ｏｕｒｏｂｏｒｏｓ
Yukwon has a dream.
It reoccurs often—he walks through the front door of his modest home, announcing his arrival and Hana and his children are there to greet him. Dinner is on the table with the pleasant scent of roast permeating the air. His children tug at his suit and he lifts one of them up, inciting a giggle from them. In the background, Hana playfully reprimands him for being late, reminds him that she told him to get home work from usual because—
“Yukwon?”
He always wakes up before he can see her face, but he recognises her voice anyway. Dulcet and saccharine like the sugary gifts she showered him with. It echoes and reverberates, engraved into his memory like a scar and Yukwon wonders if she’ll ever know.
There are unsent letters on his desk; he started writing to her after he graduated.
It’s difficult to contain the urge to tell her about his new job and his girlfriend and their wedding and how she’s now his wife and their children. He writes about all the special things that’s happened in his life until his hand cramps, until he runs out of paper, until he’s forced to use napkins. Then one day, he suddenly feels like he has to tell her the little things, too. Like how he had chocolate scones for breakfast (but it doesn’t taste as good as hers), how he met Jay coincidentally at the grocery store, how Hana accidentally put a red sock in the laundry of whites so all his white shirts are pink and a billion other things that no one cares to hear.
Yukwon wants to tell her everything; he thinks she’d like to hear them, too, so sometimes, when he’s in the dark and no one can hear him, he does. He likes to think the wind carries his words to her.
But within the lulls of his stories, in his pauses and short breaths, in the expanse of silence that follows when he finishes, Yukwon knows the truth.
The wind is cold; he is alone. And his words will never reach her.
She was unconventionally cruel beneath all her sugar and he realised it a little too late.
Yukwon doesn’t really remember when or how they met, only that they did. These days, he doesn’t really remember her at all—she was loud and boisterous with skinned knees and little regard to those around her. He called her noona, and she overwhelmed him with baked goods and invasive hugs. Sometimes, she was there. Sometimes, she wasn’t. He never thought of it much until she disappeared completely, until she left an empty void where she once stood in his life. Then Yukwon realised that maybe it was best he didn’t remember when or how they met, only that they did.
If there was no beginning, there wouldn’t be an end.
There are shadows beneath his eyes; it takes Bekah a while to smile.
They were in love with the same person, but it isn’t as dramatic as it sounds. Seungho is incredible, and they weren’t the only ones who tripped over their feet over him like lovesick school girls. She knew from the beginning that Yukwon wore his heart on his sleeve, so when she saw the cracks and schisms developing, she took him by the hand and snuck him into the kitchens at midnight. It’s girlish, maybe Yukwon was a bit offended, but she realises she has nothing much to offer to him. With a firm, yet gentle, hand, she held a cupcake to his mouth with pleading eyes.
“Chocolate contains anandamide,” she explained, as if she knew what she was talking about.
Yukwon took it hesitantly and without question, if only to humour her. It was light and fluffy in texture, easy to swallow despite his constricted throat. Then, Bekah flashed him a sympathetic smile, placing a hand on his forearm.
“They say love is like constipation,” she said, “so I put laxatives in it just for you.”
Too many times, Bekah found herself staring at the spaces between her fingers.
One morning, Yukwon catches her in the act and briefly wonders if she’d hurt herself during practise. When he cradles her wrist in his hands, she gently tugs her limb out of his grip, reassuring him otherwise. He spends half a minute looking her in the eye, defiant and studying the nature of her gaze with such intense focus, she was taken aback. Suddenly, he takes a hold of her wrist again, pulling her up from her seat and out the castle grounds. He says, bluntly like a child, that she looks pale and the sunlight will make her feel better.
“Sun makes flowers grow, you know,” he says, nodding his head sagely.
“Are you insinuating I’m a flower?” she asks, a playful lilt in her tone.
“My next idea was to water you, just go with it.”
Then, Yukwon laces her fingers with another hand, chastely, innocently. He may not have been the brightest, but he wasn’t thick, and Bekah hid too much so Yukwon started to hum. Lifting their connected hands in the air while repositioning her other hand on his shoulder, with a grin, he began to lead them through an impromptu ballroom masquerade.
Bekah always danced in circles, so Yukwon learned how to waltz.