Two Cheeseburgers and Blue Raincoats: A Brief Story of Us

Here’s a basic rule in the life of an author: I write when I fall in love, and I write when I’m brokenhearted. I never write when I fall out of love — what that is for though?

Today, after weeks of packed hours, I finally have the time to write. I don’t know if this is gonna be a brief story as seen in the title or if this is gonna be a letter to you , in which you know will not be brief at all, but just call it a letter from me to you.

The subjects in this letter are two: you and I. I, is the subject who falls in love. And you, is the subject who I fall in love with.

When I said I never write when I fall out of love, it means there are only two reasons why I write this: I fall in love or I am brokenhearted. Can you guess which one is the reason? Because I don’t know which one. I’m crying while writing this sentence alone in a hotel room. It feels like I’m shattered, but at the same time it also feels like I’m miserably falling again and again with you. I think the mirror in front of me now is laughing because I bring my laptop 750+ kilometres away just to write about you while…crying.

The big city where I’m now is the city where the last time I fell in love. It was five years ago before I fell out of it two years afterwards. Three years. It took me three years to feel someone’s presence would simply make me smile, sometimes ear to ear and sometimes just a small curve in the corner of my lips. That was when you came into my life.

At first, I only assumed my winning for a raffle ticket of BTS’ Yet to Come in Busan concert was God’s gift to me because perhaps He knew how hard I was struggling through the entire management training—sweat, tears, and headache. It was total gambling because the date was only two days prior to the first day of work. I further assumed that it was God’s grand prize when I found out that the graduation fell on Thursday, in which it meant that I could fly straight to Seoul on Thursday night and could rest for a night before the D-day of the concert. But now after all the moments I had with you, I think that wasn’t just a grand prize. It was a plan — His plan. If I hadn’t won the raffle ticket, I wouldn’t have had to buy Korean Won notes with you that afternoon. And thanks to the traffic jam, we arrived late and the currency exchange service had closed so we had to go back there the following day. Notice that there’s a new subject that comes in: we.

This is where our story starts.

Albeit it isn’t new to me, I’m still amazed how love works: it could begin with the tiniest and the most elementary thing that perhaps isn’t suitable for a prologue of fiction — it isn’t tickling enough. But it happened to the person in real life — me—and that made me gradually fall in love with you. Nothing new and remarkable in the way we talked through the chat messenger those days. I randomly told you anything that passed through my head and you listened to me. You casually told me about your day in the office and I listened to you. The irregular then turned into a routine, which I wish we still had it now.

I’d known you quite long before I fell. I’d seen you giggling, smiling, and making jokes a lot before I fell. Spending time with you wasn’t a brand-new thing for me because we’d done it often — when we were friends. But, at those times, I didn’t know why spending time with you slowly began to feel like a blessing when it could be something that we usually did.

I put on my best clothes just to do a 1.5-hour of golf session with you. I hid behind a sports car outside the lobby of the golf course because I didn’t want you to see me first while you guided me to you on the phone. Being lost and stranded at a golf course parking lot wasn’t a cool scene for a first-hangout occasion, I thought. I might’ve looked stupid to you; I might’ve looked weird to you. Why the hell did I care that much, anyway? But I did. And I think I’ve also never told you this: my heartbeats pounded insanely throughout the entire session that evening. You taught me how to hit the ball and described what was the difference between the sticks that you brought. I’d never got that enthusiasm over golf but I listened to you—oh I did pay attention to you. But here’s the funny thing: I knew I’d always been that smart girl, yet I couldn’t easily process everything that you told me. I was too busy getting lovestruck. Once I was in my car, I couldn’t wish for more but another golf session with you. I didn’t care if I would look dumb while hitting the ball. I loved seeing you hit the ball. It was…cool for me.

Speaking of the things I like, now can I slide aside to talk about the things I hate?

I hate cockroaches — not you, no, never. No past tense in the previous sentence because I still do now. That evening, I washed my face and reapplied my makeup because I knew you were just two rooms away from mine. Thanks to the nice friend of ours who lied about the plan of our class’ hangout. We had dinner outside, just the two of us, across and a few-minutes walk from the hotel, after a damn cockroach ran towards me on the puddled pavements. I was extremely flustered because I jolted onto you and I hated myself for that shameful subconscious action. I still hate cockroaches until now, but that evening I found bliss in the thing I hate.

You said you hate watching movies too. Did you also find bliss while watching at the cinema with me?

Now let’s get back to the things I like — about you.

Our messages turned into phone calls. Hours after work was the time I was always waiting for because I couldn’t wait to get a phone call from you. Everytime the song playing on the car’s stereo was paused, I just knew that something interrupted the Spotify on my phone: your incoming call. And I always smiled while sliding the answer button. Didn’t matter how severe the traffic jam was on those nights, I always got home with a big smile, a jovial soul, and happiness that sparked in every edge of me. The workload on my shoulders that day just evaporated rapidly whenever I heard your voice. I started to think about whether I should stop taking my daily multivitamin in exchange for hearing your voice.

