Jiwon never quite understands why she has to be so far away. Whenever he opens his eyes she’s always there but not quite close enough. He beckons her to come closer once, and she only shakes her head with a pained expression on her face. As if she’s telling him she wants to close the distance between them but she can’t. The distance never seems to matter though, her voice always reaches his ears just fine. It’s just that Jiwon isn’t quite satisfied with that. The white walls and the similar shade on his sheets already feel cold to him and her not being by his side just makes both the room and the bed feel even colder.

“I just don’t get it,” said Jiwon one time. One of the many occasions where he questions the need for them to be far apart. She leans on to the wall with a lopsided smile and she answers, “Maybe if you stop questioning it, you will.” With that, Jiwon knows for sure he will not get a straight answer out of her that night.

***

They always talk to each other at night. The reason for that is never clear but Jiwon has made peace with that because he actually prefers it. There’s something about the darkness outside and the dim lights that’s very comforting, just enough for him to be able to make out her face clearly and not too intrusive at the same time. It’s also enough for Jiwon to notice that at one particular night she’s close enough that he notices the faint glow of moonlight bounces off her cheeks.

“You know, you look even more beautiful now that there’s not so much of a distance between us.”

She laughs and it sounds like music in his ears. “I don’t know if I should be glad or offended by that, if distance matters in determining how beautiful I am, am I really that beatiful to begin with?” Jiwon smiles as a reply, admitting his defeat without actually saying it. It’s actually part of the fun when it comes to talking to her, she always knows what to say and he’s the one who always ends up speechless.

***

It stuns Jiwon that at one night, she seems like a mere few steps away from him that he can practically hear her heartbeat and feel the warmth that seems to center on her hands. “Can you hold my hand?”, Jiwon asks. Once again he gets a sad smile and a shake of her head as a reply. “You can’t trick me into that, Jiwon, it has to happen naturally,” she answers, her voice as soft as  the wind whistling out in the night. He closes his eyes, trying to picture what it must feel like to have her wrapped up in his arms.

***

When Jiwon opens his eyes, she is sitting on the foot of his bed. Careful not to scare her away, he carefully sits up and continues to stare at her. The smile on her face tells him she doesn’t mind. His excitement enough keeps him from reaching out to her, he doesn’t want to ruin this with anything. If there is one thing he has learned from her so far, it’s to be patient. Afterall, being patient is probably the one thing that causes this moment to happen, him and her sitting across from each other.

“It actually feels like you’re here now. I mean, no offense, I know for sure you’re here all those other nights too but this makes it seem real,” Jiwon says with a toothy grin on his face. “You see what you get when you’re patient and let things happen instead of kicking and screaming for answers?”. Jiwon nods at her reply, once again admitting that she’s right. She always is, but Jiwon doesn’t say that out loud.

***

“You know, I think this happens because we keep talking to each other,” she says as she shifts on her seat beside Jiwon on the bed. It’s thrilling for him that after all those nights of endless conversation she is now closer than she has ever been, and he is even more tempted to reach out and touch her. He fights the urge, though, not wanting to force anything to happen before its time.
“I’m surprised you don’t already know the answer to that,” and she laughs at Jiwon’s reply. “What makes you think I do?”. He shrugs his shoulders before answering, “You always seem like you do.”

***

Jiwon can barely contain his excitement when he opens his eyes to the sight of her smile, her head lying on his chest, her hair tickling his sides, and her body wrapped so tightly in his arms it’s as if they are molded into one. He doesn’t want that night to ever end. He refuses to let go of her. The warmth emanating from her body tells him he’s home. This is where he is supposed to be, and there is no place that he would rather be than here.

“Jiwon, stop forcing things to happen, you’re scaring me.” He can’t quite understand why she’s scared when he is certain that no other moment can be as great as this.

***

She is all the way across the room again, far away from him again, with tears streaming down her face. Jiwon feels he is the cause of that but he has no idea what atrocious thing he does that reduces her into tears. It still feels like she is safely settled in his arms, he can still smell roses in her hair, so he talks and talks and talks again so that she can come closer again. But she just stands there still in tears,

“It was a mistake, Jiwon, it wasn’t the right time,” and that’s what she keeps repeating no matter what Jiwon attempts to say. It crushes him to the very core, to see her in tears without seeing a way to fix it.

***

Jiwon is sitting still, convinced that he can do nothing but watch her cry. Every bit of her movement seems to tell him that she needs him close, but what happened all those nights before convinces Jiwon that he should wait, he should be patient, and he should let her come to him. But with every night passes and every tear that rolls down her cheek, it’s getting increasingly hard to do. A sense of agony begins forming within the walls of the room and his chest at the same time. Something needs to be done. The distance needs to be closed. Her tears need to stop.

***

It never occurs to Jiwon how complete he feels when she is close until that night, and it also never occurs to him that she probably feels the same. All those nights of slowly bridging the gap between them can attest to that. To be close was what needs to happen, which one of them needs to initiate it doesn’t seem to matter now. Jiwon forces himself to stand up, to break the confines his bed has him in, at that moment finally realizing that he should have done that all along.

The first step he takes feels natural, the second one comes with almost no effort involved, within the next steps Jiwon begins to see the change in her. The tears slowly subsided, the smile reappears, and the life injects itself into her eyes again. Life is what he has been seeing in her, which makes sense why he craves her so much. Life is what is in her, and not in what he is leaving behind.

Jiwon reaches out to her, and she equally effortlessly makes her way to him. He now understands what she means by letting things happen by itself, he has to be the one making the decision to eliminate the distance between them. He has to choose her as much as he chooses to be closer to him with each night that passes. Their hands touch and they are finally one again. Their lips touch and they are never going to be apart again. Jiwon is home once again. She smiles into the kiss as sunlight begins to shine. The night is over.

***

Hanbin brings his phone closer towards his mouth, the voice recorder application ready, and the only thing he needs to do is press ‘record’. He takes a deep breath, presses record, and begins speaking.

“The victims are a 26-year-old male and a 27-year-old female married couple. Cause of death is carbon monoxide poisoning. Whether there is a foul play involved is yet to be determined. The wife died at the scene. The husband was still alive and was brought to the hospital with weak vital signs. The doctors managed to stabilize his condition and he seemed like he would survive, but he fell into a coma and died two weeks after his wife did. The couple has no next of kin in their record.”

As he ends his recording, he types the second name into the victims list. Kim Jiwon.

***