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Meadow

Seoul, South Korea

          She was harboring feelings for this man. When he touched her, a strange conversion took place. He was impenetrable and he makes her wonder. Her mind forgets to remind that he was just a mere stranger. She didn't want to believe it; to have feelings for someone she didn't know at all. He was a man that lowered his gazes. He didn't crave for attention. He was full of sensibility and humility. How enchanted she was in the way he cares for the elders with affection, played with the children, volunteers at the hospital and how he treats women, so tender and lovingly. His features were gentle and mesmerizing. His actions archaic. No matter how much he denies it, bit his lip, stiffened his back and crossed his fingers at her presence. It was much intriguing. He did know her. He notices her eyes at first glance. He was familiar with her favorites. The time of day he used to take strolls. His voice. His scent. His touch.

Taeyeon had been with Dong Wook to confess all her thoughts while the latter listened with her. That was the only time she dared to ask him, "Why do you love me?"

“I don’t need to think about it. All I know is that I love you and I want to be with you.” He said and tugged a hair behind her ear. She has never known him to be so passionate; he would really go out of his way to look for her just to get back at her. As Taeyeon looked down to her ring finger, she recalled that night when Jung Su apologized to her and left.

I'm sorry, was all he had said.

Was that what he came here for? To ask for forgiveness? Why does he ask for forgiveness when he has done no wrong? Or why was he so concerned for her all this time? Why was there always the lack of explanation? There’s always been something more in the way they look at each other, and he knows it. His eyes, when she looks at them it feels like she has seen them before. His voice, the way he calls her name. And when he touches, she feels safe, and somehow her heart knows their attraction between them is not ordinary. He was just too familiar and sometimes she feels like she has known him forever.

“I don’t think I can marry you,” Taeyeon said, tearing on her own confession.

Dong Wook has been reminiscing a lot lately, thinking back to how they met. The hesitation he felt for her to love again, how afraid she was to allow herself to be vulnerable.

“Is it Jung Su?”

She looked at him with glistened eyes, “Honestly, I don’t know Dong Wook. I don’t know why, but I can’t. I can’t give myself to you. To anyone but...”

“Leeteuk?” Her eyes widened in his name and he had hugged her. He understands her so perfectly and she felt sorry for rejecting his intents. Dong Wook realizes after all these years how she never once made an effort to show any affection towards him, she never replies back when he told her that he loves her.

“I wanted to have you, to be mine, to have all of you but I couldn’t,” he smiled.

“I’m so sorry-“

“It was worth it, I felt happy but it was not enough. I was saved by this war, Taeyeon. Saved by you, I had met you,” he confessed.

Lee Residences

Seoul, South Korea

"I... am going to leave. May I say goodbye to Taeyeon?"

"Sorry dear, she left with Dong Wook. A pity you can't turn up for the wedding. Be safe, son."

"I wish to-“ he shook his head. “Tell her I said goodbye. Can I leave something for her in her room?"

And he placed a bracelet on her desk with braille letterings engraved on them.

'Patience; for all that its worth.'

A tear slid down his cheek as he clenched his jaw, “And for all it’s worth saying the words now: I love you.” He whispered and smiled. How long he had saved them for her.

No one saw Jung Su after that.

Jeonju Hospital

Jeonju, South Korea

          A middle age woman sat in front of her, whose face glowed regardless of her age. The crooked edges of her eyes turned into half-moon crescents as they met with hers. Nurse Hwang led out a blissful amount of tears with smiling eyes and embraced Taeyeon. Nothing had been said but everything had been told in a single touch. Whilst Taeyeon required time to gather her emotions of her livelong caretaker, she overheard a conversation between the former and Dong Wook.

“…and so you did know Leeteuk. You must have seen him, Miss?”

“I’ve seen them, sometimes he carried her on his back and he whispers things to her that made her laugh. It feels like everything she never saw was tangible again. Their intimate touches, their affection towards one another, you can always see it. They never told each other of their romantic feelings, but instead showed them…” her husky voice softened. She led out a deep breath and discontinued.

Taeyeon didn’t know what to feel. They had it all, she and Leeteuk. She entered the room and saw Dong Wook wiping Nurse Hwang- no Tiffany’s tears.

She took her hands and softly asked her of their relationship.

“You’ve had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it,” the latter shook her head.

“We didn’t, we never said anything?” He never courted her at all, not after everything they spent together. She cringed recalling their moments, however as Taeyeon further asked of his whereabouts, the latter shook her head and hugged her.

“He... He died,” her voice came out as a whisper. Tiffany nodded and she cupped , clutching her heart.

“No!” she heard herself say. Dong Wook immediately took Taeyeon away in attempts to calm her down.

“I would have done anything, said anything to make you stop crying,” Tiffany told her. Taeyeon then remembered how she arrived in Seoul, now realizing how desperate her caretaker sought to send her away from an inconsolable heartbreak for betterment, away from Jeonju.

"Why does everyone I love has to die on me?" she was choking on her words. He hugged her and wiped her tears recalling how she was orphaned.

♦ ♦ ♦        

          The endless desires of the heart wanting and needing everything starts from his infinite love for her and ends with her. Leeteuk...? He was in no way, a killer. Someone so deceitful as to abandon his family, even to showcase an outrage of modesty towards his own sister- to death? He wouldn't hurt an animal, much less to touch any woman disrespectfully. He was full of contradictions and in the pit of her heart; she had a strong urge to protect his defense. She cared for him. She didn't know why, but he did mean something to her in her past life.

“Dong Wook, I know him. I do. He was my spark.”

“Why do you care so much about someone you don’t know? He was your past, he was. Now, its not worth remembering, Tae.”

“No! You don’t understand, he was not just some boy! He is someone who can make me so weak just by touching me, anything but his hearing his breath again, it is all I’d ask for.” Sudden tears stood in her eyes, and she cupped realizing what she uttered.

“You like him?”

“I think, I might love him.” She then shook her head. 

“I do, Dong Wook. I do.” He bit his lip and held her hand, going on to embrace her. Somehow in the back of his heart, he knows that she can never be his. She can never love him like she did to Leeteuk.

"Part of me wishes, that I could forget too. Forget meeting him, finding out what he is and everything that has happened since. But I don’t want to, I don’t want to forget. What makes me so sorry is the way, I can’t even not remember the slightest bit of this man!”

“I’ll find your past with you, I’ll stay with you.”

          Dong Wook sat outside the ward allowing her to have some privacy. 

It had seemed that everything in this room missed her.  She hoped the hidden memories still linger.

I can’t tell if something is a memory or something is a dream. I never wish to sing again as I used to, when two new eyes could always stain the sea.

At the corner, she saw her Braille book. Several novels lay in a pile, and there was a box. They were full of letters, doctor documents. Mainly were signed by her caretaker, Stephanie Hwang. There were too much letters, addressed to Kim Taeyeon, sealed. She opened one and scans through, before dropping it. He wrote her thank you notes, love letters, wishes, promises, confessions, and secrets. Taeyeon’s eyes cringed and she regained some visions of the past. She felt his breath on the sides of her neck; his face lying on her chest and that was it.

As she opened the door, Dong Wook held on her giddy body and they decided to rest for the day. She never told him about the letters and he didn’t see them, instead, she told him to visit a Church back in Seoul seeing the addresses on the envelopes.