Hello and Goodbye

iamforgotten

You were sitting at the very back row of the train cab thinking that no one would dare bother you there. You wanted to be alone, just like every other day of your life since he left. You wanted to think and reminisce and, maybe, cry. You wanted to let out every bit of pain that was in your heart. But the tears wouldn’t fall and you concluded that it must be because you were too tired for it, although you needed it pretty badly.

Then you started to think about your first meeting.

You met him on that very train, one night many years ago. You just got off your part-time job at the supermarket in the city and it was time to go home. You were so tired and sleepy that you opted to lean on the glass window and close your eyes for a little while. The little while turned into something longer, though, and when you finally woke up you found out that you almost passed your stop.

And then you froze.

You realized something else. You realized that when you woke up, you weren’t leaning on the window anymore. You were leaning on something –someone—else. You then noticed the reflection on the window. There were you… and then there was a person beside you, and he was smiling.

“I thought you had no intention of waking up,” he teased, making you turn to him.

“I’m sorry –I–“

“It’s alright, you looked so tired so I decided to just let you be.” He winked and stood from the seat. “When’s your stop?”

“The next,” you replied.

“Cool, so is mine.” He walked towards the doors where he found empty seats and sat there. “I’m Junsu, by the way. Kim Junsu. What’s your name? And what have you done to be so tired that you actually fell asleep on the train?”

“My name is Riin, and I work, that’s why.” You sat down beside him as you waited for the train to stop.

You started with that. An accident, a mere coincidence, and you couldn’t help but be thankful that he was there on the train that night and all the nights after, for that matter.

He was so sweet, your Junsu. He always had ways of making you feel special and loved. He was your protector, your knight in shining armor. And even during those times when you quarreled, he’d be the one to exert efforts to make amends. Junsu always waited for you even though you never asked him to, even though you never voiced out that secret longing in your heart. He understood perfectly and, in his tiniest of ways, he showed you that he felt the same way.

It took three years before the two of you became a couple. And after you did, you knew that there was no turning back. Especially that night when he led you towards the garden in your little backyard, embraced you so tight, and told you that he had just realized the most amazing thing in the world.

“I look into your eyes, Riin ah, and I see what true love looks like.”

Tears and love welled inside you. Your Kim Junsu just couldn’t seem to stop taking your breath away. Even the way he sang your favorite melody, the way he asked your father if he could have your hand in marriage, made you fall deeper for him. You couldn’t have let him go, even if your father did not agree, you wouldn’t have let Junsu go.

You couldn’t have let him go even if he asked you to. That was the reason that even if he was long gone, you still couldn’t let go. He was your life. He’d been the very first time you met. Letting go was unthinkable. Leaving him was impossible.

That was the only thing that went on in your mind while the doctors fussed over his dying form. He laid on the hospital bed, spitting blood all over, crying in pain. And you couldn’t do anything to comfort him.

You ambled towards him, knees weak and buckling under your weight. You held tightly onto his hand, asking him not to leave you. He looked you in the eyes and smiled. Even with everything that he was feeling, he smiled at you and mouthed the words that he did that night in your garden. And all you could do was ask why.

Why was he smiling at a time like that?

Why was he so kind?

Why did he do what he did?

Why did he sacrifice himself for you?

Why did he love you?

Why?

Everyone had been telling you to move on. But that was everything you could never do. They had no idea how much it pained you whenever you heard those words. You could never move on because that would mean forgetting the most wonderful thing that ever happened in your life. So, instead, you came to him every night, like he had done to you when he was still on earth, and talked to him, as if he could actually hear you. You would take a single photograph of him with you and pretend that by looking at it and talking to it, you were talking to him. You’d greet him as if he was still alive, and lay down beside his grave as if you were in bed beside him. You would gaze up into the stars and pretend that they were his eyes twinkling down on you after saying a teasing joke. You would often close your eyes and pray that he was happy and, more often than not, you’d fall asleep like that, beside him, just like the first time you met. And you would wake up to the chirping of the birds in the early morning, confused as to why you were still at the cemetery but not moving an inch.

You would lay there, his worn out picture in your hands, but there weren’t any tears anymore. You had been doing that every night for almost three years. And you suddenly felt as if every time you said hello to his non-existent self you were bidding goodbye to your own.