“I“

Sky that pours light
(I) stand under it
Fly as if I’m dreaming
My life is a beauty

Imagine your life in darkness. Every day is like a clouded sky, it is not that you dislike the rain or storm, and it is not even that you prefer lightness. It is just unchanging same things that keep repeating, like a broken record. Certain things and choices that you can‘t do nothing about.

The feeling of going deeper, without seeing any point, without hope that it could actually get better — if you at least tried. No… it doesn’t matter if you try or not. That is what you keep on convincing yourself with — it doesn't matter at all.

When people keep asking about your future plans, you just smile awkwardly unable to comment on it. You’re in that broken state of mind where you ask yourself: future? What is it? How about I will try and survive this day instead? How about I will just distract myself with random movies, clips on Youtube, books that shows me what other people feel. How about if distract myself with MUSIC. That is the only thing that keeps you going forward — that reminds you that even if you feel like the world is ending, there are still good things too. Bright things...

A story I’ve heard often somewhere
Ugly duckling and swan, a butterfly before it flies
People don’t know, they don’t see your wings
A new world you’ve met could be cruel

But strong girl, you know you were born to fly
Tears you’ve cried, all of the pain you’ve felt
It’s to prepare you for the day you’ll fly even higher
Butterfly,
Everybody’s gonna see it soon

Forgotten dream, I draw it again in my heart
Collect all of the times I withdrew and swallow it
Small memories wake me up one by one
It opens me up, as if it’ll fill the whole world

Past the long, long night
Want to embark on the road for a trip again
Why not? In this world,
One word that awakens my heart

 

Despite that darkness which is surrounding you every day, all those insecurities, and uncertainty… a broken record, a silent cry and plead still pops out into your mind — I WANT TO CHANGE IT.

This world is a cruel place for everyone. You wonder sometimes, are people really happy or they’re just to pretend to be this way? When you were little… watching everyone in TV, giving out interviews, telling about adventures and the excitement, you thought: "wow… those people really have it all… I wish I was like them… I wish I could be happy the same way, they are.”

Growing older open up our eyes… suddenly we can see through the cracks. We notice when people are faking their smiles, when they eyes scream “I don’t really want to do any of this”, or “Just make it stop.”

Or at least that is the impression you have whenever you see Im Yoona on your TV screen. Actually, you have seen the girl quite often, she’s both an actress and a singer, a popular one. Probably one of those people that you have envied in the past. Someone you aspired to be and wished you could switch places with.

Suddenly you remember how few years ago you smiled at the same time when this girl laughed giving out interviews, how happy and excited she looked. She’s even younger than you, but still… it felt like watching someone from another planet coming down to earth, leaving her wings behind.

You saw the honest, truthful smile but it changed… did it change because you did as well? Did you believe that she was happy only because you were still naive? Or do we learn to read into other people emotions with time even when we don’t actually know them?

This world is a cruel place… you’re well aware of that.

You know because even though you live in the same home with your parents… you barely talk or even look at each other. There is always unexplainable distance and coldness though they give you all the money you need. But why can’t love be more important than money?

You would have been shocked few years back, but now you’re not surprised when Im Yoona, your favorite idol, announced that she’s leaving the show business for good. You feel relieved actually… maybe this girl is only searching for her own kind of happiness? We’re all humans… we need to find strength, we need to make decisions. You even envy that girl, since she made a choice and is actually sticking to it… if only you were brave enough to do the same thing.

Yesterday, I was alone
Countless gazes
Falling tears
I withstood another day again
Yesterday, that was a close call
All of the words that poured out
It embraced me, who was shaking, again

Sky that pours light
(I) stand under it
Fly as if I’m dreaming
My life is a beauty
My life is a beauty

All of a sudden you feel yourself changing… in a way where instead of speaking with a certain amount of formality, you start writing — “I” not “You.” Surprisingly, thoughts flout easier this way.

And this is how it goes:

Since I don’t see Im Yoona on my screen anymore, I try to imagine that she’s having a better life. For both of us… maybe she’s running around in a field of flowers, sun glistening on her skin. Maybe she’s looking straight at the sun with  glasses on and a small smile is playing on her lips.

I’m surprised that reporters are not chasing her every move, though, there were some articles indicating that the girl just disappeared out of their sight, like she never existed in the first place. All those people that used to run and film or photograph every single detail of this popular idol life now vanished into thin air, searching for new people to annoy.

I’m jealous of the way Im Yoona managed to hide herself. I want to disappear as well… I guess — my wanting to disappear — is quite different than hers. The truth is, I want to stop breathing… or maybe that is just one of those nights were my thoughts going in that direction. Nights when you can’t fall asleep and you recall every single decision that lead you to this moment— are the worst nights of them all. I simply call them — break down. When all you can thing about is… suicide… but at the same time you’re so weak that you just couldn’t find it in yourself to carry out with such plan.

