Love is a wild thing, push the boundaries of love and you’ll get burned. That’s what Yoohyeon learnt, if any, of love. It starts off as a small, tiny seed. Unknowingly, that seed, with nourishment, grew fast. Soon, it had sprouted flowers, and its roots had spread far and wide, intertwined with Yoohyeon, forming one.
The flowers were Minji’s bright sunshine smile. The roots was Yoohyeon’s love towards the latter. However, a hurricane raged on and uprooted the plant. However strong the roots were, it can only hold on to what it could reach. The hurricane dragged the plant up, with its roots still caked in soil, and tossed it far, far away.
Yoohyeon lost parts of herself as the roots held on tight to what it could hold. Yoohyeon lost the stars in her eyes when she smiled.
Months passed, and Yoohyeon learnt to build a brick wall to cover her scars. She shoved her once beloved memories into a box, locked it, and hidden it somewhere deep.
She had found a coping mechanism; photography.
It was as if for each picture she took, each snap on the shutter, a new brick had added to her wall. Months passed by, and her wall was now towering high.
She was fine, really. Just that she won’t know what happens when the brick wall comes crumbling down.
Doesn’t want to know what happens. That’s why she focuses on something each day, to add to the almost impenetrable wall that she built to protect herself.
Have you ever lost something, and while looking for it, came across something you once missed but had forgotten about it?
At one point in time, you decided that it wasn’t something you need or require anymore.
Something forgotten.
As if it had never been there until that moment when you found it by surprise. Then, a flash of recognition.
Everyone will have lost things in their life. Some, deliberately put away, waiting to be rediscovered and remembered that they were once part of your life.
Yoohyeon never expected to find the other half of her once beloved chopstick to be hidden under her study table. Once, the pair of chopsticks brought meaning to her life, but not anymore. Yoohyeon just never expected that her towering brick wall would be brought down by a tiny chopstick.
That chopstick released the gates of a wrecking ball, crashing into the brick wall, digging deeper and deeper till it reached the box of memories she had tried so hard to lock away.
A pair of chopsticks is useful. But when separated, they can no longer be used.
It takes two hands to clap.
It’s just like love.
When one side is no longer trying, that’s when everything starts crumbling.
Yoohyeon remembered how Minji once bought her this pair of chopsticks.
“Couple chopsticks”, she once said, “so whenever you look at it you will remember me and not skip your meals.”
Yoohyeon threw away the key to the box she had hidden. However, as time went by, the box became old and worn out.
The wrecking ball broke part of the box, and the memories began to flood her mind.
Yoohyeon remembered how she was genuinely happy with her. Life back then was colored in a rosy pink everyday.
It was until the flames of jealousy came and destroyed the garden she had cared for.
In an attempt to save her beloved plant, she fanned at the flames, trying to keep it at bay, but fire could not be contained for long.
The longer she tried to keep the flames at bay, the more hot and volatile it got. Till all she could do was to conjure a hurricane in hopes to kill the fire.
But all she did was to uproot the plant instead.
After the breakup she initiated, she cleared her whole house of Minji.
All her clothes were returned to her. Framed pictures were taken down and parts of her old life disappeared together with those items.
Soon, it was as if Minji had not existed in the house at all.
Yoohyeon busied herself by clearing the house, rearranging furniture, sweeping the floor, anything, to keep herself busy so that she would not think.
Her harsh words like thorns she had spat in Minji’s face echoing throughout her mind.
Was that the right thing to do?
She did not know. She had acted on impulse, riding the thoughts and feelings till she was too caught up in her thoughts that seemed to run wild in her mind.
She did not pause and think about how Minji would feel.
Maybe she was too sensitive, yes, it would be logical that way.
But love was never meant to be logical.
Love is a wild, uncontrollable thing that changes a person’s thoughts.
With love comes jealousy, and although Minji was attentive, Yoohyeon found the sour pang of jealousy swarming through her whenever the redhead was with others clubbing at the bar downtown.
Was she not enough?
She had tried voicing out her thoughts to Minji once, but was only met with a smile and Minji explaining to her that she was the only one in her eyes.
As if she was a child that needed pacifying.
Yoohyeon was afraid that Minji would find her a nuisance.
Maybe it was the communication that didn’t go two ways that led to the bottling up of feelings, shoving all those unhappy thoughts into a bottle that would bound to break soon.
Soon, Yoohyeon could not swallow down the flames of jealousy anymore. The bottle splintered, and a small crack was all it took to unload all the unhappy thoughts back into her mind.
Thinking back, Yoohyeon felt the heat rising up to her cheeks. She had acted so unreasonable back then. She did not even give Minji a chance to explain and have a heart to heart talk.
After that, she shut herself out, not allowing Minji to come into her walls she tried so hard to build.
Yoohyeon had let her insecurity get the best of her.
After a long way of healing, she arrived to where she is now, thinking that as long as she kept the box safely locked up and buried, she would be fine.
She cannot undo her words, nor does she have the courage to find the redhead to apologise, to quench the burning flames in her heart.
“When you forgive, you free your soul.
But when you say I’m sorry, you free two souls.”
It was this line in the book of poetry Yoohyeon was reading one day that she found and mustered the courage to apologise sincerely from her heart.
To the hurt and pain her insecurity caused the both of them.
To two souls trapped and locked away in the past that never got the chance to roam free.
Later in the evening, she decided. Taking out her phone, she hoped that Minji’s number did not not change.
“Hi, is this Minji?”
“Yes, Yoohyeon, is that you? I’ve been waiting for your calls for a whole year. Did you finally decide to stop ghosting me?”
There was hope in her voice. A tiny, glimmer of hope. But she didn’t dare to hope for more“I- Yes. Can we meet? I…”
“Yoohyeon, are you alright?”
That same concerned voice that Yoohyeon had been dreaming about but did not remember when she woke up.
“ I…”
It’s now or never.
“Minji, I- I’m sorry” she whispered, heart pounding so hard she swore Minji could hear it through the phone.
“I’m sorry”
It was enough. No matter how soft the whisper was, Minji heard it, and it was enough for the smile to reach her eyes. The smile that seemed to light up the darkest nights.
“I’m sorry too, Yooh. Can we start again?” Minji asked across the line, holding her breath till she thought that her lungs would burst.
“I’m sorry, I-I need time”
It was all too sudden, but Minji did not fail to catch the smile in her words. The lightness of her words.
Two souls set free
“It’s okay, I can wait forever.”
Yoohyeon was smiling now, the shine in her eyes back, the stars twinkling in the universe of her irises.