[2015]

Of goodbyes and new beginnings

Before going to the military Kim Jaejoong decided he would have written letters, love letters to the people he cared about. They were sort of goodbye letters: emotions made words, regrets made new promises, old oaths renewed. Jaejoong was well aware of the fact that the people he addressed them to could have decided not to read them, but a small faith didn’t hurt, did it? Those broken goodbyes were all he had and the four people he wrote to were all he needed to go on.

The first letter he wrote was to Changmin.
He hadn’t heard the younger guy in so long that he didn’t even know how to begin with. He spent hours debating on how to address the now-lost friend, how to call him after years of silence, until some time later he just decided to let the past go and talk to him in the same way they used to.

[My dear Changmin,

when you will receive this letter, I will have already enlisted.
It’s cold today. I wonder what came through my mind when I decided to enlist in the middle of March: how crazy must I have been?
You’re probably thinking “Of course you’re crazy” for this and for others reasons too, but I’ve always been so, haven’t I? You’re also surely struggling to know what the heck was I thinking when I decided to write to you after having no contact for almost six years, but here’s my point, kiddo: I am enlisting.
And that means I’m 30 years old. And that also means I’ve already lived 1/3 of my life more or less.
You’re very smart Changmin and by the time you will reach this point, you will have already caught the hidden message behind my words, but just in case something slips away from your focused eyes, my point is that I’m tired of letting my past mistakes and my pride come in between what is really important. And I do not want to start my new life after the military with regrets.
So here I am, apologizing for those long lonely years and even though I know as well as you know that it was not totally my fault, I will take the blame for this, ‘cause I’m old and my shoulders are strong enough to carry it now.
You don’t have to accept my hand. I will not force you. I’m giving you two years instead, two years to decide what to do about this letter and about our relationship in the future.
I’m telling you that I’m willing to start over and that I’m sorry. I’m really sorry for everything that happened, but people can’t always share the same views on life and that’s what makes life truly beautiful, I think. That’s what makes the world so various, cultures so interesting and even though the side effects of our opposite ideas were surely hard and unexpected, it is what makes us us.
I love you, Changmin, and I hope you will welcome this hyung in your life again.
Life is too short not to make the best out of it.
One touch!

Kim Jaejoong]

As soon as he finished the first letter, Jaejoong quickly realized that being light and tender and cheesy would have never been his thing. He was dark and complex and so odd to deal with. But it was good: not perfect, but good. Time would have worked it all out.

He decided to write the second letter to Junsu.

[My dear Junsu,

How are you doing? I’m enlisting soon.
Well, by the time you will receive this letter, I will have probably already enlisted but we don’t care about details and you probably didn’t even notice, did you?
Summer has just gone by. Well, again, not really just gone by as it’s already November, but this autumn mild weather kind of hid the transistional season. We should have gone to the sea and watched dolphines. Are there even dolphines here in Korea? I don’t know. And you probably don’t either.
Am I making any sense ‘till now? Probably not, but you know I’m not really good with words.
I just wanted  to tell you that I’m sorry I’ve been wrecked these last few years and I’m sorry I’ve taken so much of your time and energies when you probably needed them too. I’m sorry for taking Yoochun away from you sometimes, I know I’ve taken him for so long and relied on him too much. I’m sorry I borrowed both of his shoulders and didn’t let you any: we were all suffering and I was being selfish. I’m sorry, Junsu, I really am.
I’m enlisting in some days, but when I’ll be back I’ll give you back your shoulder too. I will even offer you one of mine. We should share: isn’t everything better this way?
I hope you will accept my support and I hope I will be strong enough to support you.
I’m confident though: this new life will pay back for all our efforts and we will find happiness again. Trust your hyung on this.
I wish you luck with your musicals and solo concerts.
I love you, Junsu. I really do.

Kim Jaejoong]

Jaejoong felt better every word he wrote down and he felt the heaviness that had always weighted his heart get a little lighter. Speaking up was good. And healthy. And how come he hadn’t discover it sooner?
Anyway, it was ok: everything was going to be ok from then on.

He went on his third letter and that was for Yoochun.

[My dear Yoochun,

When I was young and carefree and prettier, I didn’t believe in soulmates: I though they were just a romance thing for innocent children who still believed in fairytailes. However, now that I’m old and rational and not so pretty anymore, I’ve realised how wrong I had been. Soulmates do exist, they just don’t act the way people describe them to: they do not like the same things and do not always hit it off right away as well as they don’t fall in love under the rain. Sometimes, they don’t fall in love at all.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.
They do. And we do. I do.
I never thought I could be so close with someone to be able to know his feelings just by taking a glance at him. I never thought I would have had someone to hold me through the dark times, never letting me drown in my own emotions. I never thought I would have loved someone to the extent that I don’t care what they do, what they say, who they end up with, because I will love them, no matter what.
I love you no matter what.
The bare thought of going away for so long makes my heart tremble and my hands shaking, but I won’t show you this side of me anymore. Once I’ll be back, we will start anew: no more tears and no more cries, I promise. As I told Junsu and Changmin, we will all find happiness.
But you know this already, don’t you? We’re soulmates: what I know, you know.
I love you too much, Yoochun.

