“The place where we separated is the place where we’ll meet again.”

“And at that exact place, we’ll separate once more.”

 

“Ji Hyoeun.” The receptionist called out for her name, and immediately she rose up from her seat to the checkup room. There, the doctor had waited for her.

“So, Hyoeun-sshi,” the doctor started while preparing her notes, “tell me what’s up with you.”

Hyoeun was fidgeting on her seat, before finally started to speak.

“Well…I’ve been having insomnia for five nights straight now,” she said in a whisper, but the doctor seemed to pick up anyway, as she diligently wrote on her note. “And I’ve been experiencing a really bad headache as well. I took some medicine but it didn’t work at all.”

“What kind of medicine that you took?”

“Uh, aspirin I guess? Well, I brought them with me.”

Hyoeun proceeded to take out the medicine and laid it out in front of the doctor, who nodded at the display of medicine.

“Well, let’s check you up. You can sit over there, on the bed.”

The doctor led her to the patient’s bed, where Hyoeun climbed on to lay down there. She could feel the unresolved headache starting to invade her head again as she closed her eyes, letting herself to be checked completely by the doctor.

 

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m just massaging your head. Are you not okay with it?”

“Ugh, well…”

“Well?”

“Yeah, I guess I’m okay with it…”

“Okay. You seem to have a lot of things in your mind, anyway, so we have to make you stay young somehow.”

“Are you saying I’m old?”

“Well, I know it’s not nice to say such thing to women, but I can’t lie as well. Anyway, I want you to stay looking young, so you shouldn’t be mad at me.”

“Oh really?”

“Really. At least during this age, you shouldn’t be looking like an ajumma.”

“All right, all right, I see your point. I won’t get mad at you.”

“Good thing. Besides, getting mad at me will only make yourself look older.”

“Ugh…okay…”

 

“Hyoeun-sshi, do you mind if we try CT scanning your head?”

“Huh? Why is that, Doctor?”

“Well, it’s just that…I have a diagnosis. But I can’t be so sure until we can look directly into your head to see what’s wrong with it.”

Hyoeun contemplated for a moment, while her thoughts started to bring herself into the negative territory. She didn’t feel good at all, especially since her headache still wouldn’t subside.

“Okay then.”

 

“When I’m dying, what would you do?”

Silence.

“I can’t picture a Ji Hyoeun dying though.”

“Oh, come on, why not?”

“Why do you keep asking such mundane questions?”

“Do you hate this Ji Hyoeun then?”

“No, not at all. It’s just that— you must have some kind of living being in your head biting off your brain that makes you think so weirdly.”

“No, I’m not! I mean, every person will die eventually anyway!”

“But it’s not the time for you to die right now, isn’t it?”

“Well—”

“Besides, I don’t think I can live in a world without you, Ji Hyoeun.”

 

“I’m so sorry, Hyoeun-sshi,” the doctor came out with the result of the CT scan on her desk. Hyoeun waited in anticipation.

“I’m afraid my diagnosis is right. You have a brain cancer.”

“And you only have three months left to live.”

Those words couldn’t simply shake off of Hyoeun’s mind. Those words made her cry. Those words made her unable to get up from her bed. Those words made her headache even worse.

Those words made her feel so helpless.

And those words couldn’t bring the person that she wished was there for her come back to her side.

 

“What is that?”

“Hey, it’s my journal! You can’t read that!”

“Oh, yes, I can. January 1, 2011. New Year party in the midnight—hey!”

“I told you not to read that.”

“Well, it’s just a journal, right? You can’t be keeping a secret in there.”

“And what if I am?”

“Well…you can’t even show that to me? Your boyfriend?”

“No way, Park Sungjun. Until the time of my death, you definitely can’t see the content of this journal.”

Sungjun stayed quiet as he heard her say those words. He suddenly closed his eyes, which made Hyoeun look in wonder, just what in the world was he up to.

“Can you please not say anything related to death anymore? That scares me.”

“Well, you said so yourself that this is not the time for me to die just yet.”

“Still…”

“Come on, relax. I’m here, aren’t I? And you can’t just look around my journal, anyway, you idiot.”

 

“March 28, 2013. Dear my beloved journal…” Hyoeun started writing on her journal while saying out loud what she wrote.

