Sometimes, I get so caught up in wishing, I forget that wishing does nothing. It changes nothing and it saves nothing. It cannot bring anything back and it cannot retrieve what has already been lost.

I am well aware of this fact, but sometimes it is easier to forget for a moment. Sometimes, I just want to imagine a world where I still have what I deep down inside know I have long ago lost.

I cannot change what does not want to be changed. I cannot make him come back to me.

Once he stopped loving me, he left. And I never saw him again.

I miss him.

I know it changes nothing, but I still miss him. There is no way I can help myself from wanting him next to me. I want him back. I want him to return to me.

I wonder where he is now, what he is doing. I cannot imagine a setting where he would fit in, because I cannot see myself there next to him. If I am not there, the picture is incomplete. Just like I am incomplete without him.

I sometimes wonder what happened. What made him stop loving me? Maybe he just grew tired of me. It is not uncommon. Many people sooner or later experience that the love they thought would last a lifetime, withers and blows away with the wind.

Maybe his love withered and blew away with the wind. I know that my love didn’t die. It hides inside my heart, shivering and trembling, unsure of what to do with itself. I hardly ever knew what to do with myself before, but now that he is gone, I find myself at a loss for words more often than not. I feel like the only part of me that was sensible and reasonable left together with him. He grabbed that part of me and brought it with him, making the rest of me wish I could have been that small part of myself, so I could still be next to him.

I wanted to be with him forever. Originally, I thought he wanted the same thing, but apparently he didn’t.  He obviously didn’t. If he had wanted to be with me, he would have stayed.

When I think about that fact, it hurts. It hurts to realize that the one you love doesn’t love you back. He might have loved me at one point, but that point in time is in the past, and the past can never become the present. He will never come back, because he never lives in the past, like I do now. He never did and he never will. He was always the fearless type; the type who faces everything head-on and never backs down. He made decisions and never went back on them. He didn’t change his opinion after the choice had been made.

Sometimes I wish he had been the type who went back on his word. The type who was indecisive and cowardly; who often changed his mind. Maybe then he would have come back to me.

But then I realize that if that would have been the case, I probably wouldn’t have loved him like I did. Like I still do.

I love him just the way he is, even now that he has left me. I guess that makes me the weaker person, for holding on to something that clearly needs to be released. I cannot help it. My hand has frozen around our abandoned love, and cannot let go. I will always love him, even though he left and took all the sunshine with him.

Whenever I am around people, I tend to shut them out. I do not want to listen to their pointless chatter. There are no words that could console me or comfort me anyway, so why should I listen to them? They will never be him. They will never understand me like he understood me. They will never be able to chase all my fears away with only the touch of a hand to my shoulder. They will never be able to make me smile like he always did so perfectly, unconcerned and careless. They will never own even half of my heart, because he already owns all of it.

It has happened more than once that someone has asked me if I am okay. They tell me I seem to have lost some of the spark in my eyes, and they wonder if there is anything they can do to help me.

I tell them that I am perfectly fine, and that there is no problem in any way whatsoever. I am very good at lying, so they believe me. At least I think they do. In any case, they never bother me after I tell them this. I think they understand that all I really want is to be left alone with my thoughts. So I can think of him. At least in my mind, I can still be with him. Even if it is fake, it is better than my reality. I would rather stay inside my head than live the empty life that I have now.

It has already been four years since he left me. I do not remember the exact date, because I do not want to remember. If I ever did, that date would be the worst date of the year, and I don’t want or need such a thing.

But I remember that it was during the winter. The last time I ever saw him, the ground had been covered with snow. Darkness had long ago won the battle with the light, and stars twinkled in the cold night sky. He was holding my hand in his own warm one, making my stomach fill with butterflies. I don’t think he ever realized just how much I loved his precious hands. How much I loved it when he entwined his fingers with mine.

