Date started : 2/14/2014
Date ended : 2/14/2014

Length:3178 words

What is love? This is a question which has been bothering me for a long time... Is it about posession? Or is it about caring about the others?

My name is Lee HoWon, prefered to be known as Hoya, studying abroad in Singapore. Currently 17 years old, in a Secondary Five class. Just like any other school, there are always people that are more socializable, and some, not as socializable. Both a good news and a bad news. Bad news is that unfortunately, sadly to say, i fall into the group of the people that are not as socializable, however, good news is that it is fortunate that i have a close group of friends. Playing together, studying together just like what a normal teenager does with their friends. 

"YAH! what are you thinking about?!" I felt someone hitting my head,  snapping out of my thoughts, i saw my group of friends, Sunggyu, Chaerin, also known as CL, Dara, and Park Bom. I was really thankful for them, as i didnt had much friends and they were really important to me. Sunggyu and me were both from Korea, CL and Park Bom from US and Dara from The Philipines. Just a few informations on my group of friends. Out of all of them, i am the only one from the different class. however if u ask me how i actually know them, it started of from my 1st year in this school, where i was in the same class as CL and Park Bom. it was only after 2 years before we were streamed into different class. I continued hanging out with them, and soon Dara and Sunggyu joined in this "Clique" .

Okay, back to the current situation. Yooohooo! School had ended and guess what, we are going to go party for a few hours, before coming back to school for night study programme which we had planned to attend together. It wasnt a special program, but the school was just providing the fascilities for students to study in a condusive environtment since the national exams were coming up in less then a month! 

Knowing that we didnt have much time, we quickly went to the nearest fast food shop to grab our lunch, chatting about funny and interesting moments we had during class. After having our lunch, we decided to get some snacks and drinks so we could freshen ourselves while studying later on, and decided to split into groups where the girls, dara, CL and bom would get snacks while me and sunggyu went for the drinks. 

While getting the drinks, it was silent, which i really felt awkward. It wasnt that i wasnt close to him, not was it that i was really awkward with him. But it was just that i was a very quiet person, and the fact that i knew him for less then half a year made it even harder to come out with topics to chat with him. Rushing to get drinks, i felt his arms over my shoulders. "Yah! Gwenchana?" He asked me in korean. I smiled at him as it felt 'warm' to actually hear the language of my hometown. "Of course im fine! What drinks to you want?" I repllied back. "CL wants Green Tea and Dara wants coke. Hmmmm lets just go with this 2 drinks! and dont think of changing the topics, why are you so quiet today?" He answered me while casually taking the drinks that he just said.

" Nothings on! Im just tired of the stress which the exams are coming as my family expects good results from me... and for your info im always this quiet! Im sure this isnt the first day u know me!" i replied back. "Anyway lets pay for the drinks and meet them soon" I continued, walking towards the counter. 

"YAH Wait for me!" Sunggyu shouted as he chased after me.

After paying for the drinks, me and sunggyu were walking back to the entrance of the mall to meet up with the girls. While walking back, Sunggyu decided to play a small prank on me and we started fooling around like small kids. While playing with him, the distance between us were very close, and all of a sudden, i felt my heart started to beat faster. What is that feeling? I asked myself... 

Not knowing whats this feeling all about, i threw aside what i was thinking as i saw the girls, hands full of snacks. "Do you guys think this is a picnic or something?" Sunggyu teased the girls. Me and Sunggyu laughed as we loved teasing them. However, the next thing that happened made me laugh even harder, unfortunately not for Sunggyu. It was because CL and Dara were chasing him, trying to take revenge on him. Me and Bom were just standing at a corner, laughing at the 'show' which we were watching.

After the fun session, we went back to school to have our night study. Few days later, nothing much happened, the only difference is that i have constantly felt something in my heart whenever i am close to Sunggyu. I keep telling myself it was nothing, but is it really true? a love idiot like me, what am i really feeling?.. I felt very lost as i pondered what am i really feeling. 

More days past, and the feeling keeps getting stronger..  I felt suffocated and i didnt know what to do anymore. After school that day, i rushed home and went to use the computer as i searched on the internet stuffs like 'how do you know if you are in love' , 'Why does the heart feel weird when i am with this person' and more... Surprisingly, all the answers has actually shown that i was in love... 

