"Because my heart has a hole...
Even though I try to cover it, the wind keeps escaping"
It's Cold  by Epik High (ft. Lee Hi)
 

I clutched my chest and cried out as I tried to curl in on myself. “Taec p-please!” The pain was too much for me, I felt trapped, unable to move myself to a less painful position, and soon another sob was rattling its way past my tired throat.

   The cage around me tightened and a familiar kind of warmth comforted me. “Min-Jun . . .” The soft voice breathing against my ear had me frozen still as the warmth squeezed me more. I slowly opened my eyes to see my beloved staring me in the face, his brow was creased and his eyes burning with a worrisome fear that captivated me as I slowly understood.

   It was just a dream.

   It was just a ing nightmare.

   One that felt so real, so painful, that it had my cheeks soaked with tears and my body trembling as I sat in Taecyeon’s arms, in our bed. My eyes welled with tears as I looked up at his face. It was as if Taecyeon knew exactly what my mind needed to calm me, what my heart craved. His lips were on mine before I could even say anything, before I could protest, not that I would have anyway.

   It was not just one kiss, but one among many. Over and over, his lips brushed, crushed and sat perfectly against mine, until not even one single shutter threatened its way through me. Taec pulled his head back and whispered a few quiet words against our kiss. “It was a bad dream, Jun.” He said, pulling me to lie down with him. “It’s over now.”

   I half smiled at his attempt to comfort me. It worked, even if I didn’t act like it, I knew it worked the moment my cheek nestled against his chest and the warmth of his body burned away the cold of that awful dream that threatened to destroy me. When I was more relaxed, Taecyeon loosened his hold on me a little, giving me room to shift and drape my leg across his.

   That’s when I remembered our lack of clothes and I immediately blushed.

   A soft and breathy chuckle fell from his lips and he reached up to run his thumb over my bottom lip. “Min-Jun,” Taecyeon’s face sank a little, he was holding something back, and he reached over to turn out the small light on the bedside table. “Go back to sleep, hyung.” He stated before going quiet.

   I didn’t like it when he held things in. He knew I didn’t like it, but he did it anyway. Maybe that’s just one of those things we deal with in love and relationships. We settle for things that we wouldn’t settle with for anyone else, we settle for them happily so that it’s okay because the payout for just manning up and dealing with it . . . is to be with that person.

   If it was anyone else other than Taecyeon, I wouldn’t have dealt with how closed off he was. If it was anyone else other than Taecyeon, I wouldn’t have just sighed and closed my eyes to try and go back to sleep. If it was anyone else . . .

   I wouldn’t be battling with myself over whether or not to tell him.

   He must have thought me to be sleeping, because I felt a soft hand lay on my exposed cheek as his chest rose and fall with a deep, quiet sigh. It reminded me of our first night together–a memory I hadn’t thought about in so long–we slept just like this.

   Lingering on the edge of consciousness, I knew he was still awake for his heartbeat still hadn’t slowed down enough. And then he murmured softly. “I’ll never leave you, Junnie.”

   I tried not to clench my jaw. Despite the dream, deep down inside, I knew he’d never leave me. I knew that he was so emotionally attached and dependant on me that he wouldn’t leave me. Even if it was simply because of his own issues with being alone, I knew that he’d stay forever, and I took solace in that. But I also knew that he wouldn’t have to leave.

   I knew that I was the one fated to leave behind a broken heart.

   But there was still one thought that lingered in my mind, undeveloped and ready for sculpting. The thought that maybe, just maybe, we humans have the power to change our fate after all, if not entirely, then at least small pieces of it.

   The only question was how. How could I make him happy, even when I was gone?



“How do I leave, without breaking your soul? How do I stay, when I have to let go? Baby, I’m so tired, but I hold on to our past~ Because I already know the future . . . I know things never last~” I broke off in mid verse of the song I was writing and sighed. My head slumped forward against the keyboard and heard the clinking of a few keys ring through the small recording room as I closed my eyes, letting out a deep sigh.

   “Why so depressed lately?” A voice from behind made me jump and I looked back to see the smirk of a familiar face. “You know I really do love singing all those heart breaking tear jerker’s, but jeez . . .”

   I rolled my eyes at him and pushed my glasses up, running a hand over my face, as if that would wipe away the disgust I was feeling with my own writing lately. “Jo Kwon, I have a problem.” I admitted to the other man.

