All Your Lies | Yoon Jeonghan

CH 35: Loss

[ Days Seem Sometimes As If They'll Never End ]

Raki wondered if she could go a few years back, would she have done things differently?

If she did, would she have gone to the hospital to see her parents off? Instead of redirecting towards home, would she have been brave enough to watch her parents lie dead while she wouldn't know what to do?

If she went back, would she have not immediately quit school? Not give up on her friends. Not give up on her older brother. Not give up on her life. And not endlessly seclude herself in her room, thoughts too far off and live the same way each day?

Grief was something she found distinctly hard to confront, to come to terms with, to brave. It creates fear out of her. The more she thought about it, the more it just conquers her.

And now that he was leaving too, now that grief was finding its way back to her again, would she do things the same way for the second time?

Despite the amount of regret she had felt towards it?

"Here.", Jeonghan said, his voice all that filled her mind once again. She wanted to make the most out of it, of his voice, of what he says, of the things that from him only for her, afraid that one of it would be the last.

Raki has watched him offer her a share of his umbrella for so many times, but never did he offer to give her one before.

Perhaps she doesn't know, last times are supposed to be like that. Like getting used to something and have it disappear, so quickly you'd begin to doubt if some of it were real.

If it truly happened, you know.

She didn't move an inch, reluctant to take the only umbrella he brought with him. Even as he was leaving, he was being considerate still. "What about you?"

He nudged the umbrella slowly towards her, the easing rain beginning to drench a segment of his back. "I can't leave you without it."

Raki reached for the shaft, the part above where his hand was, shifting the umbrella back to its initial position, the way it should be shared with another. "How come you always have an umbrella with you?"

His smile only ever just make her feel as if standing there at that moment was enough, effortlessly draining her of better judgements, effortlessly piloting her gaze to center on him.

Jeonghan grabbed her other hand, guiding it to replace his own on the handle. For a moment, he didn't let go, and for a moment more, both his hands were still wrapped over hers. "Because you always have none with you."

Raki smiled at him, and for a little while, the world she keeps somehow felt a lot lighter to grasp onto, like it wasn't falling apart nor she wasn't plummeting from it.

Yet, all of a sudden, she was repleted with the fear that it wouldn't always be like that. As if after that little while, her world would become a constant of what it used to be before him.

And before she knew it, without any consideration from time, it was beginning to.

Jeonghan retrieved his hands from holding onto her's, placing them to his sides, and she had never felt him so distant, so far that an earnest reach would not even seem to be enough.

The world fell silent when he offered her a smile, and she returned it, and it was just serene, as if nothing mattered, and it was like that for awhile, only for a short while. "Goodbye, Raki."

Accept it. He was meant to say it. From the moment he decided they should stop, the only thing left for him to say was that; goodbye, and nothing else.