“He knows I can’t tell a joke without laughing. And how I’m always talking about second chances. He knows I sleep all day and wake up tired. And I could never give anyone a straight answer.

I cried the first time I told him about you. I said I was so sorry as he held me so close. He said he knew why my eyes were like searchlights. How they looked at the sky with such longing. And why I read my stars in the paper each morning.

He left me one sunday with his cup half empty. I padded downstairs and saw the writing on the wall. outside, the rain was already falling. And there were still pieces of you behind every door.”

ー Memories, Lang Leav. 

Yuna was never confident.

Though her smiles and actions were always done with certainty, there’s always the one second of fragility that Seokmin doesn’t fail to see.

Seokmin knows; that she can never tell a joke straight to him without holding back the bubbliness inside her.

He remembers, the countless times she’s seen a joke whether off from the internet, from her friends or just at any point of her life, she would never fail to turn to him with unhidden cheekiness in her dark brown eyes which reminded him of the teddy bear he saw at the edge of her room that he never got an explanation from.

With the words that sink in her heart piercing laughter, Seokmin would always end up laughing along due to the joy that the girl’s laugh brought him; not from the poorly delivered set of words.

Seokmin knows; how badly Yuna dwells herself in the thought of ‘second chances’.

He vaguely remembers the time she almost got kicked from her part time job at the cafe nearby their school due to her unfailing clumsiness.

The accidental spill of the mocha latte on a customer’s white, high end brand of coat. The unforgiving complains from the mid aged woman who’s attitude wasn’t as pleasant as Yuna hoped it would be. The ear piercing scoldings from the manager who seemed so kind hearted to her when she was a fresh face; one of the earliest willing staff for the newly opened cafe.

He wasn’t sure what was it that made her beg for a ‘second chance’, for she has always had a stable source of money from her parents who had not once complained about so.

But he didn’t question it.

Seokmin knows; no matter how much time she’s spent on the mattress in the four walls room; her bedroom, or the fabric of the velvet red sofa in the middle of the living room, she would always wake up with the tire wrapping her up in ribbons.

The last time he went to spend the Sunday at Yuna’s house, it was truly a lazy Sunday.

A whole day dedicated to cuddles and warmth, movies left playing for a rhythm for the clock to tick by to, eyes closed in peace. Waking up, the guy felt a burst of energy in him, ready for a wholesome activity. As he looked at the girl next to him, he noticed that she wore the same face she went to sleep with.

It was the first time Seokmin truly understood what a ‘lazy date’ meant, but he couldn’t say that he hated it.

Seokmin knows; giving a certain answer was never Yuna’s forte.

Like the time she threaded on the line of apologizing or standing up for what’s right when confronted with the teacher who might’ve been a little irrational from all the problems in his hands.

Or like the time she couldn’t choose such a simple question; when her friends asked her if she preferred a navy blue or maroon red coat for her birthday.

Seokmin knows; how much pain the guy brought to Yuna.

He remembers the tears that each were filled with a piece of her shattered heart. How with each held in choke of tears, Yuna’s grip on the hem of Seokmin’s ash grey sweater would tighten.

He knew that Yuna was left broken from the guy’s permanent absence from her life; but he didn’t know that she was left as shattered, with no piece big enough for her to hide behind.

The ‘sorrys’ he heard that night as he calmed her down, he hated hearing them. He disliked the thought of such a lively girl like Yuna herself, repeating apologies that were said to be directed to him, apologising for her flaw of breaking down; an action that is nothing less, nothing more than being humane.

Despite that, he could hear the slip second of mumble from her, a voice so small as if he was hearing it from a child who was scared of a sketchy looking stranger.

The hoarse mumble of, “Sorry that I’m not good enough for you,”

Though he didn’t mention it, Seokmin wasn’t dumb.
He knew that it wasn’t directed to him.

He was mad at himself, he wants to search relief from the heartache by saying that he knew the guy wasn’t the nice, gentlemanly him that he was in front of Yuna, how he had a side that Yuna happened to be blind to though it was so evident to Seokmin. He badly wanted to do so, but he couldn’t.

Although the guy left Yuna in the lowest, he knew that he also brought Yuna to the highest. He knows that Yuna’s smile was the most joyful, most genuine when he was with her.

He knows that despite the countless times he himself could make her smile, it could never reach the point of joy that he gave to her.

Seokmin knows; the reason of why Yuna’s eyes were constantly shifting left and right with such glow few weeks after the very night.

He noticed how Yuna was always in the look for something; anything that can take her mind off him. The eyes that were begging for a distraction from the pain as she slowly glues the shattered pieces back together, picking herself up one by one.

Seokmin knows; why Yuna’s eyes are always glazed with such longing whenever she tilts her head up to look at the sky.

‘It’s a secret,’ a less sober Yuna said to him one night with such seriousness in the orbs of her eyes, telling him that it, ironically, was one.

He remembers the sleazy, yet adoring way of talking that Yuna had the night where she rarely drinks. The way she said the lines,

“The sky looks so calm at all times, even when there’s a storm, it’s just there. It doesn’t give up on the clouds when it throws a tantrum. It stays calmly with it. Not to mention it’s filled with such beautiful things, and is always admired by at least one person at all times, even when it’s at its darkest moments. I’m jealous of that.”

After listening to the pure yet wise opinions, Seokmin never thought of the sky as something as simple as it used to be.

Seokmin knows; why Yuna never fails to read just the zodiac segment of the morning papers.

He was a Scorpio, she was a Libra.

It’s written in the papers, of how matching Scorpios are with Libras. Seokmin would be a fool to not notice how Yuna’s eyes always go from the middle, to the bottom of the paper.

He’s seen the papers before, and he remembers the sequence. Libra’s would always be in the middle, while Scorpio’s are always near the last.

‘She must look at my zodiac too, right?.’

He wanted to believe that too; that Yuna looks at his star sign as well. But he couldn’t believe in such a lie, since the star of an Aquarius is placed far away from the other two; being at the top of the page.

Seokmin knows, that she still hangs onto the lone string of hope, that one piece of her shattered self that she has yet to patch up, the piece that would mean that she has moved on completely.

Seokmin knows; that she wasn’t the only one hanging onto faux hope, and that he was breaking himself as well.

Seokmin too, knows, that though it is selfish of him to leave her with his cup half empty, but he couldn’t leave it full; of his made up hope, or completely empty; his own pieces shattered too small for him to pick up.

He knows, that he too, has become the other guy in Yuna’s future from his own decisions, but he too knew that she would always be too high up in the sky for him to grasp.