LOVE LETTER.

- J

I remember the first time I met you.

Your smile was so bright, radiating sunshine wherever you went. You greeted everyone with a big smile on your face, making everyone's days better.

Including mine.

I remember how I used to see the world in black and white. The same, dull, monochrome colour scheme wherever I went. Everything was boring, and cruel, and colourless — Perhaps, for once, I wished to see the magical swirls of colours in the sunset that my mother's late night fairytales spoke about.

But then I met you, and, with a bright smile, you introduced yourself. And, I never got to tell you this, but it was that very moment, with a smile as bright as sunshine, that you painted colours onto the monochromatic canvas that I lived in.

Turns out that we both ended up in a cooking class. You had always wanted to learn to cook, and I was done with living off of instant noodles. It's odd, isn't it? There's no such thing as a coincidence in my world. Everything happens for a reason.

When I met Sanghyuk, your roommate, I was confused as to why he seemed so stressed. He was a young boy, ambitious and bright; almost as bright as you were. I learned that Sanghyuk was working multiple part time jobs, along with balancing the right amount of studying time into his daily schedule. I used to wonder why he was working so many jobs at once. But, now, I know. No wonder he wanted to become a doctor.

You and I, we became close.

When the day before my birthday came around, you knocked on my door at 11:59 pm, a minute before my birthday, and you shouted, 'Happy birthday!' with the brightest smile on your face when the clock struck 12. And the present you gave me, oh my, it was beautiful. It was a magnificent painting, of you, Sanghyuk and I, and back then, I had no idea you could draw.

When I told you how it was an actual masterpiece, and how you really didn't have to do it for me, you told me that it was necessary. And when I asked you why, you told me, 'Ah... You might need it, so you won't forget me when I'm...' You stopped talking there, but you had a frown on your pretty face.

That was the first time I had ever seen you frown.

And I knew I hated it.

Seeing you sad killed me.