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Day 6.
The sunlight hits your eyes a little too glaringly in spite of the day still being young, rousing you from your slumber when even blocking the rays with your arm doesn't help you drift off again. A groan slips from your lips as you toss around and stretch your limbs, almost hearing the tension leave your body. You don't remember leaving the bedroom curtains open when you fell asleep last night, but then you don't really recall much of what you do as you spend the hours and the minutes these days anyway. You heave yourself on your feet with a grunt, crossing the little space left between the bed and the window to draw the curtains closed.
Your remaining strength is used in bringing yourself back to bed, eyes up on the ceiling, losing count of the times you've blinked at the expanse above that is in between beige and off white. You absentmindedly begin to trace with your eyes where the white begins and the beige blends in, and as the minutes pass you feel your lids grow heavier.
Your senses are alerted when you hear the softest jingle of a chain of keys and the faintest tap of footsteps drawing near. You wait for a minute, then two, five - but the dipping of the other side of the bed doesn't come. Your eyes flutter open and you're met with the same sight you nearly dozed off to.
The scent lingers, the one that envelopes you in a warm embrace and reminds you of home. You turn to your side and stare at the other half of the bed that now feels too big for one, stare at the pristine blankets and the unwrinkled pillow sheets. You close your eyes, inhale as much as you can, and you lay your palm flat on top of the pillow beside yours and feel the cold seep through your skin, and you wonder how the cold burns your hand instead with the emptiness that leaves you hollow inside.
The alarm clock on the other bedside table breaks the silence but you allow the sound to pierce through to remind it’s only you turning the alarm off from now on as you let sleep consume you again in the darkness of your room.
Day 14.
You didn't expect your sister to pay you a visit as she has more than on one occasion mentioned that you need to have to yourself more than ample space and time, but apparently - she was right - sometimes having company makes a difference. The deafening silence and blinding darkness in your place seem less daunting now that you've been graced with the presence of someone else and you've finally managed to at least crack a smile in weeks.
You pick up your toothbrush and squeeze a dollop from your tube of toothpaste, casting a glance at the mirror in front of you to see a faint hint of that smile playing on your lips. It slowly dies down, though, when you find your gaze shifting and lingering on the spot beside your reflection, one that was filled up by someone for most of the evenings you've spent together. You glance down at the sink and realize that you are standing askew, away from the center as if a figure were still beside yours asking to share the sink as you brush your teeth together.
You raise your arm as you begin to brush your teeth and tuck your elbow closer to your side as you have become used to, always avoiding bumping elbows with the man who had always been beside you. Your movements halt when it dawns upon you that there's nobody and nothing to bump elbows with but thin air.
Your eyes are drawn to the products he'd always used, still placed one beside the other in an orderly fashion on his side of the counter, and you remember the nights he would fuss when you'd borrow something and miss returning it in the same order he recalls he last arranged it in. You’re reminded that you haven’t had the time to stack them away so you can easily give them when needed due to things ending so soon. Your reminiscing is cut short when your phone lights up on the counter with a ping to signal a new notification on top of the ones you haven't opened yet. Your peripheral sight allows you to make out the silhouette of a green and white square and you almost drop your toothbrush in favor of your phone. Your shoulders visibly fall when you see the name of your sister and the text underneath reminding you to eat at the very least even without her. You switch windows and scroll through your contacts, your fingers hovering over his name, and you don't even hesitate to tap the call button - it's muscle memory. In a few seconds, the room is filled by repetitive rings that are only silenced by an automated voice telling you to call again later.
Day 23.
Your feet bring you to the cinemas on the rare occurrence that you've managed to even set foot outside the solace of your home. Except for that one time you tried to drive the car, that is. You're still trying to reacquaint yourself with the plenty of stimuli that overwhelm you everytime you fail to breathe deeply, concentrate, and take it slow - one such stimulus being the movie options screen in front of you. The numbers seem to float in your unfocused vision, a mixture of ticket costs and showing times. You pick the closest screening time of whatever movie your eyes first land on on the screen and walk away from the counter. The employee at the theater entrance catches you off guard when he asks if you’re with anyone, and you’re at a loss for words that you end up staring emptily at him eventually tearing off the stubs that you bought for two.
