It's a cold, windy winter day when he finds out.
He'd been working overseas much more and longer than ever before: it had been a long process, to finally realized that this country, no matter where he went, made him miserable and angry, so angry that he couldn't see anything anymore - not his work, not people, not any goals other than falling into a ruin. So he left it, left it all behind, because nothing tied him down there anymore anyway, and the only thing he really found himself caring about, his work, could've been done elsewhere. It soon turned out that this single important matter ended up thriving after the sudden move, and so he agreed to stay there, in order to nourish his pet project that had grown to be the only significance of his life, and heal his own psyche in the process. (Although it was destined to fail anyway, because, really, what could've possibly healed him at that point?)
When he finally came back, it was strange and unfamiliar. He remembered all the places, views, nuances -- but it felt as if the places had already forgotten him. He felt discomfort, disdain, distress. He could sense everything around him rejecting him, and despite having gotten used to it a long time ago, because this place had never been truly kind to him, the re-discovery of that fact hit him harder now, when he finally gathered courage to step back.
The note is short, condensed, anonymous - and dating a few months back, to the time when the sun was still bright and warm, and days much longer than nights.
Sitting down on his couch (the one that hasn't been used in months, the one that was dusted in thin layer of gray specs, the one that was used in a thousand and more ways, one dirtier than another), it felt like--nothing, really. His mind went through the ideas of going berserk on the first thing that his hands grab onto, yelling at nothing in particular, seeking answers to the sudden information, caving in on himself -- and yet, in the end, all he could do was just sit there and stare ahead.
Somewhere at the back of his consciousness, he could recall blurred images: of sitting at his hospital bed, him who was a cancer patient and yet they decided to have an argument there; of him giving up on an entire night of sleep just to be a silent guardian and look like shit the next day; of his frustrated mewl at having a full hard-on tucked back into tight jeans just for the sake of making a point of who was always one step ahead.
This time, the roles got inevitably and indefinitely reversed -- Kibum was so, so far ahead of him.
Even though, in this moment, everything seemed to have changed, the clock was still ticking in the distance, the day still started to slowly fade into the night, and neither his thoughts nor breath ever stopped going on, and on, and on.
The only times he ever really cried, was on that one day, every year, mourning for the death of the last person he had found himself loving -- and even then, it wasn't the cry of sadness, as much as of hatred, anger, helplessness. But now -- now he cried, without knowing, in the dark, narrow confines of his mind's walls, through a rush of emotions he wouldn't be able to define even if he wanted to.
He should've never come back here.
