Soojung,

I visited your house today and your Mom hesitated at first, remembering how you hated it when someone disorganizes your stuff. And she had to search the whole room your dad and she share to find the key, but I told her I have a copy of it. She must’ve figured out. Although she was a bit surprised, she didn’t ask why. Funny how your room was still as messy as ever. I found some of my comfy cotton shirts on the floor. I always wondered where they went, and now I found out. And when I opened your closet I found my wool sweater with a tag “reserved for period days and don’t even touch this.” But I did. Now will you come back and scold me?

I found some of your English course works under your bed and I had to laugh at how you labelled the number 10000. Teeen? Seriously? Also, there were fancy hairpins on the floor, and they smelled of your hair. Your old phone was there, too, and I’m sorry if I couldn’t resist scanning its contents.

I am writing today at our favourite diner in the neighbouring town. Do you remember how we always came here every Friday for our “wasted Friday nights?" But not really the type of wasted where there’s alcohol and cigarettes and all that stuff. Wasted like our kind of wasted. From school we’d take bus no.13 and I still find it so funny how we never missed the song “A drop in the ocean” on Ahjussi’s playlist. Maybe we’d get in and it's already the second chorus, or the bridge of maybe the last line of the song. But nevertheless, we’d never miss it. We’d order loads of fries and breakfast sets that had eggs, bacon, pancakes, coffee at 10PM and we’d talk just about everything until 3AM. And I’d help you jump over the fence at 4AM. We’d been doing that for, what..2 years at most? But we were never caught. Well, there were times when we were almost caught. Just almost.

Do you know what day it is today? Happy anniversary, Jung. I’ve got a great big “I love you” stuck in my throat and I’m going to save it for that one day when you'll come back. I keep choking on it every time I see you in my dreams but for now, I’m just going to let it sit there and burn all the patience and willpower to not say it through the wind. Please, please come back 'cause I haven’t said I love you enough.

With much love,

J

---

Jongin stumbles down the sidewalk, a bottle of soju in his hand and his beating heart crushed on his sleeve. The news of the final survivors from the Sewol tragedy came crashing to him just a few hours ago. Families were devastated and some were celebrating in joy of having their loved ones back the last minute. Some of her friends have survived and he vaguely recalls seeing Seolhyun and the way she was after seeing him. He looks at her closely, and he can see that every now and then she turns away from her family, and her smile falters. And she becomes another person for a few seconds; a sad person, a person who is broken and damaged. Her eyes met his for the second time and she shakes her head and mutters faint words of apology in the air. She didn’t make it. And after a few depressing seconds, she smiles, she goes back to her family, smiling and crying in joy. And she almost looks like she is happy but if he looks at her closely, he can see how spurious her smile really is and he can see all the wreckage behind her fake smile. After all, he is not the only one who lost someone important.

She did, too. She lost her best friend.

He walks away from the scene. Fists clenched and his head down and mind spinning in circles. His inner self trying so hard not to take the passing police officers by the shoulder and yell at them. Punch them to bring some sense into them. To tell them that they should try harder, and to never give up because he won’t. And so he does. And he remembers being taken away by a number of people after the commotion he caused. The face of the policeman that he punched in a state of fear and pity but never in anger. And he too, muttered an apology for Kai to hear. And he thinks how selfish of a man he is.

He is led to sit down and they tell him to calm down. How can he? He feels just as empty as he is dead. Like his bones and organs have dissolved, like his heart is turning cold at each beat, like all the blood is drained from its veins, like how his skin is slowly melting.. he is numb.

---

Cracked heart, white lips, acid taste, puffy eyes, long nights, loud sighs, stuffy air, messy hair, rough night.

The art of being broken.

---

The Busan Jongin pictured came in sporadic patches of memory and through the perspective of a child of seven. Busan was a gnarled tree guarding his bedroom window. It was a spread of green grass where buttercups scattered gold. It was a mailbox at the end of a long, winding lane. But most of all, Busan was the man who took him to imaginary cherry blossoms and the fresh sea breeze. However, there were sunflowers instead of daisies. The graceful sea and spreading ferns of Busan are as foreign to him as the amount of hours he travelled half the world to come back. It seems a lifetime ago that her death pulled him away from his roots. But nevertheless, Busan is home.

---

“I’m sorry I can’t take your call, my cat died and I think Mr. Sunflower is thirsty and the bird on the nest by the window is giving birth. Please try your call later or leave a message and I’ll call you back when I change my opinion about roses. I don’t like them very much."

 Jongin slugs another bottle of Soju before flinging it away to the wall, joining the pieces of the three other ones he also threw. He smiles bitterly at the sound of the glass being broken to pieces. Or maybe that was the sound of his heart breaking but he doesn’t really care.