Doppelgänger

Doppelgänger

The aurora-lit sky in the Can This Love Be Translated scene.

Near the end of the series, the more I get realized. I find my fragments in Cha Mu-hee. A fragile figure, burdened by unruly assumptions, an “imaginary” friend, shaped by her own perceptions of how love should be processed, whether sourced from within or imposed from outside. Doubt lingers, memories of the past persist, unstable, loud, chaotic, and disordered yet still carrying a quiet sliver of hope to prevail at the end of the war. Watching this series just like seeing life flashed before my eyes.

This line draws my thoughts to one specific boy. Met him in high school.

He never spoke of loving me, yet his actions could tell. A bittersweet adolescent, but I still remembered how he helped to lift my super heavy bag, only asked me for a photo amid all the girls, how he stood tall and offered a wafer or two from a bench not far from mine, switched a little damaged chair of mine with his even when I didn’t realize mine was broken, set my selfie on his wallpaper, he was the one stranger boy who feel proud and most straightforward about it when I accepted in this uni.

I never learned how to hold it properly. Not having someone else to tell, not even home. They’d judge and tell me to just focus on my study hahah. Well, he arrived as the first kindness that dared to be clear and gentle at once. “Head over heels” felt like a switch-on in me. But I was too occupied stitching my own name. Too crowded between the question, whether I was worthy of loving and being loved, layered with countless what-ifs. Fear took hold if I were letting him unearth this soul, he would see everything I carried and choose to disappear. He’s pure and kind, while I was his midnight rain. I loosened my grip, let the feeling thin out, but it wasn’t enough. He stayed the same. So, I bruised him with my words knowing I’m good enough to tell bitter words. Kept telling him he deserved someone who could receive his quiet efforts with ease, very chalant, someone brighter, with eyes that met his without hesitation.

Days passed by and life kept writing number of pages. I really am content knowing our lives unfold on separate paths, each of us moving forward in our own way. I hope our paths remain forever apart. Wish him a happiness that doesn’t have to find its way back to me.