Of Kim Jongin, Cigarette and Separation

The white colour of the wall is the first view that welcomes her to life and from her long, deep slumber. Hyunjae blinks for several times until her view becomes sharp. The sheets of lint cover her head and her hands are connected to some kind of plastic. Someone shifts from the side of her left arm, and she turns her gaze towards the person.

“Hyunjae? Oh dear.” She gets up from her seat and darts out of the room while yelling “Doctor!” .Hyunjae scans her eyes on her surroundings. Nothing there seems familiar nor does she recognise. The person darts in again, with a wide smile showing on the face and this time, several people with white uniforms enter. The male doctor did some checking on her body and machines. She flinches to his action but the reaction was as small as a micro organism. No one realises her reaction.

“Do you feel any headache? Does your head hurt?” The doctor impatiently asks. Hyunjae did not leave her eyes from the doctor, because she is not sure what to answer him.

“Hyunjae, does it hurt?” The woman touches her cold hand. Hyunjae jolts back slightly, wondering why she touches her.

“Who are you?” Her question struck everyone there – the doctor, the nurses and the woman. The male doctor massages his temple, as if trying to find an answer for her. He opens his mouth to speak, but he closes it back. Few more temple-massage processes and he finally speak.

“Do you know your name?” He asks, and Hyunjae shakes her head. She heard them saying Hyunjae a few times, especially the woman, but the name sounds unusual, strange and unknown to her ears. As if she hasn’t known anything about the world, Homo sapiens and her own life.

“Ah, I didn’t see it coming. She has amnesia. She survives from her blood lost problem but…oh, I really didn’t see this coming.” The doctor massages his temple again, as if that could solve the major problem. The woman sobs and her action causes Hyunjae to frown. Who is this woman?

“I’m your mother, if that’s what you wanted to ask.” Says the woman, who claims herself as her mother. She wipes her tears using the end of her fingers and her lips curves into a meek smile. Hyunjae tries to raise her upper body, but failure is what she got as if vampire fangs had pierced through her skin and muscle.

Two weeks passes by and Hyunjae still can’t regain her memories. The doctor that treated her had given the permission for her to go home. And now there she is, sitting on the edge of the bed. She trails her hand on the soft, blue-coloured material. She smiles at the thought of her childishness – the bedspread was for kids, and not for a girl of her age. She rests herself on the comfortable sea of pillows and blanket while staring at the ceiling.

“Hyunjae, your cousins are coming. Don’t doze off, okay? They miss you!” her mom shouts from downstairs. She nods, even though her mom is not in the room. Seconds later, she shuts her eye.

She reaches for a book on the shelf. Other books are mostly fiction, and she’s not in the mood to read one. The blue-coloured book, wrapped with vintage paper had caught her eyes before but she never gets to read it. Down The Memory Lane – she flips to the first page and a photo of her greets every possible readers. Frankly, she looks like a stranger in the photo. Dark skin beneath her eyes, with bags full of bottomless hopes. Her lips curved an outsized smile, but there was something wrong with the beam – as if the lips had uttered false imaginations, lies and deceit.

She read what she had written on the first page. Few introductions of herself, her best buddies, what she had achieved during her entire years of high school, and a special paragraph of a person with the name Kim Jongin – but after reading all of that, there is just something off beam with the expressions, as if she had written veiled gist behind those ornately embellished words.

Her fingers flip to the next pages with trifling efforts, photos of her cheerful friends welcoming her sight. Kwon Minki, Park Minyoung, Jong Heesung, Choi Seulgi, Han Minyeon, Cho Jihyun – carefree looks were evidently shown on their faces, as if they have no worries in their life if compared to hers.  She smiles reading their jokes, playful and tearless life even though she still faces the problem to recognise them.  Few more page flipping and she stops at a page that catches her eyes.

To Kim Hyunjae:

As you can see, I’m the only guy that you requested to write down on this book. I feel special~ hohoho but I am, right? I occupy that special spot in the deepest part of your heart. Okay, let’s get started. I don’t want to be all cheesy and stuff here because others might read. At first, I thought you’re being weird for coming up with this book. Can’t you just record a video of every people that you know? It’s hard to write neatly here. I have to do so because all these girlfriends of yours are smart asses and their handwritings are…very beautiful. But then again, I wanted to show you that I’ve changed because of you. Look at me; I’m sacrificing my dinner just to write everything about me that I want you to remember. Look at me again; I’m trying so hard to write as slow as possible so that I can follow your smart buddies. Look at me; I’m handsome!