With your bag tucked securely on your lap and underneath the large bucket of popcorn you realize you can't finish on your own, you settle in your seat and shrug it off, telling yourself that your empty stomach will help you finish the entire thing later. The rest of the moviegoers fill in and you can't help but turn your head every now and then out of habit in search of a familiar face as you hold the spare ticket in your hand.
The movie starts with the seat next to you unoccupied and an hour into the screening, the seat remains vacant but your emptiness is replaced by a sudden snort then a hearty guffaw at the main character's misfortune. It's Christmas in her setting but all the circumstances in her life scream anything but the holidays. You wipe the stray tears in your eyes when another chuckle escapes your lips but your amusement stops short when there is no sound of someone echoing the laughter beside you like you used to hear. You almost completely lose your bearings when you try to steady yourself from the realization by leaning over the seat divider, but you are never met by the sturdy shoulder that always supported you.
You struggle to make your way to the exit on a light note after the movie despite the protagonist getting whatever semblance of a happy ending she could. You don’t notice you left behind a bucket of popcorn only halfway eaten as if the rest were saved for someone else.
Day 31.
The clinking of glasses in front of you is drowned by the chitter chatter of the other tables around yours, accompanied by your own group's subdued cheers and interrupted by the occasional static as the band on stage does one brief sound check before moving on to the next set. You can more than sense the palpable tension in the air - it's almost as if you can touch it - knowing well that your friends are very much, if not more, on the edge as you are. You've reminded them many times that it's perfectly fine for them to bring their significant others along, but the uneasy looks they send your way prove that you haven't assured them enough, which makes enough sense given that nobody in the group knew a band was playing at your local bar today of all days. You raise your glass to propose another toast to not further dampen the mood, brushing off their worries and even yours to keep the festive mood going now that they've managed to coax you out with their company.
When the band resumes with another set, you find your gaze drawn again to the guitarist who also happens to be the group's vocalist along with their bassist, and for a brief, passing moment you think it's him there, locking eyes with you and even sending you an occasional wink the way he would when he feels flirtier than usual. Your breath hitches at this, but the confusion is gradually replaced by an odd mix of relief and disappointment when the longer you look the more you recognize that it's a different guitarist. He's not your guitarist.
It's not the same voice with just the right amount of raw raspiness that can let you feel all the hurt if you so allow, balanced by hints of smoothness that can ease the pain. It's not the same rhythm of the guitar producing his melodies, and the melodies now are definitely not the ones made for you. It's not the same manner by which his hips move along to the rhythm, and he doesn't hold your stare down as if he intends to rattle you to your core. The guitarist's glance just passes you by, merely scanning you the way he does with the rest of the sea of people you are in the midst of.
The band's ensemble concludes with their rendition of Kodaline's All I Want, one of the originals from your guitarist's favorite. After reassuring your friends who cast you worried glances that you're fine, you weave your way in between couples hugging and groups huddling to stand in an inconspicuous corner a few steps away from the stage. You wrap your arms around yourself and find that you unconsciously began to sway along to the song yourself with your eyes closed, somehow hoping that a figure would secure his strong arms around you with his lips soft on your temple whispering sweet nothings.
A pair of hands lands softly on your shoulders, and you almost wobble as you turn quickly on your heels only to be met by the concerned and surprised eyes of your friend, who stutters out that they're heading out in a bit and will be waiting for you. You steady yourself, give her a nod and ask for a moment to yourself and your thoughts.
As the last chorus resonates in the room, you find that you're reassuring yourself, too - you're fine. You'll be fine.
Day 40.
You made up your mind to meet him today whatever the consequences may be, no matter what both your heart and mind say about this being too soon. You try to picture vividly how the look on his face would be like when he finally sees you. Will his grin reach his ears just as how you remember him smiling at you whenever he meets your gaze or will a blank, expressionless face haunt you and bore into the deepest recesses of your soul? The questions continue to run amuck in your head, eating you up inside to no end as if there were more to be taken away from you. Should you have not dressed in his favorite colors on you? Should you have chosen to come instead in a monochromatic scheme of neutral whites, grays, and blacks? Does he want to see you calm and contented? Or distraught and frustrated?
