I found him. He had not moved from our old apartment. Even though I did not dare to knock on the door, he came out eventually. I followed him into town, too afraid to make my presence known and curious about his current life. He had changed over the past ten years, for sure. He had gone through a very hard time and although there was nothing I could have done to change what happened, I felt guilty. I know how much he hurt. He would visit to tell me so. He would cry every time no matter how many years passed and I would cry with him. Sometimes he looked up as if he could see me there, sometimes he would talk to me and I would talk back just in case he really could hear me, too. I did not know what laws applied to us and I was never sure how long things could stay like that. The world in between doesn’t come with a guide.

He was a complete wreck after the accident happened. He had broken bones but his heart was even more broken, unmendable, according to himself. It had surely seemed that way for a long time, but despite the fact that he still cried a lot, I could tell he was picking up pieces of his life again. Our band did no longer exist and he no longer wrote happy pop songs, but, after a few years, he decided to try his hand at music again and released some of the ballads that held all of his sorrow in their tunes. Our friends had done the same thing and tried to help him move on, but each time he would come back to my grave, telling me about all their good efforts and how much he feared it would never have any results. When he came to see me on my birthday two years after my death, he shocked me so badly with his thoughts of jumping off of the cliff. I sat there for days and weeks, anxiously waiting beside my gravestone for the next time he would visit, praying that he hadn’t killed himself. At that time I really wished he would forget me. I didn’t care what other effects that would have, as long as it meant that he could be happy again. He wasn’t meant to die yet, even if it was to relieve his pain and join beside me. I loved him with all I had and I would do that forever since there was nothing else left for me, but he still had a lifetime in front of him and I wanted to see him enjoy it. He never forgot me, always came back, but the depression slowly eroded and I was thankful.

Just two days ago was the anniversary of my death, two days before the miracle that happened to me. He had visited, he had cried, but then he gave a difficult smile and made me the same promise he had been making for some years now: to always carry me in his heart and to live for the both of us, to take good care of himself until we can meet on the other side. Even though he was still longing after someone who could no longer give him anything, I had been so glad to hear the desire to live reflected in his voice when he had first said that. It was a day when I cried of happiness, overwhelmed at the sight of the smallest true smile on his face. However slowly it was going, he was finding new purpose in his life. He was starting with his professional life and I hoped that one day I could hear him say the same thing about his personal life. The selfish side of me felt great to know he still loved me so deeply after all that had happened, but on the other hand I felt a desire to tell him to start over with someone else. I couldn’t be there for him. He had always wanted a sweet family life and this way, I was taking that dream from him. He had too much love in his heart to waste it all on a person from his past, agonizing in loneliness. I did not truly want him to forget me anymore, but I knew that seeing him cry would always hurt me more than seeing him smile with another person by his side. He deserved so much more and no matter how much I had wanted to give him all, a tragedy had happened and there was no way I could do that. His heart should move on, but in ten years it never managed.

Even now as he was chatting with Youngbae, I could clearly tell something was different about him. I could not immediately name what it was, but there was something missing. All of these years I had only been able to see him at my grave, a place where he would naturally be in a sad mood, but even now he carried sorrow in every movement. His passion, his vigour, his joy, it wasn’t quite there. It wasn’t absent either, but it had taken a different form. He had readjusted his life to deal with the pain, changed his goals from writing music that inspired the creative to writing music that soothed the broken. In a way, he had made the best out of his experiences, but I still wished he would never have had to feel that grief. In a few moments, the life he had envisioned had been ripped away from him, changing him painfully while he had always been so beautiful. The only thing that seemed unchanged was the fact that he loved me. I was shaking with the desire to tell him that I still loved him too, knowing that I was the only one who could ever truly soothe his heart, but I still had too many uncertainties going through my head.

I had been granted the opportunity to be alive again, a rare second chance that most people never get. When a slim woman appeared from the white light, contrastingly dressed in all black robes, she had told me that it was a reward for the pure, undying love between me and Jiyong. Ten years was a long time, she told me, most people could not be separated for that long and still be so committed. After she had explained to me, the first thing I planned to do was run straight back into his arms, but then I realized what would logically happen. He would not believe me. He would possibly push me away and accuse me of the most rude imposing of his late beloved. I am dead. I have been for years. Nobody would believe me, certainly not at first sight. Even if I managed to convince him, would that really be for the best?

He was finally starting to make some progress in processing my death. I couldn't just show back up and make it all for nothing. It wouldn't erase all the years of grief either and maybe he would only get more confused, the many feelings in his heart getting stirred until his head couldn't make sense of it anymore. Maybe I should not let him see me. Maybe I should let life take it's natural course and continue hoping that he will be able to love someone else eventually. Surely I could not expect that everything will be exactly the same as it was ten years ago. We had been loving an unreachable person and holding on to memories, perhaps we couldn't even do a real relationship anymore.