First of all,

I’m your boyfriend guy friend that you seriously have a crush on ever since we were in the fourth grade. And then last year you gave me a box of white chocolate on Valentine’s Day and confessed. Girl, you’re the luckiest admirer of mine. I had always put my eyes on you. You’re petite but adorable. Your brain is larger than any other admirers of mine because your Chemistry, Biology and Physic s marks are beyond reality (just kidding here). And then when you laugh, you just let it all out and you don’t even try to look pretty while doing it.  Those are the reasons why I’m attracted to you. I do feel like a moron when we’re with your girlfriends because well, they’re smart like you too (but there’s one thing that makes you different from them. You have me hehehehehe) but they’re the super nice nerds who don’t look down on other people’s weaknesses. They helped me a lot with my homework when you went for a competition at Busan last 2 months. Don’t worry, I don’t flirt with them. I have my hyungs and Sehun to steal their hearts. Sehun is Minyeon’s favourite bubble tea flavour. Seulgi is admiring every single singing skill that Jongdae hyung likes to show off. And Jihyun is with Kris hyung, showering each other with `love’, these two is a weird couple – I don’t want to write about it.

Secondly, I LOVE DANCING. One day, you’re going to see me dancing on stage, giving off all my iness and hotness to the fangirls around. I can make any girl kneel in front of me. Don’t be jealous with them, if we get married to each other in the future, I will not just dance – I have other profession too. And I will only show it to you. You are not going to lose your family name too. You’re still Mrs Kim.

Thirdly, I was a smoker. WAS. I thought that you’re okay with everything that I do – besides you like me very much. But there’s one thing that you really hate about me. Kai the Cigarette Prodigy. You told me how smoking can kill every cell in my body and how dangerous each chemical present in the cigarette. Nicotine, tar are…I forgot what you told me because it was very scientific and my brain couldn’t progress but when you said it can kill, I just…yeah…Kai the Cigarette Prodigy vanished. This shows that you changed me. I’m a healthier person now but my lips colour doesn’t change. So if you have amnesia in the future, please note this because my lips in the picture here is still the colour of death.

To the future Hyunjae, I wish you can take care of your health all the time. You worried about me too much that you don’t even think about your own sickness. Your foot are always cold, and you sometimes complained that you’re tired. You have trouble sleeping at night but you still force yourself to wake up early for school. I might not say it out when we’re together but please, I beg you, to take care of your own health.

P.S: 1-4-3, Kim Hyunjae

From:

Kim Jongin (Kai) (Kkamjong)

Hyunjae fiddle with her fingers on the edges of the page. Her minds recall any possible memories with this guy. Each receptor in her brain cope with each other to process any single piece of information of that guy, other than the one he had jotted down on her book. His handwriting was clean and neat, easy to read – surely because he had sacrificed his time and energy to prove her that he had changed because of her. Well, was it true?

She flips to the page before, only to admire the well sculpted face that he owns. His skin is the sweet, salty colour of caramel - only a tone darker than hers. His eyes are breathing unfathomable words and they almost did not glimmer. His nose looks weird, maybe his bone structure that is abnormal. His lips…those thick lips with undesirable colour of tinted health but looks kissable; her female hormones might be just at it.

Her mom enters her room with a glass of her favourite banana milk and a plate of scrambled eggs. Carefully, Mrs Kim closes the door using the side of her arms and plods towards Hyunjae’s bed. Hyunjae put the book aside and her lips arch a genuine smile.

“How do you feel today?” Mrs Kim caresses the skin of her petite hand. Hyunjae did the same thing to her mom, reassuring her that she’s getting better day after day. Her memory had regained little by little, well only a little, after she was discharged. The pain is still there, but it is bearable.

