hayoon has always liked jungwon.
jungwon has never liked her back.
but after the most humiliating ex-
perience of his life, the thought of
hayoon grows a little less badly day
by day. but just as he realised he
was chasing the wrong girl, he also
...
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— SEOUL, NOVEMBER 1999
❝stay in the middle, like you a little, don't want no riddle, 말해줘 say it back, oh, say it ditto.❞
─────────
jungwon's grandma's passing didn't feel as if it were a week ago.
every morning that he'd wake and refuse to leave his bed, it all felt like it was the exact, same morning. he couldn't walk down the stairs without thinking of the moment the news was broken to him, without feeling a pull to the room she resided in her final moments.
he couldn't move himself to go to school. he stared at the same 4 walls for the past almost 7 days, listening to nothing. the house was quiet and empty, and it had been since his grandma left him. all alone.
he had no clue how life was supposed to simply continue for him. there was a hollow gap left by his side now, and he wasn't sure how to keep living with it following him around so incessantly.
grief is a strange and tangled experience, something that resists easy understanding or resolution.
it's the deep ache of missing someone or something that's gone, but it's also more than that—a mix of memory, love, anger, and sometimes even guilt.
grief doesn't follow a linear path or come with a timeline; it lingers, shapeshifting over time, showing up unexpectedly in small moments or staying heavy in the background of daily life.
it's as universal as it is unique—everyone faces it, yet no two people seem to feel it exactly the same way. despite efforts to "move on" or "heal," grief remains part of us, a reminder of the impact others have on our lives, and of the complex and often painful beauty of being human.
grief is the conundrum of holding on whilst learning to let go, an enduring, unmoving presence shaped by an irreplaceable absence.
and after all of these days, days which felt nothing but mere numbers to him, jungwon was still alone.
surrounded by people, but still alone.
because the only person in the world who understood that feeling was halmeoni, and now, he'll just have to assume her soul is there with him, that maybe, in essence, someone is there for him.
the irony of it all was that the person he missed the most would never be with him again, in the flesh. ever again.
grief does stupid things to people, jungwon learnt over his past few days of bedrot and mourn.
he wasn't not sure what inclined him to kiss hayoon so feverishly only a few days ago, but he doesn't have the willpower to think about any of that.
how could he? how could he, when halmeoni was dead, when he could never hear her laugh or see her smile ever again?
jungwon ruffled his hair in efforts to snap himself out of his haze. halmeoni would never approve, he remembered, a small smile gracing his features as he pictured her scolding him for letting the grief consume him.
but then again, how could it not consume him? his grief felt horrible - like he couldn't breathe, like his chest was closing in on himself, and when he could breathe, it was of necessity. not of choice.
his eyes lazily rolled over to glance at his textbooks, books he once eagerly opened in efforts to keep his studious persona maintained.
he had no such care for them for the past few days, but today, he felt more alive inside.
and so, with a determined huff, jungwon ruffled through his workbooks, hoping to find some motivation as he dove into the words of the all- too familiar content. as he fluttered the pages, a small slip of paper flew out, landing on his lap. he frowned in confusion, but as he opened it, his heart skipped a beat at the handwriting. scruffy, but thoughtful.
dear jungwon,
id be lying if i said i wasnt thinking about you a lot recently. i never met her personally, but i know she made you happy, and so, that made me happy.
i know things are hard right now. grief is nasty. it's relentless and it beats the living shit out of you. like some infinity hole, with no way out. i just hope you remember that it's okay to not have it all sorted out yet, or to know exactly what you're feeling. grief is dirty business, and you don't have to have it all figured out to understand it, cuz understanding it is kinda impossible.
i know that homework is probably the least of your concerns right now but i assumed you'd at least want it in your room. i know you're a nerd, so i supposed this would cheer you up. anyways, when you're ready to be back in school, i'm there to talk (or to not talk, i guess.)
take care. and even though it feels unbelievable, trust me. you're not alone.
-yoonie
jungwon read the letter twice, before pulling out a highlighter and annotating it. annotation was a man's best friend, after all.
there was something about her words. they were so simple, but they were so thoughtful, and she still managed to fit in some humour through it all. it was all very cho hayoon, and he thanked God and beyond that he at least had this letter as a form of a lifeline with halmeoni gone.
he looked outside of his window. properly. for the first time in a while, he found himself appreciating the view. school would've finished by now, and he couldn't help but imagine his friends making their way home, laughing. maybe they didn't have what felt like the worlds weight was on their shoulders, and perhaps, just possibly, he could pull himself out of his misery to feel the same.
jungwon had forgotten how to take care of himself.
his hair was a mess—stiff in some parts, greasy in others. his clothes clung to him like a second skin, wrinkled and stale. and as disgusting as it sounded, he hadn't showered in over a week. not since the day halmeoni left.
because how could he? what was the point of scrubbing his skin when nothing could wash away the ache sitting beneath it? what was the point of being clean in a world that now felt so irreversibly dirty?
but as he stared out the window a little harder, something hit him.
halmeoni was gone. irrevocably, unchangeably gone. his world had stopped—but the earth hadn't. it spun still, like nothing happened. like grief wasn't sitting in his lungs, stubborn and unmoving.
and if the world was moving, that meant he'd have to as well. eventually.
