Love and Let Go ↔ Yang Jungwon

8

Jungwon watches as the girl rummages through his room.

"What are you looking for?" he asks, perched on top of his bed.

"Origami paper," came a muffled reply as Giselle continued to search for the square paper. Finally, she pulled out a stack of thin, multicolored, square sheets. "Found it."

Jungwon recognizes the papers. "Oh that? I got it from Japan. Never really did anything with it, I just found it pretty."

"It's origami paper that you can fold things out of," she brought it to his desk, plucking off a sheet of light blue paper. "I have a bunch of origami paper at home. I usually make animals out of these when I'm bored."

"What animals do you know how to make?"

"A lot, but the most basic one is a traditional paper crane. According to a Japanese legend, if you fold a thousand paper cranes, you will be granted a wish."

"You mean the bird with a long neck?"

She laughs, the noise echoing in his ears repeatedly. "Yes, Jungwon, the bird with a long neck. Now follow what I do." Giselle starts to fold the paper neatly.

Jungwon watches, attempting to mimic the same steps. His fingers clumsily folded the paper messily, lacking the proper hand dexterity.

"Now do an outside reverse fold. This will be the neck of the crane. Bend the wings so it seems stretched out." she demonstrated, holding the paper crane in her palm. "It should look something like this."

Jungwon quirks an eyebrow and raises his creation from the desk. "I don't think mine looks anywhere close to that." he says, revealing the demented crane. Wrinkles were evident all over the bird. Its neck was also way too long.

"Jungwon! Look what you did to the poor bird."

Jungwon smiles cheekily. "Not like it was alive in the first place." he answers.

"Technically it does. Paper comes from trees, which are made of cells. Cells are living things, so therefore, paper was actually alive once upon a time."

He groans. "This is not the time for a science lesson, Giselle." he complains, dodging a swat from her.

"Aish, I'm just saying you're wrong."

"Sureeeeee."

The girl beside him huffed. "Do you want to learn or not?" she demands in a pouting way. Giselle folded her arms, tapping on the floor impatiently. Cute, Jungwon thought, before waving the thought away almost immediately.

Get yourself together, Yang Jungwon. You already have a girlfriend, Sakura! She's your love! You can't hit on Giselle! She's just a friend, Jungwon.

But then, a sickly voice wormed its way through his mind. Had. You had a girlfriend. Not anymore. She's dead, remember?

He shuts his eyes, not noticing the concerned look Giselle looked at him with. "Jungwon? Are you feeling okay? Do you have a fever?" she asks, instinctively putting her small hand on his forehead.

Jungwon's eyes shot open at her touch, recoiling from it. A small smile returns his face. "I'm fine," he assured Giselle.

Realizing what she did, Giselle immediately removed her hand from his face, feeling her face bloom with redness. She panics. "I'm sorry! I'm really, really sorry, Jungwon! I didn't mean to-"

"It's completely fine, I was just spacing out..."

"Sakura, right?"

Jungwon hesitates. "Yes," he answers truthfully, waiting to see her reaction, but Giselle only hums. Wanting for some reason to avoid the awkwardness, he says, "I'm going to get some snacks or something for us." he stands up and turns around, only to be surprised by what his friend said next.

"You know... Sakura and I used to be best friends..."

Jungwon whirls around, surprised. "You were? Then how come I never saw you talking to her in school?"

"We broke our friendship during our first year of highschool before you two dated," Giselle replies, continuing to fold various origami shapes. "We used to hangout at each other's houses every weekend every since 3nd grade and tell each other all our secrets."

"We were inseparable. Sakura was the friend that first accepted me when I came to South Korea from the U.S. When my parents and my little brother, Jiseok, died, she was there for me the whole time." her voice was quiet as she spoke.

"Sakura was practically perfect. She was intelligent, curious, kind, and very pretty. She had many friends in elementary school, but she chose me as her best friend. Why, out of all people, would she choose an American-Korean, quiet kid like me?"

"When we entered high school, we started falling apart. We talked less, didn't hangout as much, and barely saw each other in class. I thought it was just a phase, but everything just... fell apart at once."

"She didn't tell me why. I thought she hated me. I didn't want any confrontations, so I kept silent. Sakura seemed happier without me. She had lots of other friends that she could hangout with. Later on, she dated you."

Giselle leaned towards him, her tone almost barely above a whisper. "I was happy for her, even though we weren't even friends anymore. In middle school, she would be swooning all over you. She had an enormous crush on you. Often, at lunch, she could be found talking admiringly about you. Sometimes, I thought that she was high on caffeine because that wasn't the calm-headed Sakura I knew. She adored everything about you. Sakura admired your grades, your confidence, everything. She loved you a lot, Jungwon, I can vouch for that."

"I never talked to her during your relationship. Neither did I have any contact with her parents until a few months ago, I had received an urgent call from her mother. I was surprised when she told me to come to the hospital."

"I had thought of various theories on why she would call me to the hospital, but I never expected the reason to be my ex-best friend dying on a hospital cot."

"Why does the worst always happen to the best of us, Jungwon?" Her voice cracks with emotion, her hands curling. The origami paper in her hand crumples as she continues. "She told me everything. Sakura told me that she cut ties with me because she didn't want me feeling pity about her condition, she told me that she wanted me to cry no tears when she died, wishing me to be happy. How can she be so selfless? She knew that she was going to die with a weak heart! And like any brave person, she accepted her fate."

"That day, she died peacefully in front of me, but it didn't look like she was sleeping. Sakura seemed just... empty. Hollow. Life would never be the same again."

"I wish it was a dream, that it was only a figment of my imagination but it was all real. I wish she had told me in the end... because then maybe it would've hurt less. I hope she's happy because she deserves everything."

The boy stayed silent as the atmosphere became heavy.

Would they ever move on from their loved ones?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Very bad chapter ;(.