After that, we never met or spoke to each other again. We spent the rest of our high school freshman year not contacting each other. In our junior and senior years, we were never in the same class, so there was never a chance to run into her. Our lives carried on like nothing had happened - besides that one fateful summer of our 16th year.

I continued to be alone and Song Sori always kept around a population around her. Sometimes I would pass by her in the hallway. I always felt like having a panic attack. I deafened my unsynchronized breathing and walked past her, without looking back. For some reason we would always meet each other’s eyes. It also felt like she was staring at me from my back. But that’s just a hunch. I never saw her around besides those few moments.

From what I heard, her family’s record store didn’t seem to do all that well. Song Sori would start working at part-time jobs in her senior year, which is why I never even saw her in hallways in my final year of high school. After graduation I heard she went to a famous university. It doesn’t really matter. I don’t care what she’s up to now.

I kept writing and listening to music. In my junior year I joined the newspaper club. The seniors there suggested to me that I should write some articles using my musical knowledge. There weren’t that many younger members who actually wrote, so they were keen on me for showing talent - relatively speaking. Anyway, I would write two articles every month - one about current pop music and one about classic rock - and posted them on the school paper. The ones about pop music got pretty popular, to my surprise. In the process I opened up to some of the other members of the club. Even a few kids in my class would ask me about albums and such. Dare I say that I even made some friends. I continued to write stuff like that in my senior year and naturally I decided to study writing in college. Like I said before, at first I studied creative writing, but I decided to pursue journalism instead, using my experiences from high school.

My high school life might have ended without much fuss. But Song Sori continued to be an element of influence in my life. Music, which now has become nothing less than the reason for my life, only entered into my life because of her. Perhaps I continued writing because in the back of my mind I had a hope that she would one day read them.

I only knew Song Sori for that one summer I spent as a 16 year old, but she had changed me. (And, this should be obvious, but if it hadn’t been for that time, I would have realized I was gay much later in my life.) We were never meant to be, but if Song Sori and I were fated to never get together, at least I want to treasure the music. I want to keep on living, never forgetting that summer memory. If my fate is to live in a world without Sori, I feel like I mustn't abandon the things that she has given me.

I wonder why. Maybe I want to show to someone the cool part of me that I never got to show off to her back then. Look! Love had existed all along! Perhaps I want to yell it out like that. It might be that I am too stubborn to not uphold my end of the promise we made to each other. That we would forget each other.

Is Song Sori keeping that promise too? What kind of life does she lead now? Did I change her just as much as she had changed me? To repeat myself, it no longer matters. No matter what she does, or even if she thinks of the same things; it’s not my concern anymore. No matter how much you cry at a story, not one word will ever be changed. Stories can simply be kept. I don’t think there’s a problem with me being the only one to keep this promise.

Now I understand. You can’t save yourself through other people. Song Sori couldn't save me, but through her, I could save myself. Music became my saviour, just as it was hers.

The heartbreak I went through at 16; the love, the music - it’s been 10 years since then. And in my ears I can still hear that music. I think my life is fated to be dyed with that music.