Yonghwa

The sun had gone, letting the beauty of the moon took over the sky above. The air was getting cooler every minute. We arrived home when it was already dark. I quickly went inside after my mom and put all of the groceries in the kitchen.

“I can’t believe you made me panic, saying you have an urgent matter, while you only wanted me to help you shop for groceries. You can just tell me from the first place,” I said to Mom pathetically.

“I was just trying to see how much you love me,” she laughed.

I sighed. “Of course I love you. You’re the person I love the most in this world.”

“Aw, come here uri namja,” she hugged me.

“Eomma, I’m not your little boy anymore…” I protested but gave up anyway.

I went upstairs to my room and took some clothes before going to the bathroom. When I was taking out my clothes, I saw it again. The deer keychain was still inside the closet, in the dark corner inside. I took it out and examined it. It was filthy, with black stains all over it. I thought it had been inside the closet all this time, this whole three years I never took it out. I even forgot about its existence until I accidentally dropped it a week ago. Suddenly my head began to play something.

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<3 years ago, June>

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get anything fancy. I couldn’t think of anything else so I just got you this keychain. I hope this keychain can remind me of you when I’m not around.” The girl in front of me gave me a small deer keychain.

“That’s okay. Even receiving your love every day is enough for me,” I chuckled being cheesy.

“Aish, oppa. Being cheesy again,” she slapped my arm playfully.

“Ahahaha…jinjja gomawo. I promise I’ll keep this forever.”

“Promise?” she held out her pinky.

“Promise.” I sealed the promise.

I put my arms around her, embracing her and absorbing the warmth of her presence. She hugged me back, putting her arms around my waist.

“I love you,” I said to her.

“I love you too, oppa. Saengil chukhahae!”

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I unknowingly kept my promise, even when everything had long gone. I didn’t lose the keychain. I had kept it inside the closet for so long that I had forgotten about everything. Now that all the memories came without knocking, I could feel a slight regret. But it was the past, and the past should stay in the past. I shook off the memory playing in my head and put the keychain back before continuing to the bathroom.

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“Can I go out, Mom?”

“But it’s already dark. With whom? Seohyun?” Mom asked.

“Mmm, nope. I just want to take a night stroll alone. The sky is too beautiful to miss tonight.”

“Arasseo. Just don’t be home too late, Yonghwa-ya. Becareful!”

“Arasseo, eomma…” I said to Mom and I went outside.

The night sky was really beautiful. There were not many lights in the streets so I can see the starlit sky better. I walked on the pavement under the moon light, trying to find peace to my mind as I looked up to the beautiful sky. I contemplated about what happened this morning, at school break on the rooftop. What was that feeling? When she put her head on my shoulder, there was an unusual feeling of bliss. Seeing her sleeping up close, gave another feeling. I couldn’t stop smiling at the sight of her innocent sleeping face. It wasn’t the first time I see her sleeping, but it has never been like that before. And then my chest began to beat at the thought of it.

“What is this? Seoyhun is my best friend…right?” I said to myself.

At the word ‘friend’, I felt somewhat doubtful. This is the first time I ever felt doubt about Seohyun. I didn’t know why, but the feeling was there. I shook off the thought and just decided to enjoy the beautiful night.

I passed down a cake shop not far from my house. Through the window, I looked inside. I came here once with Seohyun last year. It was her birthday that time. I bought her a cake and we spent the day here in this cake shop, just the two of us. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to celebrate it with everyone else, but I once promised her that we would have a ‘date’, between friends, just the two of us before we invite everyone else.

I was smiling in the middle of recalling those moments when I heard a familiar voice.

“It’s…it’s really you…” the voice stuttered.

I turned to the direction of the voice. When I saw who it was, I froze. A girl was standing not far from me. She was the girl from my past.

“Yoona-ya…”

“Oppa…”

There was a long awkward silence as we stared at each other under the cake shop’s decoration lights.

“It’s been a while…” she spoke up.

“Yeah. It’s been three years…”

“How are you?” She asked.

“Um…I’m fine, I guess. How about you?”

“I’m fine…”

“I see…”

Another awkward silence.

“Why are you here? I thought you were still in Busan.” She asked.

“Well, I came here after graduation. Mom and I live here now, just down this road.”

“I see. Well, I never heard from you since…”

“Yeah…”

I thought I had forgotten it completely, but it was all coming back to me. It was the same month, October, three years ago.

