I've been there. we have been there, linking my hand around your arm and feeling all those warmness you had given to me without knowing what the future held for us. I don't know what my heart tells me whenever I hear someone calling out your name beside me. because it does seem the same just like it used to be. no matter how much I try hard to press this thing, it always gets me a butterfly inside my stomach as it tells me that I have missed you so much. this much, that much, I can't measure this longing for you. the thing I know, you're still here, remaining and never let memories to forget the traces left behind. 

 

Those words were written in my mind as I saw him walking on the aisle. In white, you looked so dazzling and it hurt my eyes. Something stung my eyes and it clashed with my heart. You looked so untouchable, unreachable and far. In a distant, I knew my position. I knew where I stood. Even before today, I've known it well; too well for a couple like the past us. It sounded plausible, but that was the truth. I knew we would never be happy as we were together. 

Because today, I saw the smile. A smile that wasn't meant for me. It was made for a bride who smiling brightly as she linked her arms around you. It was made for her; the girl you've met before we met, the girl that had your heart, the girl which was an apple to your eyes. 

I was relieved. Because we're broken up; the reason only was her. I knew I should never part you from her, no matter what the title you and she had before, I would always know. You were made for her, you were the one that Heaven sent to her, not me. 

That look you gave to her; from the start, it wasn't mine. Even when we fixed our gaze like this moment, I have let you go, taking all the memories of us behind, leaving a trace of you in me and.....

You smiled. Bitterly. As if you told me otherwise. 

As if you made a false hope. 

As if you talked in which way that you still hoped it was me who linking a hand around your arms and wearing the crown of yours. 

"Congratulations," that was all I could do say for you. 

Still, the bitter smile plastered on your face. And I don't know how to cease it away from your lips. However, I knew the step. I walked away from your eyes, disappearing of your sight. 

I needed to leave you. No--I ought to draw myself out of your memories. I shall never be here, just because; I was someone whom you had in the past. 

 

●

 

Running down the alley, I saw my reflection at the abandoned stall. It had been a year where I saw him. Still locking up myself in the area where I shut my world down, I commanded myself to not want to be curious about him. And here I am--being so miserable and unmoved. 

And I was missing him, a guy I could no longer have. 

"Jongdae-ya....." I blurted out his name so easily, rudely as he was way older than me. But there he was smiling so brightly and waved his hand. Though he stood right behind me. 

"It's been a long time."

Yes--a year felt like a thousand years to me. 

I smiled at him. "I guess."

"And you grow thinner, did you skip your meals?" Out of curiosity he had, could he pretend to not care about me?

The smile remained there, holding the impression that I was fine and already let my feeling go somewhere. "Busy, so it must be looked like that," I lied. 

"Don't be, I don't like to see you being like this."

I chuckled, unaware of his response. "Well, I'm not in the right step to please you."

A hand freely went on his way to lay on my head, patting it gently as I stared at him, blinking owlishly. My mind stopped working at that time. Leaving the fact that I wasn't mine and he was already married to someone else, I enjoyed the sheer of longing in his touch. 

"Still like same of you," he said, calmly as the ocean waves hitting the shore. Calm but it could also make someone's heart nervous and excited in one time.

"Can you stop--?" 

He raised an eyebrow. 

"Putting your hand on my head?"

He smiled. "It's nice."

"No, it isn't. It feels itchy for me."

"Well, it's kind of a habit I guess."

 She hissed, "then fix yourself, know your place."

A frown was beautifully bloomed on his face, feeling unhappy at my spiteful words. "I do."

I shook my head, saying, "you don't--because look where you are now," turning back at him and frowned also, "what are we?"

"We....." it was an answer he unable to state without giving a second thought. No--it's just him whom not ready to speak out his mind; his longing to me, perhaps. That's my delusion actually--a common false hope I grew inside. 

"We are nothing. We have nothing in common, though."

I backed away, giving no hints of my whereabouts and my statement--in spite of that, the man might have heard a clear explanation. It was true--they had nothing in common. They had nothing to be related besides the term of someone they used to meet in the past. Just that thing. Only one thing could address their relations. And, when his touch naturally landed on my head, approaching me in the way it's supposed to be done before; it's simply a sheer stupidity that probably what his heart told him to do so. Because no matter the present held him, their destiny was unable to change. 

I was never meant for him. 

Because I was just a passerby in his life. 

"Kang Seulgi," he called my name. I spared a look at him. 

"If we aren't meant to be in this lifetime," he paused, which made me worried because my mind started wandering somewhere, "can you go back to me in the afterlife? Can we have a chance to be together?" 

I would never know--I would never know about the future. As well, I never knew a thing about my desire within me. 

Besides......

Do I want to cross the path with him?

Do I want to meet him? 

Perhaps--I want.

But the pain after these things occur in my present life, did I need to face them again?

No; I wished to never meet again in the future. No matter how difficult life got me to the point of wanting to give up, I would not run to him. Even though I would be born again in the same universe with him, I wished to not know him, either meet him somewhere. I just want to be a stranger to him, as I wanted him to be one of million strangers I would not even know. 

Was it a bad hope I wished? 

I wished it wasn’t. 

I just did not want to hurt myself anymore. 

“Seulgi,” he called my name again. It hurt. It hurt to hear his voice calling out my name. 

I looked back at him. “While I’m alive, you’ll be gonna hurt him again and again--even when you accidentally did it. Because of that, I hope we never meet, even in the next life,” I took a pause, breathing as I let out my bitterness through my sigh, “ I hope we don't meet.” 

“Please…” 

I shook my head. It’s my final answer. No matter how I would regret it later, I would remember that I have loved him. Since I knew I could not love anyone else, just like I loved him. I have dried my heart and tears for him, so there was nothing left except my memories of him. 

I smiled at him. 

“Goodbye, Kim Jongdae.” I passed him by, leaving the pains and heart with him; I continued to live on without him. 

Until the hair turned white, I would love him. 

I would choose to love him, and only him. 

I would choose him over anything. 

Because he was too good for me. Because he was perfect. 

Because he was unreachable. And it hurt me. 

Because he was the man of my life and I could not have him--until the next life---until I was unable to be born again. 

And I hated him; because he took it all from me. The painful name I loved.

 

-끝

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