PAPER HEARTS

35

It's funny how difficult it is for me to remember what happened after that. The sequence of it all is a mess, but it's all clear in the form of snippets in my mind. I'm a little doubtful of where to begin. Taehyung? Yes, maybe that's where it ends, but I think the starting is all I'm worried about for now.

I'd wished him well, we'd parted ways - all of it came about much easier than I'd assumed - and my mother had sat me down to go through the formalities I'd had to hand over to my landlady before running one last check over the room, prior to departing. The minutes were hectic, rigorous, in honesty, but it felt good. Fearing the ending, felt good.

It was easy to watch our driver clear away all my stuff and load them into the vehicle, and I could pull myself through the stress with an unwavering attention content on the work at hand. But finding something stowed deep in my drawer had shattered me into pieces again.

A journal, scarcely maintained, and empty without a single hue of ink blotched into it.

Except for the words, 'Yoon Jaehwa, my strongest, prettiest girl' governing the front page untidily, and it had me flustered for a couple of seconds before I'd snapped out of it. And out of nowhere, I saw myself there. I saw myself in front of him, the time when that boy with an eye smile and a pair of pudgy cheeks had handed it to me, given me a new glimmer of hope that I was going to be okay. He was standing right there; a hand in his pocket, and the other pushing his hair back, and his wide, innocent eyes were full of love. He was smiling - smiling at me, promising me an eternity.

That he would make me feel pretty, and now I certainly do feel the emotion without a doubt, I feel so endlessly obliged to love the girl inside my body - my shrine, my own glittering throne. All I had left, was to wear my crown.

I'd stuffed them into my handbag, despite the lack of space in it, careful to explain to my mother that they were only the basics of my class notes that I needed to carry with me for my next semester. And convincing her seemed so easy at the time.

Everything seemed so simple. I wasn't quaking with anxiety, I don't recall shedding a tear, I don't even remember thinking about the consequences I would meet after leaving this place without burden. It feels queer, now that I've come to think of it.

Maybe I was caught in a flurry of excitement, the thrill of wanting to move into a new place, be surrounded by new faces, new opportunities.

It'll be okay, right?

Everything is okay.

I lean my head against the window, watching the crowded streets swing past as we move along, the coolness of the glass is soothing against my skin. A thing about life is just how unstoppable it is. No matter the time, no matter the consequence, we move on. We heal. And that's something I've learned to accept with an open heart, the way everything is revolving at a set pace, and people change like the chronicles of seasons, and nothing can change that fact. I couldn't change my past, I couldn't predict a future - all I could pivot on is now.

My mother sits beside me, spectacles perched on the bridge of her nose, and a business magazine over her lap. She hasn't chastised me about Taehyung and it doesn't take me long to figure out why.

It's over.

Taehyung and I, we won't be seeing each other in a long time, and she's inwardly triumphant over that fact. I'll move on and so will he, together, one step forward but in the opposites of direction. Beyond this veil, past the end of this cold winter, it's our spring waiting to blossom, each yielding the best of ourselves, but in very different aspects.