(Last update: Jun 28, 2013)

25

They say a thousand years lie between you and your memories. That was, at least, how it felt to her.

Sunggyu sat in front of Jiyeon, pensive, guarded and stoic. He was so vastly different from the summer boy she knew, whose eyes used to glitter with expectation, whose his entire being used to tremble with excitement. A thousand years. Maybe it was true after all.

"Jiyeon," he said. It might have just been her imagination but those collections of letters, permutated and combined to spell her name sounded foreign on his tongue. "How are you?"

There were so many things that she could have said. She could have mentioned how she had moved to last two years and still was in the process of moving in; she could have told him how her cafe fared, or that she was thinking of getting a pet fish, or the fact that she was still thinking about the past sometimes and it hurt her to find herself without contact of her old friends back then. But she did not mention this. There were so much, too much to be told, too much normalcy in her life now that she did not really know what to tell him.

I'm alright. How about you? It's always like this, then. This brevity, this finality: almost like everything is coming to a close—all the shared secrets and comfort looking for closure ironically, on the first day they met after nine years.

“Couldn't have been better,” he quickly quipped. He shifted on his seat, and Jiyeon wondered if it was the first time he experienced silence between his words and just how much did the soundlessness between the two people who used to spin together on the same axis made him uncomfortable. She dragged the stillness between them as if it a worthy punishment for all the time he had kept his taciturnity. then belatedly added, “It’s nice seeing you again.”

“I'm sorry I suddenly went missing for nine years,” Sunggyu laughed lightly, his hand rubbing the back of his neck absentmindedly. Jiyeon was reminded of his mindless doodling on scattering papers once a long time ago. How long was nine years? It seemed like it was a lifetime ago.

He placed a card on the middle of the table carefully. It was a simple white card with fancy design with dates and venues and important information, “It’s nothing much, but my exhibition opens this coming Friday and will be there for quite a while, so anytime if you are free, you can drop by. I’m quite nervous and it is my first time having one here.”

Jiyeon realised that he was inviting her to see his new art exhibition.

She nodded her promise and the silence hung again.

“I think I should go now,” He handed her his new phone number and promised to meet soon: 'Properly next time. No surprises, I promise.’

There was nothing much left to be said. To be perfectly honest, Jiyeon could hardly remember the words spoken, only the silence between them. Then came the thought that if he had kept away from her for so long, there was no compelling reason for him to search her out suddenly just to ask how she had been faring. Or for him to apologise. Or to invite her to his exhibition.

But it may be that she was the black mark in his past like he and his cousin were to her. She could understand his need to close this floating wayward confusion that was their youth. She needed it too.

Jiyeon watched as he walked away. It came unceremoniously but she could not help the feeling that he meant it to be much more than a simple goodbye.  It felt like a bittersweet ending to a chapter she was afraid to close. It struck her then when it did not before and with dismay, she realized that she was losing another friend.

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The sky was an endless grey and the ground was a blanket of white and in between where the sky and the earth collide was this indiscernible fuzziness of white and grey. Snow floated down in gentle swirls.

Cars were starting to pile up near the driveway of the hotel. They look like a burst of colourful spots to Sunggyu's detached gaze observing from above.

It was the day of his art exhibition.

He was not sure how he felt about that, maybe a little excited and nervous, but his mind was occupied by the insignificant things of the day. Distracted. ‘Right, his art exhibition. Focus Sunggyu,’ he told himself for the third time at least. Since it was starting soon, he better make himself busy by checking up on things and overseeing the preparations for the final time.

Sunggyu strode out into the hall. The exhibition venue was at one of the multi-purpose halls in the main branch of Van Chantique Hotel. In Seoul. Myungsoo's parents were insisting that he held it there, both to his and their benefit--they would feel like they have done something for him and Sunggyu would have his guilt eased for disappearing on them for a long time. It had seemed like a good idea.

