Fantasize E.S

37

Sleeping.

Suicide.

Relying on machine.

Dead.

At the last word crossing his mind, Eric dropped his head low facing the concrete ground. He clenched the fabric covering his chest tightly, which his shirt might be torn.

It seemed like he could never recover from the shock he received. A part of him did hope that this was all the dream that would vanish once he woke up.

But, it wasn't.

The real dream he was having was when he claimed Haneul was with him, when they had gone for a few dates together, and when he took her out to this park where he thought he had confessed to her.

Eric had come back there. To tell himself that this was the reality he had to face. That Haneul was never here, that she had never heard anything of his confession. That he was hallucinating.

However, no matter how many times he told himself that, his head refused to believe. And perhaps, the world had never given its blessing for his love towards her either. Perhaps they had never been destined to be together.

As Eric arrived at the skate park, his feet had been dragging him to the first spot they met before they had roamed around the area. The spot where he first handed the blooming rose which she had fallen in love with.

And that was when Eric's heart once again cracked and eventually shattered. There - on the ground, laid a blooming red rose. A bit wilted by now considering that few days had passed, but he was sure that it was the same rose he intended to give her.

It pained him the most that the reality was: that Haneul had never received it. It was all merely his imagination.

"No!" Eric cried, falling on his knees right in front of the rose. "Why must this happen to us? Why can't we live happily? Why can't I be the one who you can rely on? Why Lee Haneul?!"

He now was looking up at the clear sky, hot tears were rolling down his cheeks. The weather was good today, flocks of birds were happily flying around, singing to their music.

"Are you seeing this Haneul?" he sniffled as he wandered his eyes along the infinite width of the sky. "It is so pretty today. So calm just like y-"

That's it.

That was when the almost faded memory of him had come back to him. The memory of that particular day. The day he went out with Haneul to the flower garden. The day he secretly took a picture of her next to the bush of roses then he lied that he was taking the picture of the sky.

"Please be there."

He was unsure of what he wanted to prove either. But one thing he was sure about: he was dying to let people know that he wasn't hallucinating - if that was even true.

So Eric fished out his phone and opened the gallery and started scrolling. Wiping the remaining tears dampening his cheeks with the back of his palm, he kept scrolling the screen until he found that certain picture. The thumbnail looked perfect, the corner of his lips instantly pulled up, and his hope was blooming as well.

One thing to be learned: it was bad to keep hoping for something unclear.

His smile faded almost instantly once he viewed the picture. Roses and a wide blue sky with cotton clouds hanging everywhere had filled up his screen, except for Lee Haneul. She was nowhere to be seen which meant, she had never been there.

"What is this?" he cried again, this time he tugged his hair off way too hard, hoping that the pain was the reason for the tears wasted.

All these lies he had been living in were suffocating, torturing even. It seemed simple, his friends thought that maybe Eric could've slowly adapted, accepting the fact that Haneul was only his imagination.