   “You mean other than the fact that all your music sounds like it could be on the world’s saddest drama soundtrack?” Jo Kwon stated sarcastically and I laughed, but still hit him in the arm.

   “I’m serious . . . I have a really big problem.” I turned my chair around so I was facing away from the keyboard and the rest of the studio equipment. Jo Kwon stood over me with a raised eyebrow, his large eyes scanning my face and realizing the seriousness as he crossed his arms and nodded, waiting for me to continue. I stalled for a moment, trailing my finger over the heavily worn down leather on the arm of the chair. It was in this chair that I wrote some of my best songs, created masterpieces, produced hits on international charts.

   It was also in this chair that I did most of my thinking, always about the important things.

   As I let out a sigh, I looked back up at Jo Kwon. “You’ve worked with me for how many years, now?”

   He smiled. “Three years this autumn ~” I could have smiled at the elated way he answered, I could have.

   “Can I trust you with a secret?” My eyes shifted up to him again and Jo Kwon then nodded, slow and skeptically, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not he would regret it. I sighed and took a deep breath as I carefully thought out my next words.



My hand grasped the cool metal handle of the shopping cart as I pushed it silently down the aisle. I read the ingredients on a package of instant noodles for a third time before finally giving up and putting it down. Distracted couldn’t even begin to describe the way I was feeling at the moment, and the way I had been ever since I left Jo Kwon standing utterly confused as I stormed out of the studio and left, keeping my secret to myself.

    I wheeled the shopping cart to one of the open checkout lines, staring straight through everything around me. Taecyeon, he was on my mind again. I honestly felt like an obsessed teenager, my thoughts focused on him the most. Not a single minute could pass without him coming to mind. I couldn’t have a proper conversation, I couldn’t listen to music, in every aspect of my life he was there. It was as if I had just met him, all over again.

   “Hey, I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.” The bag boy said once our eyes met and I found my way back to reality. I realized it was the same guy that was working last night, putting my items into bags and then back into the cart with a big smile that reminded me of . . . Taec?

   When I frowned, his face fell a little and he cleared his throat, finishing his job in silence and letting me pay the cashier for my things. It’s not that I was mad about last night, but I was actually scared to talk to him. To talk to the person that could so easily make my own husband smile and flirt so freely.

   And not just because he was clearly more attractive than I was. I never thought I was a bad looking guy, but this boy . . . he was young, very handsome faced with smooth features and a stunning smile. Being closer to him, I could easily see now that his body was also perfect, he had the sleeves of his uniform rolled up, revealing his tanned skin that covered his toned muscles; hell, he was even taller than me. Simply put, I was intimidated.

   So when I pushed my cart towards the exit, I was thoroughly surprised when I heard him yell. “Wait!” He stopped me right outside the doors and ran up. “Look I just wanted to apologize to you – I wasn’t trying to hit on your . . . boyfriend.” The bag boy looked down as his words trailed off, which was honestly cute of him.

   Damn it, why the hell did he have to be nice?

   “My husband, actually.” I corrected, knowing it would now be hard for me to have any resentment towards him.

   “Oh, wow~” He said with a seemingly genuine smile. “That’s really cool . . . You seem like you love him a lot, that’s good. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you don’t think I’m a jerk or anything– I’m Chansung, by the way!”

   I returned his bow and found myself unable to stop smiling. “I’m Min-Jun, nice to meet you.”

   Chansung smiled only briefly, but still bright enough to fill my chest with his own unique sunshine, before making me sigh yet again from how utterly sweet he was. “Can I help you with your bags?” Yeah, he’s got a kind heart. I decided silently to myself.

 

That evening at the market would be the beginning of something unimaginable. If I knew then, maybe I would have stopped myself, maybe I would have done things differently. Or maybe not. Maybe, everything happened exactly the way it needed to happen and that’s why I soon found myself visiting that place again, just for a glimpse at whatever potential hope I had left.

   The first few times I went back to the small and now familiar grocery store, of course, Chansung was there. We would share quick small talk, and he would always offer up his most heartfelt smile. Why was I going back? What did I expect to find there, at the checkout counter with a young and smiling stranger whose family name I always failed to get. I just told myself that I needed to be more sociable, and I would always remember to forget something on my mental shopping list just to give myself an excuse to return the next day. It went on like this for a week.

