I. Donghae

Donghae vaguely remembers how he spent who-knows-how-many nights crying himself just so he was already tired enough to cry any longer and finally get some sleep, how many times he fainted somewhere because he wasn’t eating anything and was only drinking coffee to keep himself awake all the time, to keep the nightmares from coming back and almost killing him in his much needed rest, or how many people he had fights and arguments with – physically and not – when they tried to knock some sense into him, telling him that his life wasn’t over just because somebody died but for all Donghae cared about was, his parents were both ten feet under the ground because of some stupid, deadly cells. He was only fifteen. He couldn’t really understand anything about the medical terms and he wouldn’t want to, anyway. But Donghae understood cancer. And he understood death.

He unclearly remembers how the doctor turned to him and said, “The cancer cells are already spread in their bodies. Ironically, both of them have cancer at the same stage. They won’t last long.”

Donghae indistinctly remembers how he grabbed the doctor’s coat’s collar and demanded, with tears falling from his eyes, how the hell he could know how long his parents will last and who the ing hell he was to say when they will die. It didn’t occur to him that the doctor never mentioned about dying.

He hazily remembers these times but Donghae remembers pain, how constricted and burning his heart felt and how blurry his mind had become when he couldn’t hear his parents’ breaths anymore, when the machine beeping according to his parents’ heartbeats suddenly went into a single, monotone sound, how his world crashed down when the hands he was holding with both of his slowly, ultimately fell on their own.

Seven years after that, Donghae was already twenty-two and a fresh graduate of Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Seoul University; y, free and single. How he decided to take up the course he finished was simply because of his lack of decision when he was trying up for the university he graduated from that he simply checked the box nearest to his pencil’s tip and how he just didn’t want any course related to medicine and incidentally, computer engineering was the farthest choice from the said hated course.

Donghae was waking everyday to look for a job that he eventually found at a company two subway trains, one bus and a fifteen-minute walk from his apartment basically because of his good university credentials and too-die-for looks and cold charisma that made the human resource manager at the company swoon over him instantly after seeing Donghae, stuttering over the interview questions she was supposed to ask. The reason why he chose the company was because it was far from home. He needed the space between his personal life and career that was brought by the long travel time; and also because that was the first – and the far enough – company who accepted him.

Donghae was also eating three times a day, drinking eight glasses of water, brushing his teeth after every meal, and getting eight hours of sleep every night exactly. And that’s pretty much Donghae’s entire life.

He would wake up at six in the morning, eat instant noodles and drink one glass of water for five minutes, take a bath for another ten minutes and he was off to work. He spends one hour and fifteen minutes in the subway trains and the bus. Then, he’ll walk for fifteen minutes from the bus’ station to work. He would still be thirty-minutes early for their office’s time at eight o’clock in the morning and he would spend his time by doing his work beforehand. Lunch would be take place for precisely ten minutes. Five would be sufficiently enough for Donghae but the line at their office cafeteria wasn’t really always friendly. He would leave the company at exactly five in the afternoon and reach home thirty minutes after six in the evening. He’ll eat another package of instant noodles for dinner and get himself ready to sleep for eight hours. Donghae repeats that every day.

He isn’t closely happy with that kind of life because he isn’t delusional or depressed that even if his life is so sad like that, he is grinning from ear to ear always, boasting about how great the life he is living but Donghae is contented nevertheless. The simple the life he is living, the lesser the people he is attached to equals to less separation, less pain. That’s Donghae’s belief and that’s pretty much what Donghae wanted to believe all his life until he met Jessica.

II. Jessica

When Donghae first met Jessica, he thinks he’s seeing a royalty from Santa Claus’ homeland. From Donghae’s – and he was sure every person in the office’s – point of view, Jessica is an ice princess, just exactly what their officemates called her behind her back because of her cold demeanour and crystal white complexion. And God, she’s beautiful.

She was the most beautiful woman, person, thing – whatever, really – Donghae ever saw in his entire life.

Donghae couldn’t remember when was the last time he was shaken by something, or someone, that much.

He coughs really hard when the company’s secretary gently waved her hand in front of his gaping face at Jessica saying, “Quit staring. It’s very rude.” The way she said ‘It’s very rude’ sounded like Donghae was doing something maniacal to Jessica.

