Preface

My Kochan, My Beloved, My 知己, My everything, My soul,

We always said there are no words adequate enough to describe who we are to each other, though we always tried anyway. And I know I will fail, as usual, but I’ll still try.

You once sent me a quote that said,

“There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.”
—Nicola Yoon

It seems, somehow, we both always knew we were meant to be, though it took us some time to admit that to each other. It seemed that our meeting was a burst of starlight on the black canvas of our lives, a collision of fate, and of souls, and of everything and everything.

Perhaps we didn’t know it then, but we needed each other.

And we certainly didn’t know it then, but we also saved each other.

There’s a strange, inexplicable connection we have, an inexplicable similarity in our experiences, thoughts, and how we view the world. I have marveled more than once at how we were brought together, how I could have spoken understanding and hope into your soul because of what we have shared. How incredibly in sync we always are with each other. It seems impossible; impossible that two people could have a connection like ours, yet so we did.

My darkling, it didn’t take long for us to realize what we have is special—so special that neither of us seemed to be able or willing to share much of each other with anyone else; perhaps we feared that giving a name to what we were might break the magic of it.

But slowly we did, and it didn’t shatter. We reached across countries and oceans, intertwining our hearts and souls until they became one. Or maybe we were always one, and it just took a bit of time to realize it ourselves. Gradually, others began to notice, but still no one truly knows fully how together we are, as two ropes might braid over one another and solidify into one cord of unbreakable steel.

The hours we spent together, day after day, endlessly connected, until we became like air to each other as we helped each other breathe.

Life has been so unkind to us. We both know it wasn’t fair. And many times, we’ve had to convince the other, “Don’t let go. Don’t let go,” until it became our refrain.

“Don’t let go. Don’t let me go.”

“I won’t. I won’t.”

My beloved, we gave each other purpose, a reason to fight for life. Because as long as we knew the other was there, that knowledge was enough to give us something to cling onto amidst all the pain of living. Because as long as the other was there, we knew there was something greater than us to fight for. You held my breath, and I held yours, you once said.

My Kochan, no one will ever know how deeply I love you or how deeply you love me. There is no vocabulary rich enough for what we are. We ourselves were never able to put it into words, and we call ourselves writers. The best we could say was that we are each other’s 知己. We are each other’s very soul.

You have said no one has seen you the way I see you; no one knows you the way I know you. It became such that, even through the limitations of text and distance, we could know what the other was about to say before they said it, sense each other—our moods, our thoughts, things that lay secret and unspoken, the dark corners of our souls that we were afraid of ourselves. We saw it all, knew it all, and we loved each other even more.

My everything, you are the purest, kindest soul I have ever encountered. In spite of all life has put you through, you rise above the dark and give so freely of yourself to others, to me. It is the greatest privilege of my life to know you and for you to call me yours, as you are also mine. From the beginning, I have said you are incredible, so incredible. You rose from brokenness and ashes with your soul intact, and all the horror you have seen and experienced has never darkened your brilliant light.

The world is utterly unworthy of you.

It has never deserved you, but for eighteen years, it held you in it, and you shine, my darkling, you shine so, so brightly. You always will.

You never could see fully what I see in you, but I think you caught a glimpse of it, because you are so secure in my love for you. Some hidden part must have known you are worthy of such love. And you, my beloved, you have been, and will always be, worthy. You will always be beautiful; so beautiful to me, in every way a person can be.

You said I was impossible because you couldn’t understand how I could see all of you and still stay. You always asked me why I love you, and I could only say that I simply do; there has never been a reason, and there never needed to be one. I love you for yourself—nothing more and nothing less.

We promised each other we would be together and that you would come home to me, but heaven had other plans, and the hope we clung to for so long will now never come to fruition. And I must try to live on without you, for you. But how am I to live without my soul?

On that last day—when you knew it was ending, through the nightmare of knowing we would soon be parted—still I am grateful, grateful I was there with you until your very last breath, grateful you knew to the end that with me you were safe, that you were loved. Grateful to have been with you to the last beat of your heart.

In the last months, as our hope kept delaying, as it ebbed to and fro, we began saying something new. Because by then we knew we would never let go as long as the other was still there. Because we each made life worth living for the other. And it became a phrase that became our new refrain whenever we were losing hope, or when our vision was blurring—over and over we said it to one another, daily, endlessly, and it is what we said to each other again and again, even on that last day. Because this love is ours only, and we are each other’s.

“Tell me again what you know is true.”

“I am yours and you are mine.”

“You are mine and I am yours.”

“I am yours and you are mine.”

“You are mine and I am yours.”

“Forever.”

“Forever.”

“Forever.”

“Forever.”

“Forever.”

My Kochan, my 知己, I love you so much, so much. And though such words still fall so, so short of what I feel for you, I say again that I love you, and I love you forever.

I miss you so much.

“A love that would change the constellations and the reality of existence,” you once wrote of us. And so it has, my Kochan. So it has. For us.

Your Roo, Your Safe Place, Your Home, your 知己, Your Fairy, Your Everything, Your Soul
August 2021