25th November, 2024

Monday

Dear Hongjoong,

I always wondered, what could ever go wrong after everything that transpired? It was all settled, a conclusion brought about by both, and now we bore the liberty of making new beginnings, devoid of each other's presence. What could go wrong now?

Everything.

Everything went wrong after those incidents.

I tried to move on, made myself some space in an apartment far away from yours, found myself a new place to work in and busied myself in making my circumstances such that I never see you again. Even though forgetting you without a trace was near to impossible, I strived to make it into a success. I tried falling in love once again, to indulge myself in all the aspects of romance just to erase you from my mind. But, living with a guy for almost a year and a half and trying my best to make it all work never changed anything and it finally resulted in a breakup, complete with rude words and evident violence.

Perhaps, I was never meant to be with someone.

The year was ending, and there I was, lying upon my couch and staring back at the television, the sounds from the device dissolving into an absolute nothingness within my ears. My mind was empty, not directed to any specific thought and my attention wasn't focused at all.

However, it instantly returned back when I happened to hear a few distinct words from the television and one of them happened to be your name.

I sat up in haste, my eyes glued to the screen now, trying to understand whether the article being presented then was actually about you or not. The first thing that came to my mind was a probable possibility of you making an achievement or your work in progress reaching its canopy of success.

But soon I realised, I was wrong.

The news was about your demise, your death.

You had left. Once and forever.

I remained sitting upon the furniture with the air around me evaporating into a whirlpool of absolute nothingness, my vision dilating within the waters flooding my eyes, my hands shaking and my ears reluctant to believe what they had just heard. My mind couldn't think of anything other than everything that had transpired in the past. Every bit of those memories. I didn't want to bring them back, not at all, but everytime my gaze fell on your pictures flashing upon the screen, they came rushing back without a stoppage.

Everything was over.

There was nothing left to be done.

Not anymore.

The news had initially informed about the cause of your death to be poisoning, but later, they discovered that your life had been snatched away by the overdose of a specific medicine that was made by you. You had named it 'Crimson Star', quite a rare name for a medicine. They also elucidated that this particular medicine would have caused a revolutionary and bring about a drastic change in the field of medicine, definitely on the positive side.

But now, it was no longer possible, as all traces of that antidote had been wiped out by you before you chose this ending.

'Crimson Star'. A nickname you had given to me when we were still in high school. You called me your Venus, the brightest star upon the crimson sky when the sun set in the west. And it was the same name that you chose to call your invention that you had been working on for so many years, a medicine that would have brought about such a major change, a medicine that had resulted in our detachment and divorce.

A medicine, that caused your early demise.

I never realised how it happened, until a close companion of yours stopped by to leave all your books and essentials with me. Upon putting forth a verbal resistance, he declined it and revealed that I was the only person he could trust to keep all your belongings with safety. I couldn't decline his request. But at the same time, I didn't want them to be with me, a haunting symbol of our past and everything that had transpired.

And yet I found myself picking up several folded pages off the floor that had slipped out of your books as I was about to place them upon the table.

I unfolded them...and read.

And then, there was someone in singularity who had come to know about the reason behind your demise.

Me.

It was me. I was the reason. My departure made you take up this decision. All the words that you had written upon those papers explained the depths of your pains and how you wanted them to end as quickly as possible, finally finding this way to be the quickest. The writings were read, and by its end, I was left with a severe turmoil within me, a disarray of thoughts.

Everything was back, once again. Those emotions, those feelings, those memories- they returned and crumpled me even more. It felt like as if I had lost everything at once. Your departure, complete with the reason behind it, shattered me into pieces and now, I was broken beyond repair.

You broke your promise of never departing.

And I became the reason behind it.

---------------------------------

Thoughts?

<1 more cp left:>

(To understand all of it better, I'll recommend y'all to read the chapter 'Crimson Star' from my book 'Woes Of The Heart'. Hope y'all like it<3)