Half a year

It is this time of the year again when the snow falls heavily, covering the streets with pure white and your heart sinks into it, putting all the blame on you; you hate it. You have hated winter since long ago – three years, a voice inside your head tells you and you know why it is so well, but you are still afraid of saying it out loud. You have never been brave enough and the cold is freezing your own emotions - and there is nothing left of you but an empty shell you used to fill it up with alcohol and regrets.

Jinwoo has asked you about your Christmas plans, if you were going to visit your family – and he has wondered about them with much more interest than needed and, even if you are thankful for his kindness, you try to picture why he is so concerned about the fact that you are avoiding them, ignoring your mother's phone calls and you haven’t even visited them once since that moment, when your life started to shatter apart, falling into a void you are still trying to get out. – He says it’s part of the therapy but your brain kind of differ – there is something more, something he isn’t telling you and your heart takes it gladly, that silent offer that you can’t understand but that means something deep inside, something intimate and personal. – You tell him the truth in return; that you are so ashamed of the person you have become to face them - a vexed addict without work or prospects, nothing about the son they used to brag about, that the fact that they will loathe you, repudiate you for what you have done, for the unrecognized monster that wears the same face as the kid they one raised, scare you to no end; that you are not able to break their expectations – even when they know you are not doing well.

“Write them then. Explain to them what is it that you are so afraid of, the reason why you aren't coming to their home. I’m sure they will be delighted to help you, to know about you after all this time” he says, gently, smoothly, convincing you, his hands on your shoulders pressing a bit, smiling genuinely. It's reassuring, the weighing helft is nice and it settles right into your chest.

But instead of writing to your parents you send him an email.

In there you tell him everything, you let the heavy load on your back lift a bit, sharing it with someone else – and, in the beginning, it feels good. Until it doesn’t, until you reach that dark part and you need to drink, you need it so bad that is painful  and it seems as if nothing can help you but the thought of him (and you breathe in once and let the air go out of your lungs) it's heavy, your thorax expands itchingly and you crave to have a bottle between your lips, rain catching in your eyes and the room is too small, too dark, too sodden that you shake viciously, totally scared.

You have a reason why you started with this vice that would be your end. It’s a logical one and it is enough to make you plead to have the booze again more than anything else; the wound is deep and raw even after all those years, you still carry it as if brand new and it hurts just the same; same pain, same weight; a burden that is always with you and that will never heal or go away. You have drunk your sorrows with every sip you have taken - you have swallowed your sanity and your mind to enjoy the quietness of a shattered brain that can't function correctly just to feel alright, for the burdens to be relieved, -all the ache and it makes you feel alright when your world had been smashed. You kept ruining yourself just for another chance to stop feeling, to stop the upsetting sounds in your mind, to put a halt to it all.

You allow Jinwoo to know; you let him see all the holes and cracks, all the emptiness in your soul, all the parts that are missing and that aren't at all beautiful; all the fears and the tears, the loneliness that turns your heart into an arid place where nothing grows – but since you have met him the sand has been watered with something that reminds you of hopes, of love.

You write to him honestly, opening to him in a way you pray it won’t scare him, freak him out – but your crime is big and you don’t know if he would be able to carry it in his noble heart. –  You have a drink with you to keep your mind distracted – this time you make sure it’s cola, the bubbling taste exploding in your tongue, tickling your sense in a nice way and it’s good enough for today, you think, while you type out the message you want to convey to your therapist.

It starts like this:

“Dear Kim Jinwoo,

There is a motive for me to have become an alcoholic, a reason for me to drink until losing my own conscience.

The first time I drunk so much was to forget and to be forgotten, to shut up the vortex of voices screaming at me, to erase the face that followed me even in my dreams, chasing me. It was all worse than living in the worse of the nightmares. Drunk there are no dreams, there are no fears, no threatening. Drunk I can be. And, like this, it became my own life, it turned into my only, my everything, the way to keep myself on going. It's sad to realize it, but it how it was.

There is something I did; a crime I can’t delete or forgive. It’s something I’m so embarrassed and ashamed of and that I regret so much that not even my parents know about it: you are the first person I ever tell but, if I do that, would you still want to be by my side? This is my worry but you told me to share my burdens and, since I’m weak and scared, I decided to let you know first and prayed for your forgiveness.

I killed someone.

Not someone: his name was Lee Seunghoon and he was just a boy. I drove over him and crashed into his slim body. He flew and painted the snow in scarlet. He appeared out of nowhere in a foggy morning rush; I was unable to see him coming and I smashed his dreams and his life away. I saw his parted frame on the ground, the last reminder of a smile because he was about to meet with someone. I stole that precious moment and the rest of them and I hate myself for that, I depreciate me to the point that my own life was a torture a pang of misery. I wanted to die so many times - but I never tried hard enough and I'm sorry about that; my existence is so needless I would be happy to just disappear on the back.

If my death would bring him back I would have gladly done that. But I am a coward that can’t even do a simple thing like killing me the same way I murdered someone else. I’m just an annoyance, a bother, a waste of air and space but I can’t change it even if I try.

I went to his burial and cried for him, even when I didn’t know him – and I never will –, I asked his family to let my repay them in some way the grieve they were carrying because of me but I couldn’t. They said it was an accident, that they couldn’t blame me.

