twenty-two: story that won't end

TWO YEARS LATER

There is a melody to falling in love.

It starts off fast, fiery, fragmented. It starts off with a million violins screeching away at their resin-soaked bows, their irate melodies wrapping fever-fuelled souls in silk and stone. It starts off with a long dive off a short cliff. And then it descends, diminuendo, diminuendo, diminuendo, down to piano keys and intertwined sonatas and Coates' autumn etudes---before it calms, leaving its victim hopeful and breathless, thousands of butterflies invading the fragility of a heart.

Gregory feels it now, the little semiquaver butterflies dancing along his arms as the world shifts into oblivion, leaving behind just himself---and the blue-haired boy standing in front of him. He shouldn't be thinking like this---after all, he's known this guy for so long that he shouldn't even be attracted to him anymore. But there is something magnetic about the other boy's warm, cocoa-eyed stare, something that makes Gregory thank the heavens he'd crashed into his orbit.

Before he can take a step forward, the boy beats him to the punch.

"You were staring," the boy says, and there's so much love packed into his voice that it makes Gregory weak. Not pity, not sadness, nothing particularly negative, in fact. Just raw, undiluted, distinctive love, snapped into the rhythm of three simple words. Two bands are playing at the same time, from different ends of the park, and the music wavers and fades around Gregory's personal bubble---which the boy has just invaded.

It scares Gregory---how the mere sight of his boyfriend rips the air from his lungs, how three words bring his feelings crashing down on him like a runaway wave, how he loves him so much it hurts. He can't speak, so he doesn't, soaking in every inch of Jeong-Soon's tall, lithe form, drowning in the multitudes in his sunkissed eyes, watching the ocean sparkle in the crinkly wisps of his freshly-dyed blue hair.

"You remember," Gregory manages to get out as the rhapsody of his heartbeat swells with wild abandon, threatening to devour him whole. His lungs hum with ecstasy, and enclosed in their tiny universe, the melody whirls into a storm.

Jeong-Soon chuckles lightly, one hand creeping into his sky-tinted locks. "How could I ever forget?" Then he's moving closer, pulling Gregory into a tight embrace that sends butterflies arcing through every centimetre of Gregory's body. "Happy birthday," Jeong-Soon whispers.

Gregory shuts his eyes, burying his face into his boyfriend's chest. He prays that Jeong-Soon won't hear his heartbeat, won't hear the bells and the butterflies and the cannons pounding out of his chest, won't hear how in love he is. "Happy birthday to you too," he replies, voice muffled by Jeong-Soon's t-shirt and his own fleshy cheek, the side of his mouth digging into his teeth. "When you said you had a surprise for me, I wasn't expecting a new dye job."

Jeong-Soon pulls away slightly, alarm flooding his face. "Sorry! Do you, uh, not like it? I can always change it again if you want---"

"I said I didn't expect it." Gregory feels his face heat up. "I never said I didn't like it. It suits you. Very sexy. Makes me want to drag you back home immediately."

His boyfriend's grin is full of mischief. "Maybe later." Then his expression softens around the edges, losing its cheeky cadence for the warm concern Gregory's become so accustomed to. "I'm sorry I wasn't there this morning."

"Yeah, what was up with that?" Gregory complains. "I wake up, expecting some hot birthday morning sex or something, and next thing I know, my significant annoyance's missing from the bed. You didn't even make your side of the bed properly."

The mischievous smile is back, and Gregory senses a thousand secrets behind the rosy curve of his boyfriend's lips. Jeong-Soon's still almost too easy to read, which is one thing that hasn't changed over the years they've been together. He's pretty sure his boyfriend's hiding something, and he's pretty fucking happy about it. "I had...something to do," Jeong-Soon deflects. Gregory feels his boyfriend's palm press against his own, soft and slender and warm. His fingers instinctively wrap around Jeong-Soon's slim digits, and the staccato pulse that rushes through his entire body is a pleasant shock.

So he's just as happy to be here as me.

That's good.

"How was this morning's session?" Jeong-Soon asks quietly. The speckled sunlight weaves a pianissimo harmony in his choppy bangs, dappling every strand of his hair in shiny, emerald-gold radiance.

Gregory tears his eyes away from his boyfriend's face to stare at the ground. "Normal. Doc got me a cake. Tiramisu."

"That's nice of him."

"Yeah."

