"Goodbye, do not be sad for being alone. In this world, you're a flower that blooms in full glory."

- I want to write a story that ends badly.

- Why? Is this another of your dark moments?

- No, it's just... an experiment, that's all. An experiment.

- An experiment...

- Because my stories always end well... and I want to do an experiment. That's all.

She sighs softly, hugging me and brushing her cheek against my head.

- Write it, then.

I smile.

- I'll write it, I'll write it.

***

When I was a kid I was scared of the dark; like many other kids I used to run up the stairs in the dark and go in my room as quickly as possible, without turning around, scared that, otherwise, the monsters would catch me. Now that I've grown up I'm not scared anymore of the external darkness, because the internal one is much scarier; but, after familiarizing with it, I can actually say that I'm not even scared anymore of the darkness inside me. In fact, familiar things are not to be feared: they bring comfort.

It's funny. She calls them "my dark moments". She doesn't know the darkness is part of me as much as my eyes, my nose, my mouth. There's nothing temporary in darkness.

- Jagi...

- Hm?

- Are you going to sleep? It's late - she whimpers with a sleepy voice.

I look away from the computer screen. From the ajar window come the lights of Seoul that never sleeps, tireless and hectic.

- I'll come in a second, love.

I turn off the computer and get up, stretching my shoulders, before joining her in our big, a bit shaky bed. She puts her head on my chest and drapes an arm over my waist, letting a sigh escape like a satisfacted cat.

- Jagiya...

- Yes?

- Goodnight...

- Goodnight - I reply, caressing her hair. Her long, soft, sweet hair. The light coming from the shutters lights it up and lights up her pretty face. She's so beautiful.

I stare at the ceiling. In the silence of our room only her breath, mine and my thoughts can be heard. I wonder if she can hear them in her dreams.

Dreams.

I want to get up and write again, but I can't. I shouldn't. It's late...

So I think about what I want to write. I think this is a dream - it's not real - that we've been together this long. I think that I want to disappear into the darkness. I think - I know, actually - that there's something wrong in my head and that she's going to get tired of me and leave. Everyone leaves.

Stop it.

I close my eyes, hoping that it will be enough to turn off my mind. It's never enough. I focus on my girlfriend's calm breath. My little star. No, my sun.

A dog's barking makes me open my eyes again. I surely am not going to miss this, I tell myself.

***

We met in a library. I felt her presence from behind the pages of the book I was reading, my favourite, but I didn't pay attention to her, because I thought she was a student or another person interested in reading or in borrowing a book.

- It's really beautiful the book you're reading... poignantly beautiful.

Her voice was shy and gentle, like she had just found the courage to talk to me, like she wanted to be noticed without disturbing me.

I was about to tell her that it surely was, it was one of the most beautiful books I had ever read but, when I looked up, I was at a loss for words. Because the beauty of my favourite book wasn't comparable to hers.

- Y-yeah... it's, uhm... my favourite book...

- Mine too!

She had a smile bright like a renaissance painting, like a summer morning, like the sun.

- Jagi!

- Hmm?

- You've been writing for hours! Come take a break!

- Uh, no... I don't want to...

She grabs me by the arms and tears me off the chair, giggling when I lose balance and fall into her.

- Dance with me!

- Fine - I grumble, letting her drag me into our small airy kitchen. Some soft music is playing from my girlfriend's phone.

She puts her arms around my neck and I put my hands on her hips; we dance, slowly, swaying without a destination in the small space. She giggles again and her eyes sparkle like diamonds. I give her a questioning smile.

- There are no moments more precious than those spent with you - she says, smiling. A smile that doesn't wither. The constant of our story.

I smile too, brushing my lips against hers.

These moments with you. Small pieces of eternity. Keep them carefully.

I get rid of every thought to enjoy this moment in which there's only me and her and our love, our happiness.

Happiness...

- Thank you - I whisper, and this time her doe eyes give me a questioning look. - Thank you for brightening up my days.

***

Sometimes darkness is grey. It's waking up in a cold and empty bed, because she went to work, and having a boulder, no, a black hole in your chest. A black hole that sucks everything in and leaves just grey.

A sigh leaves my lips tightened in a grimace.

It's so hard to do the things you love when your emotions, all of your emotions, are turned off. Turned off, click, like all you need is a switch.

