Work Text:
The year is 1948. Victories and losses have been declared, and countries are gradually recuperating their gashed cities.
Despite the growing sense of normalcy around him, he only felt more miserable. He thinks that he doesn’t fit in this new world anymore, like he’s just a piece of shrapnel from the ruins of the war.
It's only been three years since he lost him. Along with the other people who are like him, who continuously wander emptily around their cities no matter what part of this crooked world they live in, he eyes on the rest of the world as if it’s rather mocking him.
He admits, he even resorted to futile wishing just to bring back what he had lost. He regrets that he ever thought of doing such. It's been three years, and nothing has changed.
Sometimes, when the candle flickers too brightly or when the wind howls too eerily or when the creaking of the stairs is louder than usual, he thinks of him. When he does, he writes. He writes, and writes, and writes. He writes until his knuckles go numb, or when his pen blotches ink across the page and he has to do it again. He writes as if his recipient is just across the table of his study room, resting his head on his palm. He'd have that special, knowing look in his eyes, and he knows it's only reserved for him. No one has seen him just as much as he had, and that is the greatest thing he will treasure forever.
He looks at his blank paper lying beneath his palm. He picks up his pen, stalls for a moment, and starts writing.
I don't know what world you are now. I don’t know if you are still too deep in your slumber, seeing vaguely familiar faces blur constantly behind your eyelids. I don’t know if you still make a list in your head of the things that make you feel happy and light, whenever gunshots outside insist on keeping you awake.
In the span of 3 years, there are a lot of things I do not know anymore. Ever since you left for opting to serve the country, I never stopped asking hundreds of questions per minute. Now they are left unanswered, unheard, still waiting for the right time to be spoken.
Indeed, there are many things I do not know now, but at least I am certain of something: while you were here, you were real; what we felt, it was real. You are real; it is real.
The warm June skies with the sun kissing your skin; the late autumn nights spent in front of the crackling, dancing fire; the rain sprites knocking on the roof while we hide under our fort of blankets; your piercing, turquoise eyes that were anything but hostile; your strong frame, your raspy, warm voice, my home.
He stops for a moment to read what he has written. He closes his eyes and sighs, just to ease out the tension building up in his chest. He swallows the lump in his throat, and resumes.
I may not know where you are right now, or whatever realm you were sent to live in, but if you forget everything that has ever existed in your knowledge, I hope I’m not one of them. I only ask one thing from you: please, never forget me.
He folds the paper carefully, tucks it behind his tattered diary, and puts out the flame of the candle.
×××××
The year is 2015, and something about that photograph stirs something weird in his mind.
He’s in a local war memorial’s museum, staring at a gallery of pictures which belonged to some of the soldiers who died in the war. He didn’t even choose to be here, but his girlfriend was being too pushy about going there. If she gets too pushy, contradicting her would result to bigger trouble.
Now he’s left alone, his girlfriend already gone to who-knows-where. He looks nonchalantly at the photos being displayed until something, or someone, catches his eye. He walks nearer toward the photo to get a clearer picture, hoping that something would click in his mind to explain why it’s familiar.
The black-and-white image was coloured in and modified to a higher resolution. The man in the image looked nowhere older than 25, with his springy hair mussed up and his sweater’s sleeves rolled up to his forearms. His lips had a small quirk, as if he was trying not to laugh while the photographer was taking the picture. His smirk revealed a small dimple on his right cheek. He examines the young man’s features, until he meets the man’s eyes.
The man’s eyes were sea green, and there was a glint of mischief and amusement in them. His eyes revealed something deeper in them – fondness, it seemed.
He is oddly drawn to his eyes and stares at it longer than necessary. Although he draws back, thinking that it was too foolish and creepy to stare at a deceased man’s eyes, he still has the image stamped in his mind.
He walks out of the gallery, and proceeds to the other museum wing.
××
After dropping his girlfriend by her friend’s house, he drives back to his flat. He checks his mailbox for any important letters, but finds nothing except for ads and spam mail. He brings the lot to his unit, anyway.
While sitting in the living room, he scans his mail again. He opts to dispose them in the trash bin, until he finds a tattered piece of paper beneath the stack.
He carefully pulls it out and unfolds it. The handwriting has quite faded already, but the words are still legible. He puts on his glasses before he reads.
The letter was dated back 67 years ago. This creeps him out all the more.
As he reads, he feels an odd connection with the writer. There is no way he could’ve known who wrote it, but he feels like the person is talking to him sincerely.
He considers some things: maybe it was sent in the wrong address, or it was left ages ago in his mail box. In the latter’s case, he could’ve seen it sooner, because he checks his mail daily.
The moments stated in the letter cannot be traced in his memory, since he never experienced such things, but after reading the last part of the letter, something inside him feels – hopeful? It seems like he has found what he has been searching for a long time, but truth be told, he has never yearned for something such as a letter written after the war.
He does not know what gets the best of him, but he feels a sudden urge to write a reply. It makes no sense to him, just as unclear as the one he has read, but it makes his heart ache.
He feels as if he is somewhere between then and now, intermingling memories he never knew and experiences that seemed to never have happened. He finds himself almost touching the person in the photograph in the museum through every word he scribbles out.
Once he’s finished his letter, he holds it close to his chest. He closes his eyes and breathes.
He hears an echo of a familiar laugh, and arms close him in an embrace.