She stares into nothingness. Her sight is fixed on the ceiling but her pupils aren’t focused. She lies like that for a very long time before turning on her side where I can’t tell whether she’s going to sleep or gaze at the wall.

“Goodnight.”

“…”

I give my back to her and let her drift into her thoughts. She hasn’t said anything to me since…I can’t remember. But it’s been so long that I’ve even started to forget what her voice sounds like. I don’t know what I did to deserve the cold shoulder. She won’t tell me anything at all. She won’t even look at me. I never knew it hurt so much to be ignored. Now I understand what she goes through whenever I was angry with her.

Living under the same roof hasn’t been easy. We fought more often than when we lived apart. I had no idea why we wanted to move in together. It felt as though the more we see each other, the more distant we became.

She doesn’t wake me up in the morning anymore. I always wake up to her dumping the left over breakfast into the bin. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

No answer. She just goes on to washing the dishes as if I haven’t spoken. Walking over to the fridge, I get myself a glass of orange juice. From my peripheral vision I notice her looking up from the sink only to stare out the window, leaving the water running.

“Yaa, stop spacing out,” I chide her softly, reaching over to turn off the faucet. She then glances down at the plate in her hand, as if not sure of what she’s been doing. “You’ve been so distracted lately. Are you okay?”

The plate drops with a clatter into the sink as she flinches away from me. A scoff escapes her pale lips and then she leaves me to do the rest of the dishes. I sigh and put down my glass. She reacts to me with disgust every time I ask if she’s okay. Patience has never been my forte but I try to put up with it just because she’s been through more of this than I have.

Except she builds these fences around her, leaving so much space between us that my instinct tells me she’s planning on keeping me out. People say time heals wounds yet the longer I wait, the deeper it gets. I miss her so dearly; her gaze, her smile, her love for me, and our happiness. I can tell she misses me too. Whenever she thinks I’m not watching, she would fiddle with my stuff or just hold them close to her. I hope this is a sign that she will eventually open up to me.

As the week rolls by it gets worse than I expected. She doesn’t prepare breakfast for me anymore. In fact, she doesn’t prepare anything for me at all. She makes everything just enough for herself as if she’s living alone. So in the end it has come to this. It upsets me that she’s completely disregarding me but I bide my time. I’ll give her more time and space if that’s what she really needs. I don’t want to seem pushy or desperate. She’ll talk to me when she feels up to it. I love her and I respect her decisions.

But the food doesn’t really bother me. My appetite seems to have disappeared. I barely ate anything this week. Strangely, this prompts an unclear memory in me, a memory of food getting cold. So I sit in the living room, mulling over this weird recollection while she has her breakfast out on the patio. Just as I close my eyes for a short rest, I hear a light whimper. I sit up straight and listen carefully.

“HimChan-ah…”

Rushing to the sliding doors, I see her coiled up on the lawn chair, crying. I go to her side but she turns away. “What’s wrong, baby?”

She just continues to cry, sobs creating tremors throughout her petite body like she’s about to break. I hate seeing her like this. These past few days she’s been crying a lot. I touch her arm but she cringes away. I want to help her; she wants me to help, yet somehow she can’t find it in herself to let me. I don’t understand.

“Please,” I say, sensing that it’s time to fully confront her. “Please tell me what I did wrong. I need to know.”

A low groan is all I get. Then it gets louder and she starts to lash out at me. Her face streak with tears, hurt apparent in her tired eyes, she shouts, “Leave me alone then! Just go! I hate you!”

She gets to her feet, picks up her unfinished breakfast plate and then smashes it on the wooden flooring. Tears flow ceaselessly down her beautiful rosy cheeks, her eyes wide at what she had done. This time she just screams with her hands in her hair, pulling at it in frustration.

“Baby…” I reach out to hold her but she rushes past me, and sobbing at a pain that I don’t understand at all. What could I have possibly done to cause her so much hurt?

I try hard to remember what my mistake was. But nothing comes to mind except for the food that was left untouched. It’s such a fuzzy memory that I can’t work out what it means. My thoughts are interrupted when I hear her sudden outbursts from our room, a crash or two following it. She’s thrashing the place. Why is she so angry? She had paid no attention to me these past few days yet now she’s directing all of her pent up emotions at me.

Somehow things have been very puzzling. Had the cold food been a meal that I never bothered eating? Maybe that’s why she’s upset with me. Or was it because I said something rude about her cooking? I’m not even sure of anything that’s going on inside my head. My mind isn’t cooperating with me. Nothing is on my side anymore. Time seems to be on a constant move. But there’s no real change in us, only the day. The next thing I know it’s already nightfall.

