He read her letter once he came home from work. He didn’t know what made him open the letter. It was sent by her, to him, and he received it a couple of weeks ago; never did he think it was important. He assumed it was one of those many letters she had sent to him throughout the year. He didn’t know what the context of those letters said. He just didn’t care enough to read them.

Huh, he as he flipped the white envelope with his name, Byun Baekhyun, written in fancy handwriting. She’s probably talking about her life stories, he thought. Baekhyun threw the envelope onto his pile of bills, letters, brochures, and more white envelopes with his full name printed on it.

He didn’t want to waste his time reading something completely irrelevant to him. But he just didn’t know why he decided to open this specific letter. It was as if something was calling him, luring him to open in. once the envelope was unsealed from its taped form, Baekhyun took the piece of three-fold paper out and unfolded it. It was written with ink, in cursive, and boy did he not know how to read this type of script.

It took him a while to decode each jointed letters of the alphabet, mentally uncurling the tangled string per letter. It took him some time to piece these letters together to form words. Grabbing a scrap piece of paper and a standard HB pencil, Baekhyun began converting these words into sentences that he could understand. Precisely forty-five minutes to nearly an hour later, he had successfully converted everything once written in cursive into his own legible handwriting. Feeling proud of himself, he left the pieces of paper lying on his counter table and went to brew himself a cup of black coffee.

Minutes later, Baekhyun was about to leave his kitchen to meet up with his friends down at the bar, but halted on his tracks when he got a glimpse of the decoded letter. He contemplated whether he should stay to read the content of her letter, or leave and come back for it later. He was going to choose the latter but for some reason his conscience was gnawing at him. Read it now, you fool. Or you’ll end up regretting it. A heavy exhale came seconds later when he finally made up his mind.

Taking his phone out, Baekhyun texted Chanyeol that he would be arriving a little late to their gathering. After sending the message, he took the letters into his hand and walked over to plop himself down onto his couch. If he remembered correctly, she bought this couch as a welcoming gift when he first purchased this condo – with his hard-earned salary.

Ok, came the reply filled with a variety of smileys.

“Typical Park Chanyeol.” He chuckled.

With his handwritten version of her recent letter to him, he started reading it aloud, quiet like a whisper.

In the middle of reading his own handwriting, his phone rang. Taking the phone out from his pockets, he saw Chanyeol’s name flashing on the screen.

“Dude, you’re a half an hour late. Everyone’s waiting for you, bro! Get yo-” Before his friend could finish, Kris, another good friend, interrupted the call.

With a commanding tone, Kris said to Baekhyun to, “Get your fricken’ arse down here before we end up crashing at your place. Suho, Chanyeol, and I can’t handle these sons of a drunkard. Fudge why’d they have to drink so much?” and without any chances to reply, Kris hung up on the call.

For some reason, Baekhyun didn’t want to leave the vicinity of his living room. He didn’t know why; he just didn’t want to see his friends at all. But he did in the end. Kris’ call was no joke. As much as he didn’t want to go, he’d rather not have eight drunken guys holding a sleepover (and hangover in the morning) party at his place. And end up puking all over his condo. Reluctant to step outside his haven, Baekhyun forced himself to leave.

Two hours later after dropping off Kris, Luhan and Tao off at Luhan’s place, because Kris couldn’t drive, Baekhyun headed straight home. He kicked off his shoe the minute he walked past his front door, and went to pick up her letter off his coffee table. He then made his way into his room and took a quick shower before reading the other letters she’s written to him.

When he was fully in his pajama wear, Baekhyun made himself comfortable on his bed. With all those previous letters sent to him sprawled across his black and white checkered duvet, he couldn’t help but think of these letters as his admirers’ love letters. They were confessions only for him and no one else. Thinking back to those days when he garnered attention from the female student body, he chuckled at how much of a jerk he used to be.

At least that has changed.

Baekhyun sorted out each white envelope with the dates printed in small writing at the corner of every one of them. He noticed how many there were. One letter per month and it’s been a little over a year. So that makes it about 15 letters not including the one he read – only a little bit before the sudden interruption – not too long ago.

Starting from the first letter up till the seventh letter were pretty boring stuff. Baekhyun kept yawning. Not bothered to read each letter word for word, he skimmed through each letter about two pages long. At times, some letters appeared to be legible enough to read in a few minutes. At times the others would take longer to read due to the sloppy handwriting. But it didn’t matter to Baekhyun because he quickly read through it.

It wasn’t until the ninth letter did he take interest in what she was talking about. The letters, by then, were getting shorter and shorter, and he wondered why.

I know I shouldn’t be wasting so much paper on you, Baek. But as you can tell I’m technologically illiterate. I hope you don’t mind though, kekeke.

He was going to comment on her comment, about how silly she was being, but held it in. Let’s finish this first, he thought.

