When we returned to Seoul after our trip to my hometown, Dahyun and I decided to look for Song Yunhyeong. Luckily, he still lived where those letters came from so it wasn’t hard to find him at all; his apartment was roughly ten minutes away from our subdivision on the bus. It was the middle of January and we stood outside his door, holding the letters that he had sent to my dead brother, wondering if we made the right choice.

“Go on, June,” Dahyun pushed. “We can’t back away now. We’re here.”

I knocked on the door, and soon, we heard approaching footsteps on the other side. At this point, the door opened and revealed a pair of brown eyes staring back at us. A skinny guy no taller than me, tan skin, brown hair and good looking features.

I was more nervous than the time Dahyun had introduced herself to me.

“What is it?” the guy asked.

“Um,” Dahyun began, and then cleared . “Are you, perhaps, Song Yunhyeong?”

“Yup.”

“Are you busy right now?”

He chuckled. “What could two high schoolers possibly want from a guy like me?”

“Answers,” Dahyun said blatantly.

“That’s interesting. But what is it, really? School project?”

“Can we at least come in first—?”

“I’m Jinhwan’s little brother,” I cut in.

His smile suddenly faded. There was something else that changed in Song Yunhyeong’s expression when I said those words, I just couldn’t make out what it was. He looked at me, and then the letters.

“I see. Come in.”

Song Yunhyeong’s apartment was nothing out of the ordinary. It was small, typical for someone of his age to reside in, but by all means it didn’t look like he was living alone. His hallway contained neat rows of both men and women’s shoes. I thought, perhaps he lived with the girl he talked about in the letters. It looked like he was watching a foreign movie before we intruded in.

“Coffee?”

“No thank you,” Dahyun and I echoed. We sat on one of the two couches, and Yunhyeong sat on the other, just right across us.

“What are your names?”

“Dahyun.”

“June—Junhoe.”

“And why do you have those?” he asked, making no delay of why we were there in the first place. “My letters.”

“Jinhwan died three years ago,” I said, straight to the point. Yunhyeong stayed quiet, he was waiting for me to say more. “My parents—they say that he died during a car accident. I was in that accident, too, and I survived, but in return I lost all memory of my older brother. Here,” I said, handing him the letter that Jinhwan never sent.

My brother’s suicide letter.

Yunhyeong’s eyes started to water ten seconds upon reading that certain letter. Dahyun started crying, too. I wanted to cry along with them, but I couldn’t. Maybe it felt that way because I had thought and cried about it so often—too often, to the point where I had no more tears left in me.

He wiped his tears away, and carefully folded the letter. “So you’re saying that your parents are trying to hide the truth from you?”

“I guess so. But that’s not really why I’m here.”

“You said you were looking for answers.”

“I am. But you couldn’t possibly give me an answer to why my parents lied to me. I’m really just here to give you a letter that belonged to you.”

“He talked so often about you in his letters,” Yunhyeong said. “And that guy’s worst nightmare really came true.”

I shot him a look.

He wiped more of his tears away, but it wasn’t enough to stop the rest from pouring out. His eyes just continued leaking. “How tall are you, Junhoe?”

“Six foot.”

He chuckled at that, continuing to wipe his eyes. “You grew taller than your brother. That’s what he was so scared of.”

I laughed.

“I wondered for so long why that fool stopped sending me letters. I thought it was possible that he finally found a girl and forgot about our friendship—that’s what tends to happen to a lot of friends, right? Or, even worse, I’d said something in my past letters that had offended him. He was always talking about starting anew, so I thought it was also possible that he stopped replying to me to do just that—start anew. At first, I was angry and hurt. And then, months after, I learned how to deal without him and his letters. I just wished him the best and hoped he was happy and getting on with his life or something. I thought that something bad might have happened to him, but I always pushed those bad thoughts out just in case they came true. Who knew something as terrible as this actually happened?”

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“You’re not here just to bring this letter to me, are you?” Yunhyeong suddenly asked. “You’re here, hoping to remember your brother again.”

Dahyun and I nodded our heads.

“You guys hang on, wait here a little.” He walked into a room somewhere and Dahyun and I shot each other a weird look when we heard a bit of rummaging. Yunhyeong stepped out of the room holding a yellow-coloured shoebox and handed it over to me. “These are the letters he sent to me. I hope it helps you.”

“I—”

“Those letters are very dear to me. Now, you promise you’ll bring it back?”

“Yes. I’ll bring it back for sure.”

“I’ll be keeping these ones, then?” he said, pointing at the letters that we’d brought.

“Thank you,” we both said. “We’ll be on our way, then.”

I handed him the letters, and in return he gave me Jinhwan’s goodbye letter.

“No, it’s yours to keep,” I told him. “That letter was meant for you.”

“Show it to your parents. Then bring it back to me along with that box. I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about when you see me again. Take your time, Junhoe.”

. . .

On the midnight of my eighteenth birthday, at the beginning of spring and on the last day of March, I woke up to another one of Dahyun’s ridiculous phone calls. I didn’t complain, or mutter words underneath my breath, or tell her off. I was used to it already, so I just listened.

“Happy birthday, June!” she shouted down on the phone.

“Thank you.”

“Let’s celebrate it well tomorrow! What do you want to do?”

“I just want to sleep all day.”

“Don’t be boring.”

“It’s true, though. Your late night phone calls make me even drowsier through the day.”

“My parents are away tomorrow, how about we call the others and drink a few beers here?”

“Hm.”

“C’mon! Drinks and food are on me! I’ll order your favourite pizza.”

I chuckled. “Your parents almost killed you when they found a can of beer that Jiwon left last time.”

“It’s okay, they won’t find out this time. I promise.”

“What time should I come over?”

“Seven.”

“Okay.”

“See you then. Sleep well tonight, birthday boy!”

There was suddenly a loud thud outside. I looked through the blinds of my bedroom windows, and across the road I saw Hanbin carrying a heavy bag from a car into Dahyun’s house. Chanwoo and Tzuyu were both there as well, carrying a big box together, and I could just barely make out that it was Jiwon’s silhouette with Dahyun on the windows inside. They looked like they were arranging furniture.

Once it clicked in, and I found out exactly what they were doing. I was touched. It made me laugh, too, seeing them plan a surprise party for me.

It was a soft and warm feeling as I stood there watching my friends.

And I suddenly thought of this:

My brother and I were similar in that aspect. We were both blessed with good people in our lives.

When we left Yunhyeong’s apartment that time, Dahyun was still crying. But for some weird reason, I felt a spark of gladness. My brother had a good friend who cared about him before he left this world. He wasn’t alone after all.

. . .

surf boy //