Skeleton Flower.By Kim Jonghyun. Posted in English by Diphylleia Grayi Lee Park

CHAPTER 6: SYMPTOMS

CHAPTER 6: SYMPTOMS

The man was a writer.

Not a famous one, but a small writer with a burning passion and his own distinct world.
But just like any other artist, the man had been gifted with an emotional spirit that swung between opposite poles hundreds and thousands of times a day, to the point where he was so tired he had been considering putting the pen aside. The truth is that he had been used to going through these intensely swaying emotions for his whole life, and this was the hidden reason for why he had not written a piece that satisfied him in so many years. He was being tormented by his ever-decreasing confidence and endless self-loathing.
To a man like that, the house should have been a place to rest, but even that had long ago turned into a swamp of pressure and frustration.
Struggling in a chronic depression, the man eventually turned to escapism from reality. To the furthest place possible from his own home, a country halfway across the world. Before departure, he was taking Dani on an apology walk for being away for so long when he met her as if by destiny, and since that day the two had spent much time together in a very short period. And as if mocking his current slump, the man even began to write great things. She was a blessing.

"I like you. I'm really into you."

It was the third day the man and the woman met. His hasty and clumsy confession.

"······ Are you for real? Liking me? We barely know each other yet. "

The man had fallen for her at first sight, the first one to fall in love.
Ever the impulsive decision maker, the man was caught up in his emotions. Is there a mistake as deadly as putting one's own feelings before the other's? The woman rejected the young man's confession, and he was stupidly wounded. However, the man's heart was already in too deep to let the woman go like that.
Just as he was slowly approaching her to make up for his error and unwind their misunderstanding, another issue came to afflict the man. The departure date for the trip he planned to escape reality was coming close. He might have not won over her heart yet, but it was harsher than anything to the man to have to be as distant from her as physically possible, and he chastised himself for buying that ticket. He thought of cancelling the trip, but he did not want to repeat the same mistake. He decided to take his time and think deeply into his heart. Were he to still feel the same as now after spending time by himself, he would then confess again. Boarding alone in the airplane to South America, he looked deep into his heart and asked himself:

'Could I really be deluded like she said? Am I getting too ahead of myself? Or could it be that I'm looking for any person to love because I'm bored?'
For the moment, his heart, out of answers, wondered whether this was love, and decided that the desire, longing, curiosity for her that spread through his body were clearly love.
"Love······."
He recited in a low voice.
And he noticed, for the first time in his life, what a pretty sound the word 'love' is. As if this was a serious matter, the man savored the word 'love' several times, and covered himself with the blanket while giggling silly.

'I should sleep. Time goes by faster when you sleep, right?'

The man willed sleep to come while wishing for time to pass faster, with the heart of a child looking forward to the day of a picnic. The destination of that picnic was not the other side of Earth where he was headed to. Ironically, it was the very place he had wanted to escape from. It was his home, his neighborhood, his country. Because after he met her, the place that used to be a swamp of frustration to the man had turned into an amusement park full of joy and excitement.

Because that was the place where she was.

In the noisy airplane, the man shut his ears with earphones and closed his eyes.
Notes:

​The only medicine is you, I can't live if I lose you.

Chapter 6: Skeleton Flower. By Kim Jonghyun (Shinee.)