[Mini-series] Little Goodbyes {4/4}
Little Goodbyes
There’s a folder of pictures I can’t open.
There are so many songs that don’t sound the same.
There’s a number I can’t dial and a message I can’t send.
There’s a restaurant I can’t eat at, not without any friends.
There are words and names I can only say in my head.
There’s a pair of eyes that belongs to you that I can never look into again.
-The Missing Machine, I Wrote This For You
“It would be better if people can stay forever young, wouldn’t it?” Kyuhyun answered Sungmin’s statement. It was an answer that’s supposed to be a joke only that there’s no laughter that followed its ending. There were no smiles and no suppressed giggles. He and Sungmin simply stared at the shining ocean, not really at a loss for words - just too scared to voice them out completely.
That’s how ironically funny it is to grow up, sometimes. In youth, people think of words and sentences that would be easier to say had they been matured enough yet when that level of maturity comes and time has given what it needs to give, those words and sentences dissolve beneath the layers of pride and embarrassment. Sometimes the things you leave unsaid in youth remain as that even as you grow up. In the end they mold themselves into something else and form this tiny compartment within the heart - a compartment that people so bitterly call regret.
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“Hey, Wook,” Kyuhyun bit his lips as he calls Ryeowook that night. He was on his bed, staring up at the white ceilings, looking for something that he somehow cannot find.
“Yeah?” Ryeowook asked and from the sound of his voice, Kyuhyun could tell that his friend is probably eating that damn melon bread again. He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing the stupid way Ryeowook eats that bread and how it falls from his mouth whenever he speaks. Most of the time Kyuhyun would tease him about it, sometimes he would simply give Ryeowook a disgusted look or in those few rare moments when he’s being nice, he’ll hand his friend some tissue. All the while, as these things happen, Sungmin would be there with them, smiling fondly, smiling sweetly… smiling the way Kyuhyun would always like to see him smile.
And suddenly, though Sungmin is still in Korea, though it’s not yet definite whether he’ll leave or not… suddenly… Kyuhyun is missing him. Sometimes, missing someone is not always equated with a sense of physical distance between two people. Sometimes, the most difficult way to miss someone is knowing that they’re there - probably a couple of meters away - and yet, you know that someday, one of these days, maybe in a few more hours, they’ll be gone. And you’re not in any power to do anything about it.
Sometimes, more than missing the person and the memories, the worst way to miss someone is to look forward to the future while knowing that he might not be there. Not tomorrow, not the day after… not ever.
“Ryeowook-ah…,” Kyuhyun said again and cursed inwardly when he lost control and his voice trembled. “Ah crap…”
Ryeowook swallowed, almost choked on his bread and asked: “Yah… are you… why are you crying?”
And Kyuhyun’s tears developed a mind of their own. He cursed, sniffed, covered his mouth… he did everything and anything he could think of to stop the treacherous tears but everything seemed to be in vain. He’s crying for a lot of things that he still could not understand and what more, he’s crying to Ryeowook… his bestfriend… the very last person he wanted to see his tears.
“Kyuhyun-ah…,” Ryeowook said gently. “Just… I don’t why but… just cry if you feel like it, okay? Okay? Okay?” He stated with never-ending questions of “okay?” until Kyuhyun snarled at him in annoyance.
“Okay! Geez! You can’t last a day without being annoying, can you?” Kyuhyun snapped but he thought he felt a tiny bit better. Maybe not fully okay as Ryeowook would like to hear but he felt better. Maybe that’s why someone up there created friends. They may not offer the solution to the problems that you’re supposed to face alone but they do make the burden lighter and easier to bear.
Maybe… maybe that’s why someone up there created Ryeowook the way he is right now - extremely innocent, sometimes idiotic and mostly annoying - because if he isn’t, then Kyuhyun would probably lose a huge reason to smile.
“Hey,” Kyuhyun murmured with itchy throat.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks,” Kyuhyun said and Ryeowook didn’t ask why. He doesn’t have to. Some things can forever go unsaid when you’re bound by a golden thread called friendship - unsaid but definitely not misunderstood.
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The night is bright but it looks lonely, Sungmin observed as he sits beside his window in the dorm room, staring up at the million blinking stars playing on the night sky. The autumn moon is full but quite dull as if it’s lending the spotlight for the stars to shine. The scholarship letter is staring at him from its place on the study table. An occasional wind ruffles its edges and it makes tiny sounds like it’s trying to once again catch Sungmin’s attention. He sighed.
“Conflicts, conflicts,” Sungmin murmured to himself as he picks up the letter and tried to fold it the same way it had been folded before. For some reason, he failed and the letter flew gently out of his hands before fluttering to the floor. As he bends down to pick it up, Kyuhyun’s words came back to him, one by one, like leaves falling down a tree.
“I hope you find it, Sungmin… that thing you’re looking for.” Sungmin blinked several times. What is it, anyway? That thing he’s looking for. A piece of himself? A slice of a dream? He’s not too sure anymore. Kyuhyun’s words felt like a chaotic mixer that suddenly entered his mind, jumbled his thoughts and made it swirl around in a confusing mix.
