(is love alive?

is love)

 

//

 

 

When sooyeon was young, still a kid with flowers blooming in her hair and fingers so tiny she couldn’t grasp the notion that there is something out there, a universe, as the adults would say, bigger than the tree that’s been in the back yard of their house for generations, her mother told her that princesses don’t always get what they want like the movies portray and that she was by no mean one.

Of course, as a naïve child, she shook her head and poked her tongue out  and ran as far as her short, chubby legs could take her and as far as their property allowed, and  cried. She cried like she had lost someone whom she didn’t quite know but still felt something inside her being ripped apart and she only stopped when her father scooted next to her and cradled her in his arms, telling her that princesses exist and that they don’t necessarily need a prince to make them feel like one.

“is mommy a princess?” she asked while wiping the snot that was smudged on her face.

“yes. It’s just that daddy forgot how to be her prince, darling. Never stay with someone who forgets that.”

And it was later on, when her parents informed her they’ve decided they’re better off alone and as far from each other as possible than staying in a house filled with lies, that she realised the gravity of those words and that the look her father had that day was not one of joy but one of regret of what should’ve been and was lost.

At the age of 10, Jung Sooyeon started to question the happiness people around told her she’ll feel when she marries someone. And more tragically, she began to slowly lose faith in fairytales she grew up believing in.

 

/

 

At fifteen, Sooyeon has completely thrown away the principles and expectations Disney movies taught her when her boyfriend of 6 months tossed in the trashcan the chocolate she had spent the whole night making without a second thought and told her to stop being so clingy before he dumped her in the park in front of everyone, not once looking back at the monster he had given birth to.

It was perhaps that moment she decided Sooyeon was to be left behind and Jessica to be born from the letdowns happiness and life were.

/

Now, at the age of twenty three, Jessica has forgotten how to wear joy and not wear the mask of disgust when she looks at couples so blindly in love they don’t see the true face of each other. She has not read a single poem about love she once adored to be absorbed in every night, blanket wrapped tight around her petite body and with a flashlight in one hand.

Jung Jessica has simply become the shell of what Jung Sooyeon was.

around the time she finally makes twenty four and is working in a coffee shop in one of the less populated areas in Tokyo, she meets Aoi, a bi-polar man that orders the same beverage every time and sits at the same table, always at the same time. Jessica has taught herself not to pay attention to others and just mind her own business but that proved to be really hard especially since Aoi considers her to be his business and always, before he walks out of the door, makes eye contact with her and smirks as if he knows something Jessica is not even aware of.

And every time she goes to clean the table he sat at, she find scribbled on a piece of napkin some cheesy words in the most beautiful handwriting she has ever seen (and is jealous of for she has a handwriting so ugly it has often been mistaken with one of the boys’) and a number in the corner of if she has never once dialed until the day Aoi came and opposite to the other times, he has not once acknowledged her, his expression grim and shoulder hunched as if he holds the weight of the entire universe on them.

After a long time debating with her conscious, she decides she does not want blood on her hands more than it already is and calls him. When she sees he doesn’t answer and it has already rang for the fourth time already and is prepared to close, she hears a hoarse voice that makes goose bumps appear on her arms and makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up, sending shivers down her spine.

“hello?” she says softly, almost like a whisper. It takes aoi a few moments to recognize the voice, a smile spreads on his face like little children decided to paint this poor old man with joy and chuckles as he tries to light a cigarette before he responds. “oh. Didn’t expect you to call me. Ever. Such a nice change of situations.”

And, of course, Jessica scoffs, already irritated. “look, I don’t this often and I am, by no means, happy with it, but are you free for a cup of coffee in, let’s say, one hour from now on?”

“…….”

“Well?”

“….sure. meet me at the art gallery close to your workplace.”

/

At 7 pm sharp, just as he promised, aoi is there in a pair of black, skinny jeans and a white dress shirt, leaning on the front door looking straight into her eyes and Jessica swears had she not done her nails this morning she would’ve slapped him the moment she saw him when she exited her car.  (“excuses, dear Jessica. Just pretty excuses”, sooyeon whispers in sing-song voice in her ear, slim fingers playing with her hair)

“I remember I clearly told you ‘a cup of coffee’ not a full on date.” She looks at him accusing and crosses her arms. She seriously only wanted to make sure the idiot didn’t do something rash and hurt himself and the people around him as well. “who said we’re going on a date? That’s quite the assumption, Jessica.”  She needs all the self-control she has not to swear at him and maybe grace him with a beautiful red print of her palm. “Besides, I thought you would appreciate the initiative to feed your famished soul. When was the last time you did something for it, dear?”

