𝐜𝐡𝐮́𝐜 𝐦𝐮̛̀𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐡 𝐧𝐡𝐚̣̂𝐭 𝐛𝐞́ 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐤𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐲 =))))

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡

1) even though i hadn't met love yet...

i would have recognized him at first glance. he was the one, i was sure. sungchan was taller than me, and his smile captured all the light in this world. the first time i saw sungchan was when he was struggling with his math problems - a little too difficult algebra solution of "finding x". he kept mumbling, in between which i heard "hate math" and "need someone". so, i decided to step in.

i knew exactly what love looks like in 8th grade. he was shorter than me, with big round eyes that were so distracting. but he had a beautifully carved face. he helped me with all of my homework. and... it was the only thing that i first cared about song eunseok.

even though we were 14, love had no age limits, wasn't it?

2) love arrives exactly when love is supposed to.

sungchan did not recognize eunseok was good with piano until they were both in 10th grade.

"why have i never seen you with this?"

"well," eunseok smiled and waved at a group of friends passing by. their giggles made him somewhat discomforted. "you have never asked."

it was true. sungchan knew eunseok was the star of the basketball team, he knew eunseok was an excellent snowboarder, but he had never known eunseok could play piano, and even a bit of drum. eunseok said it was no biggie.

"my dad taught me since i was young", he shrugged nonchalantly, his fingers lingering over the piano keys.

sungchan leaned against the doorframe, watching him play with admiration and something else he couldn't quite place. he wasn't surprised that eunseok was good at something. he just never thought it would be something so... delicate.

sungchan personally had no problems with eunseok playing instruments. what really made him uncomfortable was how eunseok started to show off his charisma unintentionally, and girls then swooned over him. even his casual behavior seemed to make hearts flutter. and while sungchan hated to admit it, he felt a pang of something every time he saw those girls gather around eunseok after school.

3) love will tell you, "you are beautiful!"

it was good to have eunseok accompanied him to school every morning.

the seats on the bus were much closer than those on subways, and sungchan enjoyed the feeling of having eunseok's shoulder lightly brushing his, sometimes leaving eunseok's citrus scent on his school uniform. the scent would linger in the air, and sungchan would breathe it in without realizing, like a secret he kept for himself.

it was a comforting routine: standing at the bus stop together, making small talk about homework or the latest basketball game, and then sharing the quiet moments as the bus jolted forward through the city streets.

every morning, eunseok felt something stir in his chest when they sat together.

but lately, there was something different in the way his heart fluttered when their arms brushed or when sungchan's laughter filled the air between them. it felt warm, like sunlight on a cool morning, but also like something more, something eunseok wasn't sure he was ready to admit yet.

4) but when love finally showed up...

eunseok moved when we entered colleges. he left me a simple goodbye, and a meet up promise. we held hands for the first time. he said he would miss me.

they met each other again on the street, almost passing by like two strangers. but sungchan could recognize that citrus fragrance anywhere.

"e-eunseok?" - was his greeting.

they forgot all about their works that day, spending time catching up on each other. eunseok had changed a lot. in spite of that scent, he had dyed his hair a light shade of black, stopped playing the piano for almost seven years, and was then working for a law firm.

"song eunseok? as a lawyer? wow, that is so... unexpected of you."

"i made it to partner level. weird, isn't it?" he replied with a smile. that smile had not changed a bit.

"how about you? what have you been doing?"

"reporter." sungchan showed his news reporter card.

"that is so expected of you."

they both laughed.

5) and love grew.

they fell in love, all at once.

they held hands, fingers entwined.

they had their first kiss, lips meeting in hesitance.

they shared an apartment, a space just for two.

sungchan wakes up early every day, seeing the sunlight spill over eunseok's face, golden and warm, a sight he never tires of. and every time they walk side by side, eunseok's fingers effortlessly find his, like second nature.

they had anniversaries, like every couple did. five years passed in shared laughter, quiet nights, and the certainty of knowing they belonged to each other.

6) love changed. love disappeared, slowly.

they also broke up. they fell apart the same way they had fallen in love, gradually, then all at once.

they were both too young, too ambitious, too caught up in chasing futures. they skipped their meals together, running for deadlines. dinners turned into missed calls, conversations into brief exchanges.

most of the time, sungchan came home to an empty bed. eunseok came home to a sleeping him.

they did not have sex for almost half-year. six months without touch, without closeness, until they finally acknowledged what had been unraveling for far too long.

and then, they let go.

