It’s on the sunny days that I miss you the most.

So this one day, I woke up and the sunlight filtered through the blinds. I got up and padded my way to the windows.

I could hear your voice in my head saying, “Taeyeon, you need fresh air!”

And thus I flung the windows open and inhaled the decidedly not-so-fresh Seoul air.

You were usually there for me to grumble about the city air. But now you weren’t around. I had opened my mouth to say something, then my mouth just hung there, open, and no words came out. Okay, I thought, maybe the air was not so bad after all. The PSI was not too bad. I would tell you this if you had been around.

I flopped back on the bed immediately afterwards.

Splayed across the terribly large bed, I dredged up old photos of us. One of them caught my eye. Us, laughing on the beach. It’s an old photo. We’ve not really had the luxury of going to the beach together in the day time that often. Whenever we did go, we went under the pretext of work.

Was the first time that we visited a beach together in Phuket?

We danced and played in the sand, laughing loudly as we tumbled around together, ruining our white dresses. You were particularly reluctant to ruin your dress, I remember. But Yuri assaulted you with a fistful of sand and your vengeful side reared up. Your ferocity was such that you roused Jessica to save her.

Then there was the time we were in LA, and you were proudly showing off your hometown to me.

You apologized because it wasn’t Malibu, and everyone who went to California always clamoured for Malibu. Diamond Bar’s not exactly near the beach, and you certainly didn’t walk there when you were way younger, but your parents and neighbours drove your lot down to Huntington.

Honestly, I didn’t care that it wasn’t Malibu. Why would I give a damn about whether it’s Malibu or if it was the Great Pacific garbage patch? “21 miles of scenic beauty” wasn’t what I cared about. As long as you were there, I couldn’t care any less.

Still, I don’t regret making jabs at you for it. Casual little jabs, “Hey, it’s the first time I’m in LA and you bring me here?” You slapped my arm for that, your eyes narrowing as you attempted to look annoyed. When I started the jabs, you knew my stance about the matter. We were on a beautiful stretch of sand and I had a beautiful woman by my side.

My fingers scrolled to the somewhat more recent photos, and I stopped at 2015. Koh Samui was a lovely paradise – crystal turquoise waves splashing against the sand. Those memories simply compounded the sense of that right there and then, I was lying on an overly empty bed.

I shut my eyes, willing those memories away. It didn’t really work and all I could think about was the way your back arched when my fingers curled inside you, or the way you swore at me and hissed my name like a prayer and a curse, or the way your sweaty body curled against mine as we fell asleep that night. Pink elephants never leave.

How do the sunny beaches smell like in L.A.?

(without me?)

*

It’s on the rainy days that I miss you the most.

If I knew I was going to think of you each time I sang the god damned song, I wouldn’t have agreed to performing it. Hell, I wouldn’t have said yes to recording the song entirely!

But as it is, that track released last February calls up memories of you. Last February, things were going fantastically. We tumbled in and out of each other’s beds. When we left the apartment, I sang, and you disappeared into the practice rooms, not emerging until you met your self-imposed key performance indicators for the day.  

When we finally went home, we’d lounge about on the sofa. I’d prod at your sticky skin and complain that you were gross. You’d groan at me and tell me that you were tired. Your eyes would be shut but you would be smiling, veins filled with a dangerous combination of hope and trepidation. You would tell me that you felt like you were eighteen again – nineteen, I would murmur absently, mere semantics – and I would your sweaty hair and tell you that I believed in you. Your smile would widen, and you would finally get up and then we’d drag ourselves into the shower.

I believed in you then and I still believe in you now. 

I just wish that my belief in you translated into everything more.

We’ve been through this. Talked about this. Argued about this. Cried about this.

I remember the day I yelled at you. I was tense, stressed. Upset about everything.

That day, you came home after these long drawn out talks with the company. You railed at the unfairness of it all, that SM would shield every male idol in the company, but would hang you up for all the vultures to pick at. Your dissatisfaction with the company has been mounting for months, even though they had finally gave you a solo debut but no they wouldn’t let you sing in English or release Heartbreak Hotel on your I Just Wanna Dance album. And many, many other things. And of course, this.

Then I yelled at you because you wanted to go home.

But you are my home. If you left, what would become of me?

(you’re still in my very blood and bones.)

(someone has shot a hole in me and the wolves are gnawing at gaping hole. sharks, drawn to blood, have come to tear the shreds apart.)

(please come back to me.)

I yelled. I didn’t mean to. I don’t mean to still. I yelled and cried before you did and then you yelled back and said that you had no choice. Then I screamed and I sensed that Soonkyu peaked her head out of her room before cautiously withdrawing, unwilling to provoke an injured beast.

I remember the shock on your face when you first heard my scream of anguish/anger/frustration.

I never yelled, not at you. Never at you.

I know that I knew better then, but still I chose the lower road. I screamed that you had a choice, we all have choices and that we all made them and can live with them. Scandals can be overridden, right?

At some point, you collapsed in my arms and wept. Wept because you knew you couldn’t stay. Wept because you knew that I knew that you couldn’t stay. Not when the viral insanity of the internet has leeched onto your mistakes, gleeful that someone in Girl’s Generation has finally made a mistake on SNS. Not when the company didn’t give half a rat’s about you.

There are days that I wished I told you that you had something to stay for. It’s not as if either of us lacked money. Even if you earned less than I did, you’ve long invested your money in the right places. You didn't need to work. Or I could have left with you. But I knew I couldn’t tell you to stay. 

I did anyway.

It was just a slip of the tongue, a whisper in the night that you didn’t catch as your tear stained face was pressed against my back. You were asleep, a fitful sleep, but I myself couldn’t fall asleep. Those were the nights that I could feel that you were slipping away from me. The thunder crashed outside and my mind rattled with the realisation that you weren’t going to stay.

