Memories of a Love Sonata: Chapter 02

            Yuri can faintly hear the sound of a whistle from an oncoming train in the distance. She lifts her head slightly from the comfort of her red scarf, exposing her chin to the cold spring air, and looks over to the side. The train is now within her sight and blares out another whistle, indicating its soon arrival. The noise interferes the chirping of two small sparrows that were fluttering about playfully on a wooden bench nearby her. Yuri watches them in curiosity as they bounce around one another before sitting comfortably next to the other as if they were a couple in love.

            Her attention breaks away from the two sparrows when the train screeches to a stop. The doors open and a flood of solemn looking passengers take their leave. Once there was an opening, Yuri quickly makes her way inside.

            It was definitely warmer inside the train and Yuri was more than grateful for that. Her eyes hastily scan the sea of unknown faces of those who had also boarded along with her. She quietly wonders to herself where all of them would be going. As for herself, she will be going somewhere peaceful, yet filled with so many lost precious memories.

            The train doors finally close, nearly blocking out a man in a business suit, who had just made it in the nick of time. He takes the last open seat, leaving Yuri no other option but to stand. She doesn’t mind though since she rather stand anyway.

            As the train begins its departure, she grabs a hold of the silver bar next to her and looks out the window to her left. A man’s voice is suddenly heard through the speakers informing the passengers of their next destination, but Yuri ignores him and focuses on the passing scenery before her.

            She breathes out a sigh and tells herself that everything will okay.

            Yes, everything will be okay…

            It took at least an hour before she reached her destination. When the doors opened she immediately steps out onto the platform. She breathed in the air liking how it was much more pure and clean than the air in her hometown city of Seoul. Yuri looks up to the sky, once again revealing her chin to the cold.

             A cheerful laughter of a young girl makes Yuri look over. She was accompanied by her father and they were both smiling happily as they held onto each other’s hand. Seeing them together was painful to Yuri. The little girl reminded her too much of herself when she was at that age. She smiled briefly at their happiness before walking away to her next destination.

            Not too far away from the station she came upon an old abandoned park. A park Yuri was all too familiar and comfortable with. It was sad how lonely the place had become. To Yuri’s right, there was a rusted swing set that was swinging lightly along with the whispers of the wind. Each time the metal chain grazed against each other an eerie squeaky noise would emit itself out to the empty air.

            She finally made her way up a small hill and smiled with mixed emotions. There it stood, the hanging garden, now old and crippled. With trembling hands from the cold, Yuri opened the worn out doors and walked inside. The once beautiful hanging garden of her past childhood was now nothing more than an overgrown forest of vines and weeds. The aroma of flowers no longer existed since they were all dead and the ceiling had finally collapsed. Yuri didn’t really care or pay attention to any of that though, not anymore.

            It’s been at least eleven years now since her father’s death. Yuri is now eighteen years old. Her fingers lightly trail over her father’s white grand piano. Even after so many years it still here in its rightful place. She carefully opens the lid, revealing yellow faded and chipped piano keys that hid underneath. An index finger then presses the middle C key. The sound carries itself across the hollow walls of the hanging garden. It still sounds so beautiful despite its current appearance.

            Yuri wastes no time and sits down comfortably in the piano seat. She breathes in calmly and places her fingers along the keys. She looks at her fingers for awhile, recalling back to memories of her father’s hands. Her hands were still small, but they could finally match up to her father’s. A small sad smile appears on her lips before she begins to play. 

            Her fingers automatically flow to the musical piece. She knows it by heart for it is her father’s song after all. The song her father would always play for her here in this very hanging garden.

            She continued to play letting herself get lost to the beautiful melody. Her father told her he had written this song just for her and her mother. It was a piece that he had poured his heart and being into. This song was his way of expressing his affections for them being together as a family, as him being a husband, and as a father.

            Yuri loved this song and she could play it endlessly, note for note, but it’ll never sound the same because it wasn’t played by her father. The feeling of the song would never be there unless it was played by him.

            Her fingers started to tremble slightly now. She was remembering back to unwanted memories, the memories of her father’s death and how everything had changed ever since that day.

            An unsettling feeling lodges itself into the back of . She wants to sob. She really does just want to cry, but the tears don’t come and they probably won’t ever come. She hasn’t cried ever since that day.

            Her father died in a car accident. That’s all she knew. She can only remember fragments. The way he was lying lifelessly on the cold pavement to the blood that had covered his body and clothes, and the feel of his cold icy hands. She also remembers the cherry blossom petals that day. How they dropped down to the ground and floated away when the wind came. She wonders if they had safely carried her father’s soul away to a peaceful place in heaven.

            There’s also something else that Yuri feels should have been important that day, but no matter how hard she tries to remember, she just can’t. Maybe it wasn’t something, but someone? Every time she thought back to the memory, everything would just become a blur as if nothing was really there. The only thing she could confirm that it could have been someone was the feeling of a warm hand that had held onto her own that day. She’s positive that there was someone standing right beside her that day, but in her memories she was standing by herself. She was always alone.

            Yuri doesn’t question it though and leaves the thought be. She finds herself too concerned about the things she would always end up remembering. Those kinds of memories hurt her more than the ones she couldn’t remember.

            The memories she could remember were unpleasant ones. Her mother constantly blamed her for her father’s death and at times she seemed to have gone mad. The grief was too much for her mother to handle causing her to lose the will to live and carry on. Yuri had lost count of how many times her mother tried to overdose herself from heavy medications and painkillers. Then one day, she had no mother. Yuri can’t say for certain if her mother had passed. Her mother simply disappeared.

            It was at that time her unwilling grandmother took her in. Yuri was still young, but she wasn’t dumb. She knew her mother had abandoned her. Why wouldn’t she? Apparently I’m the one who killed father. I killed the man she loved. Yuri would constantly tell herself that it wasn’t her fault for her father’s death, but her mother’s words haunted her. The constant repetitive lines her mother would always yell at her, asking why she had done it, always telling her she was the one at fault, and always saying she was the one who took him away. Why wouldn’t it be natural for Yuri to think that maybe it was her fault after all?

            She was the one who had killed her father?

            That’s right.

            Maybe it was me…I let him get hit by the car and let him die.

            I’m the one who killed appa…

            Yuri breathes in deeply as she finishes the last note of the song. She exhales slowly before standing up to close the lid.

            “Until next time, appa…”

            The sound of crunching leaves echoes throughout the hanging garden, replacing all traces of the music piece that had been played just a minute ago. She then continues walking back to the train station, the squeaking sounds of the metal swings trailing after her.

            Once she reached the station she gave a sigh. Another train has arrived and she’ll be taking this one back home. The doors open revealing another batch of solemn looking passengers to pass by her. As she approached the train a man suddenly bumps into her, but she doesn’t catch his face. He mumbles a quick and quiet apology before going off on his way. Yuri watches his retreating back for a moment before steeping into the warm confines of the train. Little did she know that fate wanted to play with her and that soon enough she would meet him again, the man who is currently heading his way over to the abandoned park.

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A/N:

Sorry for grammar mistakes. It’s not completely edited.

<3 dububrit-on