Chapter Text
“For the secret of man’s being is not only to live but to have something to live for.”
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, from The Brothers Karamazov
The credits had long since faded to black but Myeong still sat on the couch, letting her back grow roots into the cushy white upholstery.
Even on the night when Yuhan’s head had gone limp and cold against her shoulder the television had cast them in a soft, flickering glow; The din of the movie had still been audible, its story not yet reaching its conclusion.
But now in this moment, the dark maw of the screen felt insurmountable to Myeong. It seemed to stare her down, a burning question plastered all over its surface: What now?
In truth, the answer was achingly simple and mundane: Slowly, and then all at once, life went on in the quiet way it always does. The whisper of what now was followed by the steady beat of her heart to the rhythm of And then. And then. And then.
Myeong did what she loved; she stepped into a hundred roles, a hundred lives, a hundred faces. Awards were won, singular cups of coffee were brewed.
And then, And then, And then,
On one particular quiet night after a magazine photoshoot, Myeong stood out on her balcony, noting how the early October air had now turned crisp from autumn’s beginnings. Yuhan died in June.
Myeong remembered the loss of her grandmother as a child—how she had cried and felt sad for the first week, but that it slowly got easier to forget her grandmother had ever been in her life at all.
She would occasionally encounter small things that would bring back that pang of remembrance, that realization of Oh, that’s right. I did have a grandmother; the taste of the strawberry hard candies with the gold and red wrappers, the slow, measured gait of a particular old lady pulling her trundle buggy down the street. These moments came less and less as years passed, thinned out by her few and fading memories.
With Yuhan, it was different.
It wasn’t this or that particular thing that called his face into her heart and mind. Rather, it was the places where she couldn’t find him that sometimes (every time) knocked the air out of her chest. And those were everywhere. A new driver. A table set for one. The spare key to her apartment collecting dust in a dish.
And the couch.
Myeong glanced at that couch, her eyes tracing over the faint impressions carved by the weight of her body on one side. The other leather cushion was pristine and smooth.
Even it knew not to wait for Yuhan’s return.
Shaking this thought from her head, Myeong turned back towards Seoul’s skyline. She realized that as lonely as it was at the top of the world, perhaps being an actor was the most honest way to live. And to die.
Every time she was asked how winning felt after the ceremony, Myeong often replied with some empty nicety or another. What she really wanted to say was, It felt like release. It felt like my thousandth death.
Even if someone held your hand as you passed or allowed you to rest your head upon their shoulders, that hand, that shoulder, could not follow you where you were going. That door had space for only one to walk through. Myeong thought to herself that walking up to receive an award was the closest feeling to what dying might be like—a solitary undertaking that was wholly yours, a moment that came for you and only you. The crowd could cheer for you as you climbed the steps up the glittering stage, but they couldn’t see where you would go next.
To be an actor was to accept that final and total loneliness. To embrace it.
So Myeong took comfort in knowing that she felt ready. At least, this was what she told herself. Because if she was truly being honest, she chased that feeling of winning because she liked to imagine it was how Yuhan felt when he left. That each step towards that singular spot on the victor’s podium might bring her closer to him. Even her seeming acceptance of Yuhan’s irrevocable goneness was a foolish attempt to make it a little less lonely. For whom, she didn’t know.
Yuhan had gone somewhere she could not follow. Yet still, she found herself searching.
She could let the fanmail, scripts, and contracts pile up on her coffee table but they would never fill the negative space carved into the shape of the mug he used for tea. Having everything just made it impossible to forget the one thing that you didn’t. And sometimes Myeong felt grateful for that remembering. But lately she really hadn’t felt grateful at all. Now, all she felt was an iciness that pierced straight to her marrow, only worsened by the chill in the air.
It seemed that after all, Myeong was growing weary of the brutal honesty she found in acting.
What now? The wind wondered as it nipped along her pinkened cheeks.
And then, And then, And then,
Myeong knew that there was only one thing to be done about the bitter cold gnawing at her fingers, and at the inside of her chest: A steaming bowl of gukbap.
What now?
And then, Myeong decided it was time for a trip to the beach.