Three hours had passed since they broke up.
Yet to Eun-nyeong, it did not feel as though three hours had passed at all. The hands of the clock on the wall were certainly moving, but inside the room, time seemed to have stopped. She could not understand how to accept the fact that something which had existed only a few hours ago—the relationship that had made Yeong-su her boyfriend—had suddenly been cut away from her life.
Eun-nyeong sat on the edge of her bed, holding her smartphone in both hands. A photograph of Yeong-su was displayed on the screen. It had been taken during a trip they had taken together. They had been walking through a small seaside town, and Yeong-su was smiling with his eyes narrowed slightly against the sunlight. Eun-nyeong was standing beside him, smiling too. The two people in the photograph seemed almost like strangers compared with the two of them now. Back then, they had believed they would always be together. Even the possibility that they might one day get married had seemed like something that would naturally happen somewhere in the future, rather than something that required any particular decision.
Eun-nyeong slowly swiped across the screen.
The next photograph showed them from shortly after they had begun dating. They were sitting inside a small café near the station, with two drinks on the table between them. Yeong-su was smiling shyly at the camera while Eun-nyeong was puffing out her cheeks because he had taken the photograph without warning her.
She remembered everything about that moment.
Yeong-su had taken the picture without asking, and Eun-nyeong had complained that he should tell her before taking pictures. Yeong-su had laughed and told her that the expression she had made just then was the cutest one. She had become so embarrassed by his words that she could no longer think of anything to say.
Eun-nyeong stared at the screen and lowered her eyes.
She wanted to forget.
But she could not.
Instead, now that they had broken up, every memory that had once seemed ordinary suddenly felt precious.
The way Yeong-su laughed.
The way he rubbed his eyes when he was sleepy.
The habit he had of slightly furrowing his brow whenever he was thinking seriously about something.
The way he always saved his favorite food for the end of a meal.
The way he would lend her his jacket without saying anything whenever she felt cold.
The way his voice would become a little brighter whenever she called him, even when he was exhausted from work.
All those little things had become painfully vivid now.
Eun-nyeong pressed the smartphone against her chest.
"Why do I remember so much?"
She sounded as though she were asking herself rather than Meirin.
Sitting beside her, Meirin did not answer immediately.
She had known Eun-nyeong since their university days, and she understood what her friend needed right now. Even so, she could not bring herself to offer some simple word of encouragement. She knew how distant the words "cheer up" could feel to someone who had just been abandoned by the person she loved.
Eun-nyeong wiped away her tears and looked at the photograph again.
"Meirin, I loved Yeong-su this much, didn't I?"
"Yes."
"I thought I knew that. But I think I only realized it today. I wasn't afraid of breaking up with Yeong-su. I was afraid of imagining a life without him. Even when work became busy, even when we argued, even when we stopped talking as much, there was always a part of me that believed we would meet again. If we couldn't meet this week, then we would meet next week. If we couldn't make time this month, then we would find time next month. I always thought that way. But when Yeong-su told me today that we should end things, everything disappeared inside me."
Eun-nyeong closed her lips for a moment.
She did not want to cry.
But her eyes were already burning.
She blinked repeatedly, trying to hold back the tears, but the effort was useless.
"Do you remember what Yeong-su said at the end?"
"Yes."
"He said that he thought we were both tired. I hated hearing that more than anything. If we were tired, we could rest. If we couldn't see each other, we could wait until we had time. If work was difficult, we could support each other until things became easier. Why did that have to mean breaking up? But now that I think about it, Yeong-su must have been enduring a lot too."
Eun-nyeong stopped there for a moment.
She did not want to believe that she was the only one who had been hurt.
But she could not blame herself for feeling that way either.
"But I was enduring things too. When Yeong-su didn't contact me and I felt lonely, I told myself that he was busy with work and there was nothing I could do about it. When he postponed our plans again and again, I tried not to get angry because I thought I would only make things harder for him. Sometimes I wanted to talk to him on the phone, but I could hear how tired he sounded, so I told him we should just go to sleep. And yet, I think Yeong-su believed I was fine. I thought Yeong-su was fine too. We were both trying to endure things for each other, and somehow that endurance turned into resentment."
Meirin silently nodded.
As Eun-nyeong spoke, memories she herself had forgotten began returning one by one.
The day she first met Yeong-su.
The lecture hall at university, where they had happened to sit next to each other.
Yeong-su realizing that he had forgotten his notebook and Eun-nyeong moving hers toward the middle of the desk so he could see it.
The way he thanked her several times on the way home that day.
At first, they had only been acquaintances.
Then they began talking more often. They started eating together after lectures. Eventually, even when they were not going in the same direction, they would walk together for a while after leaving the university gates.
And at some point, Eun-nyeong had begun waiting for messages from Yeong-su.
Her heart would become lighter whenever her phone rang.
Just seeing his name appear on the screen had been enough to make her happy.
Remembering that younger version of herself made her chest ache.
"Meirin, you know, when I first started dating Yeong-su, I thought we would get married someday."
"I know."
"I didn't really think about it seriously. It just felt natural. I imagined that someday we would live together, go shopping on our days off, argue over stupid things, stubbornly wait to see who would apologize first, and then still sleep in the same room that night. I wasn't thinking about whether we would have children or where we would live. More than anything, I simply believed that a life with Yeong-su in it would continue forever."
Eun-nyeong tried to smile through her tears.
Only the faintest movement appeared at the corners of her mouth.
The smile never came.
"That's why this room feels so much bigger now."
Meirin looked at her.
"Yeong-su wasn't even here yesterday. So why does it feel so much bigger now that he's gone?"
