Jiyong, My Best Friend
Jiyong, My Best Friend
"What the hell, Deni, what was that about?" Ji said as I pulled away after having just kissed my friend. It wasn't a normal kiss, it was an unexpected kiss, but it was a kiss none the less. What the hell did I just do there? Seunghyun would kill me knowing I just kissed Jiyong.
"Ji, I don't know. My emotions are all out of whack here. I'm confused and lost right now. I'm sad and scared. My fiance is dead and I am losing my son to my ex and I can't think straight. I guess I got caught up in a moment and my brain just didn't think straight."
"Ji, I don't know how to explain myself." I said sitting on the edge of the couch. "My whole world has been turned upside down in the past few days. First I get a letter from my ex husband saying he wants full sole custody of James. I mean that ripped me apart and you were there...holding me in my pain. Then I get the letter from the army, saying Top has died and you were there, holding me. You've always been there and I have never thought in a million years I'd ever love anyone like I do Seunghyun, but as I sat in your embrace just now, it hit me. I love you and whether I wanted to admit it or not, you've grown from a friend to something more. I had to kiss you to see if I was right."
He kneeled down taking my face in his hands. "And were you?' He smiled. He knew the answer, I knew the answer, but I was too stubborn to admit. I couldn't and wouldn't allow my heart to do this to me. I pushed Ji away and stood up walking away from him towards my room at the dorms and headed in, closing the door behind me, only to have him stop it from closing with his hand full out holding it.
"WERE YOU RIGHT DENISE?" He said as he walked in behind me.
"Jiyong, go away...this is just too much to deal with..please just..."
"Like hell I will. I won't go away until I know the answer you are too damn stubborn to admit. You know I know the answer and I want to hear it from your lips Denise. so just tell me. Were you right, do you love me like I have loved you almost 2 years now?" I felt his presence right behind me as I looked at the picture of Seunghyun on my night stand. I couldn't admit it, dishonor my husband like this, but I couldn't lie to myself. For 15 months, Jiyong had been there for me through everything I faced. Jiyong was there when my best friend left, he watched my debut as MiRae and pushed me through it, Jiyong had watched me deal with a duet gone bad with Yunho, Jiyong was there for all the ups and downs...and now I was facing the biggest confusion of my life. I slowly turned to look at him, my baby belly protruding out and Jiyong staring directly at me, deep in the eyes.
"Of course I ing love you Jiyong. I was right and damn it. I can't love you...this isn't right." I said sitting on the bed hugging the picture of Seunghyun tightly to my chest as his daughter kicked my stomach hard. Jiyong sat beside me and laid his right hand on my thigh. He sighed and chuckled a cocky type of laugh. "Knew it." He said, bringing his left hand up to my face and turning it towards him. "Sweet girl, its about damn time you admit this..I have been waiting for so long." He lightly my cheek with his left hand as he lifted his right hand and cupped my face. He didn't say a word, just smiled that perfectly smirky smile of his and kissed me sweetly. I pushed him off.
"No, my husband just died and all you can do is kiss me?" I yelled out not even realizing I had actually admitted to him Seunghyun and I were married.
"Wait, your husband?" He pulled back and looked at me confused. "He isn't your husband, remember, you two didn't get to get married. You can't be that confused Deni."
"We eloped the night before he left." I said as Jiyong stood up and walked around, running his fingers through his hair.
"You eloped" he yelled in disbelief "And he's your husband and you two have been married and and and oh Deni, this totally complicates things." He said sitting back down. I looked at him. "He told me not tell a soul. I never really knew why he wanted is a secret, but of course I honored that decision." My mind wandered and I suddenly remembered something he'd told me before he left after his last time home, "Here, Deni baby. These are for you and Jiyong. Just read them when the time feels right, ok?" I opened the drawer of my night stand, pulling out two letters. "Here, Seunghyun gave me these the last time he was here to visit. He told me to read this when it felt right, this feels about as right as anything." Jiyong took his and I looked at mine. I carefully opened it and looked at the words on the page. I could not have prepared myself for what I was about to read.
If you are reading this then obviously the time felt right and my guess is that I am no longer on this earth with you. I am sorry I left you this way, I didn't want to you must know that, but it was time for me to go away for now. I love you with everything in my being...everything I am. I will never forget the first day that I saw you in New York City. You were such a sweet girl, beautiful, adorable, precious even. I remember those eyes you had talking about James, I remember holding your hand the first time, I remember the first kiss, the first time we made love, I remember it all. Every moment I have spent with you: the good, the bad, the ugly, the perfect; has made me love you with a passion I never knew. I truly was able to come to the point of loving someone where I lost my senses. I will always love our night eloping the most because that night I finally married my perfect match. Which is why writing this letter pains me so much.
Deni, I know you better than you know yourself so I know that you are probably sitting beside Jiyong right now. He's there, supporting you as I had asked him to back the day before I left. I made him promise that he would take care of you while I was away. I expected to come back, but obviously I don't get to. I was prepared for this, because that night I made him promise me that if I didn't come back, that he would love you as I have loved you. If anyone else gets to love you that much, it's going to be Jiyong, someone I know will treat you the right way and who loves you with the deepest of passions. If I know you like I think I do, you are probably sitting there with your jaw on the ground, pick it up now and listen to me carefully my love.
