To Love and To Be Loved

Eunae had lived her whole life with Jaehyun, her best friend. They had known each other since they were little, and from then on, had become each other’s rock. 

There were ups and downs along the way to maturity, a couple of crestfallen setbacks and a hundred unforgettable breakthroughs—every single one of which molded them into the person they had become.  

It was not too long before she found herself falling in love with him, silently admiring him from a distance. 

With all the things the world had thrown at them, nothing could seemingly break what they had, until a marriage proposition wreaked havoc in their lives. The twists and turns of how her world turned inside out left her in deep shambles and desperately grasping on the very thin thread of life. 

The fairy tale she had always dreamt of living turned into the most horrifying nightmare she was never prepared to battle. 

Suddenly, she was left to choose whether to love or to be loved.  

Onsra - (Boro) (v.) to love for the last time; a bittersweet feeling of knowing that a love will not last.

“Eunae, come on now, you turtle head. We’re going to be late!”

“Oh crap! Wait! Hey—I said wait!”

It was 6:30 AM. 

The dazzling sun was just barely painting the whole horizon of the above and coloring the lives of the awake, yet here they were, already sprinting to the bus stop with heavy bags slung around their shoulders and sweating with disheveled hair. 

Their short lower limbs were desperate to take bigger steps than what their feet could ever feasibly make. Their lungs loudly howling to get a snag of air to fill their close-to-empty air sacs. 

This was the normal routine Eunae and Jaehyun had ever since they entered high school.

Jaehyun, her best friend, would always drop by her house to fetch her just so they could go to school together. He would cross pavement after pavement, road after road, brave the unpredictable weather, be it pouring rain or the scorching heat of the sun.

Jaehyun would go to great lengths to reach her house, and most of the time, he would even be early enough to catch her fumbling on her uniform. 

This had been part of his routine ever since her father walked out of her life four years ago. 

The pillar of her household and the man whom she had always looked up to had an explicit affair with his colleague, leaving Eunae and her mother hanging up in the air with broken hearts and broken dreams. 

Bringing with him all their family fortunes, he coldly turned his back on them as they helplessly grasped on the very thin thread of life, wondering how they could even possibly continue on living with nothing but a roof above their heads. 

Devastated was an understatement for what Eunae felt upon hearing the news directly from her mother, who came home with a tear-streaked face on a cold rainy night. 

In a second, her heart seemed to break into two, and her whole world swiftly came crashing down around her like a million broken glass shards painfully scraping her skin.  

The almost perfect family she held very dear and the thousands of dreams she had sworn with her soul instantly turned into a tiny bubble that ceased to exist. 

With everything that seemed to run in circles and not having any finite answer to the endless questions swirling in her head, Eunae had to tuck every hurt wreathing her body and wear a façade that screamed she hadn’t lost it. 

She had to. 

Eunae had to numb all the pain killing her from within because she had no time to mourn over the wreckage of the blissful household she once had. 

She neither had any spare time to tend to her keeling heart when her hands were too full scrambling to salvage her mother, who was losing her sanity over the whirlwind of events that struck them defenseless and unprepared. 

In a fraction of a second, she had to step up for what was left of them and rebuild their lives from there. She was so occupied fulfilling the duties she did not have any knowledge to take on, that eventually, she learned to live with the pain—to carry it all on her shoulders and get used to its weight. 

Every single day, all Eunae could ever think of was how she despised her father to the core; how she loathed cheating to the bones; and how she would never understand why he had to go around her mother’s back and see another woman when he was married—when he basically had a family whom he was partly responsible and had sworn to always protect. 

She would have probably accepted the sudden separation if he chose to divorce her mother before seeing someone else. She would have possibly understood if he only went through the legal process on how things should have been rightfully done and gave her mother the utmost respect she deserved. 

Heck, she would have even appreciated it if he simply talked things out with them, explained himself, and gave them the closure they rightfully deserved rather than leaving without a single word and only to see her mother coming home almost lifeless as if she was dead in the inside. 

There were a couple of ways her father could have possibly left without hurting them so much—of not embedding painful memories to drill in their heads, yet he still chose to selfishly wreak havoc in their lives like a humongous hurricane that destroyed their home. 

He did not only break their hearts and shattered their dreams—he killed them. 

He assassinated her mother’s identity and made her feel less of what and who she truly was. The tiny doubts that started from inaudible whispers had little by little turned into loud piercing cries of the eerie night. 

Day after day, the hoarseness of her mother’s voice closely sounded as if a dozen of sharp glass splinters were stabbing her from within. The shameless infidelity continuously kept her up at night, desperately questioning her self-worth and why she was not enough.  

As days eventually turned into grueling weeks, her mother seemed to lose more and more of herself up until she reached the final breaking point of even taking her own life. 

The horrific event that occurred on a cold rainy night left Eunae utterly mortified. The horrendous images seemingly got stuck in her head, playing like a broken record that just would not stop and killing her from within. 

At that time, she was more than thankful that Jaehyun was there for her—for her family. Their mothers were the best of friends since they were little—just exactly like how her friendship with Jaehyun started. 

