So Yi Jung stood there, drenched in the rain, catatonic and unblinking. He couldn’t muster the will to tear his gaze away from the sight before him, no matter how painful it was to behold. This was his well deserved punishment, he guessed. And his conscience dictated that this was something he had to subject himself to.

Funny, he thought. He had dreamt of the day he’d see her again and imagined how the scene would play out in his head a million times. He’d rehearsed his lines, everything he wished to say to her, everything he should have said five years ago, over and over again and yet today, when all those imaginary scenes are suddenly reality, he cannot remember a word of them.

In his hand, he held a bright, single, long stemmed, white rose. It was her favorite flower then. He wondered if it was still her favorite now.

He should say something, he realized. He took a deep breath. “How are you?”

Her silence urged him to keep talking. “I suppose you didn’t expect to see me ever again, did you? You probably didn’t want to see me ever again at all. That’s okay. I understand. I deserve that I guess. After what I did to you, I suppose it’s only fair that you hate me.”

He closed his eyes for a brief moment, feeling the sharp, acute pain course through his entire being at the thought of her hating him. And when he opened them, he couldn’t stop the tears that poured down his cheeks, as cold and unrelenting as the rain that poured down from the heavens. His guilt was drowning him and he wanted to blame her for it. But that blame would be misplaced for he knew all too well that the fault lay with him.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and struggled to push the words he had kept bottled up for so long out from within the depths of his shattered being.

“Isn’t it fitting? The weather, I mean.” He told her. “Five years ago, I left you crying in the rain. Now I’ve come back to you and I’m the one who’s crying in the rain. Karma is a bitch.”

Being the good girl that she was, he hoped she would say something about his choice of colorful vocabulary, instead she remained silent. He couldn’t take it anymore. He sank to his knees before her.

“I’m sorry,” he wept pitifully. “I’m so sorry. I promised you the world but when the opportunity to fulfill that promise presented itself, I chose the world over you.

“I want you to know you were right. The view from the Eye of London was amazing. The Pyramids of Giza were breathtaking. I took lots of pictures when I was at the Eiffel Tower. And I’ve seen both the Statues of Liberty. Yes, I didn’t forget that you said there were two of them.

“I’ve been to all the places we said we would go to someday. But there had always been something missing. Something was not right. And you know what I realized while I was on my way to see the Niagara Falls? I realized it could never be right because you weren’t there with me. It could never be right without you.

He took a quivering breath and chanced a look at her. “I had often wondered why those places, with all its charm, and beauty, and splendid history, failed to make my heart beat in awe of its existence. Now I know why. I didn’t have my heart when I went to see them because I had left it with you.

“I didn’t go to Niagara Falls. I came straight to you. I had to see you. I want to tell you that I’m not going anywhere anymore unless I have you and my heart back in my life. So I’m here, begging you to forgive me; asking you to come with me.

“And there’s something else I want to tell you. Something I should have said five years ago instead of saying goodbye. I want to tell you I love you. Oh, how I love you.”

He broke down to more tortured sobs, repeating those three words over and over again. “Forgive me, please,” he whispered brokenly. He held out the single white rose to her as a peace offering…

And laid it on her tombstone.

Chu Ga Eul

Beloved daughter and friend

Forever loved, forever missed

He pressed his fingers against his shivering lips, planted a kiss, then touched the letters of her name embossed on that cold, unfeeling slab of marble. “I love you,” he said again.

It’s been five years too long, too cold, too lonely, and too lost.

And now he realized, it was five years too late.

End.

Well, there is an alternate ending, but i thought this original one's better:) its puzzling how what you want the most is most often the hardest to get, but there was a time when it was readily available yet you hesitated, and it was gone.

She will die if you love her not, And she will die ere she might make her love known.
-Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing