Hyeon,

Hyeon. Hyeon. Hyeon…it’s odd that no matter how many times I mouth your name, even with all the stolen wine swimming in my stomach, I can no longer hear you respond. I no longer see you even in my dreams, and I think—I…it feels…like I’m losing my mind. Losing the strings that you’ve ribboned through me that kept me together all this time.

If you were here, you’d laugh at the sorry state of me on the floor as I write these. Tipsy, angry, in absolute anguish…and I can no longer keep these thoughts to myself. The inky letters are beginning to kiss each other, and I’ve given up the hope for anyone to even be able to read what I’m writing here. But I’m desperate to tell you this—this…that the first few days of you gone, I sat in my bed that still carried the scent of your powdery cologne, until I was blinded by the sun pouring through the stupid window that I haven’t closed since you left. And as I drowned in thoughts of you, I also endlessly beat myself up by asking myself why I let you.

Why I let you come so close. Why I let myself fall into you. Why I let you grab my heart by its brittle gummy strings and weave a world out of me for you to live in.

You played with me, clayed me down to shape, scraped me to the very core to be your own planet. And I know this because all along you knew the end game. You knew where I’ll end up after. When I’ll lose you. What you’ll do to me when you disappear.

And you know what’s ironic?

You’re the blackhole that you infatuatedly dreaded so much. Not your house. Not this part of town. Not the rest of the world. It was the unknown intensity that made you bleed, and gasp for breath, and come back to me night after night—

You. You are the blackhole, Hyeon.

All this time I thought you meant this town that closed its ears off to anyone who dared to ask, to pry, to skew like a nail from the crowd — but you meant yourself all along. You were so fascinated with the unfathomable weight, so connected to it — because you knew this. You knew you’ve hit that point of singularity where there’s no going back. Too far gone. Too deep heavy that you silently drowned with every inhale.

“This part of the blackhole is a lot less lonelier.” 

Did you just mean you felt less lonely here, when you were next to me? In the safety of my room?

I feel so stupid. All this time I thought you were running away from something, from someone, maybe – but you were running away from the truth. From the loneliness that crawled up your lungs, and how you can never outrun it. You’ve been trying to run from yourself.

You knew from the very beginning, when you slid in next to me that night and looked at me with the universe in your eyes, that I can never save you. I can no longer save you and no one can. 

The fracture, the crack, the hesitance — when I couldn’t give you the answer you were looking for and you didn’t say a thing, and you never said a thing since. The way I failed to choose you when I could’ve easily done so. You perfectly knew you’d destroy me. Because you knew how easy it was for you to suck me in. You knew you’d leave me with nothing fucking left. You took everything.

You’re destructive, Hyeon. Merciless and selfish for using me to keep you company and then leaving as you planned. Because you’ve always known you’d come back to that place, didn’t you? 

That place.

That night, two years ago, at the suspension bridge. What were you doing there? At that hour?

I hate myself that I’m only realizing now. How can I miss something so blatant? The day you broke into my room was no coincidence, was it? The way I would sometimes catch your gaze on me across the assembly hall before we’ve even spoken a word to each other, how you knew I’d never kick you out the moment you slipped into my window… The almost sacred avowal that night when you slipped next to me and recalled the first time you saw me — it was your own confession, wasn’t it? 

Because why would you be there? How can you watch all of that unfold and remain so unfazed while retelling everything you saw? How come you had looked so broken when you talked about the kindness that I had displayed back then? How did I fail to notice that there was something astray? 

Hyeon… 

How…did you feel as you stood there on the edge, witnessing someone else be saved right in front of you and yet there you were, in the dark, someone who also needed saving? How did you feel when all you wanted was to be seen, feel seen, and yet the person you had hoped and expected to do that…had pretended to miss everything?

How could you endure and persist that being a secret was enough? How could you keep smiling when you had already been so desperate to come to me on your own? How could you treat me so tenderly even when I’ve never chosen, not once, to save you? How did you manage to keep yourself together when you were so hurt and felt even more unseen because of me?

You acted like I was enough. You acted like we were okay. You fooled me so many times when I’d look at you, unable to say anything. You acted like you were content with a friend that didn’t dare to ask you what was wrong.

“I’m glad I met you.” You had told me, pupils blown, bony fingers cold and mindlessly playing with mine. You were beautiful, almost delicate when you grinned, all teeth and soft cheeks, but I never saw past that. Never looked far enough into those eyes to realize how often you lied through your teeth. How you always lied.

And you—liar.

I shouldn’t be mad because it’s been long enough since you decided to leave. I shouldn’t be, but I am because—

I loved you, and I still love you and even though there’s nothing left of me, I still do. Even though I now know why, and even though I know you’ve always lied, I still do. I still do even after the fact that you flung yourself off into the bay with my fucking heart in your hands, the day after you told me the sea reflected the sky and that the stars are actually within reach, and I laughed at you. And you laughed at me but I never understood why until now.

Hell— I still love you, Hyeon, even when I thought I’d never see you return when you didn’t show up for days on end, and I waited, but then weeks later found you again.

But this time you were unrecognizable. You were all black and blue, the color of the sea every four o’clock when you once came in every night like the tides…in a body bag, with no words, no questions, no face — and everything I once knew about you, how you looked, how you thought, how you felt about life itself turned out to be nothing.

You left, and you took everything with you.

Still Yours,
Jun

(—who loved you and all your lies 
until the truth smiled back.)

---

© Rizu Lu

All Rights Reserved.