T/N: Thank you to Tommykater2.0 and Revenant for the kofi! <3 [Bonus 1 of 2]
Hyunseung had once thought about what “love” is.
What is it, exactly, that people take the theme of love and turn it into songs or movies or dramas?
From the start, isn’t “love” something you cannot see with your eyes, hold in your hands, or taste on your tongue?
Moreover, some scientists say the moment you fall in love is nothing more than a chemical reaction.
After all sorts of thoughts, the answer Hyunseung arrived at was, “There is no such thing as love.” At least in his previous life, that was true.
So he worked himself to death.
A guy without even a decent home, with nothing in his pockets, had no time to be toyed with by such chemical reactions.
A guy who had to feed a sick father and a little sister, how could he afford such leisure?
He scolded and suppressed himself.
And yet as the memories rose again, Hyunseung slipped helplessly back into the past.
.
.
.
Unlike now, in his previous life Hyunseung idled away his time at home like a loafer after finishing his military service.
He had neither certifications nor a major, so he could not even dream of a decent job.
Staying home all the time felt awkward, so in the evenings when his father got off work and came home, he would go to a park quite a distance away and walk until late at night before returning.
There, he met a girl.
“Oh? You came out today too!”
If he went to the park around sunset, she would run up as if she had been waiting and greet him.
No matter how many times he ignored her, she kept talking to him again and again.
“Keep it down.”
“Oh? He talked!”
“Do you not have friends?”
“I do have friends!”
He wanted to think quietly by himself, but she chattered endlessly.
“Then why do you keep pestering me?”
“Because you are my friend!”
“How am I your friend?”
“If we talk, we become friends!”
At first he thought she was a really strange kid. Either that, or someone in a situation similar to his own.
So thinking she must be really bored to be like that, he exchanged a few words, and before he knew it they were walking side by side.
“But what’s your name?”
“Min Hyunseung.”
“Aren’t you going to ask my name?”
“What is it?”
“… reya!”
What was that name again?
He definitely heard it.
But he never called her by name afterward, so the memory grew faint.
“Then how old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Gasp, t-twenty-three?”
Ah, come to think of it now, I never heard how old she was.
“You’re younger than me, right?”
“W-who knows?”
“Then why do you keep talking informally to me?”
“Because we’re friends!”
Looking at that face as she glossed over it with a breezy laugh, he thinks he briefly thought she was pretty.
Very briefly.
Then one day, the girl stopped coming to the park for a while.
Without the kid who kept pestering him, he had time to calmly think about his future, so he thought it was actually good.
He definitely thought so, but he kept hearing the girl’s voice by his ear. At those times, like a fool, he would glance around.
It was not that he was especially waiting for her.
Even when a dog you raise goes missing, you feel a sense of emptiness.
Even so, they say people adapt, and as he grew accustomed to walking alone while listening to music, it happened.
“… seung! … Hyunseung! Min Hyunseung!”
Through his earphones, he heard a familiar voice.
“Why do you walk so fast!”
“What is it?”
“What do you mean what? It’s your friend … reji!”
Just as he was getting used to being alone, that girl suddenly caught up to his steps and smiled.
Seeing a smile more beautiful than the sunset coloring the sky, a sudden anger welled up.
“Hey, why do you always smile for no reason?”
“Smiling is a good thing!”
“There’s nothing good going on, but you keep grinning.”
He could have just asked if something had happened, why she had not come to the park for a while.
Afraid it would be obvious that he had worried, he acted contrary.
“Hmm…”
To him, who could not confess a single honest thought, the girl answered with a smile like a wildflower blooming in early summer.
“When I smile, good things happen. More than anything, since I got to meet you again today, it is true that something good is happening.”
From that day, before going to the park, Hyunseung got into the habit of looking in the mirror. Well, not that he particularly fussed over himself.
He just started applying a bit of skin lotion he never used.
“Ah, Min Hyunseung, stop stealing my skin toner and putting it on!”
Of course, he was secretly taking his little sister’s toner.
The seasons changed like that.
Though they never made any promises, when evening came they naturally went to the park and walked together.
“Min Hyunseung, hand!”
“Ah, stop doing that. Am I a dog?”
All they knew about each other was their names and ages, but at some point they naturally began holding hands.
When he walked holding that girl’s hand and looked at her smiling face, he did not worry about the future, and that was nice.
However, those days did not last long.
“Oh, Mom!”
The moment they ran into the girl’s mother, Hyunseung instinctively let go of her hand.
Somehow, it felt like that was what he had to do.
“I kept wondering where you were going every evening, and you’re dating now? And with a guy like that, no less.”
The girl’s mother looked him up and down and snorted.
Well, it was understandable.
He wore a stretched-out T-shirt, sweatpants, and slippers.
“Mom, it’s not like that, he’s just a friend.”
“Enough. Didn’t I say you absolutely have to get into med school this time? Do you not know it will be a big problem if your father finds out.”
The girl glanced at him as if she had committed a crime, but only for a moment.
“Let’s go home and talk.”
She immediately took her mother’s hand and got into a luxury imported car.
Probably because she was worried the trouble would splash onto him.