But now, his mind was just churning on and on about Myungsoo. In truth, before the accident happened nine years ago, he had left on bad terms with his cousin. His admission to the university in Scotland had also meant that he did not get to visit Myungsoo in the hospital until almost a month after. And after that, everything was a blur. He was too caught up, too immersed in his new life that he had forgotten that he had people he cared about in his previous one. And soon enough, he felt like there was a crack forming between where he stood and where he once was. He had known but he had not tried to stop it. It was not until that one day when he had looked back and realized that he could not leap over the rift that he himself had created.

He knew he was nearing the venue when the hallway was starting to line up with congratulatory flowers; sparse at first but clustering when he approached the double doors. They opened and a woman strode to him.

"Mr. Kim, we were looking for you. We need your opinion on something."

Sunggyu nodded and followed her. Even though just a minute ago he was thinking about how estranged he was from the life that he once knew, the second he entered those doors, those same thoughts was pushed to the back of his mind. Sunggyu was back into the life of swirling colours and sleepless nights, hours spent breathing in the acrylic scent and getting graphite smudges off his fingers until finally everything else was blocked out.

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“Sir,” Sungyeol called from his office door. Myungsoo looked up; a startled expression flitted across his face before it fades away to his usual calm. “Are you paying a visit to Kim Sunggyu’s exhibition? I was informed that he is expecting you.”

His brows furrowed. Sungyeol let the silence hang. Then he broke it, “Myungsoo, the exhibition. Are you coming? Do you need me to cover for you?”

Myungsoo’s eyes were still grazing on the report he was reviewing when he answered, “No, I’ll go.”

“Okay. What time are you planning to drop by because today there is no free slot for you after lunch which is an hour from now? So if you want to see him today, I will have to move your schedule for you. Is half an hour schedule clearance enough for you?”

Myungsoo paused from his fervent perusal of the documents to lift his head; gazing unblinkingly into Sungyeol’s eyes as if in deep thought. Without words, he went back to his work moments later. Sungyeol sighed dejectedly; ‘how decidedly common of him’. That meant—again—that he had to decide it himself what Myungsoo would have wanted. In all honesty, Sungyeol preferred a ‘high maintenance’ boss whose instructions were crystal clear rather than having someone like the man in front of him who was as clear as fog. Sungyeol could not even begin to fathom what it was that Myungsoo wanted. It was one thing to be unclear but on top of that Myungsoo always did as he pleased—and rarely followed his instructions—which meant that Sungyeol was expected to clean up messes that arose because he had made the wrong choices for the man that was as vague as shadows in giving instructions even if his boss was rarely angry.

Having said that, Sungyeol did not know when it was that Myungsoo would go for the visit. Well, whenever it pleased him, he supposed. Sungyeol knew he had to go through the trouble of clearing his boss’s schedules last minutes. He sighed. ‘What a mess.’

At five minutes past noon, right after an informal meeting about other possible ventures, Myungsoo stood up. He carefully shrugged out of his black suit so that he was clad only in his dress shirt. He straightened the sleeves and the cuff of his shirt silently as he strode out of his office.

Sungyeol pondered about the man that was Kim Myungsoo. He showed his tricks openly to the people he was working with, and they listened to him and respected him. But the real workings of his magic were done in the side-lines, away from the spotlight, on his desk where he spent most of his sleepless nights in. Myungsoo was responsible for dragging the company up from being stagnant, the gears of his brain always coming up with new ideas and plans, most of which he managed to inject into existing ideas undetected to improve on them and make them more outstanding, without people even realizing that he made a difference.

He was cold, Myungsoo was, but somehow in his confidence, there was little arrogance and more of humility if you bothered to look.

Sungyeol walked beside Myungsoo, tentative to start a conversation about Kim Sunggyu. After a moment of silence, he decided to break it.

“Sunggyu is your cousin, right?” Sungyeol said as they made their way to the multi-purpose hall.

A nod.

“You went to the same high school?” They must have been close.

