Vol.2 Words Never Mailed

I lay in bed listening to the sound of rain. It was a day caught between the end of winter and the beginning of spring.

While organizing my drawer, my fingers touched a thin envelope. An envelope from twelve years ago, with slightly rounded corners.

"Ah."

A sound escaped my lips. The envelope had an address and familiar handwriting on it. My handwriting. And your name.

I sat on the bed, placing the envelope on my knees. As I stroked its surface, I felt as if time itself was sand slipping through my fingertips.

You and I met during the winter of our third year of university. It was the day I picked up the notebook you dropped on the library stairs.

"Thank you," you said, and I felt a little embarrassed.

Your notebook had small poem-like writings in the margins of its pages. From the moment I saw them, your existence began to gradually enter my life.

The table where you sat always had coffee stains. You always spilled a little when walking with a hot drink. I found that endearing.

What did I want to tell you? Staring at the envelope, I gazed at the clouds flowing outside the window.

It wasn't a confession. I wasn't brave enough to convey clear feelings.

I just wanted you to know of my existence. I just wanted to connect with you somehow through words.

"If you would read this—"

A letter that began with such words. I don't remember the rest. I don't feel like opening it now; it's too embarrassing.

But I'm certain that the me from back then had desperately drawn something from the depths of my heart to write it.

After finishing the letter, in the winter twilight, I stood before the mailbox but stopped.

I reached out my hand, then suddenly withdrew it. My heart pounded strongly, and my fingertips trembled.

"No... I won't do it after all."

The words dissolved into the cold air. I don't even know who I was speaking to.

I returned the envelope to my coat pocket and never took it out again.

You never knew anything, and when spring came, you moved to a different campus.

I heard you changed research labs as you advanced to the next grade.

After that, I never saw you again. Your contact information changed, and I couldn't find you even when I searched.

But the letter remained.

Words still trapped inside.

"I should just throw it away."

Thinking this, I rolled the envelope in my hand.

But perhaps it's better that the words written inside were never read.

Maybe the meaning of this letter was that it never reached you.

Rather, I feel like something was preserved by not being fulfilled.

You never knew anything. And that was probably just right.

Though the letter was never mailed, the fact that I wrote it gave me a slight courage.

The fact that I didn't mail it left me with a faint regret.

And both of these shape who I am today.

The rain stopped, and the twilight light shining through the window softly illuminated the envelope in my hand.

I discovered delicate shadows created by twelve years of time on the surface of the aged paper.

I quietly returned the envelope to the drawer.

Outside the window, the lingering winter rain had stopped, and a clear light shone from afar.

Small buds were swelling on the tips of branches. Spring was already near.

I stood up and looked outside the window.

A new season quietly descends upon words that never reached you.

For some reason, I felt a small warmth in my heart.