"I hope you didn't tell him you hate tiramisu."

"I kept my mouth open, bit my tongue, and threw up in our kitchen trashcan the moment I got home. I wanted to tell him, honestly. But then I thought, 'Jeong-Soon would be so disappointed in me if I told my therapist that the birthday cake he bought for me out of his own pocket was the only flavour in the world that I couldn't stand.' So no. I did not tell Doc." Gregory crosses his arms over his chest. He still notices the absence of protruding bones and too-sharp ribcages sometimes, the loss made even more prominent by the sheaf of flesh now generously spread underneath his shirt. Considering the way he's been eating since his stepmother had started taking up online cooking lessons, he's not surprised.

Jeong-Soon laughs, a clear sound that cuts through the bands echoing through every corner of the festival. "I'm proud of you."

"Thanks. In case you were worried, I brushed my teeth after throwing up. I also gargled with salt water and consumed at least six breath mints."

"What are you getting at?" Jeong-Soon teases.

Gregory can't help rolling his eyes. "You leave me in bed alone, make me pay for my own ticket, and now you're trying to play mind games? I'm asking you to kiss me, you idiot."

Another giggle escapes Jeong-Soon's throat. He leans down to gently press their feverish mouths together---and just like that, Gregory feels himself erupt into flames, every drop of love in his heart suddenly gasoline, fuelled by the flame branded over the sparks between their lips.

Gregory lets himself sink into the burning paradise carved out by their interlocked hearts, lets his grip tighten on Jeong-Soon's knobbly, heated hand, lets his lips swell with the passion stitched into his yearning soul.

He can feel eyes turn to them, one pair lingering longer than the rest, burning with arsenic, burning with malice, burning with hate. The stare scorches, but Gregory remembers how a stare just like that one had dissipated the magic of his first kiss four years ago, and this time, he refuses to give in. Instead, he dives into the kiss with renewed fire, because this---this is the boy he loves, and he'll die in this moment if he has to, pressed against Kang Jeong-Soon's rosy lips, their love distorted by the funhouse lenses of strangers.

I dare you to take this away from me, he tells the woman from four years ago, the one who'd broken the enchantment of their first kiss. I dare you to take this away from me, he tells her successor, the one he can sense glaring at him right now. I dare you to take this away from me, he tells the demons in his mind, the ones that still tear at him from time to time.

I dare you to take this away from me, he tells the world. I dare you to take him away from me.

Gregory knows he shouldn't tempt fate, but he can't help it---there is something about Jeong-Soon that calms him and excites him at the same time, a strange recklessness hanging in the air. And he knows that this is the moment when something bad could happen---a brakeless truck, perhaps. A festival fire. A heart attack.

But nothing happens, and all that remains is the invisible string twining them together when they finally break apart.

"Wow," Jeong-Soon murmurs breathlessly, and that one word holds a million symphonies in it, a tapestry of raw vulnerability. He's smiling, that same bright, beautiful smile that the very sun shines out from, pale cheeks flushed and lips plumped up from the slightest nips of Gregory's teeth. And Gregory wonders how anyone could see them as monsters, as demons with harlot minds and twisted sexualities---instead of what they truly are. Two boys in their red and blue jackets, still treading the fine line between innocence and adulthood. Two boys throbbing along to the bass of the music echoing through the park. Two boys, still drowning in the memories of the day the universe had thrown them together.

And maybe it's the melody in the air, lingering senza misura, thick and heavy and full of unspoken secrets, but Gregory feels his mouth parting in words he's said so often before, words he's never said enough. "I love you," he whispers against the delicacy of Jeong-Soon's embrace, the sentence lento on his lips, soaking the cold away from his bones.

Jeong-Soon's grin widens, crooked teeth angling in the most endearing way. His hand slips into Gregory's palm again, slender fingers large around Gregory's smaller, chubbier ones---a far cry from the skeletal sticks of bone they'd once been. "I love you too," he says, tenderness woven into every syllable.

A loud, shattering noise fills Gregory's ears, and he notices Jeong-Soon's audible wince. "What was that?" Gregory questions, scanning their surroundings for the offending sound.

His eyes land on the pebbly ground, dusted in shards of crimson and sky.

Gregory instantly realises what's happened. "The headphones," he mumbles, staring at the remnants of bright plastic and metal joints. "They're...gone."

