I was crying when she found me;
I had been lost.

But she found me,
And I was lost no longer.

She almost didn't see me;
She almost stumbled on my sadness manifested,
My body strewn carelessly in the middle of the street.

But she saw me before she could fall.

She saw me,
And from the moment her eyes first looked to me,
I was lost no longer.

"Are you alright?" she asked carefully as she backed a few steps away.
I suppose she wanted to give me space to cry,
Space to breathe and catch myself before I crashed into a sea of deep, boundless frustration.

"I...I'm fine," I assured her as I hid my tears, wiping them away violently.
I swallowed my self-pity and straightened my posture, very like a man.

Men were not supposed to cry;
I had wronged myself and could not change what she had already seen.

I was a disgrace and I knew it.
I knew it, and after she had seen me so pitiful,
So pathetically bound by personal resentment,
She knew it too.

"No you aren't," she stated without a shred of doubt.
She took a step closer to me as she realized that she had been right.

The air between us was growing thinner,
Making it harder for me to breathe -
Forced to adjust to her light weight,
Bearing itself heavily on my concept of self.

It was hard to know who I was,
What made me who I was.

I was dizzy with her -
Dizzy because of her.

"Would you like to tell me what happened?
It might make you feel better."

Who was I to talk about feelings?
About emotions?

Men did not speak of their feelings.
If they did, their own feelings could be used against them -
To bring them down and destroy them while they were at their weakest.

I was a man.
I was sure I was a man.
Therefore I had to act like a man.

And act like a man I did.

"No thank you.
I should go."

Never could I show my true feelings.
Never could I speak the secrets of the heart.

Father never did. And father was a man.
Father was a man, but what was I?

I had to be a man like father.
I had to live up to his expectation.
I had already been scolded enough for failing to do so.

I was tired of displeasing him -
Tired of fooling myself into thinking that it was alright to be who he wanted me not to be.

I was a man,
And I finally decided to start being one.

"Wait, don't go yet," she called as she hurried to catch up to me.

I had no time to stop for her.
I had much thinking left to do.

"I'm sorry, I don't have the time to..."

Before I could finish my sentence,
She grabbed my wrist.

I stopped as soon as I felt her skin touch mine.

Her skin was as light as her presence,
Making it harder for me to breathe.

I felt something growing inside of me,
Taking root in the bottom of stomach,
Rising, reaching upwards,
Branching through every inch of my body,
Piercing right through my heart,
Releasing drops of red blood, falling like rain on the leaves,
Making it burst through my skin and escape into the world,
Far beyond my eyes and, for all I could tell, hers.

What that something was,
I didn't know then.
But oh,
I know it now.

All too well.
Not enough.

"I think...
I've seen you before."

Impossible.
Never had I seen her before.

I would have remembered her face:
Those eyes that were darker than the dark,
Deeper than the deepest depths;
A gaze that was infinite and penetrating,
So soft on the skin, but so sharp it tore the flesh simply;
Thin lips,
Parted as she breathed,
The corners of curving upwards to the sky,
Forming a steady smile that spoke so much more than words;
A face that revealed all that she was,
All that she used to be,
And all the she ever would be
By the single bat of an eyelash,
The small quiver of her lip as the cold air caught up to her.

That face...
Was a face unlike any other.

It was something more than a face:
It was a storybook -
The pages of the heart,
The cover of the soul.

It was a face
I could never have forgotten.

"I...I don't think I...remember you..."

"I don't expect you would. Not many people do.
But that's okay.
Life goes on."

She shivered as she spoke,
Shivered from something more than cold.

She was cold with excitement,
Cold with expectations
Of a life so much better than the one she knew.

I did not know that then,
But oh how I know it now.

How I wish I had known it that day;
How I wish I had trapped her, kept her caged,
Prevented her from leaving,
Free as a leaf carried by the wind,
Yet bound by the course the wind so chose.

But now she is lost, never to be found,
And I must live with the regret...
Of not holding on to her when I had the chance.

"Well, I certainly will remember you now.
You can count on that."

And I did. I did remember.

I remembered you every waking moment of each and every day.
I remembered until my head was bruised with thoughts of you and my lips turned blue, waiting to find yours.
I remembered until I ran short of breath and was too exhausted to move.
I remembered until I could no longer see and hear what was before me.

And what I remembered above all else...
Was your face.

Your unreachable face
That I would always be left to reach for
But would never touch.

Ever again.

I wipe the tears from my eyes.

He sits before me,
Soaked by his own astonishment at my marvelous feat.

'Nam Woohyun has spoken! Can you believe it?
Nam Woohyun is not mute, as all had believed.

Can you believe he can still make words,
When before he only spoke in memories?'

I can only imagine the thoughts he is having,
Thinking as he looks back at me now.

But I am growing tired of constantly thinking.

It is time to take a rest,
To put my mind to sleep.

"Sunggyu..."

