era of MST, who did Space Mutiny. They release audio tracks that you sync with big movies like Twilight or Transformers, and they make fun of the movies like they did on the show."

"Get out!"

"Yeah, but lately they've been branching out into B-movies they can release on their own...you know, they just did this movie called Radical Jack, and I haven't seen it yet. I was going to, but then I got stuck on Finals prep, moving, all that fun stuff."

"Of course." I recognized the look in Ji-yeong's eyes; they had the same glint of interest when she first saw me playing Jade Empire. I knew what her next question was going to be before she even asked it: "So what's it about?"

"Apparently," I told her, "it's a Road House ripoff starring Billy Ray Cyrus, and it was produced by the guys who did Time Chasers."

"Oh my God, that sounds amazing!" She mulled the information over for a few seconds, and then decided "We should do a movie night! Bring the Blizzards home, change into our PJs and—I'm sorry, I mean, unless you're tired. Because if you are, we—"

"No, I am definitely down," I assured her. "You read my mind."

Ji-yeong smiled with her whole face. "This is gonna be great!"

* * * * *

All my MST3K and Rifftrax files were on a flash drive built into a Satellite of Love figurine made by Bernadette, who happened to be a damn good sculptor and all-around artist. The TV in the den had a USB port we could play media through; all I had to do was plug it in.

First, though, I had to slip into the black tee and worn-out gym shorts that I'd be sleeping in. I was excited; back when movie night with Ji-yeong was a regular thing, it was usually either an MST3K episode or a movie she'd already seen. I didn't mind; she had awesome taste. But it felt good to be introducing her to something new for once, even if it was an offshoot of something we both already loved.

"Hey, go ahead and cue it up," Ji-yeong called through the bathroom door when I got downstairs. "I'm just taking my makeup off."