Dear you,

I don’t really know how I’m supposed to start this. I chose this way because it felt like the only way for me to say all the things I need to say to you—now I’m not sure if this is right, because it isn’t like we aren’t friends anymore, you know? We are, it’s just… different now than it was before. We see each other once or twice every few years. We speak sometimes, when there are important things to say. I’m not angry about it. I know you have your life, and I have mine, and those things are separate now. Maybe this will be easier to write if I keep reminding myself of that.

I don’t know why I’m making this sound so serious; it isn’t much, really. And it’s not like you’ll ever read this, because this is really just… a way for me to close things, maybe? In my own heart.

So maybe, to start, I should say this: I’m sorry. Not for one thing, or even a handful, but for everything. I know we’re older and wiser now or however the saying goes, but I know I still think of some of the things I put you through while you were with us and feel sorry for them. I’m also sorry because, as sorry as I am for the way I treated you, for the way we ended… I’m glad it was you. I’m glad you were the one who taught me the things I needed to know about myself.

“We were in love, weren’t we?” Sometimes I want to ask you that, but the timing never feels right, and maybe it isn’t a subject that needs to be breeched anymore. I think we were, you know? I trust that we were. But I also know that there were both good and bad parts to it: I liked you too much. I needed you too much. I put too much of my own value and self-worth in your hands and it was unfair to you. We were young; we didn’t know better. We had unrealistic ideas in our minds and hearts and I clung too much to you, I expected too much out of you. I wanted you so much, but not in the way you deserved.

I guess, in the end, I didn’t want you for us. I wanted you for selfish reasons, for me, because I felt so alone before you came and I poured all of me into you. It hurts me now to hear our other members talk about how I pushed them away in favor of you even though I know they don’t hold it against me. But I was so afraid of being without you. At the time, it felt like you were all I had. I didn’t even feel like I was part of this world and in my head, it seemed like you were the only thing keeping me in it.

I felt so betrayed and angry and hurt when you left, but that isn’t something I need to tell you, because there’s no way you don’t know. I even hit you the morning you told me you were leaving and you never raised a hand to defend yourself—but when would you have ever, to me? I regret so much of what happened that day, so much of what I said. I didn’t understand at the time because, again, selfishness. I didn’t think about it from your perspective, didn’t take into consideration how unfairly you were being treated or how much you were hurting. I didn’t think about all the times you cried because you missed your family. I thought about me, poor, pitiful me and what I was going to do when you were gone. If I had cared about you the way you deserve to be cared about, I would have understood immediately instead of wallowing for years in my own misery over losing you and being alone.

After you left I thought I’d never be happy again. I thought I would never smile again or laugh again, at least not genuinely. I had dark thoughts. I wanted to die. I started to like being alone, because if I was alone, no one could hurt me again. It took me so long to realize that it was only me hurting myself.

In 2015 we asked SM if you could come to us for our tenth anniversary and they said no. Even then I think I hadn’t changed much, because when I learned our request had been refused… I felt devastated. There was still some part of me that hoped you would come and see how much you were still loved and still missed and that maybe, maybe, you would decide to come home to us—to me. It felt like my last hope had been shattered right in front of me, and I was right back in that dark place I was when you left.

But in 2015 I also met Kyunghoon, and the light came on again. It felt like it had never been dark at all, like I had always been flooded in that bright, beautiful light. Every happiness I’d felt prior to that dimmed in comparison and I knew the very first time our eyes met that this—this was it. This was the reason I’d hurt so much in the past, this was the reason for all of the pain I’d gone through. Somehow, in that moment, all of it didn’t matter anymore but it also mattered more than anything else ever had. If I hadn’t been stuck in the dark for so long, I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate the light. And it’s so ing bright that I feel stupid just saying it with words, because it’s so much more than that. It’s everything, all at once, compressed down into one single him, and sometimes that scares me because it makes me think of how badly I felt like I needed you. But the way I need him is so different than the way I needed you, because his isn’t an anchor that keeps me grounded with the rest of the world—his is hands that pull me up beyond myself, that help me to reach further than I would on my own. His is the voice that gives voice to my own.

And life feels so much fuller now, so much more worth everything.

I used to wonder what it would be like if you’d never left us, but I’ve stopped thinking about that now. I wouldn’t be the person I am now if you’d stayed, and I like who I am now much more than I liked who I was back then. I think everything that happened needed to happen, at least for me. I think, if you had never left, I would never have changed. I had a lot of things I needed to learn and you taught me more about myself than I can ever find words to say. I’m so grateful to you, and I love you for it. You will always be my dearest friend, my first friend, my first love that taught me so much.

I hope, one day, we can all meet together. I think you would like Kyunghoon. He treats me the way you used to: like treasure. This time I know to show how grateful I am.

I’m finally happy again. I hope you’re happy too, Hangeng. Maybe, in another life after this one, I’ll know to treat you better. I’ll hold your heart more gently. But that’s for another time, isn’t it?

In this life and the next,
女皇