Jong, you made it so easy to love. You made it so easy…

            When I told him about “us,” I will never forget how he threw his head back and laughed, saying, “I’d expected as much! It’s about time!”

            “You’re not mad?” I asked him then, expecting him to be hurt; expecting him to disapprove, even though he knew how we felt about each other.

            “Mad? Why would I be mad?”

            “Because… because it’s Key. Your best friend.”

            “You are both my best friends,” Jong smiled graciously. “Besides, don’t you think I know how persistent he can be? He even got me to date him!”

            I remember chuckling at this. I remember how happy his blessing made me.

            “Key is… Key is like aurora borealis,” he continued, a sloppy smile hanging on his face.

            “How’s that?”

            “He comes and goes unexpectedly, all vibrant and elusive and mysterious... he's impossible to define, just like his effect on people. If he wanted you, Squishy, then it was only a matter of time before he’d win.”

            “But you… but you didn’t want me anyway, right?” I ask. “I mean—you’re in love with someone else too…”    

            He hugged me all of a sudden. “You’re coming to the wedding, right? I mean, I need you there. Taeyeon’s a sweet girl… I think you would really like her...”

            I recognized this as his attempt of converging our worlds again, and I was grateful for it. The void he left in my life once we broke up was considerable. I wanted to be close again, the way we were before the messiness of our pending marriage got in the way. “Are you an idiot?” I ask with a generous smile.

            “Maybe?”

            “Dork. You shouldn’t admit that.”

            “Now you sound like your husband.”

            I blushed. “He’s not my husband…”

            “Yet...”

            Uncomfortable, I shifted the conversation: “Is she… is Taeyeon excited?”

            “Are you kidding me? Ah, she hasn’t sat down in three months, I swear. She’s beside herself. I just can’t wait to get her to the Caribbean and—” He stopped himself short out of modesty.

           “Ew, please,” I tease. “I really don’t need to know about that.”

           He smirked. “That’s because you’re as tight as Fort Knox.” 

           “I’m sorry about that…”

           “Sorry? That’s not really a thing you should be sorry for. After all,” he said, “you were just waiting for someone with the right key.”

* * * 

            It was a beautiful event, of course. Everything was perfect, the bride dazzling and filled with every expectant joy. Key had completely recovered by then, though he suffered from chronic headaches and a tricky hip where his pelvis had realigned crookedly. But he could still dance the way he used to—a hobby of his I only discovered at the reception, and only fully appreciated when he took me to a club sometime later, the first one I’d ever been to, where he persistently surprised me with his stellar ability to replicate the dances to every single song the DJ played, even after he’d become so drunk that he put his hair up like an apple stem and insisted I call him only 'Kibummie' and nothing else for the rest of the night.

            “You really are Almighty,” I remembered saying in a drunken haze at some point. I remembered Jonghyun telling me that he claimed himself to be, and it only seemed more and more fitting the more I got to know him.

            When I said it he nearly attacked me—fell on me with a lustful lunge, fusing our lips together with clear intent. “I’m gonna make you Mrs. Almighty,” he said, the words slurred comically. “I’m—me… you. Yes.”

            “What? What does that mean?” I laughed.

            “I dunno, but it’s gonna happen~”

            I smiled and fell into his lips again, before he spun me around and pressed his body into mine, the way he had at the kitchen sink the day I was attacked by the onions. However, this time I could make out the clear definition behind me—could feel his desire, his warm breath prickling my neck as he drew closer. His hands strayed a bit, both of them hoisting around my hips and moving me closer into his, causing my legs to grow weak.  

            “Take me home,” I managed. He seemed bent on torturing himself—one of his hands had made its way back up to my chest and was flirting mischeviously with the dip of my cleavage. I had wanted this man far too long to play games now. I wanted to know just how ‘almighty’ he could be…

            “No no, Mrs. Key,” he muttered, his opposite hand now sliding dangerously between my legs, “not like this, we won’t. Okay?”

            I remember being mad then. Pissed, actually. He has touched every part of me, but he still would not let me give myself to him. I forced my body away from his and returned his denial with a formidable female pout. “No? You’re saying no? You don’t… like me?”

            “Ah, Messy, you know that isn’t it~” he said. I knew he’s drunk; I can tell. But still, I thought maybe he’d feel as weak as me and just give in. I was still a , but finally felt as if I no longer wanted to be. However, the tables had turned—I was no longer the one in the role of the rejecter. Now, it was the other way around.