Jessica walks past him without a word and aoi knows he has won this round.

 

/

 

She really hates to admit it but she had fun. Had fun with aoi pointing at paintings and telling each other the most stupid things it reminded them of and laughing at some ugly as drawings that are supposed to be one of the most beautiful of the modern age art.

And that er knows she did. The smug expression on his face hasn’t wavered once since they left to go to small coffee shop in the center of Tokyo and his hand is too uncomfortably brushing against hers while they walk side by side for Jessica’s liking.

But she can’t deny the smile that cracks under her skin at the feeling of finally being interested enough for someone to waste their time on her. She can feel herself tsk-ing in amusement when aoi lets out a goofy laughter as they enter the cozy shop and sit on a table on the far end and both of them order a cappuccino.

“I must say I was more than astonished when you called. I expected many people to come and poke their noses in my business, for various reasons, of course, but never expected you to be one of them. Thank you. Really”.

Jessica looks in his dark eyes and almost loses the ability to breathe when supernovas die and move in them, as if he is the universe. “No…problem.” (I needed salvation as well, she adds in her mind)

 

/

 

Surprisingly, they become so engaged in talking with each other about so many things, they don’t realize the clock behind them is ticking furiously announcing Jessica, that Sooyeon, the Cinderella, must disappear before it’s too late and that they’ve reached their 6^th cup of coffee when tomorrow both of them have work to do.

And even more surprisingly, she only realises when they’ve reached her small yet cozy apartment she has bought with her own money, that they’ve been walking hand in hand, silence embracing them with warmth as if is so natural for them to speak a secret language only their famished and tarnished hearts understand.

That night, a cold September night, is the night Sooyeon has seen, for the first time in many years, the stars hanging like dreams from the tongue of a lost wanderer on the sky and Jessica has went under the water, slowly drowning in the taste of aoi’s full and warm lips against hers.

She doesn’t know who exactly she is right now but knows her hips fit perfectly in his arms and the small curve of her back was curved for his big and slightly calloused hands.

Or was it the other way?

 

/

 

Jessica isn’t and never was the type to get nervous around anyone but aoi seems to have this special ability to make her anxious to the point of shaking. After they parted that night, he has never once broken his routine and made sure to look at her, making his presence known to her as his gaze bore holes on the back of her neck.

As she walks to him, coffee in one hand, she wonders if he knows how cruel his eyes are.

“here you go”, she say, placing the cup of burning hot coffee on the table with extra care, not trusting her abilities of not spilling any of it.

He smiles and she can swear the sun exploded in his eyes and in the back of her eyelids.

 

/

 

They officially get together on the 19th of December, after over 10 dates and late night phone calls, a total of 4 months of unsaid poetry.

Aoi showed up at her house unexpectedly, dressed from head to toe properly for the harsh weather outside and basically dragged her with him to play. Jessica must admit she has never laughed and smiled as much as she did that day and the moment they feel on the soft snow, aoi on top of her holding her body close to his, some snow on her eyelashes and some melting in their hair after a blood spilling snow fight, she swears angels would never compare to the perfection aoi is.

 

/

 

“…dreams and castles are made out of glass. Crumbling when winter comes”

“some castles are still throwing shadows over famished lands, Jessica.”

“but no princes or princesses to live in them. Empty, empty, empty”

“I can be your prince and you my fiery princess and we can live in one, big, glass castle.”

“…”

“I mean it. Winter will knock on the door, but will never enter.”

“liar”

“…”

 

/

 

The first two months pass by quickly. February has almost ended and she can say she knows aoi’s lips like the back of her hands but that would be a lie for every time they kiss, something changes in their pattern and she need to carve the memory in her head over and over again for the days they cannot meet.

