Canon divergence to accommodate heerim dating in the original timeline and breaking up right before Yurim leaves for Russia.
Yurim falls back on a bitterness she thought she had swallowed long ago to get what needs to be done.
It’s painful to inhabit the shoes of Ko Yurim, the national representative terrified of losing her spot to Na Heedo, the fast-rising new star overwhelming the horizon. Especially so when she is deliberately leaving now, handing over the spot she had made her own with something akin pride.
But she does it, steels herself, puts Heedo at an arm’s distance the night before they’re dropping her at the airport and becomes the person she needs to be to survive.
It’s easy to look away rather than say I’m sorry. Easier still to claim it’s best we stay just friends and leave when she’s leaving anyway.
Leaving Heedo is made simple by the fate that has Yurim leaving everyone who has ever loved her.
I’m crying because home is behind me now, she rationalizes.
One step, two tears. Two steps, four.
Her tears are marked out for the singular grief of parting, and parting such that there is no part of herself left to allot to the particular.
An I miss always tied to all of them. She knew with complete certainty if left alone it would find the one beacon that always lit up to the call of her cries.
x
Yurim doesn’t anticipate the longevity of grief.
She doesn’t know that having left can ache deeper than leaving.
There is a small window in the beginning, of meetings and acclimatizing and more meetings and a Sochi facility that looks almost identical to the one at Taereung. There is more money than she has ever hoped to see her whole life. There are messages on the screen of her computer: vague, meandering, familiar and there.
x
Injeolmi: Don’t worry about me—I’m picking up on Russian so fast when you meet me in Spain you’ll think I was a native.
x
The window closes before Yurim has a chance to place a wedge there that keeps it open for good.
The language remains at least two doors out of her grasp even though every spare moment not spent in training is used up on classes to help her learn the same.
She misses her mom’s cooking, though she’d never think to mention it on their calls.
Khimki is technically less than an hour from Moscow proper but it’s less of a capital city and more a concrete training ground, isolated and barren, grey upon grey wherever she turns to look and the longer she stays there, the more things she finds to miss.
The more she remembers, the more her missing grows specific.
So much for spelling away her heartbreak by giving it no name.
At night, the feeling grows worse. She doesn’t seek out the swimming complex but she does take long walks on the tracks watching distant lights fill up the sky, knowing, her world is already asleep, running six hours ahead while she stares at the sky and walks the tracks.
She wonders if things would be different had she the liberty of time to drop into the city, immerse herself into the new world. Make new friends—lovers.
Then again, if she could afford liberty, she wouldn’t have landed here in the first place.
Plus, taking traffic into consideration puts her closer to the airport than to the city.
And Yurim never considers it—not even once.
She knows she was made to endure—that’s why she cut all loose strings, didn’t she?
It's so fucking hard though, to keep going on, when every bleak morning wake-up call brings back everything: the memories, the emptiness, the pain and the reminder.
Madrid is still months of hurt away.
x
Ryder37: Baek Yijin said you’ve spoken to him. Are you really gonna let things end like this, Ko Yurim?
x
Ryder37: I miss you…Injeolmi, Yurim—either, both. I miss you.
x
Ryder37: Tell me you won’t regret this one day.
Ryder37: Fuck you!!!!
x
Ryder37: I can’t even imagine how hard everything must be for you and I’m sorry but I don’t even know what I did, Yurim-ah.
x
Ryder37: Did ripping the band aid off make the wound sting any less? I fucking hope it did for you, I really do. Because if it didn’t all of this was for nothing.
the more i remember, the more you fade – yurim/heedo – twenty five, twenty one canon divergence
Yurim falls back on a bitterness she thought she had swallowed long ago to get what needs to be done.
It’s painful to inhabit the shoes of Ko Yurim, the national representative terrified of losing her spot to Na Heedo, the fast-rising new star overwhelming the horizon. Especially so when she is deliberately leaving now, handing over the spot she had made her own with something akin pride.
But she does it, steels herself, puts Heedo at an arm’s distance the night before they’re dropping her at the airport and becomes the person she needs to be to survive.
It’s easy to look away rather than say I’m sorry. Easier still to claim it’s best we stay just friends and leave when she’s leaving anyway.
Leaving Heedo is made simple by the fate that has Yurim leaving everyone who has ever loved her.
I’m crying because home is behind me now, she rationalizes.
One step, two tears. Two steps, four.
Her tears are marked out for the singular grief of parting, and parting such that there is no part of herself left to allot to the particular.
An I miss always tied to all of them. She knew with complete certainty if left alone it would find the one beacon that always lit up to the call of her cries.
x
Yurim doesn’t anticipate the longevity of grief.
She doesn’t know that having left can ache deeper than leaving.
There is a small window in the beginning, of meetings and acclimatizing and more meetings and a Sochi facility that looks almost identical to the one at Taereung. There is more money than she has ever hoped to see her whole life. There are messages on the screen of her computer: vague, meandering, familiar and there.
x
Injeolmi: Don’t worry about me—I’m picking up on Russian so fast when you meet me in Spain you’ll think I was a native.
x
The window closes before Yurim has a chance to place a wedge there that keeps it open for good.
The language remains at least two doors out of her grasp even though every spare moment not spent in training is used up on classes to help her learn the same.
She misses her mom’s cooking, though she’d never think to mention it on their calls.
Khimki is technically less than an hour from Moscow proper but it’s less of a capital city and more a concrete training ground, isolated and barren, grey upon grey wherever she turns to look and the longer she stays there, the more things she finds to miss.
The more she remembers, the more her missing grows specific.
So much for spelling away her heartbreak by giving it no name.
At night, the feeling grows worse. She doesn’t seek out the swimming complex but she does take long walks on the tracks watching distant lights fill up the sky, knowing, her world is already asleep, running six hours ahead while she stares at the sky and walks the tracks.
She wonders if things would be different had she the liberty of time to drop into the city, immerse herself into the new world. Make new friends—lovers.
Then again, if she could afford liberty, she wouldn’t have landed here in the first place.
Plus, taking traffic into consideration puts her closer to the airport than to the city.
And Yurim never considers it—not even once.
She knows she was made to endure—that’s why she cut all loose strings, didn’t she?
It's so fucking hard though, to keep going on, when every bleak morning wake-up call brings back everything: the memories, the emptiness, the pain and the reminder.
Madrid is still months of hurt away.
x
Ryder37: Baek Yijin said you’ve spoken to him. Are you really gonna let things end like this, Ko Yurim?
x
Ryder37: I miss you…Injeolmi, Yurim—either, both. I miss you.
x
Ryder37: Tell me you won’t regret this one day.
Ryder37: Fuck you!!!!
x
Ryder37: I can’t even imagine how hard everything must be for you and I’m sorry but I don’t even know what I did, Yurim-ah.
x
Ryder37: Did ripping the band aid off make the wound sting any less? I fucking hope it did for you, I really do. Because if it didn’t all of this was for nothing.