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<3 years ago, October>

Overlooking the vast ocean under the orange sky, I sat on one of the bench in Haeundae beach. My arm was wrapped around the shoulder of a girl that I loved as she leaned her head on my shoulder.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I said to her.

“Ne…”

“Why are you so quiet today?”

“Ani…”

I sighed. I could sense that something just wasn’t right. She was too quite. There must be something in her mind that she couldn’t let out. I just stared at the horizon silently as the sound of waves washed over the coastline filled the atmosphere.

“It’s okay if you have something in mind. Just let it out. Isn’t it what we always do?”

“I know…”

Another short answer. Something definitely wasn’t right. Despite that, I still maintained to stay quiet and wait for her to eventually say her heart out.

“Oppa…” she called.

“Hmm?” I turned to her.

She lifted her head from my shoulder and shrugged off my arm. I was surprised by her action. She never resisted when I put my arm around her before. And then I saw in her face that she was looking uncomfortable. I could only wonder.

“Mwoya, Yoona-ya? What is it?”

She stared blankly at the sand below her, and then she fixated her gaze on the ocean, frowning.

“We fight more these days. Somehow, we have different opinions more often lately. And we…we’ve changed,” she said.

“What do you mean? But I thought we were just getting better. I know we used to fight a lot, but the last couple of weeks we were doing well, weren’t we?”

“I just…” she paused.

Fear crept up my spine. Suddenly I felt scared of every word that she might say next.

“I feel something missing. There’s something that was here at first but not anymore. And then I realize what’s missing. It’s my feeling. It doesn’t feel like when we started anymore. It feels different. I feel distant from you. And no matter what I do, or you do, it can’t seem to change to the way it was before…”

It felt like there was a hand penetrated through my chest, grabbed my heart and tightened its grip. My heart was in pain at every word she said. The pain was new to me, and it was really bad. It was not like when you fall from the bike, or when you accidentally cut your finger while chopping vegetables. I couldn’t see the wound but the pain was there, inside my chest.

“But…why? Did I do something wrong that changed your mind? I always love you. I’ve always showed my love to you. How could it be?” My chest felt even heavier at my own words.

“It’s not about what my mind thinks. It’s about what I feel. I still think that you are a very nice person and that your love is true, but my heart says that I don’t have the same feeling anymore. And it sure is not your fault…”

“But how? How could the feelings vanish just like that?” my voice was weak.

“I…I don’t know…” She broke into tears and covered her face with her hands.

I tried to comfort her. I put both my arms around her.

“Jebal, Yoona. I love you. I always love you. Please, give me one more chance…”

She stood up, still sobbing and covering her face. I followed her as my arms were still wrapped around her. The sky was suddenly getting darker, not because of the sun was setting but because of clouds suddenly gathered up.

“Molla, oppa. I want to, I really do. But I had given myself a chance. And it didn’t work out. Maybe what I felt was not really love, after all…” she said with a cracking voice.

That did it. I couldn’t hold back the pain. A drop of tear fell out of my eye. I couldn’t say anything; the last words she said completely rendered me speechless. Pain and sadness piled up inside me. I froze in place with my arms still around her.

She shrugged off my arms, but I couldn’t let her go. She tried to took my arms away from her with a little bit of force, but I struggled to keep holding onto her.

“Oppa, please. This couldn’t go on. It would ruin both of us if we keep going like this. Please understand. I don’t want to hurt you any further. Please, let me go…”

“I can’t let you go. I just can’t. I don’t want to lose you. Please, give me one more chance…”

“Oppa. I can’t. It’s no use trying something that we already know the end. I’ve given myself a chance but nothing seemed to change. Please,” She shrugged off one more time.

I took my arms off of her. She looked up to me, still crying. Our eyes locked.

“If you said that your feelings have gone, what do those tears mean?”

“Molla…” she wiped her eyes with her hand but more tears just flowed out of her eyes.

The sky was dark as the clouds have thickened. Before long it started to rain a little. People started to clear out of the beach and try to find shelters before it poured harder. We were the only ones not budging in the entire beach.

She turned her back on me and tried to walk away before I grabbed her hand and pulled her back.

“Oppa…”

“Im Yoona. I love you. Jebal, gajima!” I begged her.

