Desperate Witness of a Risen Dead

CHAPTER V

But let’s come back to the winter of 2017. Jiwoo was busier and busier as I said, she could send me a message only every four days by now. Everyday I used to think about her, I used to check KakaoTalk (the app where we used to chat) everytime “Maybe I didn’t receive the notification?” “Maybe I didn’t see the message?”I was always there, obsessed by her, I loved her so much. I remember that I used to listen to some Korean traditional songs when I stated doing taekwondo, in this period I found two ones which were really beautiful, I loved to listen to them when I was thinking about her. One was biikryeonri, a song from a Korean drama called Chuno. I’ve never watched a whole drama and I’ve never seen a scene of this one, but I love the haegeum, it is the Korean version of the more famous erhu, an instrument similar to a violin, often heard in East Asian themed music. I loved the haegeum, I wished to build one. The other song was Gashiri from the Korean movie Spirits Homecoming. I watched the movie, it’s so beautiful, I love to know more about Korean culture and to see how people live in the countryside or in old times.
Between 2017 and 2018 Jiwoo went to Philippines, in Cebu. Even if she was there we couldn’t talk much sadly..
I remember one day I wrote her something, I wrote her that she was a very precious friend to me, that with her I learnt so many things, it required a lot of courage to send that message, it took me time to remove the finger from the sending button of the message, but I sent it and closed my phone, as if I wanted to hide, like a stupid who doesn’t understand he can’t hide.
When she read it she said that what I wrote was so sweet but that it sounded like a farewell.. I told her it wasn’t a farewell at all, just my way to say things probably.
Then one day she asked me if I wanted to play to a game with her all of a sudden. It was a battle royale game for phone, I downloaded it, she was available at that moment, she replied so fast and I was so happy about it. We could have even used the voice tool to talk while playing, but sadly we couldn’t play together because there was an Asian server and an European server, Europeans and Asians couldn’t play together.. I told her that maybe if I made an Asian account I could play, but how? We didn’t play together
When I listened to the sound of haegeum, it was so inspiring, it was so poetic, it made me imagine to be a white tiger waiting for a magpie, it made me imagine to be a Korean haegeum player in the woods, among cherry blossom petals falling on me, in the wind, at night, with the Moon. Jiwoo looked like the Moon, her face was so pale, her hair was black like the sky of the moon, the sparkle in those deep-black eyes were like the stars in the sky. All of this imaginary settings amused me for many days between December 2017 and March 2018, till the day an idea came to my mind. I wanted to write a poem.
I took my pen and a copybook and I started writing:

From the first time I saw you,
I've been dazzled in my soul,
you brought the light of truth in my mind,
the hope of a flourishing future
and an everglow of love in my heart.
I no longer felt the sufferings of hell,
but the pleasures of the seventh sky of heaven
and I used to live finally free
from the ignorance and the foolishness of which I was sick.

Everyday is an immense pleasure to talk with you,
your voice fills my heart
and my whole soul with a pure happiness
that words can't touch
and everyday I wait for you to talk to me again,
I wait for the magpie to sing again
and every night, I sit down and I see you,
your sky, your moon, your stars
and the wind that reminds me how big are the time and the space that separate us.
And when leaves roar under your moonlight,
I start to despair, asking to myself if I will ever see you one day,
but if there is a sure thing, if there will ever be another love after this one,
the light that you left inside me will never expire.
Neither wind nor earthquakes nor eruptions will wipe away what you left me,
a dim light, but eternal, with a power that can't belong to this world,
where everything is dust,
where everything flies away,
where everything ends.

Not even when I'll die it will go away,
because love is immortal,
it unites and creates
and you're the proof of it,
everyday I think of you,
everyday I love you.