 

/

 

They sit on her bed most of the days, just enjoying each other warmth and cuddling, afraid of making any sudden moves as if the balance of the entire universe is on their hips, lips and head.

Aoi believes he has yet to find another creature as interesting and flawed as Jessica. She can’t get more perfect than this in his eyes.

 

/

 

The blonde wonders when exactly she fell so hard for him and if falling for someone should feel this good.

 

Probably not, but she wouldn’t really know for sure since the last time she ever felt butterflies in her tummy was when she got a bad case of before-an-exam panic attack. She supposes falling in love can be associated to a panic attack. Only that recovering from one is by far easier than mending a broken heart.

 

/

 

They drink black coffee in the morning and kiss at noon on her balcony, aoi’s arms around her torso, tightly holding her as the breeze ruffles her hair, as if she is a paper containing all of the hidden words he has stored in his pretty little heart, waiting for the perfect time to escape and never to be seen again.

Aoi cringes at the comparison but he believes there isn’t a more accurate one.

 

/

 

One day, aoi catches Jessica off guard when he suddenly announces there shall be no more barrier between the two personas she has been trying to hide from him the way the sun hides from the moon every night.

Jessica, of course, protests and says there aren’t two persons in one body but aoi’s knows better, oh yes, he knows and she isn’t sure if she is so fond of his innate intelligence anymore.

 

/

 

They start of simple: aoi picks a random Disney movie and ignores the snarky remarks she makes as she follows him around her home until they reach the living room and inserts the dvd in the flat TV, she throws a mini fit and aoi wordlessly picks her up and plops her on the couch like a sack of potato and as a congratulation gift for watching the movie until the end, they make out on the sofa, curious hands exploring unfamiliar skin under cotton shirts for the rest of the night.

It seems like his strategy did work as after the first two-three times they did this she finds herself waiting impatiently for the picked date for this activity, already wondering what phrases of the movie he is going to whispers in her ear before his fingers trail down her neck until they reach the over sensitive skin of her collarbones, just above her left .

“ bastard”, she whispers with difficulty as she looks at her reflection in the mirror: totally disheveled, hair staying in every possible direction and face flushed red to the point of resembling a tomato, her loud and heavy intakes of breaths resonating in the small room. “ing hope he never gets rid of that no matter what he does”

 

/

 

The second part of the so called “brilliant” plan of his, is, much to jessica’s horror, reading poems. Aoi doesn’t begin with the hard ones and she learns to appreciate the beauty in simple words. As time passes by, every day seems like a different stage of love and hate and lust and she can’t help but cry a little internally at the sudden nostalgia that overtakes her whenever his fingers touch the corner of the paper, ready to turn it and read the next part, eyes shining as brightly as stars on a clear night sky and smile reaching his eyes.

She used to be like this too, ready to absorb numerous universes in just one day. That, until she realized universes were nothing more than ink on papers, washing off with the first drop of rain (acid, laced with hate and broken promises, shattered hearts and good for nothing people)

Jessica does try really hard to get that wonderful feeling back from her memories but has no luck. She does react differently to poetries, though. Unlike before, she now wants aoi to tattoo her body with his favorite pieces and whisper them into her ear every night from now on, and wants their universes to clash and created a storm so big their pasts are forgotten and buried somewhere between the spaces between their entangled legs.

 

/

 

When she finds out who he is, she remains silent and goes rigid before throwing the first thing in her reach-a lamp, it seems- at him and storming out through the door, sprouting profanities and threats regarding his ’s well-being.

She returns after exactly 2 days, 35 minutes and 15 seconds. She does not say a single word as she wraps her arm around his torso and lets him burry his nose on the crook of her neck, hands gripping the back of his shirt as if afraid of falling down a black hole and be lost for eternity roaming in the universe all by herself.

 

/

She reads everything aoi has ever written and decides he is far from the poet his father was (the poet she has admired and loved for as long as her full of fairy tales childhood lasted and grow to detest as she walked through adulthood, cursing him for all the lies he has created) and that her heart was made to resonate with his as every word cuts through her thick skin and pierces all of her fibers. She cries and laughs and weeps, curses and pities, all the while clenching the books his bones and soul have gotten into.  Jessica is jealous of all the things that will remain behind in his memory after his inevitable leave.

Including her.