Kim Jaejoong]

Jaejoong looked at the wet spots on the letters and wondered if he’d better write it again but decided not to: Yoochun was his soulmate after all, he would have understood.

Jaejoong didn’t notice it, but the sky had turned dark along with his writings and small lights were now shining in the black ocean that was covering Seoul. He got up from his desk and decided to move to the balcony: the night always brought a fresh wind he was addicted to and he coudn’t help stargazing during the last hours of the day.
He picked up his pen and started to write again. That letter was the hardest one; that, he knew.

[My dear Yunho,

I’m sorry.]

Jaejoong stopped for a second and wondered how many times he had said he was sorry. Probably too many,  but surely not enough.

[My dear Yunho,

I’m sorry.
I don’t know why, but this is the first thing that came to my mind while writing this letter: I’m sorry.
It’s hard to deal with the consequences of what happened and no “sorry” will ever take all the pain away, but that’s the only thing I can do from here. I know I shouldn’t even be here in the first place and again, I’m sorry.
I’m not sorry for our decision, and even though I know you think it wasn’t the best choice, I also know that deep inside you have understood our reasons . We didn’t do it the best way, that’s for sure, and many people came in between us, many people were forced to take sides and I hate it, but at the same time I couldn’t do anything to prevent it.
What I’m sorry for, however, is how I made you feel: I’m sorry for letting you think that you weren’t a good leader. You were. And you still are.
Again, I know you think you’ve failed, but if my words still have any value, trust me when I say that without you we woudn’t have even made it to debut. You were there when we were feeling down, broken, and you held us together, you bare our pain, you defeate our nightmares and you connected our hands creating this beautiful bond we still feel attached to.
You’re a great leader, Yunho, you don’t have to doubt it.
And it’s ok to cry now, we’re almost at the end. You don’t have to endure it any longer. You can stop holding back. You can break down.
I wasn’t strong enough to do so: I broke down along the way and I’m sorry for that too.
But in the new life that will welcome us after these two long years of military service, I will be there and I won’t break down. There will be no reason to break down at all.
I don’t know where all this faith is suddenly coming from and I must sound hilarious. God, I sound so hilarious even to myself. Maybe it’s because I had a few glasses of wine or maybe it’s because those five stars are shining so bright tonight that it’s almost a waste not to have faith in them. So trust me on this, Yunho: if you let me to, we will be ok.

Sometimes I wonder what brought us together, the five of us, me and you.
Do you ever think about it? Would things have been the same if one of us hadn’t been one of us? Would these feelings feel any different if Changmin, Junsu or Yoochun hadn’t been there? Would this stone I feel on my heart be any lighter if I hadn’t fell in love with you?
I think so.
But the point is: different doens’t mean better. And I cannot think of another way of feeling the things I feel for you all as I cannot think of another way of loving you. Of loving someone in the same heartbroken way I love you.
It is almost an oxymoron to love someone in a heartbroken way, but we are all oxymoron, aren’t we?
I loved you. And it was good, it was amazing. And it hurt too, it hurt so damn much.
And I still love you and it’s still good and it still hurts, but I wouldn’t trade it with anything else.
This is the way we are, this is the way we love and if it wasn’t like this, it wouldn’t be us.

I came to think that this was what this life, these first 30 years of our life, had to offer, and I’ve taken and accepted it. Now, as I’m walking the first steps of our new life I wonder what the future will have for me, for you, for the five of us. And even though I’m alone and a bit scared, I know that when I’ll come back all our sacrifices will pay back. I want to believe in this kind of future: life has already given us so much to overcome, so much pain to bare and so much tears to share.
It’s time for happiness to come back again, I haven’t seen it in so long, and I truly hope that when we will meet it again, you will be standing there, by my side. Because I want you to witness it: the moment our lives will be as perfect as they used to be.
And deep inside, I know you will be there.

In the meantime, I will be the first one to walk away, I will test the road and let you know where to pay attention to, where not to fall, where to watch out. You can pass the burden down: now it’s my turn to be a leader. I will wait for you, for the four of you, at the end of the line and believe me when I say that when you’ll finally find me, I will be smiling.

I love you, as I always have, and as I always will.

Kim Jaejoong]