In the moment, I could compose a thousand songs and write a million poems for her. She had the white gown we bought together and the necklace I had bought for her. She had never been livelier but on the corner of her eyes I could see tears sneaking.

            “I’m not going to make it.” Her lips were red, the color of love, but the voice that came out was crooked. I could not take my eyes of her and now it landed on her hand which gripping her dress as if it was the edge of a cliff.

            I rolled down the window’s car trying to see the end of the traffic—if there was one. 12:17 was what I read on my watch. We were already seventeen minutes late. Now, it turned eighteen. I pointed my head out through the open window and witnessed the puddles already turned into low flood.

            I leaned my body back to the driver seat, and breathed in. I could see the lining cars, as dead as the building beside them. The sidewalk was empty. The radio was turned off. In this madness, the world had seemed to stop. The rain though, smaller than drizzle reminded me that it did not.

            I opened the car’s door, staring at the flood and thinking how much I hated the rain before coming out, having my polished shoes and the tip of my suit pants soaked. I opened her door and bend my knees to meet her face. By now tears were just inch away from ruining her makeup.

            I put my hand on between her cheek and neck, “Bae Su Ji.” I needed to emphasize her name, today. “Bae Su Ji, look at me. I promise, we’re going to make it.”

            I kissed her forehead, stealing seconds from our run out time. I breathed the air with the smell of her perfume and let it sunk in me. I opened my eyes and traced her profile, keeping the her today save in my memory. I wrapped her with my jacket—the suit she eagerly choose for me—then I turned my body back on her, again bending my knees and told her to hop on my back.

            Ten years ago, this how I fell for her.

            She was heavier today, maybe from the giant dress, but her hands were just as tiny. They circled around my neck just like how it was ten years ago, but this time, without open wounds or blood. This time, there was no scent of blood to beat the scent of the rain. This time, she wanted to be alive.

            “Myungsoo,” her voice was tender beside my ear and I knew she was smiling. “Do you believe in before life?”

            It was my heartbeat against the sound of water splash under us and drizzles around us. Ten years ago, seventeen years old Su Ji had asked the same kind of question, her voice was a whimper  and she was talking to someone she didn’t even know the name. “Hey, jerk, do you believe in after life?”

            “Is that why you make yourself bleed to death on my seat? So you can ask me this question?”

            She groaned in pain, the hospital was still blocks away. Even in dark of midnight I could still see my uniform got damp in dark crimson. Her blood hit the side of my face, forever, it would remind me of her. “So in the next live, you could make sure that I am happy.”

            I met her less than ten minutes ago, sleeping on my seat in my class in the midnight with no one around. I woke her up just to find her dying and recognized she was from the same school just from her defiled uniform. But in that moment, I could make a billion promises to make her happy if she just could survive tonight.

            Ten years later, I fulfill the promise I never said to her.

            “Do you?”

            She hummed a sweet yes. I chuckled between my short breath, “How many times have we live before then, Bae Su Ji?”

            “Sixteen,” she answered.

            “And what were we in those sixteen lives?”

            “Star-crossed lover, perhaps?”

            “I might have an unrequited love for you in years?”

            “So have I.”

            “You could have left me in our fourteenth life.”

            “I could have killed you in our tenth life.”

            “You could have hit on me in our ninth life, Bae.”

            “You could have turned me down in our twelfth life.”

            “I could have been a doctor for you in the live before this.”

            “I could have counted the steps to your home even long before you did that.”

            This time, I laughed, louder than how I did for the past week. She tightened her hug past my shoulder.

            “I love you in our seventeenth life.” The sound of my heartbeat muted the world and I would always hear her voice whenever it rained.

            “And you know I love you too, in every life we had had, Bae Su Ji.”

            Her lips kissed me a love on my cheek. Eighteen years old Su Ji, atrocious and hurt, was my first kiss. Her kiss at that time smelled of ashes from the cigarettes she had just breathed in. My lips were bleeding every time we kissed by the blood only I could see.

             Twenty two years old Su Ji kissed me love for the first time but the twenty five years old her gave me the most painful one.

            This would be another kiss that I would remember.

            “So why sixteen, Bae Su Ji?”

            Her hands clutched on my shirt. “Because seventeenth is our last life.”

            For the first time, I stopped running. The building where the wedding would be held was at the next block. The shape of Victorian building was already in our eyes. My pants were now had completely drenched.

            “If there was a before life I believe we’ve tried sixteenth time as a star-crossed lover, looking for the corner of the earth where we could be.

            At the end of our life we must be thinking, ‘In the next life, let’s meet again and try once again. In the next life we could be meant to be. In the next life, let’s be happy together.’ That’s why maybe we meet in this life, because perhaps, when you became a doctor for me in our life before this, you failed to save me and I failed to survive for you. So, we said the promise. And maybe that was what happened in the life before that.

            But this time. Let’s be happy on our own way. I’ll start my happiness today. And you, let yourself be happy starting today.

            Myungsoo, if we are star-crossed lover, where in the universe are we meant to be?”

            I could feel the warmth of her existence. Twenty-seven years old Bae Su Ji, in her wedding dress, on her neck, her wedding gift, her lips were red and her skin was fair, her voice was sweet and her breath was fresh. I could picture her smiling, I could feel her heartbeat. She had never been livelier; she had never been fuller of love.

            “Bae. Su Ji, then let this be our sixteenth life. So I could try once again in the next life, Bae Su Ji.” Her name was Bae Su Ji. My love, my dream, my happiness, my pain; the girl behind thousands of songs I composed, millions of poems I wrote, billions promises I fulfilled. In minutes, she would no longer be Bae Su Ji, She would lose her name and I would lose her.

            The bell rang, right with my confession of egoism. “What?” She asked me to repeat.

            “Please, be happy.”

            12:47 was when we arrived. The crowd looked like they had held their breath waiting for us to arrive. I was completely drenched, my shoes were soaked, but still I walked her down the aisle and let her hand go at the end of the road. I heard the same sweet voice saying the vow, the same genuine smile, the same lips kissing love.

            I looked outside the window, the rain was pouring again. All my life, I had hated the rain. The reason for my family’s accident. The reason why I got late on my first day of school. The reason why my camera got broken. The reason why I crossed way with Su Ji on the appointment on my birthday—the day where we should’ve confessed. The reason why I got sick after waiting for her till night then unable to go home with Su Ji. The reason why at that time Su Ji met Baekhyun and let him drove her back. The reason why they fell in love.

            But again even if I could repeat our life again, I knew I would still do the same thing. I would accompany her picking her wedding dress, letting her choose the suit I wore today. I would still be the driver to her wedding ceremony. I would still dash the rain I hated, with her on my back, running like crazy just so I could send her to the man that would have her. I would still choose to let her be happy.

            And if perhaps, this was really our seventeenth life instead of sixteenth just like how inwardly hope,

            This is how I let her go.

Fin.

So, this is the end of “Somewhere Beyond the Universe”

I am so happy and grateful for the readers and wish to see you again in another story.

And of course, I wish to hear more from you.

Haru