kkaeppsong

biggest regret
xiumin
258 words

Minseok didn’t think of himself as a sentimental person, but the past had a way of sneaking back to him. Sometimes it was quiet and fleeting. Sometimes it was paralyzing, a kind of pain that he had no words for. Is there anything you wish you could do over? A moment in time you’d do anything to go back to, a second chance you’d give anything to have? He once saw the questions in a newspaper article one morning, on some feature he’s since forgotten about.

It would always be Seungho. It would always be the spring of 1950, before the war began, before their lives and the lives of so many others changed forever. Time was just a little sweeter with the ignorance. They spent hours together, closer than brothers, imagining worlds beyond and whispering shared secrets until they soon became one themselves.

Minseok hadn’t been brave. He hadn't been a lot of things then. Hope seemed dim in those uncertain times and he didn’t have the courage to follow the kind of magic life they sometimes spoke about. Maybe they could run away. Maybe they could live somewhere else. Maybe it was okay to love each other. But it was impossible.

Then the war, and Seungho became lost forever. Lost to Minseok, lost to the world. Joining an army of ghosts. His fate haunted Minseok for fifty long years.

What is your biggest regret?

It would always be letting him go. At least he always thought.

The past had a way of sneaking back to Minseok.

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