Hyeon,

I wish loving you feels a lot less like dying.

Because after you dove into the sky with my world in your fist, I felt like I’ve been struggling to breathe. Stuck underwater next to you, with your grip on my hand still as firm as it had always been.

Or maybe it has been me all along that doesn’t want to loosen my grip of what’s left of you and let go.

I couldn’t stomach the truth. I still can’t. Sometimes I fool myself into believing that the body they found caught on some discarded, tangled up waste wasn’t yours. How could it be when no one can recognize your face? How can it be you, Hyeon? How can someone who carried the world in their hands be strung along by trash, watered down to be nothing more than a body – a tragedy.

Most nights, I can’t sleep. I can’t sit still. I can’t fathom your death when all I can manage to do is wait for you to come crawling back in like you did the first night, your last night. Chuckle about how you had fooled the entire town to believe that you died, when all they found was a body with no name. How you still have so many things to ask, to say, to discover, that flying off a bridge to chase the sky would defeat your purpose—

But all these roseate thoughts turn brittle under my fingers, because, you may have been a liar, but you were also resolute.

And what you did can’t be undone.

I wonder what would have happened if you never saw me that day. If I had just gone home from cram school instead of saving someone I wouldn’t even meet again. If you hadn’t been disillusioned by a guy that can’t even say how he truly feels.

Would that have saved you? Made you stay longer—? 

Would missing you completely save you from everything you had to swallow while you were next to me?

It’s ironic, because you got found, carried by the tide back onto the surface, but my heart’s still lost at sea — since it has always been so easy for you to let go.

So, I’m slowly trying, Hyeon. To gain enough strength to break away from your orbit. To let you go — to finally let you float up into the heavens you’ve always wanted to run after. Because as I’ve settled into this abyss, this never ending winter, I’ve started to grow hungry of everything outside of this room. Outside of my head.

I started to look forward, through my window, from where you first emerged to change the course of my life completely. The sky through the glass has been looking incredibly blue lately, and I’ve began to miss more things from the world that your fleeting existence left a little bit brighter.

You would’ve wanted me to be more invested into the universe you loved so much. You would’ve wanted me to be more curious, to ask more questions, to run after things at full speed.

Because isn’t being a stray planet better than being stuck here, when all I’ve been circling is nothing but dead? A cold rock that’s losing the last of its remaining glow.

It’s been a process.

Brick by brick. The photos you have on my walls are now tucked away in a box at the back of my closet. I changed my sheets. I finally closed my windows. Donated the Daoko record I’ve been listening to since you left. Talked to my friends again. Ate dinner with my dad. Watched the new season of my favorite show that I missed, since these past months I did not have the stomach to do or think of anything, let alone get up. It’s foolish, I know, all these little things.

But after these minor changes, it almost looks as if you never existed. As if you were never here.

And it is gut-wrenching watching the world continue.

Six months later, everything is as usual once again. This town is back to how it’s always been, like nothing happened. To this place, you are just another name, quietly being forgotten. As if someone so young who was full of wonder, and questions, and dreams, didn’t decide to end a life so precious — a life that changed the way a few people perceived the world.

And I suppose, that’s human nature. People grieve, blame, break, and then in some way, forget. Learn to continue.

After all these months of blaming you, and blaming myself, and everything else, I’ve grown to understand that time gives back, Hyeon. It gives us back what we’ve lost. And it’s only through time. 

My heart that you let go and lost the moment you hit the water, would someday find itself back to me, through the current, through the waves – and I know it. The wait will be grueling, and some days it would be so difficult that I would wish I can follow you where you ran off to — but only through these godforsaken days and the grueling minutes of this pain eating me away, will I be able to get it back. I have to stand firm in order to be there when it washes up the shore, don’t you think?

Hyeon, I wish I could’ve been the one to help you see this too. To allow yourself to give the universe you fell in love with enough time to fill you whole again. I wish I did more to gain your trust, for you to allow me to see the emptiness, and I regret not understanding this when you were still here. Ask you to hold on. To give me time. To give yourself time. It took from you, and the loss left you running empty, but it will give it back eventually, Hyeon. I wish I can grip your hand this instant, and tell you — reassure you, that the ache will last but not forever. 

And everyday, I regret that I never thought about losing you until it actually happened, that I didn’t choose you enough to help you choose yourself instead of the void that lived inside you, and now every time I think about you I feel like my heart is being ripped apart. Breaking, again and again, and again.

Because I loved you. I miss you. My heart might possibly continue to want you here, unceasingly wishing for things to go in a direction that could’ve helped you keep existing. I think I’ll always keep yearning, a distant plead for my thoughts to eventually reach you. To aid a promise that you’ve always had me when you thought you were alone. 

I wanted to save you, Hyeon. I’m sorry I failed to do so. I’m sorry for not choosing you.

The consequence hurts, but it’s okay. This grief is my medal.

Some days are worse than others, and some days I can appreciate the universe that led you to find me, and then there are times when I can’t hold myself together like you were once so stellar at.

But as long as I have time, still have time, I’ll one day relearn to be okay. 

Even with you no longer next to me.

I’ll continue to keep going for you — so that one day, if by chance we meet again in another life, I can face you, choose you and finally answer all of the questions about the world that you’ve left for me discern.

Once Yours,
Fujisaki Jun

(…who finally learned how 
to understand your whys 
and let go.)

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© Rizu Lu

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