Epilogue

Like a falling asteroid, my heart was beating uncontrollably once in a while.

 I didn’t know how or why, but it did… almost every time I wake up from my dreams that I couldn’t even get to remember once my eyes open.

There are times when I wake up from an afternoon nap and I realized tears were falling from my eyes.

I wondered why I did, but I never found the answer.

But…

But…

The feelings I get never seem to leave even if an hour passed by. It lingers in the atmosphere, as I slowly realized what the emotions are for.

It was like I was trying to search for something, somewhere or someone…

And yet I keep telling myself to stop. I didn’t know what I was looking for.

Stars came falling once again in the horizon, and I couldn’t even muster myself up to make my wish…

I was coward. Looking at the meteors falling in the horizon, it was crazy…  I couldn’t even open my lips.

And yet the stars falling… it was beautiful, like the cherry blossoms I loved ever since I was a child.

It was breathtaking, like a scene out of a dream…

It was a beautiful ending…

I dusted off my jogging pants as I headed to my house from a morning jog. Although I am thirty years old and am still single, I still take care of my figure well. I promised to live well and healthy… It was too late to break that promise. I opened the door leading to my own place and was greeted by warmth as I stepped inside, not that it was dead cold anyway. Spring is coming in a few more days and I was more than thrilled.

Now, with a cup of coffee in my hand to keep me warm, I travel back to the photos hanging absentmindedly in my kitchen counter. It was the photos of my workmates, Bomi and Namjoo, and I. Some were our group photos from work. Slowly, my eyes travelled to an occasional picture of myself and Taemin oppa, who was now in London, being successful in his own career.

We broke up nearly about nine years ago. The reason I had long forgotten. All I could remember that it was winter, and he asked my hand for marriage. I couldn’t bring myself to say yes. He was mad at me for a while, but I was mostly relieved for an unknown reason. He found a reason to forgive me soon enough and we were now great friends.

Although I wondered what will happen if I did say yes in his proposal.

My mom was in entire wonder why I said no to the proposal. She told me that she thought I fell hardly in love with Lee Taemin. Why would I get scared of? Why did I say no? I pondered for that question for a long time, not until I realize that mom said ‘I fell in love’… That was my answer, for I think I was never really ‘in love’ with Taemin oppa.

Ever since then, I never fell in love with anyone else, much less dated.

My life has been wonderful for the past nine years after.

But it didn’t feel complete.

My friends said I just needed someone to bang me hard. Some said, I just need to get a girlfriend.

Don’t get me wrong, I tried going to blind dates and meeting new people, but I never found someone that suits me.

To be honest, I wasn’t really over her. I don’t even think if I ever really did ‘forget’ her. Some days it felt like I did, because there are occasions when I couldn’t even recall her name. There were times I would scream frustratingly to myself to remember, who she was and why she is so important. The answers were slowly slipping off my hands, and then maybe, because of those long, treacherous years, maybe I am starting to forget.

There were some nights though, that I could vividly remember her with the cherry blossoms of spring, that I couldn’t possibly forget. We were much younger then, and the memories felt like a deep scar etched in my heart. There are days I thought it was gone… but some days it just looks so bad and ugly.

And so that leads me here, slowly accepting the fact that maybe I’ll grow old alone and lonely with fifty two puppies. I don’t mind that one bit.

The ringing of my phone woke me up to reality. It was an unknown number but I answered still, thinking that it was probably something important.

It turns out to be one of my old classmates in Busan, Oh Hayoung. She was getting married and asked me to come in her wedding the next month and that her invitation will come in today. True enough, I heard my door bell ring a few minutes later.

Without much more thoughts, I packed my bag and went to the train station, heading off to my old home town that I haven’t visited since I could remember. To be honest, my memories of the place where kinda cloudy and blurry, but it wasn’t totally dark.

Nine years ago… Staring down at the yellow braided cord in my hand, I wondered where I got it. Someone gave it to me, I was certain, but I couldn’t get the answers no matter how hard I cracked my brain.

So I let it be.

I fell asleep in the train. And so I was succumb back to my dreams that only revolved the guessed woman. If only words could travel even at the farthest of the world without vanishing, what would my words be?

Above all, what would my words for her be?

Slowly, my eyes flickered open and I realized that there are tear stains in my cheeks, something I wouldn’t have noticed unless I glanced at the glass window next to me. I was lost, without any more thinking the sad thoughts.

And then without realizing it, there I was, back in the place I know I truly belong…

I am in Busan.

I could’ve been better. I didn’t know if I did. Somehow it felt like it, somehow… it didn’t feel anything at all. Looking up at the twilight dawn coming, I took a sigh and a sip of my morning coffee, staring absentmindedly outside the terrace of my rest house.

With the coldness from the still fresh winter clogs up my nose, I wore my jacket tighter to help ease the pain. I decided to walk out for a moment, along the sidewalk, walking back to the familiar alleys of Busan that I barely been in for the past nine years. I lost my Busan accent too, and almost all my memories as my mind can all replay the past nine years of my life in Japan.

I got a job there, and it pays well, enough for me to go back here in my country and live the rest of my life without even worrying of prizes and dates.

It was as if, I was just waiting for this story to end and maybe who knows? I’ll be a prince in a beautiful castle soon enough, or a captive beast yearning for adventure. I didn’t know.