We had enjoyed each other’s company in the silent way of well-suited lovers. The world had been quiet, the air filled with unspoken promises. He had turned towards me and looked at me in a peculiar way. Maybe that was the moment when he decided that he didn’t love me anymore. Maybe he realized that something inside him had changed. He must have understood that our love was not of the everlasting kind. 

It is sad to think that he never told me what he was thinking that night. He never explained, and so I never understood. All I know is that one moment he was there, and the next he was not.

Time passes indescribably slowly. I often find myself wondering if maybe, just maybe, he took the speed of time with him as well when he left. It seems like he took a lot of things with him when he left. Especially my heart. 

Before I know it, another year has passed. Though every second is like an eternity, it does not change the fact that time will still keep passing by, ignoring the fact that I cannot keep up with it. I feel like everybody else is fast-forwarding, while I am stuck on pause, searching in vain for the remote control so that I can hit the play button.

I miss him. Five years is a long time. It is too long, even for me.

It has been five years now since I left him. I did not want to leave him, but he probably does not know that. For all he knows, I could have forgotten him completely by now. Like that would ever happen. One cannot forget the love of one’s life, no matter how hard one were to try. Believe me; I have tried. I have tried with all the power within me, with all the stubbornness and will I could muster up. I have tried for so long now, my life feels like an endless amount of failing. Because every single day, I fail. I try to forget, and I cannot do it, no matter how hard I try. It is pointless, and it was pointless from the start. I already knew that. I do not know why I even try anymore. The end result will always be the same. I will see his face in my mind, as clear as ever, and the pain will wash over me all over again. It is all I can do to stop myself from running back to him, falling on my knees and begging him to take me back.

But I cannot do that.

The only way I can stop myself from returning to him, is by telling myself the obvious fact that hurts most of all: he has probably gotten over me by now anyway. He has moved on, found a new love. A different love. A better love. He has probably forgotten me completely.

______

The worst season is the winter. That is the time when I cannot help but remember. I remember how it felt to hold his hand, so strong and reassuring. I remember how the whiteness of it all made the world strangely silent and beautiful.

I remember too well. That is the problem. It almost feels like he is still here; it is almost like he didn’t leave me.

But he did leave me. I have to acknowledge that, though I try to ignore it. Ignoring it does not help anything. It will not make him come back to me.

I try to live a normal life. I think it works, at least partially. I eat all of my meals; I go to school; I do my homework. I do all of my routines, so no one can blame me for wasting away.

But on the inside, where no one can see, I ache. I suffer secretly, silently, so nobody will suspect it. I had to build a wall around me five years ago, and it was indescribably difficult. It took me years to do it, but I have all the years in the world. I still have many more to live, and by the end of it all, I will have perfected my wall. By the end of it all, no one will be able to see my pain.

By the end of it all, my love for him will remain safe inside my heart, not stepping a single step outside of it.

It is hard to comprehend, but another year has passed. Six years without him. I remember the smile he used to give me whenever I told him that I loved him. It was different from his other smiles. It was better, more beautiful. He would grin at me with his head tilted slightly to the side, looking at me affectionately. Then he would lean forward and kiss me softly on the nose. Then he would whisper that he loved me too.

I wonder where that love went. Did it really just disappear overnight? Or did it take longer; did he gradually lose interest as the time went by? I will never know because I will never see him again so I cannot ask him, and even if I could, I do not want to hear the answer. It will bring me nothing but pain to know exactly when he stopped loving me. It will bring yet another knife to my heart, like there aren’t enough of them already. Six years. Six knives. How many can I endure before it becomes too much?

I regret listening to his parents. I should have stood my ground, even though they disapproved of our relationship. But I was naive, and I thought that a parent’s words were the law.

When they told me to leave him, I did not even argue. I just left, explaining nothing. I was weak.

_____

Seven years is a very long time. Seven years without the love of your life is an even longer time. Seven years with the knowledge that the love of your life left you for good is an unendurably long time.

