If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

Dear Mino,

Today is the 7^th of June.

This is the first letter I’m writing since you left. And it has been only five days, but I already miss you like crazy. The house feels so empty without you, without your laugh, without your voice, without your everything. I just feel alone. I can’t bear thinking how it’ll be from now, since we don’t know when you’ll come back.

Because I’m sure you will. I don’t even think of questioning that.

If only I’d been suitable for the army, I could’ve come with you… but I can’t, and I feel so useless and I just want to cry.

I’m so scared of seeing your face in the news… I watch them every day just to make sure you’re safe. I hope you’re safe, and you’ll be until you come back.

Even if I’m sad, I’m proud of you. Be sure to protect our nation well. I will watch over you from here.

I can’t wait to see you. And I know you can’t write back, so I hope my letters reach you safely.

I love you, Mino.

                                                                                                      Taehyun

Dear Mino,

A whole month passed, and I had to write again. I have to tell you a lot of things.

No, actually I don’t, but I needed an excuse to do this. I don’t want to be annoying.

Here it’s still lonely as when you left, if not worse. And because of that, my mom bought me a cat. She asked me to go home with her, but I can’t. What if you show up here, in the middle of the night, and I’m not here? I can’t let that happen. So, she bought me this cat.

It’s really cute, it’s little and it has black and white spots. It looks like a panda- Jinwoo says, so he insisted a lot on calling him Panda, and you know no one can resist Jinwoo, so now the little thing is called Panda.

I’ll attach a photo of him to this letter, hoping it won’t get lost.

Since a month passed, you should have adapted to your new situation. Did you make friends? I’m sure you already have. I always envied your ability to socialize and just be nice to everyone. I guess it’s one of the many things that made me fall in love with you.

I miss you, Mino, so so so much. I know I’m repetitive but I can’t help it, I’d sell my soul to Satan just to hug and kiss you once. I miss your scent, I miss your touch, I just miss you.

Please take care of yourself.

I love you.

                                                                                                       Taehyun

Dear Mino,

Five months. Five. It feels like a lifetime.

The people at the post office told me the situation where you are is getting tenser, and I can send letters only every six months. I was devastated. Not from the letter thing, but from hearing that it’s getting difficult for you. What will happen to you? Will they send you to deserted places? Will you have to fight in the front line against whoever your enemies will be?

I don’t understand anything apart from the fact that you’ll probably be in danger, and that’s for the better.

I still watch the news every day, and luckily your face is nowhere to be seen. I hope it’ll stay kike that.

I’m scared. I’m deeply, completely, profoundly scared. I feel like I’m going to dive into a black hole. I don’t know what’s in there, and it’s dark, cold and lonely. If I feel like this, I can’t even imagine how you are feeling. Please don’t be scared, my love. You have to be strong, like you had always been. I have to be the one suffering; I want you to hold on. I can’t do anything; I’m just sitting here, with a pen in my hand and a piece of paper underneath it. I wish I could be near you to give you strength, I wish I could do at least that, but I’m powerless.

Changing the subject. You know, it’s almost Christmas.

As you can imagine, I don’t feel the holiday vibe at all. The others tried to cheer me up in a lot of ways, and I’m so grateful to them. Jinwoo even bought a Santa costume for Panda, and that was so cute. They brought me out to eat to my favourite restaurant, and that distracted me a bit. It was Seungyoon’s idea (he told me to write it, I’m sorry). But I’m actually happy seeing there’s someone who cares about me.

Still, I picture you everywhere, and I can’t help it. I see you under the Christmas tree my mum brought, I see you near the fireplace, warming your hands, I see you on the street, looking at the snow with your childish behavior that I love so much. I love all of you. I want to love you in real life again.

Jinwoo, Seunghoon and Seungyoon asked me if I want to join them in a New Year’s Eve party, but I said no. The last day of the year had always been our time together. I remember last year, when you said “Let’s spend as many years as we can together” and then you kissed me.

I want to spend every year, every day, every single minute of my life with you.

Please come back soon.

I love you.

Dear Mino,

Six months since December passed, and as always I’m here writing to you.

I feel extremely nervous writing this letter, because I don’t even know where to address it.

I’ve been informed that you’ve been sent to a place of which I don’t even remember the name, but they told me it’s not a place you can address letters to. So I’m just going to send my letters to the usual place, hoping that you’ll be able to read them, in one way or another.

My mum came to see me the other day. While we were talking, she asked me if I still loved you. I looked at her like she was crazy- and I thought she was. She was asking me that only because you’re not here with me. I’m worried she might try to set me up with some girls. You know, she never fully liked our relationship. But that question gave me a lot to think.

You can fall out of love with someone only because they’re not physically there with you?

People don’t stop loving their loved ones when they pass away. (Obviously, that’s not your case. Obviously.) Still, I don’t get how you could stop loving someone only because of that. Probably it wasn’t real love from the beginning.

Personally, I love you every day a little more.

I hope you feel the same.

Come back soon.

Love,

                                                                                                       Taehyun

Dear Mino,

I know this letter is a little late. Well, four months late, but I swear it’s not my fault.

There have been terrorist attacks all over the city these last months. Post offices were closed, as well as banks, and sometimes even supermarkets. I don’t see my mom since they started; she’s too scared to go out and I’m too scared to let her do it. So I’ve been lonelier than usual. I’ve been worrying a lot about you. I started having panic attacks, but nothing serious, don’t worry. The doctor told me I’m too stressed, and that I have to relax.

Well, thank you, I’d like to see you relaxed while your other half is somewhere in the world fighting in the army. Seriously.

I’ve been wondering if the authors of these attacks in the city are the same people you’ve been fighting against all this time.

I desperately try to find something to hold on, something that connects me to you.