“Ah…”
Hyunseung stood there blankly, and then let out a sigh.
What have I been doing all this time? This is not the time to be doing this. I must have lost my mind for a bit.
From that day, he stopped heading to the park. Instead, he went out to do day labor. Thanks to that, he contributed to living expenses, and since the work was hard, he could fall asleep without stray thoughts.
A week passed like that, then a month, then half a year flew by.
On a day he decided to finally rest.
Not wanting to spend time at home, he wandered wherever his feet took him, and before he knew it, he had arrived at the park.
It is still daytime with the sun up, so she will not be here.
Trudge, trudge.
Following the path he always walked, Hyunseung walked through the park.
Only then did he realize once again.
That girl was someone who did not suit him anyway.
Judging from the appearance of that person called the girl’s mother, the kind of conversations they had, the imported car she got into…
Unlike him, she was certainly a daughter raised dearly in a wealthy home.
In other words, a person living in a different world from him.
Trudge, trudge.
Only when the sun was about to sink low did Hyunseung turn back. He did have a faint hope.
But he knew all too well he had to put that hope away now, so he hastened his steps.
“… seung! … Hyunseung! Min Hyunseung!”
Again, through his earphones, a familiar voice came in. He thought it must be an auditory hallucination and widened his stride.
“Huff, huff, why do you walk so fast.”
But it was not a hallucination, as the girl, her hair about a palm longer, swished as she grabbed his wrist.
“You… what is this?”
“That is my line. Why have you not come all this time?”
“What?”
“I waited so much. Why did you not come even once?”
The girl questioned him with a face that looked like she would cry at any moment.
“Why are you waiting for me?”
“Because we are friends.”
“Friends? That was just something you decided on your own.”
“Is it because of that day? I will apologize for that in her place…”
At last the tears hanging at the corners of the girl’s eyes slid down her cheeks.
He wanted to wipe them, but he could not.
“I do not intend to be friends with you, so do not act like you know me anymore.”
Hearing that he had been waited for, he pushed her away more harshly and coldly, then fled the park.
Yes.
They could not be friends anymore. What “friends”?
After that day, Hyunseung did not go to the park even once. Instead, when he was not working, he listened to music.
When he listened to music, it was nice that he could think of nothing at all.
As the years went by, one day by chance Hyunseung ended up making what you call a song himself.
It was simply something that branched out from a hobby, but it became his work. From that day, he worked like a madman.
He chased only the greed called “wealth.”
He had two family members to support, so he had no time to let a woman into his heart.
Living like that, going back through time, the memories had no strength and were only forgotten.
Yes, until just a little while ago he had thought that way.
One day… As always, when a musical idea came, he made a song, he sang the song, and when he was about to give that song a name.
“After the flower…”
“Is it a flower?”
“Yeah, flower.”
“Uh, you just spoke informally…”
“I did not.”
The face he had long forgotten came dimly to mind.
“Only after the flower has fallen.”
However, he thought memories were just pieces of recollection.
Anyhow, they were no more than shards.
“But then…”
The moment he saw the woman’s face, the shards gathered and became whole.
“Then could you at least pass along this note for me?”
The voice that clung to his side and pestered him.
“Tell them it is Red Thread Coordinator, Jo Narae, and they will know.”
It was a name he had never called even once.
“I am so sorry to bother you like this. But this is really so important, so please, I beg you.”
A smile that scattered like wild grass in early summer.
All the memories…
No, all the recollections gathered at once.
Trudge, trudge.
But this time too, Hyunseung walked the other way. Widening his stride even more, he hurried without stopping, as if fleeing, all the way back to his studio.
“You came back fast.”
When he opened the studio door, Kim Woohyun, immersed in a song, raised his hand.
“Did you handle the Red Thread coordinator well?”
But Hyunseung could not answer at all.
Because right then, from Kim Woohyun’s phone “Only After the Flowers Have Fallen” was playing.
“The flower, of course it withers, does it not?”
The one flower that had bloomed brightly once in Hyunseung’s life withered like that.
“I will cry enough for your share too, so please, you go smiling.”
Why do flowers wither so quickly?
Even so… Only when the flower withers can you wait for the flower that will bloom again the next year.
“Geumdong, did something happen to you? Why is your face so dark?”
Hyunseung shook his head left and right at Kim Woohyun, who held onto him and asked in concern.
“No, nothing happened.”
Yes.
The flower of my previous life has withered, but since I confirmed it is blooming prettily again in this life, that is enough.
T/N: My heart aches… I was listening to this video while editing and I wanted to shed tears for HS. Aahhh
Park Jeong-un <On Nights Like Tonight>
I can’t tell you how much I miss you
I can’t bear this loneliness any longer
Whenever the dark night comes
I’d softly call your nameWhen I close my eyes, it feels like I’m by your side
But I can’t feel your breath
This empty space weighs heavily upon me
Leading me into endless wanderingEven if I grow weary in this long wait,
Don’t shed tears thinking you’re lonely.
Someday, holding both your hands,
We’ll walk together.On nights like tonight,
Holding you close in my arms,
In time that stands still,
I want to stay with you forever.
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