I felt lost all of a sudden.. How could i love a guy?! Especially in this homophobic world, how will others even look at me? its just an illusion right? I am not in love with Sunggyu eh? im certain about it!! After a long time thinking of everything, i suddenly recieved a call from CL asking me out for a 'coffee date' which she called it. I didnt want to be at home cooping myself out and thinking about useless things so i agreed and went to meet her.

~coffee shop~

"yah my boyfriend~" CL teased me. i was used to it since we were actually very close, sharing our problems with each other. Furthermore, i know she loves someone else in the drama club named Myungsoo. "Mmhhhmmm? i replied her as i continued "any problems i can help with, Missy?" i knew that when she called me out all of a sudden for coffee, she wasnt feeling good.

As expected, she told me her problems, family expectations, stress, insecurities and also how her family didnt really support the future that she wanted. It was just something that both me and her were very similar as we both had families with high expectations of us, and we both felt very insecure over freindship, mainly because we were more of the not so socializable people. This similarity actually brought us closer as we could share our problems with the other person knowing how we feel. When i have problems i would also share with her too..

wait problems... "CL! Are u free now? can we go to the nearby park for awhile?" I asked her. We both had finished our coffee and we were just chatting. She agreed and we decided to go to the park near her house as she had curfew. 

"errrrmmm CL ah.. err"  my brain suddenly felt empty, i didnt know what to say. i felt scared. what if she is homophobic too?! what if she hates me after i told her what im feeling? 

"Howon... you know the type of person i am, i dont judge people, so just tell me what you want to say, or im going off!" She replied, pretending to walk off

"Wh.. What.. if i.. i like... a g guy?" I stammered, afraid what was going to happen. I looked around to make sure no one was around to hear what i was going to say as i wasnt going to be nice if they heard it.

"WHAT?!" CL screamed! "Did i hear it wrongly?!" She continued walking towards me.

i felt nervous. i was going to breakdown anytime. i was afraid i was going to lose my friends. I didnt want to go back to my lonely self, having no friends at all.. "Is it Sunggyu?" She asked me. I was shocked... "How...?" i was loss for words. Was it that obvious? what if others know about it?..

She dragged me to the nearby bench as we both sat down... "It was kind of obvious.. to me.. i mean we have known each other for five years.. He is the first person which you got so close with. I have never seen you that close with other male friends before. Besides, even Dara and Bom had been thinking, what if both of you were together. which led me to suspecting you might have liked him. However dont worry too much, Dara and Bom wouldnt know anything." 

i hugged her and started tearing up.. "What if he knows and he hates me.. He always says he hates gays... I dont want to lose this friendship"

she hugged me back patting my back trying to stop me from crying. "hey, dont worry too much.. maybe he was just saying it for fun? people that hates gays are usually people that dosent want to admit that they are one! Besides, you dont have to tell him, just get closer to him as a friend and maybe that day will come!" 

After a long talk with her, it was going to reach her curfew time and she had to go.. she gave me a last hug before running back home, while i went to the busstop, thinking over what she had told me, and everything. 

Few more days had past, we had our graduation day already and we weren't even neede to attend school already. we had a few days of study break, before we take our national exams... i had started to accept my feeling for sunggyu but due to the coming exams, i had decided that i should work hard to do well, which is more important. Everytime my feelings for sunggyu started appearing, i would remind myself how close the exams were and continued studying. 

Time really flies, and currently, i am here, in the school hall, taking my last paper.. it was the last day of exams for both me and my other friends! i finished my paper within the time, and had checked threw over and over again since it was a science paper. It was the last minute left and i started counting down to my so called 'freedom' .

"Candidates, the time is currently 9am, please put down your pens" The chief examiner announced. I smiled to myself, knowing that i had taken all the papers and had worked very very hard on them. After the scripts were collected and we were dismissed, me and my other friends immedietely hugged each other, as it was really a tiring journey for all of us. Once again, my heart skipped when i hugged Sunggyu. However, we were both too happy to even bother. Me and Sunggyu were very proud of each other as we both had been studying til late night at my house everyday, revising topics and helping each other on subjects that we had troubles in. 

However, after that, i felt my days were worst... i didnt know what happen, but as we got closer, it feels that he treats me as junk.. nope he didnt treat me really badly, but he started giving me cold shoulders and times, or not bothering what i said... i felt tired of everything. I cried myself to sleep every night, even told CL about everything.... But what could we do?.. My group of friends started to split more... Me and CL growing closer and closer. While Dara, Bom and Sunggyu growing closer... I had constantly tried to give up on Sunggyu, but everytime i had started to ignore him, he starts to talk to me and becoming the close friends we were... and this 'cycle' repeats...

