The blanket rustled as the young man rolled over in his bed. He was trying to fall asleep since multiple hours, without success. His thoughts were flying around the room, even though he tried to catch them and lock them away but it just would not work. Groaning, he sat up and reached out for his water bottle. While he opened the screw top, he looked around. Thanks to the moon, that shined through the open balcony door into the room, Taehyung could identify vague shadows. He detected pieces of furniture, a few plants, some dirty laundry. One ray of moonlight, however, meets a silver picture frame which twinkled and sparkled because of that. He knew which picture it was.

Since he could not sleep anyway, he decided to get up instead. He swayed his legs out of his bed which caused the old wooden frame to creak, forgetting that he wanted to drink. His feet became cold as they touched the unheated wooden floor but he did not care. He approached the little book shelf on which the picture frame was located and took it in his hand. A gentle, sorrowful smile appeared on his lips while his thumb stroked the picture. "Hello, Dad," he whispered. "You also can't sleep?" Of course, he did not get a reply but he did not mind. Too much he was pleased by the look of his father on this photograph. Nearly every evening he looks at it, thought about him, missed him. "I miss you," he enunciated the obvious. He could feel how tears began to fill his eyes, he tried to blink them away – with success.

He slowly and deeply breathed in before making his way back to his bed. He sat down cross-legged and again stared at the picture again. "I miss you, Dad," he repeats. Then he finally takes a big sip from his water while only the moon which still was high in the sky was watching him. "I wish I could see you again," Taehyung says quietly and strokes the picture again. "I wish, I could hug you again, hear your laugh again, bake your favourite cake with you again." He sighs shaken. "Every year on your birthday I bake this cake. It's always so hard to find strawberries in winter but until now I always made it. Previously, Mum always helped me, we did cry and laugh while baking it. Eonjin an Jeonggyu didn't understand it in the beginning."

Taehyung looked outside through his big windows, watched the moon in his beauty upon the sky. "They were so little when you died, they don't really remember you. Sometimes– Sometimes I wish I also wouldn't remember how it was to be in your arms and annoy you while you were doing your crosswords. Maybe it wouldn't hurt as much, what do you think?" The young adult looked at the picture again. "I'll give my everything if only I could see you again and talk to you again," he whispers and a big, wet tear drops on the framed picture which showed him in the arms of his father. It had been the day when Taehyung finished school, the last day that his father had a smile this huge on his lips. Suddenly sobs convulsed his body.

It seemed as if the moon shined even brighter than he did before, as if he tried to comfort Taehyung. The young man shut his eyes and pressed the frame against his chest roughly while even more tears fled his cheeks. It was some time ago that he had cried over his father as bitterly as that night. And it felt good– It was so unbelievable liberating to let these tears be just tears. He did not notice that that the atmosphere began to change while he was sitting there, tearful, thinking about his father; it got warmer, brighter, his curtains flutter even though there was no single breeze. He had his eyes closed but felt something on his shoulder.

He only was startled to a minimum, touched his own shoulder. "Dad?" he whispered, a gentle smile on his lips, while he caressed the shoulder. He felt salvaged, as if his father really was with him. Back then every time he had been sad, when his body was shaken from sobs like right now– tis was the time his father had entered his room, embraced him. "Dad, if you are anywhere out there, I love you, I miss you," said Taehyung in a low voice, wiped the tears off his face. "Me too, Taehyung, me too," Taehyung heard his father's deep voice he inherited. Taehyung smiled, now he even could hear his voice. But maybe, maybe this all was a dream, then his father theoretically could be really there, right? In your dreams, everything is possible, is it not?

The young Korean lifted up his head and looked around his room. And then he saw him. "Dad!" Taehyung breathed and widened his eyes as his father smiled softly. "Taehyung," he said and made some steps. "You've grown into such a beautiful and talented young man," he whispered as he sat across the end of the bed. The addressed had his mouth opened widely, looked at the picture in his hands, then at the man in front of him. His father was sitting in the direct way of moonlight, he seemed to be shimmering. Taehyung beheld the moon with the feeling this one smiled at him, before looking into his father's eyes again. The eyes that meant so incredible much to him. The eyes that have woken him up in the morning, that watched him at night until he had fallen asleep. The eyes that were so much full of love and affection that anyone could see how much Kim Joohyuk loved his son.

Taehyung put the picture aside gently, reached out to his father with his finger. He did the same, their own way to communicate. Whenever these two had a fight and Taehyung was not sincere about his father's love anymore, when he was not sure if he had forgiven him already, he reached out for his father's hand. A tingle went through the body of the 23-years old when he finally could feel the skin of his father. "Dad," he whispered in disbelief and widened his eyes again. He crawled over his bed, was entangled in his bedsheets for a moment, and fell into his father's arms. "I missed you so much," Taehyung sobbed and pressed his face against his father's shoulder who in turn put his arms around the delicate body tightly. "Me too, my son," he answered and leaned his head against his son's. For a while not anybody said anything to any whom. One could only hear the soft ticking of the clock and the quiet sobs of Taehyung who was sitting on his father's lap.