“Because then you'd know that I'm just right there, behind you, to catch you when you trip and fall flat on your face or backwards or just when… you know… when you need me to catch you.” Sungmin smiled. That was it - the point where everything slightly turned around and Sungmin was forced to think if there’s something else he’s looking for. Kyuhyun is there and he loves Sungmin and…
And in that moment Sungmin realized that he never confessed his own feelings, at least by words. When Kyuhyun showed up outside his house that night and told him “I’m liking you either way, like it or not,” Sungmin had smiled, closed his windows briefly and giggled like the lovestruck teenager that he was. The day after, he waited for Kyuhyun by the school gate, awkwardly smiled and walked together with him until they reached the classroom, until they graduated, until they entered college and until that scholarship letter came.
He walked with Kyuhyun, holding his hand, smiling sweetly at him and it’s only now that he realized how something vital is missing. While Kyuhyun confessed his feelings, Sungmin never did. There are really some important words that pride and embarrassment hinder you from saying, aren’t there? Those simple words of “I like you back” can be shown by a thousand or even a million actions and yet it takes forever to say it. Because unlike in clichéd movies and fiction stories, saying it is probably one of the biggest obstacles that most people can never get over. It is not for the lack of feelings or the lack of honesty. It’s just that sometimes, as long as you show it by deed, words become superficial and embarrassment gets the better of you.
“Should I… tell him?” Sungmin asked on the phone as soon as Ryeowook’s line became available.
“Huh?” Ryeowook asked, a little confused.
“Kyuhyun. Should I tell him?” Sungmin repeated as he sits by the window, staring blankly at the calm night outside. “Should I say I like him back?”
Ryeowook made a sound similar to a snort.
“You two… first it was Kyuhyun, now it’s you. What do you think of me? Some sort of love guru? Just because I brag about reading A Handbook for Lovers doesn’t mean I’m a relationship expert!” he joked.
“You dork,” Sungmin smiled. “Kyuhyun called you?”
“Mhmm,” Ryeowook mumbled. “He’s… erm… sort of crying? Did you two have a fight?”
Sungmin exhaled and felt the beginnings of guilt poking at his heart.
“No,” he said. “I just… I think I told him I’m about to leave?”
There was a pause on Ryeowook’s side.
“What do you mean you’re leaving?”He asked and Sungmin bit the tips of his nails.
“It’s not yet really final… just that…,” and Sungmin had to explain it again - the scholarship, the dream… the once in a lifetime opportunity. He had to explain it all. There’s something quite heartbreaking about explaining certain things to the people you’ve grown up with: why you’re leaving, when you’re leaving and why… why they cannot be a part of whatever it is you have to face. At least not for the time being. There are quite a few things in life that you truly have to face alone, dreams you have to achieve on your own and challenges that only you alone can complete. Maybe that’s why it’s difficult because inasmuch as you are so used to accepting another’s help, those other people are so used to helping you too.
After all, even a tree hurts when it is uprooted from the soil. No matter the benefits of doing it, no matter the reason, separation hurts as if you’re forcefully pulling a part of yourself away from a solid wall you’ve cemented it to.
“Just that I want to fulfill some dreams,” Sungmin whispered as he plays with the curtains on his window.
Ryeowook was silent for a minute and all Sungmin could hear was the sound of his breathing.
“Kyuhyun knows, right?”
“Mhmm…”
“You know,” Ryeowook said and Sungmin could hear the sounds of chairs screeching against the floor. “I’m not an intelligent person,” he prompted. “I’m not very sharp with things like science or math or anything but I do know one basic rule that my mother said people often forget.”
“Yeah?”
Ryeowook chuckled a little - a sound that Sungmin had grown familiar with through the years and yet it’s only now that it sounded calm and mature to him.
“If you want something, go for it. Run after it, chase it and when it’s right there in front of you, reach out your hand and never hesitate to grab it. You might leave things behind while you’re running but it’s not a bad thing to sometimes turn around after everything and pick those you left behind before moving forward again, is it?”
Sungmin smiled. The moon outside seemed to have developed smiling lips for it was suddenly beaming at him too and the wind felt like arms waving at him.
“Ryewook-ah,” Sungmin said gently. “Why can’t I tell him about my feelings and yet I could tell him I’m leaving? All these years we’ve been walking together and Kyuhyun’s feelings have always been out in the open while mine… am I being a fool?” He asked.
There are silhouettes in the darkness caused by distant lights from somewhere. Sungmin squinted, trying to make out the figures in the darkness but all he saw were vague images of a man and a woman, fingers entwined and holding hands under the blinking moon. It wasn’t a clear image and yet it shows something personal and deep shared between them.
In the brief moment of silence between Sungmin’s question and Ryeowook’s pause, Sungmin thought that maybe, in a way, his feelings for Kyuhyun are still like silhouettes in the darkness up to that moment. It is both clear and unclear at the same time; both understood and misunderstood at the same time.
“Maybe…,” Ryeowook said, interrupting Sungmin’s thoughts. “You’re the type of person who wants to say I love you when you’re whole enough to mean it.”
“What?”
“Just,” Ryeowook tried to explain. “You said you have dreams. Maybe you can tell him you love him back when Kyuhyun becomes a part of those dreams. I don’t know maybe…”
“Maybe we’re still too young to fully understand what love is. Maybe… maybe love can wait for a while, don’t you think Ryeowook?” Sungmin finished for him and he felt as if all the answers he’s been looking for have been found.
“Maybe,” Ryeowook answered. “Or maybe… you just need to know how to make a big decision for yourself.”
That night, with all the answers held within his palms, Sungmin made a decision.
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“I should smack that little airhead when I see him,” the older version of Kyuhyun said while chuckling. “So he was the one who inspired you to do it, huh?”
Sungmin chuckled back.
