Yo.

How are you doing today?

Well? Swell? Great? Fantastic?

Me too. Though, I’d say I’m just “O.K.” Humans have a lot of words to describe a single feeling, don’t they? Even though that feeling might change in the next second, even though it might be gone to never return. Or maybe even to return another day at another time, in another place. Anguish. Sorrow. Regret. Anger. Frustration. Annoyance. Why use all these words when the feeling each one produces is that same fiery lump that gets stuck in your throat, spewing hot embers this way and that? Why is being “O.K.” never “O.K.”?

Humans are weird, aren’t they? They have all these words and yet they decide to do such odd things with them. They decide to love. They decide to lie. They decide to live.

I’m not being hypocritical, not at all. I lived once. I know what it feels like to live. I think only those that live no longer can truly understand that fleeting feeling. But, if I’m not living, then what am I doing right now? Right at this very moment?

I’m existing.

I’m existing in this world of words, love, lies, and life.

I decided a long time ago that I’d embrace it. That I’d use words to lie. That I’d use words to love. To live – or rather, as I said earlier, exist, in my case. Lying is wrong. Loving is dangerous. Living is hard. Yet, what else can I do?

I’m stuck.

And even when I’m unstuck, I’ll still be stuck. Even if I’m yanked from my situation and set free, I’ll still be chained down to an eternal, non-differential existence.

It’s hard to understand, isn’t it?

Well, I’m one hell of a complicated guy. I’m not looking to be understood. We’re not looking to be understood. We’ve all got our own problems. Our own complications. Whether you’re a spirit, a demon, or a human, none of us are simple. Living is complicated. Existing is complicated. Simple is nonexistent.

“Yongguk,” a stern, young voice called the name that felt as foreign on his lips as it did to my ears. He rarely called me by my name. A name I long since have lost touch with. Because I’m not that same, living person anymore, ya know? “Are you listening?”

I’m feeling quite philosophical today. I’m contradicting myself quite a lot today. Maybe because what was happening right before my eyes was a contradiction in itself. “Yeah.” I answered with a tilt of my head, his young, youthful image filling the entirety of my vision. I wonder what he’ll look like when he becomes old and wrinkly. I wonder what I’ll look like when I become old and wrinkly.

Two things that I’ll never know. At least, the latter of which was an impossibility at this point.

“Where am I supposed to go though?” I asked, as though I would receive an answer that satisfied me.

“Anywhere you want.” And just like that, the ink scratched though the name Park Sangmin, staining the old piece of paper that I had long since forgotten the meaning of. That I had forced myself to forget the meaning of.

I was the last one to leave.

And yet, I didn’t leave at all.

I was there as that foolishly unyielding face of his got married to his petite, shorthaired girlfriend. I was there as they had a daughter whose dreams were as big as . I was there when that same daughter got married and had a daughter of her own. I was there when the daughter of that quick to anger woman grew up and came back for more than just a holiday or two, her appearance changing little over the years.

I was there when the young man I used to know, now old and wrinkled all over just like I had wanted to see, helped a young soul become a spirit – and that same spirit became like the son I never had. I was there when the man’s granddaughter started not soon after to bring that little girl of a man with her to the shrine to help clean – messing with him was the highlight of many of my days. I existed through all of it.

I existed alone, my own son having his own issues, his own complications with regards to existing, to deal with.

The young, now turned old, man blotted me out. He refused to see me. He wanted me to move on. To go somewhere. Anywhere. To exist with a purpose.

But, I’m just a low-level demon. Alone even among my own kind. Destined to it until the end of time. But, somewhere along the line, something changed.

I found that someplace. That anyplace. That anywhere.

I found someone. I found someone as though they were lost to me before. As though they were hiding from me all along right in front of my eyes. How so? How did I find them? Her? Her, who I watched grow up? Her, who was there all along?

It’s funny how simple it was.

You see, her gaze changed that day. That day I limped back “home” with Himchan at my side, that look in her eyes was different. And that’s when it hit me.

She’s stuck too.

She’s stuck with me.

And that feeling couldn’t even be described with words.

I was better than “O.K.”

Much better.

I didn’t have to go anywhere for a long time to come.

Everything seemed a little less complicated.

A little more simple.