Ever since that night, his family voluntarily took care of her as if she were their own. They put food on her table, gave her a roof above her head, and provided yellow walls that welcomed her with undying warmth and hope. 

“Dammit! My hands are being squashed by the bus door already,” Jaehyun complained, keeping the bus door open. “Eunae! Are you coming or not?”

“Coming!”

“Hurry up!” 

They reinforced the deteriorating pillars of her home until her mother had fully bounced back—until Eunae had ultimately and irrevocably fell in love with her best friend. 

“Jaehyun, what the hell! No food allowed. Can’t you read that, you moron?” Eunae hissed with the softest voice she could ever have. 

They were doing a trigonometry assignment in the library when she found out Jaehyun sneaked in some chips in his bag. It was not long enough when he began eating them one by one, snapping his head left and right, trying not to be caught. 

“Oh, come on, there’s no freaking way they would see me.”

“Of course, they won’t see you,” Eunae muttered sarcastically with a smile, rolling her eyes and clasping her hands together on top of the table. “They would only hear you because you eat like a goddamn pig! At least, close your mouth!”

“Whatever you say, sunshine!” He yelled playfully, quickly earning them a loud sneer of ‘be quiet!’ from the librarian that made them snort.

“Gosh, Jaehyun, what are you even doing,” Eunae slapped his arms lightly, whilst shaking her head. 

He could be the most reliable person she could ever think of, but at the same time, he could also take the crown for being the silliest she had ever met.  

“Eating,” Jaehyun shrugged before giving her a familiar mischievous look.

“Wha-”

Before Eunae could even finish her sentence, she was immediately cut off when Jaehyun tugged her wrist and slung their bags around his shoulders. She could barely figure out where they were heading with his broad back blocking her view as soon as he brought her out of the library. 

“Let’s play some basketball,” was his playful suggestion that quickly had the color drained from her face.  

“Oh god no.” 

“Oh god yes.”

As if she even had a choice, Eunae eventually found herself inside the school’s gym, picking up the couple of balls Jaehyun was throwing inside the basketball ring. Her frustrated face was unchanging as she threw back a ball at him, hitting him in the knee. 

“You said we’re going to play basketball!” Eunae crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. Her eyes rolling at the back of her head before they pierced through his body.   

“Aren’t we playing?” Jaehyun laughed, caressing his knee as if it did really hurt before shooting once again.

Eunae huffed, throwing the ball back at him as hard as she could, “You’re playing, I’m not! I’m just here picking these goddamn balls for you!” 

“Easy, sunshine,” Jaehyun chuckled, seemingly finding her frustration funny.

She, however, was not having any of it. 

“You took away my trigonometry time, had the librarian sneered at us, and now, you’re making me retrieve all those bouncing balls like a ball boy.” 

“Hey!” An audible squeal left her lips when a pair of bulky arms wrapped around her waist. A sweaty body, out of nowhere, flushed against hers and catching her off guard. 

“Here, let me teach you how to shoot,” was Jaehyun’s proposition that sounded like wedding bells in her ears. 

With her ticker beating way too rapidly than how it usually did and how her head turned incredulously hazy, Eunae felt as though she was going to faint. 

The familiar way on how his arms securely held her, and how his minty scent wafted her nose made her stop wanting to play basketball and rather stay in his arms for the rest of the day. 

Eunae had always felt funny weird whenever she was with Jaehyun. 

It was that kind of good weird feeling. The sense of being ultimately happy of just merely seeing him—of just simply being with him and doing nothing, even with the absence of sound and having silence fill the in between. It was that comforting and fortifying. 

She knew what it meant, and she knew what it was. 

“Hey, sunshine, you good?”

Shaking her head internally, Eunae nudged him in the stomach and spun on her heel. It was not even a second in when she threw the ball above his head abruptly. 

“Always,” she smirked, watching how it went in the ring smoothly, making his eyes roll. “Shall I help you shoot?” 

“Depends.”

“On?” 

Jaehyun shrugged, swiftly getting a hand on the free ball before eliminating the distance between them and taking her breath away, like always. “What kind of shooting will you teach me, sunshine?” 

“Shut up!” Eunae yelled abashedly, running after him with deep rosy cheeks and a throbbing forehead that previously met his plump soft lips. 

The funny weird feeling just kept on blazing and blossoming right within her uncontrollably, and it just would not go away. 

It just would not.

Or maybe she just could not.

But no matter what it was between the two, there was one thing Eunae was sure of: that there was nothing probably more painful than falling in love with a best friend.

“You good?”

“Yup,” Eunae lied, trying to mask the lonely tone dripping from her voice. 

It was her birthday, probably one of the happiest days she had always looked forward to. But with the unprecedented change of how her world had turned upside down, the most awaited day that was usually filled with glitters and rainbows and a hundred more memories of laughter was nothing but a dull normal day. 

It seemed unimportant enough not to be even remembered. Everything was running business as usual, just like how the recent years had been. She was at home right after school, while her mother was busy building their company to provide her a better future. 

Eunae was more than happy that her mother had already bounced back. It took a series of counseling sessions, years of living apart, and daily yearning to be in Eunha’s arms, but they were all worth it. There was nothing she could ask for to see her mother feel much better—to see her well, alive, and kicking. 

