PLEASE LISTEN TO IKON'S LONG TIME NO SEE WHEN READING THIS STORY. PUT IT ON REPLAY OR ANYTHING BUT IF YOU WANT TO FEEL THE WHOLE EMOTION WHEN I WAS WRITING IT, PLEASE PLEASE DO READ IT WHILE LISTENING TO THE SONG. 

Love is the strangest feeling on earth. It ties you emotionally to something so intangible. Love is the sweetest feeling on earth. It makes you smile from within your heart even at the slightest thought of it. Love is the craziest feeling ever. It triggers you to do the least thing you thought you ever would. Love is the strongest feeling on earth. It stays the same, even when the clock ticks faster than usual, even when your face turns wrinkled, even when the people have changed, even when the distance have grown. They say you’ll know what love is only until you’ve been through it. Fairytales are nothing but lies, yes indeed. But it is innate in us human, that we need these fairytales and unrealistic dreams to seek comfort and solace. They say that love stories are clearly made up, and even when it’s based on true story, it is never a hundred percent. Don’t you think the pace in which Hazel and Augustus have fallen in love is too quick to be true? Why did Romeo and Juliet choose the silliest way to die? But one thing that is very true about love is that it is always sacrificial, it is always painful in some ways or another.

I was 14 when my mother passed away, and I knew well enough that his tears were meant for her. Somewhere, somehow and somewhat, I knew that she will always have this special place in his heart, as the mother of his child and as his wife, as Kim Hanbin’s wife. I don’t think I can ever erase the image of him sitting by her coffin as he mumbled those words to her. Even at the age of 14, I understood them, and that moment, I sort of saw the differences in love. From the last bit of my memory, my father had always been a workaholic. He spends hours and days in the studio that you could say; my childhood was almost losing his presence. Don’t misunderstand, but I do have the best father I can ever ask for. He gave his all to give the best he could to me, and that included, a healthy, complete family. I remember the days when he comes home to spend time with us, the way he tries to put on a smile on our faces. I remembered how my mother would smile so widely at him, and then behind those smiles, I thought I saw an unexplainable guilt and pain. I remember the days when my father sits quietly in his balcony to write his songs, and I don’t know if I saw wrongly, but I thought his song sheets were stained with some kind of liquid. I remember those days when my father would silently caressed this sealed seashell box, and then in the corners of my eyes, I thought I saw my mum weeping silently outside the room. I never knew much, but up till the age of 14, I’ve always been living in the denial that my parents were each other’s greatest love. And with her death, I slowly came to learn about the truth.

Soon after my mother’s death, I’ve begun to get used to the life of two, just my father and I. They say that the truth will come to see the light soon, and I guess it did hit me not long after my sixteenth birthday. I was packing my father’s room when I came across this mysterious black file. It was kind of thick, but the title was what really caught my attention – My Little One. They say curiosity kills the cat, and indeed, I was itching to know what lies in this file. I cautiously took out this bunch of song sheets, carefully read through it and I thought it was way more beautiful than those my father had sold over the past few years. The lyrics were heart wrenching, it felt so real, as though the lyricist was painting a picture of his life with those words. As that thought strikes me, it was only seconds later that I realized these songs were never dedicated to my mother.

“Nicole?”

I dropped the sheets of papers in my hands as thousands of thoughts ran through my mind. I stared at that man standing in front of me as I wonder, was I an accident and led to his painful commitment today?

“You want to know, don’t you?”

I nodded. I was dying to know. It was like the sudden realization behind those tears I’ve seen through the years whether was it from my dad or my mum. It was like a whole new story that I deserve to know after living in my own world for the past 16 years of my life. He smiled, so bitterly as I foresee the saddest image ever, just minutes later. And then I realized, how bitter were his smiles all these years. How painful exactly was it, for him to smile like he had never been hurt?