“I’ve always thought Ryeowook was a bit silly back then,” he said. “Looking back at it now, I realize he’s probably the smartest. What could have happened between us if he weren’t there? Have you ever wondered about that, Kyuhyun?”
The nostalgic wind ruffled their hair and caused a little commotion with the sand. The winking diamonds on the ocean surface are like screens flashing moments of years gone by - moments kept within an album in the heart and framed inside the soul. Sungmin could hear Kyuhyun breathe coinciding with his as if he, too, is travelling back down the same path of memory Sungmin is currently walking on.
“High school would have been a little too plain and our story would have been a little too boring. He was, after all, the matchmaker, wasn’t he?” Kyuhyun said, recalling in his mind a hundred thousand moments of friendship he shared with that one person he proudly called best friend.
Indeed, wouldn’t high school be a little boring without that one idiotic friend whose failures made you high on crack and whose words, simple as they may be defined the lessons you need to learn? Wouldn’t puppy love and high school romance be a little too plain without that one friend who kept on trying to defy the boundaries set by embarrassment and pride just to match people together? Life… and most things in it… would probably lose a good portion of its value without friends, wouldn’t it?
“Where is he now, anyway?” Sungmin asked.
“Ryeowook?” Kyuhyun asked back.
“Mhmm…”
“Probably relaxing in some tropical island in Southeast Asia with a bunch of tiny grandchildren following him around,” Kyuhyun grinned. “Or maybe he’s in a culinary tour of world, tasting different kinds of bread in France or pizza in Italy or Thai food or… or maybe he’s in Incheon, gardening in his backyard and reminiscing about things the way we’re doing right now. I haven’t talked to him in years.”
A ferry boat appeared in the distance, as tiny as a finger. Sungmin and Kyuhyun watched it with interest for a few minutes before it seemingly disappeared into the horizon. Memories, conversations, names, phone numbers and faces… they’re all ferry boats on a sea when time takes over the mind and age ceases to become just an insignificant number. As years pile up and another figure is added to that dreaded number called age, the ferry boat moves further into the horizon until there’s nothing left but a thumb-sized memory of what was and what used to be - except for certain things.
Except for regrets.
Regrets, no matter how small can take on the size of a huge ship with huge anchors, clinging onto the seabed of memory and no matter how hard time and tide try to remove the anchor to allow the ship to sail, it simply cannot be done. It simply won’t sail. It won’t disappear into the horizon.
“Would it have made a difference, Kyuhyun?” Sungmin asked quietly.
“Mhmm?”
“If I told you what you wanted to hear back then, would it have made a difference?”
Kyuhyun’s lips twitched upwards slightly.
“I can’t really remember what I wanted to hear from you back then,” he admitted. “Just that… maybe, more than the I love you’s and the what-nots, I wanted to hear you say that you want to be with me,” he looked straight at Sungmin and the soft smile grew wider. “Maybe… just that and nothing more, Sungmin. Just that.”
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There’s a show about geese a few nights later when Kyuhyun opened the television. Like ninety percent of all the birds on the planet, geese are monogamous. They mate for life and form bonds with their partners. The gander sometimes wander off but he sure returns to his partner for fear that another male might take the opportunity to breed with her. He can’t allow that. They’re mates for life.
Kyuhyun blinked.
Mates for life.
Kyuhyun smiled.
Why can’t humans do that too? Why can’t we all stay in one place and be happy? Why are people’s lives always made up of a series of goodbyes and hellos and farewells and sad endings? Couldn’t it simply be a cycle of meeting people and keeping them by your side forever? Why does someone always have to ruin the fun by saying goodbye?
When the images on the screen changed and an advertisement about cruises took its place, Kyuhyun watched as the ferry boat on the screen sail away into the orange horizon, its lights getting dimmer as it does, sailing away to make someone’s dream cruise come true.
And then it dawned on him.
Dreams.
Unlike geese, people have dreams. From birth, we all have a star we’re meant to find and reach. Some find it early, others take a lifetime. It is that act of finding that one star that leads people to places, moves them around with invisible hands and finally allows them to settle somewhere. It is that star that creates hellos and goodbyes and allows each person to meet certain other people in their quest to touch it.
Sungmin is probably still looking for that star. Kyuhyun is, too. The only difference would probably where to find it. Sungmin’s star… might not be in Korea, after all. Sungmin’s dreams will never be fulfilled in Korea alone and Kyuhyun cannot bring himself to hinder Sungmin from achieving them.
That night, as he watches geese and ferry boats and orange horizons… Kyuhyun learned how to give way to dreams. And he learned how to truly love. This time though, he’s pretty sure it’s not puppy love anymore.
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“I’ve accepted the scholarship,” Sungmin said two weeks later, eyes on the crunchy leaves beneath his feet as he and Kyuhyun trudge the familiar path towards their dormitory. The pavement is lined with trees watching their own leaves dance to the ground in a melancholy fashion.
“Kyuhyun…,” Sungmin tried to continue when Kyuhyun didn’t answer.
“I think I fell in love with a ferry boat, Sungmin,” Kyuhyun interrupted.
“What?” Sungmin tried to laugh.
Kyuhyun looked up at the pale yellow sun, squinting a little as the gentle rays hit his eyes.