"Hallelujah," Jeong-Soon proclaims, eyes firmly fixed on the shattered headphones as the shards sink into the ground like they'd never been there in the first place. "You think they'd have disappeared after nearly killing us both but nooo---"

Gregory realises he's not listening anymore. Instead, his gaze has made its way to a nearby stand, where a young woman with a mousy brown ponytail is hunched over stacks of headphones. As if sensing his gaze, she looks up. Gregory feels a strange shudder make its way down his spine.

He recognises her---the same lady who'd thrust the headphones on them in the first place, four years ago. She doesn't seem to have aged a day. He can't remember whether she's wearing the same clothes, or whether she's the same height, but her soulless blue eyes are still fresh in his mind. She stares at him with the same empty blue eyes now, her hands enclosed around two pairs of headphones. Although they're half-hidden by the stacks of headphones crowding her booth, they're too bright for Gregory to miss---red and blue, peeking out from between the woman's fingers.

She winks.

Gregory can't help the smile that tugs at his face, threatening to consume his mouth. Because despite all the chaos the headphones have caused, they've woven his fate together with a boy---a boy with the ocean in his hair, the sun in his smile, and a heart of gold.

"What are you looking at?" Jeong-Soon asks, startling Gregory out of his reverie. Gregory instantly whips his head back to his boyfriend's curious face.

"Just..." Gregory's voice trails off when he realises that the weird woman and her even weirder headphones are gone, as if they'd never existed in the first place. "Thought I saw a ghost." Then he turns to Jeong-Soon again, noting the way his boyfriend's chestnut eyes glimmer with excitement. His fingers curl around one of the band pins scattering his scarlet jacket, cold against the warmth of his hand. "Let's go. We've got a festival to explore."

٩( ᐛ )و

When the sun's dipping over the horizon, gold replaced by a smudgy myriad of pink and orange, Jeong-Soon's phone starts ringing.

When his boyfriend instantly makes a grab for it, Gregory finds himself frowning, unwilling to let anything steal Jeong-Soon's attention away from him. "Do you have to take that right now?"

Jeong-Soon presses the Decline button, but over his ridiculously high shoulder, Gregory notices him pulling up his text messages. "I have to, Gregory. It's important."

"Is it more important than me?" Gregory presses, jealousy flaring in his heart for whoever Jeong-Soon's texting right now. And he knows he shouldn't feel this way, shouldn't feel the flickers of a little green-eyed monster just because of a simple text message, but fuck it, it's their birthday, and he wants to enjoy his boyfriend's company for whatever's left of it.

Jeong-Soon pauses, startled. He looks like a deer in headlights when he shakes his head and says, "No. Of course not. But it really is important." Then a smile slowly spreads over his face, and Gregory doesn't miss the way he bites his lip, as if to hold the grin at bay. But he's easy to read, his expressions an open book, and the smile he's wearing right now sends envy flaring in Gregory's mind.

"So? What now?"

Jeong-Soon leans down, pressing a kiss to the top of Gregory's head. "Right now, I have to go."

The familiar words strike Gregory like a knife, déjà vu filling him to the brim. This is it, he thinks, as the setting sun haloes Jeong-Soon's head in bloody vermillion, painting his infectious grin red. He's going to leave me here as payback for how I left him all those years ago. I thought we were over it. I really did.

"You're leaving?" Gregory asks. He's probably texting another girl. Or another guy. Or another person. He's smiling too much. Something's going on.

"Only for a little while." Jeong-Soon wraps his hand in Gregory's, a movement he supposes is meant to be reassuring, but really, it only worries him more. "Dillon's here. I've got to grab something from him."

Dillon's here? What's Dillon doing here? Did he break up with his boyfriend? Has Jeong-Soon been secretly sleeping with him or something---fuck, this is torture. "Fine. I'll wait for you at home." And Gregory knows he shouldn't be acting like this, that he should just trust Jeong-Soon because he's never had a reason not to, but he can't help it. His insecurity eats away at him, sending his thoughts into a spiral of all the possibilities that could possibly be possible.

"No, don't go home," Jeong-Soon pleads, his doe eyes so full of sincerity that Gregory's tempted to grab his face and kiss him hard. "I'll be back soon, I promise. Just wait for me here, okay?"

