'We tell ourselves stories in order to live.'

- The White Album by Joan Didion

As Kim Sunggyu creates his perfect world, he reconstructs his definition of reality and crushes life - and lives -  into beautiful, magical dust.

Or so he believes.

xxx

He smiles at her. He feels, he knows - love is a subjective emotion that he never thought would come to him so easily, but life, after all, is unpredictable. Life is a mystery box that throws surprises (nice or nasty, utterly depends on your luck) at you, and he believes that after all the misfortune he had experienced once upon a time, it is finally his turn to receive his fair share of luck.

She turns to look at him. She smiles back.

He is right. He has to be right.

His gut instincts have never betrayed him. He feels a warm, fuzzy feeling building up inside of him (is this what they call love? Or the recognition of requited love?) and his brain registers it as a good sign.

She loves him back. He knows it. He never lies to himself.

He fiddles with his phone, fingers itching to type a simple message that aptly sums up his love, send it to her and watch as pink roses bloom in her cheeks the way he has seen it happening when she looks at him. But wait, love - too simple and too broad a word to use to describe his feelings for her. They transcend that of physical attraction, an emotional attachment. He needs her, wants her, even has her.

Kim Sunggyu inhales deeply. For now, he will take one step at a time.

Getting her number, for one, will be a good start.

xxx

What happened to love?

Kim Sunggyu spits on the ground next to her, who is shivering despite the sweltering heat. He throws his leather jacket aside and growls at her whimpering figure, his anger boiling like never before.

He caught her with another guy, both of them laughing, and he bets that it is about him.

“I thought you loved me,” he hisses in her ear, “guess not, huh?"

Punches, slaps, flinching. He watches as she cowers before him, her voice struggling to construct a logical sentence.

“I...I don’t even know who you are -"

She winces as he delivers a swift slap across her delicate face, the red imprint of his handprint crimson clear on her fair skin.

“Lies. YOU LIE!"

Sunggyu remembers all the times she smiled at him, the times she waited for him outside his lecture theatres, all the times she made his heart flutter (she still does) and reciprocated his feelings with shy and demure smiles - what are they?

xxx

“Sunggyu, you’re not -”

He glares at this foreign woman in front of him. It is the fifth time (yes he’s been counting) she has entered his room without even asking for permission and been forcing him to talk about anything and everything, and all he wants to do is lock the woman out once and for all.

“Don’t tell me what I am or what I am not. Just get out. I’m not hungry,” he says as he notices the food tray in her hands, even though there is his favourite chicken pie.

She sighs and leaves the tray on the table in front of him and throws him a look before leaving the room. Sunggyu heaves a sigh of relief when she does, and immediately eats the pie with relish.  

Today is Day 34 (yes he counts everything) that he has woken up to this whitewashed room with sponge walls, and he feels as though he’s being intentionally locked up. He’s not ill; there are no tubes attached to his body, and he feels perfectly fine. He wants answers, but the last thing he’ll do is ask the annoying woman who disturbs him at least three times on a daily basis.

He makes a mental note to count the number of chicken pies that will be offered to him from now on.

xxx

“I’m really sorry.”

She tries not to cry in front of the psychiatrist as they watch Sunggyu from the surveillance television. He is implying that Sunggyu will not recover, and neither will he remember that they used to be one of those happy couples that put their padlocks together at Namsan Tower.

“It’s okay.”

It isn’t.

“At least he won’t be going to jail for the murder of Park Hyesu.” The doctor gives her a small smile, but she is not in the very least comforted.

She has lost him anyway, and all she can do for the rest of her life (and his) is to watch as Sunggyu learns not to remember her, but to hate her.