She only looked at me in the eyes without a word. I could still see her eyes letting out the tears. Then she closed her eyes and turned her back again. This time, I somehow couldn’t move at all. I froze completely in the middle of the drizzle.

“Please, oppa. Forget about me. Find someone that is more worthy of your true and sincere love. I’m sorry for everything…” with that, she left me freezing alone there.

As I watched her back getting further away from me, the rain got even heavier. And so was the pain in my chest. Each step she took further away from me, another wound opened up in my heart. The pain was now unbearable. In the pouring rain, I felt my teary eyes became weak. I only hoped that the rain drops could hide away what I felt, so that no one would see.

I couldn’t hold back the pain anymore. I shed teardrops in the rain.

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“It’s nice to see you again, oppa.” She smiled. She looked somewhat more comfortable than before.

“Ah, um…you too.” I said full of awkwardness.

“So you live here now, huh? How’s Mom?” she really sounded like a long lost friend now.

“She’s doing fine…”

I could see that she was trying to melt the atmosphere between us. I knew that I had long forgotten about her and the feelings I had for her, but seeing her after so long really did bring up something. It brought up some old feelings, but at the same time the feelings were different. It was awkward, but I could handle it. Unlike what I used to be when we just broke up that day. A single thought of her could make me shed tears. But now, it was different. I felt something, but it didn’t really affect me the way it used to.

There was a faint growl of thunder. Yoona’s relaxed and lively smile faded in a split second. She froze and became pale white. I then remembered that she had a trauma with thunder and lightning when she was little, just like Seohyun. Wait…like Seohyun?

I looked up and saw nothing in the sky except darkness. The stars had gone and the moon light could only be seen dimly. I noticed that clouds were covering the stars from the sky. And then it started to pour.

“Oh, man. It’s raining again. It was fine and beautiful just a minute ago.” I said. And then I looked back at Yoona who was standing frozen still with a pale face as white as a dead man’s. “Omo, Yoona…”

I took off my jacket and hold it above our heads, covering our head from getting hit by the pouring rain.

“Yoona-ya, we should go inside and wait until the rain stops. Come on,”

“Ne, oppa…” she nodded, still looking very pale and stiff while staring blankly.

We took quick steps to the entrance of the cake shop. My jacket had become really soaked but at least I managed to keep Yoona’s head and mine dry. Once inside, we asked for permission to the shop keeper to stay there for shelter until the rain stops and he agreed. He even made us two cups of hot tea to warm our rain-soaked bodies for free. As we sat near the entrance, sipping our cups of hot tea, the look on Yoona’s face was getting better. I felt somewhat relieved.

“Hey, it’s just like that time. One minute it was beautiful, the next it was raining hard…” I said unconsciously.

“Ah, yes. You’re right…” she chuckled.

I joined her small laughter. And then, looking over her shoulder, I found someone’s familiar back. He was slender, with his hair tied to the back. Then I realized it was Jungshin. I didn’t think he noticed me though. And then he suddenly got up, going to the toilet it seemed. But as he was standing up, he revealed someone sitting in front of him sitting on the opposite chair that I couldn’t see from my angle. I immediately recognize who it was. She saw me right away. And I could see her eyes widened. Something made me stiffened.

Yoona noticed me. She too suddenly looked surprised at my reaction. “Omo…I messed up…” then she turned her head to the direction of where I was looking at. She waved embarrassedly.

“Seohyun…” I said as I saw her getting up from her seat and approached me.

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Author's note:

Annyeonghaseyo!

A quite long one here. Hehe. There are two contrasting flashbacks of the same characters here :) revealing Yonghwa and Yoona's past. Hehe hope you like it.

Many thanks to every single one of you readers, commenters, subscribers and voters! Manhi manhi gomapseumnida!

The fic has reached 50 subs xD that means a lot to me. Jinjja gamsahamnida!

And also, mmm, it's D-5 to CNBlue Blue Moon World Tour in Jakarta!! I don't know if I should feel excited or sad because I can't come :( SNSD and CNBlue come here to Indonesia in such a short time interval, so I couldn't afford to see both of them. And so, of course, I chose to see SNSD because I was a SONE longer than I was a Boice hehehe. But still, it's sad that I can't see the four charismatic boys perform live on stage hahas...I'll just watch the fancams later :D I believe it will be extremely cool! Have fun for those who will see them!

So that's all for this update, thank you all :))

Gamsahamnida!