syzygy.

“What can I get you?” you ask the man with jet black hair and sleepy eyes, Alpha’s most recent customer. Though with those eyes, you couldn’t miss the hints of silver in his left eye, most similar to what’s hiding behind your eyepatch.

“Join us.” He states, not ordering anything.

“What do you mean ‘join us’?” You tap your fingers against the counter top rhythmically, mild interest growing.

He scoffs, laughter meant to mock joining a few seconds later. Then he speaks, “Oh, please. Like you don’t know.”

“You could’ve at least pretended to want some cold tea.” You crash your middle finger with your thumb, snapping.

“Drop the act. And the eyepatch, please. Don't even try to give the half-assed excuse of ‘I got into a car crash and it hurt my left eye, croaker says it’s unfixable but coverable so here I am,’ because we both know what’s hidden behind that.”

You raise an eyebrow at that.

Licking your lips, you say, “Alright. Let me just tell Joon.”

Commonly known as Joon, the owner of Alpha, Kim Namjoon has been the only person you trust since you entered Panacea.

“Oh, he knows, trust me.”

“Why should I? For all I know, your men had put him down by now.”

“I haven’t creased you yet, have I?”

“Valid point. Tell me more.”

That causes the dark-haired man to smirk, telling you there’s no one else who would have taught you the eyepatch guise with a shrug.

It is your second day of seeing lights other than the neon ones that lit Alpha and the buildings surrounding it.

You wake up at dawn, granting you a few hours before training starts. The Central Tower’s interior is labyrinthine, having halls much too similar with each other, and you’re not quite used to it yet. You decide to go to the lounge, the area you're most likely not to be lost in, as it serves a purpose similar to that of Alpha’s.

The sight that welcomes you is most certainly not what you thought you’d see in a lounge.

It almost seems like you’re in a palace garden like you’d seen in rare history pages, and it gives you a warm, peaceful feeling. Rose vines plague the sides of the bar, the ceiling doesn’t look like one as it looks so much like the sky, and the clouds are moving. Everything seemed too real, and it was so, so beautiful. Nothing in Panacea looks like this, and you wonder why the Council even decided not to maintain real, live greenery.

Your bubble of awe breaks when you hear someone clear his throat and speak, causing you to look at the source of the sound. “I did not expect someone else to be here at such an ungodly hour.”

“Me neither.”

He starts to face you, and the lounge transforms to how a present-day prestigious lounge would look like, rose vines shifting into neon blue lights lining the now black bar.

He looks down, turning bashful because of what you just saw.

“I’m sorry for that, I don’t do that every day, I just-” he takes a deep breath, and continues, “-do that when I need to unwind, you know? It’s refreshing, to at least trick myself into thinking I’m not in a world a little too advanced for my liking.

“It’s okay, it was actually nice. I-uh, needed some peace too, and that got the job done, I guess.”

He lights up at that, boxy grin now evident. He pats the seat adjacent to his.

“You new?” He inquires, eyebrows quirking up.

You nod as you approach the stool. Curious, you ask, “How’d you know I was there? Care to spill on the hypothetical eyes you just might have installed at your back?”

He laughs at that.

“Well, as much as how that would be plenty cool and disturbing at the same time, I don’t. My senses are heightened, that’s why.”

“How did you do the garden thing? Where did you see them? I mean, it was all to detailed to be entirely imagined, right?”

He runs his fingers through his silver hair, matching the unmistakable silver present in an Astran left eye. He licks his lips, and answers, “I’m what the Panacean whispers refer to as an illusionist. Some use trickster, but it makes me look evil, don’t you think? Elaboration on that, and the other question is for some other time, too much information for someone who hasn’t even shared her name yet.”

You raise an eyebrow at that, but you give him your name anyway, asking his after stating yours.

“TMI, lady. TMI. Some other time.”

Two minutes of silence later, he gets you a drink, and begins to talk again.

“It’s only fair if I ask you a question too. You seemed a bit lost earlier, walked on eggshells and didn’t get anything for yourself before I did so. How new are you exactly?”