"Taehyung, don't cry," whispered his father what made the younger lift his head. "But Dad–" his father put a finger on his mouth and smiled gently. "You still disobey this old man?" Taehyung had to giggle a little and let him speak. "Taehyung, you've become such an amazing human, you've been a child prodigy all along but you haven't evolved better." Joohyuk looked over the room. "I see, you have never given up on your dream to become an artist, that makes me happy, my boy. I remember the cute stick figure drawings that you brought along for me from kindergarten. In primary school the hand-made artworks started, later the painted canvases. I can't even count how oft I argued with your mother because I allowed you to draw on the wooden desk in the living room again– while I forgot the underlay," he laughed a bit, looked at Taehyung with pure love in his eyes. "And every time you quit the quarrel through pressing one of your beauteous play of colours into our hands."

Taehyung himself must smile as he thought about it. He took the hand of his father and began to draw circles onto his palm, like he has always done so when he had been nervous, whether when he got his first ear piercing or when the diagnosis of his mother was told. "At one point you then started to give me com missioned work and I had to make artworks for every relative for their birthday," he remembers. "And every single one of them hang them up," Joohyuk adds. "You've been an artist even then." Both of them were quiet for a while, pondered their thoughts. So much was going on in Taehyung head– So much, that he could not structure them, could not form any questions he would like to ask. His father sighed. "If I had the chance to live again, I would give you so much more, my son." The addressed lifted his head immediately and stared at his father's face in disbelief. He was about to say something when his father continued to speak. He knew he would not have much time left.

"I would do so much differently. I would walk every path of your life down with you again. I would cry with you, laugh, sing your first song with you, read a fairy tale for bedtime." Taehyung quietly listened to his father, put his arms tight around him, his cheek touched his father's shoulder. "I would comfort you more often, would quench your longing. You've always been so enormously hurt when I wasn't there for a longer time, your mother called me and told me about it. Yet you still forgave me every time and you greeted me with a kiss and a smile when I finally had come back home."

Joohyuk started to draw circles on his son's back. "And I couldn't ever resist you. No matter what you've wished for, a new car toy, a walk, or your favourite dessert. If I lived again, I probably also would be more sternly sometimes, even though it would break my heart," he continued. "I still eat pizza every Friday night and as dessert I'll do the Mousse au Chocolat after Granny's recipe," avouched Taehyung smiling and cuddled more. "Friday night was the highlight of the week because you've always come to dinner, not matter how much work you had to do." Joohyuk also smiled and close his eyes. He drew a picture of an 8-year-old, a 10-year-old, a 15-year-old Taehyung in his head, who waited with the same beaming eyes like on any other Friday night and embraced his dear father. And sometimes when he was later than usual, his son directly pulled him in the direction of the dining table. "And on Saturday we always played games since you oftentimes had to leave on Sunday already," Taehyung remembered. "I would love to see the first wonders of your life with you; your first time in the zoo where you looked at the giraffes with giant pupils, when you've eaten your first burger, your enchanted glance when you've had Yeontan the puppy on your arms for the first time."

Both men smiled in synchronisation and remembered that situation, Taehyung's 12th birthday. He had wanted a pet for so long, did spot the little Yeontan as he went to the park with his parents. His owner watched him play with him for almost the entire day, it did break her heart when he nearly cried because he had to leave. And only a few weeks later Yeontan moved in with him– one of the most beautiful moments ins Taehyung's life, even though Yeontan did not live with him anymore since he stayed with Taehyung's mother and siblings as he moved out at the age of 19. "And the spaceship-games! I surely would want to go to unknown worlds, conquer them together with you. Arrest your mother, tie her to the tree and the brave price Kim Taehyung frees the queen of her situation, poses the criminal; but he forgives him because he was bribed with ice cream." Taehyung laughed. "After all it was lemon flavoured, even a prince couldn't have said no," he explains himself.

They both smiled at each other, it was familiar. However, Joohyuks expression fell quickly, mournful he looks into the eyes of his son. "But regrettably, this realisation is coming way too late for me," he said quietly, putting his rough hand against Taehyungs soft cheek, just as he did when he was little. Taehyung leaned against it, closed his eyes, and swallowed his tears again. "In my life itself I don't regret anything, no matter I've done. I never lost my reputation, always acted upright and proud," he explains, then sighs and kisses Taehyung's forehead softly. "But thing I can't and won't ever forgive myself; I left you alone too often– I didn't have time for you." Now there were not only tears rolling over Taehyungs cheek but also his father had to suffer. Taehyung's heart ached because all of this just felt like a massive goodbye, but he did not want to let his father go– lose him again.

