February 27, 2010

Dear XX,

Wherever and whoever you are, I just wanted to say hello. If you happen to find this letter and read it, I am very sorry if everything written on this disturbs your lovely day. I just wanted to share everything I feel at the moment.

My name… Well, you can call me Min. I’m 24 years old, and I am mute. Yes... I was born with the inability to speak. Until now, I don’t know the person who had delivered me into this world. They left me in front of the orphanage door when I was barely three months only with a note that informing my name, my birth date and my disability. All these times I’ve been wondering, was my disability became their reason for abandoning me at the orphanage? Or maybe they didn’t want a kid with an inability to speak words for the rest of his life? 

I’m not complaining though. I don’t blame them, and wherever they are, I just wish for their happiness and hope that they will have a child whom they could be proud of.

Well, life has never been easy for me. I do accept that I am mute, but unfortunately there were people who made fun of me. They told me that I was a weird kid who cannot speak or cry. No matter how much they harassed me, how much they tortured me, I didn’t cry. I never felt loved, not in the orphanage, not at school. I didn’t have any friend, because for them it was annoying to have a geek friend who communicate with sign language they didn’t understand. Not to mention the teachers who didn’t bother to talk to me, pretending I was never in any of their classes. I understood that, so I willingly kept myself away from them, hanging around by myself at the library, reading as much as I could, because books were the only thing in the world that never  protested about my inability. I liked to read books, writing, and listening to songs even though I can’t sing.

When I finally graduated from high school, I was encouraged myself to get myself out of the orphanage and live by my own with so little money I had been saved since I was still at middle school. I was dreaming that someday I would be free from the orphanage and find my own path of living. And yes, after leaving the orphanage, I rented a small, dirty, cheap apartment. I thought that it was okay, as long as I have a place that I could call home, a shelter that can protect me from the world which had never been kind to me. Besides, it looked wonderful once I had it cleaned.

From that day, I leaved on my own and worked for paying rent, food and a saving account. I kept two jobs at the same time. At first, it was hard to find anyone who would want to hire a mute person, but an owner of the bookstore in the town kindly gave me a job at night to arrange the books on the shelves and clean the whole shop. It was easy, but not enough, so I found another job at the mall for a cleaning service, and I worked from 8 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon. It was exhausting, but I couldn’t complain. As long as I could live and support my self, it was enough.

I continued my life with working, working and working myself out until I had enough money to pay university tuition. At the age of 20, I still had a passion to study, and I loved to study. As I told you before, I liked reading and writing, so I decided to study literature at the nearby university.

I gave up my job at the mall because of university schedules, but still keeping the job at the bookstore as I still needed to earn money.

Can you guess, XX? At first, I thought that everything was going to be different when I entered the university life. I was hoping that maybe finally I could have a normal life, be sociable by having a group of friends, hang out just like everybody does, or if I were lucky enough I could find someone to love and love me unconditionally…

But I was wrong. 

I put too much hope in it and once again I had to face the reality that nobody wanted me; a wish that I had about that normal life shattered before my eyes, because by the time they knew about my disability, they started to keep their distance away from me. Some of them even started bullying me and harassing me. My childhood life that I dreamed I wouldn’t have to face again in the future slowly but surely started to haunt me like a nightmare that won’t stop playing every time I closed my eyes.

It really hurt. Didn’t I deserve some kind of appreciation and respect from others? I’m still human, for God’s sake. Whether I can speak or not, I still have the right to be treated well by people. So why? Why can’t I have a peaceful day without a bleeding nose or broken glasses or ripped books every time I walked home? 

I felt enough. No more dreaming, and keeping myself away from anybody became the best solution for me to protect myself at that moment. I closed my heart and at this point I began to lose my faith in other people.

But XX, there’s one person, and I’m telling you, he’s different. 

We met for the first time in the hallway of the university after I bumped to him on my way to the bathroom. I wanted to clean the blood that coming off of my nose after those bullies punched and slapped my face. He was angry for I didn’t even say sorry after i bumped on to him, but after he took a close look at me, he concernedly asked  ‘are you okay? You’re bleeding.’ I didn’t answer him though; I just quickly ran away from him. 