“A day, six hours, three minutes, and twenty-three seconds as I finish this sentence.”

“That was precise. Extremely.”

“You asked for exact, I give you exact.” You raise your glass, smirking.

He takes note of that, though you remain oblivious to it.

Dr. Jin presses his palm against the reader beside the metal door of the room you were instructed to go to a minute after you arrive.

He nods as an initial acknowledgement.

“Hello, and welcome. Since this is your first organized training session, this will be an assessment, to see which unit you’ll join. Good luck, and don’t worry too much.” He gives you a reassuring smile.

“Thank you.”

He then leads you to a door in the room, and says, “The test will begin once I close this door. Think carefully, but don’t stall too much. In case anything too unsafe happens, just raise your hand with four fingers up, thumb down. But trust me, I don't think you’ll need that. Again, good luck.”

And then he closes the door.

vocab:

croaker- doctor

cold tea- alcohol, after serving hours

Taehyung. He has always intimidated you without even trying to. He was tall, or at least much taller than you were. He was popular for being and having basically everything everyone else seemed to look at—good looks, an angelic voice, brains, and good humor. Maybe a little too much humor though. But deep inside, you knew you loved it.

Decent. That was how you described, maybe rated him in eighth grade when your best friend of two years Irene asked you what you think about him, because everyone just liked him. You found that part odd though, because you’ve known him for two years and you have always thought that he was decent at best.

Math. It was a math project in the first semester of tenth grade that made you talk for the first time. You’ve had interactions before, but those interactions didn’t even reach the point of interacting enough for them to count as actual conversations. And for the first time, you thought, maybe he isn’t as intimidating as you had always viewed him.

“Ah, I’m lucky,” you hear him whisper as Mr. Jung announced the pairings for the project. He was even smiling. You almost blush.

At around nine in the evening, he contacts you in the form of a Facebook message, the first of your Messenger conversation.

Taehyung: Helloooo im starting w page 5 and working my way up, can u start w page 1??haha

And so you did. After finishing two pages, you read his messages on his progress and oh my goodness he has finished three pages and apologizing for doing almost nothing?! Though you didn’t mind. You were even amused.

Fresh linen. You noticed that that was how he smelled while you were checking each other’s work. Attractive, you thought to yourself.

Glances. You found yourself stealing glances only to see him already looking at you.

Fast forward, your English teacher announces that your project for the year is a stage play. And of course, everyone wanted Taehyung to be the male lead character.

He deserved it though, he had this soothing voice that could have this aggressively ambitious vibe to it if he wanted to. Perfect for Alexander Hamilton. You even thought he sounded a bit like Lin Manuel-Miranda.

You ended up having the role of his mistress. Who would sit on his lap grabbing his hair, his face buried to your shoulder. Now, let us tone that down before you experience problems in breathing and just talk about the part where you would cup each other’s left cheek. Your innocent high school heart gets on the verge of exploding just with the thought of your scenes.

After your first weekend practice for the stage play, you had snacks. And a whole pack of ice cubes for some reason.

After the war, I went back to New York, a-after the war I went back to New York-

Non-stop. That was the song that was playing when he ended up in front of you, cupping both cheeks instead of one. Neither of you said anything. Staring. There was just staring.

This is the first murder trial of our brand-new nation-

Your heart was thumping violently, pace increasing each discernable unit of time. You were scared, scared of how you looked, if you blushed. You were scared that however you reacted would give you away. You looked down and tried to play off the looking-down as something cute by swaying your head with his hands still on it. Left, right, left. He removed his hands. Neither of you said anything, and both of you just joined your classmates in the game they were playing using the ice cubes.

You felt something. You felt it. No matter how many times you tried to reason out what happened with it simply being part of practicing. Hell, the song where you were supposed to do that wasn’t even playing.

After some minutes, you ran to Jimin to give him a detailed report on the interaction. Sometimes you regret telling one of his closest friends about how you like Taehyung a lot, but Jimin was that kind of person who would smile at you and support you on your almost-nonexistent moves, as he puts it.