“I think you’re a ferry boat,” he said innocently and made some movements with his hands. “You’re sailing, sailing, sailing… reaching for some star in that horizon, getting tossed by the tide… sailing, sailing… until all your dreams come true,” the innocence in his voice was broken when his own self control betrayed him and the sandy feeling in his throat developed into the beginning of tears. “Sadly though, there’s no room in that ferry boat for another person. Maybe next year, maybe in the years to come, maybe you can make room for me…”
“It’s only for three years,” Sungmin interrupted and pulled Kyuhyun to a stop. “It’s only for three years, Kyuhyun. We can talk on the phone! We can exchange emails, we can send each other pictures, we can… we can update each other on what’s going on in our lives…” his hands flailed at his sides.
Kyuhyun watched him silently for a few minutes before asking, “Sungmin… what if… there’s someone else who comes into your life while you’re there? Would we still continue to talk on the phone? Could we still exchange emails? What if you send me pictures of you and that someone else? What if you tell me stories about you and someone else? What if…”
“Kyuhyun…”
“I was just thinking,” Kyuhyun interrupted him. “So many things could happen in three years. Heck, the world could even stop turning in three years, Sungmin.”
Sungmin stayed silent, bowed his head and started kicking the leaves beneath his feet.
“What do you want me to do, then?” He asked quietly. “What should I do then, Kyuhyun? Should I stay here? Should I withdraw my acceptance?”
There was an eternity of a pause. All Sungmin could hear was Kyuhyun’s heavy breaths as he tries to control whatever it is that was fighting to get out of him.
“I just want you… to make your dreams come true,” came the honest reply and Sungmin quickly looked up to meet Kyuhyun’s almost tearful gaze. “I just want you to be the happiest ferry boat on this whole damn planet. I just…,” he cleared his throat. “More than being with you, I just…want you to be happy. Sungmin I…” Kyuhyun was not able to finish his sentence for Sungmin’s arms were suddenly around him, taking him in an embrace that was the warmest he could remember.
Kyuhyun smiled and bravely held back his tears as he embraces Sungmin back and buried his head on the other’s shoulders. When he spoke, his voice was muffled by Sungmin’s sweater.
“Make everything happen in those three years, Sungmin. Anything… anything at all just… don’t forget me. Don’t forget me,” he said and closed his eyes, relishing the feel of Sungmin in his arms, already dreading the separation looming ahead of them.
Why is it difficult, anyway? Why is it more difficult to be separated by time and distance than to be separated by death? Maybe because in death you won't be looking forward to another chance. You know that it's the end and it's either you get stuck or you move on while in any other circumstance... while you're separated by time and place and distance and dreams... more than anything else, the most difficult thing is to wait for that next hello. That time when you can finally say "how has it been? Are you doing fine? You haven't changed at all. Can we be together now?"
And then when that time comes, what's even more difficult is to realize that though nothing has changed, you can't be together again. Because memories, no matter how beautiful remain as that.
Beautiful memories. Just memories.
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“My one great love is a ferry boat,” Kyuhyun chuckled, making a joke of his statement so many years ago. Sungmin chuckled too as they pause for a moment, each flipping a weathered page in their memories.
“Do you believe in ghosts, Kyuhyun?” Sungmin asked after a while as he and Kyuhyun continue to watch the tiny ferry boat in the distance. “You know…things that haunt you long after they’re gone, words that still cause sleepless nights long after they’re said… Kyuhyun, do you believe in those things?”
“I do,” Kyuhyun answered gently, coughing at little at the sea breeze.
“It still bothers me. Those things I didn’t say out loud when we were at the airport, those things I didn’t do… I didn’t even kiss you, did I? I think that accidental kiss we had back when we were still in high school was the only kiss ever shared between us.”
Kyuhyun smiled but he remained silent.
“I keep on wondering… if I had kissed you back then, would it have created a new fork in the road we travelled? What if I stayed? What if I said all the words you wanted to hear? What if I came back sooner? What if it didn’t take me five… six… seven years to come back? What could have happened?”
“Regrets?” Kyuhyun simply said and he smiled - a smile so warm, so full of life, so sweet in Sungmin’s eyes as if they never aged at all; as if they never grew up.
“At the airport back then, while I was on that scholarship, while I was travelling the world and making all my dreams come true and until now… more than anything…,” Sungmin paused in his statement. “Kyuhyun, more than anything… I wanted to tell you that you’re the only man I’ve ever loved.”
“Sungmin…”
“My one great love, my first love, the only man I’ve loved… is also a ferry boat, carried by the waves away from me and I didn’t have the courage to grab the anchor and prevent him from sailing…,” he looked at Kyuhyun. “Kyuhyun actually I… I still…” he was shushed with a finger to his lips.
“What you sealed with goodbye should not be ruined by another hello,” Kyuhyun said gently. “Sungmin… maybe… maybe everything that was meant to happen between us ended when you stepped on that plane at the airport. Maybe… maybe they weren’t meant to happen, after all. Maybe… maybe everything were meant to exist around our what-ifs and what-could’ve-beens. In the end, maybe we weren’t meant to be together, after all,” Kyuhyun gently said. “Sungmin…”
“Of all the truths I’ve been slapped with all my life… that statement is probably the most painful…,” Sungmin said, voice quivering. He would’ve thrown his pride away with the sea breeze at that moment and cry at Kyuhyun’s feet if it weren’t for the tiny voices that caught both their attention.
“Left! Left! Geez why are you such an idiot?” A small boy scolds his brother as he teaches him how to ride a bicycle.
Sungmin looked at Kyuhyun who was gazing at the children with pride in his eyes.
