Thirty two messages on my answering machine. Hyosung's panicked voice, the concerned principle, my kids… all day long, my phone was ringing. Even my cell phone had been constantly buzzing around. I hadn't changed my clothes for the past few days. All I could do was drain my supply of alcohol and puke my guts out.

BEEP. "Mr. Jung? This is Junhong. I… I heard that you haven't been at work and didn't call in sick. Are you okay? I mean, obviously you're not… but you can talk to me, if you want. I, uh, well, there are a lot of worried people. Please. We need you back. Um, I guess I'll call again a little… later." BEEP.

Looking at the bottle in my hand, it took me a while to accept the fact that I ran out of drinks. I would have to get up and go out to buy some more. "Th-this isn't funny," I croaked, my bloodshot eyes glaring at the empty bottle. "My l-life is not… is not a joke." How did Youngjoo know those things? How could she say those things as honestly as she did? My own family didn't know that Youngjae was the one who punched my daylights out in kindergarten. And then she went and said "I punched you." She didn't punch me. Youngjae punched me. I knew that Youngjae hated dogs; she couldn't even look at them, but I didn't know why. So why the hell did I feel like Youngjoo was telling the truth, that Mr. Yoo would kill an innocent pet just to hurt his daughter.

Dropping the bottle, I wasn't bothered by the fact that I heard it shatter against the hardwood floor. Stumbling to my feet, I forced myself to grab my wallet and my keys. It took a few minutes of leaning against the wall in order to get my bearings, but I wasn't in any rush. I couldn't be bothered with closing the door behind me as I stepped out into the crisp autumn air. Leaves were bleeding down the streets, wind agitating them. Walking, I just walked and walked. I knew where I was going, but it was all a blur. My credit was good, so buying a plane ticket with my Mastercard was easy. Sitting in a seat by the window I could lose myself in the clouds.

There was a bus and some more walking, but I finally reached my destination. Standing in front of a modest country home I felt like a child all over again. My hand knocked against the solid oak door, and I wondered if they would even be home. Traveling all around the globe had always been a hobby of theirs and-

"Hello? Oh, Daehyun?" Professor Choi's partner looked quite surprised to see me. A few strands of silver peeked out from his well kept ponytail and his timid eyes looked me over. "Are… you okay?"

I must have looked like hell. "Choi. I need to see Professor Choi."

"Of course, come on in. He's visiting with his brother, but feel free to have a seat. Those two are probably still arguing." He chuckled, but when I didn't react, he went silent, leaving awkwardness between us.

The house was nice and organized, two things that I never put together with my old professor. In school he had always been disorganized and unkempt, so imagining him in such a clean environment was almost amusing. Once the both of us stepped into the living room, I found myself even more surprised. Sitting opposite of each other were two nearly identical men. If I wasn't so familiar with my old professor, I wouldn't have been able to tell them apart. That, and some strange brunette man was sitting next to who I assumed was professor Choi's brother. Golden eyes barely spared me a glance before returning to a thick book. His perfectly manicured hand was resting suggestively on the other man's lap making me shake my head.

Professor Choi looked over and his eyes widened. "Daehyun? You look like you got hit by a train."

"Hey there," I replied wearily.

"Hmm, well, Daehyun, this is my dearest idiot of a brother, Changjae."

"If I'm the idiot, that would make you the moron," Changjae replied blandly, reaching over for a slice of cake. I wasn't sure why there was an entire cake on their coffee table, but whatever.

"Yes, as you can see, he thinks quite highly of himself. He's even gotten himself a little Asian trophy wife."

"I can speak English too, you know," the "trophy wife" responded irritably.

"Did you hear something?" professor Choi asked, ignoring the younger man. "Hmmm, it must have been the wind, because we all know that trophy wives aren't supposed to speak."

Changjae chuckled in amusement and his lover swatted him. "Changjae-ah, don't let him talk to me that way!"

"Ah, but it's not all about you," Professor Choi responded before Changjae or whoever the hell that guy was could answer. "Now, what brings you over here during the school period when you should be counseling and looking so ed up?"

Looking down at my dirty hands, I felt even more foolish. What was I going to say, "Some high school girl was telling me things about Youngjae and I don't know what to do?" Yeah, that wouldn't sound crazy at all. "Y-youngjae."