“I was just diagnosed yesterday that I have a brain cancer. It’s weird, really weird, but it feels so real as well, especially at this time, when I keep feeling the pain inside my head. I just can’t believe that what he said at that time is apparently true. That there’s a living being in my head biting off my brain. And he always hated it when I talk about death. That…”

Her pen fell off from her hold, as her sight unexpectedly got blurred from tears.

“I’m scared…” she whispered to no one, her tears flowing without stop, some falling onto her journal. “I’m so scared…”

 

“The petals used to be so pretty. I wonder why they should die…”

Sungjun didn’t say anything to Hyoeun’s words, although his expression started to harden. Hyoeun seemed like she didn’t notice the change.

“Hyoeun-ah.”

“Yeah?” she looked at Sungjun with such a pretty smile on her face.

“I just hope you wouldn’t say such thing anymore.”

“What?”

“The ‘d’ word.”

“Oh, why? Why are you so afraid of dying?”

“It’s not about me, it’s about—”

“I’m not even talking about me dying! I was just talking about the cherry blossom tree! Why do you always protest when I talk about that? I can’t even talk about dying when you are actually my boyfriend, when I should actually be able to talk about anything with you?”

“Look, I—”

“Don’t say anything, Sungjun. I can’t take it anymore. And for the record, I am not afraid of dying. I will never be. Never never never!”

Hyoeun got up from the ground and then ran off, her tears starting to fall off. Even though no one said it, but Hyoeun knew, that they had broken up by then.

 

The old cherry blossom tree located not so far from Hyoeun’s house was blossoming beautifully. Hyoeun felt so calm whenever she saw it. Even though it had been there for decades, but the beauty never faded, at least during spring time.

She felt so calm indeed, but at the same time, she felt sadness as well, because this place was also the place where she broke up with him.

It was too out of the blue, and Hyoeun still felt guilty that she ignored all of his calls after that fateful break up. Perhaps God was punishing her right now for doing such thing, and for talking about dying so many times. She deserved it, she thought.

“Hyoeun?” an unexpected voice called out rather softly, and she turned to face the person who called her.

It surprised her to no end to see Sungjun in that place.

“Sungjun! Wha-what are you doing here?” she stuttered a bit through her words.

“I…came here to see the cherry blossom. What about you?”

“Well…me too,” Hyoeun answered, whilst thinking, why of all places did he choose this place to see the cherry blossom instead of the Central Park?

“Ah…well…”

Everything became awkward among them, but then, Hyoeun felt her head starting to act up again. Her face scrunched up in pain and her right hand came up to hold her aching head.

“What’s wrong? Your head hurts?”

Something hit Hyoeun. She couldn’t tell Sungjun, in fact, she shouldn’t tell him, that she was having a brain cancer, because she already broke up with him. He didn’t need to know about it.

“Well, just a little. Didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

“You should’ve slept longer.”

“I believe that’s none of your business, Park Sungjun.”

There she goes again. She only realized that she sounded quite arrogant after saying those words. She thought about leaving right now instead of staying much longer.

Although she could see Sungjun seeming like he was about to go after her, he didn’t. Instead, he was rooted to the spot where he was standing, watching Hyoeun walk away from there.

 

Hyoeun got a call from the doctor who checked her up, asking her to go for treatment to at least slow down the cancer’s growth, but she had refused. For instance, she knew that she had to go through radiation treatment, and that meant losing her hair. She wouldn’t want that to happen, because her hair was fabulous.

Another factor that made her refuse the treatment was that she hated to be in a hospital. She knew, from an experience where she had to stay for a week in hospital due to a fever during her childhood, that living while surrounded by the white walls of hospital room was suffocating.

She had dared herself, after moments of frightful faceoff with reality, to embrace the death itself. Especially since a while ago, she had visited a church on a bright and beautiful Sunday morning, where a priest gave his preach to the people.

“When you feel like you’re close to death, just embrace it, because that means you’re one step closer to Heaven.”

She believed that she would go to Heaven after death, so she tried to learn to embrace it.

But that encounter with Sungjun somehow threw that determination out of the window.

 

“Hyoeun-ah, why didn’t you show up here at work?”

 “Well, I’m sorry, Namji-yah, I just have a lot of things to do.”

