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Be gentle, it’s not my first time missing you
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If he had a choice, none of his dates would be that way. Maybe Chan could have painted a better day, even if it wasn't his ability to change the weather. The sky darkened by the industrial ashes erased the feeling of another warm afternoon in October. The Life was, as rarely, somewhat shaken. Sad, to put it more clearly, though he still had trouble naming exactly what he felt. He wasn't the same as a few centuries ago, but he always changed more and more to the point of ironically trying to rediscover what he was and what he should be. Chan felt his hands empty, his fingers tingling inside his leather gloves, and his charcoal-stained cheeks showed that it wasn't being easy recently. As safe as they were, they cultivated danger beneath their wings, and Death was slowly approaching, in his boots equally stained with dreams and hopes.
But it wasn't Woojin's fault to carry the end of every journey with him, since whatever that had begun eventually found their point of arrival. Leaving was painful only to those who stayed, and their mere threat, when not realized, brought the same relief in their chest that they had been needing so badly. Wars never brought, at no time, anything like it. Phases like this made Chan feel weak, seeing all those to whom he gave the blessing of life slowly disappear anonymously, sometimes without being remembered, sometimes without having the opportunity to go in peace.
"Is it the right time to take the reins and apologize?" Woojin questioned, pulling a slightly grimy handkerchief out of the pocket of his military uniform, brushing the fabric with light pressure on Chan's cheeks; who saw only the aftermath of his wave of murky thoughts as he noticed the lone tear that ran down the Death's wrist. What to do when the Life couldn't stand living anymore?
"It's not your fault"
They both knew that isn't. Woojin certainly had no desire to be evil to anyone, Chan always considered him strangely too good for that. Causing pain wasn't something characteristic of the Death, however unusual it might sound to those who knew it from popular mouths. He was the one with the warmest hands and the sweetest smiles, so contradictory to what they had carved out of him. A mythology that considered cruelty what caused the departure without worrying if the one who guided the road would like to be the one taking from someone their most precious possession.
Chan, on the other hand, was the Life carried to extremes. It had self-worth to some and none to others, although everyone agreed he was a blessing. It wasn't he who gave them eyes, only the ability to see beautiful moments with them. Know languages, listen to poems, feel caresses. At the same time, he considered himself the carrier of all the pain they named to Woojin. If men got injured it was because they were alive and he could do nothing but stare with chest pain at what they could do to each other.
“They have to do it sometime.” It wasn't the first or last time Woojin crossed battlefields and at his feet he heard the whining of young soldiers asking for a second chance. Or a third, depending on how long and troubled their histories were. It was a pity that he couldn't give them a piece of the glory of the false peace obtained by their efforts; There was no positive side on a war for anyone. "How they could value the good without the bad?"
"But why haven't they learned from their mistakes and they keep repeating themselves ...?" Chan looked up, again rubbing his hands as a strange shiver ran up his spine, the Death giving him a sincere and gentle smile. Woojin kept his now distant hands occupied with the same handkerchief, his initials written in a kind of unique embroidery on one end. Oh, Chan remembered very well when he had done it.
"They aren't the same," He said, folding as much of the fabric as he could until he put it back in the small pocket of his military suit. There was such a strange power in that posture, in that uniform. There was a strange beauty in chaos that, unfortunately, only Woojin seemed to see at that moment. "Do you remember that boy whose his father accidentally shot him in the chest thinking he was some wild animal invading his property?" Chan frowned between the eyebrows but nodded. “He will not be remembered, certainly. Neither has returned or will return at some time. Unfortunately, his existence was what fate has programmed it to be. ”
“Where should this be any consolation? It's a tragic memory in itself. ”
“But necessary.” The Life shifted his eyes to his rough, though smooth hands, strange to a natural warrior – but he should remember that there was no fire in the world that can burn the Death, pain that can consume him, iron that can mark him. Death was inevitably strong in his forms as well as his convictions. “Just as the father changed his stance in the face of mourning for his son, being careful in handling his weapons, the surroundings listened to his tales and spread his words. Sometimes the path that teaches and changes the most is the hardest to follow. ”
"I ..." He didn't want them to always meet under those circumstances. Chan remembered the last time the storm wasn't so strong, the issues weren't so pertinent, and the sun didn't hide behind clouds of dust or the stench of makeshift stables. Life and Death were no longer so close together. "It's been so lonely."