The next week, he laughed maybe a little too loudly at a joke you said.

I hid the letter and I raced to her place-

You ran to each other, his arms grabbing yours. You insist that you had nothing to do with your husband James Reynolds knowing about your affair. And then you whispered, “You know, this does look very similar to In Time. I’m basically draining the time you have left right now.” He let go of your arms and started laughing. Really loudly. While walking around and eventually banging his right fist against the wall for more laughing support. It was very Kim Taehyung to laugh at whatever whenever, but you couldn’t help but think this was maybe a little too much. Still, you liked it. A smile forms on your lips. His boxy smile, that signature Kim Taehyung smile, that was going to be the death of you.

Later that day, Jimin and Taehyung started paper mache-ing their way to making guns for props.

“Can you help Taehyung with the gun he’s working on? You can tear the newspapers for him. If you want.”

Ah, Jimin. If you looked closely, you would have seen how his eyebrows bounced up and down slightly. Breathe in, breathe out. With a careful small quick smile, you nodded.

You grabbed the lifestyle section and sat on President Washington’s chair. Or Alexander Hamilton’s. Depends on which song you look at. Can you even look at songs? What are you even saying? Breathe in, breathe out. He chose one of the chairs for Non-stop, which was very much beside yours.

And you were talking. After 15 minutes, you still were. At first, it was just about music taste and all that jazz (and sometimes you hate your humor for having puns even in your narrations), but the topics somehow got deeper. It felt amazing. He intrigued you, he seemed like someone that’s unreachable, in the sense that he wasn’t the type to go below the surface.

“Is Supreme close?” You were curious. He was part of Supreme, the dominating social group of the school, but part of you didn’t feel like the group was healthy for each other. Damn, a lot of people even thought their name itself wasn’t good for them. A couple, both sides members of Supreme too, suddenly went awkward because Supreme kept pushing them together. Jongdae, also a member, posted an unfunny meme of Taehyung’s picture even though Taehyung wasn’t laughing anymore. Maybe they just didn’t have the word limits in their vocabularies.

After some seconds, he replied, “I guess so, yeah, I mean we do hang out sometimes, eat lunch as a group, watch movies and shit like that.”

“I mean, close, like open to each other, like you’d share what you’re feeling, joke around but know each others’ limits, and ‘shit like that’?”

Taehyung looks up. “I guess I can’t say everyone’s comfortable with everyone. You see, we’re like a network of units of close friends. The girls have their own thing most of the time too.”

You’re reminded of how many times the thought that he keeps everything to himself without any form of release has crossed your mind. You just feel it when someone’s down. And whenever you feel that he is, nobody asks him if everything’s okay.

You find yourself wanting to be the one he opens up to.

You stand up and make your way to Jimin to refill your cup of glue solution. When you come back, Taehyung is sitting your chair, chuckling, “Thank you for the chair. You can go sit on my hand-me-down-much-less-comfortable one.”

And suddenly you were both laughing full on, both wondering why, but still laughing.

“Oh, and hey, let’s exchange numbers? For stage play matters?” He looks like he’s trying to hold back laughter, but you take his phone and enter your number anyway. He adds a contact to your phone as well.

The next weekend, he was late to the practice, but maybe it’s you who came early since aside from you, there were only five people.

To Taehyung

Heyheyhey where are you?

You text him. There was no reply.

“Have you realized anything yet?” was the first thing he said when he arrived.

“What is there to realize?”

“Well. Maybe I entered one less digit than I was supposed to in your contacts.”

Taehyung that little…  “Yah!” So that was why.

Taehyung with his hair down, parted in the middle. That would make you melt faster than the sun can.

The day before the stage play, he had his hair down, parted in the middle. And dear mother of penguins he looked amazing. Breathe in, breathe out. Do not fangirl in front of him. “You look nice with your hair down,” you manage to tell him without melting because you would like to reiterate—dear mother of penguins he looked amazing.

But dear grandmother of penguins, he styled his hair like that for the whole week.

