F i n a l :

His Heaven(s)

“The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.” (Chuck Palahniuk)

~~~

It was the first day of winter when she met him for the first time.

Yoona played outside by herself, making snowman like she always used to make everytime winter started. She would glance the road every now and then, waiting for her parents to come home. Mom said they were going to take someone home with them and Yoona should take care of him really well. And, Dad said this someone would be her brother and she had to get along with him.

The thought about having a brother made her really happy. Finally, she didn’t need to play alone by herself at home. She could ask him to have a picnic under the cherry blossom tree every Spring. She could ask him to make sand castle in the beach every summer. She could ask him to play with the falling leaves every Autumn. And, she could ask him to make snowman and played ski every winter.

As the plans started to fill her head, question also popped out of .

“Where’s his Mom and Dad?” Yoona asked for the sake of her curiosity.

Dad glanced at Mom for a while, trying to find a right and proper words to answer her daughter’s curiosity, “his Mom and Dad were gone, Yoong.”

Yoona still didn’t understand as her eyes were getting bigger and the flash of curiosity seemed clearer in her big-doe eyes. “They will come back, right?”

“No, Yoong.”

The innocent 8-years old girl still didn’t understand, “Why not?”

“They were in heaven, dear. They can’t come back again.”

Silence.

“I heard heaven is a really nice place, Daddy. Why don’t his Mom and Dad take him with them? I’m sure heaven has many fun places like Lotte World or Disneyland. They would have fun together.”

Mom smiled and reached her daughter’s cheeks, “Because, they were already locked in heaven and they can’t come back, dear. And, you don’t need to go to heaven to feel the heaven, Yoongie.”

Yoona still didn’t get what her Mom said but she promised to herself that she would take him to heaven someday so that he could meet his parents and they would live happily ever after.

She still didn’t understand that life wasn’t that simple.

***

Yoona was about to find a bucket for the hat of her own-made snowman when she saw her parents’ car already made its way into the house. She ran to the car ecstatically and threw herself to her Dad’s hug.

“You have fun?”

Yoona shook her head and pouted her lips while letting herself out of her Dad’s embrace. “Not at all. Tiffany is sick and Yuri is going to her Grandma’s house. I have no one to play with,” she said while clinging her hands into his Dad’s.

“But now, you have.”

Yoona looked at the boy who hide behind her Mom. He was shorter than Yoona and she was sure he was younger than her. Her long bang covered half of his eyes which tried to catch glimpse of Yoona behind Mom’s back.

Yoona smiled really big and ran closer to the boy. He flinched a little bit yet she didn’t care. She was just too happy seeing him, “What’s your name? I’m Yoona.”

The boy relaxed a little bit seeing how Yoona welcomed her cheerfully like that, “I’m Jongin.”

“Do you want to play snowball fight and make snowman with me?”

“Sure.”

And, Yoona took Jongin’s hand into hers, welcoming him into her life.

***

It didn’t take long time for Yoona to be really close with Jongin. Eventhough he seemed quite distant sometimes, she always found many ways to reach him back. They played together, they laughed together, they wrote new pages of their new life together, drawing the blank pages with pictures and pictures of memories.

“Jongin, do you know where your Mom and Dad gone?” Yoona asked while watching the TV. Both of them sat side by side on the couch while waiting for Mom to finish cooking their lunch.

“I don’t know. Everyone doesn't want to tell me. Everytime I ask that question, they will just hug me or pat my back.”

“I wonder why they don’t tell you. But, Mom and Dad already told me where they are!”

“Really? Where?”

“They are in heaven now.”

Jongin stared at her in confussion as if Yoona just spoke in alien language, “Where is it?”

“I don’t know. But, people say it is really far away from here.”

“Is it in America?”

“I guess, it’s farther than America. Do you want to go there? I heard heaven is a nice place. I will take you there when I have much money so you can meet your parents again.”

“Does heaven have chocolate ice cream there?”

“Of course! I’m sure it has Disneyland too.”

“Then, take me there.”

***

As the time passed, both of them grew up together. The hyper and talkative Yoona turned to be the calm and reserved gorgeous girl. And the shy and distant Jongin turned to be the easy-going and talkative boy. Both of them sometimes found it funny how their characters were like switched over as they grew up yet those things also one thing which made the gap between them more invisible.