“What are you reading?” Her mother points at the book using her lips. “Ah, ‘Down The Memory Lane’. I did read some of them. I can’t believe Seulgi is afraid of cats, I mean, she have cats at home and find them cute but she’s scared of them?” Her mom continues. Hyunjae doesn’t know how to react to her mom’s statement. Should she laugh or should she back up Seulgi?

“Ma…” She wants to back up Seulgi, but then, this girl with the name Seulgi was as if she’s a stranger. There are still bits of her that she needs to know.

“Oh right, sorry. You still can’t recall who she is. She’s one of your best buddies, along with Jihyun and Minyeon. Jihyun is somewhere in the world – you lose contact with her a year ago. Minyeon is currently applying for a job at a photo studio.” Hyunjae mouths a simple ‘oh’. Although she wants to know more about them – her best buddies as her mom had told her – her mind focuses on someone else.

“Ma, who is Kim Jongin? Do you know him?” She wants to find out more about this guy, who is also known as Kai. She wants to know what her relationship with this guy was. It was obvious that they had a special relationship, but she hunger for more information. She can’t recall Kim Jongin.

“Kim Jongin? Isn’t he your brother? Oh wait, I only have daughters.” Her mom cracks a lame joke and laughs at it. That is not what Hyunjae wants to hear. Silly, lame joke does not fit into her curiosity mode now. “Ma, really, who is this Kim Jongin?”

Hyunjae cups the side of her cheeks and finds any minute impurities or flaws on her face. Nope, my hormones are behaving well today, she thought. She moves towards her balcony and breathes in the garden-fresh scent of morning air, inhaling all the oxygen-rich air into her body system. Her mom’s word lingers in her mind.

“Jongin is your boyfriend. But somehow, you two fought and that’s how you got into an accident. He wasn’t with you at that time, so some bunch of kind strangers called the ambulance. I expected to see him after that or the next day, but he didn’t come. We were truly mad at him. I’m sure you were running carelessly, not putting your safety first, because you were mad at him. He has a lot of debt to pay to me.”

She took in air to her lungs again and holds her breath. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven… she exhales dreadful carbon dioxide. She wants to see him and asks him every question that she had already planned at the back of her head. Why didn’t he call? Why didn’t he visit me if he was really my boyfriend, the one that loves me?

What was the reason that they fought?

She let out a heavy sigh, thinking it is impossible for her to find him in this city. She searches through her phone for any name with the slightest similarity and probability with his. None. She probably deletes his number the day when they fought. They must’ve been on the verge to break up - he might have cheated her for another girl, or maybe the other way round. Maybe she wanted to break free from his clutch or maybe he wanted to be free from her grasp. It could be anything, but at least, Jongin should call.

She enters her bedroom again and put on a simple, decent summer dress. She wants to go out, admiring every building with different sculptures and design. Besides, there was another piece of information about Jongin that her mom had told her before.

Their favourite spot.      

Hyunjae strides down the alley in a slow pace, absorbing the blistering heat that is emitted by the sun. To keep herself busy, she takes her phone out from her hand bag that is loosely draped on her shoulder and plays with it. Few more metres then she’ll reach a junction. She’ll stop playing – as she had promised to herself that she will be more careful in the future – when she reaches the junction later on to prevent any unpredictable accident. Yeah right.

Right when she reaches the junction, her mother calls.

“Yes, Ma. I’m outside. I don’t want to sit at home doing nothing.” She says as she keeps walking, without realising any dangerous incoming. “Fine, be careful.” Her mom echoes on the other side of the line. Her answer to her mom is a simple ‘umph’ and right then a bicycle knocks onto her, causing her to hit the lamp post. Her head to be exact. The world spins, the ground shakes, her fingers wobble, and everything goes haywire. Her past, her tearless friends, her relatives – but perhaps not everything goes back into her brain.

And marvel happens.

Miracles happen because God loves His children. His power is truly the almighty; no one can ever do things like Him. Hyunjae got her memory back; everything happens in split second but there is something in exception. Kai – and she still wonder why. Her mom had told her whatever ridiculous things the both of them had done together but there is still a missing piece of puzzle. Maybe there’s a solid reason for God to keep those memories with Kim Jongin from her.

