May 8th, 19XX

Dear Pilkyo,

Wow, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Last time I wrote, snow was still falling outside my window, and the bushes outside were covered in white. Now, the snow has turned into rain, and the bushes outside are flowering with azaleas. They’re mostly all pink, a deep magenta, but sometimes you can see a few white ones. [scratched out] Pilkyo, you would have loved them. You would have gently caressed the flowers with your fingers, awe in your eyes, and then you would have turned to me, still in wonder, and said, ‘So this is nature, Sunho. How magical it is.’

I miss you, Pilkyo. [inkblot] I miss the way your hair sweeps across your forehead, the way your eyes crinkle when you smile. I miss the sky blue softness of your voice, the lemon yellow brightness of your laugh, the lavender purple gentleness of your kiss. I miss how you would absentmindedly hold my hand, how you would unthinkingly run your fingers across my leg, how you would lightly press your lips against my hair. [scratched out] I miss the times we had, Pilkyo, I miss our life, but most of all - and it’s what hurts me the most - I just miss you.

I’m crying, Pilkyo. Tears are falling down my face, mirroring the raindrops sliding down my window. The primroses bloom butter yellow in the window-box, and the ink runs on the paper, lifted by my tears. Pilkyo, I [illegible]. You know I [illegible] my name, ‘Sunho, Sunho, Sunho’, and you, you [illegible], I love you, I hate you.

I hate you. I hate you for leaving me, for tearing my heart out from my chest and ripping it apart. You destroyed me, shattered my heart and stomped on its broken shards. [scratched out] crystallized like the snow after a storm, Pilkyo, as if I no longer matter. As if nothing in the world matters anymore. I hate you, Pilkyo, I really do. [inkblot]

Why do I even cry for you anymore? You’re a ing . You left me, broke my heart, and I waste my tears on someone like you, like you’re so ing special, like you’re not just another one of those people, one of those ing [illegible]. I really, really, ing hate you, Pilkyo. When you pretended to be mad at me when you weren’t, when you made me laugh, when you promised - you promised - to be together forever. Pilkyo, was that all a lie? You made me believe, Pilkyo, you laid out my future - with you in it.

And now you’re gone.

You left me, and the rain pours outside, batters the gentle yellow flowers in my window-box, murders the fragile pink flowers on the bushes, and you’ve ripped my soul away. [inkblot] Pilkyo, why? Why did you have to do this to me? I thought you loved me, I thought we were meant to be, I thought, I thought [inkblot] [illegible].

Maybe you did. Maybe you still do. I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I can still laugh, I can still have fun, I can still forget about you. But sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I lie in bed, and it’s 3 a.m., and I think about you. I think about the times we had together, I think about the golden yellow of the dandelions against your hair, the fresh green of the leaves against your skin, the beautiful blue of the sky that promised eternity, and I just cry. And then, other times, I’ll be sitting at my desk, doing some stupidly hard math problem, and I’ll feel just the ghost of a touch on my hand, just a whisper of your voice in my ear, telling me the right way to solve it.

Except it’s wrong. The solution is wrong, and everything is wrong, because you’re gone, and I turn to see nothing, not your face, not your books, not you. And the ghost of you living in my bedroom kills me inside, kills me slowly, because it all just reminds me of you, and everything about you is painful.

I can laugh with my friends - our friends - and I can have fun without you. But it’s just not the same. There’s a gaping hole where you used to be, and we still keep a seat open, expecting you to barge in at any time, panting out a hurried ‘traffic was ’. I don’t feel lonely with them, not really, and together, we can stave it off, but alone, when I’m at home, the loneliness hits me like a nuclear bomb.

I walk into the roads with no consideration of safety. I don’t care whether or not I fail my classes. All I want to do is sleep all day. I barely have the motivation to wake up, much less do anything else. I don’t want to do anything. All I want to do is sleep.

Because I’m too scared to die. There’s no point in living, but I don’t want to die. Call me fake, but I’m way too ing ambitious to die. I’m not depressed. Am I? I’m not. But what if I am?

There’s too much going on in life, Pilkyo. I just want to end it all. I want to fall asleep and wake up ten thousand years later and know everything I ever needed to know. I want to actually make an impact on the world, show them who I can be, what I can do, and by this point, I no longer care if it’s a good impact.

Childish of me, isn’t it? To be so moronic as to want to make a negative impact on the world? But if it’ll make me remembered, if people will speak of me for ages to come, if someone can understand my reasons for doing what I’d have done…

Wouldn’t it be worth it, then?

Wouldn’t it be, if I could be remembered, talked about for centuries to come? Because isn’t that the point of life, to do something to help the world? So what if I help it in my own way? Maybe I’ll bring harm to some people, but it’s what I’d have believed in, and at least I’d have tried.

Life is a ing hypocrite. People are ing morons. Pilkyo, come back to me. You were the only person I knew who even tried to help everyone, consider all opinions. No, you weren’t perfect, but no one is, and you were as close to perfect as… anyone else could be.

I think. I hope. Actually, no. You were a terrible, terrible person. You were too domineering, too male-centric, too… too traditional, I guess, is the best way to put it. I hated that. I hated that, and I hated you in those moments, and I hated everything to do with you. I even doubted if I loved you, if I could really put up with you, and it was weird, I remember thinking, how you were gay when you were so traditionalistic.

But you were, and I was grateful enough for that. I didn’t want to lose you, so I never questioned it. But it bothered me.

Enough about that. Nothing would change you anyway, and especially not now, not anymore. [scratched out] , Pilkyo, . I just miss you, okay? I miss you and your traditional ways and the way you used to hold me and bury your nose in my hair and chuckle and the way you used to hold my hand, lightly like you were scared and tightly like you were scared.

You were scared, and I think I realized that, but I was scared too, and I never addressed it. I never addressed your needs. I was so selfish, so selfish and self-centered, and I never noticed that you were slipping away from me.

I’m sorry, Pilkyo. I’m sorry. I just want you back. You know that. Please, please, just… once… in a dream, right now, at school, outside, in the flowers, just give me a sign.

Tell me you’re still with me.

…

I guess I can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to. I’m… just sorry. That I never saw enough, that I never cared enough, that I abandoned you when you most needed me.

I’m sorry to have dragged this letter on so long. I just… I’m not ready to let you go.

But I think I have to.

Forever yours,

Lee Sunho.