I.

31^st December 2011. The last twenty-four, indebted hours before a whole new year began. He crossed out the last day of the month, on the calendar taped against the wall.

No, he wasn’t going to celebrate New Year. No, not at all.

He survived 365 days, of breathing in that same, strangely compelling and musty, and sometimes polluted air, by accomplishing the same old, same old routines, roughly everyday. He didn’t think he had the most appealing life, but he was grateful enough to be able to greet this cynical, sometimes critical gyratory world each morning, in just a blink of eyes away.

For 365 days, he had endured his lonely, lonesome days without seeing the trace of her face nor hearing her soothing singing voice channelling towards his ears. He carried on with his tedious, lifeless, life without her silhouette appearing or her missing presence, albeit at least, he tried to tell himself to move on, and to live, and to breathe every single day.

He survived 365 days. He wished to survive another 365 days.

Moved on, Lee Changsun. Moved the ing on.

II.

She dialled a strings of number, one that she remembered by heart. The phone was placed in between of her right ear and shoulder, she breathed out uneasily, anxious as she waited for him to pick up. On her left ear, she could clearly hear the last boarding call announced.

She made ten calls that day. But none of her calls made it through.

She knew him. She knew him too well. He would always pick up the call on the third ring. The third ring passed through, but he didn’t. Her heart sank, all she could hear was his pathetic voicemail, no gentle sounds of breathing, but just a stiff, robotic voice reaching to her ear.

 “Hello, this is Lee Changsun. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible."

She felt nauseous, as she clenched her teeth tightly, barely combating against the burst of pain in her chest. Her eyes were b with hopeless tears.

 Lee Changsun was a coward, coward.

To Han Seungyeon, Lee Changsun was a coward.

III.

Changsun worked as a full-time barista in a small, and yet rather successful coffee shop, somewhere hidden between the alleys, of the busy, demanding city of Seoul.

He worked from Monday to Saturday, with shifts from nine to five, sometimes from five to twelve in midnights. He had Sunday as his day-off, and he would spend his free times painting, working his magic pair of hands, sketching and painting whatever that came through in his functioning brain.

He at Maths; he left his dream to become a runner when he sprained his ankles in high school, and all he had was his miraculous hands, and a creative mind, but being a painter alone wasn’t enough to support his financial needing. So, being a barista was his other option. At least, he was, actually good at it.

And at least – he would be able to let his mind off his past, albeit it barely helped.

It was a Tuesday, and Changsun was on his morning shift. He was working behind counters, wiping down the counter-tops, as he neatly arranged the small packets of coffee and sugars at their respective compartments, and cleared away the reusable cups on the counters.

“Two hot caramel macchiato, please?”

A voice greeted him, as he wiped his hands on the apron tied around his neck, smearing a good amount of dirt in it. He then smiled lightly, acknowledging the customer’s request. The customer was a tall guy, neatly dressed in his fitted black suit, and had an expensive looking grey tie adjusted around his collars.

Changsun would stumble upon a lot of customers who would look as fancy as the tall guy who stood in front of the counter, but he couldn’t exactly remember their faces.

“Takeaway?”

Changsun asked.

“Yeap,” He replied simply, and cocked his head to the right, looking outside of the shop.

Changsun didn’t bother to look at what the tall guy was looking, but he noticed the slight smile grazing at the corner of the guy’s lips. He scoffed meekly, but quick to resume his work as his hands steadily brewed the ingredients of the drink.

He added a vanilla latte with an extra foam and with gooey caramel sauce drizzled on top of the hot drink. He stirred it a bit to dissolve the ingredients. Once finished, he poured it to the cups, not forgetting to slip in some packets of instant sugar, and two straws, inside the takeaway paper bag.

“Twenty-four dollars and sixty cents,” Changsun said to him.

The guy fished out his wallet from the back pocket of his pants, and took out a few pieces of green papers from its compartment.

He handed it over to Changsun, “Keep the change,”

He then grabbed the takeaway paper bag, and walked out from the coffee shop.

The smell of the freshly brewed caramel macchiato still lingered around the counter, as Changsun inhaled the flavoured scent.

He loved and hated it – both at the same time.

Because caramel macchiato reminded him of her.

IV.

“A hot caramel macchiato for a young lady who had just came back to Seoul,”

Seulong muttered, as soon as he entered his car, which was parked along the busy streets of Seoul. To be exact, he double-parked.