I had gotten lost in those thoughts once more and when I looked back up, Youngbae was not looking at Jiyong anymore. He was looking past him, at me. He was frowning as if he was doubting his own eyes and I was sure it would catch Jiyong's attention soon. I panicked. I shook my head and quickly waved my hands at Youngbae as if telling him that he was wrong, turning around to get away as fast as I could. If I even wanted to meet him again, I was not ready for it.

I only had a day. If Jiyong had not kissed me before midnight, I would return to death. Three and a half hours had gone into travelling to central Seoul and at least another four hours had passed already, I realized as I caught my breath in the alleyway. I had to make up my mind. I had to keep an eye on Jiyong, too. If I lost him, it could be too late before I found him again. Did I want to return to the world of the living? Could I? What about my family and all the other people who grieved my death? What about legal problems? This was by far the hardest decision I ever had to make, alive or not. As I thought of letting the only chance I would ever get to spend more time with my loved ones pass by, I could feel cold wetness rolling down my cheek. I was crying actual tears. For many years I had cried with dry eyes. I touched my hand to my cheek to confirm, not thinking I would be able to cry like this yet because I knew there pumped no blood through my veins yet either. A small smiled pulled on my lips seeing those real tears. I was different. I seemed to be breathing, too. I was not quite dead anymore and I possibly had a future again. I wanted that. This felt so much better than the constant, unsubstantial cold. The more I started thinking about being alive, the more I started to realise how lonely I had been all this time.

“Hey, are you alright?” I startled when I heard someone speak and I turned in the direction of the voice, to my horror finding the two I had been watching earlier. It was a familiar sound and I should have known Youngbae was too caring to let anyone run away in distress like that.

“Oh my good God.” Jiyong said before I had the chance to do anything, staring at me with wide eyes. He stepped closer on trembling legs and I could tell he was fighting back the urge to touch me and check if I wasn’t a hallucination of sorts. Youngbae looked concerned and he was about to tell Jiyong something along the lines of not letting himself get carried away, but I motioned to him that it was okay and he remained on the background from then on. I had only communicated with him through gestures that night, but it was enough. Perhaps there was something about my way of movement that he recognised, remembering it from the living me and interpreting it well. “You… You look so much like him.” Jiyong hesitated, having caught the subtle interaction between me and his best friend and probably thinking that I had to be someone else, trying not to offend or scare a stranger. I bit my lip as our eyes connected, feeling a rush of tears coming up as I saw him searching for all the little things that would prove it really was me after all. He found something that broke his composure and suddenly he had grabbed my left arm, pushing up my sleeve to see if I had the scar that I had gotten as a reckless preteen. His mouth fell open when he saw it, not able to do anything but gape for a few moments.

“Ji- Jiyong-hyung...” I faltered, not sure what I was going to say in the first place. Something about speaking his name made all of this too real and the tears escaped when I blinked. His gaze went back up to may face as soon as I had spoken, the name he hadn’t mentioned yet coming from my mouth with a kinship term and a whole ton of emotion added to it.

“No.” he whispered, denying that this meeting could possibly be happening. I couldn’t find my voice anymore so I just nodded to contradict. He shook his head and I nodded more strongly, then within an instant his arms were around my middle in a crushing embrace. “How? How, how?” he repeated, breaking into sobs on my shoulder.

“A miracle.” I answered as composed as I could manage, knowing I had some explaining to do. “A gift. Something the Upper Lady said we deserve for our endlessly strong love. I am back.”

“Back? Back, what? Back alive?” Jiyong asked, not knowing what to think when the impossible was happening. He drew back a little to face me, pulling one arm back to wipe his wet cheeks. I took that hand and placed it over my heart.

“Technically, I’m not quite alive yet.” I said, seeing him understand when he didn’t feel a heartbeat. He tried to hide it, but I could also see the sadness as he thought about possible scenarios of being granted one single meeting, or anything that was more realistic than being revived from the dead. “But I could be soon. We have until the end of the day to make a choice. To bring me back for a lifetime, all you’ll need to do is kiss me.”

“That’s easy, then.” Jiyong replied in an instant, intending to kiss me right away, but I turned my face to the side.

“Wait.” I stopped him, still shaken by the unplanned confrontation and the interruption of my thoughts earlier. I felt unprepared, but he was even more so. “Are you sure?”

“Of course!” he exclaimed, sounding a tad offended by my doubt about it.

“Ten years have passed.” I emphasized, but he still didn’t see my point.

“You don’t look a day older.”

“You do!” I raised my voice slightly, getting him to be quiet and hear me out. “You have lived. You have aged. You look amazing, but it’s not the same as before. Nothing is! I have been dead. I haven’t seen anything more than the horizon at my grave in ten years! This whole city looks different! Everyone I know- knew- whatever has grieved, moved on, changed and changed their life! Am I worth messing that all up again? What the heck is that 3D Printing I heard someone talking about? This is not my world anymore. I don't belong here...”

