1:32 p.m.

I speed walked towards the gymnasium, the click clacks of my high heels and the pounding of my heart are the only sounds echoing through my ears. As I opened the double doors to the gym, the uncomfortable warmth caused by the lack of fresh air inside a closed environment, caressed my cheeks, filling my nostrils with the smell of sweat mixed with perfume and cologne. I shrugged off the heavy and dizzying scent, trying to adapt to the new atmosphere, then proceeded to find my name. There were rows of people lining up before the first letter of their last name, which was stuck to the ground, and there were groups of people talking and chattering around like one of the biggest moments in their lives wasn't about to happen in only twenty-five minutes. I walked to the very front, where the letters were stuck to the ground, and started looking for my last name initial.

"K...K...K.." I kept mumbling to myself until I finally found it.

"Your name?" asked the professor standing in front of the "K" people. Each line had its' own professor, and each professor had the responsibility to lead and position each person on their right and assigned places according to the alphabetical order.

"Kim Jihye" I responded and soon, was shown my spot. I let out a breath, relieved by the fact that I somehow managed to get here on time. I was always worst at time management, whether it be a simple date with a friend or an incredibly important day such as today; my graduation day. I tried my hardest to look my best today; I went to the salon, dyed my hair a light shade of brown, did my nails and makeup, went shopping and bought the best dress my budget allowed me to buy; which was a classic black off-the-shoulder dress that I matched with my black high heels. I was glad that I managed to mask my broken self with all that makeup and looks. I didn't need other's pity anymore. I was getting sick of the stares people gave me in the past two years. Stares filled with pity and sympathy that certainly had no meaning behind it. They were all fake. People are fake...

I hated it.

My life is already filled with so much negativity and I just don't need any more of that crap. I'm pretty much happy with the facade I made for myself that convinced others that I'm fine and in no need of any pity or negativity.

I pulled out the little mirror that I brought along with me and checked my reflection, sighing in relief after finding out that my makeup was not yet ruined, I began to fix my black cap and gown. As I was straightening the little wrinkles on my gown, I felt a tap on my back. I turned around to see the all too familiar pair of brown eyes looking down at me, a warm smile stretching across his face and arms opening, ready to take me in a tight and dear hug.

"You look beautiful" he said and I breathed in his fresh, oceanic cologne

"And you smell nice" I commented, tickling the nape of his neck with the tip of my nose, raising goosebumps all over his body which caused him to jump back with a giggle.

"Stop flirting with ma man, girl!" called out yet another too familiar voice and I whipped my head around, trying to find the source. The moment my eyes landed on the owner of the voice, I gasped.

Gorgeous.

That's what I would name her. Absolutely breathtaking. Her dyed and perfectly curled blonde hair falling neatly on her shoulders, her simple yet beautiful makeup making her skin glow, her bright red lipstick making her lips look like a red rose bud, her skin-tight white dress hugging her tiny body just right. She looked magnificent. I looked at my right to see Jimin smiling proudly at his now fiancee, stretching his hand out to hold hers before spinning her around and giving her a dip kiss. I cringed a little at the too cute sight in front of me and tried to distract myself by looking elsewheres.

"Yah! Get a room you two!" I mused and saw them chuckling in the kiss before pulling away from each other.

"We will" Jimin smirked as he cocked an eyebrow, getting a smack on the chest from Minseo in result.
"Don't be so bold, Jiminie" Minseo giggled as she checked her reflection on her phone "tsk, Jiminie! Look what you did! My lipstick is ruined now!" she whined and started wiping the smeared lipstick all over her lips and starting all over again with reapplying the red paint on her lips.

"Don't worry about the lipstick, babe. It'll get ruined again soon" winked the naughty Jimin, which I responded with a frustration groan

"Ugh! Stop with the flirting already! It's gross, ew" I made a disgusted expression

"Ooh~ jealous, are we?" Jimin nudged me, giggling and chuckling like he made the best joke in the world

"Say who? Jealous? Me? Pshh! Gimme a break!" I mocked

"Yea right-"

His voice was soon to get cut off by the screeching noise of the microphone, making everyone cringe at their spot.

"Greetings everyone. I hope you all are ready for your big day!" The vice-principal started, his voice echoing through the speakers overhead, "Today's the result of all of your four-year hard work and studying! We are proud of each and everyone of you for your accomplishments and very much honored to have had you choose our university to continue your education. We wish you all good luck and a brighter future after graduation." with that, everyone started cheering and clapping their hands, some of the guys yelling a loud "YEA!" here and there, making some other girls giggle. And then the vice-principal continued with a bright smile plastered on his face "Alright, alright everybody, calm down! Now I want everybody to get to their right places, the ceremony starts in ten minutes."