More familiar words---the same script Gregory had followed four years before, back when his mother had been dying in a hospital room. And all he can do is respond exactly how Jeong-Soon had responded back then---with a muted nod, and the thumping of his heart matches Jeong-Soon's footsteps as he watches his boyfriend rush away.

Gregory manages to drag himself to a nearby bench, and it's there he slumps, feeling the hair curling against the back of his neck grow sticky with sweat, pins and needles already beginning to tickle his toes.

Don't be dramatic. He'll come back. He promised. All I have to do is wait.

He waits. His leg falls asleep.

Gregory checks his phone. No word from Jeong-Soon. He debates texting Dillon, then shoves the idea away---despite how much their friendship's improved over the years, if there's anything Jeong-Soon's hiding, he's sure Dillon would cover for him, being his best friend and all.

He waits. The sun disappears from view, and stars spangle themselves over the velveteen sky. And when the full moon finally rises, Jeong-Soon's been gone for over an hour.

"Gregory?"

Half-asleep, Gregory instantly bolts up, dark eyes darting around for the source of the voice. He knows it's not his boyfriend---Jeong-Soon's voice is warmer, deeper, less rich---but the voice is too familiar to be a stranger.

From a few feet away, a couple around his age gape at him. The girl is pretty, regular enough with her straight dark hair, almond eyes and blue sundress, but it's the boy who makes him freeze. He's tall, brown-eyed, and ample muscles tug at every inch of his otherwise-lean body. Beneath his baseball cap, Gregory can see brown curls poking out.

Fuck.

"How are you, dude? It's been years! You've gained so much weight!" Colin remarks, as if nothing had ever happened between them, as if he hadn't ruined Gregory's life two years ago, as if they'd been surfing buddies and not secret lovers. There's faux innocence in his brown eyes---so cold, so hard, so different from Jeong-Soon's. And looking at Colin now, Gregory can't remember how he'd ever managed to see any trace of Colin in Jeong-Soon.

It almost seems like an insult.

Fuck you, Gregory wants to say. You ruined my life. And yet, he can't bring himself to feel the fire he would have felt two years ago, because every time he tries to cling on to that anger, the sonorous shadow of Jeong-Soon's rosy lips and bright, good-natured eyes fill his mind. Despite his best efforts, the rage slips from his grasp, drifting into the wind and crumbling into ashes.

"Hey, Colin," Gregory mutters. "Didn't expect to see you here." He wants to turn away, to ignore Colin and pretend he'd never existed, but something stops him---the girl at Colin's side, with her wide, dark eyes and her peachy mouth, pursed up in curious innocence.

"Didn't take me as much of a music guy, huh?" Colin laughs. "I didn't want to come, but Stella insisted on it." He rolls his eyes. "Had a good night with the guys all planned out, but she wanted to go to this stupid thing. You remember the guys, don't you, Greg? Lawrence and Terry."

Yeah, I remember them. I remember how they helped you spread my nudes around school.

"It's our one-year-anniversary," the girl---Stella---whispers, so quietly Gregory almost doesn't hear her.

He doesn't miss the way Colin's mouth twists in a scowl. "Babe, Gregory doesn't care about that. We should catch up sometime, you know---"

"I do," Gregory answers sharply, cutting Colin off. When he stares into those cold, cold eyes, he doesn't see the passion that had once burned behind them. All he sees is the deceit, the falsity, the selfish persuasion. "I do care about your anniversary, Stella. Much more than your boyfriend does. I'd say he cares more about publicly outing his boyfriend, calling him a fag, and plastering his nudes all over school. Not that I would know, of course, since I only speak from personal experience." Colin grows pale. Gregory ignores him, forcing his mouth into the most sarcastic smile he can manage. "But that was all just in high school, wasn't it? He's changed now. He's no longer the selfish, cowardly asshole he once was. Right, Stella?"

Stella's face is white now, her mouth gaping. She looks lost---scared, almost. And then she shakes her head.

"Right." Gregory turns on Colin with a sneer. "I'd say you care about nothing but being an absolute fucking asshole, Colin. I'm not your surfing buddy or your long-lost classmate from school. I'm the boyfriend you fucked over, and you fucked me over bad. A broken leg wasn't payback enough for what you did to me." A laugh bubbles up his throat, more of a bark than a chuckle. "But you know what? I'm over it. And I wouldn't even be talking to you right now if it weren't for the next person you're planning on fucking over, because I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit about you or what you did to me, because I'm happy now, and even you can't take that away from me."

