Every Heartbeat | Taekook

02 ; Uneven Odds

02 ; Uneven Odds
“Now I don’t expect you to understand,
Just to live what little life
Your broken heart can.”

As I looked out the window, I see the hot sun glaring down at us without mercy. Summer is approaching and the weather has been quite prickly these days. Hmm, the idea of swimming together with the gang isn’t bad at all.

The ride to the cemetery was quiet, almost too quiet, the kind that I like. The only sound resonating inside the car was the stereo, drowning out the silence in its faint melody. I turned it on earlier but only set the volume low that the songs coming out of it sound like whispers, it’s nice.

However, a certain pair of eyes couldn’t seem to decide whether to keep its attention on the road or me. It’s quite bothering, especially when he’s driving.

“Eyes on the road, Guk.” I said, glaring at him while carefully holding a bouquet of blue irises and rosemaries. “I don’t want to pass away the way my parents did.”

“Right...” Jeongguk whispered and didn’t bother to argue with me. With his focus now on the road, he asked me a question that he already knows the answer to, “Are you okay?”

I hummed, sighing right after. “Yes. No. I don’t know...” There was a long pause in my sentence before I continued, “I just want to talk to them first.”

Jeongguk immediately knew what I was talking about as he nodded, “Okay, I’ll stay in the car for a while, and then call me once you’re done.” He glances back at me for the last time as the car finally entered the cemetery. He pulls over to a certain row of headstones, just right where my parents’ graves are.

I took a deep breath while Jeongguk reached over to hold my hand, eyes looking at me with slight encouragement. “Call for me when you need me, okay?” He says, to which I only nodded before getting off the car.

I silently walked toward my parents’ grave and from here, I could clearly see what was written on their shared headstone. Starting from their names, the day they were born, and the day they were taken from me—my birthday.

Slowly sitting on the grass, I placed the bouquet beside the headstone. The blue iris flowers signify hope and faith, while the rosemaries mean love and remembrance. It reminds me of them, reminds me of the love and faith they showered me with back when I was sick and bed ridden.

“How are you, Mom and Dad?” I asked the same old question I have been asking them for the past years whenever I visit their grave. I asked the same old question despite knowing that they would never answer. “I miss you both.”

My trembling hands reached for their headstones, tracing each letter of their name. The tight and heavy feeling in my chest began to burst, and they fell in the form of unending tears coming from my eyes.

It still hurts.

“I’m sorry... Mom, Dad. I have been fighting, I swear. I just... it’s too hard. I thought I was free. I thought I could live a normal life again.” I didn’t want to bawl my eyes out, so I restrained myself to only letting out ragged breaths to accompany my streaming tears. “I guess, I was stupid enough to hope for such things.”

Being free and having a normal life, are two of many luxuries I could never afford. Because people like me were destined to live to have; hopes that are meant to not be too high, expectations prepared to be crushed, and a life that is short-lived.