—I was the one who said goodbye first.

It wasn't because I didn't love you. I just couldn't let you stand in the heavy downpour for long, so I folded my umbrella, handed it to you, and turned away. I saw you off with a face sculpted by kind lies until the final moment.

Since then, I've eaten normally, slept shallowly, and laughed nonchalantly in front of others. Believing that a daily life where you are absent is as natural as the passing of seasons.

But the bottom of my heart was still stopped on that day.

The scent of cool air you liked, the indifferent way you often spoke, even the way your eyes crinkled at trivial things. Like seashells left quietly on a beach after the tide has gone out, they faintly reflected the sunlight whenever I grew arrogant enough to think I'd forgotten.

The memories I forcibly covered up were worn and broken in places like long-neglected 8mm film, but strangely, the scenes where you entered the frame were as cruelly vivid and red as a cyanotype photograph.

Releasing a hand and emptying a heart followed completely different trajectories.

I continue to pretend to be fine as if performing a play. Since it's a sentence I ended with my own hand, I bind myself with the thought that leaving a question mark now would be an act of utter selfishness. Even when thoughts chase their tails and keep me up all night, I try to let them drift away like a change-of-season breeze when morning comes.

Still, very occasionally, on nights when the moon is exceptionally bright, I indulge in useless 'what ifs.'

If I had been a slightly more shameless person, would I have clung to your sleeve and begged?

...No.

I probably would have been smiling just like this.

Pretending to be fine, while still being in love with you.