I wasn’t used to have people’s concern over my well being, and his simple question had me wondering. For the first time in my life I thought if i had been normal it wouldn’t be so weird to feel people’s concern over myself. But i knew it was just a silly thought so i tried to forget. I put the moment on the page of memories that shouldn’t be mattered and told myself it was only another another fast encounter and i would soon move on withmy life.

But as if fate (or destiny, I don’t know) wanted him to make presence in front of me, the next day, I saw him again. He was really different from me. He was popular, often surrounded by people, boys and girls. Everyone loved him, because he was a great student with perfect grades, and perfect appearances. He had a tall and slender body, a pair of long legs, a small but firm face with almond shaped eyes, pointy nose and also a pair of lips that everybody would like to taste.

When I looked at the reflection of my figure on the mirror, I was ashamed of myself. He was a gorgeous and manly prince, but what was I? I was nothing. I don’t have a handsome face like his. I have indeed a pair of long legs just like him as I’m so tall myself, but I walked awkwardly and I couldn’t walk elegantly just the way he walked. I don’t have beautiful eyes like him and I hate the way they mismatched in every awkward possibility. That was the reason why I wore glasses to hide them. I was ugly, period. But how could I dare myself for ever thinking that I could compare myself to him? Oh well…

It was another day when I saw him again and the thought of him invaded my mind. I was busy thinking about him that I didn’t realize he had turned his face and caught me staring at him. For seconds our eyes met my body seemed to freeze. I didn’t have the strength to look away as if everything in his eyes was pulling me deeper. It felt like magic, and just like the way magic worked, it ended almost too soon as I snapped back to reality after the moment he flashed his smile at me. I was so embarrassed of being caught staring at him so I did the first thing that came to my mind: Fixing my backpack on my shoulder and then ran away.

I didn’t know what was playing with my life, I kept seeing him everyday, coincidentally meeting him in the hallway, at the library, in the cafeteria, everywhere. I was scared. I kept asking: did he stalk me, or worse, did he think that I was stalking him? And honestly, I felt so self conscious whenever i caught him staring at me with curiosity written all over his face. And I asked myself why. Why would he stare at me like that? Why would he feel curious over something that wasn’t worth of his time?

Until that day... The day he walked to my table in the secluded area at the library. Offering me his smile, he greeted me as he told me his name. Jung Yunho. That’s his name. He told me that he wanted to know me and become my friend. I was startled at him when he extended his hand, offering me to shake it. But I was only staring at him timidly. Fear crept to my heart so fast that I can’t even help my self, and the next second, I found myself collecting all of my books and walking away, leaving him dumbfounded at the spot where he was standing.

I wasn’t sure about what happened back then, but I was sure about something: I was a coward. But what can I do? Being a loner for all your life tend to do that to you. It also taught me not to trust people. 

Though I didn’t want it, I kept on thinking about that incidence. About him. I kept asking myself, why would he want to be friends with me? After all I was always neglected and abandoned, someone who was unwanted even by his own parents, the awkward boy who doesn’t, can’t, talk. Why? I was asking and asking, but eventually I kept myself believing that he might be the same with everybody. I told myself, that no matter what happened, I wouldn’t let myself get disappointed and I would never have my heart broken. Because I knew, once he knew about how useless I am, he would leave. 

I used to be only with myself and only me, and I was fine without anybody, so I thought that I didn’t need any friend. I didn’t need him.

I thought the rejection I gave him that time would make him give up on me; I wasn’t expecting anything from him anyway. But I was wrong. He was so stubborn and persistent. Even after I ignored him, pushed him away, walked and ran away from him, he seemed to never get tired of trying to get close to me. In fact, he got even more determined to break whatever walls  i had built around myself. You know? I wasn’t happy with him trying to get closer to me, because it made his ‘fan club’—or so they would call themselves—unhappy. They told me that i had been stealing Yunho’s attention and the list of accusations that they threw over my face kept going on and on. And then came their favorite torturing-me-time. As the result, i didn’t only get a bleeding nose or mouth, or ripped books, or broken glasses. It was more than that.

Once they even got me thrown into the university pool, fully clothed in winter. I really thanked God that it wasn’t snowing, but I got a fever for going home in soaked clothes afterwards with no one taking care of me. They cornered me after classes and pretended as if I was their ideal punching bag that they could hit whenever they wanted to.Physical contact was indeed painful, but words hurt the most as they threw dirty curses and jokes about someone like me. And I still thanked God that I was enabled to walk home, even though the pain that I felt all over my body was excruciatingly killing me. I realized that I was weak, that I didn’t have any strength to protect myself, so the only thing I could do was helplessly endure how they treated me. I would have gotten used to it anyway, because the story of my life would never change, that it was my fate to endure such a miserable life. 