“Is that so? The deadline is getting nearer, and I think you should already wrap up the script today, right?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll do things a bit faster,” Hyoeun pleaded as her grip on her own cell phone was getting tighter.

“Fine then. I’m expecting you tomorrow with the script. You know editing is not as fast as composition.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just wait until tomorrow. I’ll bring the script with me.”

With that, Namji hung up. Hyoeun could only sigh in relief. She knew that Namji was rather impatient about certain things, especially about her work. But then again, Hyoeun couldn’t find the will to finish up her script. But she wrote on her journal daily. She felt like time was slipping out of her fingers. It gave her the urge to keep writing about what she experienced every day.

Just like now, instead of finishing her script, she opened her journal, and wrote again.

“April 10, 2013. Namji is getting mad at me, I think. I should be writing a story right now, but my will starts to weaken.”

She sighed for a moment.

“Do you think I’m still hoping for him to come back?”

She stared at the words for such a long time, that her eyes started to sting.

“How should I finish it…”

 

As she spent her time lounging in a coffee shop, she looked through the window, where a lot of couples were walking down the street.

Most of them were holding hands. That made her heart hurt somehow.

“Did I really make a mistake…?” Hyoeun sighed again and rested her back on the sofa she was sitting in, when suddenly she caught a familiar figure in the corner of her eyes. And the person also noticed her, as he froze on his spot.

“Sungjun…?” she whispered his name, but since their distance was too far, he might be unable to hear it. But he gave an acknowledgement with a nod, as he kept going towards a table, where a beautiful young woman was welcoming him with a bright smile.

Hyoeun’s eyes widened at the scene.

She felt…betrayed.

But what made her feel like that again?

Without thinking much, Hyoeun got up from her seat, and walked towards where Sungjun and the woman were sitting at.

“Sungjun-ah.”

Sungjun looked up with confusion painted on his face.

“What are you doing here?” Hyoeun asked as she felt her tears threatening to fall, but she tried holding it anyway.

“It’s none of your business, Ji Hyoeun,” Sungjun replied with a somewhat cold tone in his voice. Then again, Hyoeun felt he shouldn’t have said words that belonged to her in the first place, because it hurt, it hurt so much Hyoeun did feel like she wanted to break down over there.

“We need to talk,” Hyoeun said again as she pulled Sungjun’s arms, but he shook her hand off.

“I don’t think there’s anything we need to talk about.”

“There is. In fact, I have a lot of things to talk about.”

“I don’t want to hear them.”

“It’s important! Look, I admit—”

The headache suddenly invaded her brain again, that she felt her vision blurring. She could hear someone calling her name faintly before she fell unconscious.

 

When she woke up, she found herself in a hospital room, all alone by herself.

“Great,” she muttered. “Who in the world sent me here…”

The door to the room opened suddenly, revealing Sungjun, a bottle of water in his hand.

His appearance made her surprised. She didn’t expect him, of all people she could expect, to be there right now.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted out, still in surprise.

“I took you here, so I still have to look after you here.”

Something occurred to her. If he was the one who took her here, could it be that he knew about her disease?

By any chance, he just took the chair next to her bed, while casually offering her the water.

Wordlessly, she took it and drank a mouthful from the bottle.

“I already know,” he simply said, which almost made her choke on the water. She had a strong feeling of what he was talking about.

“Then what?” she asked after the water finally entered her digestion system.

“Nothing else. I’m just saying that I already know.”

“That’s all?” she asked in disbelief. She’d expected things like pity, but Sungjun stayed expressionless, making it hard for her.

“Do you think that I’ll pity you because you have a cancer? You said it yourself you’re not afraid of death.”

She was speechless. How could he just say such thing without care for her feelings? She felt hurt, she wanted to cry again, but not in front of him.

“I am not afraid of death. So what? “

He rolled his eyes, but then, he looked at her with serious expression on his face.

“What is it that you wanted to talk about back in the coffee shop?”

“I—” She tried to remember it again, and those words that kept lingering around , but unable to let out seemed to have been pushed back into , because of his now cold attitude towards her. Her pride wouldn’t let her to say those words after all that treatment.

“Nothing. Just forget about it.”

“Seriously? Nothing?” he asked in disbelief. “I guess it was all useless waiting for you to wake up.”

“Who told you to wait for me to wake up anyway? You can go back to that lady again if you wish.”

