off the table, jung sungchan ✓

(1) the night that we met.

第一年

We often overlook how many changes one person can bring to our lives. It can be so subtle, passing seamlessly that it feels so minute but the ripple effects that follow through might last until the end of your life. One can knock into your life and denote all the good memories, filling up the void you never notice you had.

A void that was once empty would gradually be occupied, it'll no longer be vacant.

Well, in my case, the vacancy was occupied by a special person I met at the start of 2017.

New Year's Eve of 2017 marked one of the most challenging years of my life. The start of something new. I had to give up 16 years' worth of living in Busan for a crisp start in Seoul. Switching from a quiet village to a city embodied by the hustle and bustle of restless human bodies, a lifestyle opposite from what I had grown used to and frankly, it wasn't an easy task. It was difficult even from the start to move away. Considering how I had to leave behind the salty sea breeze, the sound of flying seagulls across the horizontal distance skyline and all the dear memories of growing up in my beloved hometown.

Busan was my home. It stores countless good memories, the bad ones, and despite the hurtful ones, I know better Busan will always hold a special spot for my family.

For me.

Leaving will always be a heavy decision for us all.

Because leaving doesn't simply mean I put behind everything in the past but rather, I have to carry each memory of the past to the future. To my tomorrow, along with every path I took in my life.

Call me selfish for my inability to tear myself apart from the land I called home. The land where the traces of all the bittersweet moments we left behind would be a faded past for our family of four.

"I don't want to leave Busan."

I remember the heat of my anger escaping my eyes in the form of tears, the concerned look hovering over my mother and father's faces. Jaehyun's attempt to touch my shoulder, probably to calm me down and I coldly yanked his hand off me with a glare. "There's no use going far, I just need some time to accept everything. Not distance, we'll not solve everything by leaving."

"We can't solve everything but we definitely can fix something, Aera."

I was 16, clueless about what she meant by fixing things.

"What's there left to fix, mom? The reality?"

My tears were useless.

We still left.

I still had to watch myself going further and further away from Busan in the car ride, the gloomy looks on my friends' faces somehow made it hard for me to accept the reality.

We settled in a quite decent neighbourhood in Seoul. "Just make yourself familiar with the neighbourhood first."

That's what my father told us—Jaehyun and I, once we arrived in front of our new house. It was a choice we both silently agreed on, and felt thankful to our dad for not rushing us to unpack our stuff and focusing on familiarizing ourselves with the neighbourhood.

Neither I nor Jaehyun was thrilled with the idea of moving away but we had to. Only the difference is I just honestly tell them but Jae just simply sucked it up. For our own good. Hence, explaining why we needed some time and space for all of this.

The countdown on the television was hazy and monotonous in my ears. We didn't celebrate the new year, exhausted from the long journey and carrying all the boxes. I didn't look forward to it honestly, everything these past few months was crazy and the thrill inside of me seemed to have died out ever since then. I remember staring out the windowpane whilst watching the fireworks, with teary eyes, wishing nothing but a better year.