An unbearable weight held me down as I ran, making me feel as though I were swimming through jello. This was always the worst… when I would run as fast as my legs could carry me and the distance between us seemed never to lessen, because in those dreams I couldn’t run very fast at all. Times like this I wished I’d never fallen in love with him. He was a star, and I the telescope admiring his beauty day and night, forever distanced from him.

There was a time in my life when I was worthy of his presence. I held myself to such high standards then, with no regard for anyone until I met him. We were perfect for each other – same goals, same dreams, same impossible standards – everyone could see it, and I sensed their jealousy at my finding someone so absolutely fitting. It wasn’t my fault, though. I simply fell in love.

He had to leave, though. The contract that held us together restricted him, and he felt trapped. Often, he would look at me with tears in his eyes and say, “I’m not a dog, Heechul. I need to be free.”

He was troublesome that way. One day he raged into my life like a devastating hurricane, shaping his way into my heart and my mind like he was the missing piece of a puzzle – a piece I didn’t even know I was missing – and the next day, he stormed out.

No, that’s not right. We were together many years before he decided he’d had enough. He made sure to let me know it wasn’t me he couldn’t handle, but the contract that bound us. Still, he didn’t storm out. There was a very tearful goodbye, and when he embraced me, willing myself to let him go was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I’d worked so hard to keep him by my side, and in the end, my assurances of “it’s going to be okay” weren’t enough. I wasn’t enough for him.

After that, everything was gray. I dreamed in black and white, and when I awoke, there was no warmth by my side. I held nothing but the cold night air, and that was almost worse than dreaming of him every night. When he left, he took my sunshine, my Technicolor, my everything. I no longer held myself to such high standards; my goals and dreams changed. Everything was different.

However, part of being human is adjusting to change. Slowly but surely, my life reshaped itself to live around the emptiness that haunted me, and the day brought new opportunity and normality so long as I didn’t think of him. That was hard at first – putting him from my mind. They say time heals all wounds, but I didn’t believe that at the time. Hell, I’m still not sure I believe it. Perhaps time simply nurses our wounds or performs a surgery so that you can’t even tell it was there. It only hurts when you look at the wound, right?

Nighttime was a different ordeal. As soon as the sun would set and the stars came out, I was reminded of him. It didn’t help that he was prospering where he was now. News of him was everywhere it seemed. He would be in a new movie, or he released a new album, or he was engaged.

What, what?

I backpedaled to the TV, mug of tea in hand. There he was, the announcer, saying that my love was engaged to some girl I’d never heard of. What was that about? I felt my hands start to shake as my heart rate quickened. This couldn’t be… after all that we’d been, did he really find it so simple to move on?

My friends were confused, as well. They’d seen firsthand how perfect we’d been together. We synchronized to each other so much so that we were essentially one body and mind at all times. Then there was this. I wondered sometimes, if I were to go to where he was, would my presence change his mind? Would he come running back to me, and we would spend our remaining days together in pleasant harmony?

Of course the answer was no, and so when he was married, I kicked myself for not doing anything to stop him. Still, he was a human being. I had no control over him or the choices he made, despite how much I wanted to manipulate those choices so they would point to me.

I missed him sorely. My initial plan to simply live around his absence was beginning to fail. Breakfast alone, one set of clothes in the closet, one car in the garage, everything seemed to scream his name out of painful loneliness. I often thought of calling his, just to hear his voice when it was directed at me and not just to thousands of fans who worshipped his on the internet, but I always decided against it. I feared being a distractor in his new life away from me.

Days dragged on, and nights were even more sluggish. I felt the gaping hole he’d left eating my insides and driving me mad, and it wasn’t as though I hadn’t tried moving on. There had been plenty of others in my life, but they’d all been driven away by my ever present sadness. I didn’t mind, of course, but it was still frustrating that I couldn’t get past him.

Even so, I knew he was happy with his new wife, and despite my ever-growing loneliness, his happiness was all I could ever ask for. Through everything, I hoped that he would remember me with a smile on her face, reminiscing the good times and forgetting the bad times. He was the best thing that had ever happened in my life, and I hoped he had found the best thing in his life – even though I knew that wasn’t me.

Acceptance wasn’t easy – in fact, it was the hardest part of the process. Somehow, though, I was able to put that thought in my head, that everything was okay, and I found myself at peace with the events that had occurred. Maybe time does heal all wounds, if you give it long enough.

Ugh what a gross ending. Originally I was going to have someone die, but I decided against it. Anyway this was a creative writing assignment, and so I reworked it to fit Heechul and Hangeng. Please let me know if you catch any "she"s or "her"s so I can fix them :)