The things you love. Writing. I've stared at the new blank page for who knows how long, hoping to transform my thoughts into sentences. But not only doing what you love is hard. Even the simplest actions... like getting up, while fighting against the desire to curl up under the covers and disappear in bed, eating, with exasperating slowness, brushing your teeth, after lingering for too much time in front of the mirror.

The solitude worsens and slows everything down, because if she isn't here I don't have to pretend that everything is alright.

Pretend...

There's a me which is madly in love with her girlfriend, has a lot of friends, reads and writes books and doesn't need to write stories that end badly because her story, finally, is going to end with a happy ending; and there's the other me that lives in this body and knows that she is the real one, a grey and indifferent real one, that doesn't believe - has never believed - in the happy ending, because she knows there isn't going to be one. No, my ending is going to be sad and lonely, because I'm a sad and lonely person and I can't change my fate.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself, I tell myself, and write. My gaze gets lost outside the window. If only there was the sun...

***

I watch her sleep like the moon watches over a lone wolf. I am the lone wolf though, apparently domesticated, it only needs a caress and to stay devotedly by its princess side.

It's like that. It's me who needs her, her warmth, her light, while she could well live without me, without this lone wolf, this shadow, a bit more than a ghost.

Don't we call like that the appearances of those who are dead? Maybe the death of the soul is enough to be a ghost.

I get away from the computer, which screen says that it's four and half in the morning. I often have trouble sleeping.

I sit on the edge of the bed. She's sleeping soundly, without noticing my absence. I caress softly her face and hair, careful not to wake her up.

She's pretty and delicate like a flower, but she has the strenght of an old tree that no storm can eradicate.

- Nae sarang... a storm is coming - I mutter, lingering on her soft and warm cheek. - A long winter...

***

Epilogue

Epilogue. The end of a story. Because if there's a beginning, there's got to be an ending, right?

Our story began in a bright sunny day in a library and it ends in a dark, cold night, in a place that is not important to mention. For me, it ends there.

For you, my love, ends here, in this page. It will seem weird to you to read a story from its ending (it's my fault, I kept secret the rest of what I've written)... but you know what happened, don't you? Only the ending was unknown. Or maybe not. You knew that it's a story without a happy ending.

It has never been an experiment... in the same way my "dark moments" have never been temporary, but moments in which the darkness becomes overwhelming and unmanageable.

I don't think I can manage it anymore. There isn't even a point, since our story was destined to end from the beginning.

It's not your fault. It's my fault, if anything. The weight of existence has always been excessive on my fragile soul.

This is my last gift for my last love. My flower. My sun whose light will never disappear.

It's cold, but I don't feel it. My senses are numb, just like my emotions.

Seoul doesn't rest not even in this freezing cold night, and it gives me a weird comfort. It's going to be easy disappearing in the indifference of the passersby, swallowed by the darkness.

Cars come and go under the bridge where I've stopped. A familiar bridge, on a familiar road... but so foreign, to my indifferent gaze.

I take off the ring with her name engraved from my ring finger and I put it in the pocket of my jacket. My hand is warm against the metal, but I'm shivering.

I breathe deeply, trying to remember the taste of fresh air in spring mornings, the smell of her hair, of the wet ground after a storm, of the books in the library. Details extraordinarily vivid for someone who has forgotten how to live.

I close my eyes.

- No! No, please! Stay!

Stay.

The shock of hearing her desperate voice freezes me on the spot.

- Don't go! We can work through everything, this isn't the solution! It's not the end!

Not the one I had planned, for sure. My eyes fill up with tears.

- You don't have to go through everything alone... you're not alone...

She has run here wearing her t-shirt and shorts, with messy hair; she must have noticed my absence, or maybe the light of the computer screen must have woken her up...

She grabs my arm, sobbing. I cry as well, silently.

- Please... please... please... don't go...

- Will you help me to go through this dark moment? - I whisper, brushing her hair with uncertainty.

- Yes! Yes, I'll help you, I'll do anything! But stay with me!

My tears keep running copiously on my face, expressing the suppressed pain of a lifetime and the relief of finding myself a little less alone in this existence so full of pain, of darkness; but most importantly the relief of the fact that the point written by me has become a semicolon. Other pages await to be written in the book of my life.

-

A/N:

Jagiya: darling, honey

Nae sarang: my love