Colin turns to the girl at his side. "Stella, he must be drunk or something, I swear he's not---"

"Not what? Not telling the truth?" Gregory spreads his arms wide. "Look me in the eye and tell me honestly that I'm lying, you piece of shit. Tell me that you actually give a fuck about your girlfriend."

Colin switches his gaze to the floor.

Gregory snorts. "See, Stella? Isn't he the best?" And maybe it's the leftover recklessness, the urge to sever the bindings of the past, but Gregory moves closer, closer to the boy who'd once ruined his life, and he looks him straight in the eye. "You can't fuck up my happiness, asshole," he snarls. "And you won't fuck up hers either. Because you don't deserve her. You didn't deserve me then, and you don't deserve her now. I hope you rot in hell, Colin."

Colin instantly straightens---he's ballsy, but he's always been. He instantly swivels to the girl at his side, eyes filled with hope, as if expecting comfort---

Stella punches him in the face.

"Thank you," she says, and Gregory isn't exactly sure who she's talking to. She sounds distant, like she's a million miles away. Her dark eyes are hazy, but her mouth is set in a determined line. And then she turns and starts walking away, her boots clacking against the ground.

"Stella! Wait!" Gregory watches his ex-boyfriend pick himself off the ground and run after Stella. He feels his fists clench, then unclenches them, the pent-up fury slowly dissolving into nothing but a memory. And then he realises it---he feels good.

Maybe I just need to let go.

It's then that his eyes land on the boy awkwardly standing at the side, as if trying to hide himself behind a tree. It's no use---the vibrance of his blue hair, brightened by the silver moonlight, gives away his presence instantly.

"You came back," Gregory gasps, his mouth dry.

Jeong-Soon's sneakers pad over the pebble-gleamed pavement, dewdrops on snow. "Yeah, I did." He stops when there's only a few inches between them. "I would have come over sooner, but I saw you were...tied up."

Gregory hangs his head. "I'm sorry. I got angry."

"Hey, hey, it's okay." Jeong-Soon reaches out to lace their hands together, fingertips twining like gossamer and moonshine. "I'm proud of you. You did good. And you didn't even hit anyone." He chuckles lightly. "Though I admit I wouldn't have minded if you'd punched that guy."

"Thanks," Gregory replies dryly. Then he sighs. "I didn't think you were going to come back."

Jeong-Soon's face falls, and Gregory wants to kick himself. "Why?"

"You just seemed so...happy. And secretive."

"So...you thought I was going to meet up with someone else?" Jeong-Soon closes the space between them even more, so close Gregory could reach out and touch the stars in his eyes. "You know I wouldn't do that."

"Then why did you leave for so long?"

Jeong-Soon exhales. "I actually wanted to do this under a beautiful sunset, because it's more romantic and...yeah. But Dillon was not at the place we agreed to meet at. And I spent nearly an hour searching the whole park before I remembered that he said he was bringing Rylee with him."

"Don't tell me---"

"Found them in one of the bathroom stalls, yes." Jeong-Soon shudders. "There are certain things I want to see, and my best friend being pounded from behind in a filthy public bathroom with a broken lock is not one of them. I'm just grateful they left what I asked them to pick up for me in the car."

"But...what did you ask them to pick up for you?" Gregory studies his boyfriend's face carefully, hoping to glean an answer from the slant of his eyes or the curve of his mouth. Jeong-Soon's expression is a nearly indistinguishable mix of emotions, but he can pick out nervousness, trepidation, and...excitement?

Jeong-Soon reaches into the pocket of his jeans. "Don't kill me yet," he says. When his hand reappears, a small black box sits in his palm.

Gregory's sure his eyes must be bugging out of his head right now. It takes him a full minute to be able to form words, everything he's ever wanted to say suddenly stuck in his throat. "You're...you're proposing to me?" he manages to get out.

"I'm not proposing to you!" Jeong-Soon interjects quickly. He blushes, the red striking against the paleness of his face. "Not that I don't want to, and I do hope to propose to you in the future, but...you know. Too early." Gregory doesn't miss the heavy bob of his throat as he gulps nervously. "Do you know what promise rings are?"

"Yeah." Gregory can't keep his eyes off his boyfriend's hand as Jeong-Soon carefully snaps the box open, revealing a pair of thin, silver bands that almost seem to sparkle under the moonlight. "Pre-engagement rings."