Hyunjae finds herself standing in front of a building. Few girls are standing there with her, with colourful banners and ludicrous outfits. Perhaps they wanted to catch the idols’ attention. She decides to stand a little further from them; just in case any idol saw her and thought she was one of the sasaengs. A familiar figure approaches her from behind, with a plastic bag full of can drinks in his grip. He peeks from her side just to confirm what he had in mind.

“Hyunjae?” Hyunjae turns to her side and her eyes widens. Sehun. She remembers Sehun, eventhough they rarely talk before this. She knows that he is one of Kai’s best buddies, but nothing is weirder than how she cannot recall specific details of Kai. “Are you here to see Kai?” He continues. Hyunjae nods as her answer and there’s nothing left for Sehun to do than to drag her into the building.

“Kai is practicing in the other room. It’s a turn to your left once you reach that machine there.” Sehun says as he pointed the way and later, he enters a room full of sweaty boys. She walks in a dawdling pace and rehearse every single question that she had memorised. She feels nervous, though there is no really specific reason why. She needs to brace herself for facing the future consequences. What if…what if Kai hates her? Maybe that’s why they fought? What if when she had expected to see Kai practicing and dancing, but he’s in fact spending his time with someone else? What if that happens? Will her heart shatters eventhough he still feels like a stranger whom she met at any random place in the world?

A turn to her left and she sees the door of doom. Her hand reaches for the doorknob, half-hoping it was locked so that she has a reason to leave her curiosity self. She turns the knob for real and the door open. Loud hip hop music booms throughout the whole room. The place is dark, only a ray of sunshine illuminates a spot in the middle of the room. But through the darkness, her eyes notice a silhouette. The person dance his hearts out, everything is all about the passion, determination, dedication and the love for dance. She could see how this person will become a successful idol in the future.

Her presence is like the wind, as if Kai had expected  her to come. He notices her at the door, but ignores and turns back to dancing. A minute part of her felt relieved – because he is in front of her eyes alone, not with some flirty females. She enters the room bravely without Kai’s invitation. Nonetheless, he did not say anything and keeps his mind focused into his work. Hyunjae admires the way he dances. His front hair sticks to his damp forehead while the rest are bouncy like basketball. His body moves in sync with the heavy rhythm and beat of the song. It’s like gases of music solidify and form animate Kai. His face expressing the mirth, pain and relief of every muscle moving when he struts his stuff.

The music finally comes to its ending, and Hyunjae takes the opportunity to speak. “Hey, Kim Jongin.” She starts awkwardly. Kai smirks when he hears her voice; like there is something wrong with . The way her voice vibrates unsteadily notes that she’s practically nervous of talking to him as if he is going to eat her once her voice get identified by his ears.

“Hey.” He simply replies with a veiled hint of sadness in his half-trembling voice. Only God knows why he feels like that. There’s too much about Hyunjae that he doesn’t know what the reason was that made him feel like a lost child. He rummages through his bag, searching scrupulously at every pocket of the bag for something. At last, he finds it neatly kept at the back pocket. After letting out a sigh of satisfaction, he stares at Hyunjae with a smug smile plastered on his face. “Why do you come here?”

“I…just…want to know about… (Sigh) I just want to know the reason why we fought before I got into the accident.” She feels a weight of burden has relieved from her shoulder, only a bit. Kai’s finger effortlessly takes out a stick that only speaks death and places it in between of his index and middle fingers – and it fits the spot so well, as if it was made to be placed there. He lights the end of the cigarette; it is not that long till smoke routinely fills the whole studio, suffocating living beings there to death.

“Jongin, I thought Kai the Cigarette Prodigy vanished. What are you doing?” Hyunjae feels her heart fuming with a mixture of emotion – angry yet she’s sad to see him acting like that. The smoke keeps suffocating her and Kai’s act is evidently suffocating her heart and her soul. As if he intentionally smokes in front of her, he had knowingly crushes Hyunjae’s fragile little heart into shattering pieces of stained glasses.

“What? Apparently, Kai the Cigarette Prodigy has come back.” Kai thinks he’s cool when there’s a cigarette placed in between his fingers. Kai thinks he’s hot when the smoke emitted by the gruesome cigarette covers his face like in movies and music videos. Kai thinks his lips look seductively y when they emanate ghastly smoke into the atmosphere. And apparently, he’s showing off to Hyunjae that he can smoke as if we human should be proud doing it.