Donghae feels his face turned tomato red partly because of being caught staring (not that Donghae did any effort to hid it) and partly because he realizes Jessica has her right hand extended to him. She smiled angelically to Donghae that he honestly believed could probably heal any kind of illness – like his heart’s emptiness, for instance – and said softly, unsurely, “Do you want to grab Starbucks later, after work?”

He was sure he was hearing it wrong and was ready to deem himself crazy in love but the way her pretty amber eyes sparkled, full of hope, after asking makes him think otherwise and Donghae finds himself in cloud nine, returning her angel’s smile with the first genuine smile he had for years.

‘I’d love you,’ Donghae wants to say but decides against that because that sounds too creepy for a first meeting and he didn’t want to scare Jessica. “I’d love to,” he settles with that, for now, shaking Jessica’s hand.

The touch was intriguing to Donghae. It was like coffee meets cream, sun meets the horizon; the way fishes match the sea and birds belong to the sky. Her hand perfectly fit his and Donghae thought she was the one for him and that she belonged to him and he belonged to her – which was pretty much what happened.

Donghae and Jessica harmonized with each other the way an entire orchestra plays a wonderful piece and produces a breathtaking melody even with different instruments and differing tempo and beat.

Soon, Donghae was out of his routine, eating breakfast with Jessica before they go to work together because Jessica won’t tolerate instant noodles for breakfast or for dinner, spending the entire lunch break period at the cafeteria or the nearby Starbucks just so he could have more time with Jessica, and eating dinner at the nearby food stalls near their company building, sometimes at luxurious restaurants, too. They would go to museums or amusement parks on Saturdays and Sundays or they would just cuddle at the huge, white couch in Jessica’s house until it was late and Donghae needed to go home already. They would sometimes go for a drive with no destination planned, just merely enjoying the cold breeze and the warmth from each other’s hand.

But most of the time, Donghae and Jessica were at Starbucks, at the other’s place or any cafe, restaurant, or place where good coffee was available, having coffee, obviously enough. They were both in love with drinking coffee as much as they were in love with each other.

One Saturday morning, they’ve decided to spend their day together and their itinerary was already planned. First, they’d have breakfast at Tous Le’ Jours, a popular cafe, and enjoy the best-selling coffee there, then, they’d go to the amusement park. Jessica wanted to, she said, beaming brightly at Donghae and Donghae couldn’t think of any reason to disagree even though he’d prefer cuddling in her place. They would have their lunch there and leave late in the afternoon. After the amusement park, they planned to go for a drive, just around Seoul. Finally, they were to end up in the Han River Park in the evening because supposedly, there was going to be a fireworks display. Jessica loved that and again, Donghae found no reason to say no. If she was happy, so was he.

It was that fateful morning when they were still in Tous Le’ Jours, drinking the best coffee they’ve ever had in their life (both of them agreed to that) that Jessica suddenly coughed uncontrollably, covering with her white handkerchief politely that Donghae caught sight of something red on the piece of cloth over her girlfriend’s mouth. And Donghae was sure Jessica never uses handkerchiefs with prints or designs; she always uses plain whites.

“Sica?” Donghae worriedly asks, getting up from his seat across Jessica and reaching to her. “Are you okay?”

Donghae suddenly feels a familiar chill in his spine, a painfully memorable fear in his heart but he dismissed it as quickly as it reached the recognition of his mind. Jessica was alright. She should be, right? She was perfectly fine when Donghae picked her up that morning for their date. She was bouncing and practically had herself attached to Donghae’s muscular biceps as they walked together, Donghae’s hand holding hers. Jessica should be alright, shouldn’t she?

Jessica looks up and smiles at Donghae – that same angelic smile that’s one of the reasons why Donghae fell in love with her. She was about to say something to assure Donghae that she was fine but her vision went blank even before her mind could process what she wanted to say. Donghae catches her protectively on his arms and he saw the plain white handkerchief fell from Jessica’s hand. It was covered with dark red fluid.

‘Cancer of the blood, terminal stage,’ was what the doctor who looked at Jessica declared like a reaper. Donghae dimly remembers the medical jargons the doctor sputtered uselessly as he tried to explain to Donghae the disease, what could happen to Jessica and how he could help her go easily (the doctor meant it well; he meant with no much difficulty) because it was already too late for chemotherapy and radiation.