I do not know how long I can keep this up. I thought I was strong, but I guess everyone can only last for so long without the ability to breathe properly.

Winter is arriving again. Another painful season. I hate the winter. It brings nothing but coldness and loneliness; only raw memories and broken dreams. I really, really hate the winter. I wish it could disappear completely, just like my love left me so long ago.

I miss him.

I need him.

I cannot take this much longer.

He probably forgot me seven years ago, but I know I can never forget him. So I will return and beg him to take me back, even if his parents will hate me for it. I know I cannot fight this anymore. Even if he has another lover, I have to try. I cannot work anymore, I cannot smile, and I cannot breathe.

_____

The snow is covering the ground completely in its white blanket, just like that night seven years ago. I sit on the bench by the place where he once held my hand securely in his own, and I watch as the snow falls silently towards the ground. 

I feel a tear escape my eye, and I let it slide down my cheek because I know no one is looking. For just tonight, I will let the walls come down. I need a little rest, so I can keep the façade up properly once other people are around me again.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, feeling the cold night air.

“Sungyeol.”

I start because I know that voice all too well. And I must have heard wrong, because he is not here anymore.

“Sungyeol-ah.”

My mind must be making things up. The voice is too real, the tenderness too believable.

“Sungyeol-ah. Please open your eyes.”

I do as he says. As I open my eyes, I see him there, right in front of me. He stands there in the snow, gazing at me with his dark eyes.

My heart flutters, though I tell it not to. I cannot overreact. He must be here to ask me something on a professional level. I cannot let him see how desperate I am. That would only bother him.

“Why are you here?” I ask, my voice neutral. As neutral as I can possibly make it.

He flinches, like someone has slapped him in the face. “I…”

He stops, and I wonder what he has to tell me. He is still as beautiful as ever, and it hurts to look at him from so far away, unable to touch him. Though we are mere feet apart, it feels like there is a lifetime between us. And in a sense, there is. The lifetime ago when he loved me, that is the space that is between us.

“Sungyeol-ah, I know I can never be forgiven,” he says, his voice quivering. “For leaving you… I am so terribly sorry. Your parents… they were against us, you know that. They wanted me to leave… I shouldn’t have listened to them, but I was weak, I was young… I didn’t know any better. I know it’s a stupid excuse, but it’s the only excuse I have. And I have to have some kind of excuse in order to make you take me back. I don’t know what I can possibly say or do to make you love me again, but I just can’t do this anymore. I need you, Sungyeol-ah.” He pauses for a moment, looking at me with begging eyes. “I don’t know if you still love me, but even if you don’t…” he stops again, like the thought is painful for him. “Even if you don’t love me anymore… I just… I need you, Sungyeol-ah. I can’t go another day without you. Is there any way at all that you can take me back? That you can love me again?”

He stares at me with eyes filled with sorrow and yearning.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, unable to comprehend what he is saying. It does not make sense. “You… you left me. You didn’t love me anymore.”

“Of course I love you! I never stopped loving you, not even for a second,” he says, his voice suddenly more powerful. “I only disappeared because I was stupid. I should never have left you in the first place. I was a fool. An idiot. It is the only decision I regret in my whole life.” He stares at me with all the passion of a hungry animal, and I can finally see that he is telling the truth. 

I slowly make my way over to him, step by hesitant step, and when I reach him, I wrap my arms around him. He is shivering from the cold, and when I touch him, he seems to release something painful within himself that has been there for very long. He takes a deep breath, whispering, “It’s really you… You still smell exactly like I remembered.”

“I never stopped loving you,” I breathe quietly, hugging him tightly. “And I don’t need to take you back, because I never once let you go, not even for a moment.”

He wraps his arms around me in reply, and for the first time in seven years, I finally feel like I can breathe again.

“I never stopped loving you either,” Myungsoo murmurs. “And I will never stop loving you for the rest of my life.”