My Yongsun,

You are the sun I orbit, though I’m lost in your light. I wonder if you remember the boy you once played with. I wonder if the years have blurred those memories, making them fade like old photographs left too long in the sun. You’re married to me now, Jessie Alvarez—the boy who turned into a man, always chasing the echoes of our past.

I hope you still radiate love, as you always did. I keep writing stories and verses, hoping they’ll bridge the chasm that sometimes seems to yawn between us, despite everything. It’s the only way I know how to tell you, in this language of heartbeats and sighs, how deeply I love you. Even now, I still whisper it to the wind, hoping somehow, somewhere, you might hear it.

Though the ocean roars between us and our conversations sometimes feel like mismatched notes, these words are all I have to offer. Your laughter—once a melody that transcended the awkwardness of our different tongues—still fills my days with light. Your quirks, like constellations in a foreign sky, used to guide me; now, I’m left squinting up at the heavens, wondering if I can still find my way.

My heart, once a barren desert, bloomed when you spoke. Your voice watered the dry landscape of my loneliness, each syllable like rain to parched soil. Now, sometimes it feels as though that same desert is reclaiming its ground, the flowers wilting under the weight of time and unspoken words. This message I write, I fear, is a paper boat adrift on a vast, indifferent sea. Yet if it reaches you, if by some miracle you feel the weight of these words, know that my purpose is fulfilled.

You conquer your challenges, and I face mine—both of us striving, struggling to keep afloat in our separate oceans. I dream of a day when we’ll share not just a language, but a lifetime, hand in hand. But until that day comes, until I can stand beside you and speak your words fluently, let this be the only phrase you need to understand: Yongsun, I love you.

I can’t wait for spring. The anticipation feels like a slow ache, a longing that stretches across these cold months, pulling me back to a time when everything felt brighter, simpler. I think of you, Yongsun, more than I care to admit, especially as the days inch closer to that season of renewal. Spring always reminds me of us—of those mornings in the Philippines when the sun would peek over the horizon, and we’d sit side by side, watching the world wake up. You would sing softly, your voice a gentle lullaby against the backdrop of the waves, and I would sit there, mesmerized, as if your song could carry away all the uncertainties of tomorrow.

“Can I be your sun?” you asked me once, your eyes reflecting the golden light of daybreak. I laughed, not because it was funny, but because I didn’t know how to tell you that you already were. “Yes,” I said, simply. It was the easiest promise I ever made.

Now, in the present, I find myself touching your picture more often than I should, as if the worn edges of the photograph could somehow pull you closer across the expanse of years and distance. The image is faded—a snapshot of you laughing, caught mid-moment in a place that feels both familiar and far away. I hold it like a relic, the only tangible link to the past I keep revisiting. Beside me, an old MP3 player, its buttons sticky from use, holds your voice, captured in tinny recordings that I play when the nights grow too quiet. Your voice crackles, but it's unmistakably yours, singing those songs you used to sing just for me. It’s almost worn out now, the sound distorted and thin, but it’s enough to bring me back.

I’m most nostalgic in these months when the cold keeps me indoors and memories of warmer days resurface unbidden. I think of the times we wasted at PC shops, fingers clicking away at games, the hours slipping past unnoticed. We'd eat to our hearts' content afterward, laughing with no sense of time or the looming reality that everything would soon change. There was that one summer when we raced paper boats along the riverbank, each one a small, hopeful vessel destined to drift until it disappeared around a bend. We watched them go, wondering if they’d make it to the sea or sink halfway there. I feel like one of those boats now, carried along by a current I can’t control, lost somewhere between what was and what could have been.

The temple is still here, hidden among the city's folds, just as it was in the photos you used to show me. You always said you wanted us to visit it together, the way other kids dreamed of Disneyland. We were still too young, though—two kids without the means to cross oceans and make dreams like that come true. So we stayed where we were, grounded by the borders of our realities, yet somehow always reaching beyond them in our hearts.

I pass by the temple often now, pausing just long enough to imagine what it would have been like to walk those steps with you beside me. You had to leave, and I understood, at least on the surface. You had dreams too big for the small world we shared, and I was never the kind to hold you back. But the truth is, Yongsun, your voice doesn’t reach me here. Not like it did back then, when you could turn the quietest moments into something sacred with just a song.

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Why couldn’t you do it with me? It’s a question I’ve asked myself countless times, in different ways, with no real answer. Maybe I was too much of a dreamer, thinking I could hold onto something that was always meant to slip away. The MP3 player, with your voice trapped inside it, is almost a relic now, barely holding on. The batteries are low, the casing is cracked, and the songs skip in places where the data’s gone bad. But I can’t let it go. Not when it’s the only thing that makes you feel real, even if just for a fleeting moment.

