𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 /GXG/

🔸️Can you be mine?

_____________________
AKARI TOKIZAKI
_____________________

[July 19]

''I don't want to see you going out with Sana and Yan ever again,'' I say, and I lie down on the girl's lap who sitting on my bed with her back against the wall and legs stretched out.

I feel a lot of pain in my chest, and lately, nothing has any taste because Ji-hye is dead.

Days ago, it was her funeral.
The pale face, with no blood running through her veins, the closed eyes of someone who would never see the dawn again, the head resting on a white satin fabric. Her hair was combed very straight , and it covered her ears so as not to reveal that it had been mutilated. Flower arrangements of lilies and white roses, her dress was also white like a bride's.

Her countenance was reminiscent of purity. Several family members, colleagues, and others in that funeral procession did not.

Until they closed the coffin and it went down and down, until it touched the damp earth, it were eternal seconds.

The fine rain patted the shiny wood like tears. Wild white roses were thrown into the pit. Since that day, the soft fragrances of that flower remind me of death.

The time to show who is strong and who is weak came when the first shovel of earth fell on the white shelter with a terrible impact.

The screams and sobs of Mrs. Park, who put her hands on her chest and fainted. The umbrella was thrown next to her husband, who held it awkwardly.

Before us, the gravedigger continued his indifference towards others. He would put the shovel in the ground, dig, and send up another batch of dark earth.

Several times that noise bothered me and the golden letters printed on the coffin were no longer readable.

There was my friend Park Ji-hye. And there went the Parks' only daughter, almost 50 years old, they lost their precious jewel.

Another shovelful of dirt fell with a thud, finally onto the carpet of grass that would emerge above.

Rain on the umbrella.

A strong grip on my left hand.

Chae won had watery eyes, and her gaze was lost in something abstract. Perhaps in the wreath of flowers, or in the gray and ominous cement cross before us.

And more crying.

Until everything was covered in a carpet of green grass, my chest heaved.

That is what awaits us at any moment.

Chae won believes in life after death but clings to her beliefs of being in a better place or worse. For her, the spirit does not die.

I believe everything ends. It's like a lit candle. It burns, and the flame goes out, and there is no more fire, and there is no more life.

''What are you thinking?'', she asks softly.

''I'm thinking about her.''

The last time I heard Ji-hye's voice was on that call.

According to Mr. Park, who is a friend of our family, it was still early in the morning when Ji-hye left the apartment in the early hours of the 12th. Street cameras showed her walking with difficulty with her operated leg, and then, in another street, she got into a nearby white car.

When I saw that video of her, I wanted to say: ''Don t get in! Get out of there, you idiot! '' It sticks in my head.

On the same day, a group of young people walking along a trail found her body in the middle of the bush, with her entire body disfigured by knife marks. Next to the place, a used condom and nothing else.