Heartache Notebook
I'M BACK FOLKS! Sorry for the lack of update for Blood Ties, but work is eating my brain... I'm still getting used to my new schedule ^^'
Title: Heartche Notebook
Pairing: Sihan
Rating: PG-13
Disclamer: I own no one
Warning: Character death (SORRY!) and listening to the song while reading may not a be a good idea...
Note: Inspired by a translation of Geng's Heartache Notebook lyrics.
Summary: Sometimes, even the one who breaks up has a heartache...
It’s difficult… so difficult, to be seating here, all by myself… The place where I met you… I always had a strange craving for coffee in the morning, so I would always pick my morning drink in this small coffee shop… but it was the first time that I saw you there. You face was almost glued to the display stall’s window, eyes sparkling from wonder at the sight of the freshly made pastries.
I knew you weren’t Korean at first sight. The color of your skin, the shape of your eyes… Someone this fascinating couldn’t be Korean… And just to confirm my thoughts, one of the waitresses of the shop had passed quickly, stomping as she was going straight for you, menacing despite her lithe body. I already knew that she was Chinese, and I knew that you were of the same nationality from the moment she used Mandarin to scold you.
“Geng, stop licking the window!”
“I am not licking it!”
“I already gave you two muffins this morning, and you’re still hungry?!”
“…Yes?”
I don’t know why I stood there, listening the conversation to the best of my Mandarin knowledge… I don’t know why I blushed when you realized that I was looking at you, staring blankly with wonder traced on my features. I don’t know why all you did was to stare back at me with a enigmatic smile on your lips. Was it fate? Still now, I don’t know… and I guess that I’ll never know…
Why did we end up like that? …Why?
“Shiyuan…”
There are only two people on this Earth who call me by the Chinese translation of my name. You, and her. Liyin. I wonder how she manages to fool the customers with such a pitiful smile, this smile she has been wearing for a few days already. She’s suffering more than I do, than I ever will. She was crying so much when, two days ago, she told me that you had been attacked on your way back home, that you were hanging between life and death…
You had no idea that in wanting to protect us, your sister and I, you would end up being the one to hurt us the most, isn’t it?
I remember when you broke up with me… How could I not? You were crying so hard, begging me to believe you when you said that you had no choice, that I had done no wrongs, that you still loved me, but that you had to do it… I didn’t want to, I wanted to stay with you, and I told you so, told you that I wanted to go through everything, anything, with you, for you. But the more I insisted, the more you cried. What was pushing you to leave me, you never said it… but I couldn’t force you to have by your side, even if I knew how much you loved me…
When Liyin explained everything to me, about how you sacrificed everything for her sake, how you made deals with guys that were impossible to trust, I know that you had been trying to hide everything from her, and that she never told you that she knew, in fact, everything… I wonder how difficult it must be, having no one in this universe but our own sibling, and fearing to end up alone at any moment…
“Shiyuan?”
I snap out of my thoughts, Liyin now seated in front of me, brows frowned and eyes flooded by tears. Something is wrong…
“Geng… he left… this morning… 4:15….”
I have been preparing myself to hear that in the last two days…or maybe not. Somewhere in my heart, reality was hitting me, hard. I won’t see you ever again. Do you see, from where you are, how big of a loss it is, you now being in Heaven? I am probably trailing away again, because Liyin whimpers.
“Shiyuan… please say something…”
“Come here, Liyin…”
She’s so frail in my arms, sobbing uncontrollably, feeling as if she is now alone in this world… having already lost her parents and now losing her only brother. What is this feeling inside? Do you trust me with the care of your little sister, from where you are? Is that what I sense?
I also want to cry, I really do, but I can’t, not in front of her. Not in front of the one person who suffers more than I do… You were everything to her… and even if you were the most important for me, I have other people… like my parents, my own little sister…
“He… I found this in the bag he had with him when it… it happened…”
In front of my eyes is exposed an old, tattered notebook, held by the shaking hands of Liyin, her voice shaking just as much.
“I think… you should read it…”
The look in her eyes… I know that I shouldn’t… I have to.
***
Currently seated on my bed, I’m trying to deal with the pain as I watch the notebook in front of me. I wonder what is so important in it so that Liyin asks me to read it… My hands are shaking as I open the first page, quickly finding a whole set of Chinese characters scratched and written over… the first draft of something…
Believe me when I say that I love you…
Wait… this sentence… it’s the first thing you told me when you broke up! Wait, wait… everything… it is… exactly…
I can’t tell you why, but I have no choice…
My love… how long have you passed with this notebook in front of you? How long have you prepared what you would tell me? The pages are crumpled, wavy from water… your tears? You didn’t have to do that… I would have stayed with you, protected you… maybe if I had never let you go… you would be alive.
There it is…the whole thing. A few pages away, the final version, written word for word… in both Chinese and Korean… I have to admit that I have my Chinese dictionary with me… even if I had you as my lover, I never managed to learn Chinese properly… I remember how you kept telling me that it was the same for you when it came to Korean… My eyes are filled with tears as I go through it again, the whole speech, hearing your sob-filled sentences in my head, the memories hurting me so, so bad.
I wondered why Liyin gave me the book… she wanted me to know how hard it had been for you to leave me? Yet again…why had you this thing with you when they attacked you… killed you? Ah… I see… you wrote afterwards…
I know that I did what I had to, but I feel as if my heart died… I feel as if rain kept falling on my heart, rain as hard as it was that day… are they my tears, falling on my heart instead of rolling down my cheeks? Is it because I am the one who broke up that I can’t cry?