Seungyeon stared at his offering hand, as she lifted her gaze to match his already disappearing, smiling eyes. They had that same facial feature, she thought.

“Thank you,” She simply said, as she took the offer and sipped on it a bit. “How’d you know?”

“I stalk,”

“What a creeper,”

“That’s what a creeper does,”

She rolled her eyes afterwards, and pushed his arm lightly. “We should be off to the office now, or else we’ll be late,”

Seulong gave her a salute and winked a little, “Alright, ma’am,”

He then put his seatbelt on, placed his foot on the accelerator pedal, and released the hand-break as they stirred away from the place. Their sight then slowly retreated into the massive throng of cars.

V.

Every weekend, Seungyeon could be found at that same spot, sitting down on a vacant bench, as she fixed her gazes away to her surroundings. She would hear the chorus sound of birds chirping, the harmonic sound of the sprinkling water from the man-made fountain across her sight and she would also take notice of those old, fallen leaves spread on the pavement. The leaves were blowing around wildly in the gust of wind. She tucked strands of her hair behind her ear, and thought that view was pretty. 

She then bent down a little, picking up an almost wilted one, which fell right next to her foot. She placed the single leaf on the palm of her hand, and gently blew it away.

She watched it fell; dreadfully fell flat, back onto the ground. It was where it belonged. A smile crept up, as inspirations then abruptly came to stopover her overly worked brain sometimes. She took out a pink notebook from her sling bag, and a pen from the front pocket of the bag.

Seungyeon spent her lovely evenings like this, scribbling sentences and words on what started from merely blank papers, then became a full-fledged written papers. Sometimes, her words wouldn’t make sense; sometimes her words are typical. She could never understand of why she loved to torture herself and her brain with writing.

Thinking is always a tormenting process, to her. Sometimes; she thinks that too much of thinking would impair her hay wired brain too. But somehow, she enjoyed that kind of pain. Because writing was what her heart loved the most.

“Hey—”

The sudden voice startled her long trains of thoughts. She halted, looked up with her squinted eyes and saw the same man, she met for a couple of times. She smiled. It wasn’t the first time they met there.

“A hot caramel macchiato to get you thinking,”

He offered a drink with a slight, shy gesture of his hand. Their eyes met and he would dart it away, not looking directly to her eyes. He was a little shy, she reckoned but Seungyeon found that adorable.

She counted in her head; she had accepted his offer for the third time.

The fourth time he offered, she was already in love.

VI.

31^st December 2011. The last ten, indebted minutes before a whole new year began.

He didn’t celebrate New Year tonight, despite the half-day holiday given by his employee. He didn't have a reason to celebrate, he thought so.

Changsun leaned himself against the post of his bed, as he stared blankly at the white wall across him. That once, short thin-layered of a crack, had elongated much further now – but he did nothing to fix it. He watched it developed hopelessly, he watched the cracks on the wall grew.

The night was as quiet as usual, only the scrooping sound of the ceiling fan would accompany his ever so silent night. He then scrolled down the saved folders on his phone. He scrolled down until the very end of the list, and because he did almost too often, he could remember it by heart.   

He clicked open the folder. A specific folder which kept those permanent voicemail messages saved on his phone.

He clicked the first icon in the list.

“I would have stayed, if you had asked me to stay. But you didn’t, you’re a coward,”

He clicked at the second icon.

“I could only hate you for giving up easily on me,”

The third.

"Lee Changsun, you're a coward!"

And fourth.

“I'm leaving now (a long pause followed) Take care, Lee Changsun. I love you, always,”

He heaved out a deep sigh, as he put the phone away to the bedside table.

The only reason why he let the cracks on the walls to develop, was to remind him that the cracks only began ever since she left. 

Then, the sound of the fireworks promptly filled the usual, solemn night sky. He could feel it shook the ground lightly, but he only stayed still, drown in his own thoughts. Amidst the spreading, flashing specks, and the explosive sounds shooting across the sky, he pulled the blanket closer to his chest, and closed his eyes.

He made a wish. He wished to survive another 365 days.

Happy New Year, Lee Changsun. Happy New Year.

Lee Changsun is Lee Joon's real name.

I couldn't promise anything, it may or may not be a good read, but I'll try my best.

Thank you for subscribing :)