word count: 416
Within Her
…
movie: …Ing
characters: Young-jae, Min-ah
summary: someday this pain will fade, but for now, let me hold it close to my heart and mourn you.
…
Most days are a blur of longing. He eats. He reads. He works. But at night, he lights up a cigarette in memoriam to the girl he could have loved for the rest of his life. To the girl he could have fallen irreparably for.
He doesn't so much mourn her death as he does the life they could have lived together.
…
He takes her photos off his wall, tracing the soft curves of her immortal face and the lines of her pretty smile. He gives them all long looks, not so much burning them into his memory as savoring the quick reminder of what happiness felt like.
He knows memories fade. This, he mourns as well.
And he does this at night, while smoking his allotted cigarette. He puts on heavy black headphones and looks out of his window. He wonders if he's doing it right.
…
He misses watching Min-ah. He misses holding her hand. He misses annoying her. Most of all, he misses making her smile.
Every picture he takes is for her. He likes to think she knows that.
…
Some mornings he wakes up and feels like he might stop breathing. He imagines that there is a giant, empty hole in his life. In his heart.
Other mornings he's fine. Numb, but alive.
Always, he longs to hear her voice again. "Young-jae," he imagines her saying. Over and over again. "Young-jae. Young-jae."
…
In the beginning, he visits the man who directs traffic every day. He wants to ask him if it ever gets better. If he will ever start to move on. The thought makes him a little sick.
One day he comes and it is raining and this time, he pays attention to the tears trailing down the man's face and all his questions are answered. He takes his picture, the bright of his red and green flags like a beacon in the downpour, face covered by his bright yellow hood, sadness etched into the very core of the print. He thinks Min-ah would have liked it.
He wins an award for it. The irony does not escape him.
…
When he is older and successful and owns a house, the only picture he puts up is of her hand and the only promise he's ever failed to keep that ever meant anything to him.
And sometimes he still cries.
And when he does, he lights a cigarette and looks up at the sky, imagining that somewhere, she is looking for him, too.