But then, the only Jung Yunho had proven me wrong… The next time they started their torturing ritual on me, he was there. He saved me, with his strong and built body, he stood by me. He didn’t let them lay even a finger on my skin. 

He was protecting me.

When they had gone, leaving me within his care and his concerned and warm eyes looking at me, I started to break down. It was the first time I cried in front of somebody else in a very long time. I couldn’t even remember when the last time I cried myself out like that moment.

I could assure you, it wasn’t because of any physical damage, but what he did struck right through my cold heart, spreading a warm feeling that I had never ever felt before. Because for the first time in my life… I felt safe. 

It was strange, just with his simple action, he made me want to believe again, to once again have a dream that I had tried to forget.

The dream of being able to love and to be loved that I had left behind once again flashed before my eyes.

He surprised me by the fact that he already knew about my disability and he didn’t want me to worry. He wanted to be my friend and friends never think difference or disability as a problem as i recalled him saying that to me.And again, his words touched me.

 At first, deep inside, I was still afraid because this was too good to be true and I was scared that everything was just temporary, that in the end, he would abandon me again. But as I saw through his dark orbs, they made me drown in the ocean of gentleness. As if he was trying to teach me to crave for the kindness he tried to submit from the way he smiles. As if he was trying to assure me that I will be okay. As if he wanted to tell me to trust him, believe in him in every soothing touch that he applied on me.

And finally, I gave in. I let him walked me home and for the first time in my life, I let someone else inside, invading the space that I thought would never be touched by anybody else but me. And just as awkward as it was, I let him take care of me. He didn’t talk much, but every touch that he applied to my bruised body was so gentle. Everytime i gasped silently in pain, he woud quickly rub my back and whisper kind and gentle words to calm me down, trying his best to not cause any more pain that i already felt.

He was so careful, so caring in ways that I thought I would never able to do to myself. And by the time he had settled me comfortably on my bed after making me a cup of ramen to eat, he excused himself. But before he had the time to leave, I shoved a paper into his palm. He read and smiled reassuringly at me once again before he left.

On that piece of paper, I wrote a line of ‘thank you for helping me’ and a name; my name.

We began to get to know each other, and I opened up myself to him a little by little, revealing every expression and feelings only to him. Even though he didn’t understand sign language, he never gave up on me. He always smiled and never turned me down. Despite his tight schedule, he seemed to always have time to spend with me. Our time mostly spent working on our essays or just reading in the library. Or sometimes we would just sit there and talk. He also often invited me to have lunch together. Sometimes he even managed to help me at the bookstore. I told Yunho that i appreciated his help, but i was also unhappy because it made me look like i was taking advantage of his kindness. I hated troubling people, but he ignored it and just did as he pleased. Oh well, he’s always been that kind. (^_^)

And the most important part, it was him. It was because of Jung Yunho that I would be able to walk around the university area without being cornered by a bunch of people who liked bullying me. I never again had the bleeding nose, the ripped books, or broken glasses, or even walking home with injuries covering up my body. It was because he always stood beside me, he made sure that I was walking home safely.

After classes, we always sat at the library, taking a seat at the table at the corner so no one could distract our discussion. He was usually the talkative one, and I would listen to him, occasionally giving him my opinion written on a piece of paper. That was our unique way to communicate to each other and he seemed to never get tired of it which I appreciated so much. From our conversations, I learned about his family. Before he lived alone in his apartment, he used to live with his parents and a younger sister. His father is a lawyer and always wanted him to follow his footsteps and expect him to be a lawyer too, so that was why he studied law in our university.

I had once asked him whether studying law and become a lawyer were also his dream, but he only smiled and I knew right away that I wasn’t supposed to bring the subject up in our conversation. But later I found his fascination to music and just how much he wanted to learn music. He can play piano and he played beautifully. He once played for me his favorite song using the piano inside our university music hall and I can’t keep my eyes off of him. Probably it was the most beautiful sight I had ever witnessed in a man. His eyes were closed and his lips curved into a small soft smile, accentuated his handsome face perfectly. As I closed my eyes, the sound of his piano chimed softly and gently in my ear. The tunes were dancing and arranged into a harmonious melody that only Yunho’s fingers could create, and it warmed my heart with an extremely unexplainable feeling. From that point, I concluded that music is his world, his soul that could never be separated from Yunho.

