Kim Seokjin was dead. The only person he'd spent five springs with, and waited for the sixth to arrive. It was a particularly rainy day. As if it were some damn warning. Beneath the slowly rising moon, the car crashed into the guardrail. He'd swerved sharply to avoid an elderly man with dementia who'd been making a scene in the neighborhood for days. That was the story of the accident. He was a good man to the end, and that's why he died.
At first, I couldn't believe it, and then I refused to believe it. Your existence was so natural to me. I never imagined a future without you. The photo of him surrounded by blooming chrysanthemums was so alien. He was smiling brightly. I hated that image so much that it suddenly came to mind at any moment, gnawing at me. I stayed up all night for the first three days. A week like that. Then months. I sat in a corner of the room, muttering a name I couldn't even pronounce properly with chapped lips. Seokjin, Seokjin. It was he who shook my shoulder so hard.
“Jeong Yeo-ju, how long are you going to be like this?”
"···."
Min Yoongi. The three of us were close. He was the first I knew, and then Kim Seokjin. For seven years, that's how it went. So I couldn't understand. How could you be so normal? Kim Seokjin was dead. At least we, who had spent so much time together, shouldn't just shake it off and move on like everyone else? I think I looked at him with a hint of resentment. Whenever that dry face, devoid of regret, met mine, I couldn't help but resent it.
"Yoongi... I can't do it."
"···."
"How can I live without him? I can't do it. I can't stand it."
Something that had been swimming under my eyes suddenly fell away. My vision became hazy. Every day is so... hard. He, who had been calmly heating up the porridge, paused. I can't quite remember Min Yoongi's expression as he looked back at me. It seemed like he was holding something back, but then he seemed to calm it down. I believed it was the longing he had been suppressing. He held out a spoonful of porridge in front of me, who kept tapping his frayed fingernails. Eat. The tone of his words was so indifferent, yet the affection he showed reminded me of Kim Seokjin.
"Don't do this anymore."
"what?"
"Don't come to my house and don't buy anything like porridge."
The words keep coming out harshly.
"Min Yoongi. Please... stop it."
"···."
His cracked voice was mixed with new sobs. "I know it's not your fault. I alone, foolishly, am stuck, carrying the burden that everyone else must endure and live with. No matter how long I wait, the sixth spring will never come. I'm just denying the fact that Kim Seokjin is dead." Min Yoongi slowly put down his spoon. A rough hand brushed against his soaking-drenched cheek. And then, with the same indifferent expression, the same affectionate expression that had not changed at all since the three of us.
"I also resent the country."
"···."
"You did nothing wrong. So, don't hate me for no reason."
How could that be?
"You live while hating me."
"···."
“···Live like that.”
How can you, to me till the end?