〝 It's okay, though. In this life, I'll learn to live without you. 〞
Unspoken words of fondness and affection serve as the worst form of karma when the boy who paints grey skies into red sunsets greets the looming face of death too soon, and Wonshik...
See, this might not seem like a big deal to most of you guys, but this story was short & sort of rushed, so 1k is a huge achievement. I don't want to be sappy, so let me just get to the point.
Do y'all remember the previous chapter, where I was talking about how the ending of this story was fairly unclear and then went on to describe how I'd imagine Jaehwan & Wonshik meeting again in another life? Well, long story short, because of the 1k achievement, I decided to write it out as a sort of special chapter. Okay? Okay. Begin.
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—
The death of a star does not cause the loss of their light; in the same way, the death of a human does not cause the loss of their soul.
Souls are ageless, immortal; they travel and travel until they can find a suitable body, inhabiting it until it is no longer useful, at which point, their search begins again. Souls, much like humans, possess certain personality traits, which are then taken on by the human they decide to inhabit. This was a never-ending cycle.
In Wonshik's case, his death was caused by old age. He had spent the last of his days reminiscing over the distant memories of his beloved Jaehwan. Wonshik and Sanghyuk were still friends, technically, but Sanghyuk was married to Hongbin, they adopted children two years or so into their marriage, and they even had grandchildren. Sure, they were friends, but not nearly as close as they had been when they were younger.
Wonshik was glad that Sanghyuk ended up living so happily. He was sure that Jaehwan would've been glad, too.
Jaehwan's soul was a different case than most others. A typical soul would inhabit a body one after another, usually regardless of the body itself. Jaehwan's soul, however, mourned its separation from Wonshik, and decided against inhabiting another soul for the time being, as that would mean that Wonshik would be far older than the Jaehwan. Instead, Jaehwan's soul waited; for seventy-four years, until Wonshik died, and only then decided to finally inhabit a body, choosing one that looked vaguely similar to Jaehwan.
And the rebirth of the boys into new lives and new bodies brought them into the present day.
—
Wonshik lived a fairly simple new life. His parents had named him Ravi, saying that it seemed like the name of someone who would go on to achieve great things, and the child version of him believed that, but there he was, working the most dull, simplistic office job you could ever imagine, complete with all the normal people who were living versions of stock photos. There was Martha, the suspiciously kind blonde woman who dressed like a respectable business person, who constantly carried a supply of watery work coffee and consistently offered to file things for people. There was Bill, the grumpy bald guy who hated Ravi more than he hated his own life, there was Stewart, the weird guy who seemed to have an obsession with Powerpoints — The list went on.
That particular day was going horrible, and it was only— what?— ten in the morning?
Wonshik normally woke up at around four in the morning, which gave him around two hours to prepare himself, fifteen minutes to eat and buy coffee, and then an hour to actually get to the office. That was an everyday thing.
That day, however, Wonshik had slept in for three extra hours, which meant that he had about fifteen minutes to get to the office, which was an hour drive away in light traffic. And so he skipped breakfast and completely disregarded the fact that he was supposed to make himself presentable, instead hoping that if he left right away, he'd make it in time to only be somewhat late.
Wonshik had lost his car keys, however, and didn't even have the time to look for them, and so he bolted out the door. There was only so fast you could run when every single spot on the sidewalk was taken up by a person, however. That meant that Wonshik looked like an absolute madman trying to run anyway.
In his weird combination of running and speed-walking, he somehow managed to crash into someone who was heading in the opposite direction of him, causing the girl to spill coffee over Wonshik's shirt.
She didn't look apologetic, however, instead just giving a curt not and continued on with her day.
Wonshik would have stayed salty about it, but he supposed that the life of a business person drained the kindness out of them.
He waited for the stoplight to turn green, standing amongst a group of official-looking, well-dressed people wanting to cross the road. There are a few other people standing on the other side of the busy street, almost all of them straight-faced and emotionless, minus the small exception of the frantic, busy, confused, and incredibly familiar boy wearing the big, yellow jacket and the ripped, blue jeans.
Wonshik swears that he knows the boy from somewhere, but he doesn't know where.
The distant memory section in a far part of his brain somehow clicked when he saw the boy, but he didn't know why, nor how he knew the boy, but Wonshik definitely knew that he knew the boy from somewhere.
He didn't remember a name, nor any times they may have met. Wonshik didn't know how he knew him, but he did — which was odd, given the fact that such a brightly-dressed boy stood out so very much in the given monochromatic environment.
The stoplight turns green, and the group of people on either sides begin to take long, fast strides to their destinations.
It was as if the stars lined up, because as Wonshik walked, somewhat dazed from pondering over the boy, the familiar stranger in the bright jacket and dark jeans brushed directly past him, causing him to stop and freeze.
Wonshik turned around in a slow, confused fashion. He watched the stranger retreat to the opposite side of the road, and just when Wonshik thought that the small incident was over, the boy looked over his shoulder and offered a genuine, bright smile.
A sudden flood of colors washed over the monochromatic world of the busy business people and the simplistic lifestyle of Wonshik's daily life, bringing a whole universe of different shades to Wonshik's day rather than just the boy's bright jacket and dark jeans; and it was so familiar, Womshik swore he had felt it all before, but he just didn't know when.
It didn't matter, though.
Watching the stranger until he was out of sight, Wonshik unconsciously grinned.
He didn't know the stranger's name or his personality, he didn't know why the stranger was so familiar, but he did know one thing.
The stranger certainly had a beautiful smile.
— Once again, thank y'all for 1k, it's v v much appreciated. I hope this chapter was good enough? The writing style might be a lot different from the rest of the story, and that's because the rest of the story was written in one day whereas this was written several months later, but I do hope you enjoyed!
