*Warning - Character death, mentioned Minkey

Sometimes, when it’s raining and the sky is rumbling and the wind is howling, it reminds me of you. How you can be so beautiful and strong and everyone forgets how powerful you can be until you end up blowing over a tree or starting a few fires. When the sun is shining when I’m at the pool without a tree in sight, when the pavement is so hot it burns my feet and toasts my back, when just looking outside makes me blind for a minute, it reminds me of you. Because there was no one else that could be so beautiful and affect so many things. I didn’t notice until you were gone how different everything was, how without you I am acutely aware of the chill left behind - of the emptiness that you once occupied.

I’m sorry if I’m rambling, it happens when I get nervous – but you already knew that, didn't you?

You see, when I was writing this to you I had no intention to tell you about him - I didn’t want to have to explain the dynamics of it. Yet, here we are. I have to.

Firstly, his name is Kim Kibum. He’s not like you in the same sense, or at all, really. His smile is disarming, and his eyes are almost the right shade of chocolate – darker than yours. He has this straight hair in contrast to your wavy locks, and it parts neatly in the middle, unlike your messy mop. When he laughs, I can close my eyes and pretend it’s you and your soft,warming laugh. Just for a second.

He’s not you in the sense that he won’t sit and share a can of pineapple with me and complain loudly when our mouths hurt. He doesn’t see the point in listening to music when we read just for some background noise, and he complains every time I talk about the winning goal in the soccer match that I just hogged the television to watch.

He always says the same thing - the same stupid, ignorant thing, even if he doesn't mean it to be. “When are you gonna get it through your head that he’s gone?” and that’s when I remember he’s not you, and he never will be.

But how can I properly explain to him that you aren’t really gone? I can feel you sitting next to me when I’m reading a book, breathing in my ear and distracting me. I smell the scent of your honey shampoo swirling around my room, and I hear the music you used to dance to sometimes when I'm drifting on the edge of sleep. You aren’t really gone, because why else would the same song play every time I got in the car, the one that we used to play on repeat because you loved it so much?

Kibum means well, I’m sure, by taking down your pictures and deleting your phone number off my phone. I’m sure he’s thinking of the best when he hides the newspapers that have you on the front page, or steers me away from your family when we see them at the grocery store.

He has this way of kissing me, though, that is just like you. I can close my eyes and enjoy it - I can feel the soft pressure, and that heat I get that hits me straight in the core. I can taste him in my mouth, and I can capture his sweet sighs in my mouth when I touch him just right. When he tangles his fingers delicately in my hair and scrapes his fingers against my scalp, and I gasp because it sends a jolt right through me, I let myself imagine he is you, because that’s what you used to do. You both have this ability to completely unravel me and leave me gasping for air. Gasping for him – for you, still.

I’m nervous because you’re gone, and I want to let you go, and I want to enjoy our kisses. I want to forget the way your silky hair lit up in the sun, and the way you sang so loudly that it hurt my ears sometimes. I want to forget that I ever loved someone who used anything close by as a bookmark, or who would only clean when dishes and dust began to pile up in an unbearable amount. I want to forget that bitter, cold feeling inside me when I think of you - when I think of him and how he’s not you, not even close in comparison.

“Why can’t you love me a fraction of how you loved him?” he asked me the other day, and I was lost. I was drowning in the tears I shed for you.

Can I love him like I loved you, like the moon loves the stars and the sun loves the flowers, like the trees love the breeze, and the birds love the seeds? Can I love him so much it aches to see him across the room and not in my arms? Can I love him enough to forget those promises we made the night before you left, the promises I’m still clinging too?

“I’ll be back, I promise.” You said, and I remember the way you kissed me softly - it wasn’t a goodbye, it was a see you later.

“The storm is really bad though.” I reasoned, any excuse to keep you in bed with me.

“I’m really bad, too, but I don’t see you worried about that.” you joked, and winked at me before you hopped out of bed. You were so beautiful it made me ache, and it made me stumble over what I said next.

“I’m always worried about you.” I confessed, because there was that gut feeling I had - the air was different with this trip. You always went away to see your mother, but the storm was raging and howling outside, and I knew you never checked the gas before you went anywhere. You smiled softly at me as you tugged on my shirt with your jacket over it. Did you notice that? Because I sure did. You took a piece of me with you when you left.

When your mom called the next morning to tell me you didn’t show up, to ask if you had already left, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My throat constricted, and I dropped the phone as I rushed out the door. I saw the car on the side of the road two miles into my search for you. The police stopped me, but I was screaming so hysterically that I don’t think I heard what they were saying.

A drunk driver. Dead on arrival.

“Lee Taemin - did you know him?” they asked. They asked me so many times I wanted to puke. Did I know you? I know the curves of your body, the softness of your skin. I know that on the subtle flare of your hips was a birthmark that I said reminded me of a heart. I know that you take your coffee black, and your tea sweet. I know you were wearing those sneakers that were trampled on the side of the road. And now I know the color your blood tints the pavement.

I’ll love you until I’m gray and wrinkled, until the pages turn yellow and the ink this page is written on fades, and I’ll love you until I forget the way you smiled at me before you left.

I love you in the storms that hit the house, in the rain that washes over me, in the boom of thunder and the flash of lightning. I’ll love you in the smell of bacon cooking early in the morning, and I’ll love you in the way you showed me to him.

He’s not you, not by a long shot. He’s tougher, and not so sweet. He’s not as charming or rough around the edges. He doesn't feel like you, and he doesn’t hurt like you do, either.

But he kisses like the devil, and I want to burn again with the passion that you left inside me.

A/N: /hides/
I'm not sure what this is.. But I wanted to experiment with first-person, so here you go~
Thank you so much for the subs and comments! They mean the world to me. :3