after the blue moon
after the blue moon | pg13 | oneshot | kim kibum
for unknowntoyou18 | angst & death
.after the blue moon
I got up one morning and found myself on my way to the train station bound for my hometown. I didn’t know why, I just felt like it. And since I didn’t have anything better to do, I just followed where my limbs would take me. It had been years since I came home to my roots. It had been years since my parents’ death, when I decided never to go back. Why I was, right now, was a big question.
I hopped down the landing and craned my head from side to side looking at the changes that time had done the town. It was still small, crowded, poor, but it still had that something that seemed to lure me farther into its midst. It came to me, the moment I stood outside our old house.
There was something waiting for me. I could feel it calling me, but I didn’t know what it was or where to find it. It was there, though, softly calling out my name, almost in a singsong way.
I walked down a path that I barely remember, although, it was familiar and I could almost see myself when I was a little boy, about 7 years old, or so, ambling along it.
I closed the door as softly as I could, doing my best not to alert my mom that I had gone out of the house. I looked at both sides of the porch before making my way out of the gates and ran as fast as I could towards our meeting place. I put my hand inside my jacket pocket, smiling to myself of the good work I had done.
I couldn’t help but finger the tiny thing inside, as I waited for her to finally show up.
“Kibum oppa!” someone called from behind me, making me turn in sweet anticipation.
“Na yah… how come you’re so late?” I asked, making an angry face at her.
“I couldn’t get away from my omma… don’t be mean to me!” she exclaimed. I let out a loud laugh and she pouted at me for mocking her. “Yah!”
I took the chance to reach out and grab her hand, slipping the ring on her finger. I heard her gasp but it only added to the smile I had on my lips.
“Don’t you ever take that off, Na yah…” I told her, and she nodded. “You’re my girlfriend now… and I’m your boyfriend, alright?” Hana nodded again.
“Do you have one, too?” she asked, pointing to the plastic ring she had on her finger.
I smiled at her and showed her the other one in my jacket pocket. She took it in her tiny hands and mimic what I had done before. Then she held onto my hand, tightly, as she giggled ever so sweetly, repeating the words that I had told her.
“Don’t take that off, you hear me, oppa? You are my boyfriend now… and I am your girlfriend…”
We held hands as I walked her home. I told her that my parents decided to go to Seoul and that I had to go with them. She cried. She cried so hard and I didn’t know what to do to make her stop. In the end, I cried, too. But I didn’t let go of her hand, until we were right in front of their house.
“Na yah…” I began when she was halfway to the door. She turned and ran back to me, hugging me tightly. “Na yah… I will come back… I will come back for you.”
“You will?” her eyes widened as she looked up at me. I smiled and nodded. “Oppa… then I promise never to take off this ring…”
I took her ringed hand and held it tightly in my own. “I will come back… on the first day of spring… 5 blue moons from now,” I promised.
“How long is that, oppa?” she asked.
“I don’t really know, Na yah…”
She nodded again, as if telling me that she understood perfectly. She nodded… telling me that she would wait, no matter how long it took me to get back to her side.
The blue moon…
The start of every month would always be with either a full moon or a new moon phase. In a year, there would be twelve full moons… but it was said that in every century, there would be forty-seven years that would have thirteen full moons. They were separated by two and a half years.
Five blue moons, I once promised my childhood girlfriend.
Five blue moons.
That meant that I was supposed to come back after twelve and a half years.
I didn’t.
My family and I left when I was seven. My parents died when I was seventeen. Since then, I said that I was never coming back to this town. Because it brought back too many memories of them.
It was now five years, and two blue moons late. Would she still be waiting for me?
I found my answer the moment I set eyes upon the willow tree in the middle of the park I used to know. There, by the foot of the sturdy tree, on the grass that covered the dirt and provided as a carpet, was the girl I had left and promised to come back to when I was a naïve child. I realized that she was busy with the little flowers that were on her lap, while humming. No, she was singing, but it was a tune that I had never heard before. She had long black hair that flowed down her back. It made me want to see her… look at her… maybe even touch her.
So I walked closer until she noticed my presence. As she looked up, every thought in my mind seemed to have fluttered away. She took my breath away in every possible way. She looked like a princess who was made happy by the simplest things that the world has to offer. Her face was as pale as a porcelain doll’s, but her lips glistened of a natural rosy color. Her cheeks were high, her lashes long. She was donned in a pink summer dress that accentuated her lips even more. Although, I couldn’t remember all those traits in my Na yah, I knew it was her. My gut told me so.
She saw me and a smile started to spread itself across her lovely face.
She remembered me.
She waited for me.
She never forgot… even when I did.
“Oppa…” my Na yah whispered so tenderly, getting off the ground and onto her feet. “Oppa… you came back!”
I could only stare at her as I felt bile rising up my throat. I was guilty… I did something wrong.
I forgot.
She wrapped her arms around my neck, sobbing, while all I could do was hold her back. I tried to coo her and make her stop crying, but I couldn’t. In the end, I cried, too. But my reason was far from hers. Mine was remorse.