“Really, Jongin. I never thought that you would talk more words than me in my entire life.” Yoona said as he walked alongside the boy who kept playing with the basketball in his hand.

Jongin grinned at him, “Well, I never thought that you could act like a normal girl just like now.”

Yoona smacked his head. Jongin responded by stucking his tongue out and rolling his eyes, “That is the real Im Yoona I know.”

She rolled her eyes while trying to walk faster. Jongin tailed behind her, “Hey, Yoong.”

“What?”

“Do you remember when we were still kids and you keep insisting to take me to heaven?”

Yoona chuckled at the thought, “Yeah. And, how we ran away to the airport to buy the ticket to the heaven. Thank God, Mom and Dad found us really quickly or we would be laughing stock in the airport.”

He also chuckled a little bit, “Do you still want to take me to heaven?”

“Do you want to?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why? Heaven has buckets and buckets of chocolate ice cream, Jongin-ah,” Yoona .

“Why should I go to heaven when I already am in heaven?”

“So, the world is heaven for you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because, I have you.”

Their conversation stopped as Jongin tried to understand the answer he just said and Yoona tried to stop herself for saying the same words as him.

It was 2 years later when Jongin finally understood the whole meaning of his unintentional answer.

It was when he saw Yoona stood side by side with Luhan under the cherry blossom tree in front of the school. Luhan just gazed to the front blankly while Yoona looked at him sadly. Jongin was far away from both of them but he knew there was something in her eyes that kept trying to break down in any minute. It was something that Yoona was really capable of hiding it.

Tears.

***

“You love him, don’t you?”

“Who?”

“Luhan.”

Silence.

She smiled at him and Jongin took it as ‘yes’.

“He will move to China tomorrow.”

Silence.

Jongin broke the silence, “Tell him you love him.”

“I did.”

“And, what did he say?”

“He said he loves me too.”

Silence.

“Then, both of you are going to be fine.”

“I hope so.”

Silence.

“Do you love me, Yoong?”

Yoona chuckled, “Of course, you’re my brother.”

Jongin tried to cover the hole of pain in his heart by plastering a bitter smile on his face.

Sometimes, not everyone deserved to have heaven in their hands.

***

He was about to knock Yoona’s door to say good night when he heard her truly cried. He meant, he already saw her crying lots of times, counting the days when Mom didn’t let her to eat ice cream in the morning or when Dad lectured her for having bad marks in Math.

This time, she truly cried. He could hear her sobs that were sharper than a knife and could stab his heart million times. He could even imagine the tears streaming down her face and her cheerful doe eyes turned to red-sorrowful eyes. He could even feel her body shook madly and her heart shattered bit by bit.

He wanted to hug her. He wanted to tell her that she should let Luhan went to China and forgot everything about him. He wanted to ask her to see him, not as a brother, but as a man who truly loved her and would stay beside her.

But, he didn’t.

He went back to his room, trying to fix the broken pieces of his heart who already shattered long time ago.

***

It was Summer when Yoona graduated from high school and decided to go to China. The reason of her leaving was merely because of her study but Jongin knew too well it was because of Luhan. Jongin didn’t really know about him but he could remember the way he looked at Yoona under the cherry blossom tree last year. His eyes were filled with love and so does Yoona’s.

One thing he was sure that he loves her and vice versa. The thought about it made Summer felt like Winter already.

“It’s because of him you’re leaving to China, aren’t you?” Jongin broke the silence lingered between them. His eyes gazed to the dark sky, trying to find stars hiding beneath it.

Yoona sipped her hot cocoa, “You knew me too well, Jongin.”

Silence.

“I love you, Yoong.”

“I love you too, Jongin.”

While Jongin meant what he said to her, Yoona wavered about the meaning of her own words.

One love, two different people, three same words, different yet same meaning.

