Jisoo warmed up to Jongin’s parents easily. Of course, nobody had said anything out loud, Jisoo would pick things up easily despite being as young as she was. Jiyoon stayed close to her daughter, but eventually Jongin’s mom was able to pull her aside.

“Jiyoon, I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I wanted you to have this.” She handed an envelope to Jiyoon. “It’s from Jongin. He wrote it nearly ten years ago but I haven’t been able to give it to you until now…I didn’t look at it either, so…” She trailed off. “Please remember him. He still loves you like he did when he was eighteen. My son…he doesn’t give up.”

Jiyoon left Jisoo in Mrs. Kim’s care and went up to her old bedroom with the letter. She was almost scared to open it. What would be revealed to her through eighteen year old Kim Jongin’s words?

Why had it ended the way it did?

How could love like theirs not work out?

She had always been told that true love would prevail. Her own mother told her that. Did that mean that her’s and Jongin’s love wasn’t true? She wondered if what they had was worth salvaging. If her brain had deemed that she was supposed to forget…then was it really right for her to try to retrieve her memory?

She hadn’t been in her old bedroom for years, and for some reason, her eyes settled on a box on the top shelf in her closet. She set the letter down on her bed and stood on the tips of her toes to get the box down.

On the box, in big letters, Jongin’s name was written.

She opened it, first pulling out a couple picture frames. There were loose pictures as well - all of them dumped randomly into the box as if they had no meaning. She looked at each of them, shaking her head at the endless selfies her and her best friend had taken.

She picked up a sweatshirt, noticing that it was too big to be her own. She looked at the back of it, Kim Jongin was spelled out in bolded letters. She ran her fingers over it, feeling the smooth material.

The campfire crackled as Jiyoon leaned closer to Jongin. She was cold, it was freezing outside but Jongin’s body heat and the warmth of the fire were helping a bit. He must’ve noticed that she was cold.

“You dummy, why don’t you ever pack right?” He , patting her head.

“I did pack right, the weather app didn’t say it would be cold.” She pouted, shaking her head at him and batting his hand away.

He smiled at her before pulling the sweatshirt he was wearing over his head, his name on the back of it gleaming against the light of the fire. He helped her put it on. The sweatshirt was warm and it smelled faintly of the cologne he wore every day. She liked it.

Even though she was perfectly warm now, she had no reason to move her chair away from Jongin’s. His arm was wrapped around her shoulders and she was perfectly content with leaning against his shoulder.

She set the sweatshirt on the floor with a smile, continuing to go through the box. It was mostly pictures that she assumed were hung around the house at one point. They really had been best friends.

Once she’d found all of the things in the box, she slowly began to pack it back up. She kept the sweatshirt out, placing it on the bed next to her as she finally picked up the letter.

Whether her brain wanted her to or not, she wanted to remember. She wanted to remember the love she felt for Jongin and she wanted to remember what had happened between the two of them.

She opened the letter, careful not to rip it. She looked at the messy handwriting and the smile already formed on her face. It was dated 2012.

Dear Jiyoon,

I don’t know what to say other than I miss you. It’s been three months since you left. I tried to be mad at you…and maybe I will be able to do that later. But for now…now I can’t stop thinking about you. All I want is to find you again. I know you’re off living your dream so I figured it would be okay for me to do the same.

I’ve been training for a while now and I really think I can do this. You used to always watch me dance and you were honest with me about it…I miss that. I miss you. I’ve written that like five times already, but I can’t help the truth.

I love you so much more than I should, and I knew I shouldn’t have allowed it to go as far as it did that night. You were drinking heavily and I knew you would regret it but I just couldn’t help myself. I’d wanted you for so long that it just became a distraction for me.

I’ll never forget what it was like to be in love with you, Park Jiyoon. I remember when you assured me that you loved me. I can only hope you were sincere, because I am head over heels in love with you and I don’t think this will ever go away.

“Do you really love me, or are you just too drunk to think of anything else to make me want to sleep with you?”

“I do love you, I have for years, I’ve never loved someone like I love you. Do you love me?”

“I’m in love with you, Park Jiyoon. No games, no jokes this time. I’m so in love with you that it hurts.”

She bit her lip, seeing a different date halfway down the page. It was dated 2017, just four years ago.

I saw you again. I knew I would…I don’t know why I acted the way I did. I chased you off. I told you the bad things I’d done in the past few years to get over you. Nothing worked, you know, nobody worked. All I wanted was you and I don’t like what I turned myself into.

I just want you. I want to be with you and I want to hold you, hug you, kiss you…why can’t I do those things? Why is love so complicated for us? People fall in love and stay like that for years and years…their stories work out, so why can’t ours? Why can’t we be happy?

There’s so many questions I have that I know will never get answers, but that’s okay. It doesn’t matter if you still love me, but I think you do. I think I saw it in your eyes as I told you what I’ve done.

Maybe I was mad. I was mad. I know I was. I was mad because you left me like sleeping with me meant absolutely nothing to you. I wanted you to come back so badly. I didn’t think it was possible for me to love you anymore than I already did. I didn’t think it was possible for you to be even more beautiful after the time passed.

The point of this letter is so you know that I’m still in love with you. I remember the moment I realized I’d fallen.

Every year we went to the same cabin…I miss it. You loved the water. You used to drag me into it. I did it though, because it was you. Everything I did and still do is for you, you know. You almost fell over. A wave knocked you off balance and I don’t even know what came over me. I had to catch you, whenever you fell.

So I just…I hoped that when you fell in love with me, I caught you then, too.