7) love stayed away for years.

it was supposed to be just another trip abroad. but fate, or perhaps something softer and more patient, had other plans.

they surprisingly met again in london, like a forgotten melody resurfacing in a quiet morning.

eunseok was having his first vacation after leaving the law firm, finally allowing himself to breathe after years of chasing something that never quite felt like his.

sungchan was in london to report fashion week, feeling lost in the energy of the industry he once thought would fulfill him.

they both realized that money and fame, once so important, now felt like echoes of a past neither of them wanted to return to.

what they wanted was a family, a home, a life built not on achievements but on love. and when they thought of settling down, of a forever that did not feel suffocating, they could only picture each other.

nine months later, beneath the golden sun of greece, they stood together one more time, not as fleeting lovers, but as husbands.

8) but love also cries...

love is not always soft whispers and warm embraces. sometimes, it's raised voices in the middle of the night, doors closing too hard, silence stretching too long.

but even when we were having a fight, when anger and exhaustion ran high, i would still tell eunseok "i love you", then leave. it was stubborn, maybe foolish, but it was the truth.

no matter how much pride i had swallowed, i always found myself at the café down the street the next morning, returning with a fresh batch of blueberry muffins in hand.

i came home with a sheepish smile and a sincere "sorry, beauty". my fingers found his like a promise i refused to break.

i loved him. so much.

9) maybe love just isn't the marrying type.

but love, for all its persistence, is not always enough.

that day, sungchan did not come back with blueberry muffins, but with a sheet of divorce. a clean break. an ending written in ink.

i signed. there were no fights, no "i love you", no desperate hands reaching across the table. just silence.

we were over.

10) love is not what you can predict.

maybe love comes back when you least expect it. maybe the next time you see love is ten years after the divorce, in the form of an old song on the radio or a familiar laugh in a crowded café.

maybe love lingers in the background, never fully leaving, but never quite staying the way it used to.

we met many times after, with all the same feelings, but we agreed on staying friends. i was in no way complaining about this arrangement.

friendship, after all, was just another form of love, a softer one, a quieter one, one that did not demand but still gave.

i still got to smell the familiar citrus scent of eunseok every time he let me drive him to work. i still got to hear his voice in the morning, drowsy and unguarded when he picked up my calls. i still got to hold his hand beneath the vast night sky, pointing at constellations and making ridiculous wishes, pretending we were kids again.

and sometimes, on unspoken occasions, i still got to kiss him. a quiet agreement between two people who had loved deeply, lost each other twice, and decided that this, whatever it was, was enough.

11) love stayed but no strings longer attached.

we never spoke about what we were. there was no need. our lives continued, separate but intertwined.

sungchan went on vacations and sent me postcards. i watched movies alone but texted him the best lines. we spent birthdays together, year after year, candles flickering between us. we smiled.

it was never the kind of love you saw in the movies, but it was ours.

12) maybe love isn't meant to last forever. maybe it is.

and so we grew old together, in a way that felt both inevitable and impossible. eunseok turned 70, the year he was diagnosed with alzheimer.

it started with small things - forgetting how tax law worked, losing the ability to play the piano, stumbling over names that used to rolled off his tongue effortlessly.

"i don't think i have seen you before... not a coincidence, i'm sure."

his joke scared me at first, then he laughed it off as he always did.

but the disease did not care for humor. slowly, it took more and more from him. some days, he forgot where he put his keys. other days, he forgot the way home. eventually, he forgot his own name.

13) and love leaves exactly when love must.

but eunseok never forgot me. not once. not even in those final moments.

i sat by his bed, the air sterile and cold, but his fingers were warm in mine. his breaths were shallow, his voice a whisper, but his eyes still looking at me, held all the years we had spent together. in the quiet of that hospital room, with machines humming around us, he turned to me one last time and said,

"someday, i will see you more often than before,"

- not just in fleeting moments or passing memories, but in the quiet details of everyday life. in the way the morning light kisses your face, in the way your laughter fills the spaces around me. i will no longer be a visitor in your thoughts just once, but a constant, woven into the fabric of your days, as natural as breathing.

"someday, i will be the story in your movie of life,"

- not just a chapter you revisit with nostalgia, not just a name in old letters and forgotten photographs, but a presence. a beginning, a middle, and perhaps even an ending. a story that does not fade when the credits roll, but one that stays, written into every frame.

"someday, you will be drinking your coffee with me,"

- across a baked batch of blueberry muffins on the table, bathed in the glow of morning, with soft music in the background and the world gently waking up around us. you will stir your coffee absentmindedly while telling me about your day, and i will listen, not as someone who once loved you, but as someone who never stopped.

"... again."

- and when that someday arrives, whether in the next lifetime or another, whether in reality or just within a dream, i will forever look at you the way i always have, and you will run into me, knowing that some things were never lost.

"thank you, for stopping by."

like love itself, no one had never really left.