I watched him rock on that rocking chair, eyes closed, hands gripping tightly onto those sheets of songs as though it was a life line. Every single word hits me real hard that I felt his pain. All these while, what have he been through? He had his youth, he had his past, he had the most memorable part of his life but all he had left with today, was nothing but mere regrets and thousands of words left unsaid. The way his eyes brimmed with tears, the way his grip tighten with every word he says, the way his lips trembled with every recount of his past, I knew that he was nothing, but a mere human with pains and regrets. I thought I would have hated him with all those stories because it reminded me of nothing but the sheer fact that I was never a crystal of their love, but rather, a painful commitment that took away the largest part of his life. If to be apart from the one you love is grief, then I was part of the reason. I thought I had every right to hate him, to hate him for my existence because the truth only reminded me of how unwanted I was probably, if he was given another chance.

“I’m sorry Nicole, I’m really sorry,” he was close to bawling. Even with the cruelest part of my emotions, I couldn’t bring myself to hate him. Not when I know that my mother was part of the reason behind his pain, not when I know this man in front of me did all he could for me through the past painful years, not when I know the Kim Hanbin today is purely an old man who have had lived his glorifying life with the greatest regret ever, and not when I knew well enough that love can never go wrong. I asked myself again and again, but the best answer I could give was that Kim Hanbin had been the best father he could, the best husband he could, and if he had never blamed my existence for destroying his last glimpse of hope to be with the one he love, how else can I go about blaming this helpless man?

“Thank you dad, you’ve been the best dad ever,” I cried as I leaned on his lap, with the chair still rocking. I was happy for him, for he knew who his true love was and he stayed true to it despite the countless of changes through the years, despite the fact that, it was something the conservative society can never accept. I was sad for him, for that man will always stay as his greatest regret in life, for the countless of words that he had never been able to say to him. I just wished he had told me his name, but dad refused. Because if he had told me, I could have been a step earlier, and I could have changed one fact. That particular someone who took his heart away, could have hear with his own ears that my dad, Kim Hanbin was crazily in love with him despite all odds, and have vowed to take that love with him, till forever. I knew it was true love. Because without knowing whether it was reciprocated, he fell so deep into it and through those years, nothing changed. The absence merely made the hearts grow fonder and his love grows stronger.

“But dad, why did you stop writing for the last piece?” I asked, noticing that the last piece of song was unfinished. But all he did was faintly smiled and whispered something I wasn’t sure of if I deciphered rightly.

“I’ve given up on my foolish wish. The last piece will be nothing but a mere dream.”

True love doesn’t mean being inseparable; it means being separated and nothing changes.

I guess life and death was nothing much but a simple cycle of human’s life. I stood in front of his coffin as I stared at the man lying in there. If his life was nothing but a regret, then I hope god takes him to somewhere better. I know I can never put on the most genuine smile he had ever had, because only one person can. And I guess I’ve finally known why dad refused to tell me who he is. His love was deeper than the ocean, wider than the sky, truer than reality, stronger than diamond.

I watched his friends gather in the church as we sent him on his last journey.

“Nicole, take care,” uncle Bobby said as he gave me the tightest hug which I found comfort in.

“You know, you’re really his pride, and his most precious possession ever?”

“Not really, dad’s prized possession was ‘him’, that someone,” I laughed. I have no idea how else to address ‘him’ because; I have no idea who he is.

“You’re wrong, he was never Hanbin’s possession,” Uncle Bobby mumbled, as he gave one last glimpse to dad before walking out. Those tears in his eyes told me how lucky dad was to have a friend like this. It hurts; it hurts so much to know that this man lying in the coffin gave me this life while his life was squandered away in regrets. I wish I could do more, I just wish I really could.

“I wonder why Hanbin doesn’t want you to know his name,” uncle Bobby asked as he took a sip of his coffee. I just smiled.

“Because he doesn’t want ‘his’ life to be disrupted,” I replied, as I wonder where this person is today, how this person is doing, and how will he have reacted if he knew about Dad’s unrequited love.

The trial of distance has given their relationships a depth that can’t really be matched.

Two winters had passed since Dad had left. I slowly picked up interest in music and I guess it flows in the blood then. Like usual, I visit my dad whenever I need inspiration. I guess the nobility in his love story was my greatest source of inspiration and his love taught me the most beautiful lines in love s