Myungsoo just walked on, and as the double doors of the hall opened for him, he strode forward into the hall, and was greeted by the man of their conversation: Kim Sunggyu. Sungyeol had never met the man himself but he had browsed through the brochures and booklet someone placed on his desk for Myungsoo regarding the exhibition and the man behind it himself

The man was as tall as Myungsoo, but that was where the resemblance ended. While Myungsoo was cold, all frigid wind and ice, white and grey as a winter day, Sunggyu was the colour of spring. He was the inviting warmth that enticed people to come closer like the promise of a hot mug of cocoa on a wintry day.

“Myungsoo,” the man acknowledged, his lilting voice carrying through the storm that was Myungsoo, “Nice to finally see you again.”

Myungsoo nodded once in his direction.

Sungyeol imagined an amiable greeting, friendly hugs or handshakes but conversation momentarily ceased after the very brief acknowledgement of each other. There was an undeniable underlying awkwardness and a swirling of bad aftertaste that hung in the air.

The silence was overwhelming for Sungyeol, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Kim. I’m Lee Sungyeol. I’ve heard many great things about you.” Sungyeol said as he shook hands with Sunggyu in an attempt to dissipate the wariness between the two men.

“Oh, I’m sure they’re just exaggerating. Come, shall we look through the gallery?” Then whatever crisp demeanour he had was shuttered out and what was left was the sunny man Sungyeol thought him to be.

Sunggyu brought the two of them around his gallery, stopping for a moment at each painting, explaining his work excitedly, lost in the splendour of his own work. To Sungyeol’s amateur eyes, the paintings were impeccable, the swirls of colours and sights that were displayed accompanied by Sunggyu’s sophisticated terminologies made it seem that each painting was an apt expression of his emotions, a medium to which Sunggyu managed to channel the issues and ideas he wanted to put forth.

Myungsoo was distant throughout the tour. Sungyeol could not help noticing the gazes that Sunggyu threw onto his cousin, expectant, as if he was hoping for something else other than this reserved diplomacy. Sure he had no prior glimpse into Kim Myungsoo’s life, but their interactions greatly confused Sungyeol nonetheless. The essence of their communication was subtle avoidance of something. Both Myungsoo with his scarce words and Sunggyu with his carefully construed easy manners.

“Are your paintings for sale?” Myungsoo asked out of the blue.

The unexpected question threw Sunggyu aback for a moment, “Yes, yes, they are.”

Myungsoo looked at the canvas.

“Which one, sir? The company or--” Sungyeol offered, nodding to the artpiece.

“Mine.”

It was sad, Sungyeol thought, that the brushstrokes done to meticulous perfection, the nights of sleeplessness, breathing in acrylic, obsession with the moon as a friend, hours staring at a blank canvases, was only worth a few on the paycheck, a sum that does not even make a dent in his buyer’s bank account.

As they turned to go, Sunggyu called after them.

“Myungsoo.” For a moment, raw hope flitted across his eyes and he held it there for a moment, almost too quick for Sungyeol to notice as he uttered the next words, “Shall we meet soon over a cup of coffee?”

Myungsoo stood there for a moment, half turned away from his cousin, pausing, as if scouring through his memories to remember if he owed this man a cup of coffee. Sungyeol held his breath in expectation and worry as he waited for Myungsoo’s answer, sentiments that were not his but empathised with the man that had set forth the question.

A heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three heartbeats later, “Maybe.” It ended as a question.

Then, he strode away, leaving Sunggyu behind.

In the weeks Sungyeol was working with Myungsoo, he thought he was beginning to understand him. He was a cold man, yes: a man who distanced himself from unnecessary social contact and does not seem to be lonely from his human interaction deprivation. Myungsoo gains his energy from being alone, from burying himself under piles of work, but as Sungyeol spent more time with him, he realized that Myungsoo needed a string, a rope to pull him back towards where people are. He wanted to believe that Sunggyu used to be that string. He wondered what must have happened in between for Myungsoo to act a stranger towards his cousin. He had imagined that had he been in Sunggyu’s shoes, surely anger or even his usual indifference was far better than this civility from a stranger who used to be a best friend.