Donghae faintly remembers how three nurses and two security guards tried to hold him down because he tried to kill the said doctor. “How I could help her go easily? Are you ing kidding me?” Donghae was still shouting as he was being dragged out of the doctor’s office. “Are you ing kidding me? Are you ing kidding me?” His voice howled at the entire floor.

Donghae was in denial for two weeks whilst Jessica only suffered two hours on that stage. She would always reach her hand to touch Donghae’s face, telling him that it’s alright, that it’s going to be alright. She would smile at him, laugh with him, and talk to him like they used to, like how everything was before Jessica was diagnosed with blood cancer. But now, as much as Donghae tried to convince himself that nothing has changed and that Jessica will heal eventually, Jessica was living at the hospital, long tubes were inserted on her body just to keep her alive, to keep her by Donghae’s side.

“Aren’t you ever afraid?” Donghae asks, looking down, playing with Jessica’s thinning fingers.

“Aren’t I ever afraid of what?” Jessica replies although she knew exactly what Donghae was talking about. She wanted him to talk, to ask anything he would like if that would comfort his troubled heart. She could only do that much to him now and it actually pained her more than her illness.

“Of dying.” It surprises Donghae how it came out straightforwardly.

And Jessica answers him why, “Dying is inevitable, Hae.”

There’s no escaping it. There’s no running away from it. Donghae knew Jessica was right that death will eventually come to every person, inevitably, unexpectedly. Sometimes, fate would be really cruel and it would come to you when you least expected it like when you think you have found the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, even eternity, and then suddenly, it will come and you’d be left wishing it would to you, too.

“But living isn’t. It’s a choice. So what’s important is to live your life the most and be happy,” Jessica continues softly, stretching her arm to reach Donghae’s face, the back of her cold hand touching his warm but pale cheek, smiling at him beautifully that it almost got Donghae fooled that she was not sick at all, that she was well. “Be in love.”

“I don’t understand,” Donghae chokes out. He didn’t notice he was having hard time breathing because he has been sobbing, his tears wetting Jessica’s hand that he held against his face. “I don’t understand how everything’s just fine and now...” Donghae couldn’t even finish it, not quite wanting to admit what was the reality now.

“I don’t want to lose you.” Donghae’s voice was breaking, trembling.

“I love you, Jessica. God, I love you so much!” Donghae reaches out and wraps his arms around Jessica’s frail figure, hugging her tightly and never intending to let go.

Jessica wanted so much to cry with him, to let Donghae know that she was afraid – afraid of the disease slowly taking over her entire body, afraid of the cancer cells spreading until her body stopped working, her mind stopped functioning and her heart stopped beating.

She wanted to let Donghae know how much she didn’t understand, too. How much she wanted to ask why her? Why of all people on earth did she get the blood cancer?

She wanted to tell Donghae that she didn’t want to lose him, too. She’d do everything to stay by his side forever, to be with him until her last breath.

But Jessica didn’t want this to be harder for Donghae. She’d gladly and voluntarily take away all of Donghae’s pain if she could. Jessica bit her dry and pale lips harshly, effectively making it bleed and upon realization, Jessica swallowed the fresh, disgusting blood oozing out of her lips, not wanting to worry Donghae anymore.

She stopped herself from crying. She couldn’t cry.

That night, when Donghae had fallen asleep with his head resting on Jessica’s bed and his hand still holding Jessica’s, Jessica prayed to God to just take her away, to just take her already and with that, to take away all of Donghae’s pain. She has become Donghae’s pain. She knew she was reason Donghae was hurting so much right now. It pained her to see him like that. It killed her to see him hurting so much because of her.

She wanted him to stop hurting. She could only do that much for the man she loved on her deathbed. All she ever wanted was to see him smile before she goes away. But Jessica guessed that was asking too much.

“Just please,” Jessica gasps, her hands clasped together and her eyes closed tightly, finding it harder to breathe than usual. “Take me away already.”

A tear rolled down from Jessica’s eyes down her cheeks.

“Please, God, just grant me one last wish,” she whispers silently, struggling to breathe properly. Her chest was rising up and down in a frightening manner and she was almost reaching aimlessly for air to fill her malfunctioning lungs.

“Let him be happy...”

“Please... I’m begging you, God...”

