Seeing the untouched pillow next to me right when I open my eyes it's the thing I hate most in the morning. This cold and empty sheet with no perfume, the silence in my room that surrounds me and highlights the sound of my lonely breath…It became like an ordinary thing for me in my miserable existence in the past five years…
I struggle to remember how it used to be in the back, good old times…when Ji Hee was alive and my hand would search for body even before opening my eyes and when it came in contact with the warmth of her skin would shudder for an instant at the pleasure that simple touch gave me. The perfume of her hair spread over the cushion next to me and the slow and deep breath that nurtured me like a lullaby making me return to my sleep in an instance…Five more minutes…or ten…or half an hour of napping next to her until I would woke up again in search of her body next to me…
Now she is gone…Missing for many years now, but her memory is always with me …and always will be…until I will stop breathing just like she did….
But I am still here…alive, in this miserable existence that drags me day by day like an automaton driven only by the venom with which my body was infected during this vengeance quest...My blood, even though red and warm was poisoned that damned that day, when my hands have touched another skin…and when they began to tighten around that fragile neck with the purpose of ending that life , my world stopped for a second…or maybe two… in which I felt the warmth of her skin and even a slight hint of perfume from her hair that fluttered over the railing…and when it started again id did that with such strength and ferocity that it took my breath away and made me die…of Pain…
Five years have passed since then…and I'm still alive and I fell the exact same Pain I felt back then but I got accustomed with It. It's like a silent companion who stayed next to me like my second shadow, making me remember in each instant that I am still here. I breathe, walk and eat…
It accompanies me even in my sleep, but there It becomes more present and cruel and from a simple shadow It transforms in something else, who terrorizes me and It does this with such slyness that It makes me believe…and I start to tremble…and despair…and cry…until the much-desired relief that only the awakening can bring to me. But when I open my eyes the Pain doesn't go away…It only puts itself in a corner of my heart in ruins and stays there silent, all day long…and plots…and brews.. another nightmare to terrorize me with the next night.
I hate It…I hate It with all my guts…but not for what It can do to me. I have already accepted that…I hate It because when It took possess of my body It brought with It two things…Two memories…The warmth and the perfume of that woman, from that terrible day…up those stairs…at the police station. So vivid and clear in my thoughts that it's like she was right next to me in this moment…Right here on this untouched pillow and under this smooth and cold sheets…
I hold out my hand and brush the soft and smooth silk that as expensive and fine as it is, could never be compared to what my hands felt that day…And that warmth mixed with the scent…
I close my eyes and let myself invaded by these little memories and accept them and guard them, with all the affection I have left inside, because they are now part of me. They are the only reason I get up in the morning. This and the hope that today I will get to see her again at the restaurant and she will give me a smile.
Yoo Jung-ah….Please smile to me!