This Time Is Over - B1A4

Narrator's POV

"Hey," he muttered breathlessly on his phone's receiver. The phone has been stuck in its usual place by his ear and almost made a permanent dent on the spot. Sweat trickled from his head down to his neck and he consciously wiped it away. He proceeded to sit down on his bed and sank with a physical exhaustion that seemed to increase together with age. Even though he was dead-beat, he just couldn't bring himself to sleep.

"I don't know how many times I've called you today, but can you please answer me?" Donghae tossed his bag carelessly towards the carpeted floor and landed with a thud. The place was just like as he had left it this morning, not giving him the slightest notch that the girl had dropped by to give him a gift, which was meant to be discovered later on.

The idol plopped back on the cushion, still with the phone against the side of his head, and he closed his tired eyes. "I'm worried sick. Can you at least tell me where you are so I could go there and we could talk?" And thoughts of her drowned his mind continuously, like an amnesiac slowly regaining lost memory. It was but too late of an enlightenment. He should have thought so a hundred days ago.

With a closing sigh, "I love you, okay? And I want to see you. Call me back," he mumbled huskily with exquisite longing evident in his tone. He clutched the gadget close to his chest and he swung his feet up on the bed to settle deeper into the mattress. He still had his shoes on and his shirt matted against his body with his sweat as its adhesive.

His eyes remained closed with regret and sorrow waltzing in and out of his self-righteous mind. Donghae had been the worst person he could be with the wrong person, and it was a big mistake. And his arms ached, being outstretched for too long, wrapped around a lover who isn't there. So he clasped the pillow tightly against his chest, his makeshift girlfriend not even close to the real one.

It was late at night and the others were probably sleeping but his subconscious was wide awake. The edges of his chest writhed in agony at the thought that she might be gone, that he would only have the pillow to himself, that her side of the bed will forever be cold and vacant. The last time he had laid with her, he had left as soon as possible, and there was never a night as remorseful as this one.

Dear Donghae,

He opened his eyes, now b with tears that fell down on his pillow and reminisced about the time he had asked her about love and about hope and about faith and about destiny and about people leaving and about people who rip others' hearts out and feed them to the sharks and she assured him she would never belong to them. But kids stop looking for monsters under the bed when they realize that the villains are inside them after all. And the heartbreaker was Donghae himself.

And the tears kept on coming, staining his sheets with its utter bitterness and feelings because he had the moment when he was just centimeters apart from her yet didn't give in to the chance and tell her how much she had meant to him, if not the world, and he had found his love but didn't let it kill him as much as it had murdered her. It had been one-sided all along.

But he missed holding her trembling hand and calming it off of the thrilling love it shudders for. At that moment with his touch, he unknowingly saved her from the scorching and burning damnation she had condemned herself to, and she had been saved by the same boy who fed her heart to the sharks. But his whispers were a prayer for which no words exist and a soft lullaby to sing her to sleep.

If he, in turn, was the one burdened, the girl would press his spine against her chest and run her hand through his parting flesh and take more than she can carry. He was the boat and she will be the sea, with waves rippling from her ribcage as the boat was anchored deep within her chest in grateful solitude. And at this time of loneliness, he had no one.

The man stretched his arm out and his eyes darted wide like saucers at the discovery of a hidden present. The brown, hardbound notebook had a rough texture under his calloused fingers. And the shortest distance between him and her was the same distance between his eyes and the 365 individual letters which were written with one person in mind.

He dug his hands on the mattress and pushed himself up on his elbows. Opening the notebook and slightly bracing himself for what might dawn on him, he ran his fingers over the first page and wanting, not for the first time, to hold her hand tightly and never let it go, but he had done so. And his eyes, now blurred with salty tears, yearned to caress hers with tenderness.

Did you mean it when you told me you were sorry? What was so special about her, that you woke up one morning and decided you didn't care about me anymore? Did we just fool around, throwing around words and acting as if they didn't mean a thing? But I was serious. I know I was. Please tell me you were, too, because I'm always left wondering why things turn out to be the worst.

It was like she was trying to prove a point on how much he's going to miss her and how long he's going to hate himself for letting her go. She has proved her point well. Too well, in fact, that he was on tears. And he cried for her being stupid enough to stay after he broke her heart. But she only existed to him whenever he needed or was sorry for something. He cried because he didn't want to forget how her voice sounds like.

The beautiful boy cried because he knew there were still so many kisses to be fought over and gifts to give and days to make her laugh and nights to watch her sleep and pictures to take and movies to watch and places to travel and letters to write and books to read and words to say but it was too late. And the girl cried too, because she knew these were all never going to happen.