"They're...kind of...more than that." Jeong-Soon shifts from foot to foot awkwardly, as if he's not quite sure what to do with all his lengthy limbs. The stars make him look paler than he actually is, ringing his head in cool blue fire.

Gregory flicks up an eyebrow. "Well then. Enlighten me," he challenges.

Jeong-Soon takes a deep breath, and the world blurs, everything around their personal bubble crumbling and waning and fading, and nothing matters, nothing, nothing except the boy with the sky-blue hair and the flushed cheeks and the sunkissed eyes. The universe tilts, the stars align, the wind casts its tranquil serenity over their orbit, and Jeong-Soon's so fucking pretty it hurts---and there's nowhere Gregory would rather be than holding hands with the boy he loves in a moonlit park, music dripping into the air like rain on a hot summer's day.

"I love you," Jeong-Soon confesses, iridescent in the moonlight, haloed in the tears of angels and the embers of Midas' golden touch, his beautiful face still edged with the wrathless purity of boyhood. "And I don't think I could ever be with anyone else except you. I promise myself to you, Gregory. I promise you my love, my heart, my soul, my everything. I promise to love you until forever ends."

Gregory can't help the smile that tugs at his lips, and it's still a little mechanical---he's not used to smiling---but it works, sliding over his face with almost no effort. The butterflies in his stomach flutter inecessantly, reaching for the stars, yearning to dip their luminescent wings in moonshine and song. "Forever is a long time."

Jeong-Soon's grin could power up New York City. "Not long enough, especially if I'm going to spend it with you," he teases, and his warm eyes sparkle with a million promises, brighter than any diamond could ever be. The moonlight dances over his face, spelling out the road to heaven over the clockwork hues of his body. Paradise nips at Gregory's fingertips, so close he could reach out and grab it.

He holds his free hand out, and the moment Jeong-Soon slips the delicate silver band onto his finger, the butterflies invading his ribcage spread their wings and fly away, drunk on the electricity crackling through Gregory's veins, high on the freedom wrapping around his reckless soul.

"So, what do you say, Gregory?" Jeong-Soon asks breathlessly, their matching rings shimmering under the pearlescent moon. "Until forever ends?"

It's then that Gregory laughs, and he doesn't have to try. He doesn't have to think about it, and it feels like a weight's been lifted off his shoulders, because he can smile, he can laugh, he can love, he can live. He lets the perfect silence of the stars envelop him in their diamanté embrace as he gives in to the universe. He lets his hand rest against the palm of the boy he thought he'd never be able to love again and feels their heartbeats pulse through his skin in perfect sync. He lets himself plunge into eternity, to hope for a future with Kang Jeong-Soon.

Gregory feels tears prick the back of his eyes, and this time, he lets himself cry. He lets the tears run down his cheeks as the universe tangles their mouths together in a firework of love. And when their lips part, he's so choked up that he's not sure if he'll be able to find the words, but he does, and they come spilling out in a single waterfall. Because he knows, just knows, that Kang Jeong-Soon is the one.

"Until forever ends," Gregory murmurs.

And somewhere, deep in his heart, he already knows they'd make a love story the stars would be jealous of.

!!!DON'T REMOVE THIS BOOK FROM YOUR LIBRARY!!!

okay, now that we've got that settled. hi. welcome to the end-not-end of Jeory's story. Not TSP as a whole, because there's still three bonus chapters, a playlist, and a currently very small fan gallery, but yeah. it's the end of Jeory's story, which means we will be bidding adieu to the two idiots we've been screaming at for twenty-two chapters.

before we get into my very emotional speech because i'm very emotional rn, here's the glossary:

diminuendo - getting softer

pianissimo (pp) - very soft

senza misura - in free time

lento - slow

alright. so. we're at the end. kinda. the end-not-end. but it's the end of Jeory, and although it's not the END END of Jeory, it's still, well, the end of Jeory, because although i know i'll see them again when i edit and do the qna, it's still...well, sad, you know? these boys have been with me for half a year now, and yes. i have gotten attached.