I wanted you to stay.

Hell, I want you here right now.

It’s raining again today.

It hurts, you know.

All I can think about right now is the way we ran through the rain as kids, foolish children who forgot their umbrellas but didn’t give a single damn.  Kids, full of hopes and dreams. Bright and earnest ones. Naïve, even. 

We’ve fulfilled them, I guess. Not many can attest to this feat.

We’ve got new hopes and new dreams – but they’re worn with the hard edges. Do you feel it too?

I wouldn’t call it jadedness, but if I was sent on a new path today, I wouldn’t be able to hurtle down it again. I wouldn’t find myself screaming that I could do it at a bridge. I need all the insulation I can get nowadays. And having a roof over my head, away from the rain? That’s useless. Nothing can save me from the ceaseless incursions of loss.

Or maybe you didn’t. Maybe you felt enough of whatever, felt enough of a push from your God, that you had the courage to leave me.

You went with my curses. You went with my blessings.

And here I stand, leaning against the cold window. I think of the days where the rain soaked you to the bone, and all we did was laugh and brush the wet hair away from our grinning faces. I think of you when you were beautiful in the rain. 

Now, all I can do is watch the rivulets of rain speed down the glass as I wait.

(what am i waiting for?)  

*

It’s the nights that I miss you the most.

Everything around the apartment is too quiet.

You’ve always been loud. You crashed into my life with a wide smile that squeezed your lovely eyes into crescents and a hand stuck out for me to shake even though you knew that we didn’t do that in Korea. I didn’t know what to make of you then, this intrusion of laughter that burst into my life, suddenly filling the apartment I shared with another stranger with bright chatter. The few months I had in Seoul before were horribly empty.

Everything after was defined by you.

I cried less on the rooftop. You hugged me when I wanted to cry at night. I cried less with you around. I cried less even when I felt like crying day in and out and you were there to offer me everything I needed to feel just a little bit better. You gave me strength to crawl out of bed and make another day for myself. I still don’t know how you did it.

And the grey streets outside are too empty without you to spill light onto everything. Light yields the seven colours when they disperse and you’re the very being that makes light scatter: light parts its way for you. Even nature knows that you’re a force that they can’t compete with and they must yield to you.

I’ve long yielded to you. Laid myself bare in front of you. Not in that way, although obviously we’ve laid ourselves bare before each other, but you know, in the vulnerable soul thing that few people do.

You know, I feel like a turtle that’s been flipped over. When you were around, I knew that this prone position wasn’t dangerous. But now that you’re gone, it’s not a great position to be in. But I’m stuck, I can’t flip myself back.

Maybe if I stopped looking at our photos at night, it’ll be better.

These days, I kill the time with work and family and friends. When I made friends in producing My Voice, you rejoiced for me. I finally found a group of friends outside so nyuh shi dae that I could talk to. I visited my family. I even went on a holiday.

Europe is beautiful. I wish you were there with me, but I guess it cannot be helped. Everything about Europe is a clash and a harmony all at once. Renaissance. Baroque. Modernity. Structures that longed for stability and drama and a boast that Europe is still a pioneer of the future. Nothing made sense and everything made sense. The heavy architecture of the older centuries stood proud, weighing on their history. I stood there on the darkened street, watching the lights light up the marble. Wondering if the charm of Europe was solely because we modern people were all creatures of nostalgia.

The last time we headed to the beach together -- I don’t remember exactly when it was – but it was winter. Busan in winter was cold and the night was long and I couldn’t sleep and so I dragged you out with me on a four-hour drive.

Even if you were asleep, four hours with you melted into the night. The night time had a strange way of tricking your brain into thinking that four hours were a single minute. It had a strange way of making four hours stretch into eternity. As a I sped – I admit, without much caution – through the snowy roads, I would turn to your sleeping face and wonder just how exactly you came into my life. You, asleep on the passenger’s side, face devoid of makeup. You, a beautiful human being. You, who couldn’t stay.

When we did arrive on the beach, we didn’t even linger long. The wind was howling and the waves whooshed wildly and crashed against the beach. Low grey clouds hung in the night sky. It was cold. I slipped out of the car in just my pyjamas, wearing only some sweatpants and a sweater. I went to the water and just stood there until your incredulous cry rang in my ears, you who woke up and realised that we’ve arrived and that I was up to something decidedly foolhardy and altogether stupid.

You dragged me back to the car and prayed my toes wouldn’t fall off. You stripped me of my pants in the car and dried me with them. You groaned as I tried to laugh it off, jokingly saying that you wanted to strip me. Under other circumstances, you allowed, you probably wouldn’t mind. You then swore that if I did something stupid like that again, you’d yell at me.   

If I did the same thing again today, would you be here to yell at me?   

I know that it’s not going to be forever. We’ll see each other sometime.

The hole is not unbearable.  

But I miss you.                

(you promised that we weren’t ever going to be apart.)

(i dream that you didn’t lie.)

*****

A/N: I told myself that I wouldn’t write a fanfic based off IRL again, but here’s something. Everything is but the amalgamation of my imagination and the shreds of my heart. I'm not actually that upset over the whole TiffSooSeo left SM thing. They've got their own goals and all and I really wish the best for them. I low-key miss them but eh, I have too much school work to wallow that much. (3.30am right now and I need to be up at 8am RIP.)

Taeyeon's Rain (English translation taken from colorcodedlyrics) as well as Kodaline's Blood and Bones may have quoted/paraphrased in various bits.

Excuse the grammatical errors and the accidental lapses of tenses. But hey, some areas are deliberately in present tense and some in past tense, so eh. I might proof read this eventually. Good night!