I had walls high as the heavens but you managed to tear them down. Do you remember?

It was the middle of winter, cold as hell.

Snow blanketed the landscape, giving everything a white sheen. The trees were stripped , dusted with the icy flakes of the long winter ahead. It looked as if Mother Nature had decided to go on holiday. The plants seemed almost dead and the animals all in hiding, waiting for her to come back and bring life to the land once more. But of course the plants weren’t dead, they were merely sleeping and the animals weren’t into hiding, they were hibernating until spring came again.

“Why are you so cold?” you asked me as I gazed out the window.

We were at your home, planning to spend the entire day playing video games because I didn’t have to go to class that day and you were home but we never got to finish our game. You had asked me about my parents, you wanted to know how they were. It was nothing strange, you often asked about my family. I knew that you wanted to meet them deep down but I refused. I didn’t want you to meet them but you didn’t know why and your patience was growing thin.

“I’m not cold,” I grumbled as you paused our incomplete game.

“You are,” you cried as he stood up from that leather couch I loved so much. “Whenever I ask about your family you always just complain about them. You don’t tell me why. Why don’t you explain to me why you hate them so much?”

I tore my gaze away from the hollow looking tree below and glared at you. I was mad but I wasn’t mad at you but you didn’t know. “I don’t hate them,” I merely stated.

“The way you talk about them sounds like you hate them. Why Himchan?” you half pleaded, “Why don’t you like them? Did they force you into doing medicine? Did they hit you as a child? What did they do to make you dislike them so much?”

“Nothing,” I stated firmly. “I want to be a doctor, I want to save people and no they didn’t abuse me as a child. It’s nothing Yongguk.”

You didn’t accept my answer; you were too stubborn to accept it. “No, it’s something. Why don’t you just tell me? Why do you keep secrets from me? I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends,” I replied.

You shook your head at me and asked me in that worried tone of yours, “Then why won’t you tell me anything?”

I didn’t know what else to do. I was cornered and I wasn’t going to tell you what was on my mind. It wasn’t because I didn’t trust you it was because I was so used to keeping it inside. I couldn’t take it anymore and so I did the only thing I could do at that time. “I’m going.”

“Himchan no, wait,” you begged as you reached out for my wrist.

I swung my arm away from you and headed for the door, ignoring everything you said.

“Himchan, why are you being like this? Why are you so stubborn?”

“Stubborn?” I snapped back as you recoiled at my acidic tone.

“Yeah, you’re stubborn and selfish too. You never tell me anything and when you do, I feel like everything is a lie. You don’t trust me do you? You’re just sitting back while I keep putting out.”

I plucked my jacket from the coatrack and slipped into it, pretending I couldn’t hear your words. You reached for me a second time but again I evaded you. I knew you could easily overpower me. You were a military man after all but you would never hurt me, we both knew that.

“Goodbye Yongguk,” I hissed as I marched out the door and wondered out into the ice cold snow.

Days past and neither of us had contacted the other. I was busying myself with preparations for my midyear exams and you were doing whatever you did. We left on such bad terms I wanted to call you and tell you I was sorry but you were right. I was stubborn and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My ego was too big and it was my greatest flaw.

The stress of being unable to learn and memorise everything was finally getting to me. I had tried to understand the concept of how the different concentrations of gases in the lungs worked but I just couldn’t do it. I was on edge and often snapped at anyone who entered my view. My friends from university were the last people I wanted to contact. I knew that they understood everything without even trying or they were at least good at pretending to look like they knew it all. The pressure was building up in me. The possible failure of my exams, the fact that we argued and hadn’t spoken since; I felt like I was going to explode.

I had practically locked myself in my room, refusing to leave the house until all my exams were over. I had organised a tight schedule in order for me to memorise everything. I had it all set up and ready, all I needed to do was take action. As much as I forced myself to learn, I couldn’t do it. I was always reminded by the fact that you were probably sitting at home being angry at me all over again. Perhaps it was the stress or maybe I was just thinking over things too much but at part of me truly believed that our friendship was over. I had never had a fight with someone before, I had lost friends but they simply dropped all contact with me, no arguing whatsoever. That was why I was so unsure on what I was meant to do. Was I meant to call you and apologize, even though you were the one that threw the insults?

“Just take things easy,” my mum had told me time and time again whenever it was exam season. It was a lot easier said than done.

I looked at my phone much too often. I was secretly anticipating a message or perhaps a phone call from you and I had even made myself the excuse that I was merely checking the time on my phone.

Books were piled high on my desk. Sheets of paper with my notes, scattered around my room like the autumn leaves. Diagrams I had hand drawn pasted onto the walls of my bedroom. My room was my sanctuary of everything I needed to know but couldn’t. There wasn’t a day where I wondered how much more I could push myself that little bit further until I would crack. It scared me knowing that I was so mental unstable come exam season and yet I did nothing to change it.

There was a knock on my door and my immediate reaction was to ignore it. I refused to be distracted by external forces so I sat there, waiting for my visitor to give up and move on. But the knocking was continuous. When I thought the person had given up, the tapping of a knuckle against my wooden door repeated time and time again.

I waited for what felt like forever but the person still refused to leave and the only way I could have gotten rid of them was to simply tell them directly to leave me alone. I got up from my hideaway from reality, my cave of studies and shuffled over to the front door. My hair was a knotted mess, I was wearing my oversized jumper and striped powder blue pyjama bottoms, surely my appearance would be enough to scare whoever came at my door.

I opened the door to see you standing before me. You looked the same as always, there wasn’t a single thing different except maybe the fact you hadn’t shaved for a couple days. The dark shadow of your stubble made you look years older, I didn’t like it.

