WHEN I WAS 15 :: seungjin ✔︎

77

⚠️ cw // main character death ⚠️

but on a super super light note — happy HAPPY HAPPY JISUNG DAY!!! i hope he's enjoying his birthday, and happy early felix day as well :))))

and since y'all are stays im gonna assume you saw ateez's comeback... hELLO DEJA VU'S SECOND VERSE DESTROYED ME?!?!?!

now, on to the sadness—

>>><><<<

When I was seventy-seven, I lost him.

I lost him.

He was gone.

It was in his sleep. It was peaceful. It was painless. It was quick. It was of old age. It was the best that anyone could hope for. It was okay.

I heard it all, and listened to none of it.

It was in his sleep, it was peaceful, it was painless, it was quick, it was of old age, but it wasn't the best that anyone could hope for, because it was the one thing I'd hoped against.

And it was certainly not okay.

I was certainly not okay.

The heartbreak was a physical feeling, a sharp pain—not an ache, but an ongoing spike of agony—that would never dull and never leave me alone, intensifying with every thought of him, puncturing my metaphorical skin, which was already thin and fragile enough to begin with.

Every thought of Seungmin.

Seungmin, who was gone.

Dead.

My husband was dead.

No.

No.

Heartbreak wasn't a stranger to me, but this was heartbreak's uglier sibling, the kind that picked one up as though they were soaked paper and shook them around until all the pieces were in lumpy piles on the floor, gathered the soggy mess, let it dry, burned it, and choked the world in its ashes.

I was drowning. I was burning. I was suffocating in my own head, gasping and gasping but unable to find relief. I was learning that words held power, but not nearly enough, because how could I describe what I felt? How could anyone even begin to describe the labyrinth of grief that I was thrust into, where the only way out was through a barred door that was just about as penetrable as bedrock in survival mode?

There was nothing to do, nothing to say. Days and weeks passed by in a blur, made even blurrier by the tears that never seemed to stop spilling from my eyes.

The only things I could see were memories in my head, the only thing I could hear was the warm timbre of Seungmin's laugher replaying again and again in my mind, the only things I could smell and touch and taste were the things my children forced me to eat so as not to lose me too. And the only thing I could feel aside from grief was guilt, turning me inside out.

Why, instead of mourning one father, were my beautiful kids forced to take care of the second? And Minseo also had Hyunjae to worry about, a teenager as emotionally stable as any. It was a mess in every imaginable way, and the only person who I trusted with organizing messes wasn't there to fix it, because that person was Seungmin, and Seungmin was—

I heaved a sob, turning over in my bed—our bed, half-empty—where I sat as time ticked on, thinking and rethinking everything.

That person was Seungmin.

And Seungmin was dead.

And so went the spiral. Seungmin was dead. Dead. Dead. The word became my life, ironic as it were. There were moments where I, too, wanted to be dead, if only to be with him again. But then I thought of how hard it was for me, and how hard it was for Minseo and Jungwon and Hyunjae and Seungmin's friends and Minseo's husband and Jungwon's wife and all the people in the world whose hearts Seungmin had touched, and I couldn't bring myself not to be there with them.

If I couldn't help myself, I figured, I could try to help them.

Of course, from my position on the bed, unable to work up the motivation to limp against my cane, that was hard to do. The only times I saw people were when they came to me.

As if reading my thoughts, Minseo sent me a text. My phone lit up the dark room, and I saw my wrinkled hands pick it up as though they belonged to someone else. Maybe this was just a really weird dream, and I'd wake up tangled in Seungmin's arms after a sleepover, seventeen again and just at the beginning of my long and incredible journey with him.

'We're on our way,' she'd written. 'We' was Minseo and Hyunjae. On her last visit, she'd informed me that it was time for him to see me. We hadn't seen each other since the funeral, which was one of the hardest-to-attend events of my life.

Hyunjae was thirteen to rival my seventy-seven. The unluckiest number and eleven times the luckiest, and the irony was not lost on my broken self. If there were to be any sort of humor left in me, it would be dark humor. There was no way I could envision myself laughing at normal jokes, not even smiling at them. Laughing or smiling at anything, actually seemed out of the question.

They were on their way. If I wanted to actually start acting upon my earlier to decision to help them if not myself, I had to stand up and be at the door to greet them and let them in.

It was a project to stand, to rise, to move to the door. I opened it after hearing three sharp knocks and embraced my daughter and grandson, trying to hold myself together.

While Minseo unpacked some boxes of food prepared by her husband, Hyunjae and I had the opportunity to speak.

"So, what have you been up to lately?" I croaked, sitting across the table from him.

Hyunjae shifted in his seat and began mumbling—"Baby, speak up!" Minseo called out—before picking up his volume. He told me about school, his friends, a kid he was starting to like, his sports, hobbies, everything. I did my best to stay focused, but I was mostly paying attention to how he gradually became more and more comfortable in my presence, how he gradually became accustomed to my interjected questions.

When they had to leave, I clung to the mindset of not being dependent. As Minseo sent Hyunjae to wait outside for us to have a private moment, she whispered, "Hey, we'll probably be back in a couple more days. Do you want me to let Jungwon know to come over before then?"

I shook my head. "Thank you, Minmin. But I think it's about time I went out of the house and started going to visit you instead."

"Aww, Dad. Alright. We'll be in touch." She leaned in to kiss my cheek and I gave her a final hug before we bade adieu, repeating that we'd see each other soon.

I didn't even realize I was smiling until I saw my reflection in the kitchen, organizing the dishes that'd been dirtied through the visit.