[CONTENTID1]Chapter 5[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2] Soundtrack: "Lovesick Fool" - The Cab

[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]

"Who are you?

You're looking like a stranger

You were once my love and my savior"

The snow fell lightly on the streets and on his cold body, moistening his hair that fell against his face. He bit his lips desperately. His head was hurting, his heart was hurting.

Why did he have to appear into his life again? After everything that happened, when he finally managed to get over it, why did those feelings that he thought that didn't exist anymore have to return? After years where his life remained in the past... when he finally thought he could move on.

His blood was still boiling inside - he had to control himself not to punch that face at that moment. That face that he didn't know, that calm and regretful expression that didn't belong to him. That was not the Nam Soon he missed, that was not the Nam Soon he wished so much to see.

Where was that old Nam Soon who always carried an aggressive expression? That Nam Soon who destroys everything - that was the Nam Soon he wished to see, and not this empty person that he met again.

He got himself fast inside a taxi, trying to move as far away from that place as possible. He wished to forget. Why were those memories running down on him again? Why did he have to appear on his life again? After everything... Why?

"I can't believe this rose has lost it's red

And it's petals"

Heung Soo reached his apartment in less than twenty minutes. There wasn't much traffic this time since it was still six in the morning - he noticed this now.

He lived in a medium class building. It was a small apartment - but certainly bigger than Nam Soon's, and comfortable enough for one person to live. Heung Soo was not rich, but he had a nice life - he could spend and buy the things he wanted comfortably. His salary was good enough, even though he was only a year at the company.

He closed the door behind him and walked slowly to his room, turning on the lights as soon as he got inside it - the sun had not completely appeared yet. He opened the second door of his white closet on the right side of the room, and reached for the bottom of it. He didn't plan on opening it again. Not after the two years he lived there - he hadn't touched it since then. He almost forgot about it. However, he never forgot about its content. Just like, even if he didn't want to admit it, Nam Soon was never truly forgotten in his heart.

It was an old wooden box, that kept inside it the fragments of the past he wanted to forget. Right at the top, there was a punctured soccer ball - he didn't know why he kept it. He should had thrown it away years ago, but he didn't, not even now. He just put it aside and right behind it there were some old mangas already eaten by moss, the yellow pages already falling. And inside some of them, there were a few pictures.

One of them was just Nam Soon. He ha taken a picture of himself making a V sign and wrote his congratulations for Heung Soo on winning the game behind it. The second one was Heung Soo - Nam Soon had taken of him while he made a goal, but Heung Soo didn't remember anymore when it happened or even which game it was.

And the last one they took before his last game. They went out to eat ramen - they always did so after the game, but Nam Soon suggested them to go a few hours before because it could bring luck.

The picture was already old and dirty from being kept inside that messy box. But it was still clear - the past that was gone, the Nam Soon that disappear, the Heung Soo that didn't exist anymore. He crumpled it with his right hand, wanting to make it go away just like them. A past that he wished was never there, a past that he wanted to erase.

However, it hadn't all ended that night. It shouldn't have, but Nam Soon made sure it did.

"Who put that rock in your chest won't you tell me?

If i said i wished you the best, i was lying"

Heung Soo looked through the window of that cold hospital room. He stared at those eyes that looked back at him from down there. He wanted to shout at him, to scream at him to come up to his room so he could hit him to the ground - to the boy that ruined his leg, the one that took his dream away from him.

He had been awake since long, trying his best to forget the fact that, just two hours ago, he heard the doctor saying he probably wouldn't ever be able to play soccer professionally. That he would need to use crutches for six months and that the pain in his knee had the risk to reappear during his entire life. The injury had been quite bad and at a really complicated place.

He said those things so openly because he thought that Heung Soo couldn't hear it. But he did. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, but he didn't. He just lay there, wondering where the hell was Nam Soon and why hadn't he come see him so he could properly say what he had in his mind, in order to punch his face and free his anger.

"I'd rather live with broken bones

Than lay here all on my own like a lovesick fool

Like a lovesick fool"

And now there was Nam Soon. But he didn't stare at him for long. And when he turned away, giving his back to him, was when he felt his life truly breaking down. He lost soccer... Would he lose Nam Soon, too? He didn't want to. He was angry, he was resentful - but still, he couldn't lose Nam Soon too.

Soccer meant what it did to him because of Nam Soon. It was their future. It was what he had to make sure they would be able to live together and well. He would become a successful soccer player, save money for his mother's treatment, and enough to make sure Nam Soon wouldn't destroy his life. To make sure he would have a better future, that he wouldn't become a gangster or a bad person. He loved soccer, but this was his real dream.

So despite everything, even if he was the one who took that dream away from him.... Nam Soon was his other dream. If he lost Nam Soon too, how would he be able to live?

Because he wanted to die, he needed Nam Soon by his side. So even if he wanted to scream, to hit him, make him apologize, and hit him again... He didn't want him to go.