"Yes, Woohyun?"

"Let's...
Let's just talk."

"Prove it to me then."

"Prove what?"

"That you will remember me.
Without proof, your words are meaningless nothings.
Just bits of air - wasted space.
Prove what you say, and say only what you are willing to prove."

"Alright, have it your way.
How can I prove to you that I meant what I said?"

"Meet me here. Tomorrow. At the same time.
Recognize my face, just as you believe you can."

"Fair enough. I will find you again tomorrow. Until then...
I never did catch your name."

"You never caught it because I never said it."

"What is your name, then?"

"If I tell you, I'll only be cheating myself."

"What do you mean?"

"You could just call out my name instead of recognizing my face. Then I would be helping you cheat your promise.
And if I help you cheat, who am I cheating but myself?"

"Are you always so analytical about everything?"

"I prefer not to be called analytical.
I'm just...
Lost."

"Lost?"

"In my own world. A place I love to be.
A place I leave unlocked, but nobody ever comes to the door.
Sad, right? But that's okay.
Life goes on."

"Yes, I suppose so.
My name is Woohyun.
I'm certainly not cheating by telling you that."

"Actually, you are."

"What do you mean?"

"You won't understand what I mean just yet.
But sometime, far in the future...
You will remember what I said, and you will come to understand it."

You were right;
You were always right.

Here I am,
A year later,
Remembering what you said.

And I think now I do understand your words.

I only cheated myself by introducing myself to you...
By becoming closer with you...
Because you were always going to leave me.

And you knew it too.
You were just too good to say so.

Was hiding the truth to protect me worth it?

Because from what I can tell...
I had no protection from heartbreak.

No, I had the opposite.

Your leave facilitated my heartbreak...
And if I had only known where you were going...
I would have met you there.

I would have recognized your face again and again,
Just as I am doing now...
Now that you're gone.

Now that you're truly lost.

"What do you want to talk about?" he asks as he moves closer to me.

He is sitting so close I can touch his face.
It has been so long since I have been this close to someone.

It is a feeling...long forgotten.

"Oh, I don't know. You, the weather, you, nothing...you.
Let's talk about you."

"Why would you want to talk about me?" he asks.

He looks at the floor.
His body becomes stiff.

The air around us is heavy.
It is crushing our bones.

He is harboring secrets.
He is painting his scars.

"Because I want to know you again.
I want to know you, but I don't want to remember you.
Not anymore. I'm through with remembering."

After I say these words,
Sunggyu looks up from the floor
And looks straight into my eyes.

There is something living inside of him,
Crawling up his spine and circulating in his blood.
Something that was once dormant, waiting to be forgotten,
But has now been awaken,
Has sadly been remembered.

He sighs deeply as he feels that something breathing within him.

He knows there is nothing he can do to hide it -
He must speak to be free from it,
To forget that part of himself.

"Alright, Woohyun.
What would you like to know?"

"How do you know about what I will understand in the future?"

"I just know. I can read it in your eyes and hear it under your words.
It is so clear...for anyone willing to pay it attention."

After the moments passed us by -
Lagging behind the cold air hitting our cheeks -
I bid her farewell,
Reassuring her that I would indeed be there the next day
And that I would undoubtedly be able to keep my promise.

As I turned around and started off,
She stopped me.

She kept me moving forward -
To her.

"Wait!"

"Yes?"

"Sun Hee."

"Excuse me?"

"My name. My name is Sun Hee."

I smiled at her words;
She was cheating herself,
But she was doing it for me -

Because I had asked her her name
And she refused to tell me.

But she told me,
And I could not ever forget her name.

It was written on every corner of my bedroom;
Scraped into my hands and arms - every inch of me she touched;
Carved into the scenery of the outside world she loved so much;
Concealed in the darkness, only to find me as I tried to fall asleep.

It was a name so beautiful that I could not shake;
A name so beautiful that I hated to remember.

But now that name is far away with her
In a strange land in a world I will never know,
Because she leaves her world unlocked, but nobody ever comes to the door;
But life still goes on, because that is what she always told herself.
So life passes her by and hits me hard in the face,
Beats me to death and brings me back,
Just so I can remember
Her name forever lost.

Lost, just like she is.

"It's nice to meet you, Sun Hee."

She smiled back at me,
Happy to have finally met the man from her visions.

She knew what would happen,
But she never shared her wealth of knowledge.

She treated me like something precious, something she had to hold on to,
Something she could not, God forbid, lose.

But she knew too much and she knew what was coming.

And that's why she held my hand so tightly
And spoke every word thoughtfully,
Every word like it was her last.

She only had so much time
Before she left me.
Alone.

She only had so much time
To be found.

And it was too late for me
To wrap her in my arms
And hold her there;

To keep her from being lost.
To keep her by my side.

"It's nice to meet you too...
Woohyun."

"I want to know...what you're thinking."

