28th of July

"It's like our first date all over again,"

"Except you didn't let me get anywhere close to you that day,"

"Mm, honestly, that was a day wasted then, wasn't it?"

"I wouldn't think of it like that, that 'wasted' day led to many more spent together, didn't it? It's our first date today but better,"

On my strolls and small ventures out along the routes of the complicated city, I'd often listen to the linguistic utterings and speech of the surrounding peoples. It was a game I'd play, to pretend to put myself in their shoes as best I can from the few pieces of dialogue I'd pick up, as I walked passed tall, elegant buildings consisting wholly of gleaming class windows that emitted their varying brightness of light, my reflection following against the cool surface, as if accompanying me till where the building ended, before returning by my side a few moments after my realization of its absence, as if it had never gone.

A young couple, in their loose yet comfortable embrace on the outskirts of a cosy cafe, that spoke of their encounter over chilled drinks of exotic tropical flavors in the mild warmth of the July evening became part of my solitary imagination games.
I fantasized about the lives of the two partners quietly as I continued my stroll and their conversation was too far for me to persist in listening, I envisioned myself as someone to sit by cafes, sipping cold beverages with a lover on summer evenings like these as I smiled and recalled such trivial matters. Perhaps we'd walk down the metaphorical memory lane together, laughing about one another's obvious misunderstanding of a situation, or perhaps we'd just talk about something by all means, meaningless, and quite simply savour the pure bliss of not having to live in anytime but the now, as one another's existence is more than enough for the time being.

This is where I felt comfortable, playing roles of one another in the bustling, lively city, alive with its flamboyant colors and an endless variety of unique people; where I could be whomever I pleased, where my thoughts, emotions and just plain me, Byun Baekhyun, could be put on hold. Where I could be imbued with the thoughts of someone else's feelings, a bittersweet escape.
Playing the roles of the hurried, sophisticated-looking man taking long and prideful strides through the crowd from earlier that reminded me so much of myself back before my encounter with you. Or the favored one of the intimate couple by the cafe, which caused a slight ache in my heart in the best way possible, the mere imagination causing me sensations proved just what the brilliant human mind can do in times of desperation.

Having something other to think about than loss made me feel in fact, lost.
And one can only hope to be lost, to be away from reality, from the sorrow and the restlessness.
It is a generous labyrinth that one can only dream of never getting to the center of, one where coming to a dead-end is welcoming. No one wants to meet with the cruel monster in the center, pain. 
So it's sedated, in fact, and the visit is postponed by pretending its not there; pretending that your source of pain is insubstantial. 

In other terms, forgetting.

The self-concocted idea sent my head reeling and I forced my feet to a stop, almost toppling over an unamused woman that hadn't noticed my sudden halt, too engrossed in her chat with her similarly baffled companion. She might have said something, or muttered something under her breath  to her friend about my rashness, but I wasn't there to hear it. 

Going against the flow of the steady crowd, disrupting it in my efforts, I forcefully pushed out the images of the couple, the idea of avoiding the center of the labyrinth; the whole concept of the game that helped me escape reality. I couldn't. I wouldn't. 
For I knew what that would mean. 

I rushed past the once warm and inviting area of the cafe and the two sharers of love, blinded my something foul and selfish. 
Had I been aware of my surroundings, I would sense the tenseness of the once love-emitting scene, the woman was no longer resting in her lover's arms, she was on her feet alone on the adjacent side of the table. The man had his hands tightly gripping the table, face turned away from her as his counterpart spoke with a cold expression, his vain attempts of reaching out to her and pleading drained at her refusal. 
The couple I had imagined myself as became a polar opposite display as I retraced my  long walk in a matter of short minutes; deftly walking past the receptionist of our apartment's lobby, sparing no time to wait for the elevator as I climbed the steps two at a time. And I believed I was lunging forward and skipping the steps in between to save time, yet a nagging feeling at the back of my head vaguely reminded me that this was how I remember you climbing these sets of stairs. 
Such fickle and miniature details always struck me out of the blue.

I often got angry at myself after you left, but this was a whole other concept of self-anger. 
This hidden furious fit and hollow numbness that I never let past the boundary deep inside my core, it wasn't just anger, and for the life of me, I would probably never understand it, and that's not what mattered but, furthermore it was that you would.

Isn't it ironic how the person I most need to heal after my loss was the person I have in fact lost? The player of the pawns sure can prove to be humorous.
Granting you miracles before just as easily snatching them away completely, daring you to continue on like you had before.
Just when I made you made them yours.