Hyunjae almost finds it impossible to breath. No, not because of the smoke; but because of her heart that keeps crushing by its own when she sees Kai smugly smoking. He said he had changed. He said he changed because of her. What had happened before? If only God did not take memories of them together – even the bad one – she would’ve known why he’d changed.

Hyunjae runs out of the room when she is sure the air is 100% stained with the infamy of cigarette smoke. Her eyes are eliminating each single despair that hangs on the wall of her heart, because Kai still smokes. Tears that involuntarily roll down her burning cheeks makes her look like she had just broke up with him – as what the other boys assume – or maybe they had really broken off the relationship?

5 months pass by so quickly like the wind. 5 months had passed since she last seen Kai, and he was a smoker. He said he had changed, but what disaster had re-changed him? She always let out a sigh of different emotions when Kai comes to her thoughts. Angry, sad, despair – all mixed into one complete gust of loneliness in her heart. Yes, she feels lonely. She wants to meet Kai again, but she’s afraid of getting hurt. Her curiosity grows larger as the days pass by; from another question to another painful question. She’s afraid of his answers but then, she wants to know it too. He still seems like a stranger; his presence in her brain is intriguing, his scent that felt surreal in her thoughts had made her grew fond of him unknowingly, his dangerous smirk heats her up especially her female hormones, his passion about dancing as like what she had saw before is burning like a rapid fire and no one can stop him. Everything about him is attracting Hyunjae, like a magnet attracting iron nails.

She lets the cold wind lashing on her skin with a force, thinking that maybe the wind can drift away her aloneness. Her bare skin can turn numb if she’s behaving like a kid; she should put on her sweater. At last, she did. The wind is getting harsher on her skin, turning them colder and paler. She blows the hot air of her breath to her bare, shivering hands; is the weather that cold today or is it just me? She thought.

While walking, she notices the familiar smell of killer chemicals. Her nose twitches to the scent; it hurts to inhale the air in that area. Someone smokes – and she recognises the figure almost too instantly. Kai. With a cigarette in between two of his fingers, he watches passers-by and the passers-by would watch him too with a look of disgust on their face. She approaches him and he saw her; presenting her a mirthless smile.

“What are you doing here?” He inhales the emitted smoke from his cigarette. It hurts to see him like that. He looks like someone who’s living a lowlife, with no real purpose of living. He looks different to when he dances, very different indeed. From someone who’s passionate about dance to someone who has no purpose of living. That is how she describes him.

“I live here too. I have the rights to walk around, no?”

“Stay away. You don’t want to inhale this, aren’t you? You don’t want to be a passive smoker, aren’t you?” He takes the cigarette to his mouth again – breathing in dark desire, breathing out death.

“Why do you care?”

“This will affect human’s body system” He says, referring to the smoke. “Especially you, because you’re sick.” He continues, acting like he cares about her life.

“Then why do you smoke if you know this will affect human’s body, including yourself? Do you want to get lung cancer? And then die?” A question which Hyunjae may not want to know the answer. Kai leans his body forward, before his back part lose contact with the wall on the street side. He throws the cigarette to the ground, grinds it under his foot to destroy the burning light.

“I just want to make things simpler and faster…” He says as he walks away from Hyunjae, with a little drag at the last part of the sentence but Hyunjae did not notice it, or she’s too ignorant to notice the difference. She follows him from behind, and it feels much safer to breathe the same air with him now, without the suffocating smoke filling the atmosphere.

“Everyone will die, so you just have to be patient. You should do something fruitful in life before you die, then you won’t regret living.” But her lectures are as if bounced back to her when Kai says “Then why don’t you do that?” Kai seems to say that she has been giving up her life before this. Was she?

“I am doing that.” She’s doing nothing at home, only house chores keep her life busy. What is she doing to her life, she herself doesn’t know. Kai’s words keep hitting her, beating her nerves mercilessly. “Unlike you, smoking isn’t good, you know that. You said you have changed before this, but what happened to you, Jongin?” She says as if all of her memories with Kai had come back. God still keeps it away from her, with unknown reasons why He did that. Will something good happen if He keeps them?

