It was in the year 1989 that I met the man who eventually became the love of my life. He isn’t your conventional, everyday boy next door. He’s witty, he’s kind, he’s beautiful, he’s extraordinary, and its mesmerizing. You wouldn’t imagine why I had fallen in love with him had you seen how precious his very existence his, just how much he really matters.

Despite everything, what’s more beautiful is that nothing stops him from doing anything. He’s like a storm; unstoppable. And he’s doing it in his own ways. It’s so wildly attractive, I tell you. He’s the ultimatum off all the beauty combined, and I love him. He’d be the strangest person you’d ever meet.

You’d encounter these deeply passionate people in your life. Painters, revolutionists, authors; Those who’d give anything to do what they love, even if it will take away all the resolve that they have and destroy them, even if they have lost themselves somewhere along the way and have no strength to go on any longer. It’s the day and age when the youth fought for freedom. And among them, there is he. Who lost himself while being in a different battle of his own.

He’s my kind, witty and perfect employer. He owns a vinyl store and it’s his soul, his biggest pride. It is also where I work at. It’s a safe haven for me.

During an unfortunate event, a few seasons back where he stood in the wrong place at the wrong time, a stray bullet aiming a young rebel got to him and took away the most important asset of his life. He’s a musician. A musician who cannot hear any longer. But you’ve got to see how strong he stands even if his long lasting battle doesn’t cease existing.

“How do you know so much of music which you cannot even hear?” Would one ask.

“Because it’s the music that I used to hear” He’d say. “But then…but then, I died”

He has got to be kidding really. My love tends to be funny at times, that’s his charm; one of his charms. Even if he is not kidding, it hardly matters to me; because, for me, he is very much alive.

And also you have got to see that glint in his eyes. The shine which proves everything. Ask him about The Jeff Healy Band, New order, Beastie boys. His animated gestures, the genuine pleasure in his tone and his daring glassy eyes will enthrall you with tales never been heard before. Its inspiring, really. Just how much love you could possibly give for something you could own no longer. Maybe that’s why he’s the man of my wildest dreams. There’s no other person who’d ever be like him. Because him for me, is like Music is to him. A passion so farfetched but too dear to let go.

This passionate fondness I have for this man is what which brings us to this day, today. To twenty-fourth of December 1990. A fateful day, really. Not even this new wave of feminism spreading in my country has brought in this particular thing into lime-light. And maybe, if I succeed today, I would consider advocating this among the female population in the whole of Korean peninsula.

On this fateful date in the year 1990, I’m going to confess my undying love to him. And hey, what better day to do this than the Christmas eve? If you happen to fail and get rejected, at least champagne and gravy will wash away the pain instead of self-loath.

We just closed the store for the day. We closed it early. This season is the best season for us vinyl sellers. Apparently it’s a popular choice for Christmas gifts. And for music geeks, working even on Christmas eve takes nothing away from us. We are really living the dream. Singing along for snippets of the early 1980’s renowned Christmas records, me my not-so-frequent fellow employee and even my contented but deaf employer have the time of our lives. Yet it lasts until six. Then it’s time to go home. It’s kind of sad, really, to part from your (Still unrequited) love so soon. That’s why I made today an exception. Today, I’m going to stay. And also going to keep him from retreating into his little haven of a house in the back.

My employer is among the racks, sorting the records. I’m behind the counter, pretending too wipe the tables but working up my courage underneath. It’s so hard to be a woman, really. Whenever are we going to stop being so afraid of our own hearts? I pause for a moment and observe him. I watch his hands, working so effortlessly. He also has the prettiest hands; did I tell you before? But those sweaters he wears are terrible. (Think I will buy him better ones. Or knit, if we ever get married) nonetheless it doesn’t kill his beauty. Dark hair, tousled on the top. Perfectly pale skin. There’s a small scar, blatantly visible like a map to his life; what’s left from his battle, after surgery, after the bullet. His eyes, almond shaped, shaded of the drying oak leaves. Glassy. Beautiful. You get lost in his universe if you look into them for too long. My world has stopped in time. I’m unmoving. Mesmerized. This…this person, the one who stole my heart…

“Do you have any plans for tonight?” He’s asking. I am doing a double take, like I just dodged a question just to turn around and catch it again. Never expected that to come by. Still, this is only our second Christmas together.

“Huh?” I drop a cassette.

“Any plans for tonight? You know, visiting parents or going out with friends or-,” He explains, his hands gesturing in sign language as he speaks.

“Y-yeah!” I splutter. In mind, I’m having a dreamy Christmas eve candle-lit date with him, ‘Fairytale in New York’ playing in the background. And then I come to. “N-no! I mean, yes! I mean-,” My hands and lips are frantic, trying to amend my words. No use, though. He is laughing.

“I take it as a yes?”

“Yes…to what?”

