He stares emotionlessly at the melting candles topping his small birthday cake, alone in the darkness of his shabby apartment.

Today is supposed to be a day of celebration, but he’s doomed to remember the painful memories of that dreadful day, four years ago. The day he lost the love of his life, the only person who had ever understood and listened to him, the only person he ever loved and who truly loved him in return.

He remembers it painfully well, unfortunately. He remembers exactly what he had been doing that day, like all of it had suddenly become of crucial importance.

He remembers the grave faces of the police officers who knocked on his door to tell him about the accident, he remembers how sorry they looked. It was like a knife to his heart.

He remembers the unbearable pain, knowing he could never hold him in his arms again, never tell him he loved him again, never look into his eyes and feel the genuine love he felt for him. The suddenness of it all made it even worse, if that was even possible.

He remembers the denial that followed. As soon as he had closed that door, he had been convinced he had imagined all of it. Like he had wished for it all to be a dream so much that his mind had been convinced that it, indeed, wasn’t true. He had even felt foolish for crying over something that hadn’t happened, when in reality, it had...

He remembers the pain when he realized. The way he had cried his eyes out for hours until there was no single tear left in his body to cry. He remembers the emptiness, the numbness, like the news had left a gaping hole in his chest where his heart was, like the very core of him had been shattered into a million pieces and there was nothing left of him but a broken shell.

He remembers the grief. The looks on everybody’s faces at the funeral when they presented their condolences, the coffin slowly being lowered into the ground, the coldness of his apartment when he came back home alone. The grief was a nightmare he waited to wake himself up from.

In front of his birthday cake, he can feel the tears slowly running down his cheeks and sniffs, wiping his drooling nose with his sleeve.

“I miss you.” He whispers with a sob. “God, I miss you so much.”

Sometimes, the painfulness of some memories never fade. It just disappears for a while, when you’re not thinking about them, but they come back running once you do… and you can feel it all over again.

Still, we keep on living with those painful memories.

Stay strong, Kibum. ♥