You gently place the bouquet of pear flowers on the grass and sit down. The sunlight warms your back, but the ground remains cool. You think about how unfair that seems, how the beautiful things in life usually only reach surface level. Sulli will never get to feel the sunlight again, buried underneath in the cold dark ground.

“I hope you’re happy up there, bro,” you whisper as you trace the marbled patterns on her tombstone. 

It’s been almost a year but for some reason, you still can’t get over Sulli’s passing. It wasn’t like you two were that close. Rather you felt like you had missed a kindred spirit in life, someone with whom you’d be friends if you actually gave the relationship a chance. But you didn’t. You put yourself first, your studying, your extracurriculars. And you missed this opportunity to get to know someone who clearly wanted to be friends with you.

“Amber?”

You hear the quiet footsteps behind you, but you don’t turn. Someone sits down next to you, their shadow stretching over the grass. You feel a timid pat on your back as you angrily swipe at your eyes with your arm.

“I—sorry. I didn’t know you’d be here,” Krystal stammers.

You rise.

“Couldn’t bother to call, could you?” you mutter.

Krystal doesn’t say anything and you’re not sure what you even want to hear. Ever since that day when you all learned about Sulli, things changed between you two. She had invited you to the service but that was it. The entire school seemed to be there—ironic considering how Sulli was the victim of merciless bullying. Death seemed to draw the curious.

You stood at the back and watched as the priest prayed for her soul, as her family sobbed when they passed by her casket, as the funeral managers lowered her into the ground. Krystal had been at the forefront of everything since her and Sulli were close. You listened as she wept inconsolably during her eulogy, barely able to choke out the words. When the final shovels of dirt had been patted down, you saw her fall to her knees and clutch at the ground. She stayed there for hours after in the pouring rain. You desperately wanted to go and comfort her, but because you weren’t part of the close friends and family group, you had to watch from outside the graveyard g