Your mom is crying when she calls me. Full-blown, choked, sobbing type of crying, the sound of which makes me start getting teary-eyed, and I bet you remember this, for you always made jokes of me whenever it happened. And it’s not the usual ones we got to hear every so often when we were children, not just tiny gasps and small voice telling us to not get ourselves in danger, not just tears streaming down her face like that one time when you fell from a tree after failing to grasp a branch. But I don’t get to ask what’s wrong,  what has happened,  because right then she says,

“Taehyung, Jeongguk.”

I simply know, Taehyung. She’s crying, she’s calling me and talking to me and she’s gasping when she spells your name and, Taehyung, I hope you realise that we are no longer friends, hasn’t been for the longest time, but she’s on my line and she’s crying about you, and I know.

“Is he okay?” I still ask.

“No, Jeongguk. Not okay. He’s got into an accident.” A sob. Two. “Taehyung... Taehyung is...” the choking comes back, your mom couldn’t continue her explanation but I understand.

You’re dead, Taehyung, has been so for the past two hours.

How could you leave like that? How could you let your mother cries into her phone to me like that? How could you let this conversation, the very first conversation between me and someone from your family after years and years of not even glancing towards each other’s way,  happens? But you’re dead, and it’s very wicked of me to blame you for something that you can no longer control.

A truck hits you when you’re trying to cross the street. The sad thing is, Taehyung, I can imagine you walking, probably wearing your ratty shirt and jeans, hair in messy curl, probably a little wet from your shower just five minute ago. You’re walking, and you’re minding your business, probably humming to a song I would never listen, and then suddenly it’s over. A truck runs over you so fast that you probably see your life flashing before you, memories playing ever so swiftly and you’re gasping for oxygen, you’re needing an ambulance, you need someone to hold you and tell you that it’s alright, you need someone you love and loves you back, but they never come. Everything you need so, so badly never come.

And then you’re getting impatient, you’re tired of wanting and gasping, and then you remember me. You’re thinking, Jeongguk, so, so sadly, and your brain is reminiscing things between us, the wrongs and the rights and the somewhere in betweens, but you’re giving up and I’m still not there to ask you to forgive me and to grant you forgiveness. And before too long, you’re no longer breathing. You’re gone.

What bothers me so much, Taehyung, is the fact that you love this world. You’re awake everyday with the sole purpose of sharing some happiness with everyone, you’re sweet and loved, you’re lively and living, and then one day the world decides to erase your existence, takes you away just like that, unforgiving and mean and I can’t help but wonder, how, Taehyung, how can life does that to you?

Your mother is still crying on the telephone. It’s been ten minutes. I hope I could say something, anything to ease her pain, but I always hope for things that are stupid and unattainable, and we both know that.

She has something to say to me she can’t yet say, it’s about you, I can see her figure in my mind, clutching her blouse and searching for the right time to drop the bomb. But we are no longer friends, and she knows that too, probably the biggest reason why she hasn’t said it. She’s contemplating whether telling me is the right decision, but at this point she can’t no longer see what’s right, and what’s not. Her son is dead. Dead. Dead. She’s crying again, and there are tears in my eyes, prickling every so often and wanting to fall fall fall, to form a river in my cheeks, but I won’t let them fall, Taehyung, not when she’s already listening to my uneven breathing, to the mess I turn into the minute she breaks the news.

“Taehyung wrote a letter. It’s for you.”

I stand so still upon registering her words. You’re writing to me before you die, you have a letter for me, you still think of me. Again, Taehyung, I hope you realise that we are no longer friends, and I know a letter is just a letter, but you’re dead and I’m alive and I loathe that fact so much because as much as I hate you for ruining us, I don’t want you gone, Taehyung. Not now, not ever.

“Do you want me to have it?” I ask, just in case.

She nods, but I can’t never see it. At the end, she trembles, “Yes. I think it’s very important for you to have it.”

“Thank you.” I say, oh-so-thankful. “I’ll come.”

You live seven-minute away from me. It used to feel close, I just have to get out my bike and then I’ll be there in no time. But it’s been so long since I go your way, Taehyung, it’s been too long since we visit each other, and I use the seven-minute walk to its fullest, moving so slowly and unsure, hesitating so much that I keep stopping to take a breath.

But you’re dead, and I shouldn’t have a reason to feel awkward when your mind, your thoughts, and your actions will never be something I have to face. Not anymore.

Remember that time when you were grounded after getting into a stupid fight in middle school? I don’t really remember the reason behind your anger that led you to finally punch the hell out of that burly kid, but I do remember the ten p.m call you gave me.

“I’m bored,” you said, sounding tired and adventurous at the same time. “What are you doing, Jeongguk?”

“Eh,” I answered, looking around my room and the thick blankets pulled over my chin. Honestly, I was going to sleep, but it was ten and I knew very well you’d laugh at me and say like, oh, our baby Jeonggukkie is already going to sleep?  So I lied, “Just reading.”

“Cool, cool.”

“Yeah, cool.” I repeated, young and dumb.

You said some words, something along the line of let’s sneak out for the night and I knew very well that my mother and yours would be very upset, but I was young and dumb and you were older and smarter and I looked up to you so much. So I said yes, okay, see you in our place in five and hung up.

You were already there when I arrived, tall yet small under the moonlight, I vividly remember. We spent the night just talking under the sky, with the grass a little bit damp underneath our jackets, lying down beside each other and I felt grown-up, so, so old and mature. And then your fingers caught mine, and you smiled and I smiled back and everything was suddenly too bright, but I cherished that moment, Taehyung, you know I did, and still do, too. At that time it didn’t ever cross my mind that someday, someday our paths won’t cross anymore. That’s a common knowledge between us, too, how I was always the hopeful child.

Not anymore, though, never again. You know why, Taehyung.

But your letter, Taehyung, your letter finds its way to my hands. Your family hasn’t opened it, looking at the still glued envelope, or maybe they did and I didn’t know, I would never know. Would you know? It’s just a letter, I try to tell myself, you die and you leave a letter, that’s all. We are no longer friends for the longest time. How could a letter this small make any difference? You’re dead, there’s nothing that can change between us. I’m still not your friend, you’re still not my friend.

With quivering fingers I open it. I try not to show too much feelings, you’re not my friend and I don’t love you, but your letter, Taehyung.

You don’t start your letter with a boring to: Jeongguk or a too-cliche dear jeongguk, and for a second I wonder how your mother knows that this letter is for me, for I don’t see any of my name in these papers, not even the envelope. But then I see the tiny drawing on the corner, and my chest suddenly feels too heavy, clutching and clutching and not allowing me to breathe, and you’re everywhere in my head but you’re dead, Taehyung, you are. I could no longer touch you and ask you why are you doing this to me and yell at you for remembering that character f