Fiction and Fact

"... She held his hand and, together, they faced the cruel fate the world had planned ahead of them..."

 Doojoon threw his pen down, ripped the last page out, and crushed it in his fist. Tossing it aside, he took a deep breath out of frustration. He laid back in his chair and brushed his hand through his hair. Why couldn't he get this right? How many pages had he already torn out? Bitting his lip in thought, he stared at the ceiling. 

'I'll write this a million times if that's what it takes.'

  He sighed and stood from his desk, walking over to a dusty bookshelf. Scanning the collection, he brushed his fingers across old book spines until he finally found what he searched for. He opened the book and flipped through the pages. Suddenly, an old photograph seemed to jump out amidst the browning paper. Doojoon took it in his hand and smiled, instantly remembering who the person in the picture was.
 

 Krystal grinned as she remembered how Doojoon had always brought her into this room. He was always in this room for some reason. She let her fingers travel across the old piano keys she had once played for him. Looking around the room, she noticed something she hadn't seen before.

'Were these books here before?'

 She wondered over to the bookshelf and pulled out a book that had an old-styled cover. She was surprised that she found her own name on the first page and observed that everything was handwritten.

'Did Doojoon write this book?'

 Reading along, she found out that the book was about her and Doojoon. She smiled at the written memories of them together, having fun and laughing. Krystal continued reading, page by page, and soon realized she was already at the end of the book.

"They lived happily ever after..."

She flipped to the last page,

"I only wish that was true."

 Krystal closed the book, completely understanding what the words on those last pages meant. Their relationship didn't have a "happily ever after." She put the book down and saw another book sitting at the desk. She walked over to it and sat down. Slowly flipping past the cover, she began reading.
 

 Without hesitation, Doojoon took the picture in his hand, set down the book, and headed out. He'd do whatever he could to find his love again. He'd do whatever he could to make things right. Step by step, city after city, he could never get his mind off of the girl in the photo. He'd walk to all the ends of the earth if that was what it took for him to find her.

 After hundreds of miles on foot, but what only seemed to be a few feet, he stopped for a moment and sat down on a wire fence. He grabbed the photo he had put in his pocket, slowly studied it, and scanned the landscape.

'This should be the place.'

 He continued walking and soon made it onto a dirt road. Abandoning it, he stepped onto empty barren land.

'This is where the photo was taken; this is where she last stood.'

 Looking over, he spotted someone in a white dress and made his way to where the girl from the photo was standing. They were finally here, together; the girl Doojoon could never forget stood before him. Forgetting all the difficulties of getting there, Doojoon stretched his hand out to the girl. They could finally be happy again, they could finally be together. But was she really there? Was she really standing before his eyes? 

 Suddenly, what he feared most happened. The girl didn't accept the hand that stretched out to her. Unlike Doojoon, Krystal couldn't ignore all the difficulties and reach her hand out towards him. She couldn't fill reality with imagination and she refused to cover the facts with some fiction. With that, her last tear fell from her eyes. The tear that would separate them forever, the tear Doojoon had tried so hard to avoid by using the fiction in his mind. Before his very own eyes, he witnessed his love disappear into a cloud of dry sand. Slowly scattering everywhere, she was gone forever.

'NO! It can't be!'

 Doojoon fell to his knees. How could he do this to her? How could he ruin something so special? He didn't want to face the truth; he didn't want to face the fact of everything. Memories flashed through his head and unbearable pain ceased him. He pushed them away and forced only the good memories into his mind. In his imagination he saw himself and Krystal smiling; he saw themselves happy forever. He only saw his fiction; ignoring reality, ignoring fact. But his heart knew the reality of their relationship. His mind couldn't fool himself from seeing the facts. Shedding his own last tear, he too burst into dry and weightless grains of sand.
 This was the reality of their relationship: there was no happy ending.

 Unknowingly, a tear slid down Krystal's face. She took a ragged breath in and shut the book. Why did it hurt reading this? Quickly standing from the chair, she began to make her way out of the study. 
 Suddenly, she stopped. She couldn't just leave the book to have such a tragic ending. She turned around and sat back in the chair. Grabbing the pen on the desk, she flipped to the last page of the book and began writing.

'I'll rewrite it again, our story will not end.
I'll bury the fact that reality is seeping into my skin, for now.
I rewrite it once again, the start beginning with you and me smiling happily.
In case you leave me, the background is a small room without an exit.'