He smiles, but says nothing. Then he walks over to the front door. I watch him, curious and perplexed, as he locks the store’s door, flips “open” to “close”, looks into the snowy Christmas through the glass pane, setting sun, oblivious throngs of people and all. He then turns to me. We’re quiet for a moment. I don’t know what’s happening. And the sun coming through the glass makes him glow like a fantasy. Like an angel without wings. It kills me.

He purses his lips, nods to himself a few times. I am waiting because he seems like he has something to say. Then his eyes flicker in all directions, not once landing on me. Then he nods at the counter. “Open the upper drawer”

I go “huh?” but still I reach for the drawer, pull it open, and find a cassette. It has a red ribbon on it, neatly tightened, matched with a tag too. And it has my name.

My name?!? Why does it have my name?

My heart constricts. He says the magical words then, still avoiding my eyes. He’s communicating good, avoiding eyes but with defined gestures. “I made you a mixtape”

You can imagine (Or can’t, can never tell) how difficult it is for someone who cannot ‘hear’ to make a mixtape. Him, though; He’s talented, incredible, the epitome of perfection. Best of all, he hasn’t given up on anything that he holds dear, including making mixtapes. Not just ordinary, or fairly good. But absolutely the best.

Nonetheless still I’m shaken. Does someone put so much of effort into doing something just because they feel they must? Or does it mean there’s something…important?

“Oh...” All I can manage.

“Have a listen” He says. I push the cassette into the player, listen to it unwind for a second. Then its playing.

It’s playing…oh it is. I recognize them right away. It’s like unearthing a rare treasure, or watching the Halley’s comet, or seeing blue roses blooming in the thick, white snow…

No. It’s better. It’s much, much better. It’s me, catching the obvious signs as another’s heart slowly unwinds in the form of up hills and slow slopes of music in the best way possible. So beautiful, so appeasing, so…mesmerizing, and too good to be true. I don’t believe it right away, though. This. This is strange. Unlikely. Too…obvious. Too easy.

But is there even such a thing as easy in love? Everything is hard in love and war. It has got to mean something. Something which is so much more.

As I am watching, as the slow and soothing tune of the songs filled the silence we’d always have, he makes his way to the counter. I don’t stay frozen. I wish I had, but my new-found confidence isn’t stopping me. I come around the corner of the counter, and we stand there, quietly, facing one another; eyes searching, breath colliding, mind in a haze. This is where we truly meet for the first time. Where our hearts unwind and actually connect. It feels surreal, almost heavenly. But the feeling that I am indeed melting under his gaze isn’t something I can evade. And then he asks, with no hand gestures but only his low, husky, restrained voice; “Did I get them right? The songs that you love the most?”

“Yes” I reply. Just a nod, no hands. “B-but…how do you know?” I gesture.

He was already deaf when we met. And I have never told anyone my favorites. As a music snob, my all-time favorites are my most personal, subtle things. Someone knowing them is like them knowing my deepest secrets; like the name of my first pet and day of my first kiss. I am confused. One has got to put an unhealthy lot of effort to speak aloud words which has only been spoken deep within the heart. You have to be special, extraordinary. You have to be him.

“It’s easy” Again, only words, no gestures. I notice our proximity, but does it matter? “I can hear, touch and feel music in your eyes…” He says. A step forward. I gasp. I’m cornered to the counter. “You’re my muse.” He continues breathily. “Pretty much the only reason I, a lone deaf man wants wake up every morning and keep going on living. And so I don’t need them ringing in my ears to know what music defined you. Just the shine in your eyes is enough”

I don’t say anything, surprised by the twist in the plot. It doesn’t matter anyway, because the strange, unexpected twist just let us on, on different ways. What keeps me rooted, however, is not the twist. Nor his words. Nor the entire situation we are in. It’s how much of sincerity his timid brown eyes could actually project. And it is this…insanely beautiful thing.

It pushes me off the edge. Just like that. It’s like I just stumbled off a cliff.

“I love you” I say. No hands, just the words, effortlessly escaping my lips. For once, the startled me is relieved that he cannot hear. His eyes, however, steady and hawk-like, catches me.

“Say…say that again” he says

I part my lips. He’s watching them closely, as the parted and pursed and failed to make a sound. As self-conscious as I am, it still beckons me to go on. “I love you”

His eyes become glassy…ier. They’re beautiful, so I smile. He doesn’t return it. Maybe he’s frustrated that he doesn’t hear the actual word, r he’s just trying his best to form them right on the subtle movements of my lips. “Say that again” He repeats, now, a low, raspy whisper.

“I love you” I whisper back.

He steps closer to me, then, and we’re so near, so much so that we’re almost touching. The track in the background changes. “Say. That. Again” He growls, almost.

“I love you”

His hands reach out to me. They’re grasping my face, and his thumb is slowly caressing my cheek. In reflex, my eyes fall shut. It happens so effortlessly, just like how my heart succumbs into all these new, strange feelings. These feelings of accepting love. And they feel absolutely, imperishably good.

The warmth closes up between us then, and all my good senses could catch are the starting lines of ‘Fairytale in New York’ before I fall and completely melt in the arms of the man I love.

* * *