Or maybe that’s only because of that stupid HOPE that constantly gets back into your heart and mind? Maybe I’m too foolish… I think about myself as a pessimistic person but at the same time… I just hope that someone could save me… if not someone… then that I could do it myself. Truth to be told, I want to be the one who saves me. I want to have a happy ending. Don’t you?

Flower petals wilt
I had difficult times, but followed a small light
Distant day, let it go far, faraway
I fly splendidly

Sky that pours light
Renewed eyes (Renewed eyes)
Fly far away (Fly high, fly high)
Beauty that belongs only to me

For the very first time in 5 years I feel brave again… I’m proud of myself for making a decision that people don’t understand. Couple of my closest friends keep questioning if I lost my mind, they insist that I should just stay where I am. I guess they don’t really get me in the end. Should I even call people like that my friends if they’re not supporting me?

There are toxic people everywhere… I can’t change that… sometimes the closer they get, the more toxins they provide…they poison us. I changed my mind a lot in my past but not now… I’m not backing out anymore. I’m not sitting in one place either…

I decided to move away, it is like a road trip, like a search for some place where I could smile… where I could enjoy my days. I couldn’t think of anything better than somewhere with mountains surrounding me so I just went in that direction.

I have the money that my parents provided me, despite everything… despite the lack of emotions from them, I know they want me to be happy… actually I’m surprised when they are supporting me without questioning what has gotten into my head.

For the first time in 5 years I smile my true smile… not the usual one which I forced into my face whenever people expected it. I’m smiling just because I’m driving my car to who knows where… I still smiling even after 4 hours drive when I began to feel sleepy.

I start smiling even wider, even truer after reaching some weird place which title I can't even pronounce, but the only thing I acknowledge is a cozy hotel and mountains surrounding it. It is like a resort that I would like to spend the rest of my life in… I can’t believe my luck after noticing that they’re even searching for new employees to help out with the guests…

I think because of this sudden change in me, this positivity that I don’t know where it came from, I get the job instantly, on that same evening and I believe that I found the place where I can actually belong. It doesn’t even matter where I am…

I smile the widest next morning, after having 10 hours of sleep (the longest I slept in my whole life) and when I go to greet my colleagues. I can’t help it but stare mouth agape after seeing the person that I use to admire, that kept my days a little bit warmer even when I was on the edge of crying.

Im Yoona.

A simple worker in this place.

Just like me.

“I just wanted to find myself, you know? To smile and be happy… we’re all looking for happiness, isn’t it right?”

After her words I change my dumb expression into a happy one. Escaping the rest of the world… it was something that I feared… I feared going away from people that were familiar to me, that provided a safety blanket, I was scared of being alone with my thoughts… but all of a sudden, I don’t anymore.

Who knew… that all I actually had to do… all that I needed… is to start and search for my own happiness… and this time… I keep hearing my own thoughts from the past: HOPE. Hope brought me here.

I keep on smiling like an idiot but not with my lips… no… this time — I’m smiling with my heart.


 

Moment I close my eyes
Time stops
I rise again

“U R“

For a long time, in my heart,
Full of clouds, it rains
For warm sun to shine,
I sincerely hoped.
Raindrops that wet my shoulder,
When I dried, I alone,
Was so afraid that it would remain.
 

You are like a light, after the rain has passed,
You come up in my heart, like this.

Cause you are, the light that fell on me,
You are, like a beautiful dream,
With seven rays, the whole world,
Is dyed even more beautifully, always.
Yeah U R.

I had never believed people when they said that all you need is a change of scenery and you can start a new life at that point. I found it a bit crazy… if you’re not happy in your own room, why all of a sudden you can feel happy somewhere away from your home and from safety that it provides?

But one day…

Im Yoona explained it to me…

The thing is… that we’re not only changing the scenery when we leave, we also change people… especially if you go on your own. You greet new people, you see and hear their opinion and consequently, you start noticing a change in yourself as well. That’s something that happens unconsciously… but it happens to everyone who decide to travel.

All the love songs that I listened to in the past meant absolutely nothing to me. I admired the lyrics and the feeling they tried to provide but I felt a bit stupid when I thought about them. Some artists are quite young, they don’t even know what love is but they sang their hearts out and they got their way into the soul of all of their listeners. Not me...

If other people asked… I lied that they causes the same emotions for me too… that I agree about the greatness of those lyrics but in reality… I couldn’t help but think — how can you sing about love if you haven’t felt it? Or how can you feel the lyrics if that feeling is unfamiliar to you?