“Life gives you better things after you lose precious ones, don’t you think?” He asked Sungmin and while the other nodded, he retracted his previous statement in his mind. Not being meant to be isn’t the most painful of all the words Kyuhyun said, after all.
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“Three years,” Sungmin whispered in Kyuhyun’s ears minutes before his plane leaves. The winter sun is playful outside, making the layers of snow look as if they are layers of diamonds instead. Kyuhyun held his hand tightly and Sungmin could feel his fingers go numb.
“Kyuhyun, we’ve talked about this, didn’t we?”
“I just…,” Kyuhyun murmured and Sungmin could sense the tears hovering around edges of the other’s self-control. “I just wish we’re in high school all over again and I’ll get to see you the next morning when I enter the room.”
“And then you’ll squabble with Ryeowook?” Sungmin joked, feeling his own tears threatening to take over his words. “And then we’ll go home together, you’ll wave a temporary goodbye and we’ll meet each other again the next day.”
Kyuhyun nodded.
“I really… I love you, Sungmin.”
At those words, Sungmin froze like a statue, debating within himself whether to say it back or not. The words were just there at the tip of his tongue, begging to be said. Why is it so difficult to say I love you too just when you need to say it? You spend countless sleepless nights planning on how to say it, waiting for the perfect timing and yet when it’s there, right in front of your face, all words are lost and you dissolve into nothing but a creature that can only say hmm and hahaha.
“I…,” Sungmin swallowed. “I’ll see you in three years, Kyuhyun,” he said and turned around, heart hammering inside of him. There’s always tomorrow. There’s always the end of those three years. He could say it anytime and when he finally does, it’ll mean twice as sweet.
But sometimes… sometimes you can’t always count on tomorrow. Sometimes, you need to say it when you have the chance to say it. Tomorrow’s ground is always uncertain and today is the only thing you can be sure of. When Sungmin walked away from Kyuhyun that day, he didn’t know that it would be the last chance he’ll get to say “I love you back, Kyuhyun”.
Sometimes, farewells turn into goodbyes when destiny comes into the picture and forces people to trudge a pre-made path it carved out.
Kyuhyun watched as Sungmin gave him one final wave before disappearing with the crowd. Just like that and he’s gone. He felt a heavy tugging at his heart telling him how difficult those three years would be. A phone call cannot take the place of quiet whispers to his ears; pictures can never really take the place of Sungmin being there and emails can’t take the place of spoken words. Shaking his head, Kyuhyun pushed all those thoughts away. He could feel the tears gathering at the base of his eyes and he didn’t want that. He head a deep breath and turned around only to find Ryeowook standing a few feet away from him, smiling a little, arms crossed and tapping his foot.
“Well?” Ryeowook stated. “Ready to cry?”
And Kyuhyun did. A lot. The moment he saw Ryeowook, it felt like all his defenses crumbled to the ground and the wall at the base of his eyes was dissolved by tears. He walked slowly towards his best friend, his emotional pain turning into a physical one and he was reduced into nothing but a sobbing lump of goo in Ryeowook’s arms.
“Give me a moment and I’ll be fine. Give me a moment and I’ll be fine,” Kyuhyun kept saying and Ryeowook kept on patting his back.
“The way I see it, you don’t need a moment. You need a lifetime,” Ryeowook joked and, in spite of his tears and aching heart, Kyuhyun reached out and smacked his friend. “You’ll be fine, Kyuhyun-ah. You’ll definitely be fine,” Ryeowook kept saying. “It’s only three years. What is three years of separation?”
Six years later, when Sungmin still did not come back, Ryeowook’s question was answered. Three years might not seem like a long time to most people but for those who are pushing the limits of fate and destiny, three years is a lifetime. And so much more than that.
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“Hey, you two!” A female voice broke Kyuhyun and Sungmin’s conversation and they both turned around to find a petite, middle-aged woman standing on the porch. “Do I need to bring our the snacks or do I have to drag you two old men inside?”
Kyuhyun chuckled and gave a little bow of his head while Sungmin looks amused.
“I first met her in that grand high school reunion we had when I returned to Korea,” Sungmin smiled. “She’s as interesting as I first thought she was.”
Kyuhyun’s smile grew wider as turned back around to face the sea.
“I first met her in my thesis class on the third year of your absence. And she’s as interesting as you think she is,” he said with a bit of fondness in his voice. “Na Young… she might not fully own my heart and she might not be the only person I have loved,” he caught Sungmin’s eyes and held his gaze as deep as he could manage. “But she is definitely the last…”
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Kim Na Young entered Kyuhyun’s life to originally fill the void that Sungmin’s absence created. Her hair was red when Kyuhyun first met her and she scolded Kyuhyun for having dropped his pencil countless times in as many minutes. She picked it up on its fourth fall, slammed it down Kyuhyun’s table and called him an idiot. On their second meeting, it was Na Young’s pencil that suffered the same as Kyuhyun’s and when Kyuhyun slammed it down her table, she invited him out for coffee.
She looks like Sungmin in certain angles and she smiles the way Sungmin does. Sometimes Kyuhyun gets so lost in his own reminiscing and he calls her Sungmin. She would scowl at them and punch him on the shoulders to steal his thoughts away from someone who has been gone for more than the number of years he promised.
“If you love him that much, go after him you idiot and stop sulking here pretending you love me,” Na Young would always say whenever Kyuhyun’s talks about Sungmin bothers her and she would push him away only for Kyuhyun to come back and laugh at her.
