He smells like obsidian summer nights under the stars, like moonlit walks in the sand with the smell of bonfires lingering on the tips of her hair. He smells like the sun that comes out after the rain, fresh and awakening. He's warm and his arms are a safe haven, her safe haven.

Some days are better than others. Some days he returns to her in the breeze that slips through the window cracks, carrying in the smell of fresh rain. People say it's been a while and she should be over it by now but it's not that easy. It's never easy.

Luna doesn't play the sappy girl who couldn't let go. She has a bit of a hoarding habit and anything that has any sort of happy memory attached to it, she likes to hold onto them, him included.

Huang Zitao, is his name.

With his cat like obsidian eyes, he caught her gaze in a dark crowded place and held it a second too long, making her curious of him. It lead to long walks with the city lights, his hand slipping through hers to find perfection and sleepless nights as they share their darkest secrets through hushed phone calls till the early mornings. It happened so naturally and effortlessly, she should've seen the heartbreak coming.

Two years into the relationship, a shared apartment and joint adoption of a puppy later, Tao had to leave. He had to return to Qingdao to his family where they needed him. His years as an international student was done as he walked across that stage to get his diploma early that spring. Tao couldn't just ignore his family needs and stay while Luna couldn't just pack up her life and move to a foreign country either.

Six months after Tao returned home, they reluctantly broke it off. The future was unclear and it was taking a toll on the love that use to be so effortless.

It's been a year now and Luna can still smell his scent that lingers in certain places like what used to be his side of the bed and the couch where they spent countless Friday nights indulging in the latest movies.

It's been over six months since the girls' have had a gathering with all five of them. With Victoria returning to Seoul after walking in endless runways from New York to Paris and Japan, she'd finally returned to her second home, Seoul.

When Luna arrives at their favorite restaurant, she finds herself being the last one.

"Luna-ah!" Victoria exclaims and greets her with a warm rib crushing hug. "Oh my god, I've missed you!"

"I missed you too!" Luna nearly cries and waves to the other girls who she meets on a daily basis.

Sulli nearly pries them apart and forces them to sit down so they could start with their brunch.

"Nice jacket," Victoria comments. "Vintage, I love it! Where'd you get it?"

Luna peers down to the worn out leather jacket she's tossed over her t-shirt and jeans and her jaw drops slightly. "It's Tao's," she mumbles and the life slowly drawns from the table. "I didn't even realize I was wearing it."

"Why do you have it in the first place?" Soojung asks.

Luna tries to shrug it off as nothing but it means everything. "I was going to donate it. It must’ve gotten lost in my closet.."

Lie.

She remembers picking it up from the bench outside their apartment after he drove off in that cab that would drop him off at the airport. She remembers watching him from the window with tears streaming down her eyes as he debates over keeping the jacket or not. Eventually he would set it down, turn to look at their window one last time and reluctantly enter the cab. She couldn't bear to leave the jacket there as it was his and it carried his scent and maybe still even his warmth. It was such a waste.

"I saw him when I went home for Chinese New Year," Victoria casually mentions while they're roaming the streets, window shopping. "He dyed his hair black."

Luna can picture the way it'll make his eyes pop out even more and although she tries to wash away the yearning to see him, it grows stronger. "Is he well?"

Victoria nods with a soft smile. "Yeah, his grandmother has gotten better and his dad's company is going well. He's good. He asked about you."

“Really?” Luna tries to not sound excited. “What’d he say?

"He asked how you were and if you were okay,” the Chinese native continues nonchalantly with her eyes spotting a designer purse in a nearby window display. “I said you were doing well and that you had become a vocal teacher at a prestigious private school.”

“But I’m only an intern…” Luna says as Victoria turns to her with a small smirk.

“Well,” Victoria shrugs and leads them towards a store. “He doesn’t have to know that of course.” She winks and it brings a smile to Luna’s face.

