Part 4

He let her go.

Though the glowing digits on the clock moves passed midnight Bok Joo doesn’t come home. It’s not their first fight but it is their worst. His words were as harsh as they were untrue but he had to let her go for her own good.

She doesn’t deserve to be with someone as worthless as him. That’s all he knows as he stares at the ceiling.

His busted shoulder aches with every intake of breath. It shattered just meters before the finish line, and just like that he’s finished. No more medals, no more cheering crowds.

Simply being able to swim, to feel the comforting pressure of water around him was enough once upon a time but not anymore. One day he stopped swimming only for himself and every he took was for Bok Joo as well. For her future, for their future, and now that future is gone.

He pushed her away.

The person she trusted more than anyone in the world pushed her away just like that. She refused to believe him at first. Refused to believe his words even when they ripped her apart but in the end she had to believe them; Joon Hyung doesn’t love her anymore and he doesn’t need her.

She ran out of tears a long time ago and now she’s just wandering. She’s walked for ages and her feet are blistering but she knows if she stops moving she’d crumble completely.

Without meaning to she’s ended up outside Jae Yi’s clinic and she lets out a strangled laugh at the irony. Her first heartbreak seem so long ago. She should feel hopeful right? She moved passed it then, she could do the same again. But she knows it’s not the same. Back then Joon Hyung was by her side, now he’s gone. She will never be able to call him her husband or Jae Yi her brother in law.

He let her go.

He can still remember her smiling at him from the bleachers that day. It was his last day competing at the 2020 Olympics and seeing that smile made him feel invincible.

He’d already won all of his events and he knew he’d be welcomed home a hero if he placed first this time too. Despite the pressure he doesn’t feel nervous and as he swim he feels stronger than ever. Nothing feels out of place until that last when the pain overwhelms him.

Bok Joo holds his hand at the hospital and she cries for him when he can’t do so himself. The doctors are sombre and in the end he’s sent back to Korea for further evaluation. Back to his apartment that could just as well be called Bok Joo’s because she spends more time here than at her own place.

She won’t be back though.

He may not have busted his shoulder on purpose but he broke his heart when he choose to let her go.

He pushed her away.

Her chest feels empty—that’s a better way to describe it. Because her heart isn’t really broken; she gave her heart to Joon Hyung a long time ago and he gave her his in return. But he took his back and now she’s not whole.

It sounds more profound like that. Maybe she’s a philosopher like Joon Hyung sometimes say to . In Kyoto they once walked the rough stone path between the Silver pavilion and Nanzenji. It was early morning, the last cherry blossom petals were sailing through the air and the grass was glistening with dew. He told her then that this was Bok Joo’s path—the Philosophers path, and she’d chased him until he laughingly promised to buy her ice cream.

Will she ever laugh like that again?

Her feet have a will of their own and they take her back to Haneul, to the toad’s pond where the silver coins glisten on the rocks. They still pray here before every competition and Bok Joo can’t help wonder if maybe they prayed too hard for their success and not enough for them.

She walks to the lake next. The wind is quiet tonight and she can see the lights reflect in the water like hundreds of stars. When she was at her lowest, Joon Hyung held her here right in this spot.

He’s not here now, though. She’s alone.

He let her go.

He dreams of Bok Joo. Of her arms around him, her breath against his ear and her hair tickling his neck. He tells her he loves her because it’s only a dream and the real Bok Joo will never know. Her tears start to fall at that, creating puddles on his skin.

“Tell me again.” She pleads, and that’s when he realise it’s not a dream and that she’s really there.

He should let her go but he can’t; not a second time.

She holds him as his own tears starts to fall and she tells him not to worry, that she knows he feels hopeless right now. She tells him he’ll compete again and that he’s not worthless.

“I went to the lake Joon Hyung-ah.” She whispers, her lips against his throat. “I remembered how I felt after Coach Choi left and your brother saw me lifting weights… and I realised that you must feel the same way.”

He cries until daybreak, while Bok Joo holds him like he once held her, and when the morning rays hits his face he knows they will never let each other go.

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