And then it happened one day - Kyuhyun sort of fell in love, or so he thinks. It’s not as deep as the one he thinks he feels for Sungmin. It’s not even the kind that rattles the heart and shakes the soul. This one - the kind of love he thinks he feels for Na Young - is a quiet, gentle rhythm within the heart; a peaceful kind; the kind that creates little smiles in the morning and quiet giggles at night; the kind that makes it sweet to grow old together, create a family and share a thousand other lifetimes together.
There are surely moments in life when we all grow old not with the greatest love of our lives but with someone who might not fully rock our world but holds it together in place anyway.
“I’m not Lee Sungmin,” Na Young said sharply
“I don’t care,” Kyuhyun told her. It was a simple answer but it contained more than the honesty she expects from him.
“What if he comes back and you go running back to him?”
Kyuhyun smiled, touched her hands and shrugged.
“What will you do if I did that?”
“Kick your ass, curse you two, wish for you to grow pimples large enough to cover your whole face and then move on,” Na Young said truthfully and Kyuhyun thinks he really loves her…
Until Sungmin came back.
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When Sungmin left seven years ago, he was a man searching for a dream, a star, a niche in this world. Seven years later, on a cold autumn evening, right in the middle of a high school reunion, he came back full of achieved dreams and several other stars he didn’t think he’d come close to reaching. Seven years ago, he left Korea with promises and seven years later, he came back to fulfill them.
Only that, he didn’t think he was a few years too late. Sometimes, promises, once limited by a deadline, need to be fulfilled within that deadline otherwise you lose the chance to fulfill them forever. Destiny, indeed, is a matter out of human control, playing outside the palms of each and every person and is never susceptible to being manipulated by anyone else other than itself. Once in a while, it gives you the chance to defy it and get a hand at the steering wheel. The challenge is how to recognize that chance for when you lose it, the wheels that were once set in motion will continue to roll and you cannot do anything but chase something that will forever be out of your reach.
“What took you seven years?” Kyuhyun asked, teary-eyed and choking as soon as they laid eyes on each other. The night is young, the music is playing and the hotel grounds where their reunion is held suddenly seemed to be abandoned just for the two of them. “What took you seven years, Sungmin?”
Sungmin swallowed huge and cleared his throat of a blockage that prevented him from breathing smoothly. Under a ceiling of a myriad stars and beneath the mercy of the night wind, Kyuhyun looks so much more breathtaking than Sungmin could remember the last time he saw him.
“There were no stop signs in the sea, Kyuhyun… and this ferry boat continued sailing,” Sungmin explained, nostrils slightly flaring from his attempt to convert his threatening sobs into tiny giggles. “They should learn how to put stop signs in the sea, don’t you think?” He tried to ask philosophically and without warning, Kyuhyun pulled him into a fierce embrace, sobbing without pride in Sungmin’s arms the way he did all those fading years ago.
“I told her it doesn’t matter if you return,” Kyuhyun was suddenly saying, leaving Sungmin confused. “I told her I won’t go running back to you because three years is three years…,” he whispered thickly.
“Kyuhyun…?” Sungmin tried to ask and, as if something is mocking him, his eyes landed on a petite red-haired woman standing not far from them, arms crossed and heaving tearful, heavy breaths. “…Kyuhyun? Is… was… is seven years a little too late?” He choked on something and his voice came in tearful syllables as his heart slowly grasps the situation.
“We’re getting married,” Kyuhyun whispered and Sungmin felt the pieces of his heart dissolve into a pile of dust to be blown by the night wind. The sides of his eyes felt painful as if his tears were acid that burns through his skin.
He didn’t think… Sungmin didn’t think that an excess of four years could cost him a lifetime of happiness.
“Sungmin!” Kyuhyun exclaimed when Sungmin broke free of his grasp and headed for the exit. There were stray drops of tears that remained at the top of Kyuhyun’s palms and they felt hot and burning. “Sungmin wait… Sungmin… Sungmin!” He went after is former lover, caught him by the bush on the front yard and he harshly pulled the other by the elbow, turning Sungmin around to face him.
“It was only an excess of four years, Kyuhyun,” Sungmin complained through his tears, hiccupping a little. “What is an excess of four years?!”
Kyuhyun remained silent for a while and bit his lips, raking his fingers through his hair before answering.
“It’s… it’s enough time to fall in love with someone else…,” he answered and his words were met by a painful slap filled with Sungmin’s feelings.
“What about… what about that promise of being there to catch me when I fall? What about that?” Sungmin asked painfully. “What about…what about us?” Sungmin completely asked, bursting into heart-melting tears in front of Kyuhyun.
With that, Kyuhyun broke down too, sobbing as he slowly slid to his knees. Flashes of memories arranged themselves inside his head and the laughter that resounds caused a sting in his heart that is far more painful than the slap he just received. Choppy words and promises that seemed to be written on brittle paper sounded as if they were being torn inside his mind. It was an agonizing feeling of drowning in so many things that he, himself does not understand.
What is love? What is commitment? What are promises?
“Sungmin… Sungmin…,” Kyuhyun said, grabbing Sungmin’s legs and pulling himself up. “If you ask me… if you tell me, at this very moment… I’ll leave her. I’ll tell her it was a mistake… I’ll tell her it wasn’t love… Sungmin… just… just… Sungmin…,” Kyuhyun’s voice faded with every word. “…please…”
And yet he walked away. Sungmin walked away with Kyuhyun crying behind him. The night felt heavy and mournful as they bid goodbye to the last chance that destiny gave them to take control of their own steering wheels. Pride, hurt feelings, commitment and obligations turned the little goodbyes that they uttered all those years ago into big ones.
