Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,37
tape, and a dried-out to-go cup. The shower stall was stuffed full of flattened cardboard moving boxes.
Cirrus had gone upstairs, so up I went. More white carpet. There was what looked like a master bedroom—a naked mattress atop a box spring atop the bare floor—and there was a walk-in closet full of clear boulders of discarded bubble wrap.
Finally, I came to a door with a strangely corporate-looking nameplate nailed into its surface. Si-ra-seu, read a trio of letters in Korean. Cirrus.
I knocked. The door cracked open. I quickly performed the scan that was the tradition of teenagers the world over, searching for exclusive, bedroom-only details of her personality.
But her room was as empty as the rest of the house. She didn’t even have a dresser—just stacks of folded clothes lining one wall. There was a shoebox with a tea candle melted on top. That was it.
“Hey,” said Cirrus behind me.
She had removed her apron to reveal Ruby High sweats and an old cami top, and she looked radiant. She watched me with an eager sort of look.
“I love what you’ve done with the place,” I said as goofy as I could.
“Thank you,” said Cirrus with real sincerity, letting my joke whiz by. “Come in.”
I came in. The slight change of perspective did not offer any additional visual information. But the room smelled wonderful. Vanilla and soap and stale musky air.
The place smelled like sleepyhead, and I instantly wanted to press my nose into her scalp and simply inhale.
What followed was the dumbest conversation ever had by two people, but for me it was the bestest.
“So what you got going on today?”
“Nothing.”
“Sit, sit.”
“This carpet is so soft.”
“I love Saturdays.”
“Are you hungry?”
“I could be.”
I didn’t even bother attributing who said what, because it hardly mattered. What mattered was that I was sitting in Cirrus’s white room on her white carpet, whose brand-new white fibers clung to my black joggers, causing Cirrus to fuss.
“It’s all over you,” she said, laughing. She patted my legs with her hands.
I laughed, too. “It’s like your whole house is a giant shedding pet.”
Pat pat pat. Her scalp this close to my nose.
Cirrus felt different, here in her room. She moved around more, and faster. She felt more playful. She dug her fingertip into the plush carpeting and began drawing lines.
“I was thinking of putting a dresser here, a desk there, although I always study in bed,” she said, busily drawing with her whole body. “Nightstand, hamper here, posters and art prints and photos up on the walls everywhere. What do you think?”
“I think that would be sweet,” I said, examining her lines.
Cirrus stopped moving. “I haven’t had anyone in my room for over three years.”
“You just moved here three weeks ago,” I said.
“No, but it’s the same room wherever I go,” she said. “You know?”
“No,” I said, laughing.
“I just,” she said, carefully now. “For the first time in a long time, I’m psyched to decorate my room. Just go wild at Bed & Bath Vortex. I wanted to invite you over yesterday, to be honest.”
“Then why didn’t you?” I said, admiring the perfect bevel of her right eyelid.
“I know my room is not normal,” she said. “I’m pretty sure I’m not normal.”
My room is not normal either, I wanted to say, but quelled the urge.
“Normal means ‘boring’ in English,” I said.
“I’ve been ashamed of my room for so long,” said Cirrus. “It’s like a bad habit. Then I meet you. And you’re just so you. I want to be more me, too.”
By now you already know I began blushing and becoming hyperthermal. It was the nicest—and most dreadful—thing anyone had ever told me.
“So you sit at home cooking huge meals all by yourself on the weekends?” I said.
“It’s something to do,” said Cirrus. She abruptly leaned over as if doing a leg stretch and retrieved a tall square tin.
“Anyway,” said Cirrus. She drew in a breath, held it, and exhaled. She held the tin between her open palms.
“This is me,” she said.
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“Hi, Cirrus,” I said to the tin.
Cirrus looked nervous. She looked like she had rehearsed this tin ceremony just for me, which I found simultaneously confusing and flattering. She let out another quick breath.
She opened the tin and drew an acorn from within.
“This was from my favorite park in Japan,” she said. “I don’t remember what city or when, really, but I remember