For a moment we just stood there watching each other. Neither one of us had said a single thing. I wasn’t sure on what I was meant to say and so I was waiting for you to speak first but you must have been unsure too since we stood in silence. I went ahead to scratch my chin to give me something to do and you opened your mouth to speak. The moment I looked over at you eagerly, the words escaped your lips, leaving you mute.

I wanted to ask you if you wanted to come in and sit down but I couldn’t work my mouth. Days of keeping my mouth shut, not hearing my own voice due to my personal isolation was finally getting to me. At that moment I thought that I had lost the ability to speak and that I had somehow turned mute. It wasn’t possible, I knew it wasn’t possible since I studied it but it didn’t stop me from thinking it. I was always such a mess under strenuous pressure.

“How are you?” you managed to ask me.

You never asked me such a boring question before. The fact that you had to use that on me was like being struck in the face. I began to wonder where we sat in our relationship. Had we downgraded from being friends to being mere acquaintances? The thought frightened me.

“Good,” I rasped in a voice far huskier than my usual tone. You seemed to have picked up on it as worry flashed across your face briefly.

“Is it a bad time? I know you’re busy studying with your exams. I put off coming to see you because of them. I figured you didn’t need distractions but I just wanted to know if we’re cool or not,” you explained as you kept your gaze on the ground.

I cleared my throat to get rid of the lump in my throat. My misuse of my voice was finally taking affect as I attempted to speak and all I managed to do was sound like a demon. “You know I have exams?”

You looked up at me with a flutter of hope. “Yeah, you’ve been complaining about them for months. How could I not know you’re in the middle of your exams right now?”

I frowned at my own stupidity. I had worried for nothing.

“How are things Himchan?” you asked me with so much care and tenderness, it tore right through my heart.

 I must have been such an emotional wreck with so many things happening all at once because the next thing I knew I had broken down into tears. The pressures from the exams were too much to bear. I had countless chapters to revise over and no matter how many times I read the information, nothing stayed in. I had been so unsure about how you felt about me. I really thought you had given up on me and simply chose to abandon me as the easy way out. And the fact that we argued over my family was so stupid that there was nothing else left for me but to let it all out.

My sudden breakdown must have been such a shock for you but you handled it so well. You wrapped a comforting arm around me and took me back inside my home. You shut the door to give us privacy, you even managed to kick off your shoes as you ushered me over to the nearest couch. I wiped the tears from my face but they didn’t want to stop, despite yelling at myself, willing to stop being such a cry baby. But you didn’t seem to mind. You knew exactly what to do.

You embraced me tightly and allowed me to sob all over your shoulder, letting my tears stain your clothes without a care in the world. You waited patiently until my body was done breaking down, letting me shake it all out. I don’t know how long I had cried for but when I was finished, my entire body felt weary.

Reassuring pats on my back told me you always had me. They also told me that whatever stupid reason we had fought about, it was nothing. But that wasn’t entirely right was it? You hadn’t been angry for no reason, you had been mad at me. I was the one being childish that day and I deserved your anger and I understood your frustration. I had never told anyone about my true feelings before. I might have been a social butterfly but I was always skilled at hiding my thoughts about things that really mattered. I always deflected topics before it would lead into something deep and meaningful. But it was time I told someone, it was time that I let someone in. You deserved to after all.

“It’s really stupid,” I sniffled as I wiped the rest of my tears away.

“What is?” you questioned in a deep whisper.

I took a shaky breath and let out a light laugh. I was childish, my reasons were stupid but all those years keeping those thoughts to myself, they had grown into something so much more to me. “You asked me if I hated them. I don’t hate them. I don’t hate my family.”

“I know,” you uttered back.

I sat back so I could look at you and so you could see me. I was probably a blubbering mess but I didn’t care, I had to let it out. “My sister and I were best friends and everyone loved us. My aunties, my uncles, my parents, we were both loved equally by everyone.”

Again I took another shaky breathe.

“When she was diagnosed with cancer, I was the one who took the news the hardest. I was just a kid; I didn’t know what was going on. All I knew was that cancer could and did, kill people. Everyone’s attention went to her. They fused over her. They bought her gifts; they gave her words of wisdom. She was the centre of their attention. People began to forget about me. My grandma loved to garden and my sister and I loved to help her out. But after the diagnosis, all my grandma did with me was ask me to get the roots of the Chinese bellflower. She used it to make whatever concoction she thought would help my sister. People forgot about me. Everyone asked if she was okay, if she was happy but no one asked me. No one asked me how I was feeling. My sister was dying and nobody bothered to see if I was okay.”

I ran my hands through my hair and blinked whatever excuse for tears away.

“It was only after she died did people start fussing over me but by that stage I was done with everything. I didn’t want their attention anymore. I survived through most of my childhood and teenage years on my own without my family helping me emotionally when I needed them the most. They were too absorbed with my sister, the dying one. But I don’t hate my family. They didn’t know, they just forgot about me. Their attention was elsewhere. They raised me into what I am today.”

“I’m sorry,” you uttered.

“Don’t be,” I shrugged, “It’s not your fault.”

“What about your sister? Didn’t she try to comfort you?”

I rolled my lips between my teeth before replying, “She tried but she kept being stopped by the rest of the family. I didn’t really want her to comfort me. I was the older brother, I was meant to be comforting her. I was meant to protect her. But in the end I guess I forgot, who will look after little old Himchan?”

“Me.” 

It's almost midnight here so there's probably like a thousand errors here or something. Please tell me if you spot any.