I looked back at Jimin and Minseo, showing them a double thumbs up "Alright, guys! This is it! This is the moment we were waiting for! Good luck!" and with that I gave them each a tight hug

"Yea! you, too girl!" Said Minseo, patting my shoulder

"See you in the after party~" Jimin reminded, doing a little hip swaying action at the mention of "party."

"Haha! Alrighty~ see ya" and since I didn't move from my spot earlier, all it took was a turn on the heels to face the front. With one last, passionate kiss, Jimin and Minseo finally parted and went to position themselves in their own places. Once everyone was in their assigned spot, rows of students started walking off to the open field, where the ceremony took place at, one after another. The moment I stepped outside of the stuffy gym, the fresh, spring breeze brushed through my hair, making it dance with the gentle wind. We walked all the way to the football court, finding white, plastic chairs arranged neatly for each row. On the bleachers on either side of the court, there sat parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, and whoever that was invited by the soon-to-be-graduates. My eyes danced through the weave of the many people sitting there, waving their hands and yelling names to get the attention of that friend or a family member who was walking on the court with us, trying to find my own guests. My parents. It wasn't an easy thing to do since there were just too many people. The only thing I could do was to hope that they are here and are watching me right now. We reached our seats and waited for other students to also reach theirs before we all sat down in unison.

After some boring speeches, done by the commencement speaker, honor students, and some of the professors, it was the principal's turn to give her speech. I was next.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen." the principal started "We are honored to have you as our 2023 graduating class. I wanted to thank the professors for their beautiful speeches and also the class of 2023 for their hard work and dedication towards their studies. The society, nowadays, needs more educated people like you. This is your generation. You are the ones that could lead the world into a brighter, better future and having a good educational background is the first step, or I better say, the fifty percent of the way to success. The other fifty percent depends on you and how much you put in effort in order to reach that better future. I'm very glad that you made it this far and am sure you would go further, but unfortunately, there were students, your age, that couldn't make it. Either it be their financial issues, health issues, or even...death. There were many students around the world that couldn't make it this far in life because of sudden or natural death. Sadly our school has witnessed a loss in the year 2021, but this wasn't a sudden or a natural death. It was to help a dear friend or I must say, a lover. Jeon Jungkook, a 23-year-old fine arts student at Seoul National University, donated his heart to Kim Jihye, an astronomy major student, two years ago. Kim Jihye suffered from a heart disease that required her to get a heart transplant within a month. It was a life-threatening situation for her and unfortunately, they couldn't find any donors for her. That's when Jeon Jungkook volunteers. Right now, I'm going to ask ms. Kim Jihye to please come up here and tell us more about her savior."

It was quiet, very quiet. Even the mid-day chirping and singing of birds has stopped. My shaking legs dragged me up the stairs and on the stage. As I reached the podium, that was when I finally looked up, seeing hundreds, if not, thousands pairs of eyes staring at me. My hands were trembling, both from the pressure of being exposed to this many people and the memories I had to recall to talk about.

I cleared my throat as I began "Hello, friends and families. Some of you, well, most of you might not know who I am since I spent most of my time at the library or at my favorite coffee shop. And if you didn't see me at either of those places I was probably in class or at home, sleeping." I chuckled, trying to break the ice a little, which I think it worked 'cause I received little snickers from the crowd. Sighing in relief, I continued:

"I first met Jungkook when he came to Seoul to visit his childhood friend, who happened to be my roommate and best friend, Choi Minseo. He was a very warm, kind-hearted and caring young man who had been through a lot..."

I recalled the time he told me about his family:

-

"so how is America?" I decided to break the silence. He looked up at me, a little surprised at my sudden question but then he smiled

"it's alright I guess..it's still hard living there alone, but I'm working hard" he mumbled under his breath but loud enough for me to hear.

"on your own? I thought you were living with your parents?" I questioned.

"right.. they got divorced a couple of years after we moved to the US. I started living with my dad since then, but.." he cut himself short and looked down at his coffee

"but?" I asked, wanting to know what happened

"but.. he passed away last year. I'm living on my own now" a bitter smile formed on his face.

"w-what about your mom?" I questioned

"she.. she took all the money my dad left me and ran away with her boyfriend" he took a sip of his coffee trying to gulp down the bitterness of his sad memories.

"I-i'm really sorry to hear that" I put my hand on top of his, which was sitting on the table next to his cup of coffee, trying to show him my concern "it must've been really hard on you" I said, worried. He looked up at me, flustered at the sudden skinship and quickly looked down to hide his flushed cheeks. I then noticed what I just did and quickly pulled my hand away, but suddenly he grabbed my wrist

"i-it's okay, I'm sorry. It's just that it's been so long since I've talked to someone and they actually showed me concern. I've never had anyone that I could share my worries with, that's why I'm a little flustered now" he explained, a little embarrassed "t-thank you for listening" he looked down and rubbed the back of his head with his hand while still holding my hand with the other.