"Well, I'm thinking about a lot of things. Too many to name. Some I don't even know I'm thinking about.
My thoughts are all blended together, and it's hard to pick them into pieces."

"Try.
Please, Sunggyu...
Try."

What is he thinking?
What could he possibly be thinking?

How nice it will be to hear the thoughts of someone else -
Thoughts that aren't my own.

What a nice change it will be
To not be the only one thinking -
To be the one free from thinking and reminiscing.

Free from her.
Finally free.

"There's...your eyes that I am seeing for the first time in seven months;
Your words that are circling aimlessly around my head,
Searching for a place to rest, but they cannot rest because they are full of so much life...

And then there's me wondering...
Why you finally decided to give me the chance...
To help you.
To bring you back.

Before I surely thought...
That I would never be able to grab you and pull you from that world -
That world from which there was no escape.

I thought that you would fall through the floorboards,
Break the threads of reality,
And just keep falling,
Waiting for someone to catch you.

And I thought that I wouldn't be there.
To catch you.
To make you safe.

And now I am thinking...
That I want to know...
Why you decided...
To ask for my help today and not yesterday,
Not a month ago,
Not in the days that will soon come.

Why today,
Why now,
Are you asking to be rescued?"

I look away from him in shame;
I can no longer look into his eyes.

His eyes are too good for me.
His hands are too good for me.

His thoughts are too good for me.
His everything is too good for me.

Why do I have to think this way, Sunggyu?
Why must you make me think this way...again?

I am trying to forget...
But why won't you let me?

When my eyes are open, I see one face.
But as soon as I close them...I see another.

What am I to do, Sunggyu?
What have you done to me?

I have been reduced to nothing but space -
Useless space that does nothing for anyone.

I have been reduced to something inhuman -
Something that does not eat, breathe, or sleep.
Something that only thinks and remembers.

I have become...
I am no longer...
A man.

Men don't show desperation.
Men don't have these shameful thoughts.
But I do.

I do and I can't stop.

I am not a man,
Not anymore.

You have helped to make me...
Nothing more than space.

Don't you understand?

"I...I can't...I can't...tell you."

"Woohyun, why not?"

"You wouldn't...like what I would say."

"That's impossible, Woohyun. I am your friend;
I'll never hate anything you say."

"Or so you think...
So you think."

With these words,
Sunggyu slips his hand on top of mine.

I am too startled by the contact of skin -
A sensation I have not felt for a long, long time -
To jerk my hand away,
Even though I want to.

I can feel those thoughts banging on the walls,
Tearing at the curtains,
Trying to step into the light -
Coming to find me,
To completely absorb me.

How can I run away from them?
How can I keep them imprisoned?

"Sunggyu...please...
Stop."

"I'm sorry, Woohyun.
I...I didn't mean to make you...
Uncomfortable."

"Even now you are making me uncomfortable. Just with your presence."

"But...but...I don't understand...

You asked me to stay here, Woohyun -
To save you, to help you, to bring you back to life.

You asked for my presence...but now you refute it?

What have I done to make you dislike me so?
What did I do to hurt you?"

"Nothing, Suggyu! You have done nothing!
It's all...it's all me.
You have done nothing."

"Then let me help you, Woohyun.
Let me help you to..."

"Did you not hear me? It's...it's your presence.
I can't...I can't be...near you."

"Why not, Woohyun?
I need to know...
What am I doing to you?"

"You aren't doing anything to me, Sunggyu.
I'm doing it all...to myself.
And I just...I don't know how to stop!

Sunggyu, I don't know how to stop!
Oh God, I want to stop.
Right now I want to stop.
But how can I?

How can I stop something that keeps coming back
And never gives me a moment of rest?

I am so tired and so defenseless...
And no matter what I do,
All of those thoughts will come back and bind me.

I asked you to stay because...
I didn't know...
What else to do.

I can't keep running like this, Sunggyu!
I have passed the point of exhaustion long ago,
And I fear that I will soon drop dead.

I asked you to stay
Because I could think of nothing better to do.

I thought that maybe...just maybe...
Someone could help me erase the memories.
Someone could help me lock them away
Somewhere they could never be found again.

And the only person I could trust...
Was you, Sunggyu.

Because you were always here for me,
Even when I was forced to ignore you.

I never looked at you then because...
I couldn't.

If I did...
The thoughts would come back...
And they would never leave me alone."

Sunggyu is looking at me -
Concentrating on my head hanging,
My eyes looking away from him.

He is quiet for a long time.
He is searching for the right words.

He breathes slowly in and out,
Trying to bring his mind back to the center.

Then, with a fast-beating heart, he says:

"Woohyun...does that mean...
That these thoughts that you are trying to escape...
Are about...
Me?"

I take a deep breath,
Close my eyes,
And prepare myself for the answer.

"Yes, Sunggyu.
I am trying to escape...
From you."