I’m not seven anymore, though some days I wish I could be. I’m thirty now, a far cry from the boy who didn’t know how much his life would change because of the exchange student he played with for a few fleeting weeks. It’s 2021, and sometimes people still look at me like I’m that quiet kid who played football after school. They don’t know what happened in the years that followed—why I changed, why I hardened. I don’t bother to explain, and they don’t bother to ask.

Years without you were like wandering lost at sea. I picked up hobbies—sports, books, anything to fill the void. But nothing stuck. I’m a mess, unshaved and unkempt, stumbling through days that feel empty without you. Three years ago, I left the Philippines and moved to East Asia, trading one familiar loneliness for another. My family is rich; my job is stable. I have everything I need, but it all feels so hollow without you.

Now, at thirty, I’m trying to piece together the fragments of what once was. I keep replaying the old tapes of my youth, those days filled with a bittersweet mix of joy and sadness. I remember the first time I met you, and the last time I watched you leave. I remember how you changed everything, even though you were only in my life for a short while.

Seventeen years, and it’s still hard to breathe without you nearby. Learning to express myself in a language that wasn’t mine felt like learning to breathe underwater. But I had to do it, had to see you again—not just in old photos, not just in my dreams. I wonder if you’re married now, if life has treated you well. I wonder if you still think of me, the way I think of you every single day. I would have given anything to be part of your life, to share each sunrise and sunset with you.

Youth is a fleeting thing, and only now do I truly understand what I lost when you walked away. It’s February 12th, a day that always feels heavy with the weight of what might have been. The sky is gray, the air thick with falling snowflakes, and I wrap myself in my coat, feeling the cold bite into my skin. The garden outside is beginning to show the first hints of spring—Korean rhododendrons blooming despite the chill, a stubborn promise of warmth in the cold.

I zip up my jacket and keep walking. It’ll be months before spring fully arrives, before Yeouido Park turns into a sea of cherry blossoms. I hope that one day, maybe, I can share it with you. But for now, I sigh and keep moving, letting the memories come and go like waves on a shore.

I think of you often, Yongsun, though I say your name less these days. It lingers on my tongue, a taste of something sweet yet distant, like a melody half-remembered from a song we used to sing. I wonder if you’d recognize me now—this rougher, quieter version of the boy who once held your hand and promised forever in a place that felt like our whole universe.

Some days, it feels like I’m traveling backwards through time, the years unwinding until I’m just a boy again, wandering those familiar corridors where we first met. I remember our games, our secrets shared in whispers. I remember the day you left, and the way I stood there, watching as you disappeared around the corner.

I still remember our marriage, Yongsun, even though so many things have changed. I can see it clearly: the small Buddhist temple hidden in the heart of our high school, where you nagged me endlessly to make it official. We were so young, but your persistence was unyielding, a force as constant as the sun. I laughed, not quite believing you were serious, but you looked at me with those eyes that twinkled like sunlight on water. "Only here," you insisted, as if that tiny, sacred space held the entire universe within its walls.

I promised you then, a vow as sacred as any: I’d only ever do it with you. We stood there, hands clasped and hearts pounding, our makeshift vows whispered between quiet giggles and stolen glances. The world outside blurred away, leaving only us, wrapped in a cocoon of naïve love and teenage dreams.

When it was done, I kissed your eyes, feeling the warmth of your gaze against my lips. They were your most beautiful feature—bright, radiant, and full of life. In that moment, they shined even brighter, filled with the promise of everything we could be. You looked at me as if I was the answer to every question you'd ever asked. I wish I could have bottled that feeling, saved it for all the lonely years that would follow. But I keep it here, tucked away in my heart, a memory that still makes me smile despite everything.

It’s strange, isn’t it, how time can blur the edges of things? I wake up some mornings, and it’s as if no time has passed at all. I can still see you, clear as day, calling my name, telling me to hurry or we’ll be late for class. I open my eyes and blink against the harsh light of reality. I’m Jessie Alvarez, standing on the edge of thirty, but in my mind, I’m still that fourteen-year-old boy, waiting to see you again.

This is my story—our story. A tale of love lost and found, of moments that slip through your fingers no matter how tightly you try to hold on. Perhaps you’ll smile as you read it. Perhaps you’ll cry. But if nothing else, I hope you’ll feel it, the way I’ve felt every beat of this lonely, longing heart.

The snow keeps falling, each flake a tiny, fleeting miracle, a testament to the passage of time. I stand still for a moment, watching the world turn white, feeling the chill seep into my bones. It’s a somber thing, this waiting. But maybe, just maybe, there’s still hope. Because in the end, isn’t that all we have? Hope, and the small, stubborn belief that love—once found—can never truly be lost.

I sigh, close my eyes, and let the memories take me where they will. This is where it all began. And maybe, just maybe, it’s where it will begin again.