            “I just… not like this,” he said finally, and I knew the matter was concluded. Key was too stubborn to be moved when he didn’t want to be. I tried sulking. I even tried not speaking to him. But there was no point in trying to manipulate Kim Kibum with emotions—he already had that field mastered. There was nothing I could to do convince him otherwise. He had already put himself in check before we even started drinking; he had no intention of making this drunken date our first time.

            In the end, we just went back to dancing and enjoying the parts of each other that there still allowed. Another day would come—the right day—where all things and all sensations would be unsurpassably open. Till then, we learned to enjoy each other—simply, and without expectation.

* * *                  

            But that was all a long time ago. A long, long time. And many things transpired since then. We lived very full lives, all of us. Now, on this cool spring morning we are gathered in a different kind of room, not a happy face in sight, but for good reason. I look down to see my husband’s hand clutching the epitaph. There is a crease forming in the paper that wasn’t there before, forcing the characters of Jong’s name to ripple below his fingers like black waves on a goldenrod sea. 

            I have comforted him this way before. Nothing in the world shook Kim Kibum more than halmuni’s passing. But no matter how he vowed to honor her life now that she was gone, a constant apology on his lips for the countless times he felt he had disappointed her, the passing of months and years was faithful to soften the pain—at least the newness of it, as these things tend to go. Life is a parade of ceremonies, after all, both happy and devastating, and I’ve sat by Kibum’s side through many of them: from our wedding to the birth and dedication of our daughter, to her wedding many years later. I was there to comfort him when, in private, he mourned the passing of our daughter’s affection to another man’s: she took a piece of her father’s heart when she left us, and he never quite recovered from her absence after she’d gone away to start a family of her own. He does so love his little Juliette, our opinionated but good-hearted daughter, who learned from her appa the clever art of emotional manipulation and often used it against him to get her way. Not that he really ever minded; he adored her from the very second he assumed I was pregant (like in all things, he simply knew before I did...), and that adoration only grew exponentially over time.   

            Likewise, we were also there for Jonghyun’s wedding to Taeyeon, plus the birth of their two children, both a boy and a girl, who became like our own. And because she is family to us, we will comfort her now in her widowhood. Though, even without speaking, I know it has taken a toll on my husband to see his best friend’s photo perched above the casket, surrounded by abundant wreaths and written blessings. He is mourned by many; he was a celebrated teacher in this community, diligently teaching children music for over fifty years with that gentle, passionate way of his. He was able to inspire an excitement in the subject, and many people respected him—but I was always the most proud because I felt I had seen him grow since the beginning.

           Yes, I was always proud of my dear friend. Always wished the best for him and Tae. Over the years we became inseparable again, and we often laughed at how fate had directed the course of our lives in ways we did not expect. Had it not been for Key’s accident so long ago—the very night that he’d gone to confess his feelings—perhaps we would have failed to change the situation ourselves. But Jong and Tae were happy, even into their elderly years. To her sweet and soft side, she seemed to have an ability to reign in Jonghyun’s often overriding sense of irresponsibility and mischief, all while treating him like a king. She was good for him, I saw early on—much better than me, which only made me that much happier with our decision to separate. We were all convinced she could do no wrong in his eyes. He deeply, deeply loved her…

          She was always beautiful and kind but now, as I watch the lines in her face, her folded brow and swollen eyes, cheeks pale and chiseled—she somehow seems to have a frightening, haunting beauty about her. A lover in mourning is such sight: I can see, in the sacredness of Taeyeon’s face, that her heart has already gone with him, and I wonder how long it will be—

          And then I wonder about us.

          I squeeze Key’s hand in mine, wrapping my thickened fingers around his, allowing him to relax his hold on the epitaph. My darling of eighty-seven years still looks in my eyes to be the pinnacle of perfection. I have never once regretted joining my life with his—he is half of my soul. Never once did I weary of the warmness of his slender body against mine in the cool winter nights. Never once did I grow tired of the pitch of his Daegu accent sneaking in from time to time even though he was embarrassed by his “country roots,” or the timbre of his wild laugh—or even the quick-witted orneriness that he unexpectedly passed down to our daughter, who has always been his greatest mental match.

