22,147 mornings after I last saw Wheein. I still remember her hot human breath hitting my lips right before she tried to kiss me. “I’m already dying to kiss you.” She had said in a whisper with her cracking voice. I could still feel myself tremble because of that day. “That’s the best part,” I had stuttered out while caressing her cheek. “Dying is the ethereal part. I want to see you dying everyday, because the next morning I know you will wake up and try living again, only to end up dying again. Each and every day you will die differently and all of those little deaths are going to be ethereal. Being dead is no fun.” I had chuckled and lifted her body up to place her back on her seat.

I saw her lazily wake up every morning for 950 mornings. I saw her live life to the fullest, driving the whole Korea, running away from everything, trying to find home. I saw her crush herself into a different bed in a hotel room every single one of those days, slowly dying, her breath becoming a faint noise until she fell asleep.

I heard her talk to me about her dreams, every single one of them. I heard her laugh at my lame jokes and my serious words, because everything was a joke to her childish brain that I got to know as time went by. I heard her giggle at the smallest things. I heard her scream whenever she tried something crazy like bungee jumping and I heard her moan in pain each time she would get hurt. Of course, in those times I would chew my lips until I tasted the angel blood in my tongue, I would feel my wings get heavy and my skin hurt as much as hers.

I learned about her favorite books, about the way she took her coffee in the morning, about her favorite foods and songs. I learned about her life more than I expected.

She slowly creeped inside my being and found home there, even though everyday she kept running, driving her car as far as possible from everything, until she settled for nothing. She found a small apartment, she found a friend who slowly perhaps became a lover after I left. She found a stable job as a dancer in a huge company and found herself.

And I had to leave. . I packed all the things she made me feel and every memory I had with her inside myself and left, giving her a short hug and a small kiss on the cheek. “I don’t want to lose you again.” She had said to me with her cracking voice. I didn’t know where I found the words to reply, but I know I did. I told her that losing people is normal and I would be lost until she found me again. Saying that, but barely believing it myself, I told her that I loved her and then left, not looking back, unsure that I could take one more step ahead if I d