I’m scared they’ll tell me that I have to stop writing letters. I can’t. I’ll probably die if I had to stop communicating with you. Hoping that you are reading these things I write you is the only thing that makes me continue living.

I still watch the news on TV, don’t worry. Your face still isn’t there. That’s probably the only time in the day in which I hope not to see you.

If you want to know, Panda is growing and now it became a cute fat cat that actually resembles a panda. Jinwoo is always right.

I can’t wait for you two to meet. He already knows how you look like, after all the photos I showed him.

It’s been almost three years already, but I still love you so, so, so much. Maybe even more.

Come back home, please.

Love,

                                                                                                       Taehyun

Dear Mino,

It’s almost the end of the third year without you.

I can’t lie to you, I feel a little downhearted. Well, maybe more than a little. I’m feeling really bad. I don’t even know what I am doing anymore. I feel empty. Every one lately has been telling me to move on. But they don’t understand I can’t move on when there’s the possibility you’ll come back any time. I have no certainties, only lots and lots of doubts and unanswered questions. My life is a big, indelible question mark. I can’t erase it no matter how hard I try.

Seunghoon tried to take me out a lot of times. One night, it ended pretty badly. We were in a pub, and a guy tried to hit on me. He seemed to know who I was, and that made me really uncomfortable. I rejected him once, twice and the third time I couldn’t take it anymore and I yelled him that I had a boyfriend. He just laughed – he dared laugh at me, yes – and said “You still believe he will return?” and left.

 I… I don’t know. I was so disturbed by his words that I had to leave the pub and just inhale some fresh air. I think I never really considered the possibility of you not coming back… or worse. I surely am scared and everything but I just can’t imagine those facts, you know?

You promised me when you left. You promised me a forever. But I don’t want to live this forever alone. It’s either you, or nothing.

I’m still waiting. I’ll always wait.

Love,

Dear Mino,

This… I don’t even know where to start.

It’s the beginning of the fourth year without you. I have no updates of you since last year. I have nothing in my hands. I lost everything. I lost hope, I lost every single good thing I had left in me since you departed. I feel like a shell, beautiful from outside but empty inside.

Every time I go to the post office everyone looks at me with such pity in their eyes, you’d be disgusted too. Old ladies approach me and tell me I have to live, that I have my whole life ahead of me, that I’m too young to live like this. I just… I want people to stop judging. I know I shouldn’t care, and honestly I don’t, but my mum is already so upset about this whole situation and I don’t want her to suffer even more.

I feel that people become instantly sad when they’re around me. It’s like I bring sadness wherever I am. I really, really don’t want people to be sad because of me. I’ve been sad enough for an entire lifetime.

So, I have to stop this. This is the last letter I’m writing you.

This is difficult even to write… I’m trying really hard not to cry because I don’t want to ruin the last thing connecting us.

I want you to know that nothing will change for me. I’ll still watch the news, I’ll keep showing your pictures to our cat, I’ll keep listening to the CDs you made me for our anniversaries, I’ll keep bragging about how beautiful and perfect you are to every person I meet, I’ll keep thinking of you every single moment of my day, I’ll keep loving you in every single way it’s possible to love someone.

I’ll still wait for you, I’ll always be here. I’m not going anywhere.

I love you. I always will.

Please, come back home.

Dear Mino,

I know I said I won’t write anymore, but I need something to do to let out my feelings.

I’d like to tell you I’m getting better, but it’s always the same story. I feel like I’ve written the same things all over again in my previous letters. If you’ve read them somehow, I hope you didn’t get bored.

I don’t even know what I’m doing. I won’t send this anyway. Why am I doing this? I feel like a teenager writing a diary. It’s childish. But sincerely, I don’t care anymore about what I do.

I can pretend I’m writing to an imaginary friend. Yes, I’ll just do that. Maybe I’ll feel a little less lonely. I hate being lonely. I should’ve gotten used to it – after all, it’s been more than four years –but it’s really painful waking up alone when I remember clearly how it was when I woke up next to him. We’d just enjoy each other’s warmth and love. Now I wake up every day to an empty side of the bed. I always tear up when I see the pillow untouched and I feel its coldness touching it. I just want my lover back. I’m not asking for much, am I? Am I being selfish? Is this a sort of punishment for what I did in my previous life?

I don’t know, I am tired of asking myself things I can’t answer.

I’m going to write this one last time.

Mino, please.

I beg you, please, please, please. Come b

The sound of the doorbell startles Taehyun. Oh no. I told my mum not to come over today, but she came anyway…, he thinks. Such a great day.

He gets up from his desk, gazing briefly at the unfinished letter. He questions himself if it’s better to put it away. He decides not to do it; he has to finish writing. His life is already full of question marks and he doesn’t need another one.

He approaches the door slowly, not caring about making his mum wait. It was her fault, he told her not to come and still, she did it. That happened a lot during the past year, but she only didn’t want him to feel alone.

Taehyun grabs the doorknob, putting on his most annoyed face, and opens the door.

Revealing a painfully familiar face, with a heavy bag hung over his shoulder, wearing a light smirk on his face, looking in his eyes in the way he always did.

His heart stops. He tries to say something, but his mind isn’t responding. He’s way too overwhelmed to talk. When he’s about to open his mouth, the other speaks.

“I’m sorry I took so long, but… I’m home, Taehyun.”

And that day, he doesn’t need to finish his letter.

Hello!

If you managed to finish it, thank you.

I seriously don't know how it is. I don't write since last year and I feel I'm not able to write anymore ;_;

Lately, I've been so obsessed with Winner and especially Namsong that I had to write something, and this idea popped in my brain so I tried to picture it as well as I could :c

Again, thanks for reading and let me know about any errors or anything, since English is not my first language!

Bye bye c:

Shad