A Japanese song was playing though my earphones, realizing that it was the entire album of Kimi No Na Wa that is playing. Specifically, the song playing is Sparkle by RADWIMPS. There were lines that stuck to me the most while listening to it back then. ‘Even the way I walked carried the sound of your laughter, faced with the fact that you’ll disappear, I have no choice but to burn your entire existence in my memory. I no longer perceive it as right, I feel that it’s my duty!’

I didn’t know why… but every time I heard those lines, a certain surge of pain hits my chest, and then tears will fall no matter how I tried to make it stop.

“I didn’t expect you to show up.” My long time best pal, Park Chorong muttered through my smart watch as I glance at the invitation card I was reading that moment. “You’ve been avoiding South Korea like a plaque.”

“I didn’t. I just didn’t feel like coming back. I have no one to go back for.” I helplessly muttered, heading to a bus stop.

I wished I didn’t.

For starting that moment, I realized why I never went back.

Staring at that familiar bus stop… watching as the first blossoms come to life… seeing it blossom beautifully in the weather… raising the camera hanging in my neck for a picture…

I started seeing what I failed to see in this past nine years.

Myself.

Back then, I actually thought of finding myself but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was hard for me, to even go back in this country, knowing that every step will be more nostalgic than it already is. I was a coward, and still am… I wish I overcame that part…

Feeling something cold in my cheek, I quickly touched it only to find out that a tear fell. I was crying. Why was I crying? I don’t know.

For the past years, I was waking up in a dream, a dream I could never recall once I wake up. I had a certain longing inside me, and as I go forth with my life every day, there are moments I caught myself crying alone, without explanations, without reasons.

I thought I was going insane, but then I noticed I was just chasing for something…

Maybe some place or some name I couldn’t remember.

I was chasing for a name. That’s one real thing.

*tok*tok*tok*

“Ah , out of all days, it decided to rain now?”

I cussed in the wind, feeling my sleeves getting soaked from the big droplets. Not wanting to get sick since I easily get cold, I ran to the bus stop for shelter. Indeed, it was hard being on a different country and getting used to it.

Right there and then, I saw a woman, huddled up in a corner, crying.

I couldn’t see her face, I could barely make out of her figure too. It felt like she’s familiar but at the same time, she felt foreign. She makes me feel foreign inside.

My hand worked on its own and before I knew it, I took a photo of her.

“Beautiful…” I muttered.

Suddenly, I heard a loud horn from a truck running by. Seeing the muddled streets, it was my instinct to scream ‘look out’ to the woman or else she’ll get wet.

She didn’t move, and somehow… I figured that out.

So instead, I ran forward and stood in front of her, to protect her from the cold mud. Only then I guess that she noticed my presence. Only then too, that I caught a glimpse of her.

I was right. She was beautiful.

I felt that presence, and as I looked up and stared right through those brown eyes, I found my answers.

Tears stopped pouring from her eyes, and I didn’t think twice in wiping it away. Not knowing and realizing it though, I was crying as well.

Her brown orbs were crying so beautifully. I didn’t know why she did but it tugged my heart.

I felt like an idiot. But it felt like I was meant to be her idiot anyway. Without knowing, I felt my hand finding the shutter button once again and pressing it, snapping yet another picture.

She took a photo of me, and I was supposed to be mad but I’m not… instead, I cried more again.

“You look cute while crying… I had to stop myself.” I told her, explaining myself with a smile on my face.

I wiped the tears off her eyes and giggled. “Why were you crying…? Is it about your clothes?”

Only then I realized I was very wet indeed. I laughed it off heartily, as she did too. I saw how she tucked her hair back, and I saw a bracelet rolled on her wrist. It wasn’t a bracelet. It was a braided cord.

Her eyes were fixed at my wrist before it slowly landed back on my eyes. Slowly I saw her smile, before handing out her hand.

“Can I ask for your name?” She came to ask me.

She was taken back, but amidst to that, she took my hand still.

And with her pretty lips, she answered. “I’m Naeun. Son Naeun.”

She smiled wider at me after. Her hand didn’t let go mine at all… and as the cherry blossoms bloomed prettily that spring, I guess I finally learned the name I’ve been chasing all along at least.

“I’m Eunji. Jung Eunji.”

I’m tired of this hide and seek with time and place… but that five seconds when she told me her name and that I told her mine, I felt everything else is complete. Maybe a new beginning would lead us to a new ending, a beautiful one. And maybe, this time around, we can make it right.

Without warning, with our hands still holding each other, she lunged forward and hugged me tightly. It’s been so long, and the overwhelming feelings inside me were flowing like a waterfall. I couldn’t help it. My tears started to fall yet again.

“D-don’t leave me like that, ever again… Don’t slip right through my fingers again… Don’t let me go…” She said.

I wasn’t shocked when I came to hug her. In fact, my hands didn’t feel like letting go that moment, afraid… afraid that maybe I wouldn’t see her again.

I was afraid, but the fear was slowly disappearing away as she continued whispering in my ears soothingly.

“I won’t…. I will never let you go ever again… Not this time, not in the next chapters… So please don’t cry.”

She shook her head in disagreement, still hugging me tightly. I was hugging her back, but then even when I can’t see her eyes, I understood.

I understood the reason why she smiled when she was sad, or why she cried when she was happy… Maybe, in a twist of time, our hearts has surpassed us.

Maybe… this time around, we could have the beautiful happy ending we are both wishing for, for all our life.