Sungjun grudgingly stared at her before turning to leave the room.

Once he was gone however, the tears that she had been holding started to flow down her cheeks. She even started choking on her own tears, making unpleasant crying noise.

It was…my fault indeed.

 

Hyoeun got back into her home rather quickly, since she had insisted not to stay in the hospital for long. When she arrived though, she was plagued with another headache, and as she listened to her voice call messages, she took out a beer and poured it into a glass, and drank it slowly.

“Hyoeun, you’ve promised that today you’ll bring the script! Why are you even ignoring all my calls? Do you still want to be in this business or not?”

“Screw you, Namji,” Hyoeun commented in a soft voice as she continued to drink.

“Hyoeun-sshi, this is me, Doctor Yoon. I heard you got into a hospital. I just hope you’ll take the treatment, because the three months I told you before would be cut off if you don’t.”

“Good. Then I’ll die sooner. Good.”

She felt her headache start to fade away little by little every time she took a sip of the beer, poured it again, and took a sip again, and so on, and so on, until she couldn’t remember anything anymore.

 

Hangover welcomed Hyoeun once she woke up from sleep. Her head hurt even more than before, and it felt hard to wake up from the bed.

But she couldn’t remember how she ended up on her bed, though.

“Aspirin…” she whispered weakly, while her hands already went to reach one of the medicine bottles on her bedside table. “Where is it…”

“Here,” a voice was heard and a bottle was given to her.

“Ah, thank you…”

Then she suddenly came to a realization. She turned to the source of the voice.

“Sungjun! How did you get in here?” she shouted at the guy who stood by her bed.

“You’re the one who got me in here in the first place!” he shouted back in annoyance.

“Huh?” Then something like a memory started coming back to her.

“Sungjun…” she kept calling the name, but she knew he wasn’t there. She reached out to her phone, searching for the familiar name in her contact list, and then pressed the call button.

“Hello?”

“Ah, Sungjun…come here…”

“What did you say?”

“Come here to my place! I want to talk about something…”

“You keep saying that all day even though there’s nothing to talk about.”

“It’s real! Come on come here!”

“You sound like you’re drunk anyway.”

Then he hung up, and she threw her phone away.

“Sungjun-ah…”

Hyoeun gasped in horror at what might have happened.

“I didn’t say anything, right?” she asked in despair.

“Nope. Nothing at all. You passed out before even saying anything.”

“Really?” Then she started to relax in her bed.

“Are you alright now? Because I want to go. I have an appointment with someone.”

“Yeah, just go. Who needs you around here anyway…” she kept grumbling, ready to fall back asleep again, despite the headache. Sungjun just shook his head before heading outside.

 

“I’m sorry, Solji-sshi, for having our meeting interrupted yesterday.”

“No worries. Now, what kind of concept that you said you already came up with, Sungjun-sshi?”

“Well… I thought of video game concept? Where the members become the heroes of it.”

“Okay…?”

“It should be colorful and alive, but at the same time, robotic,” he started to explain passionately. “And the goal of the game. The girl.”

“So you’re saying the song should be about getting a girl?”

“Yes. But we’re using video game here as a metaphor. Isn’t it enough fantasy-like for you guys?”

“Well, I guess so. I’ll talk with the lyric writers if they can come up with something related to that.”

After almost an hour into their discussion, Solji left with quite a satisfied look on her face.

Sungjun felt quite accomplished at this time, since he could already come up with a concept for the boygroup’s comeback in which company he worked for.

Even so, something kept bugging his mind.

Ji Hyoeun. The very person that kept bugging his mind. Especially after his visit last night to her house. It somewhat changed his mind.

Sungjun kept pressing the bell to Hyoeun’s house. Deep down he wondered if she was already knocked out, because she sounded very drunk when she was on the phone. He knew that she couldn’t hold her alcohol that well.

But much to his surprise, the door opened sharply, revealing an indeed very drunk Hyoeun, looking at him with that dreamy smile on her face.

“Sungjun-ah, I missed you!” she exclaimed and hugged him at the same time, making him freeze on where he was standing. He tried to get off from her hug, but to no avail.

“We’ve got to get you into bed,” he muttered before leading her into her house and closing the door on the way.

“I don’t want to~” she sang the words repeatedly.

