----- One Week Later -----

You try to hide the threat of tears pricking your eyes by staring at the ground throughout the whole funeral service. It’s almost over. You repeat that sentence in your head in an attempt to distract yourself and try not to focus on the speech that Himchan is giving. You try to listen without any attachment, try to listen without remembering the past. It’s hard, but you try.

You don’t want to cry in front of Yongguk.

After the funeral service ends, the crowd disperses. Everyone leaves the area with their shoulders shaking with sobs. Everyone is wearing black. Black shoes, black dresses, black pants. It’s such a dark atmosphere, and you hate it, because it doesn’t feel like Yongguk at all. None of it does.

Himchan finds you in the crowd and puts a consoling arm around you. You want to shrug him off, but you find that you don’t have the courage or the strength to reject him. He leads you off the cemetery, his black, gleaming shoes crunching against the newly sprinkled ground.

“Are you okay?” He asks you a question that doesn’t help your already unstable emotions.

You try to laugh, but it comes out as a strangled whimper instead. “Are you okay?”

He looks at you. “I’m holding on.”

The fact that these are the same words Yongguk had said to you makes your heart churn in a desperate way, and you break his gaze and intently focus on your shoes as it sinks into the soft ground. “Are you going to the food reception after?” You ask him.

“No,” he says. “I don’t really want to sit around and eat with all those … people.” A pause. “Are you?”

“No,” you readily respond.

“Then we might as well go do something together, yeah?” He suggests. You nod, and he slips his arm away from your shoulders and fixes his tie. “Where do you want to go?”

You smile up at the sky that is vibrantly blue. “The city.”

In your full black attire, you and Himchan walk toward the inner city. It’s a quiet day today. It could be because it’s a weekday, and the majority of people are stuck in their company’s building doing their work. It’s a lot less lively, and you miss the common bustle that would always fill those streets.

You and Himchan wander around the city for a while, not really intending to get anywhere. You let the silence speak for itself, and Himchan doesn’t try to break your quiet conversation. You spend an hour just meandering round tourist shops and market stalls. You pass the hotel, the jjampong restaurant, and the bookstore. You pass all of these place that remind you of so many things, and while you want to escape this land of memories, your feet forces you to move forward.

“Do you still have your book with you?” Himchan asks. You glance at him.

“I brought it to the funeral, actually,” you tell him. “I was going to put it there, but I … I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

“Yeah. Same,” he says. “You wanna go to the park?”

“Sure,” you agree. You can see the park in the distance, its verdant lawns a healthy green. A feeling of nostalgia overcomes you when you see the bench where you and Yongguk had sat and discussed the aspects of life. You sit there now, only with Himchan at your side, and stare at the water that glistens and shimmers underneath the sparkling sun.

“We used to come here all the time,” Himchan starts. “Back when Yongguk and I ran out of ideas. He and I would come here to brainstorm. It’s a good place, isn’t it?” He smiles. “You get inspired by so many things.”

“Yeah,” you admit as you wrap your arms around your knees. “It is.” You watch as the breeze lifts the surface of the water, lightly creating a current and sending scattered ripples across the top. “I came here once. With Yongguk.”

“You did?”

“It was fun,” you say simply. “Yeah. It was fun.” You stare at your hands wrapped tightly around yourself. “I don’t know how I’m going to keep doing this. Reminiscing. My mind knows he’s gone, but my heart doesn’t.”

“It’s only been a week,” Himchan reasons gently. “Give yourself some credit.”

“I know,” you reply. “But what if two weeks from now, a month, a year, two years … I’m still like this? Still wishing about all the things I could’ve done, but didn’t do. Still dreaming of the impossible.”

Himchan quietly murmurs, “He left an impression on you, didn’t he?”

You laugh lightly. “Yeah. A big one.”

Himchan gazes at the lake thoughtfully. “He can do that to people.”

“I almost wish he couldn’t,” you acknowledge. “Maybe I wouldn’t have to miss him so much.”

“I don’t think that’s such a bad thing,” he muses. “You know … it’s okay to miss him. I mean, if we didn’t, it’s like we’re ignoring he was ever anything. And I think he wouldn’t want that. Yongguk likes the attention,” he chuckles. A flash of memories invades his mind, and you watch as a change of expressions shadows his eyes. “He almost forgot his stuff toy.”

“Stuff toy?”

“Yeah. When we were heading home from when he was getting treated. He didn’t have space left in his suitcase, so he said he was just going to bring it, but he almost left it behind. So I stuck it in my suitcase. And after all that, things just got busy, and I guess I never got the chance to return it to him. It’s still in my bag.”

“Shi Shi Mato,” you mumble.

“What?”

“It’s a bu