If you weren’t able to cry, I am… I probably look pitiful to you right now, sobbing without any restraints as I clutch the notebook to my chest. It’s everything that you told me and wanted to tell me… Did you know what was awaiting you? Was it because you knew that you broke up, or was it because you were afraid that your situation would put both me and Liyin in trouble? Why have you said nothing? If you had the right to protect us… we surely had the right to protect you… Or if you think that it was your role toward Liyin, what about me? Don’t you have dared to justify yourself with the fact that you’re older…. Because I’m taller and stronger… what does it changes now, anyway? Nothing, because you are already gone…
My hands are still trembling as I still go through the pages. You wrote so much, in so little time. I had heard Liyin say once, after our breakup, that when you were at home, you were constantly in your bedroom, barely going out for food or a shower… Were you writing all that time? Why didn’t you tell me, why? Now isn’t the time anymore… All I can do is read and suffer for you, with you, but being too late in this…
I wish I could have found another way… I wish that death wouldn’t be inevitable… I would have given everything to be able to go back to school after Liyin graduated and make myself worthy of the amazing man I fell in love with…but it’s over… I’m the one who ended it all… but I had to…
The more I read, the more the sheets lose some of their ink, my tears washing it away, like yours already did at some places.
I wonder why I started it all to begin with… when I already knew… Was I foolish enough to think that love would save me?
It wasn’t foolish… oh no it wasn’t… but… you knew all along, that they would try to… k…k… ki… end your life? It was for that reason that you sometimes had tears in your eyes after I kissed you? That you would elsewhere than in my own eyes while I poured out my heart to you? I’m so sorry for being unable to see it, Geng…
The more I read and I more I realise that you had never lied to me, while everything could have led you to… you preferred to hide facts in order to stay sincere… your love for me had always been, as your notebook tells me, and I can only be hurt even more… You continued to love me… I never doubted it; the last kiss you asked me before leaving had been the proof of it…
I hope I could say that my pain is worse… both heartache and guilt… but I have no right to say so…
You had every right, darling… but now, to bear the burden of your pain, now that you’re gone… I’m the one with the worst pain…
***
Five days… five whole days of dealing with my feelings, of worrying my parents. It took me a while to tell them what was happening, why I was so depressed, why I was carrying this old notebook with me as if my life depended on it. I broke down to my father, telling him what was going on. My mother had already been supporting me through the breakup… I couldn’t ask her to support me once more. I told everything to Dad, telling him that you were gone, that I never managed to tell you everything that I should have…
But suddenly, a question hit me, hard.
“Isn’t he going to have a funeral? It’s been one week already…”
Funeral…. I never thought about it. I was too immerged in my kind-of depression to think about it. How stupid have I been? Sure, I talked to Liyin everyday, making sure she wouldn’t do anything stupid, but she never asked me about it. So when my father talked to me about it, I called her… only to know that she had been trying to round up enough money for it… It broke my heart. You had been trying all those years to give her some comfort, working to pay her studies, sacrificing your own for hers, did everything so she won’t miss a single thing… yet when you are to leave this earth, it destroys all your efforts…
My father heard me and… I don’t know what took him but… here we are, in the courtyard of my family’s home, only me, Liyin, my parents, Jiwon and a few of the waitresses at the coffee… only a few people, but so many tears… It’s our final goodbye to you… an elegant yet simple funeral… fitting for you… adding you in my family for good, even if you won’t be with us like we would have liked you to…
Your little sister is alone in front of the coffin, crying her eyes out of their orbits as she seems to be holding your hand with all the strength she can muster in such a day. She’s mumbling in Mandarin through her tears, washing them away before they can reach your peaceful face. No one here dares to move or to look directly at her. Our hearts are crying out to her pain… yet suddenly she wipes all of her tears and I can hear the final thing she tells you.
“Please be at peace, big brother… your other half is still here to be a big brother to me… even if you’re irreplaceable…”
I feel my heart crack when she says it… because yes, it’s true… I’ll take care of your little sister. She’ll be living with us now… and I swear to you that she’ll graduate from university.
“Shiyuan, it’s your turn…”
She’s in front of me now, smiling through her tears. It seems as if now that she told you everything that she had to tell you, she’s alright…
But I can’t move. I’m afraid to see you like that. I’m afraid that if I see you like that, dead, cold and still, the shock of such an image will blow away all the lively memories I have to you… I’m afraid that it truly means the end. But I have to…
…I don’t know if you can see from above what you look like here, in this coffin that will be your eternal bed. You are gorgeous, as you have always been, dressed in those Chinese traditional clothes you loved so much. White always suited you but now… more than ever. You look unreal. If China has a ice god, it is probably looking like you… All dressed of white, skin paler than it should… death took away this golden tinge in your skin that I loved so much… Tears well up in my eyes… do you see those, too?
Please sleep with your mind at ease my love. Please find peace now that you left this world full of hardships… I’m forgi…. No, there is nothing to forgive you for… you did what you think was right, and you suffered from this way too much…
Speaking of which… I think you need to take this with you… Yes, I’m giving it back to you, your notebook. Oh, I’m sorry, I ripped one page off, though…
I love you, and I will always do…
***
Life would be perfect if Shiyuan, Liyin and I could graduate from university and live together… Who knows, maybe my little sister and I could be part of the Choi family, if they want us… I would have loved it to grow old in our happiness…
I keep this page in my hand, one year later, a little more tattered that it was, as I watch over the tombstone, a white bouquet decorating it as I just put it there, like I do every two weeks…. But now, it’s been one year since you’re gone…
Han Geng
09.02.84 - 26.06.
I smirk as I replaced the bouquet, showing the last sentences. They are really important, after all…
Choi Siwon’s true soulmate
…Never truly left.
They are needed to justify why we didn't wrote the year and why you are buried right next to my destined spot… But I won’t join you for now; I have to graduate from university like on that sheet… Speaking of which…
I’m writing in my own notebook… It’s about my love for you, not my heartache…