After a while, Hana pulled herself off me, wiping her tears with the back of her right hand, her left linking with mine. She looked up at me again once she seemed composed and led me to the bench.
“I’ve been waiting so long for you, oppa,” she said, adding to the shame that I felt. “After you left, I did everything to find out how long it would take for the moon to become blue… and when I went to high school, I finally did,” she smiled.
“Na yah…” I started, although I really didn’t know what to say.
“Yah, oppa… where’s your ring?” Hana asked, pointing at my ring finger.
I looked down for I had no answer that would please her. But she held my face in her hands making me stare at her eyes again. She winked at me.
“It’s alright, oppa. I understand you. Besides, a ring doesn’t matter anymore that you are back. Oh, by the way, where are you spending the night? And when did you actually come?”
Hana. Sung Hana. She was my childhood girlfriend. The girl whom I proposed to when I was about to leave town. She was the same girl that had held my hand tightly in those tiny hands of hers. She was the exact same girl that I kissed back then, before I turned to run back home. She was Na yah… my Na yah.
My Na yah.
The plastic ring on her finger told me that she was still my Na yah. And that whatever reason I had for not coming home sooner, did not matter anymore. It told me that the angel beside me was as happy as she could ever be just because I was back.
We talked and laughed and reminisce those times that we didn’t spend with each other. And in the midst of it all, I felt her body lean closer to mine. I felt her warm touch on my bare skin. I felt her with me.
I realized that I really was home.
I was where I was supposed to be.
I was in my Na yah’s arms.
“It’s getting late,” I whispered into her ear. “Let’s get you home.”
She nodded and got up, pulling me with her. She held my hand as if she had no intention of letting go. I squeezed hers, telling her that I was feeling the same way. She rested her head o my shoulder as we exited the park. Hand in hand we walked the road towards her house. We were silent the whole time, letting the birds and crickets serenade us all the way.
I walked her until the gates of their old house. She turned and looked at me with her big toothy grin, as her hands reached out to caress my cheeks.
“Na yah, I love you…” I said with all my heart.
With everything in me that lay forgotten for a long time. I took her hands and pulled her closer, planting a soft kiss on her even softer lips.
“I love you, too, oppa.”
I took a deep breath before reaching out for the knocker on the door. I did my best not feel nervous, but I did, and the feeling wouldn’t go away. I waited for someone to open it, wishing so hard that it would be my Na yah.
It was an old woman who opened the door for me. I didn’t get my wish. I was face to face with her mother. I bowed my lowest to show her my respect and in the softest of ways, I asked for Hana. The woman merely looked at me. But I noticed tears in her eyes that made me confused. Then, she started screaming at me, bawling and crying her heart out. I didn’t know what to do. I asked for Hana again, and told her that I was Na yah’s boyfriend.
“Please don’t mind my mom,” someone suddenly said behind the woman. “She’s really emotional when it comes to noona.”
The guy smiled at me as he took his mother in his arms and led her to the couch in the living room.
“I - my name is Kim Kibum,” I stated, “I’m Hana’s boyfriend.”
“Yeah,” he turned to look at me, “I figured that when you said your name.”
“I - I came to see Hana. Is she home?”
He sighed in resignation, walked towards where I was standing and out the door. I followed him even though I had no idea where he was going. I felt like it was what I was supposed to do. He didn’t talk, he just walked and walked down streets that were all familiar to me but, somehow, I forgot where they headed. We rounded a corner and continued on a narrower and rougher path, still, I didn’t know where we were going.
“Uhmm-“ I started.
“I know. I’m taking you to her.”
We became silent again until we reached a certain spot in the place. It was by a tall willow tree, much like the one in the park, and I half expected to see Na yah sitting beneath it.
“She always talked about you. She always said that you were so kind and warm and handsome. Hana noona, she loved you so much. She loved you as much as she obsessed about the phases of the moon, specifically the blue moon. If she wasn’t talking about that or you, she wouldn’t be saying anything at all.”
“Wha - why are you telling me these?” I asked.
“Because, I felt that you had to know, Kibum hyung. Noona loved you so much and she waited everyday after the fifth blue moon. She waited every year. She waited for you to come back. She knew you would, she just didn’t know when because you didn’t fulfill your promise. Hana noona would have been very happy that you came.”
I shook head, trying to erase the thoughts and images that were starting to invade my mind. My gut clenched and that seemed to tell me something more than heart breaking. Somehow, I knew it but I didn’t want to admit it until I saw proof. I wanted something to actually yell at my face, something to tell me the truth that I would never forget. I wanted it although nothing in me would ever be able to handle it.
“I guess, you realize what I’m telling you, huh, hyung? Hana noona is gone. She’s been gone a long time.”
Was it my fault?
“It wasn’t your fault, oppa.” A girl, Na yah, suddenly appeared beside her brother. “It wasn’t your fault,” she cried, tears flowing from her eyes. “I was too stupid to think that I was important. I waited because I wanted to.”
“Na yah… I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry that I forgot.