If her emotions were a thunderstorm, then surely, these tears must be the torrential rain.
Dabbing at the relentlessly falling tears as she sat snugly in her spacious first class seat, Se-ri couldn't be more grateful for the privacy.
The plane had only just taken off, so cabin crew remained at their respective stations.
In that space, it was just herself, and her dying heart.
Her engagement ring shone brilliantly in the afternoon sun rays filtering through the A380's windows, a stark reminder of her loss.
She didn't quite know what to do - the last two weeks were pure heaven, but the sudden plunge to hell was torturous.
Apart from crying, Se-ri genuinely did not know what else she could do.
Her fingers were still aching to hold Jeong Hyeok's hand. During moments like this, a warm squeeze of his hand over hers would never fail to make things better.
But now, he was no longer with her.
She could only cry, and cry she did.
Then it started Se-ri on a vicious cycle of crying herself to sleep, before waking up thinking it was a nightmare. She would inevitably cry again when reality sank in, only to be tormented further when well-meaning cabin crew members asked if she needed help.
Surely she did, if someone could actually help tear the border down between the North and the South.
But she knew better than to entertain such thoughts.
Tapping on the in-flight information service, Se-ri saw that three hours had gone by.
At least sleep had been merciful to her.
Drawing a long gulp of chilled water from the complimentary bottle at her seat, her parched throat received some relief. Her eyes were stinging from the earlier persistent crying, and her nose oddly stuffy.
She would take a look at his Instagram account. Already, she missed him to unimaginable levels.
Going by the instructions, Se-ri logged on to the inflight WiFi, before opening up the application to go to TomatoCultivator1402's account.
There were easily a hundred pictures.
She scrolled all the way down to the bottom.
The first picture was of herself sitting at the dressing table, patting moisturizer on her cheeks.
She was back-facing the camera, but Jeong Hyeok had captured her face in the reflection of the mirror. Her hair was tied up in a messy high bun, looking as domestic as can be.
This was Day 1, in the early evening.
"She claims that she doesn't look as good without makeup, but her beauty in this instant took my breath away."
Two teardrops fell before wracking sobs once again shook her frame, causing her to put her phone down on her lap for a moment.
She didn't trust her hands; the unbearable agony rendered her grip useless.
"Ri Jeong Hyeok-ssi, your kindness and love might really just kill me one day."
Drawing shaky breaths to steady her emotions, Se-ri gingerly picked her phone up again.
It was such an irony, knowing that the contents of the Instagram account would send her troubled heart and mind into overdrive, yet being unable to look away from what he had spent effort in creating for her.
It was a picture of her attacking the tarte au citron at the French brasserie Lumière, her lips wearing a contented smile as she ate.
"My picky princess has already taken six mouthfuls of the tarte au citron, half of the tarte tatin, three glasses of white wine, and finished her sautéed monkfish main by the time this photo was taken."
Her lips moved in an involuntary upturn at their edges, though the rest of them remained pursed together in a tight line as she blinked back tears.
Day 2, morning. Embarrassingly, it was a close-up photo of her, still deep in slumber. Her lips were slightly parted, and her slightly wavy hair tumbled over her sleeping features.
"Told you not to drink so much."
She chuckled dryly, as two fat teardrops rolled down her cheeks.
That morning had been a memorable one; it was the first time that they had sex, the day he lost his virginity to her.
The next photo was one of her smiling for the camera somewhere along Rennweg, the medieval main pedestrian road at the Zurich old quarters.
That was the day when they went around the old quarters, doing all the fun, mindless touristy stuff while taking in the gorgeous sights of ancient churches and cobbled streets.
"The most extraordinarily beautiful sight in my otherwise ordinary life."
What he did not know, she quietly thought, was that this smile was possible only because he was by her side.
The next one was of them at Lindenhof hilltop park, holding their hands with the couple rings up, smiling through tears.
Grossmünster Cathedral was in in the background.
"Sometimes I lament our predicament, but times like this remind me that I am the luckiest man on earth."
Excruciating pain gripped her upon seeing Jeong Hyeok's face for the first time since their separation. Se-ri hunched over, before curling up into a fetal position on the seat, sobbing for all she was worth.
This won't do...Jeong Hyeok had obviously thought these Instagram photos and messages would help ease her agony on the way back, but he was wrong.
It didn't seem physically possible for her longing of him to escalate, but every photo only made her miss him more.
This was too hard; too hard to read.
Then she came to the photo of him standing in front of her with the opened ring box at Splendid Piano Bar.
A swipe towards the right revealed a photo of him putting the engagement ring on her finger.
"She said yes. I am quite sure I am the happiest man alive. I will never be able to forget this night."
How could a photo of what counts as the most blissful moment of her life be so excruciatingly painful to lay eyes upon?
Clutching her phone to her chest, the South Korean heiress stopped fighting all attempts in concealing her grief.
What was the point, really?
It was futile.
Silently, turning to face the blue skies outside, she allowed her tears to fall, mourning their ill-fated love.
———————————————
On another flight soaring high in the skies, was another heavy heart painfully shackled by the pain of separation.
The economy seat was always a challenge for someone as tall as himself, but oddly, the discomfort went unnoticed this round. He was only thankful that it wasn't a full flight, and the seats beside him were empty.
His heartache was akin to the music of an orchestra.
At times, his rage and anguish would rise steadily into a crescendo, tearing through the gaping wounds in his broken heart to culminate in a vicious roar of agony.
Sometimes all would be quiet as the orchestra played at piano dynamic, and it allowed him to function.
Certainly, it felt as if his body and soul were strangely disconnected, and his mind was an endless mass of thunderclouds, but at the very least, he could appear functional.
