It hadn't taken long for the music group Evelyn had formed in high school to reach the point of breaking apart.
After the group participated in interschool competitions and won first prizes, they received an offer from a well-known music company.
But unfortunately, this offer was sent only to Evelyn and Ash. The other members, envious of this situation, unleashed all the resentment they had kept hidden until then— directed especially at Evelyn.
Someone had called her an attention seeker, while another had accused her of seducing the company owners. Naturally, all these accusations and cruel words led Evelyn to defend herself and fight back.
When Ash decided to defend her as well, the envious members of the group left, never to return. Evelyn had never expected them to say such things about her, so it took her a while to recover.
During those times, the only person who was always by her side was Ash. Evelyn had always seen this blond, handsome young man she had known since childhood as nothing more than a close friend.
After attending the same elementary school, she hadn't even questioned how they had ended up in the same middle school, and later, the same high school.
After all, the city they lived in back then was small and humble, so there weren't many schools to choose from anyway. Thus, there was nothing that should have made her suspicious.
That is to say, even if she had suspected something, in the end she would have realized that Ash's intentions weren't bad. Ash was simply a boy chasing after the girl he liked.
After the group had split up in such a dramatic way, Evelyn considered rejecting the music company's offer. In fact, one day she had made up her mind and boarded the buses heading toward the company after school.
What she hadn't accounted for, however, was Ash chasing after her to try and stop her. After giving long speeches about their future, Ash managed to convince Evelyn right there on the bus.
They promised each other that as soon as the final exams were over, they would go to the company together and sign the contract.
But something neither of them expected happened. On the day they were supposed to go to the company, Ash didn't show up at school.
Knowing that Ash would never skip out on this willingly, Evelyn grew worried. So after school, the first thing she did was head to Ash's house.
His house was a little far from both the high school and Evelyn's own home. It was almost in an isolated place. Since she couldn't find a bus or subway heading there, she had been forced to walk for an hour or two that day.
When she arrived at Ash's house, she hadn't expected not to find him at home. The strange thing was, there was no one in the house at all.
After ringing the bell several times and getting no response, she tried to peek inside from the back door of their small detached home, but failed. Just as she was about to give up and head back, the old woman living in the house right next door to Ash's had said these words to Evelyn:
"They're not home. Yesterday evening, they suddenly rushed to the hospital. I think the younger son of the house collapsed."
After speaking with the old woman and learning which hospital they had gone to, Evelyn ran there with all her strength, but she only managed to arrive late at night.
When she heard from Ash's family that he was still unconscious, she collapsed right there, feeling as if her whole world had suddenly crumbled apart.
It was one of the greatest shocks she had ever experienced in her sixteen years of life. Everything went wrong after that, and Evelyn also lived through the greatest pain in her sixteen years of life.
Ash fought against cancer for three whole months. Evelyn, who never left him alone for even a single day, would always bring his favorite comic books and sometimes poetry collections whenever she came.
Together they would read those comics or watch shows on the hospital television, but their brief moments of fun always ended with Ash falling ill again.
Despite all the warnings, Evelyn stayed by his side after his chemotherapy sessions to help him. She was there when he vomited with an empty stomach, and she was there on the days he felt good and believed he might finally overcome the illness.
But sadly, Ash lost his fight with cancer, and Evelyn lost Ash.
So how did Evelyn come to realize this young man's feelings for her in such a short time?
Ash's last words were not something like, "I love you, Evelyn."
Without even managing to speak his final words, this young man left the world without ever confessing his love to the girl he cherished. Evelyn understood it during the time she spent with Ash in the hospital.
She saw it in the fleeting glances of those grayish eyes, in the shy touches of his long slender fingers, in the way he recited poetry to her with his gaze fixed on her — even when he no longer had the strength to part his lips.
Before long, Evelyn had also come to like this young man. Their feelings had finally become mutual— but their souls were no longer together.
Ash's funeral was exceedingly modest.
Many of their high school friends attended the ceremony, placing flowers atop the coffin. The wails of his family —especially Ash's mother— were the only sounds filling the silence of the crowded cemetery.
Evelyn hadn't cried during the funeral, but once she returned home and sat in silence for a while, she thought of Ash.
When she realized that the first image coming to her mind was now his coffin, she wept for hours. From that day on, for years, she thought of him every single day. And although he crossed her mind less and less as time went on, she noticed that the love she felt for Ash only grew stronger.
As the years passed, she had a few boyfriends, but none of the relationships lasted long.
Whenever she was with them, memories of Ash resurfaced, and not wanting to disrespect their feelings, she broke up with them. After all, every single one of them had said the same thing:
"It feels like you're thinking of someone else when you're with me."
Their story ended there, on the day Ash died. At least that's what Evelyn thought.