 

/

 

They escape on a summer night and go to lands where wild roses grow beside a little river, trunk full with cold beer and radio blasting as they dance in unison, bodies grinding on each other, hearts beating to the deafening sound of drumming and arms up in the air, embracing the tired sun.

They fall on their backs, exhausted after two hours and turn they head to look at each other, asking questions without wording them and giving answers with flutters of the eyelashes.

They kiss and make love, vows and grand pictures of what is to happen after tonight painted on their skin with acrylic kisses, groans and mewls getting lost and carried away with the warm water of the river.

Jessica falls asleep with her hands in his long hair and her lips pressed on his ear drums.

/

 

They move in together and Jessica learns to accommodate to another person in her life. She learns to love the way their toothbrushes touch and the way they smile at each other every morning when brushing their teeth, sleep still in their eyes.

Aoi learns to accept her perfume that clings to his clothes and hair and follows him everywhere like a shadow, like a ghost of the night.

They share a bed and the kitchen cupboards and wonder why two souls created from the same matter and meant for each other had to go through so much pain until they found each other.

They never find the answer and they never have the heart to ask again.

 

/

 

 

He takes her to meet his father, all smiles and sweaty hands, goofy smiles and high hopes.

She puts on her most elegant dress and runs her fingers through her perfectly curled hair that took over two hours of frustration, burned neck skin and angry tears and checks her make up once again to make sure everything is perfect.

Aoi doesn’t prepare much. Years of countless occasion for his father to show just how much he care about his one and only son-which isn’t much- have taught him to close his eyes and accept he doesn’t have a dad even if he is beside him.

He hopes he likes Jessica more than he liked him.

 

/

They return home after 5 hours, smiles no longer gracing their angelic features, infuriated and not talking to each other.

Jessica falls asleep crying, drained of energy after destroying everything in her reach and wakes up with her face swollen, eyes all puffy to the smell of a delicious breakfast and freshly made coffee. Aoi goes to her cladded in her pink flowery apron and takes her in his arms, apologizing over and over again, promises of better tomorrows lost in her hair crown. 

Aoi finds her even more beautiful than before and holds her hand the whole day, whispering encouraging words.

 

/

It’s past midnight and Jessica is dragging a furious and semi-drunk aoi out of a bar, after he punched the daylights out of a dude who had the audacity to call her a “Barbie doll made for granting wishes for men”.

She would have punched him herself but aoi was a step ahead of her (as always).

“damned son of a ” he mutters, slurring his words.

“I know”

“how dare he?!”

“how indeed”

They don’t talk for the rest of the night until the moment Jessica is cleaning the wound on his knuckles, absorbed completely. Aoi stares at her and finds himself pushing a stray strand of her that fell out of her messy bun behind her ear. Her hair reminded him of a forest where all things get lost and transform in leaved, her eyes of crystal rives shining under the moonlight, lips of mountains.

“beautiful. You’re simply beautiful, my supernova”

Jessica pretends she isn’t affected by his words but the faint blush painting her cheeks don’t fail his eyes.

 

/

 

After a total of 18 months of dating, aoi drags her on the rooftop of their building, no questions asked, ignoring her protests and shrieks of surprise when the strong wind almost throws her to the ground. He makes her sit on the edge with him without shoes, chuckling at her choice of socks-neon pink with bears on them

. They hold hands and enjoy the silence and only after a hour does she find out why he wanted her to grip his hand tightly when he pulls out from his pants’ pocket a small velvet box, making her her pants and almost fall off.

He laughs and Jessica punches his arm, yelling “yes, yes, yes, a thousand constellations worth of yeses!” on top of her lungs, earning shouts from the frightened passers-by bellow who watch in horror as the two kiss the moment the meteor rain begins.

 

/

Jung Jessica’s life from then on is filled with laughter and bad jokes that are funny only to them in the morning and kisses all through the day, coffee and green tea whenever one of them isn’t lazy (or less lazy than the other), jealous looks from fellow single females who detest love and remind her of herself just a while back.

She still hates love stories. Just not hers or the ones aoi tells her right before she jumps down the rabbit hole and falls asleep.