In my eyes, Yunho is simply a caring and gentle person. Even though he was popular, but he told me he didn’t like to be surrounded by people very much. It annoyed him, in fact, but he never had the heart to push them away from him, so he just let them. Yes, it was showing just how kind he was to everyone. 

Yunho was my first best friend, and I had a sweet spot for him inside of my heart that I didn’t realize until it made me fall into him deeper and deeper.

XX, all these times, I thought that I would never have the chance to feel love in my heart again. Because my heart was too cold to feel warm, too protective for being opened for somebody else except myself, and too afraid of being hurt (I could still feel it though), but somehow, Yunho was made the exception. He pulled me into his world. He showered me with his friendship, gentleness and caring attitude, and then I realized I could never run away from him. In fact, everything he did, it kept me coming back again and again to his side. And have I told you that I had fallen in love with him? If I haven’t, I’m telling you yes, I had fallen in love with him. But being in love with him doesn’t turn me into a different person. Yes, I was still afraid, and too cowardly to admit that I loved him as he became an important person in my life, and I couldn’t stand the image of him going away from my side with a look of disgust that I knew would be expressed in his face once he knew that I loved him. So because of the fear of losing him, I decided to keep this love deep inside my heart forever. I didn’t mind that my love for him had to be a one sided love. As long as I could be with him, then everything would be worth it. 

But everything changed that night when he invited me to his apartment and he accommodated me with a simple candle light dinner after cooking my favorite dishes. I was very surprised at what he did as he guided me to my seat and then took a seat across mine. The dinner was fun as I listened to his story, his jokes that I would silently laughed at, and at top of that, it was the happiest moment in my entire life when he walked towards my side. He went down on his knees and asking me whether I wanted to be his. I was surprised and I still can’t believe the fact that it  was real, that it was Jung Yunho who was in front of me. I didn’t even dare to dream that something like this would eventually happen to my life. But it was never a dream. At least the warmth of his hands on mine when he held them wasn’t a dream. 

And then, when I finally aware of the situation, I pulled my hands from his hold, reaching for a piece of paper and with a trembling hand I wrote a line to ask him. ‘Why me?’ Actually there were so many words that I wanted to write, but my hand was too shaking that I can’t write any more than those two words, but I thought they were enough.

By the time I handed him the paper, I didn’t realize that my face was already became a mess as hot tears running down freely to my cheek until Yunho brought a hand to wipe them out from my face gently. After that, he took a glance to the paper, at the words that I had written. He smiled. He stood and he gathered my face into his hands, looking deeply into my eyes with his determined ones and then leaning down to press his lips on mine. He whispered to me between kisses: ‘I love you. That’s why.’

Everything that happened that night was the most beautiful moments in my life. They would forever linger in my memories as long as I have a beating heart. 

That night I let him take me on the bed sheet. I let him take over the access to my heart and the control of my body as he hovered over me and rained kisses all over it until he left me breathless. Every touch that he brushed onto my skin always made me squirm embarrassingly and I left my mouth open in silent gasps over and over again every time he touched the sensitive parts of my body that I never discovered until then. He was really beautiful, that I’m sure no words could ever describe the sparkling glow of his features. It was like a dream come true that I felt I could die in every seconds of it as we made love for the first time. 

Oh God, I love him so much. I really wanted to tell him that with my own mouth, but I can’t. I ing can’t. And probably it was the first time I asked God, why I was born with this disability. It is only a simple ‘I love you’, but I can’t tell Yunho that phrase with my own mouth, with my own voice. 

It is unfair, but well, I could accept the way I am and my disability before, so why not now? (Insert a smile here)

As now, we are living together in his apartment as we promised to take care and support each other. I am a writer and I have sold a satisfying copies of book a couple of months ago. And Yunho, one day around our first year together had been realized that he wanted to learn more about music. He gave up his effort to be a lawyer for it wasn’t his dream, for it was his father’s dream and was enrolled in a music school in Seoul. It caused a problem between him and his father but it didn’t falter him. He took piano classes and sometimes he still played the song that he played for me the first time we became friends. He asked me whether I didn’t get tired to listen to the same song everyday and I told him no, because it is my favorite song. It was the song which left a deep impression on me about him (though I didn’t tell him this). 