Saying that single word drew all the cheerfulness out of my old professor. Even his lover looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, that's… unexpected. Changjae, could you forgive me and cut our talk short?"

His brother  looked surprised, but nodded. He glanced over me with cold grey eyes, leaving me with the feeling that I had just been scanned by a mind-reading machine before hopping off the couch. "Come along, yeobo."

Changjae stood up stiffly and followed his lover out the door. That bastard didn't even spare a second glance at me. My feet shuffled to the recently abandoned couch, and I fell back heavily on it. The professor's lover slipped out of the room, leaving me and professor Choi alone. I let my brown orbs wander over his hunched form. Time had been quite pleasant to him, leaving him practically unmarred and untouched with the curse of white hair. That or he dyed his hair and used lots of anti-aging cream.

"So what's all this about Youngjae?" he prodded, frowning at the half-eaten cake on the coffee table before looking back up to my face. "It's been fourteen years and for some reason you still look like his funeral was just yesterday. I didn't leave you looking like that."

No, he hadn't. Professor Choi had stayed close with me, refusing to move until he was sure that I was stable. I had spent several months with him just to recover and he had selflessly cared for me. Now, I was back and looking for even more help. Why couldn't I just help myself?

"I'm scared." It was the honest truth. I couldn't lie to the face of the man I respected the most. "I've been struggling with remembering Youngjae … it's not that I want to forget, and I'm not trying to forget, but… I don't know. I feel emptier than ever."

"Did something happen?"

Youngjoo. She happened. "It's like… I've suddenly been reminded of her, of things that—it just hurts too much. I'm so tired of always hurting."

The professor looked up at his ceiling, the same whiteness that reminded me of a lazy day in bed. "Things aren't supposed to be easy, Daehyun. That's why it's life. Things are going to hurt, it's going to ."

"But I'm exhausted," I whispered. "I've spent fourteen years mourning and tearing myself apart. I know that I could have saved her, and every second of every ing minute I hate myself for that. I didn't protect the most important thing in my life."

His eyes never left the light fixture on the ceiling. "…is beating yourself up going to bring Youngjae back?"

"No."

"Is crying over her going to bring her back?"

"…no."

"What can bring her back?" I knew the answer, but I kept my mouth shut. It wasn't fair. "Nothing, Daehyun. Absolutely nothing. You'll never see her again. Even if she were to reincarnate or something supernatural like that, she'll never be exactly the same. You aren't even the same. Are you the person she fell in love with?"

"No, I'm… not."

Finally turning his glance towards me, I could see that his eyes were a bit misty. "Do you want to go through the rest of your life as a stranger that she wouldn't be even able to recognize or do you want to be the man she loved?"

"But I can't be like that anymore! I'm not a kid, I'll never be that again!"

He nodded slowly. "It's true that people always change, but I'll ask you in a different way. How do you plan on remembering Youngjae? Are you going to do it by dragging yourself to ruin or are you going to do it by making her proud? When you face her in the afterlife, will she be impressed or devastated?"

"She'd be pissed," I murmured. "Do you believe in… the afterlife or reincarnation?"

He shrugged. "I've not seen proof for either of those, but I've never seen them disproved either. You might say that I have an open mind on the subject."

Looking down to my mud-spattered boots, I thought back to Youngjoo. If I was being completely rational, I'd have to acknowledge that there was no earthly way that she could know about the things she told me. She was too young to have been around back then and no one else knew about that aspect of our lives. No earthly way. But… she had mentioned something about dreams and memories haunting her. What if— what if she really was Youngjae? Was it completely crazy to think that maybe whoever was the higher being realized that they had made a mistake and gave Youngjae another chance?

Sighing, I knew that even if that wasn't the case, she was in pain. I could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. She had been begging for me to help her, and I had brushed her aside. "I'm such a child," I mumbled. "I guess I haven't changed all that much."

"Still a brat," professor Choi added before leaning back against his recliner, both knees firmly pressed against his chest. "Now, don't you have a job to be doing?"

A weak smile made it to my lips. "Yeah. Can I get dinner and some sleep first?"

"Of course."