Sungyeol turned back to look at Sunggyu, who now was walking back to his haven of colours, hints of the defeat of a lost friendship in his imperceptibly hunched shoulders.

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Jiyeon came to the exhibition a little after Myungsoo had left.  Sunggyu thought that it was a pity that their path had not crossed. But that thought came from his almost baseless assumption that the two had not been in contact for the amount of time he had not been in touch with her. It came hurtling his way again, the fact that he did not know anything regarding Kim Myungsoo now and wondered who had been willing enough to know about that man in his stead. Sunggyu let the guilt settle in his guts because he knew the answer to that question was no one.

The first thing that he had done was smile and say, “Come on, I want to show you something,” and brought her to the back of the room and showed her a painting. Jiyeon expected lingering awkwardness and an air of distance not of familiarity. She held her breath still, waiting for all of it to dissolve back into nothingness.

Jiyeon had looked at the canvas. It was a woman, amongst all things. Greyish-brown hair, shining eyes, brown and gold like the sun, mouth tucked carefully in a gentle half-smile that looked almost like concern. A silver locket hung around her neck, landed gracefully on her chest where she placed her hand, directly above her heart. Her face was obscured or disfigured by a veil of shapes, pots and pans, flowers, windows, shadows of children, picture frames, and everything was washed out in blues and browns and it almost reminded her of… sorrow.

She looked to Sunggyu, a question forming in her eyebrows, curious as to why he brought her here to this very painting.

“A portrait,” Sunggyu said, eyes still lost in the woman’s face, “of all mothers, really.”

Then, his eyes dropped to the silver locket, “but mostly mine.”

Jiyeon nodded and turned to face the portrait. She looked at the sun lit eyes of the woman, the soft jaw clenched in determination, the bound hair. Truthfully, the only mother figure Jiyeon knows in Sunggyu’s life was his aunt, Myungsoo’s mother. But Sunggyu’s stare brought her back and she turned again to look at him.

“My mother, Jiyeon.” he said, as if reading her mind.

And she understood, his mother.

He did bring her to see his other works, all of them done so well, so meticulously that even she could appreciate it. But nothing quite stood out as much as the portrait of his mother. Something about that portrait sparked a memory so vivid; she was convinced that it only happened yesterday. A memory of her and Sunggyu sitting down inside the school infirmary that was bathed in light, looking at the school nurse buzzing around a sick student, a leather-bound tightly clutched in her hand, silence between them. It was the type of silence shared between those of close confidant. Whatever happened to that? Just like her, just like Myungsoo, there were some secrets he hid beneath his skin. Maybe she was not the person that cared enough to know and learn them because she realised her mistakes now, was that her youth had revolved around one person. She was young and stupid to have thought that he was enough and it was for that reason that she had taken this long to bury her past.

Jiyeon was still lost in her memory when Sunggyu brought her to the door that was leading out.

“Thanks for coming today, Jiyeon,” he said as he turned to face her, “It means a lot.”

Jiyeon smiled, I’m glad.

He wiped his hands, as if he was turning away, but there was something hanging between them. And unspoken thought, an unexpressed feeling. Jiyeon was sure Sunggyu felt it too. Finally, Sunggyu sighed and stayed rooted there, looking at Jiyeon.

“We have lost so much, Jiyeon,” he said sadly. “Do you think this,” he spread his arms around him, gesturing to what laid between them, “do you think this can be salvaged?”

I think it can be, Jiyeon signed, looking at him carefully, painfully, only if we make an effort to.

When she walked out that day, her own words were repeating in her head. Only if we made an effort to.

She had wanted closure. What kind of closure? she pondered over them as she traced her steps home.

