When Tomorrow Comes

For Better, For Worse

It was morning again. Everything seemed so quiet for the first time. I had never been used to that kind of an atmosphere but, I started to look forward to it.

I started living a new life that day... the day I saw Shinwonnie again after all these years. This time, I had no intention of abandoning him. Many a times I had promised to stay with him but this time, I intended to keep that promise. When I saw him again, I was proud of the man he had become. He was handsome, well mannered, great at his work and still that same person from my childhood...

Kind and caring.

The warmth that he had, never changed in him. That is what brought me back from hell every single time. I wasn't even hoping for him to welcome me back into his life... or maybe I was. I have always hated this in myself - always knowing that he won't push me away if I needed him. I took that for granted far too many times and now, I want to live my life returning that favor. It was my turn to give him all that he had lost because of me.

I wanted to see him smile again.

I had never seen him cry that much before. It was painful to see him like that and I didn't want to let him go. I never realized he had such wide shoulders. It was shadowing me the entire time we hugged each other. The tears wouldn't stop and I kept my face buried in them. That feeling of being safe... I missed it so much. But I had to let go of him sooner or later. When I finally looked at his face again, it was all red and eyes were swollen. But when he looked at me and smiled while saying "You look awful hyung", I couldn't help but laugh.

Things were starting to get better.

I still had to think about where to live and what to do and Shinwon didn't really give me much of an option about the first part. We went to have some food after we had both calmed down and when I brought the topic up, he replied saying "You'll stay with me". I had expected him to say that to me but I still didn't want to just barge into his life like that. I wanted to stay close to him, which is what I told him at that time. "I was hoping we could live close but... living together with me might be a proble-" is what I said, but he interrupted me by saying, "Stay with me hyung. I want you to" and I couldn't say anything in return. Deep down I had been waiting to hear those words and looking at his face, it was obvious that he meant what he said.

"Ah... he's all grown up now" is what I thought to myself.

He wasn't even the same person I had met at the hospital... and yet, he still reminded me of that kid calling me 'hyung' all the time. I didn't argue with him about it, because I wanted to do things his way for once. But the next thing he said to me caught me by surprise. Shinwon continued by saying, "Hyung... I'm sorry" and I honestly couldn't find the reason behind him saying that. I was the one who was supposed to apologize to him but when he said those words, I constantly kept going through my head, trying to figure out why he would say that. But he gave me the answer to that question soon enough. "The things I said about your friends... I apologize for my behavior" is what he said... and that left me speechless. I couldn't help but feel horrible about him still remembering that day but... who could blame him.

How could someone forget getting slapped at by a person they care about...

I got reminded about how I didn't even deserve to sit in front of him. But I was done f**king up his life more than I already had. It took me a few seconds but I spoke again saying, "I'm the one who's sorry..." and there was this small pause, where we just looked at each other, after which I said "I shouldn't have hit you like that... I- to this day, I haven't forgiven myself for what I had done to you". I couldn't look him straight in the eye when I said that but later when I looked up at him, he gave this small smile and didn't say anything more. I knew why he did that and I understood that it was the best decision. Shinwon told me later on that, if I needed to talk about anything, even if it included Hyojong and Hyuna... I could always go to him.