There were days when we sounded off our feelings just through each other’s eyes and presence. I woke up with no energy on a Saturday because I had to attend a work’s event. But then I spent too much time in front of my opened wardrobe’s door because you said you wanted to pick me up at home and take me to the event. I said yes, and the car’s wheels rolled on the toll road while we were listening to one of my favourite Taylor Swift’s songs. I was happy when at the parking lot you told me that you said to your workmates that we were close. I just smiled at that time, but it felt like I didn’t want to go to the event because I only wanted to spend time just with you. You didn’t have the ticket to enter, but I was glad that I could be there for just an hour. You picked me up again outside the venue and we had a Saturday night together, cruised under the city lights, and had dinner together again— just as how I wish it could be.

As time went by, cruising under the same city lights seemed to be something I was always waiting for. I like it when you guided me to the right roads with your car ahead of mine and with our phone call that was never hung up until I got home. I like it when you asked me to send you the pictures of us together. Those were the first ones that we had, and you made it our group chat icon. I like it when you told your friends about me. I like it when you —

I like it when you —

I like it when you —

How many of them that I should mention? It feels like this letter will be endless if I state them all.

But, just like everyone, I have my favourite. With you already are my favourite, I still have the favourite ones among all the times we had together. Just imagine how blissful they are. Favourites among the favourites.

The one that ranks the second is the day when you held a denim jacket over our heads to cover us from the scorching sun — the same day when we jogged in blue raincoats under the sudden downpour. I really wanted to thank that friend of ours who stopped us at a booth so that the time was wasted until it rained before we arrived in your car. If she hadn’t stopped us, we wouldn’t have the memories of getting soaked in the rain and the title of this post wouldn’t have the noun of blue raincoats in its title. The way we were trapped in the rain felt like we were locked by time to spend more time together. I was so happy that whole day. We got the same sandals later on. Now I wonder if you have worn them. I often do. They become my favourite sandals.

The one that charts the top is the day on the New Year’s Eve when you realised that I almost never looked directly at everyone’s eyes while talking, including you, and you asked me to look at yours. I did as you asked, and there I found that your smile was getting bigger and bigger towards me. We didn’t speak for some seconds — just doing a staring competition — until we both giggled together at the same time. That day, oh God, I felt like I lived in a movie. Why couldn’t anyone take a picture of us from the side? I wish time could just freeze us and I bet we’d make a great album cover.

I found happiness in the simplest things I did with you that maybe I wouldn’t have found it if I did those things with someone else: as simple as sharing the same bottle of iced coffee, as simple as sitting together in the corner and straightening our legs, as simple as getting asked for help to park your car while you drifted upstairs to get new pair of shoes and jeans, and as simple as seeing you humming in the car to the songs I didn’t know. I feel happy with you. You made me a better person in general things of life. You gave me a lot of examples in life that I’d hardly ever had any concerns about it before meeting you. I love the simplicity in you, and I wish falling in love was also just as simple as “I love you” and “I love you too”. But it is not.

The story of us shifted as abruptly like the sun which made us hide under the denim jacket and the rainfall which then washed us out on that fine day. I kept asking myself: where did we go wrong? I didn’t see any sliver of broken lights between us, but the room suddenly went pitch dark. I tried to grope anything in front of me, searching for the wall, but when I turned the switch on…there was almost nothing left in the room. Where did all go?

I started to think maybe this is what they called as right person, wrong time. And what should I do? I keep blaming the condition and everything in it because I know that none of us was wrong. If we had talked about it more, maybe we would’ve been okay. Maybe it could’ve been better. Maybe.

Later on, after every tear I shed before my sleep, I woke up early on a Saturday morning because I had to fly somewhere. It was today. You said you wanted to see me at the airport before I departed, and I said okay. We talked for about half an hour — about us; about anything that could’ve gone better. Oh how I really missed talking to you, eyes to eyes like that. If only it could last for more time… If only.

Airport and us. Almost sounds like a sad epilogue, but I wish it wasn’t. You told to me not to cry because you wouldn’t go anywhere. I really didn’t want to say any goodbyes to you. Even after we waved our hands to each other at the security check, I wanted to tell you that I still love you. But I didn’t say it and continued to cry on my way to Gate 16 instead. On the sky towards my friend’s wedding, I felt my heart plummet to the ground.

Knowing that you always order two cheeseburgers a la carte at the Mcdonald's drive-thru somehow makes me feel like I don’t want to be back to a stranger with you.

I really wish time and everything in life would be more gentle for us in the future. I really wish that our straight lines would meet again at different coordinates where we’re finally ready to love each other again.

Can I write about you again when that day really comes?

I hope that this will not be the last post about you — about us. The verb love hasn’t changed to past tense for you.

I still do.

I still do, and now I don’t know what to do.

— b, 21/01/2023