"I wanted to live longer, what would I sacrifice for that today..." his father said quietly and wiped away Taehyung's tears with his thumb. "But my time was over and you simply can't buy time." Taehyung snivelled about the thought of his father's death day, pressed his head against Joohyuk's chest who laid his chin on his son's crest after kissing his forehead again. The car crash back then was the reason, why Taehyung did swear himself to never get into a car again. The fear was too big. Fear of the emotions that overtaxed him, fear of his own accident, fear of also leaving his family so untimely. The grief that he still felt echoing in his heart still was too present, the grief that would never give in.

"I love you, Taehyung," whispered his father. "And in spite of everything that could have been better, I am thankful for and happy about the time we had together. Did your mother ever tell that you've been the reason for her to be healed?" Taehyung slowly lifted up his head, shook it lightly. He remembered how confused he had been when the doctors told the family that Kim Youngae defeated cancer. With his 13 years he did not understand how this could have been possible; you have cancer, you die– right? Yet he still was happy about it and therefor assumed she had been granted a guardian angel, told her so. His mother always did smile and caressed his head, did tell him, he would be correct in his assumption. "She did have a guardian angel and it was you, my son," Joohyuk explained. "She did see how much it affected you, that was her trigger; but the hours of attention you've given to her were her medicine. You did spend hours at her side in the hospital bed and told her stories about your school when she had to stay there for a while. You did learn how to cook Kimchi to take over this work for her. You did draw pictures for her, of you and of you too. And when she was sad you didn't use your fingers for drawing for once but for raising the angles of her mouth."

Taehyung did not even remember in such detail but it made him happy and proud to hear that from his father. And his father was proud of Taehyung's pure existence. His two siblings still were quite young, eight and five, when their father passed away, don't remember him. Even though Eonjin sometimes did have a little picture in her head when she tried hard, Taehyung knew that. Both of them were quiet again. "It feels so real even though it can't be," mumbled Taehyung, not being able to put a finger on what this situation was. "Is all of this a dream? Am I just imagining all of this?" he asked his father. "Well that belongs," he replied. "To what?" "Are dreams real?" Taehyung was speechless for a moment. "You mean–" His father nodded. "I am here, my son. I may not be alive anymore but the face in the moon took care of me and has given me the chance to meet my beloved son again."

Both men turned their head to the moon which seemed to glow even brighter for a moment. "But I don't have much time left, my dear boy, I have to go back." Taehyung started to cry again. "I don't want you to leave, Dad! Stay with me. Or– or take me with you!" he howled and pressed against his father's body. Both of them knew that he did not mean it like that, he would never leave his life like this. But he just could not handle the thought of losing his beloved father again. Joohyuk stroked his son's back and embedded his face in his hair. "You know, I'll always be there," he said quietly and Taehyung sobbed again, knew this quote. His father said this all the times he had to leave for a longer time. "Deep down in your wonderous heart which always is in the correct position." Joohyuk stopped stroking Taehyung when he realised the time of saying goodbye is coming.

Immediately Taehyung lifts up his head. "You, you're leaving already?" he asked in a whiney tone, his eyes red and swollen, his nose running. "I have to, you know that," his father answered sadly. Taehyung nodded; he has known it all along. "Will you stay until I've fallen asleep?" he asked his father who smiled directly. "Shall I read out a fairy tale?" Taehyung laughs a little. "Just be there," he breathed before scuttling back. His father put the blanket over his body and kissed his forehead. "Sleep well, my boy," smiled Joohyuk, crouched in front of his son's bed. Taehyung just looked at him for a while. He recognised that the air around his father was gleaming a bit, the outlines of his body seemed a bit blurred. "And when you wake up, remember me like this. As the father you brought you to bed, not the father that died in a car crash. Think of the good times and live your life, Taehyung." The addressed one nodded feebly and felt fatigue coming over him. He felt another kiss on the forehead what made him smile. Shortly before drifting into sleep he could hear the words how his father said the words that Taehyung used to hear nearly every evening back in time. "I love you and I'm proud of you, my little prince."

The blanket rustled as the young man rolled over in his bed. He was trying to fall asleep since multiple hours, without success. His thoughts were flying around the room, even though he tried to catch them and lock them away but it just would not work. Groaning, he sat up and reached out for his water bottle. While he opened the screw top, he looked around. Thanks to the moon, that shined through the open balcony door into the room, Taehyung could identify vague shadows. He detected pieces of furniture, a few plants, some dirty laundry. One ray of moonlight, however, meets a silver picture frame which twinkled and sparkled because of that. He knew which picture it was. And think of last night's dream, a smile appeared on Taehyungs lips.

"I love you too, Dad."

3236 | 20200526 | Kimchi_Real

Kim Joohyuk died on 30 October 2017 in a car crash
Kim Youngae died on 9 April 2017 due to lung cancer

Rest in peace

inspired by the song „Ich hatte keine Zeit für dich" (I didn't have time for you) by Peter Maffay