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How do you grieve for a love that did not even exist—when it was always just Kim Ryul and Kwon Ohyul, circling something neither of them ever dared to name?
It feels absurd at first. A strange kind of mourning—the kind that feels illegitimate even as it hollows you out. There is no confession to rewind, no relationship to mourn, no clear moment where everything broke apart. If anyone asked, there would be nothing to point at and say, this was ours. And yet, Ryul feels it anyway— the quiet, persistent ache of something unfinished, something that never even had the chance to begin.
Because what he lost was never Ohyul himself.
It was everything Ohyul could have been to him.
There had been moments—small, almost forgettable on the surface. The way Ohyul lingered just a second too long, like he had something to say but chose silence instead. The way his hand brushed Ryul’s wrist once, accidentally, and neither of them pulled away immediately. The way their words sometimes softened, almost crossing into something dangerous, before retreating back into something safe.
Nothing concrete. Nothing undeniable.
Just almosts.
And from those almosts, Ryul built something without realizing it. Not in reality, but somewhere quieter—in the spaces between thoughts, in the future he never lived. Conversations that stretched into dawn. Silences that felt full instead of empty. A version of himself that was softer, braver, more certain, because Ohyul would have been there.
Ohyul never promised any of it.
But he never took it away, either.
That’s what makes it so difficult to grieve. There is no betrayal to hold onto, no ending to dissect. Just the slow, unbearable realization that whatever existed between them had remained suspended in possibility—and would stay there forever.
Ryul tries to reason with himself. Nothing happened. That should make it easier, shouldn’t it? There are no memories to haunt him, no real loss to recover from.
But that’s not true.
He remembers the way his chest tightened in Ohyul’s presence, the quiet anticipation before seeing him, the unspoken question that lingered in every interaction: Is this something?
And now, the question has nowhere to go.
There is a particular kind of loneliness in this kind of loss. Not just because he is alone now, but because—perhaps—he always was. Whatever connection existed lived mostly in the fragile space between them, in glances that lasted too long, in pauses that meant too much, in hope that was never spoken aloud.
Maybe Ohyul felt it too.
Maybe he didn’t.
Ryul will never know, and that uncertainty settles heavily, like a story that stops mid-sentence.
Sometimes he catches himself replaying things, searching for meaning that might not have been there. If he had said something different, stayed a little longer, been a little braver—would it have changed anything?
Or would Ohyul have looked at him the same way—distant, careful, already choosing a life where Ryul did not quiet belong?
There is no answer. Only absence.
And still, the grief lingers.
It shows up in quiet moments, in the spaces Ohyul once occupied without ever truly belonging to them. In the way Ryul’s thoughts drift back, uninvited, to something that never solidified into reality but felt real enough to leave a mark.
Maybe that’s the truth of it.
It didn’t exist in the way love is supposed to exist—defined, mutual, undeniable. But is existed somewhere else. In pauses. In glances. In the fragile space between what was felt and what was never said.
And maybe that’s enought to grieve.
So Ryul lets himself feel it, even if it makes no sense. He mourns the version of them that only ever lived in possibility—the one where Ohyul stayed, where something unspoken finally found its voice.
And slowly, he learns to let it go—not because it wasn’t real, but because it never had the chance to become.