   And on the one day that the smiling face wasn’t there, I felt . . . actually quite devastated.

   Stupid of me, right?

   I let some ahjussi bag up my purchase as I paid for the lone carton of eggs that I had conveniently ‘forgotten’ during my trip to the store the evening before, and then I made my way out to the car. It’s funny, in life it seems that once you’ve given up looking for something, you finally find it. If a car horn on the other side of the parking lot hadn’t honked and made me glance up right before I opened my car door, I would have never seen that familiar figure just as it disappeared into the alley behind the market.

   Things would have been so much different.

   But as fate turned out, I did look up and I did see Chansung walk behind the brick wall. To follow or not to follow, there was never any question. My feet just started moving.

   Curiosity dug its sharp teeth into me as I rounded the corner that I had just seen the other walk past, my head jutted forward to try and get a glimpse of what was behind there. What I found was Chansung, leaning against the palely painted brick. His work apron was hanging over his shoulder and he covered his thick head of hair with a baseball cap that he had flipped backwards. He held a cigarette to his lips and I watched the light orange embers at the end of the tobacco death stick flare up as he inhaled the smoke greedily, as if he was welcoming death.

   I stood with my mouth agape, not understanding how anyone could willingly do something so lethal.

   When Chansung caught me staring, I looked down in embarrassment, only to be comforted by his warm laugh that I had gotten so used to lately. “Minnie hyung~ You’re here early today . . . my shift doesn’t start for another hour.”

   “I got off work early today.” I muttered the response, quite mesmerized with the sudden thought of how gorgeous the boy before me was. He smirked, different from his usually bright smile, and extended his hand towards me, lit cigarette between two fingers and all.

   “Here,” Chansung exhaled a lungful of smoke. “It’ll calm you down . . . you’re always so tense.”

   I shook my head, frowning because I didn’t want to sound too put off. “Cigarettes are deadly.” Though, really . . . why should I be afraid?

   His soft laugh confused me and I looked at him questionably. “It’s not a cigarette, hyung.”

   That was the first time he called me ‘hyung’. All the warmth that his presence generated amplified and I found myself staring dumbfound at him as he continued to hold his hand out to me . . . and then I realized what he had just said and my eyes went wide.

   I stared at the perfectly rolled joint in his hand and almost choked. “Are you crazy?!” I yelled, no actually it was a whisper, but it was raspy and you could obviously tell I was trying to yell at him. “What are you doing with that thing out here . . . you’ll get caught.”

   Chansung laughed again and I blinked at the shock of this all.

   It wasn’t like I’d never seen someone smoking weed before. I’d done my fair share of that in high school and the few years following. I was actually quite used to it, and I’ll admit, once the smell of the familiar spicy smoke caught my nose, it took everything in my power not to accept his offer. But we were in a public place, and I really didn’t want to get caught.

   Suddenly, Chansung was stepping closer to me. I backed up a step but he simply grabbed my arm as gently as possible and tugged me into a door that led us into the back of the market. With wide and wandering eyes, I followed him until he stopped and a door closed behind us.

   The room was dark, and it felt cramped, my heart was pounding.

   “Holy , I can hear you worrying.” Chansung’s soft voice rang through the dark and the lights suddenly cut on, accompanied by the flick of a switch. He was standing too close to me, our chests almost touching and a smile on his face. “Here.” Once again, he offered me the joint and I stared at him, and then it.

   How many years had it been? My eyes narrowed and I scratched the back of my head shyly. “I shouldn’t . . .”

   “You should.” Chansung argued using no logic at all.

   Apparently, I wasn’t feeling very logical, since I gave in and with a defeated sigh, I took the burning herb and brought it to my lips.

   Smoke.

   White, hot, spicy, burning flavor. I let my eyes close as I inhaled tilted my chin up, turning my head to the side so I didn’t exhale in Chansung’s face. For some reason, I smiled at the sensation tingling my lungs as I blew out slowly, right before it suddenly caught me and I found myself in a coughing fit. I wanted to laugh. Not because of the weed or because was nervous. I smiled and coughed and smiled some more because I was, once again, doing the unexpected.

   The horrible lack of spontaneity and unexpectedness in my life was like added fire to my own personal hell. And I’m sure it made my illness even worse. Chansung stood before me with a proud smirk and I took another hit before passing the joint back to him, still smiling. We went on, passing the joint every other 'puff'. “You’re cute, hyung.” He said, gaining a blush from me and laughing. “Don’t take it personally . . . I’m just saying.”