“Why are you following me, to be honest?”

“Why are you acting like you don’t know me?  Just because I don’t remember anything about us, you’re taking an advantage about it?”

“Once you get your memory about us, you’ll hate me.”

“Why is that so? We’re couple. I liked you very much, and so do you. That’s why we’re together.” A gust of embarrassment rushes to her cheeks. Kai turns back to face her; his eyes breathing unsounded emotion, his lips on the verge to curse her, his eyebrows twitch in anger.

“Were.”

“So we were breaking up, that’s why we fought.” The thought is already enough to turn the world as crystal clear to her vision, very crystal clear indeed to explain why he is acting cold towards her. She shrugs her shoulders and a ton of burden seems to escape from the little sigh that she let out. There are still tons of other burdens…

“I have other questions too…”

“Don’t ask more. You’ll probably get hurt by my answers.” He cuts her off and walks away, leaving Hyunjae who is pinned to the ground at one spot. Maybe next time… she thought to herself. She watches as Kai’s shadow slowly disappearing under the sunlight. That shadow still looks as attractive as the owner’s body. Broad shoulders, small waist, long legs – a man to die for.

Few weeks later, she has the courage again to meet Kai. Although Kai had said that his answers might hurt her feelings, she’s still going to ask him the same questions. There are still a few more questions to ask him, and maybe, just maybe, she wants to relight the burning love that they once had. She falls for Kai for the second time as she keeps stalking his SNS account and his photo in her book.

She has just passes by a few blocks from her house when Sehun suddenly pops out from somewhere.

“You have to follow me. NOW!” He says, gripping Hyunjae’s petite wrist and drags her to follow him – heading to the hospital. “Why are we going to the hospital, Sehun?” She asks while running but Sehun did not answer her. His eyes are fixed to the road, while hers just wander around; having eye-contact with people who are watching them with a befuddled look on their face. They enter the hospital, running towards the ward without asking the receptionist anything; seems like he had been there for days already.

And then, they enter a room that smells like nothing but death.

“Jongin, she’s here!” Sehun says while darting into the room. He receives no reply; no voice of Jongin, only the sound of cries by his relatives. Hyunjae widens her eyes at the sight of soulless Jongin on the hospital bed. She can no longer see the mysterious eyes of Jongin. They were closed, ever so tightly and will never open again. His thick lips that keep her female hormones raging with fire – those lips are now the colour of death, undesirable pale colour. His chest is still; no up and down movement because he no longer breathes.

The scene in front of her eyes stabs the most sensitive part of her. A loud cry escapes from . A stranger he may looks like, but she’s sure there’s a bittersweet past of them together. There must be a strong reason for God to keep their memories together that He had blocked them from her brain.

“We’re too late…” Sehun’s eyes are red, as he tries very hard to hold the fluid from flowing. His best friend whom he shares secrets with had passed away. No more dancing machine to tutor him, no more hitting and childish fights with Kai – yes, no more Kai.

I haven’t even got the memories of us together and then you left without telling me! I fall for you again, Jongin. And even if I keep having amnesia all over again, I will always fall for you. I told you how smoking kills and you knew about it well too. Why didn’t you stop? Even if she shouts those words out loud, it is already too late. Kai can never listen to it – and maybe, Kai never listens to her before this?

He said he had changed because of her, and Kai the Cigarette Prodigy vanished. Seriously, what had happened? He lied to me, even in the book. Why didn’t she think about it earlier? That will be the more solid reason why they wanted to break the relationship.

But it’s all too late.

She cries a river. She loses someone that she keeps falling in love with. She loses Kai.

[A/N] oh my, I hope I’m doing a good job for my evil friend here. Bear my ugly writing, peeps :D I don’t study literature, so, I’m not an author that uses super flowery-language . Anyways, there will be a sequel/epilogue for this story. I’ll keep you updated about it here, but right now, I’m just gonna mark this story complete. Hope you’ll anticipate with the real ending to this. Do give me your feedback. Subscribe, comment and upvote (if you want, I’ll love you very much) ! xoxo: kroncubine. Do read my other stories, okay? hahahahahaha

A sneak peek to the epilogue: Kai’s last letter