"I'm going to kill you. Dead." Hyosung had her fist bared, but I just laughed at her. Seeing her all worked up had really done my heart some good.

"Sorry, sorry!"

"Apologies aren't good enough!"

She seemed to relax a bit as I laughed and fought off her attempts to decapitate me. Once I got back, my pay was docked for scaring the out of everyone, but I was allowed back. I assured my bosses that I wouldn't ever do anything like that again, and things slipped back into place. It had already been a week and Hyosung was still pissed with me, but more importantly, Youngjoo hadn't come to see me at all. I had caught a glimpse of her in the hall, but she never acknowledged my presence. She only walked past me, her eyes empty. Even her smiles seemed hollow.

I had taken the time to look up her files and what I found had given me the chills. Yoo Youngjoo, fourteen years old, had been born the exact day that I lost my Youngjae. She was quite a driven young lady and was a proven genius. Her grades were flawless and her attitude was fiery. For the first twelve years of her life, Youngjoo had lived in America with her wealthy parents, but for some reason she convinced them to move back to South Korea. Oddly, she had spent all her years in Korea bouncing from high school to high school, city to city, until she arrived here. It really was as if she had been looking for something… for someone. Even more chilling was the fact that the first high school she had attended in South Korea was none other than my old high school.

Walking to the roof for a smoke, I was a little surprised to find her sitting against the protective fence, gazing forlornly towards the horizon. It wasn't hard to superimpose an image of Youngjae on her and I found the similarities too close to be an accident. This wasn't a coincidence or some random encounter. Even before I had met her, I knew that she was looking for me. I felt it.

"Hey."

Brown eyes pulled away from the scenery to look at me. "Hey," she echoed.

Sitting next to her, I pulled out my cigarette and proceeded to light up. "How're you doing?"

"Don't patronize me," she snapped, turning away from me.

"Alright then. Do you want to talk about your dreams?"

Out of the corner of my eye I could see her worrying her lower lip. I had already hurt her, so why should she trust me? Then again, she was so tortured, she needed to stop bottling things up and let everything out. "Don't talk. I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to say anything until I'm done. Okay?"

"It's a deal," I conceded.

We looked at each other for a few seconds, before she looked to the ground with a faint blush on her cheeks. Then she started. I didn't want to hear the words that were coming out of . I didn't want to hear about our lives, the private moments between me and Youngjae. As long as she could remember, she had been dreaming about this other life. She was an unhappy boy abused by her father, befriended by an annoying an insistent brunette. And she grew up with that boy. For fourteen years, she had dreamed of a double life, one that mimicked her own and yet was so very different. But there was always that boy, a boy that she grew to love.

"I couldn't get you out of my mind," she murmured, holding herself tightly. "I didn't know who you were or where you were, but I had to find you. The memories started coming during the day too, insisting that I should do something. Daehyun, I… I would have gone crazy if I didn't find you."

Releasing a breath of smoke I closed my eyes. My heart felt like a raw mutilated piece of flesh, freely bleeding within my shell of a body. But however I felt, I couldn't imagine how she felt. To have lived like this for all these years, alone and unable to understand things. I still wasn't sure how it was possible, but here I was with my life staring me in the face. Not a single thing she said had been wrong.

"I know that this sounds crazy," she sighed, looking up to the sky. A jet was flying overhead, leaving behind a trail of vapor to mark its past. "But what am I supposed to do? Ever since I got here I feel a lot more comfortable, but seeing you hurts me just as much as it makes me happy."

"So you don't know anything about me and Youngjae from the past fourteen years?"

"That's right. My dream is like one day in the life of this Youngjae."

That meant that she didn't know how our relationship ended. She didn't know what exactly happened to Youngjae, that it was all my fault she had to die. I was kind of glad Youngjoo didn't dream about that, yet. She still had time before dreaming about that. "That picture in my office is Youngjae."

"I kind of guessed that, but I wanted to know for sure. She was beautiful."

I let the comment hang in the air between us for a moment.

"You're beautiful too."

Those brilliant eyes looked at me with shock and her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. It was a small step, one that I knew we would have to make. It didn't mean that I knew what was going to be in our future, but I felt that this was the right thing to do.

"Thank you… Daehyunnie."

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