Then sometimes the strings section would traitorously play in the orchestra that was his heartbreak. The hauntingly melancholic melodies would effortlessly reduce him to tears.
Earlier at the departure hall, he had to fight every muscle and fiber in his body to prevent himself from running after Se-ri as she slowly put distance between them.
Jeong Hyeok had half a mind to turn her around and kiss her like what he had done three years ago, when he threw caution to the wind and took that step over the demarcation line.
But he knew better than to act on it. If he had done so, all the resolve that the two of them had so painstakingly built up would crumble into naught.
So he settled for a back hug, breathing in for what would be the last time in the year, the sweet floral fragrance of her silky hair. Se-ri had tried to turn around to meet his eyes, but he couldn't risk that.
No, that would have been too much for both to bear. Those captivating orbs of hers, brimming with tears of agony, would completely obliterate his reluctant acceptance of their parting.
So Jeong Hyeok told her to walk forward without a backward glance.
For every step she took, he could literally feel nausea swirl in his gut while his head battled half-formed regrets. Like a raging fire, the pain of watching her slip away burned off all the energy within him.
Defeated, helpless, listless...that was what he was.
But what else could he do? Just like her, he had put his heart out there, and even if it was to be completely incinerated, it was a conscious choice which both of them had made.
Helplessly, he has stood at the glass dividing them, silently watching as she went away.
Then Se-ri smiled at him, the falsely bright smile which he absolutely detested to see her wear, and she was out of the sight in the next instant.
He knew she wasn't going to be okay.
Neither was he, but he would be alright. She wouldn't be, Jeong Hyeok thought protectively.
A few long minutes after she had vanished from sight, he tried to summon the strength to walk away. The remaining logic within his mind reminded him that he still had a flight at a separate terminal to catch.
But his body wouldn't listen.
The rest of his mind was naively putting out thoughts like, what if she turned back in hopes of catching another glimpse of him and he wasn't there?
Alas, she never did.
Jeong Hyeok couldn't quite decide if he was disappointed that he did not get a another look at Yoon Se-ri, or if he was happy that she stuck to her resolve and made it less painful for the both of them.
Either way, they had to part, and he figured that one less moment of interaction would ultimately be for the better.
Yet he stayed.
Yet he remained standing at the glass, trying to convince himself that Se-ri was bravely moving in the direction of the plane, though a part of his heart yearned for her to come running back into sight.
He quietly stood by the glass, eyes scanning the throngs of unfamiliar faces passing by in the distance, not knowing that she had broken down into a crying heap somewhere within the quiet boundaries of the departure hall's transit area.
Finally, he left when time came to cruelly remind him to move on.
Step by heavy step, he made his way to the separate terminal, to board the plane that would bring him so close, yet so far from her again.
It was a grotesquely painful reality - flying halfway around the world was the only way they could eliminate distance between them.
They were both born on the same piece of land, but back home, the four kilometers of the demilitarized zone proved to be more distant than the 9,000 kilometers between Switzerland and the Korean Peninsula.
The heartache throbbed like a piece of red-hot coal, torturing him with every step he took, with no signs of relief being available.
There was nothing much to do, so he settled for filling in travel document forms.
Unzipping his backpack to retrieve a pen, he saw something that made his heart skip a beat.
Tucked neatly at the side compartment within the bag was a bundle of fifteen letters in envelopes with Hotel Baur Au Lac's name on it.
The first envelope read, "Ri Jeong Hyeok-ssi. Please read this on the plane."
The others simply had "Read in April" and similar lines with the subsequent months written on them.
Se-ri had written him a year's worth of letters.
The two last ones read, "For the boys" and "For the ladies".
With barely concealed eagerness, he opened the first envelope.
"Ri Jeong Hyeok-ssi, you must be safely on the plane as you read this."
In his mental orchestra, the forlorn sound of the violins has faded, and now there was a flute playing, and he was able to remember her with fondness.
"I don't know how we did it, but you must be in a lot of pain right now. I am hurting as well, probably beyond what I have tried to imagine."
"Already I am missing you with every bit of my heart, but I think it will be good if we try to focus on the happy moments in the last two weeks. We have progressed so much as a couple. Thank you for spending all that time with me; I cannot be more grateful for all you've done."
He nodded with his eyes closed; he too, was immensely grateful to her for everything.
"Every moment has been nothing short of bliss. I am truly very happy to receive the engagement ring from you; that surely counts as one of the happiest moments of my life.
From significant milestones like this, to seemingly mundane moments like grocery shopping and having gelato cones together...everything was wonderful."
She was right; the moments between them were never defined by magnitude or material cost, all they needed was to be together.
"I won't be able to send you advanced messages or create an Instagram diary of our shared memories for you, but I can write. For every month from now, until we are back in each other's arms, I hope you'll read one of the letters and know that I am with you."
"Don't worry about me, though I know you surely would. I'll most likely be devastated for the next few days, but I'll be strong. If we can survive three years of uncertainty, one year of waiting is certainly manageable. When we meet, I demand lots of kisses, hugs and loving. For now, you can slowly plan where to bring me to next year in Switzerland."
He smiled, blinking back tears at how she was attempting to cheer him up, even when she must have been hurting.
"Till then, eat well, sleep well, live well and work hard. Remember to visit your parents, and spend quality time with the boys. Please send everyone my regards.
I will also work on myself. Somehow. When we run into each other again, I will try to be a better version of myself, I promise.
I will miss you, Ri Jeong Hyeok-ssi. I love you so much. So very, very much.
With love, Se-ri."
Jeong Hyeok drew a long, shuddering breath.
He tried to fight the renewed onslaught of tears, but it wasn't working. Not when he was missing her so badly.
Folding the letter up, he held it to his chest, pressing it snugly against his heart as he watched the clouds go by in a watery blur.