He didn’t say anything as he led her into her bedroom, and eventually laid her down on the bed.

“Why did you even drink anyway? Don’t you know that’s going to make the cancer in your brain worse?” he asked in annoyance, although he didn’t expect her to respond.

“I know…I know…I just…”

Sungjun looked at her again when she started to speak and he could finally see the tears from her eyes that came down like a waterfall.

“I have something to tell you…”

He stayed in silence to wait for her to start talking, but she didn’t respond as she seemed to slowly fall asleep.

He sighed upon seeing her like that, and proceeded to leave, but something held him by his wrist.

“Don’t go! I haven’t said what I want to say!”

“Then why don’t you just say it already?” he asked again in pure annoyance.

She stayed silent again. He began to develop hunches on what she wanted to say to him. It must be something she had been holding for so long. It might be something connected to their break-up, because if it weren’t about it, why would she call him out?

Then he thought, Ji Hyoeun was always full of pride, whether sober or not.

“I…want you… I…need you… I…love…you… Still…”

Those words made him stunned. He felt it coming, and it was coming. So what he thought was true after all.

“I am sorry…I was wrong…breaking us off like that…was too ashamed to admit…it was my fault…”

He felt it coming, but he was wondering why he still felt surprised when it came. The time when Ji Hyoeun finally admitted her fault and even confessed that she still loved him and that she still wanted him to be by his side. For all this time, he had tried to find another woman, but no one was as impressive as Hyoeun was. No one touched his heart the way she did. No one he ever loved as much as she was.

Even if he never said it out loud, but he still loved her, too.

“Just go to sleep,” he said as he pulled up her blanket over her, watching her as she fell asleep.

He thought about leaving at this time, but seeing how she looked so vulnerable right now, he decided to stay for the night.

 

Hyoeun heard someone pressing the bell of her house, which prompted her to go open up the door. But she didn’t expect to see Sungjun once she opened the door, leaving her in astonishment.

 “What are you doing here, Park Sungjun?”

“Just dropping by. What, I can’t even visit you now after taking care of you that night?”

“That was when I was drunk. I am perfectly sober now, so—”

She felt the headache attacking her again.

“Whoa, are you okay there? You look like you need to rest.”

“Uh, working on a script did it…”

“You’re working on a script?”

“Uh, yeah, for a book, why? You’re not happy with it?”

“You’re sick, Ji Hyoeun, and you’re still forcing yourself to do work. You should’ve rest.”

“Since when do you care?”

“I’ve always been. You’re the one who refuses to admit it.”

He let himself into her house, and while she wanted to stop him, she couldn’t, so she just closed the door and followed him, who had already entered her workplace.

“Hmm, already 548 pages? That’s quite a lot. I wonder how you did them while suffering from a disease at the same time.”

“Uh?” She felt the headache somewhat stronger, and reached for the aspirin on the desk. She swallowed about five tablets, before putting the bottle back.

Sungjun, who had been watching, had an unreadable expression on his face.

“What? You never see someone taking meds?”

“Not very often. Well…”

She only realized then he was holding onto her journal.

“Hey! You can’t see it!” she exclaimed as she snatched it from him.

“But I want to!”

“Not until I die!”

“The time of your death is getting closer anyway, so it doesn’t matter if I look at it now.”

“What?” Her expression turned into disbelief. “You ! How could you talk about death so easily to me when in the past you wouldn’t even listen about cherry blossom dying?”

“That’s because I want to know.”

“Know what?”

“I want to know whether you still love me just like what you said that night.”

“What?” Her eyes widened in shock. “You said I didn’t say anything!”

“I only said that because the other day, you looked so much in pain. I didn’t think you’d be able to deal with it if I confronted you then.”

“But I…”

“I already know, Ji Hyoeun. If you’re willing to admit it right now…”

“Then what?”

“I’m willing to stay with you again.”

She was left stunned, and her tears felt like bursting out again.

“I still love you too, Ji Hyoeun. And I care about you. You just keep refusing to see it…”

He paused for a moment, but that was because his own tears were threatening to fall as well.

“We broke up over such a silly thing, right? Ever since I was small my parents kept saying to me not to talk about death, because it’ll come faster to you the more you talk about it. I don’t know if it’s true or just a myth, but it stuck to me. It made me hate talking about death. I guess I didn’t want to see you dying whenever you started talking about it, but here you are…”

She started to cry out loud, unable to hide her tears.

