People say that your first love won’t last forever. That it will fade. That it will in the end just be the experience of something new that exhalents those kind of feelings. I don’t know if it’s true or not, or if my story just wasn’t love at all in the end. But there’s one thing I know for sure, and that is I—nor he—will ever forget each other.

~

We met in High School—like the typical romance drama. We dated. We kissed. We became boyfriends, we fought, faded away from each other, and in the end, broke up.

On Graduation Day he told me he didn’t want to remain in contact anymore when I would leave for college. That night was the last time he slept in my bed.

He kissed me until I fell asleep, and in the morning, he was gone.

I wasn’t heartbroken at first. We had dated for a whole of three years, and the last half of it, I had already figured out we weren’t meant to be.

It was the familiarity that I missed when I started college. He had always been there, helped me, supported me without me even knowing it, and then he was suddenly gone. It felt wrong without him there to listen to me. It felt odd that I couldn’t just text him to meet up.

Even though the missing started to change into longing, I didn’t call him nor text him like I always had in the past. I continued with life and tried to forget about him.

Midterms came up, then finals—I forgot about him.

I had almost forgotten I even missed him when he showed himself at my family’s front door on Christmas Eve. We had spent the last three Christmas Eves together, since his family didn’t really celebrate it, or I was told.

I was shocked at first, trying to gather why he was here and why he was smiling at me like nothing had happened between us the last year.

Dinner was awkward, but like he always did, he succeeded in loosening the atmosphere up at dessert. It almost felt nice—familiar.

He spent the night, on my floor.

And when I finally allowed myself to feel the familiarity that he brought with him, he was gone the next day.

~

It took me longer this time to get over his sudden reappearance into my life. When I had opened the door for him at Christmas Eve, I had no idea how big of a scar he had reopened.

I could only think about him, and how much I missed his presence around me.

My studies became all the same. The teachers gave up on questioning me in class. My friends stopped asking me out for gatherings. I became a depressed soul without meaning—just focused on studying, but forgetting to remember what I was studying.

If Hoya—my best friend from High School—hadn’t called me up from MIT and dragged me on a roadtrip for Spring Break, I honestly think I couldn’t have snapped out of my depression myself.

So thanks to Hoya, for bringing myself back and returning myself to focus on life and not him.

~

Life returned to how they first were before he suddenly appeared in front of my doorstep. My teachers began to like me again, my friends started to talk to me again, and everything seemed normal.

Except one little thing.

I could still feel the emptiness that used to be his presence.

However much my brain wanted to miss him, I forced myself to forget it and get back on track.

Next year I made sure to celebrate Christmas Eve with my friends instead of at home, just in case he thought he was welcome to step into my life again. I honestly think I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

~

Years passed and I graduated college without meeting the shadow of him again. Not that I was looking for him—I had almost forgotten him completely, except for those nights that became fewer and fewer where I cried myself to sleep from the loneliness.

I never dated again, but I was starting a new chapter in life. I had always wanted to be a nurse at a psychiatric hospital. On my first day, I could feel something unpleasant about it all, but I never minded it and continued.

The second day another nurse told me about this patient who has always been there, but was allowed to leave whenever he wanted. Apparently this person was supposed to be my age. The reason for his loose hospitalition was that if they locked him up, it would only worsen his condition. His official records said he suffered from Dissociative amnesia, but the nurse said he only remembers one thing. Or more, one person. Which is why he gets released from time to time, so he can visit this “person”. Though at the time, I didn’t really listen to the “gossip”.

The days continued on and on, and a year passed without me meeting this so called patient that was supposed to be my age.

But it didn’t last for long.

I had made it a custom to work on Christmas Eve—even though I had forgotten about him, I still made precautions—and it was this particular night that turned my world upside down.

I was patrolling the wards—it was a prolonged nightshift—when I saw him.

Woohyun, in the flesh, standing right outside the room. It was him. He was the dissociative amnesia patient who could only remember one person.

“Sunggyu.”

And I was the only person he could remember.