As soon as she finished speaking, a large tear rolled down Eun-nyeong's cheek.
She remembered the last day Yeong-su had come to her apartment.
Both of them had been exhausted from work.
Because they had spent so much time apart, even when they finally saw each other, they had stopped being able to express their happiness as openly as they once had.
Yeong-su had said that lately they seemed to argue every time they met.
Eun-nyeong had asked whether he was saying that they should stop seeing each other.
That was not what she had wanted to say.
What she had really wanted to say was that she was lonely.
She wanted to tell him that she wanted to see him more often.
She had never expected him to put her before his work. She only wanted to feel that she was still important to him, even in the middle of his increasingly busy life.
But she had never been able to put that feeling into words.
Yeong-su had also started to say something, then stopped.
Looking back now, perhaps they should have simply told each other that they did not want to break up.
Perhaps they should have said that they loved each other.
Maybe one simple sentence could have changed something.
But neither of them had said it.
"I should have hugged him at the end."
Regret filled Eun-nyeong's voice.
"When we saw each other for the last time, when Yeong-su was about to leave, I really wanted to run after him. I wanted to go to the entrance, call his name, hug him, and tell him not to leave. But I felt as though doing that would mean I had lost. So I did nothing."
As she continued, Eun-nyeong's fingers tightened against her knees.
"I was stupid. Love isn't a competition, but I kept being stubborn. I wanted Yeong-su to understand without me having to explain. I wanted him to realize how lonely I was without me having to say it. But he couldn't possibly know everything. He isn't me."
"You're not stupid."
Meirin placed a hand gently on Eun-nyeong's shoulder.
Eun-nyeong looked up.
Meirin looked at her tearful friend and slowly pulled her into an embrace.
"Cry now. Tomorrow will be a better day."
The moment she heard those words, Eun-nyeong finally lost the last of her restraint.
She buried her face against Meirin's chest.
"I wish tomorrow would never come."
"Eun-nyeong."
"Because when tomorrow comes, it will really mean that Yeong-su and I are over. Today, it still feels as though we only broke up a few hours ago, and some part of me can pretend that it was all a mistake. But tomorrow, the person who was beside me until yesterday will no longer be my boyfriend. I don't want that. When I wake up in the morning, I'll still expect a message from Yeong-su saying good morning, but it won't come. I'll check my phone during work and there won't be a message from him. At night, he won't tell me to take care after another long day. All those ordinary things are going to disappear."
Eun-nyeong's voice trembled as she spoke.
Meirin said nothing. She simply continued to stroke her friend's back slowly.
"I want to see Yeong-su."
Just saying those words made Eun-nyeong's chest ache.
"I want to see him one more time, even if we argue. There are so many things I want to apologize for. There are so many things I want to thank him for. I want to thank him for walking with me when we were at university, for coming to meet me with an umbrella when it rained, for buying medicine when I had a fever, and for remembering something I wanted for my birthday. I want to tell him properly that I'm grateful for all of it. I forgot to thank him."
Eun-nyeong cried for a long time after that.
Eventually, exhausted from crying, she lay down on the bed while Meirin remained nearby.
On the table was a photograph.
It was not a graduation photograph.
It was a picture taken during one of the trips Eun-nyeong and Yeong-su had taken together while they were dating.
They had been walking through a small seaside town. In the evening, they had sat together on a seawall and taken the photograph. Eun-nyeong was leaning slightly against Yeong-su's shoulder, while Yeong-su was looking at her with a smile.
It was one of the photographs they had treasured for years.
Before falling asleep, Eun-nyeong picked it up.
"I always liked this picture."
Her voice was exhausted from crying.
"Yeong-su bought me an ice cream that day, and I dropped it. He laughed, and I got angry at him, and then we ended up sharing another ice cream. I remember even things like that. They were such ordinary things, but now they all feel important."
She stared at Yeong-su's smile in the photograph for a long time before finally placing it back on the table.
In the background of the photograph, the sea and sky stretched beyond them.
And in one corner of the sky, a small black bird had been captured by the camera.
Eun-nyeong did not notice it.
She closed her eyes.
Only Meirin continued to stare at the photograph.
She had seen it many times before.
Yet that night, for some reason, the black bird caught her attention.
It was not directly above the couple. It was flying some distance away, alone against the open sky.
It could have been nothing more than coincidence.
Perhaps a bird had simply happened to pass through the frame at exactly the moment the photograph was taken.
Meirin tried to convince herself of that.
But for some reason, she could not look away.
A faint sound of wings came from outside the window.
Meirin raised her head.
Outside, there was only the quiet night.
Eun-nyeong was asleep.
Meirin returned the photograph to its place and sat beside her sleeping friend.
For Eun-nyeong, the world had changed because she had lost Yeong-su.
From tomorrow onward, she would probably remember him everywhere she went.
She might turn around whenever she saw someone with a similar figure at a station. She might stop whenever she saw a drink Yeong-su used to like in a convenience store. She might even begin writing a message on her phone before realizing that there was no longer anyone she could send it to.
Above all, the time they had spent together would not disappear.
Even if they were no longer lovers, their memories would remain.
Eun-nyeong did not know that yet.
For now, there was only one wish left inside her heart.
She wanted to see Yeong-su one more time.
She wanted to laugh with him like they had once done.
She wanted to hear him tell her that he loved her one more time.
Holding that wish close to her heart, Eun-nyeong slowly fell asleep.
And on the table beside her, inside the photograph that preserved a memory of the two of them, the black bird continued flying silently toward the distant sea.
Three hours had passed since they broke up. End