Your thoughts are interrupted when you round the corner, and the place you’re meeting him in grows from the size of your thumb to a structure larger than life as you draw nearer and nearer, further weighing you down by the gravity of your decision. You pull up when you reach the front steps, relieved that there’s no other vehicle parked near the building. You take a deep, consoling breath in a futile attempt to keep yourself together, fearing that if you don’t do so, you might as well be the one to tear yourself apart. You wonder how you’ll do that, though, when you realize that there’s nothing whole enough to tear apart in the first place.
You throw all caution to the wind before you can change your mind and alight from your car, taking one long, sweeping glance at the building before cautiously making your way in. Each trembling, fearful step has you wondering how you manage to take one more, one after the other, when everything that you see appears to fuse into one hazy mix of colors and all that your ears hear are the drowning, erratic beats of your frantic heart. You halt at the top of the stairs right at the corner of the corridor beside the entrance to the room he is in. You tighten your grip at the staircase railings in your last bid at calming yourself, and you turn to enter the room, going past the point of no return.
When you have finally set your feet inside, your eyes sweep through the seemingly endless sea of faces, your head swiveling from left to right, until your eyes land on a pair of painfully familiar obsidian orbs looking back at you. You were right , you tell yourself. He’s smiling just as your memory reminds you, but he also looks at you as if he were staring at even the darkest crevices of your soul.
You swallow audibly as you make your way towards him when you feel your throat dry up in contrast to your clammy, shaking hands that you keep wiping against the material of your jeans. You take a sharp inhale before you manage a barely audible whisper as you exhale, afraid that you might break anything if you do so any louder. “Sungjin.”
He continues to smile at you as if he were prodding you to tell him more, so you croak out his name again, “S-Sungjin.”
“Park Sungjin.”
You think you see his smile grow wider for a split second but the moment you blink it’s gone and his features are as they were. You allow yourself to fully take his countenance in while he stares right back at you, grin warm and inviting, but the longer you try to savor the warmth the faster it grows cold, the nearer you draw yourself the farther it retreats, the tighter you hold on the more fleetingly it slips through your fingers.
You don’t notice the tears fall down - one, two, three until the brightness of his smile is nothing but a haze in your blurry vision. You don’t notice yourself falling, succumbing, until your knees hit the floor and an agonized wail pierces through the silence and breaks the peace, a cry of anguish that is long overdue. You try your best to hold on to anything - the glass, the floor, your knees, your sanity - when every struggling breath takes piece by piece, shard by shard the very little of what is left of you. You feel the wind being knocked out of you when his beam at the back of your eyes melts into the bittersweet, heart crushing one he sent last before he kissed you goodbye and walked out the door that morning, that then morphs into the small, calm one on his countenance the day you sent him far, far away, where you can’t hold on to him forever no matter how much you tried. And the gaps become even more devastatingly glaring.
There’s no one to share the blankets with.
No one to huddle over the sink with.
No one to bicker over the popcorn with.
No one to sway along to your favorite ballads with.
“Come back to me please.”
Your pleas are left unheard by a motionless Sungjin whose framed smile doesn’t falter one bit as he only looks on, beam overshadowing all the flowers placed beside him in his niche. Your pained whimpers fill the room, making the tranquil silence seem more comforting. When your cries die down to faint hiccups and sniffles, you bring yourself to your feet and press on the glass to open his niche to rearrange his nameplate and the flowers left for him, remembering out of habit that he likes to keep things tidy. You barely whisper an I miss you before turning on your heels and heading downstairs, knowing that this is as much as you can take for today.
In your haste to leave, to breathe, to stop the drowning that renders you speechless and immobile, you don’t notice the old lady slowly treading your way, a few choice chrysanthemums clutched in her hand. You offer her a quick bow as an apology when your shoulder lightly bumps hers. You continue your way out, but she stops you in your tracks when she wraps her fingers around your wrist and presents you a handkerchief, clearly aged and used but clean and neatly folded. You look up and see the faintest hint of a smile on her lips and both strength and melancholy present in her eyes. You barely have the time to utter a word before she nods and walks further inside, “You’ll come back.”
Her words ring in your ears as your steps halt just before you set foot outside the mausoleum. You blink through the tears. You’ll come back.
You know you’ll do.
You’ll come back again and again.
You’ll come back.
So that, until, and even when the empty spaces no longer feel as hollow as they do.