But one day…

Im Yoona explained it to me…

As a singer, she had a lot of love songs… she convinced her listeners with lyrics and emotion — that everything is coming from her heart. Even I assumed that she was probably in love while singing them.

It appeared that Im Yoona had never been in love. Her songs provided all those emotions and made others believe when she didn’t believe it herself. Yoona told me that she convinced herself with it, when she had to sing, she imaginged how she’s slowly falling in love and it worked…

I couldn’t understand how someone can just fake it… but I have been faking my smile for so many years… I guess other people have their methods too.

My thoughts went back to all those love songs that I heard in the past, a change of scenery, and happiness for a reason… not so long ago, everything started to make sense.

I listened to those songs and had to put a hand on my heart to stop that trembling feeling. I couldn’t grasp it… is that how people feel when they fall for someone? I felt a bit ashamed asking others about it so I kept it to myself.

But going back to Im Yoona… I spend three months and four days next to her… every day working together, greeting each other with a smile, eating breakfast, going for a walk, eating dinner, talking about everything and nothing.

Yoona told me stories how her happiness suddenly disappeared and she realized that it is now or never, she has to leave the business and go away, or she will go insane. I confessed to her that it was exactly how I felt as well… I even told her about my darkest night when nothing made sense and I wanted to disappear from this world…

She was sad when she heard those stories and I guess I should have cried while talking about it, but her comment left me with a smile. 

“I’m glad you stayed, Tae, or I wouldn’t have met you.”

She said things like that quite often… how she enjoys spending time with me, how glad she is that we are friends and we happen to be in the same place. She also smiled the brightness when she saw me, I know… I might be just assuming it, but she gave me the most attention among all the staff. Also, we knew each other only for a month and she already called me her friend.

Three months later, or should I say, the present moment, we were going stronger than ever. Maybe my heart kept on skipping beats and I kept on losing my breath just because I never had such a caring friend before? Even if my lip quivered slightly showing that I’m feeling distressed, Yoong was already by my side questioning how can she help me out.

She read me like an open book… but one thing she didn’t catch on…

She didn’t realize that I was falling in love with her…

On top of an empty green hill,
Rainbow becomes a roof.
I lay still underneath and look at the sky.
This throbbing I felt for the first time, with peacefulness of the world
More loveable than anyone else

When I turn my head, at your smile,
Unknowingly, I reach my hand out, like this.


 

One month later, we even spend every evening together… watching those same movies that I have seen million times before because I felt lonely, but this time I wanted to show them off, I wanted to hear Yoona’s opinion about all of them, most importantly, I wanted to watch her face and nod my head with agreement when she commented on something.

I’m quite shamelessly hide the fact that I have seen all of those movies so I know what’s happening in one or other scene and that I’m using it so I can see how her face changes time after time, with every scene… how she cries quietly at moments that made me break down in the past, how she laughs when the main characters say or do something hilarious or how she looks really cute whenever the main two characters get to together and I can see her blush at those scenes with lights kisses or grandiose confessions.

I don’t understand the last part though… why you need to scream in the street that you love someone? Why there has to be a rain or a storm that seems to represents those characters love for each other? Why there has to be drama involved and something major needs to happen where they separate for some time, just to realize later that they’re each others happiness? Why can’t it be simple? Just walking up to the person you love and saying “I want to be with you…do you want to be with me too?”

That is probably just my absurd thoughts since I can’t do it in reality… I can’t imagine myself screaming in the rain, and I can’t imagine myself walking out to Yoona and bluntly confessing. There is no hope that she feels the same way… and the fear of losing such a great friend…

I can’t risk it.

Even though she looks really cute whenever she falls asleep in the middle of a movie, after exhausting day at work. She doesn’t know it but one of those nights I couldn’t help myself and leaned in stealing a short kiss on her lips… it was mischievous, I know it was very short… but that was so wrong… and at the same time it felt so right…

I convinced myself that Yoong wouldn’t forgive me for such thing… people care about kisses, it is an expression of love… it was my expression of love but since she’s always repeating that I’m her best friend, YES, we’re even closer now, I can’t put this on her… and I can’t say that my love… is not a love of a friend. Is a love of someone who wants everything with her…

When the rain that wets my windows stops,
Under the Rainbow, you must be waiting.
The stories I couldn’t say,
All of the secrets I couldn’t do,
I want to deliver it today

You are always beside me,
You are inside of my tender heart,
Even more shining and beautifully,
It fills the night sky,
You’re my star
Yeah U R, Oh U R
U R, Oh U R

I’m scared to tell Yoona that I finally know what all of those love songs meant and that I found my happiness with her.