“She reminds you of me,” Jinhwan repeated his younger cousin’s words.

The boy, alive, nodded in response. And then he crushed his cigarette on the ashtray and leaned on his cousin’s gravestone.

The boy, living in Hanbin’s imagination, seemed to be lost in thought.

“So I thought, wouldn’t it be better to end it soon? To lessen the pain I’ve already caused?” said Hanbin.

“I see. So you’ll cut off all contact with the girl leaving her to wonder for the rest of her life where you went, how you had possibly died—or if you were even real?” said his imagination of Jinhwan.

“It’s the only way.”

“It’s not the only way, . It’s a shortcut.”

“It’s the only way I can hurt her less.”

Silence fell upon them; Hanbin and his mind.

“After my birthday,” Hanbin continued. “I’ll stop with the messages. I’ll stop talking to her. I’ll even change my number and—”

“And hope for the better that she forgets about you.”

The older one sat next to Hanbin and leaned on his own gravestone. Hanbin could see Jinhwan staring at the sky, eyes unmoving, as if trying to find some answer in there. It was a habit that Hanbin picked up from Jinhwan when he was young. For a second, that made the boy believe his cousin was alive, and not just living inside his mind.

The boy could only wonder why people often left strange little memories of themselves behind after they die.

With every minute, every second that passed, the cherry blossoms sank into deeper, darker intimacy with the warm sky. Hanbin was plunged into feelings of melancholy.

“Hey, hyung,” he began. “Will you stop appearing in front of me from now on?”

It hurt Hanbin seeing Jinhwan like that, because whenever he saw his older cousin, there was always that resounding voice inside Hanbin’s head that reminded him over, and over, and over again:

Ah that’s right.

Jinhwan is dead.

However, the older one could only scoff at the latter’s request. “That’s your decision to make, little brother. Not mine.”

. . .

“Do you mind if we meet today?”

Hanbin felt his cheeks grow cold, and gradually became aware that his heart was fading within him, pouring along with the autumn rain.

October twenty-two, Hanbin’s eighteenth birthday, wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Hanbin was intended to shut his phone off forever after the rain had stopped pouring. The girl called Hayi, whom he texted every now and then, wasn’t supposed to say that very phrase. She wasn’t even supposed to want to meet him.  

But the rain did not cease.

And those plans of shrinking the hurt he’d already caused—those plans were dissolving by the second, as the boy found himself trapped in his own desires of wanting to meet this girl.

Hanbin had no choice but to follow through the inevitable events he started in the first place. Never in his whole life had he felt this defenceless against his own power to inflict pain.

“You want to play hooky with me, Hayi?” he asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Something along the lines of that.”

“But why today, out of all days?” And yet he already knew the answer. Because when someone breaks down in front of you, they might do things they would never usually do or feel things they would never usually feel. And for Hayi’s case, it was the sudden urge to meet this stranger on her text messages.

That feeling may have never happened again.

“Because today was terrible,” Hayi simply answered. “And I thought, ‘Perhaps meeting Spring would be the only good thing to happen today.’”

“Good thing, huh,” Hanbin shot back. “Then what if I turn out to be a serial killer?”

There was a chuckle from the other end of the line, and for a second, it brought out a smile from Hanbin.

“You know what, Spring? I wouldn’t even mind.”

Hanbin held his phone down and stared at the screen for a little while. As he waited, his desire grew, sharp and insistent. But soon enough, he hung up.

And all at once Hayi felt unsettled. Her fears flared for a second, then died upon the next chime of her phone.

I’m at the rooftop. I’m not saying this is the right thing to do, Hayi.
It’s your choice. – Spring

. . .

The girl stirred as she approached the door. It was a dull door. Damp, with a rotten bottom edge (probably from the small flooding whenever it rained); a rusty handle looking like it was about to fall off; red paint peeling from the middle, revealing a dirty white underneath it. And wasn’t this door locked all the time before? Hayi wondered, and kept wondering.

Most of all, she wondered about how behind that door was Spring.

Hayi grabbed the rusty handle and pushed it down using the remaining force of her weak arm; the wind did the rest of the work as it swayed the door open.

There he was. Cigarette in hand, listening to the sound of the raindrops.

Hayi’s heart thumped violently. She felt as if she were being choked by the high, tight collar of her uniform blouse. Never had she been confronted with anything as inscrutable as Hanbin’s face, eyes closed, quietly waiting.

She breathed in slowly until she gained control of her leaping heart.

“Hello, Spring,” she breathed out.

. . .

in our prime // hm i like this song

i'm sorry i took such a long time to update this story (and i'm sorry to come back with such a short chapter on top of that). i'll try to update as much as i can since it's summer and all. thanks for reading ◕‿◕ i really missed writing