“I couldn’t do much anymore other than staying by your side, because I know you need that the most. So stop pretending that you can go through this alone.”

He enveloped her in a hug, and she leaned in, crying her heart out. He didn’t mind her tears making his clothes wet, as what mattered the most at that moment was her, indeed.

 

“Namji-yah!”

Namji looked up from her work, and she was surprised to see Hyoeun, looking very pale, but still very bright, indicated by her smile.

“Here, I’ve finished the script! Sorry that I finished it late!”

“Ah…that’s okay…” Namji accepted the script from Hyoeun, but unable to tear her eyes from Hyoeun’s sickly complexion. “I’m sorry for demanding the script all the time…I didn’t know you’re sick.”

“Well, that’s okay. It’s my fault too. Oh, and it’s been a wonderful experience working with you. I just hope you won’t forget me among your colleagues! And I am not kidding, so don’t worry. It’s been truly wonderful. You’re really the best editor I’ve ever worked with.”

Hyoeun gave her a hug, which left Namji completely speechless.

“I’ll see you someday, Namji-yah!”

Just like that, Hyoeun left the office like the wind.

“What was she saying…? Is she…?”

Namji came into realization, as she felt like she’d cry at any given moment.

 

“Do you remember the time when we met again?”

“After the break-up?”

“Yeah.”

“We met each other here, under this cherry blossom tree.”

Both Sungjun and Hyoeun looked up at the already barren cherry blossom tree. There were no more petals left, instead, the petals all withered away, scattered on the ground.

“Isn’t it funny that we broke up here, but we met each other again here?”

“…So?”

“So? What makes you suddenly demand us to wear all white?”

“Uh…just feel like it. Anyway…tell me a story.”

“Hmm?”

“Tell me a story. A really good one. A bedtime story, perhaps?”

“Well…you’re the one who usually writes stories.”

“But sometimes I want to listen to stories instead of making it.”

“I’m not good at making stories.”

“Try me.”

“Well…okay. There’s a girl. She’s really stubborn and her pride is just too much for anyone to handle. Even the guy that she loves.”

“Ooh…that sounds interesting.”

“She broke up with the guy over some stupid argument. But that’s not the worst of it. She was unwilling to apologize because of her own pride.”

“That’s…bad…”

“They got separated for awhile, but then they met again like a destiny, under the cherry blossom tree where they broke up. He wanted to make up with her, but she showed cold attitude towards him. Therefore, he chose to act cold towards her as well.”

“Ugh…”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah…just continue…”

“Well…they met again several times. They always fought whenever they met, but once, when the girl got drunk, she told everything to the guy without fail…that she still loved him.”

“Ah…”

“And then the guy confronted her again. He also said that he still loved her. He was willing to stay with her again.”

“…”

“And after that, they got together again. But there was a twist, she was sick. She was dying. And the guy had a hard time facing this. He’s afraid of losing her. He’s afraid of letting go of her. But he couldn’t do anything. He had to face it someday. He had to let her go in the end.”

“…right here…”

“Under the barren cherry blossom tree…”

Sungjun looked at Hyoeun, who already closed her eyes, leaning her head against his shoulder. He could see how the rise and fall of her chest started to cease, her skin turning paler as each second passed, her hand holding his getting loose.

Yet the smile on her face remained the same. Bright and even youthful. Sungjun could easily remember why he fell for her in the first place.

“Good night, Hyoeun,” he quietly said as he gave her a kiss on her forehead.

 

June 5, 2013

Dear my beloved journal.

This might be the last time I can write anything here.

Anyway, I am giving you to Sungjun today.

He already promised that he’ll only read you after I’m gone. So don’t worry about it.

Anyway, I want to say thank you.

When I have no one else to turn to, you always listen to me without fail.

Even if people say you’re not a living being, but to me, you’re my precious friend who always understands me.

Yeah, I guess you are just that precious to me.

I hope you’ll tell Sungjun that I love him, because I don’t know if I’ll still have the chance to do it.

Again, thank you for everything, my beloved journal.

And thanks to you, my love, for willing to stay with me till the end.

Goodbye.