 

/

 

She is one day offered a business card from a man whose smiled is was so greasy and sly, she got Goosebumps and the urge to call the police, who supposedly works for the biggest modeling company in Japan and was awed by her beauty.

She stares at it the whole day and throws it before closing the coffee shop  and going home to a warm meal.

She is no longer interested in being a doll.

 

/

“I’ll be your prince.”

Jessica whips her head and looks at him. “I will. Believe me I will”.

Jessica starts crying wondering whether he has the ability to read the past and her soul of thousands of ripped pages of sadness and unfulfilled love stories.

 

/

Aoi decides it’s time to start writing again.

He takes his laptop and goes to the mahogany table in the living room, getting lost immediately in the words and thousands of new ideas swirling in his head dangerously. He types from dusk till dawn, ignoring the desperate cries of his finger pads and the callouses that are being countered.

Jessica understands his thirst for writing and creating something far more greater than their speck of existence and stays beside him silently, sometimes reading, sometimes playing his long black hair, sometimes massaging his shoulders to ease the tensed muscle and ease the pain in his back from hovering over the laptop for hours without break.

She only gets in between him and his world when it’s past two in the morning and drags him to his bed. Aoi usually just stares at her says “sorry. Sorry for not being there. So ing sorry” and Jessica looks at him dumbfounded wondering why he feels this way when it’s obviously okay.

One night, she hears him crying himself to sleep believing she’s sleeping and her heart breaks.

She doesn’t push the matter, though. Life is pretty good as it is and doesn’t want anything to shatter. Dreams and fantasies sewn with spider web and realities built from scratch are everything Jessica has.

 

 

/

Jessica gets a sudden call from an old friend from high school and to her surprise, she actually goes meeting her.

Im Yoona. Tall, funny, extremely beautiful to the point of challenging Aphrodite, 25 years old.

They talk about petty things. Mostly Yoona, though, as Jessica keeps looking at her phone for a message or a missed call or anything from aoi who has left two days ago to an unheard of island on a business trip (she wonders what exactly “business trips” mean for authors and poets).

“I’m divorcing”

Jessica feels her world crashing down on her and looks slowly at the pretty woman in front of her who appears to have aged 10 years in a span of 2 seconds, smile no longer gracing her face. It is then when Jessica actually looks at her and sees the dark black circles under her eyes, concealed with foundation, the way her eyes are all puffy.

She realizes her hair lost its gloss and her cheeks are more prominent now.

Jessica has once again been found by love stories gone down the drain and disappointment and she feels sorry for yoona but she cannot be the one to support her in times like this. She picks her bag and mutters  “sorry, I really am-I just- no- I can’t- too much-sorry” and gives her sunny’s phone number before leaving and getting into her car,  avoiding to look in the rear mirror.

Too bad from the corner of her eyes she caught Yoona breaking down. Just like her mother, her beautiful and pained and heartless mother once did.

 

/

Jessica has nightmares for a whole week about the future, her ending up like her mom and yoona, and she wakes up screaming on top of her lungs and cries on the bathroom floor.

Aoi still hasn’t returned and she thinks it’s for the best in this situation.

 

/

She picks herself up and erases any trace of the weakness shown in the past week exactly when aoi opens the door and drops his bags on the floor.

She smiles and runs to him, jumping and putting her arms around his neck and legs around his waist, fingers tangling in his hair.

He laughs and hugs her so tight Jessica can’t breathe, as if he wants to crack her bones and re-arrange his with hers, to be two in one body.

Jessica feels like crying when she realizes there would be three in on body and that goddamn it she has lost sooyeon once again.

 

/

 

It’s night and Jessica is asleep but aoi isn’t. he has his eyes glued on her and fingers trailing her curves, lips pursued in a tight line.

Lover boy. Stupid dreamer. Hopeless romantic. Good for nothing man.

He has grown to carve the words the world has thrown at him on his ribs along with “you call that writing?! Poets are meant to live to write. You can’t do any of it!” and the disappointment he has been for as long as he remembers.

Aoi decides to carve her name on the rest of the ribs left that night. he decided long ago she is the vessel meant to pour all of his love in it.

 

/

Jessica goes to look at some wedding dresses on her free day, alone even though they didn’t even bring up the “wedding date” discussion.

