Art of Closure: A Coalesce Short

Jin-Kyong’s Apartment

Shibuya, JPN
November 2016

“Jin-Kyong. Jin-Kyong.” 

A rapt knock on the door. 

“Jin-Kyong. You have to let me inside or I’ll use your spare key.” 

No reply. 

“Jin-Kyong.”

Park Eun-Seok exhaled at the lack of response; he knelt and took a silver key from under the flowerpot that was placed near the door. “You leave me with no choice,” he muttered, standing back up and using the key to open the door.

He expected to see Jin-Kyong there, messy-haired and glaring, but to his surprise there was no one there. Lifting an eyebrow, Eun-Seok entered the lady’s apartment and shut the door behind, locking it afterward. The male waited quietly for a minute inside, taking in the sight of her apartment and what had changed since the last time he was there.

Jin-Kyong’s apartment was still the same. The walls were untouched, the living room seemed neat, and the plants were still there. To his dismay, there was a pile of letters on the table near the front door. He picked one of them up and felt a slight wrench in his stomach as he read the Hangul on the front.

“No wonder she hasn’t picked up,” he muttered to himself, putting it back and removing his coat. Eun-Seok hung it on the door and removed his shoes, leaving it on the space where different pairs of shoes remained. Taking a deep breath, he let himself walk deeper into her home, determined not to let the somberness of the area get to him.

The last time I was somewhere this melancholy, he ended up thinking, it was her funeral. The only difference is that her funeral smelled of water and lotuses. Jin-Kyong’s apartment doesn’t have a smell. It seems…unused.

He turned right and walked until he saw a familiar, pale door. Lifting his fist, Eun-Seok knocked just as he did on her front door. “Jin-Kyong?”

“No one’s supposed to be here.”

“It’s been more than a week,” he protested. “The rest of them are looking for you back in the office.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” he insisted. “Jin-Kyong. I’m going to go inside.”

No response.

He went inside and closed the door from behind. Turning his eyes to the room, Eun-Seok exhaled quietly and took a nearby chair, positioned it near her bed, and sat down.

He room was a mess.

There were clothes all over the floor, different post-it notes stuck to the walls and all over her vanity mirror. The entire bedroom was a cluttered mess; something Eun-Seok would never associate with Jin-Kyong. Messes were not part of her vocabulary; she was known was one of the neat freaks of the company. This was the same Jin-Kyong who liked her things arranged by size and color, who liked her closet arranged from reds until purples with the monochromatic clothing in another section. This was the same Jin-Kyong who organized her make up according to hues and shades of different shades.

The office-declared neat freak was now living in a room of entropy. Eun-Seok could almost hear the giggling of Eris.

“You should come back to work.”

“Come back,” Jin-Kyong croaked. She remained under the covers, barely moving. “And then what? Wake up, work, go home, sleep – and do the same thing for the rest of my life? Live a dead cycle all over again?” Eun-Seok frowned. “I’m not living a monotonous life.”

“Who said your life was monotonous?”

“That’s what it feels like.” There was movement from the bed, and Jin-Kyong sat up with her eyes closed. She embraced her knees tightly and rested her head on them. “Without Soo-Yeon.”

Kim Soo-Yeon. It was like a punch was delivered to his stomach; Eun-Seok couldn’t help but look away from the other person. Of course. This…this explains most of it. Why didn’t I realize any sooner?

“Without Soo-Yeon,” Jin-Kyong continued, her voice trembling, “Everything is monotonous and monochromatic.”

“Jin-Kyong…”

“I need time.” She closed her eyes and turned away from him, “I just…I need time to recover. I need more time.

“We’re still there. Jin-Kyong, we’re grieving too–”

Eun-Seok stumbled back, nearly crashing into the bookshelf. A pillow landed on the floor with a soft thud and he looked up only to see another thrown his way. He dodged and it hit the bookshelf, making it almost fall, if it weren’t for him managing to hold it upright.

“Jin-Kyong, what the fuck?”

“Get out.”

Eun-Seok froze for a split second before turning back to the bed. No longer was Jin-Kyong in her old position but instead had her head up, and she was staring at the wall with a cold expression. Her hands were clenched into fists.

“You. Don’t. Understand.”

“Wait, I–”

“You don’t understand what I had with Soo-Yeon. None of you understand what I had with Soo-Yeon.” He saw her hands tighten around the bed sheets and he felt a prickle of unease, “No one understands what I had with Soo-Yeon except for Soo-Yeon and myself. And now she’s dead.”

When she turned back to him, he could already see the tears in her eyes.

Her voice was hard. “Leave. Leave now.”

And so he did. Quietly, slipping through the door, as dark would into a crack. He left quietly and left her alone, not seeing her revert back under the covers and hold a photograph tight against her chest, the corners folded.

Eun-Seok grabbed for his coat, which had managed to slip off the hanger, and slid it on. Within seconds, he was already ouside. Within minutes, he had managed to hail a cab and go far, far away from Jin-Kyong’s apartment.

Left alone inside and with no one else, Jin-Kyong curled into a ball. She held the image tightly with trembling fingers and stiff hands, a sob tearing away from her. Fresh tears began dripping onto the photograph.

On the outside did the cloudy skies begin to break and rain start to fall from the sky.