There was a small clearing down the hallway of our floor in the building, it lead to an unfinished crook of what could have been a second branch of the corridor,  yet it remained leading off into empty space, and upon an almost-fatal accident of trespassing, some one had the idea to just close it off with panes of glass, as if it were made to be a narrow perch of which was almost entirely glass. This incomplete piece of architecture became a place I'd grow to spend long hours watching the active,  almost animated atmosphere of the city till you returned from your day of much-admired profession of writing; as unofficial as it was, it seemed real to you so I believed it with you, even referring to you as Korea's next budding author at times of reassurance, it was how we came to be after all.

This opaque glass clearing was my escape even that day after my stroll, I sat on the glass quarter of the area where the panes began running up the once empty space to meet the ceiling, having pushed away the question of its steadiness as I overlooked the bustling nightlife of Seoul in my quiet trance of thought. I leaned my head against the cool glass of the surface and attempted once again to calmly make out why I was acting like I was and what had angered me to this extent. 

But.
Is there any use in feeding you that last lie? You know me best, and can see into the depths of the person that I am, you can easily point out that what I'm just trying to purge myself of the thought of possibly forgetting the pain. Because you, Park Chanyeol, know why where the source of the pain lies truly. Forgetting it would mean something I am not strong enough to even voice let alone put down on paper. 

That is why I condemn myself; fingers in my hair as I willed the coldness of the transparent substance flood my veins, to provide the forgiving numbness that would replace the woe. I felt mutually ashamed to get worked up like this, like you must have felt watching me from wherever you are or maybe just sensing my strong emotions through the spiritual way you once believed in. Forgetting and remembering was always something important to me, through the photographs I collected; my constant recollection of events, the songs I'd sing to myself that prepped my memory and the devestation of when I forgot even the most trivial matters, it all remained the same but just a couple thousand degrees more intense and painful. 

I'm not satisfied with such remembering you, I have the desire to have every one of your perfect details imprinted in my memory, from the crinkles by your eyes when you smile to the way you'd recite to me your writings, so bold and clear, which your voice made sound beautiful regardless of the false use of literary points you'd use. Your interior and exterior. Both sides of details were necessary and perfect to me. Even though no one could quite understand my precise need to remember, you came in the closest of them all. 

As, when I forgot your birthday when we first became a proclaimed couple, and I got so upset I spent a quarter of the day apologising and a smaller fraction crying in your arms as you merely held me reassuringly. Whispering into my ear admittedly that you were slightly hurt because you knew I didn't like false confirmations of anything being 'okay', but you carried on to say that remembering the simplest details must have slipped my mind with everything else like the other details of you, it should be something you were flattered by in the end. That coaxed a small smile out of me and gave me the will to help in making the last-minute plans to celebrate the day. 
Yet that was besides the point, as when we lay entangled in one another's arms later that night, you quietly told me that you understood, you understood why it was a big deal to me to forget and not just because of guilt, you said, as if you could see straight through me, that I was one of those people that lived prolonged lives due to their memories and severing one would be cutting off a year of life.

That was probably the first time you learned to use such description in its rightful place and timing. 

An hour would pass (or was it two?) and I'd remain by the glass, mind occupied by mentally tearing up the figments of my thoughts that drove me into thinking of forgetting, doing my best to purge them out of my being before finally closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, convinced that I indeed did love the way your memory remains a tumor in my heart, one that clogs up my core yet keeps me functioning all the same. I don't want to get away from the labyrinth of pain, because if its you in the center, that's exactly where I want to be.

This thinking is what landed me into visiting the therapist earlier, but it was also what made me a lost case and got me out of the counseling all the same. 

It was also why a uniform-clad man disrupted my  final arrival at peace, whose reflection I could make out from the glass stood several meters behind me and asked me if I was alright, out of courtesy, and if I coincidentally knew where room 190 was. All in one go.
There was something about his formal yet comfortable tone and the way he asked like we had just had a long conversation previously.
And the way he didn't push upon insisting the pitying questions let alone waiting to hear answers. 

But perhaps a man with absolute interior crisis in a haphazard structure entirely of glass was nothing anyone wanted to interfere with at all.

"Maybe I was wrong about that day being wasted, I'd rather you not come near me just like then,"

"Are you implying that all our days are now classified as wasted?"

"Would you have any objections toward me if I did?"

"I would have a moment or two ago. But I am all to agreeing now, aren't I?"