I watched, silent, as his jaw clenched.
“I knew I needed to do something, but I did not feel capable of helping myself. Everything was too much. I tried–” he stuttered, and it was like the word itself was a battle, “therapy. I started seeing a doctor. Just to talk. To try to understand.” He couldn’t meet my eyes, and though he said the words, it was like he was ashamed of them.
“It is not an excuse,” he said quickly, as though I might interrupt, instead of sitting here, watching him with a mix of what felt like shock and admiration.
“I probably would not have gone if Minjae had not have forced me. He sat in the waiting room to make sure I would not leave,” his lips twitched in an approximation of a smile.
“It took time. I did not understand because all I felt was how everything hurt me. I did not see that when I wanted to protect you, I was hurting you, too.”
His eyes flicked up to meet mine, briefly, like he was checking I was still there, still listening. I couldn’t have moved, even if I’d wanted to.
“Even now,” he cleared his throat, paused, and then “it is hard. I believed ending it was the best thing I could do for you. The only thing. It took me time to understand that because I was hurt, I hurt you. I lashed out, because I did not know how to be different. But it took me too long.” He shook his head. “You had moved on, and by the time I realised my mistake, you had a new life. I was too late.”
I bit my tongue to keep the bitter laugh from falling out. I must have done a good job of pretending if ‘moved on’ was what he’d thought I’d done.
I sat there silently, thinking through what felt like life-changing information, and the main thing that I kept circling back to was that I didn’t know what to do with it. How was I supposed to deal with this?
I was as still as stone, while inside, I was an earthquake. I didn’t move because I would crumble if I did; I would shatter. Again.
Our lives had been irrevocably altered not just because of one person’s extreme desire to see things play out the way they wanted, but also because Joon couldn’t reconcile his own emotional response to a situation that could have been resolved, had he only asked for the one thing he’d never been able to. Help.
Hana may have placed the bomb that had blown apart
my life, but Jihoon had lit the fuse.
Words kept forming in my mind, a churning combination of sounds, but they dissolved by the time they reached my tongue. I wanted to say something, I wanted to rage, I wanted to ask questions, but I didn’t know how, or what words to use.
My fingers twitched, and I shifted. Jihoon’s expression went from anguish to panic in the space between heartbeats, and he reached out for me, quickly saying–
“I could not call you. I could not, because if I did, I don’t think I would have been able to let you go again. I barely survived the first time. I would have begged,jagiya.” His voice snapped, a winter reed cracking under the weight of too much snow.
“And everything I did would have been for nothing. I could not come to you. It nearly killed me.”
I inhaled so sharply it cut me, and I stared at my fingers as they dug into the carpet.
“After what I did to you, it would have been arrogant of me to think that just because I still wanted you, you would want me back. We had been apart longer than we’d been together. All the therapy in the world could not have fixed the damage I did to us. And if I had found you? I–” He paused and took a breath. “If you didn’t want me, I could not – I could not bear it. Better not to know.”
My heart thumped painfully in my chest, and I quickly turned away as my face crumpled. I clenched my fists to divert my attention from the pounding against my ribs.
Behind me, Jihoon’s voice came softly, pulling me out of my body, and turning me around to him. I schooled my features just in time.
“But didn’t you see? Did you really never see me,cheonsa? All the times I reached for you?”
I couldn’t look at him, even though his voice begged me to.
“I know I should not have, but I watched you make your new life. I followed your professional accounts. I told myself it was because I wanted to see you succeed, but it was not only that. I began to see you didn’t need me anymore. You were… you shined. I knew I had no right to intrude on your life. I was so proud of you, even though it hurt. It was a pain I deserved.”
I raised a hand to my mouth, feeling how my fingers trembled against my lips, and I quickly put my hand down, then not knowing what to do with myself, I tried to fold my hands in my lap, but I couldn’t stop the way I anxiously picked at my nails.
He took a breath, but it hitched.
“I spent three years reaching for you. Maybe you never saw, because you did not want to.”
He huffed, a small sound somewhere between a laugh and a cry.
“How?” I asked quietly.
“My song,” he said. “The photos. There were other ways, but it does not matter.”