    A few days later, Victoria surprises Luna at her apartment one afternoon stating she was bored in her hotel room and decided to come play. While Luna filed her music sheets in the living room, she could hear Victoria rummaging through her fridge as if she hasn’t eaten in days.

When did you start liking coconut juice?” She hears the older one ask.

“That’s Tao’s,” Luna answers too quickly to take it back. A second later and Victoria is strutting out of the kitchen with the coconut juice box in hand, eyes stern and demanding for some sort of valid, sane reason.

“Huang Zitao left here 18 months ago,” Victoria states and Luna winces at 18th months. “So you’re telling me, A) you’ve haven’t cleaned your fridge for 18 whole months. B) you’ve never noticed this little yellow box of Tao’s temporary happiness that you absolutely detest tucked at the back or C) you just left it there, hoping he’d come back.”

Luna gulps. She always felt nervous when Victoria got her motherly side on. “B?”

“Wrong.” Victoria grunts and pierces the foil at the top with a straw. “It’s C.” She double checks the expiration date on the box before taking another sip.

“Don't worry,” Luna sighs and closes her folder. “I just bought that last week."

Victoria chokes. “So you’re saying you’ve been rebuying it? As in, replacing it?”

“It’s pathetic isn’t it?” Luna mumbles and turns to Victoria whose eyes soften at once. “I can’t let go. Everywhere I go, he’s there.”

Victoria reaches over to her short hair with her long fingers. “I know it’s not easy dear. I seriously didn’t think it’d end this way for the both of you. It takes time but at the same time, you honestly have to want to move on.”

Luna sighs and reclines back into the couch. “How’d you get over Changmin Oppa?”

Victoria smiles at his name and it sort of surprises Luna. “It took a long time. I kept myself busy and I tried going on dates when I felt like I was ready but when you’re with a person for so long, you start to forget what was once yours: yourself. You forget habits you use to have and things you use to do. I spent four, almost five years with him,” Victoria sighs and takes another mini sip of the coconut juice.

“After running around trying to keep myself busy, I just sat down one day and wrote him a letter, maybe it was more so towards myself but,” she shrugs. “I said everything I couldn’t say, I stated all my fears and regrets. I signed it, sealed it, wrote his name on the envelope, then tossed it in the fireplace,” she smiles at the last words, confusing Luna.

“All that, just to burn it?” Says Luna and Victoria nods.

“It was closure,” Victoria explains. “Sure he didn’t read it but even if it did, it wouldn’t have mattered. We were never going to get back together. A few days later, I woke up and literally, everything felt fine. I just needed to admit to myself the things I did wrong and say the words I didn’t want to say. As a person, I will always love him but.” she shrugs again. “I had to let him go.”

Victoria left for London four hours ago after walking in a Lie Sang-Bong fashion show just yesterday night. There’s a slight breeze this evening as Luna watches the sunset across the horizon. The sky reminds her of watercolors that she used to play with as a child. As she sits here in silence, she can still picture him sitting beside her, hogging up the rocking chair so she could sit in his lap instead. They’d talk about random things from paperclips to flying pigs and send their laughter echoing into the city down below. She turns to the rocking chair beside her and pushes it with her index finger. It rocks along to the breeze as she brings her legs up to her chest and tucks herself in.

Her eyes land on two bowls at the corner of their little balcony and she thinks of Candy. She remembers the first day they brought her home and how Tao just couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. She was a precious little angel and much more of a Daddy’s girl so when Tao left, Luna knew it was best for Candy to go along. Heck, Candy understood more mandarin than Luna herself.

She can sit here and go through thousands of things they’ve done in this very spot but Luna decides it’s best not to. All she’s been doing is lingering in fragments of him and it’s truly time to let go.

She doesn’t know how to start this goodbye letter but once the pen touches the paper, words begin to form into sentences and it comes out like spilled water spreading on a table. Some words become smudged with tears but Luna doesn’t stop.

