TW: mention of deaths

21.

“I received the result from mock exam today, and I placed the fourth in school that everyone thought I’d do great in the actual entrance exam next week. And the teachers say maybe I could receive scholarships, but,” he chirps in a low voice, “I don’t know, it feels weird not to have you guys to celebrate it. And today doesn’t feel so great either, maybe because I looked outside the window just now. Seeing the red leaves all over the road had somehow bothered me.”

Jongdae paused for a while, taking his time to express his thoughts, “I know you’d be disappointed in me Mom but autumn has really become the worst season of all four. Perhaps because it’d forever remind me as the time when you two were gone…?” Jongdae curls a brittle smile as he stares at the names carved on the tombstone, his mind is filled by the memory of one of the darkest day in his and his brother’s life.

Vividly, that very day keeps on playing in his mind, as if someone would push the rewind button over and over again in details – for instance, the face and voice of police officers that dropped by the school to inform about the incident that took their parents’ lives.

It feels unfair because neither of them knows that the morning was the last time they have breakfast together, the laughter over Hwan’s clumsiness of forgetting to put on trousers was the last that they shared. Little did they know, the daily routine of saying goodbye to their parents before going to school had come to an end that very day.

In the past, Jongdae thought the greatest feeling dominate oneself after the loss of their loved ones was the sadness, the pain. But now that he is going through it, the young guy realizes – that’s not it.

It was the numbness, everything turns cold and empty – realizing that they would not be there on the upcoming days, they would not be present in any of the days that they should create tons of memories. Starting of that very day, he had to wake up with a reminder that he will have no one but his little brother. No more Mom’s voice shouting from the kitchen waking them up, there is no chance of having a sight of their Dad resting on the couch with eyes fixed on the news – and comments on every news aired – or even the smell of morning tea that would fill the happy and warm space.

Now Jongdae opens his eyes in the morning just to find himself a silent, silent place he barely could call home anymore.

“You know, I tried really hard to put a smile on my face in front of Hwan. But I think the kid knows…which is why he stays very, very cheerful around me. I could never be Hwan as being a better brother. He’s literally the best.” Jongdae shakes his head lightly, in slight disbelief of his brother’s antique, “Maybe that’s why he avoids to join me visiting you guys every time. So that he could be himself around you two.”

Jongdae wipes the b tears at the corner of his eyes, he takes a deep breath before exhaling it in a sigh with a thin beam on his face. “It’s been more than two months now, I should stop living like this and take a good care of my own brother, right, Dad? The season is ending anyway, I should start living properly like a normal person.”

He looks down to the floor, staring at his feet before squeezing his eyes shut and pray. A minute has passed and he lifts his face up again, excusing himself, “I should head back, Hwan must be waiting at our home.” The guy waves at his parents for the last time that day before stepping away from the columbarium with a lighter heart and a glimpse of new hope.

He needs to do better, for the only family he has left.

Little that Jongdae knows, the person whom he thought was waiting at home is now laying down on his bed – not anymore breathing.

The guy puts the frame back to its position before he sheds the trace of clear tears which only had the chance to flow right until his cheekbones. It still feels unreal at times, of how his joyful life turned upside down within one season that year. Of how he welcomed the fall that year with his whole family but just before it could be replaced by the winter, the cold breeze blows right on him first. The colours was then become dull, and it felt like he could barely walk in the pitch black tunnel with no way end.

“They could never replace you guys,” he whispers, glancing at the picture of recent birthday celebration that they just printed yesterday. A thin smile rises across his lips, “But they are everything to me now. I wouldn’t know what I’d do without them.”

Jongdae’s grip to the piece of letter that Hwan left for him nine years ago was frail – he just reread it to remind him of his place, before he runs any further towards the family that is welcom