She looks at them and touches the fabrics comparing them to the previous ones, she makes scenarios in her head and realizes at their wedding, she will have almost no one to share her happiness with besides aoi and leaves the shop in a hurry tears pouring down her cheeks.

 

/

 

Slowly, Jessica realizes, they no longer drink coffee together in the morning nor kiss like they used to at noon. Of course, she blames this on the 2 years spent together, a normal thing for couples to do after such a long time in each other’s company.

Jessica wonders if not talking as much or not sleeping together at the same times come with it.

 

/

Aoi writes a poem about  a girl who wants to created birds out of words and be god in her world and the struggles she has while trying to grasp the notions in her lover’s head.

Jessica reads it and cries at the beauty of it and aoi understands.

She doesn’t need to have talent with words to be loved by him. She doesn’t need to be a poet to understand what his mind is giving life to.

/

They don’t kiss anymore or hold each other as much, but Jessica asks aoi to teach her how to write.

He does and they continue to do so everyday though she has no common things with it.

 

/

She begins to play with the engagement ring one day and doesn’t stop nor thinks about it.

 

/

Aoi believes love is enough.

Jessica doesn’t.

 

 

/

They stop being in each other’s presence, poetry and coffee left aside, love stories and Disney movies dumped somewhere in a hidden room in house, key thrown.

They live together but it seems like their universes have moved and are now living in different galaxies.

 

/

Aoi is sure his whole life revolved around the concept of “love is enough”. He has loved carelessly and given his heart to various people only to get it back broken, hurt and without some pieces left.

The moment he laid his eyes on her, on the pain behind her eyes and the way her shadow seemed to have left her too, he felt like she was the one to make him escape the cage of desperation he was trapped into.

She didn’t.

He still cried himself to sleep and hurt himself in the bathroom, he still pondered his existence in the world and slept with existential problems trapped between his gritted teeth.

He romanticized her to the point of making her his Jesus.

He has given her the key to open the cage and she doesn’t even know it.

“Perhaps”, he thinks as he takes another drag from his cigarette and gulps down the rest of the beer, warm in his cold hand, “love is never ing enough”.

 

/

After four months she realizes she has left her ring at home, somewhere in a drawer and hasn’t worn it in a while.

She cries at the weight lifted from her finger that was crushing it.

Aoi didn’t realize it either.

 

/

Jessica has problems sleeping at night. The bed feels cold even with aoi on the other side. She wonders if hearts first grow cold before breaking, to ease the pain a little bit. It they do, then she can imagine the pain without the cold first.

She cries herself to sleep.

 

 /

 

Jessica doesn’t think much about broken hearts. She’s afraid hers might break if she continues to.

 

/

 

 After much consideration, Jessica tells aoi a day before to clear his schedule for her. He does.

They hold hands and laugh. They go eat and feed each other. They wait until it gets a little darker and watch the stars on their backs, her head on his chest listening to the drumming of his heart, wondering when exactly they stopped beating in unison.

They reach home at midnight and aoi sits at the kitchen table as Jessica goes to the fridge to retreat the cake she made this morning. They eat it in comfortable silence and drink coffee.

“you know, loving someone is pretty hard. It’s hard to welcome someone in your life, to  re-arrange your universe according to him knowing it may all crash down in the blink of an eye.”

Aoi looks up at her curiously and smile. He smiles even when she suddenly sits up and goes to the living room before returning with a note and sadness in her heart.

He smiles when he takes it, smiles when she kisses him on the lips hard for the last time whispering “I’m sorry. Be good”, her tears falling on his cheeks.

He even smiles when she say to open it only after she’s out of the door.

She exits the house, their, now his, and locks the door after her. He smiles.

“we both deserve to be happy. So I left, my prince”

aoi laughs for 5 minutes straight, laughs like  a king on a throne before breaking down in sobs, like beggar.

“and she called me a drama queen.” He shakes his head, strands of hair sticking to his wet face.

“Jung Jessica. You gifted me with your masterpiece. And you said you weren’t good at writing.”

“…”

“Cruel woman full of love yo do not need. Love like you never did.”

 

/

After the separation, things don’t feel right for a long time. Jessica has found an apartment somewhere far away from the one she was sharing with aoi once, still somewhat close to the shop.