I did, I still do; I’m the only one to condemn; I’m guilty and this is what is torturing me.

This is the reason behind my drinking habits. When I’m muddled I don’t think about all the wrong I caused, all the pain I created, all the suffering and the anguish are out of my mind due to the alcohol soaking my veins. When I’m intoxicated a can break free from the chains and be at ease. When I’m drunk I don’t have to face reality, a world where I’m a murderer, a world I loathe because of who I am.

They said it was an accident; for me it was my mistake and drinking until I’m so wasted that I don’t even care it’s a way of punishment, a way to pay off for what I did, even if it’s only slowly killing me, in the end, wouldn’t it be enough?

Hyung, I’m sorry. I’m so deeply sorry for all the trouble I caused to you, all the hard work you are doing just to help a helpless case like me. And I’m thankful to have met such a light in a world of black and white and hurtful red. Thanks for been there and listen to my laments.”

He calls you ten minutes after sending it.

“It was an accident Song Minho,” he says instead of “hello”. You are grateful but still, this won’t solve anything; you are still a strain “you have to let it go. You can’t grieve forever, you have to learn to let it pass or else you won’t live at all, you will only be nothing more but a tormenter”.

“I’m sorry that you are worried about me” you say to him, tears in your eyes and your hands are clammy around an empty glass you wish it would contain something, anything to drink your sorrows away with; to be drunk because the pain is unbearable, remembering what you have done brought all the suffering back and it’s still as fresh and cruel as the first time – the affliction hasn’t submitted a bit since three years ago.

He hangs out on you and silence engulfs you, the night envelopes your mind and you want the burdens, the regrets, all that you have hushed to go, to not be left behind in the dark when all the phantoms chase you.

The sound of the door being banged startles you but it’s also a blessing. You run to it as if saved and when you stare at him, confused, the remaining tears staining your cheeks, he hugs you straightforward, as if normal, but inside his arms you feel comfortable so you don’t even care to mind that this is not exactly right – that this doesn’t feel like therapy but more like friendship and you are so glad, so content that you might laugh and cry again.

“I was preoccupied after chatting with you,” he tells you, still holding you, still in the doorway “also we are going to Busan tomorrow morning” he adds, letting you go. Standing in front of you he looks alluring, like one of those angels you sometimes dream about but he is real and his arms have surrounded you with a warm that is a foreigner but familiar and you want to be there again, pressed against his body, smitten.

“What?” you are dumbfounded, blinking tears that you wipe away and showing up that you don’t understand – why is he here and why does he want to go with you?

“You need to let it go, so we are going to visit Lee Seunghoon’s grave and you are going to tell him how you feel. Then we will visit his family so you can say what it’s bottled in your heart”.

Jinwoo stays the night with you. He sleeps on the couch even when you insist on him taking the bed – you wouldn’t dare to ask him to share the same space as you, a total loser, a human failure, but he hasn’t bothered about all the drawings of him that hang on the walls of your place so you think he is ok.

When morning grazes you with a sunshine bathing over Jinwoo, golden over his silky black hair, he stirs like a cat and purrs "good morning" to you before you both get ready. After breakfast, he drives you to Busan.

Or so he tries. You both are lost even when he is using a GPS; he confesses that he doesn’t have any sense of directions and that he was out in the road for half an hour before finding your house yesterday. You offer to drive instead – and it’s endearing the way his face concentrates, how he stares at you makes butterflies land in your chest.

The graveyard is frozen but you place the flowers on the ground and pray for him; the place is beautiful, quiet and his name stares at you, making all the weight you hold in comes back but Jinwoo is right next to you and, when he sees you trembling, when he notices how hard it this for you, he folds his fingers around your wrist and caresses your skin gently, rubbing away all the disappointments that pile inside your heart, forcing it to throb painfully. It is better because of him, even when it still hurts to die.

“I’m sorry, Seunghoon, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to crash on you, I didn’t mean to kill you, to steal away all your opportunities, all the joy and the moments that, due to me will never be. I’m sorry to the point that this pain makes me crazy, it wrenches me but I think about you and this, what I’m suffering, it’s nothing compared to the pain I cause to your parents. And there is nothing I can say or do to compensate them from what I took away from them” at this point you are sobbing ugly, all the guilt swirling out from your lips to the wind and floating to the sky, and you weep loudly, Jinwoo holding you, patting your back consolingly. You must go on, you should finish it. “I hope you can forgive me and teach me how to do so because I can’t do that, I can’t omit my fault; I’m the only one to blame, the one who killed you”.

The wind is cold and brushes your tears that feel like freezing over your skin. Jinwoo smiles at you, proud.

Seunghoon’s mother welcomes you happily and she tells you not to worry, that she will miss him for as long as she is alive but those things occur; it was an accident and it occurred to happen that you were the one who was driving but it could have been anyone. It doesn’t bore; the fault is over your star and it will always be.  She hugs you like her own child and you miss your mother, the way she has to make you feel better, loved. You will call her tonight, after landing home; you will tell her the truth and let it all slip over your lips, you will do what Jinwoo has told you because this is the right thing to do – you trust him because he never lies.

When you go, driving back to Seoul, you feel slightly better and Jinwoo snores, sleeping soundly on the passenger’s seat. You stare at him lovingly, standing in front of his place, unable to wake him up.