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It was a cold day.
Gray clouds and gloomy skies, padded jackets and rainwater puddles kind of cold day.
Yuto was walking alone on the almost vacant street across from his workplace with an umbrella in hand. It wasn’t raining anymore, but the rays of sunlight were hindered by the puffs of stormy clouds, and Yuto wasn’t going to risk it.
He was on his way to grab a cup of coffee from a nearby cafe, one that he often visited after work that the baristas now knew more than just his name. There were barely any vehicles on the road, which was a little odd, but beneficial to him and the few other pedestrians.
When he reached the cafe, he greeted the cashier, Shinwon, with a warm smile. It didn’t take Shinwon ten seconds to key in Yuto’s order. He already memorized it by heart. An americano with double shots of espresso.
Whatever Yuto tried to stay up for with the amount of caffeine he was consuming, Shinwon could only hope that it’s worth it.
“Very cold today, isn’t it?” Shinwon asked as Yuto took out his card to pay.
“Colder than usual. Are we really talking about the weather?”
“Sorry,” Shinwon chuckled. “Not much to chat about today. I’ve been working the past two shifts alone because our friend Changgu took a few days off to get married.”
Yuto raised both of his eyebrows as Shinwon handed him his card back, “He’s getting married and you’re not invited?”
“More like my boss wouldn’t let me take the day off too.”
“Well that sucks. I suppose…”
Yuto trailed off as his eyes followed the figure walking outside the cafe. Shinwon called his name once, twice, and three more times, but Yuto was lost. Lost in his own mind as he found himself slowly drifting away from the counter and towards the front door.
Yuto didn’t notice Shinwon already wiping his hands and abandoning his cup that he’s previously holding. It’s like the world was stuck in slow motion just for them—Shinwon reaching out to grab Yuto by the sleeve of his navy blue jacket, Yuto reaching out to grab the door handle, and the stranger reaching out to open his umbrella in front of him.
The moment was over too fast.
Shinwon tripped and missed Yuto by a few inches, Yuto was already walking out the door, and the stranger’s umbrella wouldn’t open.
“Need a little help?” Yuto asked, his voice different from his usual tone. It was bright, effervescent almost. Like a different Yuto had stepped out from the cafe, and the other Yuto was stuck inside, buying bitter beverages for days on end.
“Oh, I think I can do it,” the stranger replied, trying his best to push the umbrella open even though it just wouldn’t budge. “Or not.”
“Here,” Yuto offered a hand, and the stranger passed him his red umbrella with a small smile. “I think you need to push down on the lock a little harder.”
And just like that, the umbrella popped open in front of them, making the stranger gape at Yuto in awe, his mouth falling into a perfect ‘O’ shape. He looked at Yuto in disbelief as if the man had found the cure for cancer, while Yuto only chuckled as he handed the man his umbrella back.
“Wow, with one try? And I couldn’t get this thing open all day? You’re godsend,” he said with a big smile on his face, one that made Yuto’s heart begin to churn in his chest like a knife being twisted right in the aorta, preventing the blood from spreading to his entire body. “Thank you so much.”
The man was bowing in front of him, which flustered Yuto and made him wave the former off.
“Please, I was just helping,” he said.
“No, you don’t get it,” said the man. He was far too enthusiastic for his own liking, but he wasn’t aware of just how well Yuto got it. “I literally have a problem opening this umbrella every, single, day. At least that’s what it feels like to me, somehow. It’s not even a joke at this point. Yet here you are, opening it in one go as if you’ve been doing it every day. I’m jealous of you.”
Yuto laughed, shaking his head before meeting the man’s eyes and holding his gaze for a little while. He knew damn well that there’s another pair of eyes burning a hole into his back from inside the cafe, but he would apologize to Shinwon later.
Right now, he had to cherish this.
“What’s your name?” asked the man with the red umbrella. “You look so familiar, I feel like I’ve seen you before.”
“Oh, I’m… My name’s Yuto.”
“Yuto. Nice name! I’m—”
Wooseok.
Yeah, I know who you are. All too well.