She re-learns how to live by herself, to  have dinners alone and not wake up to already made breakfast, to not have someone beside herself to wake up.

she learns how to read poems all by herself and finds herself sometimes on the couch laughing and turning her head ready to face someone, him, to laugh together and whispers silly things to each other and finds no one. Her smile slowly disappears and continues to watch the movie in silence. She expects to find a naughty hand praying on her share of popcorn but feels none touching hers.

Life has never felt this wrong.

/

Aoi spends most of his days in bed or in the living room writing, expecting the front door to open or to hear footsteps pounding on the floor. he stays awake  night after night, looking at the unoccupied side of the bed, trying to accommodate to the coldness and wonders if it always felt this lonely to be all by himself.

In the morning he goes to the bathroom and stops himself from breaking down from seeing his toothbrush in the holder, alone without another one touching it.

December is the worst though. The first Christmas night he spends without Jessica by his side is perhaps his lowest moment.

He stays on the cold floor with his back resting on the couch, taking swings after swings from an expensive bottle of wine and watching in desperation the Christmas tree he decorated in the last minute carelessly, not mattering to him as much as before.

The rest of the so called happy season he spends on the streets, roaming alone with his hands shoved in the pockets of his coat, half of his face covered by a scarf.(bought by Jessica, of course)

He hopes to see a glimpse of Jessica on the street and has to stop himself countless times from just bursting into the coffee shop and taking her in his arms because god ing damn it, it is so ing hard to be alone once again.

It’s hard.

/

On Christmas, Jessica wishes to meet aoi while she walks the lonely road to the shop in the center of Tokyo or at the coffee shop. She wishes for him to sweep her off her feet and take her in his arms and their story to have a happy ending like in the movies.

But this isn’t a movie and aoi isn’t her prince. He was and will be good at faking it and Jessica can’t thank him enough for that.

/

Jessica hopes she somehow loses her key and aoi finds it and she comes home and sees him on her couch writing and welcoming her with all the kisses they didn’t share in the time spent apart.

She doesn’t.

/

Aoi goes on the rooftop he has frequented with her and looks down at the people hurried to reach their spouses or work and wonders is he looks like a bigger ant looking at smaller ants from the stars’ point of view.

He goes to sleep drunk and a crying mess that night.

 

/

After a while, they both learn how to live with the silence and loneliness and just be one instead of two. Even Jessica is now one person as sooyeon has emerged with her current persona.

They’re used to it but they don’t enjoy it.

 

/

 

3 years later, aoi meets her coincidentally on the street and loses the ability to breathe. She has dark brown hair now and her eyes shine brighter than the supernovas he named after her.

“hey”

“hey”

“..”

“life and time have been good to you, I see” he says just as the wind ruffles their hair. They’re standing in the middle of the street right beside a coffee shop (aoi wants to laugh at the irony) facing each other.

“they were. They were to you too” she smiles.

They look at each other, drinking the changes and still talking without words. Jessica lets a few tears spill on her cheeks as he sees him, as free as the birds he created while lying down on the bed besides her.

You weren’t my prince. But you were good at faking it. Aoi’s face breaks into a warm, sad smile and nods. I know. But you were my princess.  She sobs and her shoulders shake. We loved too fast. We tried to cover years that we lost searching for each other. We tried to write the history of the universe on a single paper. Aoi bites his lower lip and tightly closes his eyes. I know.

They hear a car honking and she looks up at him. She wipes her tears and smiles before entering the said car.

Aoi sees blonde hair before the car drives past him, a car too familiar not to recognize it as uruha’s, who was once his publisher before he moved to another company.

Jessica sees from the corner of her eyes a crown of long light brown hair and the eye smile makes her connect the dots –yoona.

They both laugh at the irony of it all and for once, they both feel like the string holding their hearts together has been cut for good.

They cry and they laugh because they believe their hearts were made for each other, made from thunders and lightings and divine light from god and they have seen together, when they weren’t neither dead nor alive, planets dying and prospering.

But they let go.

They let go because their fairytale wasn’t born in the same galaxy.

They let go, because in another universe, they are happy.

They let go, because their supernovas died.

They let go, for the other versions of them to be happy.

 

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