Work Text:
My partner attended twelve funerals in just three months.
I thought he was just having a really bad year. I thought fate was playing cruel games with him. I figured life was messing with him, nothing more.
I didn’t understand why people around him kept dying.
In the last three months, he’s attended twelve funerals.
I stopped asking after the fourth.
I stopped caring after the sixth.
I stopped noticing after the ninth.
ᯓ★
𝗝𝗨LY 04 — 𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗦𝗧 𝗙𝗨𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗟
“Love, I’m going out for a bit. It's Jerome’s wake.”
“Jerome?” I asked as I put on my headset. “Someone from high school?”
He nodded slowly. “Used to be my best friend.”
I just said, “Okay.”
No kiss. No hug. No remorse.
I kept my eyes on the notification on my phone, occupied with my conversations with the girls I was talking to.
ᯓ★
𝗝ULY 24 — 𝗦𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗗 𝗙𝗨𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗟
Another name. Another face I didn’t care about.
Same black shirt. Same dead expression when he came home.
“Are you okay?” I asked, half-heartedly.
“Slight.”
I didn’t dig. I didn’t hold him.
We went to sleep without a single ‘I love you.’
ᯓ★
AUGUST 03 — 𝗙𝗜𝗙𝗧𝗛 𝗙𝗨𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗟
I was still making jokes.
“Love, to be honest, it feels like so many people you know are dying.”
He gave me a faint smile. “I’m okay… don’t worry.”
But that smile—
That wasn’t the Hong I knew anymore.
He stopped wearing bright colors.
He stopped watching K-dramas at night.
He stopped sending me funny memes during work.
He stopped trying.
And I didn’t even bother to ask why.
ᯓ★
𝗔𝗨𝗚𝗨𝗦𝗧 23 — 𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗛 𝗙𝗨𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗟
“Hong,” I said softly. “What’s going on with you?”
He turned to me.
“Have you ever tried to mourn someone who's still alive?”
He then smiled fakely, his eyes coated in tears.
“Have you ever loved a person so much that when they slowly disappear, every version of them deserves a funeral?”
I didn’t answer.
I still didn’t understand.
ᯓ★
SEPTEMBER 09 — 𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗛 𝗙𝗨𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗟
I started feeling it.
The distance.
The way he no longer made eye contact.
I thought love was easy. I thought once he was mine, I didn’t have to try anymore.
So I stopped trying.
I forgot our anniversaries. I stopped going back to the coffee shop where I first called him “baby.” I didn’t congratulate him when he got promoted. I forgot his birthday — twice.
I made him cry on our anniversary because I was out — drunk, with someone else, someone who didn’t even know my middle name.
I thought he’d stay anyway. Because that’s what he did, right?
He stayed.
Even when I forgot to compliment him.
Even when I forgot our anniversaries.
Even when I kissed someone else and came home like nothing happened.
I thought he was just dramatic when he started acting distant. The kind where he’d just go quiet, not even argue anymore. He used to be so full of fire.
But now?
Blank stare. Cold hugs. Forced smiles.
And that was scarier than any fight.
Because when someone stops fighting, it doesn't always mean the love is still there.
Sometimes it simply means… they’ve grown tired.
I watched him drift farther and farther from me, while I stayed wrapped up in my own lies.
There were nights he cried in the bathroom — he thought I couldn’t hear him.
But I did. I heard it. I felt it.
I just chose to ignore it.
I kept telling myself: “He’ll stay. He always does.”
Until one day, he didn't.
ᯓ★
On the 𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗳𝘁𝗵 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹, he came home late.
He came home drenched in rain.
He looked sleepless, drained, empty — like life had been leaking out of him little by little.
He walked straight to our room and sat on the floor.
I didn’t go after him at first.
But by dawn, I found him staring into nothing, our wedding photo trembling in his hands.
“Love?” I whispered.
He turned slowly. He smiled a little. “Hi.”
“Are you okay?”
He answered, voice hoarse.
“Now that everything’s over… maybe.”
Droplets of tears slowly formed in the corner of his eyes and he smiled weakly.
And the next words he uttered made my heart break.
"I think the most painful funerals are the ones where no one dies...
Just love.
Just trust.
Just the version of them you thought would never hurt you."
I froze at what he said.
And right there, the realizations hit me like waves. It felt like someone poured ice-cold water over me.
ᯓ★
The next day, he was gone.
Not just physically. It was like he was truly gone.
He left an envelope.
A letter. And a list.
———
𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗟𝗘𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥
“Love,
Twelve funerals. Twelve goodbyes.
At first, I fought for you. I held on to the hope that you’d return to the you I once knew.
I chose you — even on the days you no longer chose me.
But time taught me this: I cannot make you stay where your heart no longer is.
So little by little, I laid to rest the version of you that will never return to me.
First, I buried your smiles — the ones that used to belong only to me.
Second, the way you tried to cook for me even when you didn’t know how.
Third, the flowers you’d surprise me with on random days. Not fancy, but I knew they came from your heart.
Fourth, I buried the version of you who listened.
Fifth, the you who didn’t lie.
Sixth, the you who understands me.
Seventh, the you whom I always fight for and choose every day.
Eighth, the you whom I always put first in anything.
Ninth… the you whom I could never hurt.
Tenth, the you whom I dream with.
Eleventh, the you who could never deceive me.
And the last… the you that I loved.
Twelve funerals. Twelve versions of you.
One by one, I buried them. One by one, I accepted that they will never return.
You were never taken from me by death.
You left—slowly, silently, cruelly—while your body stayed.
The man I loved is long dead.
The body just doesn't know it yet.
And now that I have finished the last burial…
I also need to leave the cemetery that belonged to the two of us.
Maybe they are right...
To love someone long term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be.”
– Hong
⸻
I dropped the letter. I sat down on the floor.
I could no longer hold back the tears.
Every words he wrote in there stabbed me like lethal daggers.
He didn’t attend twelve funerals of other people.
He attended mine—twelve times.
Twelve versions of me
Twelve pieces of the man he once loved.
He wasn’t grieving a stranger.
He wasn’t grieving someone he lost in an accident, or sickness, or tragedy.
He was grieving me.
The old me who used to love him right.
The old me who made him feel safe.
The old me who never hurt him.
I was the one he buried. Twelve times.
I couldn’t stop myself from sobbing from the pain.
Because after all the funerals he went to,
not once did I think… I was the one who died.
———