I Always Come Back for You

Chapter 8. The Letter

I tidy up my desk, gather my notes and get out of the building. I plan to go to Hyung since he didn't pick up my calls today. I get it. He needs time to get his thoughts together to come up with a solution to fulfill the vague request of Nam Il's wanderer soul but I'm running out of time here so I need to pressure him just a little bit. I feel relentless and on the edge all day. I miss that asshole Dae Sung, and that's not normal since I've never met him in real life and I have never harbored this strong desire toward any man. The hole in my heart that doesn't get filled is getting deeper and no amount of work can distract me from it. Now that Nam Il has made his wish to be in touch with the jerk clear he is pestering me inwardly to find a way to see the guy but I don't know how to meet that dire need and to make this destructive longing vanish. Calm down! I don't know a way to see a famous actor. I'm not sure how to do it. Stop tormenting me. I can't possibly miss a man this damn much because simply you want me to. It's scary and that's all a better reason to stay away from Dae Sung to prevent a disaster in advance. When I'm finally at the entrance of the company I stop. I don't have the entry card so I have to wait for Hyung to show up. Coming here is not easy, I have awful memories of being here as Nam Il; being humiliated and degraded every single time I stepped inside this damn building. I felt the worst here so now coming here sounds like a masochistic tendency to remind myself that why it's better that I don't have to come here anymore. I walk around the building to the parking lot entrance to get away from the haunting memories. That's when I see the classic black Chevy coming out of the building. I know that car is better than any car in this world. Only one person has a taste for nostalgia and elegant classic to have a car like that and I've seen him in that car a thousand times. And there is a memory rush attacking me with full power and knocking me over.

**

I must be crazy, coming to his house at this hour. I've gone officially insane. I checked to see if his black 1980 Chevy Malibu is parked on the side of the street. He usually doesn't park it in the parking lot of his complex since the gates get closed by midnight and sometimes that he comes home later than that he doesn't bother to open the gate. I have to go back since I can't possibly tell him what I came here to tell. I imagined it a hundred times, me knocking, him opening, and then what? What should I say? ' Sunbae! I'm in love with you so much that it hurts?' He is gonna slam the door in my face for sure. Or maybe worse. His girlfriend is probably over for a romantic dinner and sleepover. What would I do if she slaps me for confessing disgusting things to her boyfriend? They don't know that I'm not trying to gain anything from confessing my love. They wouldn't know I'd come at this ungodly hour to say my goodbye and to see him for one last time. No. No. I can't go there and say unnecessary things to him. What if he hated me even more? How can I leave the world with his burdening hatred? I'm already in so much pain. He wouldn't care even if he heard the news of me being found dead since we weren't that close in his eyes. That's a pity. I wanted him to know me better. I'm so stupid. I turn back toward the taxi waiting for me. 

"Drive" 

It snowed last night and now the streets are covered with whiteness. Passing by streetlights gives me warm dizziness. A snowflake dances down and sits on the window and I get the urge to run. 

"Stop the car." 

I get out of the car after paying and stare at the snow dropping on the streetlights and my face gets a funny feeling by the touch of stray flakes melting on my skin. Then I'm running towards the light. Or the direction that I think it's towards the source of it. There is absolute darkness, pitch black covering the whole way ahead of me. The only thing that lets me see is the red light coming from straight ahead of me and I'm running to it. When I get closer, it more looks like a big projector and less like a streetlight. Like one of those that lighten the stage and create a spotlight that embraces you like a bubble. Like a mother's womb. I stare at the intense brightness blinding me and can hear the crowd shouting my name in unison coming from somewhere out of sight but clear enough to be sure that is my name being called by a thousand people over and over. Thunder! They are looking for me. They want me to show up so the auditorium gets exploded with the excited roar of the mass chanting the words I wrote clapping and stomping hard enough to make an earthquake. They are seeking me the same way I seek myself. The way I look for myself when I stare at the mirror looking for the answer to the same question" Which one is me? The one staring back at me in the mirror or the one in my head trapped in this body?" I lie down on the ground facing the sky with the white cotton flakes caressing my face. I have never felt any smaller. I should end this madness.