THE BOYZ Imagines and Reactions

Saudade: The Love That Remains ( Eric )

How long has it been seen you have been to your hometown? 2 years it was.
After your high school you went to Seoul for college and then that was it. No contacts from old friends, teachers or relatives. As if the world changed into another virtual world.

Now you were back to where you had begun. And most importantly you met your best friend, Son Youngjae. You two decided to go visit your old school where your precious memories were trapped. He was looking at the school gate and you were looking at him. It seemed unreal. Five years ago you two stopped contacting and then all of a sudden a email comes to you. It was Youngjae. And that's it. You decided to meet him after so much longing. So here you were right beside him.

Although it was awkward, but gradually the atmosphere started to be more calm and friendly. You two entered the school through the gate and gazed at the new buildings beside the old one and the chnaged colours of the walls. There were gardens but with less flowers because of the children. A new football ground could be seen in between. You two stared at it in awe and surprise. You entered the front corridor and smell in the aroma of school remembering bits of memories of running through these paths, books in backpacks, chit-chatting of students, closing of desks and lockers and laughs of early birds.

"Seems like it was yesterday only"

He was right. Maybe the infrastructure changed but not the happiness lingering in these walls. They were trapped and were happy to be opened up again like books. We were exploring the corridor full of lockers trying to find our's. I stopped infront of one having a sticker on it, i still remember. It had my initials printed on it. It was unclear but mine, i knew it.

"This was mine..."

Youngjae looked at you and came towards you. He looked at the locker and said," There used to be a pic of us put up here from our first picnic". I looked at him who was now lost in his thoughts. A smile grew up on my lips as I refilled my brain with the memories of our first picnic together. We were eight when we were taken to a uphill garden where I got friends with our new student in my class. He was shy and never talked to someone and only shaked his head to say yes or no. I was a girl full of words. I followed him going alone up the hill when he fell down and bruised his arm. I ran up to him and held him up. He was crying trying to find his mom. Maybe i was a lot maturer than him that i managed to calm him down by my lame jokes to which only he could laugh. I was happy that someone found me funny. We talked there for a while and made promises to eachother to be always together and never leave this friendship.

"And this one was mine..."

He pointed towards his locker which was two lockers right from mine. I starred at the blue locker which used to be full of pictures of different places. New Zealand, India, Japan, Newyork, Amazon forest, Canada, Austrailia. He wanted to be a travel vlogger. I never got bored of his stories of his experiences of holidays in abroad. We were opposite now that i see. He wanted to travel to every bits of this world to not regret leaving anything behind and me? I didn't want to regret missing the moments with my family, friends and my country. His world was bigger than mine. I was someone to enjoy what's right infront of me. And so we did. He went to different places after he got called from a company and I worked as a doctor in Seoul. He didn't care about other's feelings or lives much. And so i thought he didn't care about me as well.....

"That was the place you had your first kiss..."

It was more of a sad comment than an excited one. I looked at the place just right beneath the stairs to our Art room. It was a rainy day when that one boy didn't have an umbrella and we had to share mine. He was a scholar in other section. We were walking when he stopped me in the tracks to confess to me. We started dating since then. Youngjae saw us that day and wouldn't stop talking about it in the class.