🎶 Punch - Done For Me

Love can end.

That is why some breakups are quieter than resentment, and some lingering attachments remain longer in silence than in grasping. Conversely, if a relationship has nothing left to hold onto, letting go might be the final consideration for one another.

Believing in eternity was a privilege of youth.

We were like that too. It was a marriage that began with promises of love. But at some point, we stopped believing in the word 'eternity.' We didn't fight loudly. There were no words intended to hurt, no emotional explosions.

We simply stayed within a relationship that didn't change.

Paying attention to each other became meaningless, and we couldn't find a reason to be together. In the silence named stability, what eventually remained was emptiness.

It's not that we didn't try. To fulfill the responsibility of being a married couple, we did everything we could. We tried to talk more, tried to adjust. But the conclusion we finally reached was the same.

'I can't find a reason to be together anymore.'

There was no justification to force the relationship to continue. We didn't have a passion so hot that we couldn't live without each other, nor did we have a child to call the fruit of our love.

So, the final consideration we chose for each other was divorce. The process of the five years we spent together returning to our individual lives was smoother than expected.

There were no emotional battles. We didn't argue over who was wrong. We were just quietly returning to our respective places. Then, one winter night with the final mediation remaining.

An unexpected accident occurred. For the past few days, sex crimes targeting women had been occurring consecutively in the neighborhood. At work, there was talk of leaving in pairs, but I just thought of it as someone else's problem.

Until that day.

On the night I got off the bus after working overtime, by the time I felt the footsteps following me were strange, it was already too late. At the entrance of a deserted alley, someone grabbed my wrist roughly from behind.

"...Help me!"

When I came to my senses, fortunately, I was inside a police car. I was lucky. It was a deserted alley, but someone heard my scream and reported it.

A blanket was draped over my shoulders, and a lukewarm paper cup was in my hand. I heard the question of whether I was okay several times, but I couldn't answer easily. My head understood the situation, but my body hadn't caught up yet.

It was the same after arriving at the police station. It wasn't clear what questions I was asked or what answers I gave. Eventually, the police, judging that I couldn't continue the conversation, checked my identity and made a call somewhere.

In that fleeting moment, I couldn't bring myself to ask who they called. I was that out of it.

How much time had passed? The entrance to the police station was thrown open roughly.

With urgent footsteps I would never have heard normally, the person who entered the police station was a sight so unfamiliar it made me forget the fear from moments ago.

It was my husband.

A short-sleeved shirt. Pajama pants. Bare feet in slippers. It was midwinter. A man who never had a hair out of place. A man who was sensitive about the length of his shirt sleeves and hated even a speck of dust on his shoes.

A man who wouldn't even step out to the convenience store in front of the house in such attire was now standing before me without even a coat.

"...Are you alright?"

I finally asked. Because I really wanted to know what on earth was the reason he had to appear before me in such a disheveled state.

"...Why did you come?"

When I asked, my husband looked at me for a moment and said quietly.

"...Because I'm still your spouse."

There was no tenderness or lingering attachment in those words. He seemed like a person stating a calm fact. And yet, it was strange. That one sentence shook something deep in my chest very faintly.

It wasn't fluttering excitement. It wasn't lingering regret. It was different from being glad to see him. What on earth is the name of this emotion?

Clearly, we had let each other go. But was the reason this man was so urgent that he ran out in his pajamas on a winter night really just the single duty of being a 'spouse'?

Or, even in the place where love has ended, does the time lived together simply refuse to disappear? I couldn't find the answer in the end. However, I knew one thing. That even in a relationship believed to be over, a single tender ripple can remain.

And sometimes, that one tender ripple becomes the start of turning a relationship around.