Summer. It was one summer three am when he messaged you with only your name in it. You replied as soon as you woke up, which was eight hours later.

You: Hi, sorry for replying late, what’s up?

Taehyung: Ah, nothing, I’m sorry

Taehyung: Again im sorry

You: What for? everything ok??

Taehyung: Nothing, sorry again

The next day, you message him.

You: Henlo

Taehyung: I heard that greeting was for stinky people?? Stop greeting yourself HAHAHA

You: YAH!!!

You: >:<<<<<

Taehyung: Anyways

Taehyung: Yesterday when I chatted you

Taehyung: I said it was nothing because I was drinking with Yoongi at that time haha

A beat. Your heart just skipped a beat.

Nana. In the middle of the first semester of twelfth grade, you noticed that he’s been with Nana a lot recently. Nana getting into his car with him. Nana spending lunch with him. You’d try to avoid selfish thoughts, but you can’t help but notice how you’ve been talking much less. And not so long after it was confirmed. You were beginning to sound like a thirteen year old whose crush won’t like her back at this point, But she was everything you weren’t. Fair skin, bright eyes, long legs. She screamed the societal standards of beautiful.

But you can’t forget how she broke Jimin’s heart, and how Taehyung’s could be broken too.

Watch. That was all you could do. Watch and see what happens. You’d accept it if they’re happy. Though that would hurt you, you would somehow accept it and learn to be happy for them as well. If he gets hurt, then you’d be there, and when he heals, you’d still be there. You would cry with him and recommend both sad and uplifting songs and crack the corniest of the jokes with him. You were still young, and it wasn’t sure if your feelings for Taehyung would fade or not. But you would watch. You would be open to other possibilities, because whatever happens, happens.

Twelve years after. It was twelve years after you graduated from high school that you first saw him in person again. You entered different universities, and just… lost touch. The last time you heard from him was when he messaged you saying that he was going to delete his Facebook account because his parents told him to, but he didn’t mention his new number.

You were absent-mindedly munching down popcorn when Jimin called your name. He was at the food counter, arguing with the staff because he was pissed that they were out of cheese powder, and put barbecue flavor powder instead on your shared extra-large bucket, without telling either of you about it. He was extra mad, because he planned everything for the string of activities for your honeymoon. You both wanted cheese, you both loved cheese and knew it, but you didn’t mind barbecue. Except he did, because it was an extra-large bucket that is not cheese. He was so mad to the point that he wanted to talk to the manager, but the manager was on leave, and the owner of the movie house was there instead.

You stood up, walked to the counter, and instantly froze when you saw the reason Jimin called you. There he was, Kim Taehyung, hugging Park Jimin. He was the owner, and you have no idea why you haven’t seen each other when this movie house was where half your dates with Jimin took place. Seven years of frequenting the place and not noticing at all? Was this the first leave of the manager in seven years? Didn’t other customers with worse tempers have complaints?

“Hi,” was all you could say.

“Hi, it’s been so long. How are you?”

You run to them and join the hug, and after pulling away, you say, “As much as I would like to talk to you right now and catch up, the movie we’ve been planning on watching since the trailer came out is starting in fifteen minutes and I’m sorry.”

“Coffee? The three of us? After the movie?” He offers.

After the movie, you catch up. He tells you that his parents gave him this movie house as a gift when he finished college. And that he took a business management course. And that he and Nana broke up after five years of going on and off. You tell him that after seven years of being with Jimin, you got married about a month ago. Your husband adds that this movie date was part of your honeymoon which you’re not supposed to know how long it’s going to be because he’s got it all planned as a surprise, and that he’s still upset about the popcorn flavor, but of course he’s joking and Taehyung knows that. What he didn’t tell you was that he has seen you and Jimin several times, but he didn’t want to show himself. Watch. That was all he could do. He knew that he was special to you, but he also knew that Jimin was much more than that. You looked much happier, you were much happier. He figured that showing himself might confuse you, and he didn’t want to risk that. He believed that you and Jimin were strong, but he still wanted to wait for the right time. Though the right time never seemed to come.