***

/This is Kim Jongin speaking. I can’t answer your phone now. Leave message after ‘beep’/

/Hey, Jongin. How are you? I want to talk to you but you seem to be busy now. I heard from Mom and Dad you went to Japan for the university, right? I wish you all the best there. Hey, Jongin, do you remember when we were together in Korea? We laughed, fought, talked, spent time together. I really miss those times. It’s still really hard to adapt with everything here in China eventhough I’ve been here for about 4 years. I still at Chinese, I still at remembering the direction from my university to my apartment, everything still seems odd but it’s getting better, though. Luhan really helps me lots of times and yeah, we’re still together. I really want both of you to meet one day. He went to the same school with us when we were in high school but I guess both of you never know each other quite well since he was in our school for about 2 months. Well, the most important thing of this long voicemail is I miss you, Jongin. I really miss you. It’s like whenever I go, I never find someone who really knows me inside and outside. You are my brother and also my bestfriend. And, it’s kind of weird feeling how distant I am with you. You always seem so busy and can’t answer your phone and you never reply my text message or email. Why? Did I do something wrong? Call me back, Jongin. I miss you and I hope everything is fine./

***

/The number you are calling is not defined. Please check again the number you are calling./

***

Day by day, month by month, year by year passed so fastly like a dust. Jongin tried to live his life, buried everything happened in the past, including Yoona. He met girls after girls, but none of them could make him gaze away from the girl of his life. He was not ready to let Yoona out of his life.

Until he met her.

Their meeting was weird but he couldn’t blame destiny for that. They always sat across each other’s table in the café near the train station, enjoying their morning breakfast. Jongin realized that she always had different book to read on her table and she always ordered green tea latte and chocolate muffin every morning. He realized that she would have her eyes fixated to pages after pages of her book while sipping his green tea latte or taking a bite from his chocolate muffin. He realized that she would close her book, finished her breakfast and got ready to leave the café at 08.15 a.m, 30 minutes before the train of Asakusa line took off.

Jongin realized that before she left the café and opened the door, she would stop and looked at her table for a moment, checking if she missed something and sometimes she would throw small smile to Jongin which were enough to make his lips curved upward too.

One day, she came late to the café. It was rainy and the place was stuffed with people and the every table was filled. Jongin didn’t realize the girl already took a seat across him, in the same table with him. He looked up and he saw her smiling brightly.

“ ここにすわってもいいですか? (May I sit here?)” she asked in accented Japanese while tying her wet hair in ponytail. She was wet as she could see stains of water droplets on her dress.

Jongin nodded and the chapter of his new heaven began.

***

Since that day, they started to sit at the same table near the window. Jongin learned that her name was Choi Jinri and she was also 20 years old like Jongin. She was also Korean who went to Japan to learn more about Japanese and its culture. She was interested on those things because when she was in high school, she was sent to Japan for 1 year because of student exchange program. And, when she went home to Korea, she decided to go back to Japan where her interest belonged to.

Jinri was interesting, Jongin thought. The way her eyes would disappear everytime she smiled or laughed. The way her beauty radiated the friendly aura which could make everyone went head over heel for her. They way her laugh boomed everytime she found something funny like a music to his ears.

He thought he was in love. He thought he finally found someone who replaced Yoona from his life. He thought he finally let Yoona went away from his life.

But, sometimes, destiny always played joke on us, making us wondering what we actually deserved for our lives.

“You’re Kim Jongin, right?”

Jongin looked up from his “Japanese from A-Z” textbook and saw a quite lanky man stood in front of him. His doe-eyes reflected curiosity and her brown hair was a little bit messed because of the heavy wind of Autumn. Jongin nodded as his mind wondered why this man was so familiar.

He didn’t need Jongin to voice out his question, “I am Luhan. Nice to meet you.”

***

“Why are you here?” It was the first question Jongin could utter despite million of question which were dancing in his head right now.

Luhan sipped his espresso and he looked at Jongin deeply, “My office opens new branch here in Tokyo and my boss expects me to be the one who handles this new office, and everything. And, I'm about to go to the train station and go home when I see you here. It's pleasure to finally meet you. Yoona can't stop telling me about you.”

Silence.

“And, yes. Yoona is also here with me.”

Silence again.

“You should meet her. She misses you so much.”

“I cant.”