Standing in the doorway, I watch how her shoulders move up and down in a slow rhythmic pattern. She’s finally asleep. So I carefully make my way to the bed, avoiding the mess, and then slipping in next to her. I lie on my side and gaze at her sleeping face. Even in her sleep she seems to be in so much pain; brows furrowing and thin lips frowning. I wish I know why she’s hurting. I wish I could take the pain away.

I bring up my hand to touch her face but suddenly she opens her eyes. She looks straight at me. The night engulfs us as her mesmerizing brown orbs continue to stare into mine. I wait for her to say something, instead she touches my face. Her slender fingers trace my cheek bones down to my jaw.

“HimChan…” she whispers, her eyes glistening. A single tear slides down the bridge of her nose and then along her cheek. Sniffing, she repeats herself, “HimChannie…”

“I’m here, baby,” I say. She’s reaching out to me. A smile pulls on my lips, I’m happy that she’s actually talking to me. The way she says my name sounds so heavenly. I miss her so much that it aches to feel this way again. Not in a bad way, but in the most amazing way. So I say it one more time to assure her, “I’m here.”

I try to take her hands but she pulls them to cover her face, and all the wonderful feelings drown from me because she’s apologizing. She’s apologizing to me.

“No,” I whine, shaking my head as my own eyes begin to water. “No, baby, no. Why are you apologizing? I’m the one who’s supposed to apologize. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for making you sad.”

“HimChan-ah,” she weeps harder, tears staining her face now. “I’m sorry…I’ll never anger you again. Please…please forgive me…”

I keep telling her to stop apologizing but she goes on and on. I don’t understand. Why is she apologizing to me? Is she the one to blame for what is happening to us?

“If only I hadn’t upset you…”

Strangely, the second she said that it triggers something inside me. Vague memories begin to force themselves back into my mind. I remember now, it was before she started ignoring me. I just got home and she was there as usual, waiting for me. I was tired from work but she kept insisting that I eat. She told me that she thought I would be hungry once I returned from work. I wasn’t though. I was really tired and all I wanted to do was go straight to sleep.

That was when she blew up. She started saying things like how I wasn’t appreciating the effort that she had put into cooking the food. Then she accused me of cheating on her, that I didn’t love her anymore.

I guess that caused the fight to worsen. I didn’t like how easily she blamed me of something that never even crossed my mind. After that I stormed out of the house, leaving her to cry all by her lonesome. She’s crying still.

We never made up. No one apologized. Until now. How could I have let this drag on for so long? It pains me to finally realize that it was both our faults. We grew tired of each other. We’re together but we’re simply there. Our love is frozen in time. Happiness is scarce, barely traces among the feelings that we hold for one another. Love keeps us together yet it’s also what’s keeping us apart.

But then why had she been avoiding me despite her wanting to get this over with as much as I do? A knock brings me back to our bed, to our late and heartbreaking reconciliation. It takes some time for her to realize that there’s someone at the front door. I don’t feel like breaking our reunion, but she gets up, wipes her face and goes out. I dry my own face and follow her silently, not wanting the guest to notice the gloomy atmosphere that our house emits.

When she opens the door, my eyes widen in surprise. It’s my brother, “JunHong.”

He looks at me momentarily before averting his gaze towards her. “I need to talk with you.”

JunHong leads her into the kitchen while I stand still on the threshold. He looks over at me again, so I head into the bedroom. It’s unusual for him to come visit us; it kind of bugs me that he’s here unannounced. But what bothers me more is that he wants to talk to her alone. This is a first. My curiosity wins over me as I leave the door open a crack to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“You need to let HimChan-hyung go…it’s for the best,” I hear JunHong say.

I can only gasp as I listen to his words. My brother is trying to make her leave me. But why is he doing this now? After all this time, he decides to intervene with my love life? Has he somehow found out about our constant fallouts? Or did eomma put him up to this because we never talk about marriage? Is that what this is about? I come out from hiding but they pay no heed to me.

“Don’t you feel him? You can’t hold onto him for too long. The more you drag this on, the more confused he’ll be,” he continues.

Her hands start to tremble. I can’t see her face but I’m sure there are more tears spilling down it now. No wonder she’s been so hurt all this time. JunHong has been telling her to leave me. So her pushing me away has nothing to do with our argument at all. She wants me to hate her. Or had the argument been part of her plan to get me to leave her instead?

“What’s the meaning of this?” I shout, but they take no notice of me. I only get sobs from her and my kid brother seems to be on the verge of tears. “JunHong?”