She was drunk enough to stay up so late, although knowing she had work the next day, but sober enough not to answer his calls. And she was saving all his messages and voicemails to have something to go back to whenever she missed him. Min Yu would rather be titled stupid than not see Donghae, but her decision was final. She was never going to see him again.

Or maybe she's going to see him after some time, when he and the girl who calls him oppa will be as settled as ever. And she had modeled her fantasy into her fancy, twisted facts here and there just enough to make herself believe she wasn't wanted anymore. But his words repeated over and over again in her head until the pain was unbearable that it spilled from her red eyes.

And they spilled because she wanted to trail reason and logic on the contours of his pretty face, conclude a theory with the way he smiles, prove a postulate as his arms fit around her body like parentheses, speak the truth with gentle kisses, and mourn a river when the back of his hand brushes against hers and part. Min Yu wanted to see him again.

But he was one of the people who took her heart and fed it to the sharks. And yes, she might meet someone along the way, a man with a gentle yet pretty face and arms capable enough to have her in between them. Maybe she might even get into thinking that she has fallen in love with him. But it will last until she realizes he isn't Donghae. 

And now I don't know what to say. But I wish this would do you good. I hope she treats you well and that you two last for more than a year, maybe even longer because we didn't. I'm about to say that we didn't last longer than we expected because she came along, but it was mostly my fault. Everything is, actually. And I hope she loves you the way I do.

Still wearing his shoes, Donghae pulled his shirt over his head, leaving him in his undershirt which was already soaked with water and salt -- whether it was his tears or his sweat, he didn't know for sure. He then gathers strength to pull it all together before he goes mad, running rampant on the streets and calling out her name. And in that brief moment of depression comes another greater pang of sadness.

As he read each word, it was as if Min Yu was there, reading the exact words to him like a bedtime story. The only difference was that the diary had no happy ending and had a bitter one at that. The 34-year-old man cried like a child lost in a shopping mall. His breathing was erratic from the continuous crying, as if someone had just died. But he was left by a loved one, nonetheless, someone who might be gone forever.

He wondered if she was hurting like he was, but Donghae just didn't have an idea on what he had just lost. The Super Junior member was sprawled on his creased bed and he just wished she was there with him. It rips his heart knowing he had promised never to treat her less than she deserves, but there he went, doing the exact thing.

Donghae wiped his tears with the resolution that girls were one and the same. They run from the guys who try to make them happy and fight for the ones who make them cry. But he had treated her like a doll he can play with and get bored with and just toss away. And he cried louder this time, his breathing quick and mere gasps for air.

And now she was gone. He flipped to the latest entry and ran his fingers down the spine of the diary. There was an obvious wrinkle near the edge, which was most probably a dried tear. Or tears. Or a river. Upon scanning through the content, Donghae jostled up from where he was lying and darted to the door. His feet trodded the stairs in lightning speed and in no time reached the flat ground.

He was just in his undershirt. Nah. It didn't matter. Out into the night he went, being startled by the overwhelming sounds and sights that came to his senses, and lasted for a long minute. Time was relative, anyway. But it felt like years before he reached her apartment by hopeless sprinting. The man came to an ear screeching halt by her front door and knocked without hesitation.

Please don't take it against me, maybe it's just a natural instinct for me to leave before someone else does. And I know you don't love me anymore, I just don't want to hear the exact words coming from you and so I left. I have no idea what's going to happen next when I walk through the doors without looking back. I also don't know what will happen when you get to read this.

"YA, MIN YU!" His fist pounded on the door fiercely while the other tried to yank her doorknob open. Sweat came down on his white face like a generous waterfall, or was it his tears? "MIN YU!" There was not a hint of light and life on the other side of the door, but the man was determined. The beat and rhythm of his knuckles rapping against the wood remained consistent, but grew slow steadily by the minute.

She was the only one keeping her sane, and with all the money he has, he couldn't afford to argue anymore. "Please..." His hand slid down the surface of the door and he tried the knob one last time. Donghae'll never get used to the fact that it will be locked for a long time unless, of course, some miracle happens and Min Yu decides to come back. But time was indeed relative, and it might take forever.

The slim possibility that he would be able to see her that night came crashing down on him as he sank down on the porch steps, where he had kissed her 24 hours before and told her the exact same words he wanted to tell her that moment. His sobs ache for the love after the love, the one that he lacks, because people can't want what they already have.

