Work Text:
There are certain wounds that never bleed.
They sit beneath the skin, silent, hidden, but aching every time you breathe.
And you learn to live with them.
You learn to live with loving someone who will never look back at you the same way.
I met Kim Mingyu when I was thirteen.
Back then, he was just a boy with messy hair and an oversized backpack, running down the school corridors with that ridiculous, dazzling grin that made the air around him lighter.
And me—
I was just another face in the crowd.
The quiet one who drew doodles on the corner of his notebooks.
The one who wore loneliness like a second skin.
We were never friends, not truly.
Just classmates.
Acquaintances.
Passing shadows in each other's lives.
But he...
He would smile at me.
Every time our paths crossed in the busy hallways, when the world buzzed with voices and footsteps, Mingyu would catch my eyes and—
Smile.
Bright, easy, thoughtless.
Like the sun pouring through an open window you forgot you left ajar.
I used to count those smiles.
Clutch them in my chest like brittle flower petals, like prayers.
Each one felt like a miracle I didn’t deserve.
Each one hurt like a secret I could never tell.
And, of course, Mingyu had a girlfriend.
Always someone pretty.
Someone with laughter like bells and hands that weren’t afraid to reach for him.
He was made for that kind of love—
The kind that wasn’t scared, that ran headfirst into the sunlight.
While I—
I loved him in silence.
I loved him in the way autumn loves the trees it kills.
I loved him knowing it would never, could never, be mine.
I thought maybe, after graduation, after years and miles stretched between us like open wounds, the feeling would die.
That time would be merciful, that it would strip me of this ridiculous hope.
But it didn’t.
Seven years later and I still carried him inside me like an ember that refused to burn out.
I saw him again yesterday.
A reunion.
An old, meaningless gathering of ghosts from a past life.
I didn’t even want to go, but some part of me was still thirteen years old, still hungry for scraps of him.
He looked the same.
Maybe a little taller.
His shoulders broader, like he could carry the whole world and never stumble.
That same tan skin, golden under the soft lights of the restaurant.
That same voice that made everything sound lighter, better, easier.
And when he saw me—
Of course he smiled.
"Hey, Myungho!" he said, like no time had passed at all.
Like I wasn’t some forgotten chapter in a book he barely remembered.
I smiled back.
Of course I did.
It’s what you do when you love someone who doesn’t love you back.
You smile.
You nod.
You pretend the ache isn’t swallowing you whole.
We talked for a few minutes.
Small things.
Where are you living now?
What do you do?
Have you found someone?
I lied.
I told him I was happy.
I told him I was fine.
He laughed, and it broke something inside me.
Because I realized—
He was happy.
He was fine.
And I—
I was still here.
Still stranded on the same shore, waiting for a ship that would never come.
Later, when I was alone again in my small, dim apartment, I pressed my forehead against the cold window and watched the city lights flicker like dying stars.
I thought about all the prayers I whispered into the night over the years.
"Please.
Just once.
Let him be mine."
But God doesn’t answer those kinds of prayers.
Some people are not meant to be yours.
No matter how pure your love is.
No matter how long you wait.
I think about alternate worlds sometimes.
Other lives.
Maybe in another life, Mingyu looks at me across a crowded room and something inside him shifts.
Maybe in another life, he realizes that the boy who always stood in the shadows was holding the whole sky inside his chest, just for him.
Maybe in another life, he chooses me.
But not this one.
Not here.
Not now.
Here, I am just a footnote in his story.
A forgotten smile in a crowded hallway.
A silent prayer that never made it past the ceiling.
Here, I love him from a distance.
And I let him go.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Because sometimes, the kindest thing you can do for yourself is to mourn the love you never had.
To build a grave for it inside your ribs, and visit it when the nights are too quiet, and the ache becomes too loud.
I loved him.
I love him still.
And I will carry that love until it turns to dust inside me.
But he was never mine to keep.
And that’s a kind of grief too.
A slow, soft kind.
The kind you learn to live with.
The kind you tuck into your pocket and carry with you, like a ghost.
Somewhere, Mingyu is laughing, his head thrown back, golden in the sunlight.
And somewhere, I am loving him.
Silently.
Hopelessly.
Beautifully.
And maybe—
Maybe that’s enough.