But then he composes himself, blinking the tears away as he takes out a package wrapped in brown paper from his backpack. “I know how much you loved him. I loved him too. But this isn’t for us; it’s for HimChan-hyung. I hope you make the right decision.”

After placing the item on the table, JunHong nears her and gives her a brief hug. Then he walks right past me, and without giving me another glance, he exits.

I face her but she gets up from where she’s sitting with the package in hand. She goes over to one of the kitchen drawers and takes out a box of matches. Then she heads into the living room and I follow her. “Baby, please tell me what’s going on. What’s JunHong been up to?"

Ignoring me, she clears the small table we never seem to use, and unwraps the package. There are a lot of stuff in it; candles, flowers, a bundle of sticks, and a small white ribbon.

I laugh at how random JunHong can be when it comes to giving me presents. “Is that supposed to be for me? JunHong is really bad at choosing gifts.”

However it’s in no way a present at all. Realizing the relation of those so called random items a bit too late, I feel a strange kind of sorrow crawling into my heart as she takes out the final object. It’s a picture of me smiling. I remember when this photo was taken; I had just graduated from university and needed a formal picture to put on my resume. I look sharp and handsome. But I also remember it being more colorful, with my reddish brown hair, pink lips, cream shirt under the navy blue suit. Now it’s in black in white.

As she decorates the framed picture with the flowers, chrysanthemum to be exact, I finally get a grasp on the whole situation. A short memory of what happened after I left the house in a rage invades my mind. I remember everything now. I had gotten into my car and drove away in blind anger. I went over the speed limit and lost control. The memory abruptly ends there because there’s nothing else left to remember.

This fallout of ours isn’t about us being upset with one another. It’s because I left her. That fateful night when I got out of our house, it was for good. I never returned, at least not physically. Then I notice how the light of the dim candles goes right through me.

She’s finished with the set up. It looks exactly like how they did it for when gramps went away. A picture surrounded by white chrysanthemum flowers and candles on the table. Only this time it’s for me. The smell of incense fills the air and just like the light, the smoke penetrates my fragile being.

“HimChannie…” I hear her whisper.

“Baby…” I say, reaching out my hand but I can’t touch her. My hand goes straight through her shoulder. Tears flow from my eyes as the truth overwhelms me. She hasn’t been ignoring me, it’s because she can’t see me. I glance down at myself and become aware of how I’m transparent, barely there. It hurts me more to know that I can never be with her again. An argument is trivial compared to what’s actually happening to us now. But there must be a reason why I’m still here. So I tell her, “I’m here…”

Unexpectedly, her head comes up and then she turns around and looks right at me. Her eyes are wide, her cheeks wet, her nose running, and her lips trembling. But all the more she looks beautiful as she is. This is the love of my life. I made her like this, broken and sad, because I left her.

“HimChan-ah,” she gasps, her hand flying to , dropping the white ribbon she had been holding. Taking in my presence before her, she then lunges at me, throwing her arms around me. But she falls right through me, catching nothing but the empty air. She stares at me in disbelief. “HimChan-ah, you’re here. But you…you came back.”

“Yes…but,” I say with a sad smile. She starts to shake her head, covering her ears with her hands, not wanting to hear what excuse I still have to let her know. I try to remove her hands but I can’t, of course I can’t. Chuckling, I give up as tears start to blur my vision. But then she lowers her hands, and looks at me with those heartrending eyes of hers again. “I came back to say…goodbye.”

“Himchannie…” she sobs, tears endlessly streaming down her face. She tries to put her hands on mine but then she just pretends that she can actually grip them even though they just pass through. “I’m so sorry for making you angry that night. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s my entire fault…now you’re…”

“It’s not your fault, baby. Don’t blame yourself for something you didn’t do. I know you never meant to hurt me as much as I never meant to you,” I tell her. Then I pick up the small white ribbon and smooth it between my fingers. Somehow it makes a lot of sense to put this into her hair. So I carefully place it just above her left ear. “I never blamed you for anything. Now you need to move on.”

“But I love you, Kim HimChan.”

I grin and she returns it shakily. She tries to keep the smile on her face even though her tears tell of her true feelings. Nevertheless she’s still gorgeous. This is the girl I fell in love with, the girl I love, and the girl I will still love. Leaning down, I try my best to act as if to kiss her although we’re just kissing the air.

“And I love you too, baby.”

It feels strange to know that I’m disappearing, that my whole being is slowly vanishing into nonexistence. She continues to try to keep her hands on mine but there’s nothing left to grasp. She’s still crying, but I know she understands. I don’t want her to mourn for me more than she already has. I need to let her go for her to do the same.

Because I no longer am.

I was.