“Nice to meet you, Wooseok,” Yuto said with every bit of effervescence leaving his body. He found himself cold and gloomy like the weather, the smallest rays of sunshine now dimmed and hidden behind gray clouds.
“Likewise,” Wooseok smiled, not quite catching on to Yuto’s sudden change of mood. He held the umbrella up with one hand and gave Yuto a small wave. “Thank you for your help. Hope to see you around!”
It took a lot of energy for Yuto to even remotely smile after that. Wooseok was the lighthouse and he was the ship out at sea, lost in its dark and murky waters as the light went out, leaving him floating in the void with no sense of direction. Yuto stood there, outside the cafe, watching Wooseok walk away without a care of his world that he left behind.
But he didn’t remember, and Yuto couldn’t blame him for that.
Before he knew it, Shinwon was tugging him into the cafe again, off the vacant street and drizzling rain. Warmth engulfed Yuto like an ocean wave against the sands of the shore, pulling it away and into the bottomless oblivion, leaving him damp and cold once again.
“What was that, Yuto?” Shinwon placed both of his hands on his hips, his eyebrows knitted into a frown.
“I… I don’t know. I just wanted to talk to him.”
“Yeah, sure,” Shinwon nodded mockingly, “except that was the 4th time you did it this week. And it’s only Thursday!”
And it’s true. Yuto had been opening the same red umbrella for the same stranger all week, for the past few weeks. He knew Wooseok would walk past the cafe to go to his workplace, his mind involuntarily taking him to Yuto’s office only for Wooseok to forget why he was there in the first place.
Then he would walk past the cafe again, never seeing Yuto’s longing eyes following his every move until he disappeared from view. All from behind the transparency of the cafe’s glass windows.
“Yuto, you have to stop. This is unhealthy.”
“But he’s right there,” Yuto replied, the taste in his mouth as those words were spoken more bitter than the unmade double shot americano, abandoned on the counter. “He’s right there, Shinwon. You saw him.”
“I know.” Shinwon sighed and ran a hand down his face. “Look, Yuto, I’ve known you for, what, 6 months now? You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You’ve been doing it for weeks ever since you saw him trying to open his umbrella out there months ago. He has amnesia. Anterograde and retrograde amnesia. Right? Did I pronounce that correctly?”
“Yeah.”
“See! He doesn’t remember you. He just can’t. And you shouldn’t be hurting yourself like this every time you see him repeating the same events when you can help it. He can’t. He doesn’t have a choice. But you do.”
Shinwon held Yuto by the shoulders and walked him to the nearest table, forcing him to sit while he went to make his coffee. His words, however, lingered in Yuto’s mind.
He doesn’t have a choice. But you do.
Yuto knew that. Every time Wooseok walked past the cafe to go to Yuto’s office—his subconscious recalling the times where he’d go there at 5 p.m. every day to pick him up—and stop at the same spot to open his umbrella, Yuto couldn’t resist helping him.
He knew exactly how to open it because he was the one who had given Wooseok that umbrella. It was so long ago that it felt like a lifetime, and Yuto couldn’t bear to let that memory go cold like the frost slowly enveloping his heart.
Minutes later, Shinwon placed the americano in front of Yuto and shielded his vision from peering out of the glass windows. Wooseok was walking back to where he came from, no doubt forgetting why he was there in the first place, and Shinwon wasn’t going to let Yuto go through that again.
“I’d rather you stop coming to this cafe than repeating what you’ve been doing all this time, Yuto.” Shinwon’s voice was firm. He squeezed Yuto’s shoulder. “Please go home and get some rest. Steer clear of any red umbrellas. It’s for your own good, I promise.”
Yuto stared at his coffee, but his mind was drifting. It jumped from the terrible car accident to the hospital waiting rooms to the news that the doctor bore about Wooseok’s amnesia, and worse, the blank look in Woosoek’s eyes when they finally landed on Yuto in that all-too-white bedroom.
Yuto couldn’t take it.
“Okay,” he finally replied to Shinwon.
Yuto took his coffee, exited the cafe, and never looked back.
He was going straight home.
At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.