   That honestly didn’t make me feel like blushing any less, but I tried to stop anyway.

   “You don’t let loose very often, do you?” Chansung sat down on a large plastic container of something, I couldn’t tell what it was but it really wasn’t important since I was focused on taking another puff from the joint. I drew a little too quickly and suddenly the heat of the smoke was burning my throat, sending me into a coughing fit.

   “There comes a time . . .” I said when I could finally speak without hurting my throat.  “. . . When you have to leave childish things behind.” I repeated some words that I once heard my mother say and instantly a lump formed in my throat as I thought about her. My mind flashed back to the last time I saw her but I refused to let myself linger there.

   “There’s a difference between growing up and growing old, hyung.” Chansung reached over to take the joint from me, motioning for me to sit down on a pile of boxes that were sitting behind me. Reluctantly, I sat down, not really trusting them to hold my weight but they proved sturdy enough and I relaxed.

   “Is there?”

   The younger boy before me exhaled a deep mouthful of smoke expertly. He smiled and ran his tongue over the bottom of his lip lightly. “Of course . . . Growing up means accepting reality, taking responsibility for yourself, using the things you’ve spent your life learning not just to your own advantage but to other peoples’ as well.” Chansung looks me in the eyes as he spoke, but he seemed to be somewhere far away. I watched him, captivated, as his eyes shifted from me and he sighed. “Growing old is when you stop believing in something . . . you get tired, and wasted . . . I never want to grow old.”

   Oh how vicious irony’s lack of mercy is.

   If giving up, growing tired and wasting life was the definition of growing old. Then it seems that the cause of my sickness was that I had simply gotten old too quickly. Actually, it seemed legit. It seemed like everything he was saying to me was the most obviously truth, and that my eyes were being opened for the first time in so long – or maybe that was just the weed kicking in.

   But suddenly everything was crystal clear. My mind was reeling with thoughts and realization and subtle things that, for once, comforted me just as much, if not more, than they scared me. I don’t know how long I sat in silence, thinking through my life, but after a while of not saying anything, Chansung looked at me with worried eyes. “A-Are you okay?”

   I looked at him, unsure how to really answer.

   By definition, yes . . . I was ‘okay’ because I was not harmed.

   But something deeper inside me refused to simply say ‘yes’. Something kept my tongue bridled and I forced me to analyze myself to the full extent. Here I was, at the age of twenty-five. I was sitting in a back room of a supermarket, getting high with the bag boy. My husband and I had no spark left in our marriage and I feared that he would slip away from me, and that it would be my fault. And to ice the cake, I was dying. Keeping the secret proved harder than I cared to admit, but honestly, when the thought of revealing myself to my beloved came to mind, the only thing I could think of would be the devastating pain that he would feel. I knew it was selfish, cowardly, but I couldn’t live with myself to put him through that.

   So no, I was not okay.

   I looked up at Chansung and bit my lip. “Do you ever think about dying?”

   He frowned like a kid, or a puppy, or just something that most people would show compassion towards. “Why would I think about that?” He asked simply and I smiled because his answer seemed so simple, so real.

   It was childish and naïve, but it was real.

   Chansung placed his hands on my shoulders and leaned his head down so that we were face to face. “Don’t think about death, hyung.” He gave a small smile but it was a little sad. “That’s an obstacle best kept in the future . . . Instead, think about who you want to be when you die, and be that person right now because right now . . . never happens again.”

   There was no more smile on my lips, only clarity. I looked at him, but I wasn’t seeing, I was looking through him.

   Right now. I often felt scared by the things that happened in the present because I knew that once the moment passed, I wouldn’t get it back. You don’t get a free life, like in a video game, and you can’t just turn the page and skip to the fairytale ending, like in a book. I was scared of the mistakes that I’d made and I was scared of the mistakes that I would make. The moments that I let pass by unnoticed. I was scared of everything.

   But that fear seemed to fade when I was around Chansung, like he was a natural remedy.

   He was nurturing and gentle, but lively and free spirited. He smiled and stood tall and looked at the world through reasonably adventurous eyes, but he was relaxed and, for lack of a better word, beautiful. He was everything that I wanted to be for Taecyeon; everything Taec needed.

   I would find out later, that it would be my next thought that would either make or break me.