           Looking at him now, his head bowed and eyes glossed with memorial tears, he seems strangely twenty again. Suddenly, I remember the day I first met him: my need for him early on, his accident, our first kiss… I remember everything in a flood of pleasure and pain. Which is why, I suppose, I’m writing all these memories here now—or, at least, will resign myself to immediately when we get home. How have they never been recorded in tangible words before? Everything should be written down. Everything must be written, so that it still exists after we are gone…

            I hear her trembling voice and look away from Kibum just long enough to study the weariness in her eyes, the fatigue of her expression. Her voice tells me she has already gone. I wonder what kind of solace it must be to be indivisibly twined with someone already departed. But I do not fear it. Not as I feel my yeobo’s fingers locked around mine, our lives—our past, present, and future a shared, inseparable journey. I am an old woman but I have had my share of joy, comfort, and love. We have had an abundant life of happiness. I regret nothing. I would not change a thing.

            “Jonghyun,” I hear fall off her lips like a prayer. An invocation. Is she calling to him now? I watch as their children, now older than we were when we all first met, try to comfort her. But she is already gone to that place in her heart where her body longs to follow. 

            The name brings me back to our youth, to a string of memories I can’t help but recall. My Jong, my Rex; my darling, darling friend… we were always together, you and I—for as long as I remember, it’s been this way. We just were, like an indisputable force of nature, like the law of gravity or theory of relativity. You, my best friend. You, my once love. I knew you in and out; likewise, you knew me the same. There wasn’t one missing detail... and had you asked me then if I loved you, I would give an undoubting yes. You remain one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met. You were still trying to make me laugh in your hospital bed; I remember. I remember how you were still, even to the end, dedicated to seeing me smile.

             “I don’t need to pick,” you once said. “You’ve always been with me… I never had to search for you. That’s fate.” How ironic now to think back on those words, after recalling the last words you spoke to me in this life—and after you said it, how we smiled together! A silly, innocent share of excited smiles, no matter how awkward the situation could have been.

             I feel as if I have already said goodbye to you long ago, so I will not say it here. I’m sure I’ll soon see you again, in that place on yonder shores where youth is revived and all tears, dried. Will you call me the names you once did? Toss my hair and tease me in that way you always had? Then, when we meet again, I will tell you the things I should have said: that I’m sorry, that I’m grateful. That my life would have been so empty without you—that without you I would have never found my utmost happiness. You are a part of my soul also; the second half has always been yours. We will always be together, all of us. Don’t you know that the two sides of my soul can never be rent apart? They are eternally conjoined in me, and nothing so small as death can ever change it…

             I smile to myself at this thought and feel my husband’s fingers tighten around mine, his silent way of saying that he needs me. I’ll have to make sure to tell Kibum about this once we get back home... I know it will amuse him.

~ * ~

Final author's note: Wow this story has been really great to write. Thank you so much to all of you out there who took the time to read it and/or comment. I started this project with simple instruction to write a JongKeyRaina tale that somehow paired the latter two together (and a few other minor details), and I really wanted to do that in a way that was "real" without there being any "bad guys" in the story. Plus, I didn't want to hurt Jonghyun too bad, which is why I gave him Taemin/Taeyeon in the end. lol. I wanted to write something a little... well, tame by my standards in other stories, but also a bit more cerebral and complex. I hope you enjoyed it. There is a lot of parallelism, symbolism, and a sprinkling of transcendentalism in this tale; I hope that you picked up on some of it. I'm sure the tone was somewhat influenced by my reading Chopin, Wharton, and Yezierska over the duration of writing this. I used my marriage as a inspiration, as well as my experience with watching my father slip into a coma, to write some of these emotions and circumstances, even though my father did not survive. 

I realize that many of you might say that this is a "sad" ending, but I don't see it that way. I think it's the sweetest, most romantic, and fulfilling ending to give to these characters. In the end, their love has conquered so much that even death does not scare them; they will never be apart from each other, in this life or the next. I like to think there's a place where all our tears are dried in the cosmic end... or maybe we are just recycled with our memories. Either way, I have to have hope that there's more out there, and I think that when you reach that point in your life when you've run your course and you can still look at your spouse and say that you regret nothing, that you still look to each other the same as the day you met--well, I think that's a love that can withstand anything. And if that's not enough to convince you, just think: the last two lines of the story end with the word "smile" and "amuse." They are happy, and you should be too!

'Raina,' my dear, here's to you finding your soul-mate and living a long, happy and fulfilled life that can conquer the world and all its demons. I believe in you, and I believe in you who want to be. May you find your every happiness.

Love~
Melanie