“Dear Zitao,

    It’s been 18 months and four days since you left. I heard you are doing well and I’m glad. Summer is hot here so I suppose it’s also hot there in Qingdao. It’s probably prettier than Seoul. Don’t you ever wonder how it is here?

Pictures that we took together are so faded from me the photos, trying to relive the moment it was taken that I can barely make out your face now. The coconut juice you wanted to save for later is still here, well Victoria actually drank it so it’s technically not here anymore but it was for a very long time. Later never came, Tao. The leather jacket you loved so dearly that you left on the bench, I couldn’t see it go to waste so I kept it. Pathetic isn’t it? I wonder if you ever look out into your pretty city of Qingdao miss the way my arms use to wrap around you.

I probably don’t cross your mind and that’s okay. You’re back to your homeland, speaking your native tongue and eventually, you went back to your old ways and picked up where you left off before you met me. I can’t help but have this hope of you returning. In case you ever missed what we had, in case you changed your mind, in case you couldn’t find what you were looking for and in case you had ever wanted to come back home to his old’ apartment, I wanted to be there for you. Just in case, Tao.

I may sound like some obsessed ex-girlfriend who doesn’t know how to let go and maybe I am but you can’t entirely blame me. You get to go back to a life where I was never there, a place where Luna hasn’t left any imprints remind you of me. As for me? I’m stuck with the images of you lingering in all the things I do and everywhere I go. It’s not fair because I have to pick up the pieces you left and try to move on without you here, as if you were never here. This is my reality here and there’s no way to escape it. You came in, broke down all my walls, all the norms and filled it up with you. It’s always much harder for the person who stays isn’t it?

Eventually, the day will come where you won’t cross my mind anymore and when you do, I’ll proudly smile at the sound of your name and if someone asks, I’ll tell them how amazing our love was. I’ll tell them I’ll always love you and I’ll always mean it. Eventually this will feel like a faraway dream, a beautiful dream of course. I know you couldn’t stay but we both pretended like you could, like we could last forever and go against all the odds. Maybe that was our first mistake right there but I’d like to think of it as not. We were beautiful and I only wish to remember us in that way.

This is a goodbye to you, Huang Zitao, a goodbye to us.

Goodbye.

Love,

Park Sunyoung”

It’s now midnight and Luna is back on the balcony after finishing her letter. Her tears have dried and her heart is unusually calm. In her hand, an envelope address to Huang Zitao. She inhales and makes the first rip right in the middle. She continues ripping the letter up until she can no longer rip it any smaller and walks over to the railing. Opening her palms, Luna inhales once more and blows away every single piece until her palms were empty. She watched the pieces dance along with the wind until they vanished into the night.

The following day she packed up everything she had left of him and stuffed it into a large box before shoving it into the very back of her closet. Luna didn’t quite have the strength to toss it all out yet.

It’s been four months and Luna has forgotten about the box in the back of the closet and the faded pictures she tucked away in an old diary. Instead she’s thinking of what outfit to wear to this date Sulli had set her up with despite her insisting she didn’t feel like dating yet. Still, the arrangements were made and she happened to have nothing to do on this lonely Friday evening so she opts for the jeans since she wanted things to be casual. Super casual.

She arrives at the cafe five minutes before she’s supposed to but that’s common sense. In her hand is a daisy and if her date actually showed up, he’d be donning a daisy in hand as well. Towards the back of the cafe at a table for two, there stands one lone daisy in a makeshift vase from a cup with a stranger’s backside facing her. Her steps are light and cautious as she approaches him. Four steps away, Luna freezes. The stranger turns and he should be alert, startled, surprised but he isn’t. He’s calm and composed like he knew it was her.

They stand an arm’s length apart, neither saying a word. His hair is black instead of the red she remembers it but that’s all that has changed. She scoffs and turns to leave but his voice stops her.

“I just wanted to come home,” Tao says. “And home is wherever you are, Sunyoung.”

[a/n] : ehhhh, didn't turn out the way I had planned but close enough. hope you guys enjoyed it though!