it's crazy to think that i'm gonna hafta say goodbye to my golden retriver and my emo nugget, especially since they've really left their mark in my heart. they have been the cause of many, MANY headaches, and A LOT of hair loss (good thing i have super thick hair so it's not really noticeable lol), as well as a frick ton of tears, but you know what? i love them anyway. i cried when they cried, i laughed when they laughed, i fanboyed when they had super intimate moments and felt super single because i haven't seen my boyfriend since my country went into its third lockdown. (i miss him 😭)

honestly, there were so many ways this relationship could have gone. thing is, i've never written a full romance before. i'm more known for my mystery/thrillers. and we all know what happens when a murder mystery writer tries his hand at romance. and yet, Jeong-Soon and Gregory pulled through. somehow. idk how they did it, but i'm happy for them.

and yes, i will admit that they are dumbasses. both of them. and i also admit that i do often want to slap them in the face. way too much. but at the same time, they're my children and my beautiful babies, despite being like 3 years older than me, and that's not even counting the two extra years from the Epilogue. (heck, they're older than me even in Chapter One, so i reaaally probably shouldn't be calling them my babies, but wHaTeV) and i do love them, in the way a father loves his kids, because i'm their father and y'alls should get your heads out of Alabama.

that said, goodbye. goodbye, Jeong-Soon. goodbye, Gregory. it was amazing writing you. thanks for the memories.

(don't touch me pls i'm crying i'm gonna miss them so much)

now onto the stuff about this chapter (whooo reaaally long author's note today)

OKAY so i'm notorious for my cliffhanger-y, bittersweet, 'whoaa let's leave everything ambigious without actually leaving it ambigious' type of endings. i am NOT good at actual happy endings. i am also NOT good at endings that don't end with one ominous line of dialogue. but guess what? SIKE, B!TCH!

(although i'm gonna be honest, i did consider doing one of THOSE tragic Truck-kun endings, lmao)

(also i went for promise rings instead of engagement rings because ✨he quirky✨)

(also because engagement rings are kinda overused in epilogues and i wanted to do the whole promise speech)

(and also because they're like,,,20,,,and i know that's not really that young, but i personally feel it's a bit young to really like, get engaged and stuff. so yeah. no engagement yet. sorry, folks.)

fun lil fact cause it's canon but also kinda cool: Gregory weighs approximately 48kg throughout the main chunk of TSP. he weighs about 53kg in Chapter One and Two, but in the two years that he and Jeong-Soon aren't together, he grows one inch and loses 5kg---therefore making him pretty severely underweight for his height (5'5). in the Epilogue, he weighs 63kg, mainly because he's actually eating now, and he's also a lot healthier both physically and mentally. i'm so proud of him 😭❤

what did you think of this chapter? personally, i loved it. i know. it's, uh, not a very good chapter, and i understand if you think it's a bit cluttered/convoluted/clunky. but i loved it. which is super egoistical of me, but i really did. it felt so satisfying to wrap up Jeory's story with a completely happy ending, all strings cut. like, honey, i don't do fully happy endings, but my boys fought for one, and they earned it.

that aside, what did y'alls think of this chapter? i'd love to hear your opinions too!

anddd this marks me finishing my VERY FIRST NOVEL!!! clocking in at a total of 63,697 words, this is my first book to go beyind 50k words, which means it's also my first novel!!! (my dad was so proud of me, xD) like??? this is crazy! i've written a few full novellas, but never a whole novel. and i certainly didn't expect my first to be a Romance novel, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

make sure to stay tuned for the bonus chapters! there'll be 3 (not including a playlist and a fan gallery, which will be published in between).

- bonus chapter one is a secret, so i guess you'll have to stick around to find out ;)

- bonus chapter two will be a character + author qna, where we'll answer ANYTHING you ask us! friendly reminder that you can still submit questions. the more the better!

- bonus chapter three will be me taking you behind the scenes of TSP (basically, trivia and some possible extra character behind the scenes interactions). it will also include a sneak peek at my upcoming novel, Adonis! so make sure to stay tuned if you wanna read more of my writing :3

bottom line, don't remove this book from your library yet •w•

now that that's over, thank you so much for going on this crazy journey with me. thank you for loving my boys and always sticking with their dumbasses. and thank you for loving and supporting me, despite the fact that i am possibly even more of a dumbass than my characters.

i love you guys. really, truly, completely. there aren't enough words in the english lexicon (oooh, look at me using foinceh words) to describe how much i truly love and appreciate y'alls. stay safe, beautiful people, and remember to love yourselves as much as i love you.

xoxo, Alex