But at the same time, there were days when she could not seem to push down the loneliness that would creep into her bones once in a while. Sure, she had Jaehyun and his loving parents to always turn to, to shower her with affection and care, and she was very thankful for that. 

But then, if she had to be truthful, it still felt a lot different to have her mother by her side—it just felt different.

Heaving a deep sigh, Eunae closed her eyes and plopped on her bed lazily. She was not in the mood to talk to anyone, and all she ever wanted was for slumber to finally take her in—to help her escape from all the melancholy swathing her whole. 

“Jung Jaehyun!” A piercing shriek rumbled from her throat as soon as she felt being lifted and found herself on Jaehyun’s shoulder like a sack of rice. “Put me down!”

“I said put me down!”

“No.”

“What are you even up to? Just put me down!”

“No.”

“Hell, yes!” 

“No.”

Struggling from his hold, she tried to reach for his shirt from the back, “Jaehyun, I’m not kidding, you better put me dow—ah! What the hell!” 

A striking pang of pain suddenly made her backside throb. Her cheeks turning into a deep shade of red at the thought of what he did. 

“Shut up,” Jaehyun muttered nonchalantly after lightly spanking her behind. “We’re going to have fun.” 

“What do you mean?” Eunae nervously exclaimed, her imaginations going wild. 

“We’re going to have fun,” he repeated, cryptically this time around. Her heart hammering against her chest.

“Jaehyun, I’m not in the mood. What are you planning—aw! Hey! Stop that!” She yelled bashfully as his hand met her bottom for the second time. 

“Stop asking me questions, then. Trust me, you’ll enjoy this,” Jaehyun chuckled darkly, tapping her bums. 

Nibbling her bottom lip, clearly abashed, Eunae slumped on his shoulder and stopped struggling. Her eyes rooted on the dull, rough pavement before the lush green grasses filled her view. 

Getting a glimpse of what was right in front of her, Eunae could not hide the whirlwind of emotions coming through and sweeping her off her feet. 

“Oh god! This is so fun!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, her hands raised in the air, feeling ecstatic as the wind slapped her face. 

“Is it?”

“We’re moving higher!” She screeched excitedly, not really minding what he asked. 

Holding onto the barrel as their seats went higher, Jaehyun intertwined their hands together before giving her a swift look, “I’m glad you’re having fun.” 

“Jaehyun, look! Isn’t that the ice cream parlor we always go to!”

After the whole fiasco from a while ago, she did not expect that they would be at the amusement park, enjoying every ride there was. 

Jaehyun was true to his words when he told her they were going to have fun, because she surely did. 

It had been long since she stepped in such a place. 

The glitz and glamor the park used to have had surely faded before her eyes like a fairy that had lost its wings. The moments that were once filled with blossoming flowers had turned into sharp dangerous knives that pierced her body from within.  

Through the years, she still didn’t have the courage nor willingness to have a trip down memory lane when all she could see was the face of her father happily strolling with her—a picture she had long gone forsaken out of her mind. 

Eunae used to love amusement parks—it was her safe haven. 

With daily busy schedules of her parents, the time they allot for visiting amusement parks was the core of their family bonding. It held a myriad of memories from the years she could barely stand to the days she could run around on her own. 

It was a subtle symbol of a loving and complete family she used to have and which she had already buried six feet under—something she would not opt to remember if only she had a choice. 

“Stop thinking of him,” he demanded, startling her when she felt his thumbs on her cheeks. 

“What, again?”

Jaehyun reached for her face and wiped away the unknown streaks of tears that ran down her cheek, “You won’t be balling your eyes out if it weren’t for him.” 

With her mouth agape, Eunae nodded her head bashfully and stifled her whimpers. She really could not hide anything from him. Jaehyun could always manage to see through her, and she did not know if it was something she should be thankful for. 

The mere fact that he could easily see through her most likely meant he knew her utmost adoration towards him—something she did not know if she should be happy about or terrified to the bones. 

She could not bring herself to ask because she could not afford to risk anything she had. She could not risk losing someone whom she held very dear when she could barely count them with her fingers. 

She could not lose anyone. She could not lose her best friend. She could not afford to lose Jaehyun, too.

“You’ll always have me, I’ll never leave you,” he sworn, cupping her cheeks. He looked at her ever so gently before placing a chaste kiss on her forehead. “I’m not like him.” 

And as always, Jaehyun was true to his words. 

When he said he would never leave her, he never really left. 

Through the years, he had never left her side, and now that they were just a month away from celebrating their second wedding anniversary, Eunae could only smile bitterly hearing how the people envy what they have. Everyone seemed to love how they radiate like perfect lovers with the most unwavering relationship every couple could only wish for. 

It was probably the glitz, the glamor, the grandeur of how their marriage swept the people around them to believe the never-ending façade they had been putting up with. Everyone loved to have the kind of marriage and fairy tale love story, but they did not really know what happened behind the curtain. 

Because little did Eunae know that walking down the aisle and meeting him in front of the alter was the beginning of the end.