How truly powerful human emotions are. How truly powerful they are to either build a relationship or destroy it. They either create memories or regrets and this-is-what-it-should-be or what-ifs.
That night, when Sungmin allowed himself to get caught in a storm of emotions, he didn’t realize that he’d be coming out of it years later when the what-could’ve-beens in his life have already turned into bitter what-ifs.
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“It sucks sometimes, doesn’t it? To be grown up enough to understand what is painful and what isn’t,” Kyuhyun observed as they trudge back to the beach house.
“It does,” Sungmin said. “When I learned how to deal with it…,” he sighed before continuing. “Thirty years have passed and you’re happily married with children and grandchildren. Some people really are too slow to push the stop button, aren’t they?”
Kyuhyun smiled sadly.
“Na Young is a pretty awesome woman,” he said. “That night you walked away, she told me that if I can’t get over you, she’ll force me to,” he exhaled. “I guess she won in the end.”
“You know… I’ve visited you countless times in this place, haven’t I?” Sungmin asked and Kyuhyun nodded. “And each time I do, I keep on wondering… what if it were me instead of Na Young?” He asked and Kyuhyun laughed.
“We probably won’t have children and grandchildren,” Kyuhyun joked. The wind disturbed the sand around them, causing tiny whirlwhind of yellowish grains around their feet.
Sungmin rubbed his arms and nodded.
“What if… what if I told you what you wanted to hear? What if I told you I wanted to stay? What if I gave you a chance?” His questions came one after the other and Kyuhyun patiently listened. Their shoulders touched each other - the closest they could get to feel each other in their arms again.
“What if you weren’t a ferry boat? What if you didn’t sail out to sea?” Kyuhyum chimed in, his voice gentle and sad. Sungmin returned his smile. “Sometimes I’d think about it too…,” he admitted.
“Maybe… maybe we’ll be travelling around the world,” Sungmin told him. “Maybe we’d really go on a cruise or a trip somewhere. Maybe we’d wake up in the morning smiling at each other, laughing at the wrinkles on our faces,” he said as he felt something warm falling down from his eyes and it was only then that he realized he was crying. “Maybe I’d feel a little less lonely and maybe you’d feel a different kind of happiness.”
At those words, they stopped walking, feet buried in the sand and they faced each other bravely for the first time in almost thirty years. Soul bared and heart ready to completely forgive, Sungmin bravely asked:
“Kyuhyun… what if it’s the two us together instead?”
With those words, the sea waves created a lonely kind of silence between them. The pale sun kissed their cheeks gently and from a distance their silhouettes look like two lovers close enough to meet but never touching anyway. Kyuhyun smiled at Sungmin, eyebrows raised in some momentary confusion. His eyes took on a shiny glow the way it did those many years ago when the innocence of youth still played within his soul. He took Sungmin’s hands and cradled it in between his own warm ones, the smile never leaving his face.
“I can’t remember how it feels, Sungmin,” Kyuhyun said. “I’ve been loving someone else for so long that I can’t remember how it feels to love you. But something here,” he pointed to his chest. “Something here tells me that it must have been a pretty good feeling. It must have been a pretty damn good feeling.”
The laughter of Kyuhyun’s grandchildren pierced through their conversation. Sungmin thought it added a piercing kind of melancholy in the air. The waves jump in and out of the shore, like the pain jumping in and out of Sungmin’s heart.
“Are you happy?” Sungmin asked out of the blue. His feet were buried beneath a shallow pit of sand. It gives a feeling of being stuck the first time and yet when he tries to lift his foot and force it out, he realized that he was never stuck from the beginning.
Kyuhyun’s wife appeared from the doorway once again, hands to her hips and a smirk to her lips.
“Are you coming or not?” Na Young asked and Kyuhyun chuckled, murmuring tiny a “yes yes” as he started to move once again. That scene evoked in Sungmin a myriad of emotions that he could never explain: jealousy, anxiety, envy, sadness, loneliness, happiness. Has Kyuhyun always been that happy? Does he always smile like that? Does he always shine like that? Why is he happy? Why would he be happy when Sungmin… Sungmin wasted more than half of his life, wallowing in things that he could never change anymore.
And then in that moment of standstill and realization, as the wind blows and the waves playfully dance on the shore… Sungmin found himself once again, in his fifties, lonely and alone. And for the first time in thirty years he asked himself “where did all those time go?”
Indeed… where?
“Coming?” Kyuhyun asked when he looked back at Sungmin. He frowned. “You don’t want to have a snack?” He asked when Sungmin remained standing, feet buried in the sand.
“Kyuhyun…”
“Mhmm?”
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Sungmin said quietly, his voice melting with the wind.
Kyuhyun’s eyes mellowed and a small smile appeared on his lips as he re-traces his steps back to Sungmin.
“Have you… finally gotten tired?” He asked gently, patting Sungmin on the head awkwardly the way he did all those years ago. For a moment, as the sea wind blows, it felt like they were back in high school all over again. Kyuhyun is still taller than Sungmin and Sungmin is still crying like a baby. For a moment, it seemed as if nothing has changed and it felt like they were those crazy teenagers, bothered by the beginnings of a feeling so naively called puppy love.
“Thirty long years… where did my life go?” Sungmin asked almost bitterly and suddenly, things aren’t the same as high school. Suddenly, Kyuhyun is a fifty-plus year old man with a wife, two sons and two grandchildren. Suddenly, Sungmin is a very successful composer, holding on to a past love he cannot seem to let go.