I can’t say that our life together is perfect, because nothing is perfect, but we are happy. We still had our fights, always, but it only made our love grew stronger and stronger each fallen day. And next month will be our third year of anniversary. It will be three years since we became us and everything became ours.

XX, I really feel content right now. He taught me everything. He taught me to believe. He taught me to open up myself. He taught me that it is okay to lean on somebody. And the most important thing, he taught me love. He is my first friend, my first love and lover. And he is the only person who really accept my disability earnestly. If it was for him, I really don’t mind if I have to lose my ability to see, to feel, to hear, to taste, if it’s going to lead me right to his love, and I would give all of that if he asks me to. 

I understand that there are still many things that Yunho and I haven’t yet to experience, that our journey is still far from an end, but I’m sure whether it’s tomorrow, next month, next year and the next year, I still want to explore this world with its bad and good sides together with him, and live to see his smile and make him happy. I wish that this love would last forever and ever until the time death do us apart. 

Thank you, XX, for reading this letter from someone you barely know. And I hope that you’ll have experience this wonderful feelin... to be in love.

Have a great day.

Min. 



Changmin sighs. He puts the pen down and stretches his arms up after writing for such a long letter. He looks at the exactly six white papers full of his handwriting and lifts them to read one more time. He nods, satisfied with what he had written and after that he rolls the papers together into a scroll. He reaches for a purple ribbon next to him to tie them together. He then stands up, moving to his bed to take a red balloon and ties his letter with its string. He moves again and this time not stopping until he reaches the window at the side of the room with the balloon in his right hand.

A smile creeps on his face, eyes mismatched, as he lifts the balloon up right outside the window and let it flies. Fly away into the sky with his story and he couldn’t stop watching it go higher and higher, hoping that it would land somewhere save and have someone read it. He doesn’t expect an answer, he just wantes to share, that probably someone, with the same disability with him, or maybe a different disability, would read his story and it would help them to face this world or maybe help them to begin their own search for a happy ending, just like him. Because he now believes that every story has their unique ending.

He is still in a daze when a pair of arms encircle around his waist. He smiles again, knowing exactly to whom those arms belong to.

“What are you doing?” Yunho asks gently in his ear, and Changmin leans deeper to his touch as he shakes his head softly. 

“But why are you smiling while looking outside? What makes you look really happy out there?” He asks again curiously.

Changmin finally turns his body to face his lover‘s handsome face, tracing the faded scar under Yunho’s eyes that he had long discovered with his finger. He then sighs contently while looking into his lover’s eyes. Yunho frowns and Changmin makes a gesture with his hands which Yunho didn’t understand. 

“Err.. Minnie.. I don’t understand..” He says apologetically and Changmin chuckles.

He pulls away from Yunho’s secure arms and finds a piece of paper and pen. He writes something then shoves the paper onto Yunho’s chest. 

If you want to live with me forever, you should master the sign language soon, Yunho-yah. After all, I’ve showed you the gestures so many times.

Changmin pouts. Yunho looks at the paper and then to Changmin, and then back to the paper. He sighs and scratches the back of his neck while muttering, “Yeah, I guess I have to do that. And FYI, I’m trying my best, you know.” He pouts in retaliation. In fact, he is already familiar with the gestures, but really, it is so hard to remember the meaning since it has too many gestures that he have to memorize. 

Yunho’s reaction earns a wide smile from Changmin as he takes the paper from Yunho’s hand and then writes another line.

Earlier I was saying that I Love You, pabooo. Remember that!!!!

Yunho laughs heartily after he read the line. “At least you still love this pabo.” He comments, wiggling his eyebrow playfully at Changmin.Changmin rolls his eyes but he eventually smiles, leaning closer to give Yunho a quick peck on cheek.

Yunho grabs Changmin by the wrist and pulls his body even closer to him. He holds Changmin tight and kisses his lips. After he pulls away, he hugs Changmin, wraps his arms around Changmin’s tiny waist and rests his chin on Changmin’s shoulder.

 “I love you too, my dear Minnie.”

END