“Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you
Anywhere, I would've followed you
Say something, I'm giving up on you

And I will swallow my pride
You're the one that I love
And I'm saying goodbye…”

February 2014

My eyelids were heavy.

Having sleepless nights every day for four days made me sleepy and totally exhausted. Today was the first day of high school. It’s not the day that I was really looking forward to but it will be the day that I dreaded to have.

Holidays were fun. No school, no people. Just me and her.

Every day I got to spend with her in every passing second.  But when the school started, she and I will spend more time with our friends and school’s activities. And she will completely forget all about me.

Something that I could never do to her. Even if I wanted to.

Chaerin and I were always walking to and from school together just because I’m her schoolmate and fortunately, I’m her classmate too. One’s must think that it will easier for me to be with her all the time if I’m her friend but for me, that’s the hardest. I’m maybe her best friend and we always hang out together, but she hated to be seen with me. She said that we are always being together outside the school and she wanted to have other friends besides me. Sometimes, it’s just not good to be always together.

I understood her though. She needed girlfriends, someone who she could talk about the girl’s stuffs…and boys. My chest tightened with that thought. Teenagers were so…predictable. Their hormones were raging.

And all that also applied to me. Because as same as her, I am also a hormone-raging teenager.

I remembered the urge to touch her skin last winter. To be able to wrap my arms around her cold body as we both went skiing last time or caress her icy blushed cheeks. I recalled the silky texture of her hair against my neck as she felt asleep on my shoulder on our way home. And even now, when we walked side by side, the electric current that seemed to flow between us was reignited, intensified by the closeness. I wanted to reach out to her, to hold her hand as we walked together. When she leaned over to me as a car passed by, I fought with the urge to embrace her. It would have been so easy to fold my arms beside hers, letting our skin touch and giving in to the electricity.

Easy, but not smart.

“I met Jiyong last week,” she stated suddenly.

My heart twitched. “Our senior?”

She nodded slowly. “…and he said something to me.”

I glanced down to her and she ran her gaze towards the road. “What did he said?”

She breathed in deeply, still staring at the row of shops across the road. “He said…that he likes me and he wanted to know me better.”

I felt my heart quivered and I sighed. I knew this time will happen. Sooner or later, someone will find her beautiful and lovable. And they wanted to know more about her. But this moment appeared to be sooner than I’d expected.

After a few more silent moments, she sighed and whispered. “You’re not going to say anything?”

I laughed quietly, hiding an involuntarily shudder I felt inside. “Oh God, why? Out of every girl in Seoul, why you? Yes, why her? I wonder what he sees in you? Are you sure that he’s not blind? Because that…will be the only plausible reason for choosing you.”

Chaerin just smirked and scowled at me. As we reaching the school gate, she leaned on the steel and turned around to meet my gaze. “Maybe...he saw something in me in a way that nobody can. Maybe…just maybe, he’s not the one who’s blind.”

She left me in haste with a stern expression and I followed her into the school area. I grabbed her hand and spun her around.

“I knew you better than him and even from everyone in this world. All my life, since I was born, I spent every minute by your side. We’ve practically breath, eat, study and play together. We’ve even bathe and sleep together when we’re kids. I’ve known everything about you, and you can’t even think of something without me knowing.”

She jolted from my arm and heaved a sigh. “You’re that kind of person, aren’t you? Mr Know-it-all, who knows about everything and anything,” she said, looking straight into my eyes. “Well, let me tell you something. You.Don’t.Know.Me. You never did…and you would never do.”

April 2014

Two months passed in a blink of an eye.

Chaerin seemed to be colder than ever. She had distanced herself from me. Every time I wanted to spend some time with her, going for a walk or working on our homework together, she would refused. Saying that she was tired and she had to meet someone. She even walked to school on her own while I was just woke up.

And somehow, I knew the reason.

She was hanging out with the senior, Kwon Jiyong. The most incredible person I ever met. He’s smart, have a good feature, a soccer prodigy and the teacher’s pet. Sometimes I wondered if he even a human. Maybe he was an alien from a dragon planet who was good at anything or maybe he just a hundred years old vampire.

He’s perfect. Too perfect.

“Jiyong asked me to be his girlfriend,” she said softly, but her words sending an invisible dagger towards my heart. I felt an aching pain on the pit of my stomach and my throat burned as I swallowed.

I glanced up to the bright afternoon sky trying to absorb some strength from the sun. My heart had weakened.

“So…what do you say?” she continued, lifting her face and looked at me with a clouded expression.

“Well…” I paused. “…congratulation on your first relationship. I hope it last. I really don’t want to see you drench in tears when he dumped you. You’ll look miserable, and that will be a horrible sight of you.”

She glared at me. “Really? That’s the only thing you could say to me?”

I saw something in her eyes. Sorrow. Like how she always look when she’s watching a sad movie. She looked as if she wanted to cry in the next second.