“Let my Donghae be happy...”

Donghae was suddenly awakened by the same single, monotone sound he heard eight years ago and for the second time in his life, his world came crashing down as he looked at the woman lying lifelessly before him.

There were tears on her eyes and her face was a little damp but she still has that angelic smile on her lips.

Donghae was back to his routine but there were several changes. Work was only thirty minutes away from home because he resigned from the company he and Jessica used to work to together and settled for a small, family business who was desperately in need of a computer programmer (yes, Donghae is an engineer but he could care less about it) when he was blindly looking for a new job after he came to work drunk, yelled at his supervisors and unplugged the entire company’s computer system resulting to the company’s production stopping for an entire day and he was expectedly fired (yes, he didn’t really resign but he was fired). His routine also includes drinking at least a bottle of soju every meal and lazing around whenever he has a chance to.

That was only six months after Jessica’s death.

Donghae have also been to a routine where he cries every day and every night nonstop, where he wouldn’t eat or drink anything except his saliva (he would even puke his saliva whenever he has the chance), where he will wander at the places where he and Jessica used to go to a lot – mostly Starbucks, and where he will order all coffee flavours in Starbucks in venti, talk to an empty seat across him and challenge ‘that person’ to drink half of what he ordered – the dare he and Jessica never got to try, after all. He has also been in a routine where he was against all of humankind.

Donghae blankly remembers all of that, though.

Donghae also hardly remembers throwing up in convenience stores or supermarkets when he was there to buy another case of soju, dropping on buses’ waiting shed’s benches, on the ground, or even entering somebody else’s house (that ended him sleeping inside jail for a night) to find himself a place comfortable enough for his liking to sleep as his own apartment reminded him of Jessica, Jessica’s face, Jessica’s smile, Jessica’s smell, Jessica’s laugh, even Jessica’s snore whenever she ended up sleeping over his place. Donghae misses all of it. Donghae misses all of her.

Donghae barely remembers all of that. As a matter of fact, he would still sometimes find himself entering his old company and getting dragged outside by security guards because he was already banned there. He scarcely remembers those details but he remembers the pain, the same pain he experienced eight years ago.

He says, thinking aloud, “Why are some people meant to fall in love but not meant to be together?” He was standing at the edge of the road, feeling the breeze as each vehicle passed by him and missed him.

“Don’t kill yourself!” There was a sudden shriek registering Donghae’s mind and if not for the dizziness he was feeling, he would think a beautiful woman – so beautiful Donghae thinks she was comparable to Jessica – was dragging him out of the edge of the road.

She has jet black hair and eyes that were shaped like crescents but were looking wide at him, kind of like she was glaring at Donghae. “What are you doing, ahjussi? I know you have many problems and that’s probably the reason why you want to end your life but you can’t do that, ahjussi! Don’t end your life just because of your problems. That won’t solve anything. It will only end up you in your grave.”

“Which is precisely what I want,” Donghae snaps, moving to get away from her.

She blinks at him, surprised. “Then, why don’t you just grab a knife and plunge it directly to your heart? Why stand at the edge of the road and wait for a car to hit you? Didn’t it ever occur to you that if you die because of that you’ll be ruining an innocent man’s life because of the guilt of killing a crazy man but not knowing he is really suicidal? What if that man has a family and children? What if because of the guilt he tries to kill himself, too? What if he decides to kill himself by getting hit by a car as well? What if the cycle repeats over and over again?”

Donghae looks at her and finally sees her face. She has dark hair, unlike Jessica’s pale mane; has small, moon-like eyes, unlike Jessica’s round, almond-shapes orbs; and has low, husky voice, unlike Jessica’s high-pitched, mellow tone. She was so different to Jessica but Donghae felt somehow, attracted.

But Jessica just died and Donghae wasn’t ready to quit mourning, yet.

“You talk too much,” Donghae mutters and walks away from her.

Strangely, fatefully, Donghae sees the raven-haired woman almost everywhere after that. He recognizes her as much as he didn’t want to admit it. She was too beautiful to be taken as anybody else. When Donghae sees her again at Starbucks for the eleventh time that week, he couldn’t the uneasiness he was feeling and he approaches her. “Are you following me?”

Again, she blinks at him, surprised but not really. She grins and says, “How’d you know?”

Donghae gapes at her and swears he wants to bang his head on the woman’s table. Not knowing what to do because that wasn’t really what Donghae was expecting, he turns around and drinks the half of the venti coffee he just brought. Maybe it could wash away the fluttering excitement he was feeling that got his heart working overdrive.

“Wait!”

Donghae turns around and sees the woman standing before her. “What?” he asks coldly, not really intending to but it just came out like that. He was expecting her to frown or to be taken aback, just to show something other than the pure determination – and was that affection? – in her eyes.

“My name is Tiffany Hwang.”

This time, Donghae blinks at her. “So?”

She smiles and Donghae notices her eyes turns like little moons as she did so. It was compelling and so distracting. Her rose-coloured lips curved into a smile was something Donghae thinks could heal anything, much like Jessica’s smile that healed his heart’s emptiness, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, this woman’s smile could be the cure for his life’s solitude. “I am just thinking,” Tiffany says cheerfully, “if you want to grab Starbucks tomorrow, after work?”

And Donghae finds himself wanting to start again again.

III. Tiffany

Donghae often wonders why people still choose to fall in love and be in love when there is pain, rejection, loneliness and suffering with it. He often thinks that people are really idiots for still choosing to love even when they know they’re going to get hurt at some point. Then, Donghae realizes that maybe, there is not just hurt in it. The reason people still choose to love is because they think there’s no hurt in it but there is love. Maybe, the love is more than the pain. Maybe, the love that’s there is enough to cover the pain.

Donghae and Tiffany were like winter and summer, black and white, yes and no. They agree on nothing and disagree about everything, should it be about the economy, politics, weather or even what colour matches white the best which was a purely subjective matter by default. They fight and argue at each other’s apartment, at groceries, at Starbucks, in front of each other’s office where they decide where to eat dinner or grab lunch. They get mad and walk away from each other; stay mad and refrain from calling to apologize to the other. But Donghae and Tiffany stayed together because even if they declare war to each other for the simplest reasons, there’s one thing they’ll agree they have in common. They’re in love with each other. They’re crazy for the other. And that reason is enough.

“Don’t put in too much sugar. You’ll get diabetes,” Donghae tells Tiffany, lowering the newspaper he is reading and looking at her girlfriend.

They’re having breakfast at Starbucks and Donghae sees Tiffany putting on half a kilogram of sugar on her brown coffee. Tiffany stops for a while, meets Donghae’s eyes, and gets back to putting another half a kilogram of sugar on her cup. “I already have diabetes.”

Donghae stops. “You have diabetes? You’re sick?” He realizes he never asks Tiffany about any possible illness Tiffany could have when he swears to himself that the woman he’ll be with after Jessica should nowhere be in any kind sick. But he didn’t think of even asking Tiffany that?

Tiffany smiles. “Just mild diabetes, Hae. Everyone from my family has; it’s kind of genetic, like inborn to us. But I take care of myself well. And you take care of me, too, well, right? So there’s nothing to be worry about. You don’t need to worry.”

Donghae grabs the sugar container from Tiffany and says, “Enough with the sugar.”

Tiffany frowns and tries to get the sugar container from Donghae again. “This isn’t enough!”

Donghae thinks that maybe, it’s not the pain he remembers after all. Maybe, it’s the love and affection from his parents that he missed so much when they’re gone. Maybe, it’s the love and warmth from Jessica that he yearned to feel again when she died. Maybe, it’s the longing to be held in somebody’s arms and the craving to feel belonged to somebody that causes Donghae to miss, to remember, and to search again.

Maybe, it’s that continuous journey that people take for love.

* * * * *

End

Author’s Notes: I already left a long note for you guys but our internet connection as always and now, it's all gone. Anyway, I'll try to repeat everything. ><

I don’t know if I did justice with the ending for the whole story! I’m sorry if I failed and didn’t. I’m just a er in writing ending and I’m sorry for that. I hope I’ll improve in the future because I know – God, I know – that a good story isn’t good if you have a bad ending. I still can’t think of a title.

I'm sorry for grammatical or typographical errors. I think I edited this twice or thrice. :)

Thank you very much for reading.

LET'S GREET YESUNG A HAPPY BIRTHDAY! MUCH LOVE OPPA <3

I love you, guys! :)

- Elle