REPLY 1997

"The age of 18, we fall in love easily and worry too much about little things. The age of 18, the adults usually say at our age, we laugh at the simplest things. But at that time, we were serious. It was intense and harder than other adults."

"Go-Stop. You have to get a pair of the same card to earn points. Once, we tried to be pair too. But one day, we started to change. Becoming different people, why was it so hard to admit it? Everyone is different. That’s the way of the world. The way of growing up. The age of 18, we were growing up, and therefore changing from each other. And the same time, we had to confront another growing pain, that of accepting others.”

"A secret refers to something I don’t know about others. As I find out what I’ve believed isn’t the truth, secrets become even more secretive. The human mind is infinite. Neither it’s depth nor it’s end can be known. Some days, they fight to the death. Other days, they share their love for each other. Yes, the truth is inconvenient. But if we don’t accept that, we have to live with lies. We have to accept inconvenient truths. What we see is not all we know.”

“Life comes and attacks you when you least expect it. It might be sadness, or extreme fear. At that moment, what can we do is accept reality and admit we lost. We don’t know how life will turn out. There is no way we can avoid it. We just have to face it, and get hurt once in a while. But life sometimes thrills us with unexpected events. And gives us happiness when we overcome hardships. We never know how life will turn out. So we use all our sense to survive it.”

"Your future dream is about what you can do for a living. You’re about to grow up, but if you have empty dreams, who will take care of you? That’s why you have to be satisfied with the easiest dream. It hurts if you aim for a dream you can’t reach. Unsatisfied passion.. it’s quite painful. That’s why unrequited love is foolish. If you meet someone who likes you, it’s painless and it saves time. Let’s find what you can do, not what you want to do. You only live once. People have to be satisfied with an attainable dream. If your’e greedy with unattainable dreams, you’ll only get hurt. Empty passion only leaves you with heartburn. That’s why unrequited love is foolish. However, foolish unrequited love can have potential. That passion sometimes causes miracles. And sometimes, dreams come true from a distance. While you may not achieve the dream, getting close gives you the chance to be happy. Of course, that’s very rare. Unrequited love usually ends in failure. But it’s also sad if you’re afraid and you give up before you even try it out. First, do what you want instead of what you can. You only live once.”

"People believe that they are born with an invisible red string tied around their little finger. The string is tied to be a person the’re destinied to be with. However, it’s hard finding out who is waiting at the end. If red string of fate really exists, where will mine end?”

"The reason I like you? Because it’s you. Just you. That’s the only reason. I wish I knew. Then I could figure out how to stop liking you. If I can’t avoid it, I only want one thing. To stay as a friend who doesn’t change. For heartache. For love.”

"Relationships have levels. Mine with him was one of the easiest. A relationship that was easy to explain and easy to maintain. A casual relationship between old friends. But that day, I realized something. Ours could become one of the hardest. The hardest relationship, that between a man and a woman. Men and women expect different things, face different sides, and dream different dreams. The relationship between a man and a woman is of ever-lasting love and fighting. They get upset and console. They fight and make up. They hurt and they embrace. A relationship as complicated as manic depressive disorder. But the hardest part is, It can’t start if the timing is wrong. A complicated and too sensitive. There is one relationship that’s as difficult yet unavoidable. A relationship that’s tedious but inevitable. A relationship that lasts your entire life. That’s family. The only advantage of the most complicated relationship on earth that between a man and woman. Is that any situation can be reversed with one word. Back together.”

"Being a teenager is a stormy period because we don’t know any answers. We don’t know what we really want, who really loves us, who we really love, we struggle to find the answer. And finally, when we miraculously find the answer, we’ve already become adults and undergo big and small goodbyes.”

“Be nice to your parents while you can. Don’t regret it like me. I was too busy getting used to working Seoul. I didn’t come home for over a year. Whenever my parents called, I was so eager to hang up. When they asked about work, I would just get annoyed. All I said was, ‘I don’t know’, ‘I’ll tell you later’, ‘Next time’. And I just hung up. I didn’t even know that my dad was sick. He must have been so curious. Was I eating well? Was I keeping healthy? Were my coworkers nice to me? Were people looking down on me for graduating from community college? He would had a lot of questions. I don’t know why I thought it was so annoying. Do you know what he said before he passed away? He couldn’t even breathe well.. but he told me to go. He said he was fine, so I should go back to work. I should go back to work. He was afraid I would get fired.. He could say that..”

"There is no better time than now. That next time may never come. To talk about a next time that may never come when now is right in front of you, life is too short for that. If you give up now because you feel too weak or lazy, there is no hope for a next time. You never know what will happen in the future. Your next chance may never come.”

"First love. The reason why we think first love is beautiful is not because people we first loved were actually handsome or pretty. It’s because we were unconditional, innocent, or a bit stupid at the time of first love. And because we know that we can never go back to that young, passionate time of our days. First love is a bit rash. Without any calculation, we throw ourselves with passion and finally come to face failure. But it is at the same time dramatic, it comes with inexplicable feelings that we never get to experience again. So first love becomes the most dramatic moment of our lives. It’s okay to fail. Tragic stories stays longer than ‘happily ever after’. It’s nice to have that wonderful story as one chapter of one’s life. First love is a period of time. It never comes back. If the next loves comes, time has yield for that new love. It might not be as innocent as the first love, but it would be a little more mature, due to the pain suffered the first love. A person who dreams of love, is the one who waits. And a person who waits can recognize the love when it comes near him. After the romance, the real life comes in. Innocence gets dirty, passion gets cold, and youth gets old with cleverness. So first love becomes part of one’s exhausted daily life. That’s why first love looks like it can’t be accomplished. Because no one talks about a successful romance with first loves. Loving someone is a good thing. Thus, it’s okay to be like this. Even though, there isn’t a tragic drama in my life. But there is a familiarity like an old sweater. And if it gets tired, there is an excitement to reopen it. It was passionate and innocent. I miss that moment.”