"y-yea.. no problem" I was happy and confused at the sudden confession he made "b-but I thought you and Minseo talked through everything-"

"I didn't want to make her worried while I was away.." he cut me off "I know she cares too much that might actually hurt her, so I didn't tell her about any of this. Can you keep this as a secret, please?" Jungkook asked me with his begging eyes while his grip on my wrist got tighter

"s-sure, I will keep this secret to myself" I reassured him with a nod and a smile. He smiled back and loosened his grip.

-

I smiled as the memory of my promise revived itself in my head, reassuring his presence that I always felt with me that the secret is still locked deep down in my heart, I took in a deep breath, filling my empty lungs with fresh air before continuing my speech:

"At first, I thought he came here only to visit, but after a month, I found him sitting in a row in front of me in my English class. When I asked him, he simply told me that he didn't have any reason to go back to the U.S., however, he did have a reason to stay...

Being in the same Art class and spending hours together working on our art projects was what made us grow really close to each other as the days went by. Our relationship got to a point where I started considering him as my own, biological brother, but oh boy was I blind to see his feelings... I was still oblivious until my birthday arrived, that was when he confessed to me with the simplest, most gentle, loving kiss anyone could ever think of... I remember every single breeze of his hot breath against my cheek like it was yesterday... At the time, I thought I was dreaming, not knowing that that was the reality itself and that his lips have finally awoken me from the dreamland I was living in until then. That very simple gesture of his woke me up to my true feeling and emotions and that was what I was most afraid of."

Because my best friend was in love with him...

"As I started to become more honest with my feelings, I found myself also falling for him, deeper and deeper by each passing day. When I tried to avoid those feelings, they would only get stronger that I finally gave up. I quitted trying. Oh, it feels so nice to let go, to admit to your true feelings, to be honest with yourself. When we were together, it felt like we could conquer the world, like there is no rest. We completed each other like two pieces of puzzle. Everything was perfect, but life isn't always sunshine and rainbows... for us, it got cloudy as soon as we learned what life was all about.

The situations had turned that I had to confront with some stressful and difficult circumstances and I started going weaker by time. I had a heart disease since second year in middle school and things such as anxiety would only worsen its' condition. I have dealt with anxiety throughout my life, but this time however, it showed no mercy to my weak heart. I found it hard to breathe and by each inhale I felt a sharp pain shooting through my heart. I began feeling very sick that I had to get hospitalized twice, the second time worse than the first. Doctors diagnosed me with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy or HCM: a common genetic cardiovascular disease that occurs when the heart muscle becomes abnormally thick and affects the pumping action of the heart, resulting in heart failure, , and sudden death. Apparently, the symptoms of heart failure have had developed excessively in my body that the chances of my survival were as low as five percent and as the doctor suggested, the best choice for survival would've been a heart transplant within a month. The deadline was approaching as fast as lightning, but we couldn't find any donors. That's when Jungkook volunteered...

Yes, this heart inside me is Jungkook's. I'm breathing because of Jungkook... I'm living because of Jungkook... I'm here because of Jungkook..."

I wiped at the silent tears that now are staining my cheeks with the back of my hands, my voice shaky, I continued:

"When he said he didn't have any reason to return to the U.S. , I didn't know what he meant but now, I know. On his last letter to me, he wrote:

I will remember every second that I spent with you, all the laughing, all the crying, all the talking we've had will remain fresh in my memories. After meeting you, I noticed that home is not a place, it's a person and that person is you, my love. You were the reason for me not returning to America, because after so many years, I finally found the place where I really felt belonged to; Next to you.

Jeon Jungkook, I owe my life to you and for you, I shall live happily. Thank you."

As I ended my speech and looked up, I saw in my blurry vision everyone rose from their seats, bringing their hands together in an applause. I smiled and that gesture made the remaining tears in my eyes fall, staining my cheeks once again. I looked through the applauding crowd in front of me, my eyes stilling on one person. A tall figure dressed in a black turtleneck and a white suit jacket standing at the back of the graduates and in front of the audience. Strange thing that he was also staring at me, dark eyes piercing into my very soul. I couldn't avert my eyes from his like he had cast a spell on me.

I was so mesmerized by the person in front of me that I didn't realize the principle had already made her way to the podium

"And now, we hold a moment of silence in respect to Jeon Jungkook and all the young adults who weren't able to make it this far..." spoke the principle.

The silence was almost deafening, even the rustling of tree branches had stopped. My mouth was closed, too, but my eyes were screaming as an unknown feeling took over my being as soon as my vision landed on him. The feeling almost sickening me to the pit of my stomach. He was smiling, but his dark eyes held no expression. Just like a robot.

I was paralyzed... my lips could only form two words:

Kim Taehyung