319: Chapter 12

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MinJae

Darling.

He whispered the word under his breath, and it drifted in the air, drowned by the howling from his daughter.

I have always yearned for a future filled with so much love that I would forget the emptiness of lacking.

I searched high and low in the night for someone that could be a ghost of you. I wanted to have a figment of your existence that I had yet to meet. But no one could fit in my arms, no one could look at me the way you would—the way soulmates should be entranced by their other halves.

Once upon a time, I was alone.

His baby gurgled, sniffling as she gasped for air and he shushed her, kissing tear-stained cheeks, sticky with sweat and saliva.

I was a freak of nature, an outcast in a life that should be meant for love. Without you, I was destined to be Lonely, to die a premature death despite my health and good fortune. Without you, I didn't deserve to live as a broken piece of society.

In this world, I needed you to live.

So without you I—

It was raining, and the outpour was no humble storm.

Rain pelted against the windows; wind rattling the glass—phantom claws over the surface created an eery wail that had him flinching. Each screech and pull of the gates that protected him and his baby led to a rattle in his brain. A pounding in the flesh that covered his skull.

His situation was torture, an overstimulation of senses. Outside him, everything was loud, sharp and bright, the noise shattered him and pumped him with a strange quake in his bones. Inside him, he was a mass of twisting squirming cold—worms that covered a dropping hollow ache that started at his throat. His breath grew faint, his eyes wild.

But beyond the rain and the cries from his child—so difficult to calm, so difficult to please. He heard the clatter of keys, and his heart jumped from his chest; he was eager as he craned his neck to look for her. And for that split second the quiet returned, calm and peaceful. His mind was no longer searching for words to use to create sentences, paragraphs and essays. Instead it focussed on her.

He thought he could smell faintly—like an imprint in the walls, a scene burned into his mind— the sweet scent of apple pie, warm, toasty and crumbly from the oven. The buttery kind of pie, with a crust that crackled when a knife pulled over surface. And apples that had good bite, juicy and bursting full with honey.

His apple pie was warm and perfumed by the lilacs in her hair, always packaged with soft giggles and all his closest friends. But the knock on the door, the phantom jingle of keys did not lead to her entrance.

His home remained just as dark and just as empty. And the crash of thunder the shock of lightning, revealed vacant halls. The mirage of a blurred figure of her height, with long hair and a beautiful smile were mere shadows on the wall. An illusion from his desperation.

He turned to the letter, the pen gripped tighter. His thumb slipped and his fingers were stained blue.

-I am lost. It's been a week since I last saw you. But if we count the days when we've last really, truly met each other it's been a month. You kiss me on the cheek, exhausted as you crawl into bed. I don't remember when was the last time you really looked at me the way you used to with your eyes so brown they are almost gold.

I remember them, and I miss the colour so much I see it sometimes in wood grains, in books, on the walls. When was the last time I've eaten dinner with you? A month and a half. My memory stops even though I know it hasn't been too long. But I don't remember when I've last cuddled in bed with you. Or when we've last had a heart-to-heart talk with our hands laced together.

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