Maybe one day you could teach me how to use an e-mail so that I can send you messages through the computer instead of writing it by hand and mailing it off to you. Oh this is just so embarrassing! It’s already the 21^st century and what kind of person am I who doesn’t know how to function a computer? Shouldn’t it be easy like the smartphones and tablets nowadays? Then again, those are easier to use. Oh my gosh this is really embarrassing to even tell you this! Maybe I should take a computer course over the summer ^_^.

Baekhyun’s eye trailed down the paper but it just stopped after the emoticon. There wasn’t even a signature like she had in the previous eight letters. Strange, he thought.

Until the twelfth letter did he notice what time it was. Baekhyun had spent nearly the entire evening and night reading the letters she’s written to him, to which he never bothered to read until now.

“I guess I’ll just finish these tomorrow. It’s not that important anyway.”

Quickly gathering all the opened and sealed letters, he tossed them onto his computer desk and went to prepare himself for bed.

The next day, Baekhyun woke up to a pretty gloomy afternoon sky. It suddenly started raining again, wetting the already half dried pavement eight stories below his floor. With a sigh, he trudged down the halls to prepare his afternoon brunch. He decided since it looked like it’d be raining all day, there wouldn’t be a purpose to go outside.

Baekhyun walked into his kitchen and headed over to one of his top cabinets. He opened it, grabbed a random pack of instant ramyun and threw it onto his counter. Walking over to the fridge, he opened it and scanned for one raw egg. Once his delicious brunch of instant spicy noodles with lettuce in it, and a pouched egg on top, was done cooking, he left it on his glass dining table.

In the midst of waiting for his hot and spicy food to cool down, Baekhyun was once reminded of the unfinished letters from last night he went back into his bedroom and took the couple of envelopes that were still perfectly sealed tight.

He went back into the kitchen and sat down on his chair in front of his bowl of spicy noodles. It was still hot so he continued reading the letter where he left off from before.

Each entry had gotten shorter and shorter. Baekhyun wondered why. Nonetheless, he continued reading to try finding out the answer to his question. It was getting sloppier each time he read it but he didn’t care.

Baek, I think I caught a cold. My nose is running right now.
This is embarrassing and I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.
It would’ve been amazing if my boyfriend took care of me.
I don’t like getting sick.

When he finished that letter, he moved onto the next letter – the thirteenth letter.

I hate rainy days. It makes me sad and gloomy.
Grey like the clouds that are covering the once bright blue sky.

He looked out the window and mumbled something to himself.

It makes me want to cry because I’m reminded again of how lonely I am. I hate being alone.
Baek, when will you reply to me?

He didn’t know the answer to that, so he simply ignored it.

Letter fourteen. The handwriting still looked sloppy like the previous letter but it was easier to read this time around. It looked … kind of neat.

Baek, I’m really tired. It’s raining again today. It has been for the past week.
You know I hate the rain. And I’m sick again. I hate being sick.
On rainy days.
This .

Tell me about it, he thought.

Baekhyun looked out his windows. Droplets of rain touched against the glass window and a chill went down his spine. He wondered what she was doing right now. The last time he saw her, it was also raining. “She had a slight fever on that rainy day.” He whispered. He wondered if she was sick again like last time.

He took his phone out of his pant pocket and scrolled through his contact list until he arrived at her name. “Should I call her?” His finger hovered over the call button whilst he glanced at his wristwatch. “She should be up by now.”

Baekhyun was close to pressing the dial button on his phone until he remembered that he didn’t finish reading all sixteen letters. He set a mental reminder to check up on her once he finished reading the remaining letters.

The fifteenth letter was pretty short. She asked him about his well-being even though they met up quite recently if he must say so. But then again, this letter was sent to him two months ago.

It was finally time to read the last letter. Letter sixteen. He read part of it before but with his short term memory and disruption, Baekhyun couldn’t remember what exactly she talked about.

It was then that her heard his stomach grumble. He stared at his tummy and realized his food had probably gone cold by now. He had immersed himself in reading those letters that he forgot about his instant spicy noodles.

Baekhyun quickly slurped and swallowed his noodles until the bowl was empty. He went to place the bowl and utensils in the sink. “I’ll wash it later.” He had said.

Brewing himself a black coffee, Baekhyun then took the letters from his dining table and went to make himself comfortable on his couch. Taking the last letter in hand and placing the cup of coffee down on his coffee table, he began to read.

His brows furrowed every now and then. It didn’t seem to make sense to him, and yet he understood her sentences completely. Everything seemed like a déjà vu to him. It was almost as if he had heard some of these words before. He just didn’t care enough to bother reminding himself who said it and when it was told.

By the time Baekhyun finished reading her letter, he slowly put it back into the white envelope and gently placed it on the table in front of him.

He glanced at the analog clock on his wall, just about his plasma TV screen, and smirked. “Are you sure about that?”