He knew Nam Soon didn't mean to hurt him that way, but he needed to hear it from his mouth - to hear that he was sorry and that he didn't mean it.

"Where'd you go

You said you'd never leave me"

But he never got to hear that because Nam Soon ran away. Just like that and he didn't know why.

The next few days were the worst days of his life - he had no soccer, no Nam Soon... No dreams. He was lost, and he really wanted to die this time. Only during the nights... The nights were a delightful dream, where he would think of him. In his dreams, Nam Soon was by his side. Sometimes, he would be taking care of him; on others he would be apologizing, crying and they would argue, but then they would hug each other and everything would be alright again. But that was when he would wake up - and the reality would hit him like a storm, with the realization that he was living a real nightmare.

The image of Nam Soon giving his back to him and going past those hospital doors wouldn't leave his mind. It never did, because that was the last time he saw Nam Soon.

His last memory of him was from him running away. Nam Soon ran away from his life, and in a blink of an eye, his past became his nightmare. The person he used to love and care so much, suddenly became a deadly memory.

"Wakin' up just brings me down (down)

'Cause every morning you are nowhere to be found (nowhere to be found)"

They moved to Seoul the day he got discharged from the hospital. Heung Soo didn't look back. He didn't go to Nam Soon's house, nor he was there the day he left. Nam Soon had just left him, as if he was never important to him. Just like that, he was no longer part of his life.

They stayed two months in a small apartment in Seoul. His mother was already hospitalized again, and Joo Mi¹ was working her off to pay all the debts. Heung Soo didn't leave the house. It was hard to walk and the pain would remind him of Nam Soon, hence the reason why he spent his days lying on his couch watching television. He didn't want to think, he didn't want to live.

"And i can't sleep

The pills they never helped

Tried counting sheep, still hurts like hell"

They had to go back to Gyeonggi-do for two days to collect his school documents and hospital history. He knew that he had already lost his school year, but he couldn't care less. Joo Mi did, though, and needed those documents to prove that he didn't lose the year because of his grades or bad behavior. Still, Heung Soo didn't care.

But on that day he finally ended up swallowing his pride - even though he was resentful, and that he would probably want to kill him when he saw him... Still, Heung Soo went to Nam Soon's house. The gate was open, but he needed to bend down on his crutches to walk inside it. Heung Soo was losing his breath, and he didn't notice that there were no furnitures inside that house anymore. He was so anxious that he didn't pay attention to it. That's why, when he opened the door to Nam Soon's room, he couldn't hold in his smile. Just to think that he would see him again, all the hate was suddenly gone for those brief seconds. For those mere seconds it was just Heung Soo and Nam Soon again, just like before. There were no soccer, no gang, no anger.... It was just both of them again.

But then he realized... That Nam Soon was not there anymore. There was nothing inside that room except for some old mangas and empty packages at the ground.

The smile was suddenly gone from his face and a deep down sadness took care of him, as he bend on his crutch and sat on the floor, on the place he imagined Nam Soon. He took one manga from the ground, and despair and reality... It all came back to him. The fact that he would not see him again - the realization that it was indeed all over.

And then, all he wanted to do was cry.

"Crazy bastard," he whispered as the first tear dripped down his cheeks.

Heung Soo didn't know how much time he spent there. All he knew was that on that night, he cried everything he had been holding down those last few months. All the memories of his days with Nam Soon came to him, all the realization of what was left behind.

No Nam Soon. That was the end for them.

"I'm not the same now something went missing

There's a cage, it feels like a prison

Here, i'll stay, until you come back home (home)"

Some days later, he heard from the owner of the comic book store that they used to hang around some days that Nam Soon had moved. He said he went there every day before leaving, waiting for him to appear. But, apparently, he got tired of waiting.

That coward. That ing coward. He couldn't understand... Why didn't he go back to see him? Why had Nam Soon left him? And why was that the only thing he wanted to see now was Nam Soon?

He wasn't thinking about the soccer he lost, but about the friend that let go of him. About the friend he once thought was his life, but that suddenly ran away from him without saying a single good bye.

At that time, he really thought he would never see Nam Soon again. But that was until that day at the coffee shop.

Why, after all he did, after all he had been through... Why did he have to reappear again? When he thought he had finally forgotten.

"All alone, my heart is barely beating

Like a ghost you haunt me everyday that you're gone"

Heung Soo took that last picture of them together, and, without thinking twice, he ripped it into two, throwing it inside the box and hiding it in his closet, from where he never intended to take out again.

It was too late now. Park Heung Soo had already forgotten Go Nam Soon. Those times they spent together didn't mean anything to him anymore. It had been over long ago.

Bu if that was true, why were all those memories still clear in his mind? After all, had he truly moved on? Or would Nam Soon always be that memory that would always be there haunting him?

Just that, now, Go Nam Soon was no longer just a memory.

"Am i a lovesick fool

Or am i giving up?

Am i a lovesick fool"