Suddenly, they grew apart.
Suddenly, they grew old apart.
Suddenly, they were two old men needing to find a closure to something that bothered them for more than thirty years and suddenly… suddenly… things might be a little bit better if they learned how to say goodbye.
“I…,” Sungmin exhaled and fiddled with the hem of his shirt and fought with himself, still unable to say the things he needed and wanted to say. “I don’t think I’ll be getting that free snack,” he said. “Kyuhyun I… I don’t think I’ll be coming back…”
Kyuhyun raised a confused eyebrow.
“I don’t think you should, too…,” he said gently, making Sungmin close his eyes and accept that some things… really… some things need to meet an ending at one point in time when destiny and dead ends meet. “It’s been thirty years, Sungmin. Don’t be too harsh on yourself.”
Sungmin titled his head to one side and shrugged.
“You love her so much, don’t you?”
“Na Young?”
“Mhmm…”
“I think so…,” Kyuhyun murmured. “Yeah, I think so.”
“You know,” Sungmin said quietly. “Every time I come here and we reminisce about the same story over and over, it made me happy knowing that you still remember; that there’s something worth remembering. And I thought to myself that maybe… maybe it’s not so wrong for me to want to still hold on to you after all these years,” he said. “But maybe… maybe I now come to a point where I realize that you’re not a wall and you do not belong to me and that I should open my palms and release a part of you that I’m grasping.”
“Kyuhyun…,” Sungmin continued, coughing a little at the salty sea breeze.
“Mhmm?”
“I’m letting go…,” Sungmin murmured in a harsh whisper.
“I think you should,” Kyuhyun whispered back, voice quivering from a certain rush of emotions he didn’t quite expect. “I think we should. Thank you for being an awesome first love,” he said and held his hand out to Sungmin, which the other took and shook gratefully, holding it tightly until he’s sure he embedded the feel of it in his memory.
Sungmin gave a little bow before pulling his feet out of the sand and starting to walk away slowly, with steady steps and in a steady pace. Kyuhyun watched Sungmin and thought of him still as a ferry boat, sailing to another ocean but this time… this time he might not come back. This time, there might be a thousand oceans between them. This time… this is truly goodbye.
He watched until Sungmin was a little distance away from him. He watched the man he fondly calls the one great love he’ll probably never meet again. And in his heart, in that secret place that only Sungmin could touch, Kyuhyun instilled the image of his back as the last of the photographs he’d like to keep in an invisible album kept deep within.
When the diamond-studded rays of the sun bit on his skin and Sungmin slowly becomes a retreating figure in the distance, Kyuhyun turned around and headed towards the happy sound of his family - a group of people who filled the void that his one great love will never get to fill.
“Grandpa, who was that man?” One of his grandchildren asked and Kyuhyun looked at Na Young, who in turn was looking at him with a playful knowing look on her face.
“Someone who gave up someone else so you can be born,” Kyuhyun said in a mixture of mischief and hidden sadness and Na Young smacked him with her ladle. He looked out the window and noticed how Sungmin had stopped walking and stared at the house for a moment and in that few seconds that their gazes must have met, Kyuhyun whispered a goodbye that took thirty long years for him to finally say.
“Goodbye, Sungmin. This lifetime might not have been meant for us, after all.
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A new ferry boat appeared from a distance, getting bigger as it approaches a port nearby. Maybe finding the shore is like letting go; maybe it’s like moving on. The ferry boat travels and sails round and round a sea of heartbreak until a tiny speck in the distance finally appears - until the shore makes an appearance and the ferry boat finally finds a pretty good place to rest.
Maybe we all hold on to a past we can’t forget and to that possible future we dreamed about. Maybe we still clutch on to a long forgotten dream and often times maybe we get lost in a sea of unfulfilled promises and bitter wishes. But there comes a time - ten, twenty, thirty years after - when finally, the shore is within reach and the anchor is thrown out. And when it does… when that shore is in sight and the future is once again a blank page devoid of your pre-made dreams, you finally release all the burden of a previous trip, bare your feet and step on to the shore.
That’s how you let go, that’s how you move on and that’s how you start a future filled with the kind of happiness you deserved.
Looking back at the beach house, Sungmin watched for a moment as the silhouette of Kyuhyun’s happy family met his eyes. A new kind of melancholy rose within him - the kind that wishes for the same kind of happiness for himself. He sighed and continued walking away, leaving thirty years of heartache behind him.
It’s never too late to start again, is it?
Maybe… maybe little goodbyes happen to pave the way for bigger ones to take place. Maybe they exist to show us certain lessons that we could never learn had we stayed and forced a kind of togetherness that wasn’t meant to be in the first place. Maybe they are tools for destiny to show us that life would suck if things go our way all the time.
In the stillness of his heart and in that quiet corner that he reserved for Kyuhyun, a small voice within Sungmin still echo a tiny what-if that doesn’t contain any of the regrets that he now tries to leave behind. Instead, it brings a gentle push that forces him to finally start seeking some kind of happiness that he owed himself for thirty long years.
Sniffing back the tears and releasing a huge amount of breath, Sungmin turned around and walked away, whispering something he never had the courage to say truthfully in those thirty years:
Goodbye, Kyuhyun. Let’s not meet again in this lifetime.
END.
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1. T___T That’s all I can say. Huhu
2. Typos… I am too lazy to check. huhuhu