Dark. Everything is dark in his apartment; an inevitable dark that he always welcome. The darkness is coloring the view; so does his soul. He is there, sitting on the couch, alone. He is there too on the couch looking solemnly at the door wishing it will be opened soon; by someone. A precious someone that he has been waiting for days, or years.

Waiting is painful so does uncertain future.

He couldn’t recall when the last time he heard the news. The same news that had been top articles in the country for weeks, or months; the same news that had crashed his dream which now only left is a mere hope.

How long has he keeps the hope anyways?

Was he wrong to choose to wait and refused the reality when that’s what he promised to be long before the nightmare happened.

Accident happened and it wasn’t just lost one soul, hundreds at least.

“Wait for me till I return, so we’ll officially tie the knot.”

“I will…”

He waits still. On the same couch he took the oath with his significant other is the same couch he has been sitting on. Reminiscing back the days before it happened. Tracing back to the spot where the other has touched while they once stayed together before he went somewhere out there.

Unfortunately never return.

No more tears shed any longer. It has been dried years ago. No one see him mourning over the accident, the horrible incident and no one know what he did behind his locked door either.  People said as forgetting is as easy when everything keeps reminding him of the other. Jaejoong begs to differ. Forgetting as difficult as anything he ever experienced before.

What’s more forgetting Shim Changmin, his other half.

The more Changmin gone, the more he blamed himself accused his jeopardy of greediness for demanding. He demands one special custom made to signify them as a couple and Changmin volunteered to go.

As he goes fetching the dreams they once shared, come back with the soul without the presence. Come back with breaking news instead of his hug, come back with couple of sorrows not the couple rings.

Jaejoong believed Changmin wasn’t in the list of names that has been spreading all in the country but his name was there on 23^rd from the top. Jaejoong hated it to see Changmin’s name at the list that has been confirmed that he walked lifelessly around town bring a black marker along. At each of the list, he will cross his significant other’s name on the 23^rd row.

In other citizen eyes, Jaejoong has lost his sanity, but in reality of despair he just couldn’t accept the harsh reality that he is now alone without the warm presence of the other, without the soothing humming from the other, without the other.

On the countless list when his black marker was out of ink, he finally broke down that it has been days he strolled around town, erasing the name not the accident. Passer-by are pitying him but Jaejoong wants more than a simple pity stare. He wants his Shim Changmin back.

A year after the incident, on the public eyes, his close friends, his relatives, his officemates and anyone around him, they thought that Jaejoong had finally accepted the truth, accepted the absence; accepted that he could no longer feel the presence accepted that things are actually happened.

He is back to be the same Kim Jaejoong before the nightmare happened. He is back to smile at anyone passed by him, he is back to cook for his relatives and family, he is back to work and he is back to being a loner. Kim Jaejoong is finally back.

Behind his locked apartment’s door is where he pours out his tears, his despair, his loneliness, his troublesome to adapt with the cold night, his fear of tomorrow, his sorrow. Once reached home, he always prepared dinner for two out of habit or sometimes ordered food for two. It has always the two of them.

Tired of waiting for the unreal return of his lover, he spent his time on the couch, on the same exact spot he had his last conversation with the person he loves the most, his precious significant other. The black leather couch had witnessed everything from their love to his greediness, to Changmin’s sincerity to the now heartbroken pain he suffered.

He no longer sees light in his apartment. Curtain closed as he wants everything to remain intact as before the accident and in his delusion mind he wished Changmin to greet him someday and put on end to this his lame of prankster jokes.

“It wasn’t funny now, Changmin…”

He uttered the words to no one but to his self, to soothe the pain, to calm the scars from re-opening again and to be strong again to face another day without his presence tomorrow.

Empty. Fully-furnished apartment is now empty even with the presence of the owner. The small apartment that they shared in buying together signify that everything has to be ‘couple things’ though it was sappy at first when Changmin sputtered the idea was now what he has been living in. The spacious room now suffocated with memories that he wished to play back it again and again.

From the black leather couch, Jaejoong threw his glance at the picture that hung on the wall next to the door. It was them in one frame showing their exuberant smiles, showing their smiles, their happiness before everything was taken away from him, from them.

On the frame of the picture, he stared long and unconsciously tears streaming down unknowingly. Every single memories now is like mocking him that despite the special luxurious things he demands, the most precious thing is always be the presence of your beloved.

Because when things gone, it will never return back to you. This is life. Once it is gone, it will never return.

Jaejoong had lost his chance to feel the love that once he basked in. Regrets and self-blaming are what he has been doing this past days and even so his other half will never offer his shoulder to cry on again.

Was he too late?

A/N: If you see I left the genre empty because I wasn't sure what kind of craps I just wrote. So, genre anyone?