It was almost 9:00 p.m. when Myungsoo emerged from his office, looking as stoic as ever. But if you looked closely enough you could see the bags under his eyes from his sleep deprivation and how his hair looked a little out of place from being raked through for the umpteenth times from tension. At times like these, he would sit near the windows and stare out with thousands of thoughts running but nothing at the same time because by the time he shook himself out of his daze he could barely remember anything that had fleetingly graced his mind.

But nothing he did these days were his norm anymore. So he took a step outside, not sure what he was doing but wanting to be out there ultimately.

Sungyeol, whose desk was placed directly in front of Myungsoo's office, jumped as he walked out the door towards the hallway.

"Myungsoo," Sungyeol called and waited for a moment before Myungsoo stopped walking, indicating that he was listening.

"There's a convention here tomorrow that starts at 10 and you have to attend it. Mr. Park Kyungsoo from the Lee Corporate Group requests to reschedule your meeting to next Friday and Mr. Kwon Jisook e-mailed you twice for you to reconsider his offer. I'll put this note on your table."

Myungsoo paused and nodded briefly. Before he started to walk again, Sungyeol said, "And one more thing. Your father told me to tell you to please, please reply to his e-mails."

Right after he said that, he knew that it was a mistake. Sungyeol did not know what Myungsoo's relationship with his parents was like but what he knew was that it was confusing enough just like every single one of his relationship. Every time the topic was brought up, his brow would knit together as if solving a puzzle and then walk away without saying anything. This time though, there was no look of contempt, no furrow of eyebrows and no crease of the lips. A weary, defeated sigh escaped his lips and his shoulders sagged almost imperceptibly. He raked his hands through his hair and stayed placid for a moment. Then, with a quick shake of his head, he walked listlessly away. Not even a curt nod.

The night was still young, and he knew it was going to be a long one. He could not risk losing himself before he could get his work done but it seemed like he was in a highway to do exactly that: lose himself.

It was a warm, windless night. The sky was nearly starless and distant clouds laced the horizon with its grey animosity. The waning moon stood bright within the darkness, hazy and blurry in his peripheral vision. His quiet footsteps clicked, one after another, as he walked down the orange-tinted streets, the hum of nightlife growing ever so distant behind him.

It was unusually quiet when he turned around the corner, the low buzz dissolving into silence, save for the occasional whoosh of cars passing by. The shops here were less crowded and cosier, lit by soft yellow glows. As he walked down the street, his ears caught the faint tinkle of a note, as if someone was playing the piano in one of the shops further down. His steps followed it but the sound did not increase nor did it fade away. It just remained as a faint tinkle against the soft breeze.

He stopped when he realised that it was coming from the shop beside him and as he peered into the glass, sure enough, there was a piano behind an array of tables and stacked chairs. Inexplicably, he had walked towards the entrance and passed through the doors. The bell rang jarringly loud in his ears but the notes did not stutter nor stop as if no one had realised his uninvited presence.

He immediately noted the difference in the atmosphere: the air had subdued to a softer hum, and the lights were a warmer, brighter, a nice change for the dark dingy light outside. It did not even occur to him that the shop might be closed. As he treaded his way through the maze of tables, the tinkle of the piano escalated, and the view of the woman behind them became clear.

She looked surreal, ethereal, and almost magical in that warm glow that was the lights, with her hair tied back into a loose ponytail. Her features were soft as she concentrated on the music she was playing, and her body moved along as her fingers glided over the set of keys. It had been a while since he had seen a person playing the piano. Had they always looked this unearthly as if they were born to sit and play their life away?

He must have missed the sound of it, because right here in this moment, it sounded softer, calmer and more vivid than he had ever remembered it to be. He could hear every note as they buzzed, danced and slid past his ears. He almost cringed as the thought came but there was no other way to describe it, it sounded like home.

He closed his eyes against the swirling sound and imagined his fingers on the boards, hitting, playing every single note, singing them; breathing life to them.

