I died quietly.No thunder, no final words, no theatrical goodbye.Just — the light went out.And a moment later, it flickered back on.But I… stayed.
The world became muffled.As if someone had covered everything with a damp cloth: sounds faded, colors lost their depth.I heard the rain outside, but the drops didn't hit the glass — they simply hung in the air, as if time had stopped.
He was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall.Do‑yeon.He didn't cry. He just stared into the emptiness where I used to be.Sometimes I thought he could hear me, feel me.He'd turn his head, go still… as if someone had softly called his name.
I reached out — through the air.He sighed.I smiled. Foolish, out of habit.
The day I died smelled like autumn.Yellow leaves stuck to my shoes, the air was damp and cold, but not yet winter.We'd argued that morning — over something small.And that evening, I was already lying under the rain, watching the red lights of the ambulance blur across the wet asphalt.
He didn't make it in time.And neither did I.
How long it's been — I don't know.There were no clocks here.Only memories moved, like shadows sliding along the walls.
I tried to leave.But every time he placed a cup of coffee on the windowsill, I heard:"You'd say it needs more sugar, right?"And I stayed.
Maybe I'd become something like a habit.A ghost that doesn't know why it's still here.
I saw everything.His loneliness.The way he moved, searching for me with his eyes, trying to understand where I was.The way he spoke out loud, just to fill the silence with words that never quite reached me.His silence weighed heavier than any scream.
I could almost smell his hair when he leaned over the table.I saw his fingers brush against the paper — and my heart, if it still existed, clenched from the impossibility of touch.I was here and yet not.The presence of my death had become a part of his life, a part of his shadow.
And still… he breathed.He lived.Even when the world seemed shattered into a million fragments, he gathered them piece by piece.Sometimes his gaze would stop at the empty space where I used to stand — and in that gaze, there was hope.
I understood that my existence no longer had a reason to hold on.But letting go… isn't something you do all at once.I stayed — to watch, to breathe the same air, to feel how life went on without me.
I tried to leave.Slipped through walls, through floors, through time.But I always came back.A phantom habit.A memory of a past that still breathed here.
I saw his smile — rare, quiet, like sunlight glinting on wet pavement.He almost didn't notice me, but I felt it: he lived.And that was my reward, my silence, my peace.
I was here to wait.To wait until he became himself again.To wait until the pain turned bearable.To wait until the memories stopped being chains and became something he could carry lightly, like air.
And I understood: I hadn't stayed to hold him.I stayed to let him go.
I reached through the space between worlds, trying to understand what it meant to be part of life and outside it at once.I felt every sound, every scent, every light.The world was muted — but alive.
I thought about what it means to love when you can't touch.I thought about how it pulls you back, even when you've already gone, and how hard it is to release what's left behind — when all that remains is a shadow.
I wasn't bound to him.I was bound to myself — to our shared time, to the world we once held together.And now, all of it was slowly dissolving.
But as long as he breathes,as long as his eyes still pause at the space where I once was,as long as he smiles — even faintly, even through pain —I stay.
To wait.To love.To watch.To be the one who once saw, and the one who once was.
And maybe, someday,he'll feel me — not with his eyes, but with his heart.Someday he'll understand that I was here not to hold on,but to let go.
And until that day comes,I stay.