#midbluem

WRITING PORTFOLIO

The man laid out before him is not his husband. Not the one he remembers.

The husband Jihu remembers has hair the color of raven feathers, pins used to keep the strands in place. His skin is milky white and bruises like ripened plums when pressed. The curl of his lips makes the sun pale in comparison.

This man is nearly unrecognizable. Hollowed out features, sunken eyes and skeletal limbs, skin like paper, hair lifeless—

(Just like the rest of him, hanging on by a mere thread.)

They were wed three springs ago. Petals rained from above as they stood beneath the plum blossom trees and promised their undying love to one another for all the forest to witness, two souls irrevocably becoming one.

That was the first time Jihu had seen Yunseo weep. The sight broke his heart, then slowly pieced it back together.

“Jihu.”

His name spoken in tender syllables. A cold hand on his wrist. The weight of such fragile things.

“Look at me, please.”

And he does. Even though it hurts (oh, how it hurts). Jihu looks at the love of his life, at his withering form, and barely suppresses a sob.

Yunseo smiles, and even this small movement seems to take so much out of him, though he’d deny it if asked. “I love you,” he says.