This was not right. He should not be on the side-lines looking on and listening to the music, waiting for it to end to applaud the pianist. He belonged right there, next to the woman, where his fingers should intercross with hers as they played. He should be there, laughing and crying along with the music, not waiting for it to end, but yearning for it to last forever.

So he sat down beside her and started playing as if he had not just barged into her privacy, as if they were not strangers, as if he had always meant to be there, diversifying the song, expanding it and completing it with another voice. Something crossed his mind: a distant memory; flashes of images between snippets of sounds. He had been here before. There had been another pair of hands in a dimly lit room, playing, laughing, dancing. He had not even wondered what had brought him here or why he was here. Work and the office were miles away from here. For now, he was just in this moment, playing a song with another person he might have known. He could not have understood why, but this was right. He belonged here and only that mattered.

Jiyeon did not stop as her weight on the piano stool shifted and another man sat on it. It felt too normal, to be a pair instead of being alone, to have her shoulders pressed another person as her fingers weave and interlace with his. When the song diversified into something played by four hands instead of two, she felt her blood roar in her ears. The notes were singing, singing. They danced in the empty room, rose and fall and pulsed in place of her own heartbeats. There was magic behind this, as she felt all her emotions fall to her very fingers and flowed between them both, as if they were mere extensions of each other. And at that moment, she never felt more at home.

It was too familiar, she was scared for it to ease back to reality where the walls of nine years would come back up and then she would be teetering in confusion. Where do they go from here? Even as those thoughts flittered back every once in a while she knew he felt them too so every time the song was reaching a finality in its notes, it soared back to life. A dance of up and down, where the lines between ending and beginning blurred smudged by his hands and hers.

But just like that last night nine years ago where she believed that it would never end, she was grown now and understood it was time to come down to the anchor of reality. The harmony was sloppy when she ended it and he belatedly followed her because he had not expected the song to stop. It felt like her heart stopped as well. Air was cut off from her lungs and she was afraid to breathe, afraid that she would lose the moment forever. But the room was still, so silent as if the walls themselves were echoing the void. Whatever magic that existed a few moments ago was gone, vanishing in the still air like they were never there in the first place. She distantly remembered a time, long ago, when she had snuffed out a flame to the same stillness, same air of disappointment and loss.

Instantly, she became acutely aware of the person sitting next to her, a person of her past, of her memories: Kim Myungsoo. His presence was stifling, an unwelcomed heavy stillness beside her. She was afraid to turn to him to see him, so suddenly afraid that he was not the person that she wanted to see all these years. But she could feel the heat of Myungsoo’s gaze on her, intent and certain and she could not bear it. So she turned to face him.

Myungsoo was unrecognisable. Sure, there was the familiar sharpness to his eyes, his nose, his jaw. But there, too, was the unfamiliar expression of confusion and astonishment, an unsettling constellation of uncertainty that Jiyeon almost could not recognise him. It was as though he was mulling over puzzling thoughts that Jiyeon’s face had triggered and for a moment, she realised that it was not her that could not recognise him, but in fact, it was him that could not recognise her.

She was struck by this. And too late, she felt the slashes of hurt that came so suddenly in the form of a twisted stomach and a clenched heart. Her eyes burned, and so does and she wanted to shout, It’s me, look at me. It’s me, Jiyeon.

But Myungsoo’s face remained a mess of flustered thoughts and something that he could not place. And Jiyeon once more felt a sudden sadness, as if this was another relationship, one that she could not bear to lose, coming to a close.

And to think that she had just met him after nine years.

A/N:

Hey guys I know it has been 3 years since I last updated this fic but I also did mention that I would finish this one day so here it is I guess? I'm in the process of editing the rest of the chapters so they are going to be up within the next 2 weeks. I don't know who is going to read this, but if there are old readers out there I just want to say that there is no excuse and I'm sorry if you actually waited for an update I tried my best.

With all my heart,

-Faith