“Don’t you want to come back?” Jiyong asked me softly, a question that I had honestly not expected. I wanted to come back, didn’t I? I just decided that I did. I wanted to be beside him again and fill the holes in his life, making a future with him. However, for the longest time, I hadn’t thought of that as a possibility. I had focused so much energy into praying for a different outcome that I was doubting the ideal one. Shouldn’t he be having the same thoughts? He should have been focused on learning to live with my absence. Shouldn’t he feel something strange about taking me back so easily? He sounded hurt by the thought of me not wanting this, but I didn’t even know how that had gotten into his mind.

“I do. Of course I do.” I started, my tone having faded into an unsure volume. I realised only then how my earlier arguments must have come across, portraying all of my fears as reasons not to want this. Yet they weren’t the answers to what I would like to happen, they were the things I knew would be getting in the way. “If you’re asking me solely if I want this, then by God, Kwon Jiyong, I love you.”

“And I love you, Lee Seunghyun.” he said, understanding how much of a burning desire to take this opportunity was implied by those words because he felt that exactly the same as I did.

“Seunghyun-ah…” We heard from behind us, Youngbae still awkwardly standing there while we had been lost in our own world for the past minutes. It was a hard task to tear our eyes away from each other and look at him, but we did it and maybe the brief break from one another’s intense feelings was just what we needed. I wanted Jiyong to think for a moment before making this choice. In his euphoria, I didn’t think he had realised yet how much is going to change if I return to the living. “Is it really you?”

“I know how crazy it sounds, but it really is me.” I told him, considering to tell him things ranging from the date of my birthday to my day of death, but I hesitated. It was too strange to be feeling so alive yet knowing I had died once. The things I had experienced while in between both worlds were things nobody would fully understand. Jiyong’s love had been what kept me from moving beyond. I watched over him because he still needed me and all of the sudden I was actually able to do more for him again, things I had wished someone would do in my stead. Jiyong’s love had been what gave me a second chance. It felt like insanity to me as much as it did to them, but our experiences were different and I couldn’t find the strength to speak of it yet.

“Follow your heart, Seunghyun-ah.” Youngbae said then, drawing me back from my thoughts with surprise. “Don’t worry about the problems we’ll face. We’ll make it work. If there’s a way you can be revived, then there’s a way we can make you part of this world again. Everyone will be happy to have you back. I know, because I am and I’m not even sure of what’s going on yet.”

“Love, this is a gift.” Jiyong spoke again after a pause, taking both of my hands and making me look at him. The way he addressed me made me feel so weak, so lucky to still have him care about me so deeply. “Do you know why you were given it? Because the only place you belong in is wherever I am. You belong in my arms and you were not supposed to die for another 50 years at least. Don’t turn down your gift when it would make us all so happy.”

“I have done nothing but wish for your happiness all of these years.” I replied, starting to explain some of those complicated feelings after all. “And when I did that, I hoped for you to move on. You are in the process of that so at first I thought you were the one who had changed, but maybe it’s me. I have faced the end of my own life. That’s not a grieving process. It’s the end and a fact that I had to accept. Time has stopped for me and it gave me a completely different perspective on everything. I learned that and there was no way that I could make you happy anymore, so I hoped for you to find someone else.”

“Now you can. You can make me happy, so stop making this so difficult and just make me happy.” Jiyong countered, sounding absolutely excited and it started to make me feel excited as well. As he still had not spoken of one single hesitation to bring me back, it got through to me that maybe there simply was none. He wasn’t hurt by my confession either, seeming to get that I only wished for him to love someone else because I loved him so much. Perhaps he understood better than I had thought he would. Perhaps it was not that he had had too little time to think this through, but I had had too much of it. “We can start anew. It doesn’t have to be exactly the same as before, I just want to spend my life with you. Let me kiss you.”

I only nodded. I saw him smile and all my doubts disappeared. Closing my eyes as he leant in, soon I felt his lips on mine like a vivid memory. The feeling was exactly the same. The taste was slightly salty because of our tears, but the emotion was so sweet. I could have kissed him like that for hours had I not gotten that horrible pain. Trying to breathe, I pulled back abruptly, gasping and grabbing for my sore chest. Youngbae rushed over and I heard both of their worried voices, but I couldn’t make sense of words over the pain. The pressure faded as suddenly as it came and I felt much better once my lungs were sufficiently filled with oxygen again. As only a dull ache remained, I slowly became aware of something else. There was a whole different sensation below my palm.

“Heartbeat.” I confirmed to myself, at the same time letting the others know. Within seconds I was scooped up in an embrace with the both of them, laughing heartily as I felt so warmly welcomed. There was overwhelming happiness all of us, a couple more tears falling that day, and everything had only just begun. I didn’t feel worried anymore because their smiles showed me this was the right decision. We would figure it out somehow. The future was unsure, but there was one thing that I couldn’t be mistaken about. Jiyong and I were going to grow old together and have it much better than the last ten years had been.

I was wrong.