He rested his head against the wall with the peeling paint, wishing for the nth time that it was her shoulder he was leaning on. And the futile imagination brought the lightest degree of joy to his soul. He fumbled once more for his phone, now with slightly greater purpose. He would have to beg on his knees if he had to. "Min Yu-ah," he called out after the all-too-familiar beep sounded.

Donghae buried his face on his cupped palm, not even the least bit surprised to see his hand all moist from his own crying. "Please don't leave me." He exhaled resolutely. "Just don't." He bit his lip to avoid exaggerated lies and statements to come rushing out. Lying had been all too natural for him, and it wasn't right anymore. It wasn't him. And never will lying become something less than bad.

The man continued crying over his phone. Even if the handheld gadget got lost, he wouldn't cry. Donghae only cries when he loses something, or rather someone he can't replace. Donghae loves her, yet he's miserable, and he wanted to punch himself in the face for having a less considerable intelligence and number of nerve cells when he treated her so wrongly.

But please know that I love you as a shoe loves its laces, as an umbrella loves the rain, and as a glass loves to shatter. I love you so I tie my shoelaces carefully. I don't want to fall for anyone else. I love you and I want to share my umbrella with you when it rains. I love you even though the glass didn't break, but my heart shattered. Even though it did, I still love you with all the thousand little pieces.

"And I love you. Please believe me. I really really do," he muttered one last before hanging up. And the part where he moves on didn't come in Donghae's mind. He won't forget, nor accept, even though it would have been easier to have a memory erased than keep it in the back of his mind for all eternity, together living with the regret. He won't pretend none of it happened either. Min Yu had made herself too memorable.

Donghae pressed his back firmly on the cold floor, wishing for one moment he was able to be as sensitive as this during the times Min Yu was still there. And he yearned for a better story, one where people stayed through good times and bad and love wasn't all too complicated to a naive mind and the umbrella was wide enough for two, and two people alone.

After all these, he would go back home, possibly get beaten up and mugged on the way, but Donghae wouldn't give a damn. And he would sit in front of the bed where she used to sleep in and stare at it until she comes back, or possibly until he gets dragged to the nearest mental hospital for acting catatonic. And he wondered if she would care enough as to drop by his funeral. Would she cry for him?

Because pain makes people change, and that's what he had feared most in the five years he did the same thing. And maybe it was her plan, after all, to make him suffer the way she did. But if there was a know-it-all, he would tell her he's wrong, because true friends let each other go once in a while but still manages to find each other in time. He was her best friend.

He used the book to cover his flustered face, red from crying. But there were loose memories scattered all throughout that fell by his shoulder, and he sat upright to examine each. He cried at every picture he saw, wondering how such little things meant to her when he took it all for granted. There, among the many still-life moments, was his peaceful sleeping face.

Deep in his slumber, he stirred in his sleep after a shutter sound erupted out of nowhere. There was a stifled laughter preceding it, and he only found the girl covering her guilty face. "Ya, what did you just do?" Donghae asked huskily with a hint of smile in his voice. "Nothing~" Min Yu denied without any accusation tossed her way, and he immediately knew she had been up to something.

The man crying by the porch remembered clearly how he dove under the thick blankets to come face to face with the girl he was crying for at the present. He remembered how she smiled back at him and how her skin felt like liquid under his touch as he tried brushing her hair away from her pretty face. He remembered how his plush lips stamped his ownership on her forehead.

Donghae reached out under his pillow and grasped his phone like a vital organ in his hand. The bright light from the gadget hit his eyes like lasers, and he had to close his eyes as soon as possible, not without groaning in complaint of course. "It's five in the morning and you smile like that. What did you do?" he demanded suspiciously.

He grabbed fistfuls of his hair like a person about to run out of sanity. Donghae wanted to rip his chest open and take his heart out even just for a minute to relieve him from the agony. But he deserved it, deserved it much more than he deserved Min Yu. But the man's brain wasn't cooperating, and was doing a far worse job in itself torturing him with things he wasn't supposed to be remembering.

"Secret~" The girl responded whimsically before raking her fingers through his hair. She had quite grew accustomed to the habit, which was followed by her hand landing on the base of his neck as she drew him closer. Donghae still had his arm encircled on her waist and that Donghae in the past didn't know how much he would miss having to touch her when he still had the chance.

Midnight was nearing, and he was nowhere near his bed where he's supposed to be. But it was 11:39 in the evening and it was times like these that make him silently wish he was pinning her down with his body and making sure she was his. Donghae hated this: the feeling of remorse and guilt and anger and regret mixed in all together, as if all the gods were playing a dirty trick on him.

