Donghae

                I had gone away for some time, but I was back. Not in the sense that I could understand because as soon as I had arrived I had left again, but he was still there. He never changed. He never changes. I was stunned and I didn’t know what was going on but I was starting to comprehend the information that was being pummeled into me, even if I didn’t want to know it. Didn’t want to remember it. But I did. I remembered it and it hurt, it hurt so much. It hurt even more because I wasn’t the one who was hurting. I wasn’t the victim, but I was in so much pain. It felt like an ice cold hand had reached into the depths of my body and spread aside my ribs to clench my beating heart.

                He was there though. He was real. He was right in front of my eyes and I could feel him. I recognized that movie as something that happened in the past, and now it was the present. He was better and so was I. Nothing more happened – that’s how I wanted to see it, and for a brief moment I was relieved from the pain because his hand had caressed my cheek and brought me back. I closed my eyes and embraced the touch with everything I could, but it didn’t last and when I opened my eyes it was red. I could feel the sticky liquid on my cheek and my line of vision followed his limp hand that fell to his side, swaying slowly in rhythm.

                His head was pointing downwards and most of his weight was pushed against me. I sank to my knees and he followed – or I was the one to follow. He lifted his head with the last of his strength and his swollen, bloody lips moved slowly but surely.

                “Why?”

                I looked down at his hand that was desperately grasping mine. I hadn’t notice but my hand was gripping a hard object protruding from his abdomen. I shook my head as realization dawned on me. Tears fell from my eyes and I clenched them shut to keep my vision clear, even though I knew it wasn’t my place to be weeping.

                Blood pooled beneath us and suddenly we were transported in place to that awful winter wonderland of ours. The storm had passed and it was just the two of us out there. I gripped the hilt of the knife and attempted to pull it out, but his feeble hands grew strong and held me there.

                “Why?” He repeated, slowly and at first it pierced me with feelings of rage, but then as his voice softened I realized it wasn’t anger, it was sorrow. But for who? It couldn’t be for someone like myself?

                “I’m so sorry, I promise you’re going to get better. I didn’t mean to do it. It-it just, it just happened and I was so mad, I don’t know why… I just didn’t want you to leave me. You can’t ever leave me. I have to protect you. I have to protect you. I have to save you.” I wept and rocked us back in forth, but there was something bubbling inside of me. I could feel it.

                His pulse was weakening and if I had been paying attention at the time I may have realized that this was his last minutes on earth. He raised his hand and it touched my cheek. I opened my eyes – eyes that were filled with distraught and anger towards my own actions – he was smiling. Not the gummy smile I used to cherish, but the soft smile that always cleared my mind and heart. He opened his lips and began to whisper what would be his last words, but I couldn’t hear him. I couldn’t hear the words he passed on to me. Because of that and watching his cold, motionless corpse for hours afterwards in the below freezing temperatures, I was driven off the edge and something inside of me snapped.

                I didn’t feel it at first. I’m remembering it now, but I didn’t know at first. I still don’t know. There was – is – only one thought in my mind. I have to take care of this. I had so much to do. I have so much to do. My body started to move of its own volition. I took the body to the car. I got rid of all the bloodied snow. I went to the abandoned crematory. I burned the body. I put the ashes in an urn. I took it home. I – was transported back to the house.

                I was standing in front of the back door that looks out to the forest. The stunning blue urn was in my arms and I was standing motionless – waiting. The grandfather clock sounded and my body started to move as if I ran on a timer. With the urn I walked outside in the growing winter storm until I reached an outcropping in the woods that was marked by a nearly invisible marking in the trunk of a tree. Tucked away inside a hole in one of the trees was a shovel which I grabbed and started to move away the heavy snow. I hit the frozen ground, but it was harder than normal winter time earth because it wasn’t just dirt and dead grass. There was a steel handle under half a ruler’s length of grass and dirt. When pulled straight upwards it revealed a cylindrical shelf with two blue urns. They looked identical, and the only difference was what was inside. On the right, an urn of delicate pottery that was filled nearly completely with human ashes. On the left, there was something much more interesting than some old ashes. There was a kitchen knife with dried blood inching its way along the blade and the handle.

                I emptied the ashes in my hands into the right urn on the shelf until it was overflowing with gray ash. I stopped. I kneeled in the snow and mud. I lowered my head.

                “It’s going to be alright. I’m going to fix this and protect you. It’ll be over soon, I promise. We’re almost home – ” I cut myself short. I smiled at the overflown ash. “We’re home now. It’s over, Hyukjae, baby.”

                I picked up the urn with his remains inside and held it close to me. I thought about how much we’d been through until now, and it was finally over. At first I was broken. I was a wind-up toy who had lost its winder. I didn’t understand – I don’t understand – what he had meant. I didn’t understand what his last words had meant when he whispered them with his last breath. That’s why I had to do something and figure it out. Just thinking wasn’t do anything, so I had to replicate it. Every year, every winter, I would reenact my last moments with my most beloved and try to understand.

                It’s taken me so long. Looking back I realise how much of an idiot I was, for not having realized this sooner. His last words. My dear Hyukjae’s last words. It didn’t matter how many I killed, none of them would suffice. They didn’t feel the same as he did that night. The anger, the confusion, the sadness, yet the compassion, the love, and the peace. They didn’t have it, but Hyukjae did. So it didn’t matter because I couldn’t crack the code. Then I realized as I was going through the motions.

                I doesn’t matter. None of it has mattered, because it’s not Hyukjae. They’re not Hyukjae. I can’t have something make sense after it’s been lost. After I have lost it. After I have killed it. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I began to laugh, because I had become too hysterical in my fit. It didn’t matter. Nothing matters. I don’t matter anymore. There’s nothing to take care of anymore.

                I stood and I clutched the rusted kitchen knife in my hand as I walked five paces away from the ashes that had all spilled out. The knife in my hand was cold and metallic but it didn’t matter. Something like that wouldn’t have stopped me.

                I was alone in the woods. Alone and cold and scared but I could feel nothing save my heart pounding against my chest. I lifted the knife as far away from my body as I could and inhaled deeply to brace myself, but then again, he didn’t get a chance to prepare for the worst. That evil, cheating, lying runaway didn’t get any chances. But that didn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not important. So I had to be fair, because if I wasn’t fair in my last moments then I had nothing. I realized that now, but it’s not important. My insignificant life that ended that night in the stained blizzard when he was no longer important. My actions were all in vain, because I’m no longer important.