With a heavy heart, I smiled faintly and I whispered. “Just be happy. You know that I will always be there for you.”

And I saw tears at corner of her eyes.

February 2018

At last, after three years struggling, today was the graduation day.

A day of freedom.

Everyone was dressing in a deep blue robe and wore a bright expression on their faces. Parents were beaming in happiness, watching their children taking pictures with their friends, running around the field like a bunch of kids on a playground.

I stood firmly under the shade of an old oak tree, watching Chaerin smiling widely in the circle of our friends. And seeing her smile, I felt my lips stretched into a foolish grin. She’s so beautiful. Like an angel who descended from heaven. And I stared at her like a boy seeing the sun for the first time.

As the ceremony began, I sat next to her. Watching her closely, like how I always do. She clapped her hands with a huge smile on her face. Just like when we’re little and I gave her candy for every time she cried- face lit up and her lips were upturned.

 “What are you going to do after this?” she asked as the principal claimed his turn to give an introductory speech.

I shrugged. “Go to college, find a job, find a girl…and get married.”

Silent.

“You have your life all mapped out, haven’t you?” she muttered.

I glanced to her and I saw her frowning. “What about you?”

She took an extra minute to reply and I held my breath. Please, just please, don’t say his name.

“Jiyong proposed,” she said simply and my heart has stopped beating. “He had to go to London next month. His father had been transferred there and the whole family was moving,” she added.

“…and he asked you to go with him.”

“…yes. It will be easier if we were married.”

I felt myself crumbled into tiny pieces and my heart had been crushed like a piece of stone we used to bust with a hammer. The dust will be carried out by the wind. And nothing will be left.

As I was unable to say anything more, I heard my name has been called, and I seemed to be too eager to leave. I faked a smile as I stood up at once. For all the spectators, I appeared to be so proud and confident to receive my diploma, but the truth was…I was just not strong enough to stay.

April 2018

I was standing in the middle of familiar faces-my families’, relatives’ and friends’. But somehow, I felt weird, like I was just landed on a stranger’s land.

My inside was twisted and I felt empty.

Today was the day of a wedding. And in every wedding, everyone supposed to be happy excluding the bride and the bride’s parent. We always expected a little tear-jerking drama at the end of the day.

But I’m not here to watch a drama or making one.

I’m here to say goodbye.

So I dragged my heavy feet upstairs where the bride was being teased by her bridesmaids and I froze in front of the door. I closed my eyes and trying to find the right words for my farewell but found none.

 There’s no right word for something so wrong.

I shouldn’t have to say goodbye. I shouldn’t have to leave her.

I shouldn’t.

But I have to.

The door flung open the second I opened my eyes and several girls in fluffy violet dress came out from the door. And my gaze lay towards a girl, standing in front of a full-length mirror in her white flowery wedding gown.

I was speechless.

All my words have went down the drain.

Clumsily, I took a step inside and closed the door behind me slowly. She saw me coming from the reflection on the mirror and her smiling face darkened.

I smiled bleakly and she did the same.

“I’m not going to say that you look beautiful…” I said as I strut to her side and she spun around to look at me with weary eyes. “…because you must have heard it a lot. But I’m still going to say it…again.”  She smiled wider and I chuckled. “You looked beautiful today.”

“Thank you. It must be the truth since…you never compliment me before.”

Smirking I grabbed her hand gently. “Never thought that both of you will make this far. But then…congratulation.”

I kissed her cheek and withdrew my steps immediately. I have to get out of this room in this instant, before my heart shattered from the excruciating pain I felt inside.

“Wait!”

I halted.

“You don’t have anything else to say to me?”

Smiling bitterly, I spun around and met her gaze. “What do you want me say? Tell me, Chaerin. What else do you want me to say? I’ll say anything.”

“Say that you love me,” she whispered.

“What for? You already know it. Saying it out loud doesn’t really change anything. So, tell me Chaerin…why does it really important for you to hear me say that?”

Her face fell abruptly and she was crying. My heart ached from seeing her tears.

“So, that I could say that I love you too!” she choked out between her sobs.

“And then what? What could’ve changed with those words?” I screamed. “Someday, we’ll part our way.  And today, you’ll leave me. Nothing will change even if I told you that I love you. Because you, my sister, will always be my first and only love.” I walked closer to her and held her hands. Gazing her fondly, I kissed her forehead as I closed my eyes. Tears slipped through my eyelids. “I’m going to wait for you in the next life. And I’m going to say ‘I love you’ first when we met. And please,” I said, smiling faintly. “…don’t born as my twin sister.”

I kissed her lips softly and lifted my gaze to stare at her for the last time, and I then murmured, “I’m sorry that I love you…and because of that, I have to say goodbye.”

“I love you the way a drowning man loves air. And it would destroy me to have you just a little.”

––The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson