Paper Cranes
Love in Panacea
The final musky, golden tone resounded throughout the room, echoing in the polished body of the grand piano. It was a rather melancholy tone, fine and earthly, but resonated a deep lonely note.
A strong euphoria of nostalgia overcame his senses.
The air around the room felt heavy, as Chanyeol found it hard to move his positioned hand away from the monochrome piano keys. The lines on the stave seemed to disappear, as so the notes conflated into the blank piece of composition paper. He slowly raised his eyes to the simple glass bottle resting on his piano. He had the serendipity to find it, really, polished and glazed, in a small ornament shop east of EXO’s dormitories. It was intended to be filled with something made with affection and care.
No one made note on the bottle itself, but the exquisite contents from within.
Paper origami cranes, folded in shy, summery colors, folded painstaking flawlessness rested in the translucent corked jar. One hundred exactly.
He didn't remember what drove him on to finish all one hundred of them.
He still couldn't understand why he had kept it still.
His phone rang on a sunny afternoon, when he was slightly in vertigo from concentrating on matching the paper seams. It was his girlfriend. Her normal dulcet greeting sounded dull and stony.
A wave of nauseous premonition washed over him, but he pushed it aside frantically.
With no harbinger, Chanyeol knew but feared her words.
“Chan, it’s over. Sorry.”
He found himself laughing. He couldn’t do anything but that as he struggled to conjure up the right emotions. "Huh?"
Was all he could ask, as an unfamiliar sense of anxiety numbed his body. He plastered a wide grin onto his face as if his girlfriend could see his mock-carefree facade.
The girl, Rina, knew too well that behind the hollow laughter was someone breaking. She felt her heart wince as his endeavor to make a joke became near-palpable in the air, even hundreds of miles away.
She listened to him laugh, trying to hang onto that precious sound for the last time.
An ominous silence hung over the clicks of static across the telephone line as Chanyeol’s laughter gradually died down. He could scarcely hear anything else...the noisy whirr of traffic, the voices of his friends-but her rhythmic breathing playing over and over again through the telephone.
“What do you mean it’s over, Rina?”
He asked, his voice, depleted of the last ditch-attempt to make an antic which contrasted starkly with his tone now.
“We’re done, Chanyeol. Sorry.”
She answered simply, her voice tinged with frost, in lack of understanding and explanation.
Chanyeol, for the first time he could remember, could say nothing. Maybe the heater was too low; it was all so cold around him. He imagined the wind whistling through his body.
“A-re you sure?”
He asked after what seemed like a sempiternal stretch of time. His own words felt like sandpaper grinding across his throat. His mind could scarcely comprehend the meaning in his words, let alone her's.
“Yes.”
Came her answer, erstwhile saddened, then followed by a click.
The robotic female voice hidden within the phone spoke,
Your call has ended, please hang or press "zero" for more options-
He did not hear the clatter, as his fingers loosened around the phone, the device making contact with the wooden flooring. What was that aching feeling gnawing in him, hurting all over?
He took a paper crane, folded symmetrically in a tone of delicate pink, her favorite color, and held it to his heart, as if feeling her petite figure curl up against him once more.
When he opened his hand again, he found the crane crushed.
Rina stared at her cellphone. She knew if she swiped the home button, the wallpaper would be a sepia-ed screenshot of Chanyeol and her sitting on the golden-grained beach. She knew if she was to check in her photo albums, there would be countless pictures of them in halcyon times. She knew that if she checked her emails and text messages, there would be nectarous letters and songs from him, flowing in day after day. She knew that his faltering sorrow laced within his voice would haunt her for months.
His smile, his jokes, his hugs…why wouldn’t they vanish from her mind?
“Why are you making this so hard for me?”
She screamed, her eyes tearing up in frustration. “Can’t you see it’s for your own good?!”
Rina cried out, her voice wavering. Her tears spilled in rivulets, streaking down her face, splashing onto the bright screen of her phone. For a moment, she regretted it all, wanting to pick up the phone, and laugh with him about it as if it were nothing but a prank.
Her thoughts jerked back... it would be too selfish.
It was his path, and they both knew one way or the other, one person would have to let go…
she just never knew it would feel so painful.
Over the next few days, the sky seemed to hang lower and looked more leaden. Food seemed to taste bland and disgusting, and sleep only came in snippets of disturbing dreams.
Chanyeol never really stopped. He made it to one hundred, his hands folding as if he was mechanically programmed, folding, pressing, and lifting. But the vigor was gone and all that was left was a hallowing sense of bitterness and confusion.
Why? What have I done wrong?
Those were the days he remembered crying the most. His tears released the agonizing twinge of sadness in him, but failed to heal that ever-expanding barren hole in his chest.
His friends tried to put him in better spirits, but their voices were so distant from his ears.
It was strange he how despised being cheered up, but was so desperate to do it for others.
He now laughed emptily. Sometimes, just breathing seemed difficult for him when the thoughts of her emerged, ensued by the realization that she was no longer next to him.
Chanyeol couldn't number the hundreds of moments when he needed someone to pour his soul to, and had picked up the phone, excited or saddened, dailing Rina's number-then placing it back down.
How many times had he seen her figure disappear into the crowds of the bustling city, and chase after it, leading only to arbitrary places?
Did she know that there was a diamond ring in the bottle?
“Stupid Rina, I was going to propose to you."
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