Blink of an eye, 3 years had past... Me, Sunggyu, CL, Dara and Bom got in the same Polytechnic, with different courses in mind for our future which we were interested in. We continued studying and scored well. We still kept in close contact and my feelings for Sunggyu were stilll not forgotten.. CL still talks to me about problems as we shared about feelings that we only kept to ourselves... Over the years, i knew that Sunggyu was straight.. He wouldnt love me back.. He also had a girlfriend which he met from the same course as him, minzy. She was a very nice girl and she had already grown close to me, dara , CL and Bom.  Even though we had our own friends in Polytechinic courses. Me, Sunggyu, Dara, Bom and CL still kept in close contact and we met up with each other almost everyday..

It was already the end of my polytechnic life... I had already grown tired of loving Sunggyu.. Especially knowing that he already has a girlfriend, i should let go already right?.. For me to let go, the only way is to leave him completely.. this is the only thing i could do to forget him, to bring him and also myself happiness. I had contacted my parents and they agreed to let me go to Australlia to further my studies in a University there. I knew that if i continued University in Singapore, i would never forget Sunggyu as he would still contact me.. It was a hard decision to make, as it would mean that i had to start afresh in a new country.. No one knew about it, not even CL. I am certain that if she knew, she would march to my house and tear my air ticket, or kidnap me so i wouldnt leave. 

Soon.. it was D-Day.. it was time for me to leave.. quietly. I packed my luggage, bringing stuff which were really memorable to me, even though some had to do with Sunggyu but hey i couldnt forget memories with my other friends just because of him! While packing, tears had unknowingly formed in my eyes.. i knew this was goodbye.. I still remembered the last night where me and sunggyu were fooling around, me teasing Bom and Dara, and the heart to heart talk i had with CL.. I wiped my tears off quickly as i took my luggage out of my house, closing the door. 

I didnt want them to know that i was going, but i just had to. I had already planned to send them a text message when i am preparing to go in the terminal.. I also knew i could not hide anything from CL so i had decided to text her the real reason why i am leaving.. i knew that she would be very angry but i really had to do this.. 

To: Chaerinnie~
From : Howonnie

Chaerin ah... How are you?.. Its weird to text you like this.. Im sorry, this would be my last text
to you maybe.. I am leaving this country and going to Australlia for University.. It wasn't part
of my plan as i had planned to stay in Singapore.. But i knew that if i continued staying here
i would never forget Sunggyu. Years of holding on, i am also tired of everything, Minzy is 
really a good girl but i just could not stand them being together.. I felt like dying.. 

After a long time of thinking, i decided that i had to let everything go.. And the only thing i
can do is actually leave here, so that i can forget him totally.. Im begging you, please do 
not tell him anything.. I dont to spoil his impression of me, his 'friend' just because i 
liked him.. 

Thank you very much for being there for me all the while.. Even though i might always 
bother you about stuff, you really helped me alot.. Maybe... Maybe one day we would meet 
each other again.. Til then.. 

once again.. im really sorry.. and thankful to you

~Howonnie

After sending that text message, i decided i would just leaave it there and go off... i couldnt continue typing.. i felt like crying.. all the memories came back to me.. From the first time i met CL and Park Bom, to the time where i knew Sunggyu and Dara.. the moment where we had all worked so hard to do well in the national exams.. the moment where we received results where we were all proud off. The times where me and CL shared the insecurities we had... cheered each other up.. The times where i had teased Dara and Bom and got chased by them.. The times where i fooled around with sunggyu.. 

It was time to board the plane.. it was time to end everything.. and i decided i had to be the one to do it. 

I had then sent a goodbye message to Dara Sunggyu and Bom ,informing them about me leaving, not a long message but just something i had to do before i left as i really felt thankful for all the things we had done together..

While walking to the plane, i had found out, the love that i had felt, now it was time to say goodbye.. Even though it hurts, we would never be together. I didnt want others to look at Sunggyu in a different way if we were together either.. the only thing i could do is to let him go.. 

As i walked into the plane.. i turned back once more.. and made a small whisper..

goodbye.

Love.. Is about letting go.. to let the other party get the happiness that day want, and to do that, someone has to sacrifice..,,
and the one to sacrifice, is the one who loved more.. or the one who has loved the other party... 
only this way, can both achieve happiness.. even though it might be hard, our paths has already been fixed for us..

When theres no way out, love is the only way
~ 2ne1 I love you