And the rain poured hard outside. And the sheets smelled of detergent. And the sheets were white. And the sheets were thick. And the sheets were their makeshift canopy for a heaven-like fort. And the pillows were white. And the pillows were soft. And her lips were soft. And his were, too. And she wore his favorite shirt. And she didn't know how to tell him how she loves him without plagiarizing Shakespeare's sonnets.

The man's shoulders tremored in cruel sadness that had spent the many hours perching in his being. He wore a wearisome expression as he grieved for his loss. Donghae rubbed his fist over his swollen eyes because everything was tearing him apart at the moment, like he could do anything about it -- except, of course, if Min Yu decides to come back.

It took the girl a second, just a mere second, for her mind to snap as she stood in front of the glass doors and see how the man she loved obviously didn't feel the same way anymore. And she has spent a hundred days trying to figure out what could possibly have gone wrong in the 365 days she was with him, but all that thinking came down to sleeplessness. So Min Yu just came to the utter conclusion that maybe she just wasn't really good enough.

She has told herself the same thing over and over again each morning after she rises, even in front of the mirror. And her not being good enough seemed to be a pretty good excuse to everything she has done wrong. She wasn't good enough, anyway. And as Min Yu traced the outlines of the bottle in her hand, it was imperative to say she was in her father's house. No. Her actions don't always agree with her words.

Not being in the right state of mind, her lazy feet led her to a different dorm. Full of men? Yes. People she loved? Yes. But they weren't of the same criteria. She was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, where redeeming her was at its utmost improbability. She wasn't the one to bother, and was just passing through. Niel made a joke about Min Yu treating Teen Top's dorm as a stopover, but nobody laughed.

Because she never asked for anything back, and perhaps it was the reason he acted like love was a nonrenewable source of everything he wanted. But people change and seasons change and feelings change. Tomorrow when she wakes up -- hopefully -- Min Yu shall advance to her father's house and just explain the matter. And she would just probably visit her family once in a while, chancing upon the moments when Donghae wouldn't be there.

The night went on drearily, as if the moon was just waiting for its shift to end, and Donghae was just waiting for his death -- or the time when he's actually too sad to even wake up. And the letters he'd read and the photos he'd seen would catch up to him later, when he tries to sleep. All the guilt and the I-should-have's would surge from his throat and make it difficult to enjoy a blink of sleep.

And sleep was even a longer way to go after he scanned through the pictures in close scrutiny. He slumped back on the porch, lying flat on his back as he cried more violently, sobbing a river. There came the ever inconsiderate memory which adds more to his heavy burden. Donghae laid out the four monochromatic photos on his stomach and cried even more.

Day 131

Min Yu gasped a little too loudly when he had come inside her, purposely ing a few more times before he eased out of her completely. Donghae planted a sweet kiss on her forehead before rolling off to his side, too weak to hold himself up. He clasped her possessively, as if one could barge in their room and just take her away.

Neither of them talked while both tried catching their breaths. The man closed his eyes for a moment, slightly overtaken by a physical exhaustion that lasted for a maximum of a minute. His strong arms were linked around her fragile waist as he forced her up and above him gently. Skin to skin. Flesh to flesh. Body to body. Face to face.

Dear Donghae,

The girl stifled a giggle. "What?" she asked consciously as the beautiful boy stared right into her eyes. "In a few years more, we'll be doing this again," Donghae gestured to their bodies and the strewn clothes by the floor and shifted his gaze back to her. "There'll be someone darting in and she'll call for her mommy and we'll go frantic because our daughter just saw her parents in the process of making her next sibling."

And then she laughed. Oh how his ears ring at the thought of that shrill in her voice that gets his palms sweating and heart pounding in utmost admiration. But then Min Yu lifted her right hand up in front of their faces. "I think it might be better if you put a ring in here first," she muttered softly, pointing to her fourth finger.

I'm sorry I can’t give you what you want. Maybe there's something wrong with me, and maybe you should just go looking for someone else who could give you the decent family you want. Right now, I can't. And I'm sorry. I really am.

Donghae had his lip jutting out as he struggled to put up an unimpressed expression. "But I want a baby first," he nearly whined, to which she just returned with a smile. "But it's not something I can control," Min Yu protested, resting her forehead against his while she lay on top. "But try your hardest, okay? I really really want one." Donghae held her tighter.

The man by the porch seemed overwhelmed in a multitude of emotions. But he stared back at the photos tauntingly, wishing he had been too careful with whatever word that comes out of his mouth. No apology was ever worth her self-inflicted responsibilities of keeping such promises. She took more than she could carry, but the girl only had two hands.

~Changed the foreword! :)