I firstly wrote it in Italian to find deep and expressive words and then translated it to English. I wanted to keep that poem as a memory, as something to keep in your secret drawer, in your diary, maybe one day my sons and daughters would find it and be happy to read it, but the day after I told Kamille again that I fell in love with Jiwoo. Before he didn’t understand I loved her that way, for real and I told him about all my worries about that relationship. Fourca had a relationship in 2018’s summer, when he went to England, he met a Thai girl and they hung out together. She was vegetarian and he ate a beef in front of her. He didn’t want to, he didn’t even think about it. When they returned back home, they kept contacting each other and one day, when the girl showed him a pic of herself and he said she was beautiful to make a compliment, she took the chance to say that she liked him and they became a couple. However the distance was killing them, especially her, she wasn’t happy neither when they were together, nor when they we’re apart, even if they called, video called and texted everyday, even if they tried to break up and returned together.. it was no use, it was eternal suffering, a trap, no way, an eternal suffering in a torn heart. He left her forever for her sake, not because of his ego, she was crying everytime, he had to give the final blow, maybe he tried to make it softer with some sweet words, but pain is pain, depression assaulted him…
Would this have happened too if I had been brave enough to tell Jiwoo what my feelings were? Was it right? Was it wrong? The ancient doubt still haunted ny heart like a silent shadow with sharp teeth and sharp blades that shattered me.
But Kamille saw and said: “Bro, if you really love her, it doesn’t matter, don’t worry, you live only once”
That was the sentence, “You live only once”, yeah, that was the sentence that changed my life. It was also the sentence that made many people do so stupid things actually.. but if you take it seriously, yeah, it was very important.
I told Kamille I would have tried to tell her that I love her, but I wasn’t sure I would have been brave enough, I told him it would have maybe took me three days to find the courage, but I found it right the day after! I told her that I had to tell her a thing and then I told her I really fell in love with her. I had that poem in my hands and seeing it, I decided to send it to her to make her understand for real how much do I love her. I didn’t want her to misunderstand, to partly understand, that poem could make her understand totally what my feeling was about.
I waited excitedly for the next day.
About one months or two ago I met a Chinese girl on interpals, her name was Ye Shaojuan but she preferred to be called with her English name Susan. She was 20, from Hainan island, in the very South of China, more South Asian than Chinese. We talked on WeChat a lot, I remember we talked about the movie Call me by your name, which was about the love story between an American cultured man and an Italian Jew boy, they were gay and their love was absolute and beautiful. I didn’t watch the movie yet at the time, but that girl really liked it, she really liked the Italian countryside, the Italian town.. we talked a lot, I remember she acted jealous with me, kinda like Kamille sometimes and I always said sorry because I felt guilty about it everytime, but even if she didn’t stop acting like that, she was so kind because she told me I didn’t have to always say sorry like that.
One day, which was the same day in which I  confessed Jiwoo my love, the gurl came and after a while we talk on WhatsApp she asks me if I want to have a date with her. I didn’t understand what she said, did she really mean if I wanted to be her boyfriend? I replied her but I didn’t know what to say, I asked her what did she mean as if she didn’t mean something romantic at all, I didn’t want to offend or humiliate her. I remember that night I went in the garage and thought about it. I understood that if she fell in love with me everything would make sense, her jealous behaviour, her liking about Italy, the pics with her face she sent me… and her last message.
Everything made sense! It was very probable that it was like that! But what if it wasn’t?
Well the day after when we talked again at a certain point she asked me “Actually you know what I meant yesterday, right?” I was so confused and I was afraid to try to guess, I didn’t want to offend her, what if she wasn’t in love with me? So I asked her and she told me that she liked me. I told her that I thought the day before that she could mean that but that on the same day I had told Jiwoo that I love her.. I was so sad I had to disappoint her like that, I didn’t know what to do at all, I just felt so mean and guilty. She said she was thankful to me for having been sincere and she had even wished us to be happy together, but she said also that if I have a girlfriend it’s not good that I have another girl friend like her. I tried to make her stay, I was so sad about losing a friend, but at the same time, maybe she was right, if she wants to go, I don’t want to humiliate her like this.. I couldn’t force her, I letted her decide. In the end she went away and told me “Bye little boy”. She had always used to call me like that “Little boy”. At that moment I was very sad and I didn’t know how to tell her goodbye. She told me just like Kamille that she hated the fact I was good at goodbyes, but I didn’t know how I could go away in a better way. What I replied was “Bye my friend” it sounds so selfish and I really regret I wrote it, what I really meant is that she was a friend for me, a gift from the sky like everyone else, but it sounded like I didn’t care at all and I made fun of her because I had just friendzoned her. I didn’t mean it..
That’s how it ended, how I behaved, it’s probably one of the worst things I did, I don’t know.. I don’t even remember her birthday,
Maybe one day, like on Christmas or on a Chinese holiday I should greet her..