The Last Miracle

IX

We were sitting together on the beach.

Right. Its 'we' and 'together'.

I never believed that these words would have existed in my life unless a miracle happened. A miracle named Park Tae Sung.

The rain had stopped altogether and considering the recent phenomena in the university which made the hostel to turn upside down, we delayed our return. Because of the rain, the beach was empty and the lights reflected on the raindrops on the sand, making it look like a field of stars.

Sitting there with folded legs, we were gazing at the ocean and its waves, a part of which we had discovered in each other's eyes. A long span of silence drawn between us and we were comfortable in that rather than words.

But I was compelled to ask, "Are you okay?"

He smiled, "No. I don't think I am."

"Your feelings. I know that too". I lowered my head, "It's amazing how they say family is the stepping stone of a child's life but what if the family is a mess in itself? The child turns out to be a mess too. And then they degrade that child as a delinquent or a spoiled adult. The world of hypocrites."

"I was always scared." He spoke without looking at me, "I had no idea what was right and what was wrong. Everything I did would upset my father. My mom passed away after I was born and I was always desperately doing things to make him happy."

He sighed, "But he never looked at me with the eyes like he looked at his family. That's when I realized. I must have been a burden. That was my mistake. To exist."

My chest throbbed with his pain because I knew it a little too well, "The absence of affection in the family that makes you question your entire existence. Holidays and birthdays feel like cursed days when you see other people as happy as they can be."

I glanced at him, "I thought like you too. That I had to carry the burden of their sins throughout my whole life. And for the life of me, I couldn't understand. That why I would have to pay for the price of some mistake that adults committed. Is that even worth it?"

My disgusting memories come back. When I had nightmares every night making me afraid to sleep because no one was there to wake me up. The sky was falling down and I was dying and nobody was there to save me. And I couldn't save myself.

I kept those feelings to myself because I could find no language to describe them in.

Tae Sung hugged his knees, "Maybe we wanted to turn out to be different from them. We wanted to be everything they are not. But that disgusting feel of having no home sits confidently within us depriving us of warmth our whole life."

I sighed, "Probably. Like a foolish and a lost kid. But instead, we ended up doing the worst thing a human can do to themselves. Self-pity, losing the courage to be happy."

"But you know?" I turned to face him, "You are stronger than me. You know how to stand tall even when everything else is falling apart. When I was insanely running around and doing things, you seemed calm and composed."

He let out a sarcastic laugh, "Only I wasn't."

"You are wrong." I looked into his eyes, "Where can you find a human being without flaws? That's just a fantasy. The burdens of our past, the attention required in the present and worries about the future. It's about how bravely we walk through that fire. The ones who are close to your heart knows how much you have been through and they would do anything to get you out of that pit."

This time he didn't say anything. He was just staring at me like our broken souls just recognized the thousand years of connection we had with each other.