Don't fight the love he has for you. You may not realize it but you have the full capability to love him back that deeply. I know that you will always love me and want to be with me...and I love you for that. But I don't want you to sulk around and live alone raising our baby without someone to care for you. Jiyong can be that for you, let him be that for you, love him like he loves you...let him take care of you since I no longer can. Let him love our baby like his own, give him this permission Deni. This would make me happy, to know that you are happy and well taken care of by someone like him.
And know that this is not dishonoring me. If anything, it is honoring me and giving me the greatest of satisfactions to know that my dear friend and my best gal have found each other and are happy. You, my forever love, my MiRae, deserve that.
I'll always be around, in the stars, in your heart.
I love you more than you'll ever know.
Love,
Choi Seunghyun
What the hell, what is with this letter? This was all I could think as Deni handed it to me. I mean it was bad enough I now knew they were married and I had been lusting after my friend's wife, but now I am getting a ing letter from him, after his death? Perfect. I looked over at Deni as she read her letter, I watched as tears streamed down her face, her belly was beautiful in its pregnant state, she was beautiful like that. It made me love her all the more. I opened my letter and looked down to read what my hyung had wrote.
Kwon Jiyong,
Hey there little brother, dear friend. If you are reading this then clearly Deni figured out what I meant by "when the time is right." I never met to leave you guys, it was never my intention to not come back, but, if you are reading this then I am gone from this earth and somewhere in the sky. I wanted to come back to you all, to her, but I didn't get the opportunity, for that I am sorry. I am eternally thankful for our friendship, for your leadership with BigBang and for helping me break into a life that has given me so much joy. I have enjoyed it all, the good and the bad. I know BigBang has lost its rapper, but more than that you lost your friend, Deni's lost her husband, and things will never be the same.
Remember that promise I made you promise me back on the day before I left? To always take care of Deni and love her? I need you to actually follow through now. I know that if I want anyone to love her as deeply and as intensely as I do, then I want it to be you. I trust you with my life and she is my life so I trust you with her. I want you to be there for her through it all, the rest of what lies ahead for her. I need you to be a dad to that baby that is growing in that stomach of hers. Whether you two choose to tell the baby about me is up to you, but I know that no matter what you will protect our child with all you have, just like you will love Deni with all you have.
She is reading something very similar to this. I have given her permission to love you, I want her to love her and need her too, because otherwise, she will hide and die slowly in the pits of despair. Jiyong, take good care of her and that baby in her and of James. Take care of them all, be the man I know you are and step up. Now is your time to take on this new life. Due it with a fire that I know is in you. I believe that your life will be greatly rich with an abundance of love and happiness. Take good care of that beautiful woman beside you, she deserves that.
I'll be around, you will know that...you will feel it. Just don't let Deni get lost, please.
Love your hyung,
Choi Seunghyun
I looked at the letter in my hand then at Deni, who had laid back in the bed and placed a pillow over her face to cry and scream into. I promise to take care of her. I said I would and I met it Top hyung, but damn you for actually dying you ! I leaned back and laid beside Deni, gabbing her left hand with my right interlocking our fingers. I didn't know how to respond other than to hold her hand. How would you respond to something like this? It was insane, my friend had just told me to be in love with his wife, he had just gave us permission to be there for each other, all from beyond the grave. There was no good way to respond.
----(Deni's POV)-----
All I could do was just lay back and cry. My husband was telling me to love a man I never planned to ever care anything for other than friendship. He was giving me permission, begging me to. What a jerk! What a loving, amazingly selfless jerk. I cried into the pillow as I felt Jiyong lay beside me in the bed. I didn't want to talk and my hope was that his letter was just a bone tingling shocking as mine. I felt Jiyong move his hand towards mine and clasp it was we interlocked our fingers. After what seemed like hours laying there with me crying and him not moving or saying a word he finally say up, still holding my hand and clasping onto it for dear life. He pulled me up with him and as I sat beside him he kneeled in front of me taking my baby belly in his hands and kissing it then looking up at me.
"I won't let his memory die, this family will be built with a pillar holding it high. He will always be a part of this family and that baby in there will know it's daddy in heaven and will love him just like it will know and love it's daddy on earth." Jiyong stood up and sat back down beside me, taking my hand back in his. "It seems you are now stuck with me Deni-ah. I'm not leaving you ever." He leaned over and kissed my cheek then enveloped me in a warm embrace. I love Jiyong for what he was to me and how he responded, but I couldn't allow myself to let him in right now. I know it was Seunghyun's last wish, but it wasn't right. As I allowed myself to relax there in his arms, my mind wandered.
How the hell did my life get to this point? This isn't what I wanted or planned, so where did it all go so completely wrong? No not wrong, when did my path go off and on this bumpy road? How did it become about those closest to me leaving? How did it become about learning and loving like this? And how will I ever move forward?
Comments