And, they both fell deeper into another silence. Jongin didn’t dare to look up and met Luhan’s eyes. Everytime he looked at him, there was Yoona again creeping into his mind. It remind him how a bastard he had been for Yoona. He changed his number so she and him would part ways forever, he left her behind. And, how could he show his face in front of her when he already hurt her like that?

“You will hurt her even more if you avoid her again,” as if Luhan was psychic, he answered Jongin’s question again.

Jongin looked up to him. He knew he should do it.

***

Luhan brought Jongin to his apartment. The closer his step brought him to the place, the more he felt he wanted to ran away. But, he didn’t.

Yoona opened the door of the apartment and hugged Luhan right away. But, her eyes quickly travelled to the young man who stood behind the man of her life. He kept looking down but Yoona could quickly recognize him. Tears started streaming down her face and her body started shaking, controlling the emotion that forcefully tried to burst out of her heart.

“Jongin, is that you?”

He looked up and saw Yoona for the first time after few years. She was still the same Im Yoona whom he loved with all his heart. Her beauty never faded and the warm aura embracing her was still there. His heart felt like it was squeezed really hard as he saw the tears who kept flooding her face.

Yoona came to him and hugged him right away. Jongin could feel her body shook madly and the tears which kept coming out from her eyes. He looked at Luhan, and he nodded as he gave permission to Jongin.

Jongin hugged Yoona back. And, he hugged her like this would be the last time.

Maybe, it would be the last time.

***

Yoona took Jongin to the park in front of the apartment. She insisted that Jongin and her needed lots of times to catch up with everything going on in their lives. Luhan just nodded and let her went to Jongin’s side. He understood enough.

They sat side by side in silence, waiting for someone to break the silence.

“I’m sorry,” it was Jongin.

“For what?”

“For being such a bastard.”

Yoona smiled, “I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?”

For not replying back to your feeling. “For being such a bad sister.”

Jongin smiled, “You’re the best sister that I’ve ever had and I feel lucky to have you.”

“And, I feel really lucky to have you as my brother.”

They both smiled to each other.

“I’m getting married, Jongin,” Yoona showed him the silver ring encircle her ring finger.

He looked at her, “Congratulations.” And, he really meant it. “When will it be?”

“Next 2 months. I always want to get married in Winter. Winter may seem cold but pretty moment always happen to me in that time. I first met you in Winter, right? That was also one of  the happiest moment in my life.”

He smiled, recalling the first time they met and how they made their first snowman together. “Thank you, Yoong.”

Silence.

“You will come to my wedding, right?”

Jongin nodded.

“Be happy for me, okay?”

He nodded again and this time he didn’t lie.

***

Jongin came to Yoona’s wedding with Jinri stayed beside him. As soon as he arrived at the wedding hall, Luhan greeted him with big smile plastered on his face.

“Do you want to meet your sister first before the wedding start?”

“No, I want to meet you.”

Luhan narrowed his eyes, “Why?”

Jongin smirked, “Be a good damn husband for Yoona or I will seriously beat your .”

Luhan laughed, “Suit yourself.”

***

Jongin saw Yoona walking down the aisle, smile was permanently plastered on her face. He saw both Yoona and Luhan made their promises and finally locked their lips together. Jongin kept his promise to her. He was happy for her. And it wasn’t just another empty promise yet he really meant it.

He finally let her go.

He looked at the girl sitting beside him. He realized that he didn’t need Jinri to replace Yoona from his life. Jinri was as important as Yoona for him and vice versa. Jinri and Yoona have their own place in his heart and none of them could replace each other in his life. Both of them were heavens to him.

Jongin looked at Jinri who pouted her lips. She looked at Jongin and asked him playfully, “When will we get married?”

Jongin chuckled. He took Jinri’s hand into his, “how about tomorrow?”

Just because, Yoonkai always screams something like "They're so beautiful together but it will be more beautiful if they don't end up together" in my head. /getting bricked/ lol. I kinda make slight change of plan for this story, as you can see I add little bit Luyoon + Kaisul here. I  actually want to make Kai ends up with no one but guess what, I don't have heart to do so lol. Tell me what you think by throwing me your comment ;) I'm sorry for grammar fails here and there because English isn't my first language. But, I will try to improve in the future ^^ And, thank you for reading <3333 P.S: The beautiful icons belong to the owner.