the beginning and end of today's story

ok. so on principle, i refused to directly write about the Belgian boy while he was here.
which principle exactly?--this is a good question. it's hard to articulate exactly--and the strange complexities in our relationship prohibited me to say anything about him on this blog because i didn't want to confuse things between us or cause conversations that would likely end w/ the night completely gone and the sun already up the sky somewhere. this has happened several times.
a little obnoxious, no? considering we've only had about 12 weeks to even know each other.

i also didn't want to write about him extensively before, b/c this would have felt too much like exhibitionist chronicals of a process during the process itself.

he's literally left my room an hour ago. the first thing i had to do was remove traces of him. made the bed. put his towels in the laundry. emptied the ashtray. tossed his toothbrush and then took out the plastic bag lining the "bin". didn't want to look at opened plastic wrappers. not sure what my reaction should necessarily be at this point. except some bewilderment?--maybe? some disbelief that i could have connected w/ someone like this in such a short period of time and suddenly, he is missing?
he won't be around this weekend or the next or the one after that. when i pointed this out last night--(now, maybe only about 5 hours ago)--he shushed me and told me not to talk about it. sigh.

his person and our relationship almost feels like a dream--vivid, beautiful, intense, extreme at times, evoking deep emotion, and suddenly, i'm awake and left with just traces and rapidly moving images. this is only exacerbated by the fact that i am currently in a zombie no-sleep state.
discombobulated disarray.

i will miss all of the late night talking--though we got better about that after about a month of weekends or so.
in the dimness of the orangy streetlights last night, we looked at each other, faces close, his wide auburn eyes--and it reminded me of the first weekend we met:

we had been thrust together and kind of forced to spend a large quantity of time with each other by the most random of circumstances. his dear friend and my dear friend were more than friends. the boys had been worried that this newfound romance would affect their friendship and they would not be able to spend time together. we all met at a basement bar after they went to a show.

he was just some unknown Belgian stranger to me and i had to bite my lip at the problem of what would happen at the end of the night. if we were to hang out beyond midnight, the subway turned into a useless pumpkin and the dilemma became: where would he sleep? though we had not fully discussed how we would handle the situation, the most sensible and "proper" solution was to have the girls sleep in my room and the boys sleep in my friend's room.
the moon lifted higher and higher into the sky. soju got poured, jokes and stories were told, then eyes were beginning to shut sleepily. a decision had to be made.

at this point, i had really not spent enough time talking w/ the Belgian to invite him to crash in my room, but as our friends began to get sweet w/ each other, i didn't have the heart to separate them. i figured--it's only one night. if he's an asshole, i'll kick him out w/ no impunity.
i had no idea how this would affect the subsequent 3 months, and though i'm feeling pretty melancholy this morning at the advent of our separation, i am glad that i made this call on this first night.

when we got to my room, i was not sleepy at all and had planned to read a book on a mattress on my floor and let him sleep on my bed. as i began going through my winding down nightly ritual, i avoided eye contact w/ him. it was unnerving that this complete stranger was in my intimate space in this way--seeing me w/o my makeup, watching me brush my teeth, going bra-less, seeing me in my pjs and glasses. i could tell he was a little uncomfortable too. i think he was planning to sleep in his street clothes in my bed, which i didn't like at all. i wanted to break the ice and make him feel settled in and make the best of the situation. i offered him another set of pj pants that he would probably be able to fit into.

"pink? you're giving me pink pants to wear?"
come on!--seriously--it's no big deal! you're just sleeping in them.
"but pink?! nooOOoo. i'll just wear my jeans."
no way! you're going to be so uncomfortable! you won't be able to sleep! don't worry. i won't tell anyone.

he stood there with a look of indecision wavering on his face, but i was already finished getting ready for bed and lying on the mattress on the floor. he sighed and went to the bathroom to change. when he came back, i tried not to giggle at the sight. i put on a mask of nonchalance over my amused delight: a mysterious Belgian boy consenting to be slightly emasculated by a mysterious Korean American girl. he sat down on the side of mattress next to me.

"i have a problem."
oh no. what?
"i am an insomniac. i am probably going to have a very hard time sleeping."
what? damnit! i'm an insomniac too! i was planning to read while you slept tonight.
"really? i brought a book too. and i can catch the first train out at 6am."
oh, no. that's crazy. you should try to get some sleep tonight...
... ... ...
these ellipses are to indicate the lengthy conversation that ensued. we talked. and talked. and talked and talked and talked. i asked him for stories and he gave me many. i alluded to the inauspicious circumstances that resulted in my sojourn in Korea. he described his terribly drunken mistake of driving a car into a house which resulted in his displacement. we both raised our eyebrows. we were both curious. we smoked dozens of cigarettes and the room grew lighter with the dawn. wintery air blew in through the cracked window, along w/ the sounds of morning people beginning to stir and move around the world after a night of sleep.
i remember how close our faces were. a connection. a growing depth of sweetness for another human being. a mutual respect for each other's experiences. looking into his auburn eyes, i saw a strangeness and a depth. his responses were bizarre and intriguing. i think he found mine the same. at some point, he stretched out and lay next to me and this felt ok. we lay like a pair of chopsticks. we talked God and lost friends and joys and pleasures and hurts we'd both endured.

the next day, all of us friends had a good laugh about him wearing the pink pjs. following this, we all ran around a freezing Seoul--Myeongdong, Seoul tower, and then to Tei bar. all day, i felt a little awkward and exposed b/c of the amount of self-disclosure that had occurred between us, but i just shrugged and figured that it was something interesting that had happened. i felt like we ~could~ all be friends and the boys would not have to see too much less of each other.
that night, he came up to my room and got into the pink pjs and sat on the mattress w/ me again. you would think that the lack of sleep from the previous night would have resulted in us crashing hard. but again, our faces were close as we stared steadily at one another. we talked and talked--more sleepily this time, until the sun rose again. i know that we both knew that there was something beautiful and unique that was unfolding.
this was our first weekend together.
a quarter of a lifetime has passed since then.

so, this morning, there was a strange twisting in my stomach as i looked at his face and knew he'd be heading back to Belgium and his previous life in a matter of hours. his head was on the pillow next to mine.
those strange deep auburn eyes.