“I know.” Woojin took a few steps forward, his elbows resting on the iron fence that separated the parched grass at the back of the factory with the movement of the dark waters. The river no longer seemed to hide something alive in it. "But in a way, it always has been."
"Didn't like it when it was just the two of us?"
“It's always been two of us.” Chan straightened his hat, wiping his clean wrist with the sweat at the root of his hair in front of his forehead. Woojin was staring at him over his shoulder, there was something poetic about the way the Life handled the handling of his injuries. Most of them metaphorical, not visible. "But born and die has always been a little lonely, don't you think?"
The Death remained attentive to the slight movements of his company as he tilted his head to the side, gazing at him with the innocence of a child and the baggage of an elderly man in the later stages of human survival. Yet, age was never a sign of wisdom, in this case Woojin knew that Chan carried far more understanding of that surroundings than himself – although, in that speech he might seem to try to comfort or explain the functionality of more basic feelings to those who gave them the possibility that they simply existed, it wasn't quite what happened. In fact, he was trying to keep Life from looking at the point of loss when his efforts were trickling down his fingers in another war that no one had an exact conclusion as to why it happened without the maintenance of what created them.
Woojin had no answer to most things, not even the things they believed him to be in charge of. He was sure there was no continuation when leading someone to the end of their destiny, but souls didn't belong to him when they let go of his hand. Chan didn't know their routes either until they saw the first face, heard the first voice, and smelled the first smell. The Death didn't know the after, the Life didn't know the before. But by a strange coincidence, it was Woojin who lived with his head in the future that awaited them, not in the past they had already witnessed. They could not make major changes in either case.
“We're dependent on each other.” Chan waited a few seconds for the thoughts to clear, and yet isn't exactly what he wanted to hear himself say. He never thought it was a comforting word. He had seen all the growth of mankind to know what addiction caused, but they were above their very existence and Chan didn't what disappointment it might carry for him. It was obviously different.
"Not exactly," Woojin drew the attention of Life in his sweetened voice again, as if he kept behind it far more than he said or could say. But Death had no barrier on his tongue like he had knots in his throat. “You complete me and I complete you. That's what gives us meaning. ”
"You've been reading too many tales."
"I don't have as much time to enjoy literature as I would like." Chan smiled, approaching the Death with his hands on the railing, tapping his padded fingers on the iron that he thought was cold. "That kind of knowledge life teaches."
"For God..."
And once again Life laughed at everyday situations, expressing the joy on a cloudy day that no one but Death had unanimous access to. He missed such sincere words that even at the worst of times Chan could place sunbeams among the dark clouds. Woojin raised his face a little, not so ironically being graced by exactly what he described as a more than a responsive situation. He knew that behind every single act of the world around him, was a reaction to what they didn't know hearing words exchanged with such affection for well-shaped complementary opposites. There was pride in the clarity that passed through the brown irises of Life and the fingertips riddled of Death, again touching the cheekbones of his living company.
Obviously, he expected no less.
"I have to go," He announced, the lighter tone that still regretted having to see that smile diminish on the other's face. Time seemed to pass faster and each second seemed shorter in those sporadic encounters with ever-increasing decades apart. Woojin no longer woke up with the sound of Chan's voice on the other side of the same room or his ever more energetic movement around wherever they decided to settle for a while. Life and Death crossed their paths less and less often, and it was certainly unethical that war brought happiness amid their chaotic tragedy.
“I want to see you again.” Under those circumstances, without all the sight of the weight of the world on his shoulders, Chan just seemed small – life was short after all, though not to Death and all that was left to enjoy alongside what nature had helped to bring forth with the other's touch. Directly or indirectly, Woojin didn't remember ever being asked to stay. "As soon as possible."
“Well, we have eternity.” The Death smiled again, sliding his palm down Chan's gray cheek, his fingertips up his jaw and then to the back of his companion's ear, touching the sweaty wavy strands under an old, dirty-looking hat, the classic of a mere worker.
Chan took a deep breath, his eyes closed, his wrists tingling with the force that barely noticed holding the hem of his shirt. The heat of Death grew cold as one step away he could hear the weight of his uniform, each small badge clinking to the folds of heavy cloth. There was no more touch or much of his presence. But when his lips touched exactly the space of the dimples brought by his smile, Life wanted it to last forever.
"And I'll always come back to you."
When Woojin left, with the promise that he would return, life seemed to color again. One different from the others this time. What began on a gray day in October of 1947, had ended with a little more expectation, flushed with the yellow sunshine on his hands and the red on his cheeks.