A Day Without You

My Gift To You

The way we laughed with each other that day, it was like when we were kids. It felt like we went back in time. He had always seemed the same kid to me, even after all those years but I was surprised to see myself like that again. It had a been a while since I laughed because I felt genuine happiness rather than feeling powerful or superior.

I was happy for the right reasons.

Not that I hated laughing at the face of trash who had nothing better to do than to call me out for a s**tty fight during free time. But the smile that was on my face when I was with him, that was the only true thing left in me. It was never forced… it never felt like an obligation. That was how he always made me feel. He was the only string from the past I wanted to hold on to. I couldn’t help but strike up a weird statement saying, “The uniform suits you well”, laughing partly because even I knew what I said was hilarious. I was glad to see he found it equally hilarious.

It had been such a long while, since I was the reason behind his happiness.

There it was… that innocent and confident smile of his, his eyes still as bright and round as always. I was marking every expression of his into my mind, for I thought back then that I wouldn’t be able to see it again for quite a while. But that 'quite a while' became something much longer than that. As we walked towards the bus stop, I could feel some uneasiness on his face. I didn’t pay much attention to it and kept walking along side him. I did think to myself, that he had no reason to make that face that day… things were going pretty well so, I wondered what he was worried about suddenly. Then it suddenly dawned upon me.

It was my bruised up face.

It wasn’t the first time he was seeing me like that and I kept telling myself that this was nothing new. But something different happened that day. As we were about to reach the bus stop, he said “What is happening with you hyung?” and I froze in my place. I have dreaded being asked that question for so long… and it was finally happening. Even though I had thought countless times that the more I stay close to him, more the chances of him wanting to know about everything but I never could prepare an answer to the question. My mind went blank for a few seconds.

“I don’t want him to know… I can’t let him know. I can’t.”

I just kept repeating that in my head. I still don’t know what expression I had at that time, when I turned around to look at him. It was nothing good I suppose because his face was filled with fear and guilt. I could tell how he wished he hadn’t stepped onto this topic. I started speaking again but it felt off. I wasn’t thinking straight but words were coming to my mouth nonetheless. “You never asked this before. Why now?”, I said in a deeper voice than usual, partly because my voice was starting to choke.

I knew what I had done.

I hated myself for making him feel the way he did then. It was hard for me to bear that pained expression on his face. “This isn’t fair to him… stop it… stop”, I kept telling myself over and over again and it made me feel disgusted over myself. I was hurting the same guy I desperately wanted to protect. It seemed like bu****it to me but I couldn’t stop. I saw him struggling to do something to make the situation better and here, I just wanted to run away. Yet again, I blurted out “You don’t need to know. Don’t ask this again”, my voice almost giving out at the end of the sentence. I couldn’t see him like that anymore. I knew that was the worst I had been to him. He had done nothing wrong, I knew that.