(Listen to 비가오는날엔 by BEAST: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7skX65t3cc)

Jae Hyo and I had gotten engaged the year before. Though our relationship had not lasted long, it had not been intense either. Both of us had entered the relationship without any expectations and the decision to spend the rest of my life with him had somehow, been decided long time back.

“Before Jae Hyo’s mother passed away,” my mother told me, “I had brought you to the hospital to meet her. You were too young so you might not remember, but she grew fond of you in those few days and on the day she died, she had wished that Jae Hyo and you get together. Though I had tried my best to fulfill that wish, I also didn’t like forcing things upon you. So I let things run its own course. Who knew that everything would come down to this?”

A few days after the engagement, which had been extremely simple, the idea of the novel emerged. Truth was, even after the engagement, I still wasn’t over Woohyun. Not that I was still in love with him, but our relationship had ended so abruptly, revisiting its memories were only inevitable. Guided by my fiance and my best friend, I sat down one Saturday night and started writing the complicated love story of Chang Su and Hana. Finding a publisher had been tough but eventually, a distraught and almost bankrupt company had picked it up. After a tryst with self-publishing, I decided to trust the agency and soon enough, everyone had a copy of my novel. Everyone knew my story, OUR story. The rest, as you all know, is history.

Woohyun had been extremely good to me, even on the day he left for Seoul. Hoya had decided to accompany him but was refused. “I’ll be fine,” Woohyun had said. Those were the last words I heard from Woohyun.

The post-breakup phase had been, well, horrible. There were no apologies involved, nor were there any regrets. The unseasonal rain continued to fall and I wondered if it was a paradox of my sorrow. Everytime I cried, it rained. Everytime it rained, I cried. It went on like that for about six months and I was thankful for Hoya and Kairi’s presence. Jae Hyo refused to meet me until ‘I was ready’ and one day, I called him. I spent all day crying in front of him and while I did so, he played the piano. This ritual went on for a month until finally, summer came around and my tears dried out.

Hoya had already packed up all my stuff in Seoul, all that was left was for me to sign some papers and return to India. I don’t know why I wanted to be back in Gurgaon, but I was sure that Woohyun had nothing to do with it. I was curious about what he had been doing and when I reached Seoul, I found out.

“He was recruited by Red Cross a few months back,” Hoya informed me. The news made me grin from ear-to-ear but I was again reduced to sadness when the news about his grandparents passing away came.

“I should visit him…” I remember mumbling. Hoya had point blank refused. “It’s best for both of you,” he had said and the look in his eyes assured me that he had concrete reason to believe so. On the night of 21 June, a day before leaving for India, I visited Mount Everest café. I walked the same route as before, making the same mistakes and the déjà vu brought some peace to me. It reminded me that Woohyun had existed, that the rain had fallen that night and that a chance meeting had touched my life in a wonderful way. For a second, I even stood in the middle of the road, hoping that someone would see me. Maybe Woohyun would be walking the same way, reminiscing. But sense knocked into me and I walked away before an ice-cream truck drove through the spot I had been standing on.

My last hope of meeting Woohyun had vanished as I sat on the flight back to India. We would never meet again, I thought. And truth was, we never did. For the next two years, I spent my days with Jae Hyo and my nights with memories.