haz @expectevenless - Tumblr Blog

afterimage - a jjk isekai story by expectevenless

idol!jjk x student!reader.

summary: After grieving the sudden death of global star Jeon Jeongguk, a thirty-something university researcher falls asleep-only to wake in Seoul in 2014, seventeen again and living a life that somehow already belongs to her. Even stranger, Jeongguk is alive, young, and apparently already part of her world. As she struggles with the loss of her old life and the mystery of the girl she seems to have replaced, she slowly realizes she may have fifteen years to prevent the death she remembers - without knowing what changing the future might cost.

[part one] [part twopointone] [part twopointtwo] [part twopointthree]

since a lot happens in 2015, I will make two parts for that year! (maybe even three, depending on how much I can write!) comments and reblog are appreciated and keep me motivated! thank u soooo much for reading! mwah mwah

wc: 16k. >> m a s t e r p o s t

II 2015

waking up, you have come to understand, is an incredibly overrated concept.

people talk about it as though opening your eyes is something inherently positive, almost sacred even; wake up, get up, start again. motivational posters, mothers standing in bedroom doorways, professors telling their students that the world will not wait for them, all of them seem to agree that consciousness is preferable to whatever came before it.

you disagree.

you have disagreed for a little over three months now.

there are mornings in which you still keep your eyes closed for several minutes after your alarm goes off, not because you are tired - though you are, constantly, perhaps being seventeen for the second time around requires more energy than anyone bothered warning you about - but because there is always that short, pathetic stretch of time in which you can pretend that you don’t know what will be waiting for you once you look.

the mattress has stopped feeling too small. that bothers you.

you roll onto your side, pulling the blanket closer underneath your chin as the phone beside your pillow vibrates for what must be the third time. you ignore it.

the pillow smells like your shampoo now. that bothers you too.

there had been a time, not even that long ago, when everything in this room had smelled like somebody else. the perfume sitting on the shelf, the detergent your mother buys, the wood of the desk, even the blankets had belonged to a girl whose photographs covered the walls but whose memories seemed to have been locked somewhere your consciousness could not reach.

now there are your books stacked beside the bed.

not hers. yours. you had bought them. you know where and you know how much you paid.

one of them still has the receipt folded between page forty-three and forty-four because you needed something to mark the passage and were too lazy to stand up.

you hate that you know that.

your phone vibrates again.

“oh my god.” by now, your mother must now that you are awake.

your hand emerges from underneath the blanket and blindly searches across the mattress until your fingers close around the stupidly small device.

the screen illuminates.

jeongguk

of course.

you don’t open it immediately, squinting against the light instead. according to the little numbers at the top of the screen, it is barely past seven in the morning. you halt, debating whether you should just block his number or try to keep the goodness of your heart intact for just one more day.

you choose the latter. he is in japan, there is a time difference, at least not enough of one to justify this. sighing, you open the conversation.

[jeongguk; 06:58] yo wake up

sent six minutes ago.

[jeongguk; 06:59] wake upppp

[jeongguk; 07:01] are you dead

you stare at the final message, your thumb stills against the screen. maybe you should just block him. though for a second, only a second, something cold brushes along the inside of your ribs.

he doesn’t know. obviously he doesn’t know.

to him, death is still something that happens to grandparents, strangers, tragic figures on the news; something distant enough to throw casually into a message when your friend refuses to answer before breakfast.

you breathe out through your nose. it passes, as most things do now. that may be the worst part, but you just swallow the lump in your throat and move on. life goes on, it doesn’t care that you aren’t ready for it yet.

you type.

[07:08] unfortunately alive

the answer comes so quickly you suspect he has been staring at the conversation.

[jeongguk; 07:08] ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[jeongguk; 07:09] look

a photograph follows.

it takes several seconds to load, which gives you enough time to become annoyed at technology all over again, though when the picture finally appears you find yourself staring at what seems to be a badly framed poster somewhere backstage.

half of jeongguk’s thumb covers the bottom corner. the lighting is horrible. the photograph is tilted.

you would expect nothing less. and printed across the center, in letters large enough that even his photographic crimes cannot hide them:

WAKE UP: OPEN YOUR EYES

you stare longer than you should, suddenly hyper aware of where you are and what you are doing.

wake up.

open your eyes.

your jaw tightens. “fuck off.”

another message appears.

[jeongguk; 07:10] cool right

you let your head fall back onto the pillow. of course he would send you that. not because he knows, because he doesn’t. because to jeongguk, wake up is the name of an album, a tour, another thing they have worked themselves half to death for and are now taking across japan; another step forward in a career he still speaks about with an odd mixture of pride and embarrassment, as though admitting how badly he wants it might somehow make wanting it dangerous.

to you, waking up has become an act of losing something. every morning you open your eyes and your old apartment does not return. your university does not return. your office remains fifteen years away, if it exists at all.

your mother is still young enough that the lines you remember around her mouth have disappeared, and you atart to forget what the roughness of her hands caressing your cheek feels like.

you stop. no. not now.

your phone vibrates in your hand. your black screen, which at first showed you the reflection of your double chin and crusty eyes, now brightens up with his message. the wallpaper of the previous owner unchanged. looking away from the selfie of jaemin and you, your eyes now focus on his message.

[jeongguk; 07:11] ???

[jeongguk; 07:11] you hate it

you blink, thumbs pressing onto the wrong letter far too many times than you would like to admit.

[07:12] what

[jeongguk; 07:12] the poster

[jeongguk; 07:13]you didn’t say anything

a laugh leaves your nose before you can stop it.

there it is.

jeon jeongguk, future global superstar, currently offended because you have failed to praise a photograph he did not even take properly.

normal. somehow he has become frighteningly normal.

you zoom in on the picture despite yourself.

[07:14] it looks good

you hesitate. then add:

[07:14] your photography does not

three dots appear.

[jeongguk; 07:14] mean

[07:14] your thumb is covering the title

[jeongguk; 07:14] you can still read it

[07:14] that is not the point

[jeongguk; 07:15] you understood it though

one eye twitches as you stare at the screen. annoying little shit.

[07:15] go prepare for your concert

there is a pause this time. long enough that you assume he finally listened.

you place the phone beside you and sit up slowly, pushing your hair away from your face. the room is cold. february has turned the window into something almost hostile, and you can already hear your mother moving around the apartment, cupboard doors opening and closing, water running somewhere in the kitchen.

three months. the thought appears quietly. not with panic anymore. that’s new. three months have passed since you woke up here.

october had become november before you understood what happened. november became december while you were still trying to reproduce the conditions of that night like some desperate scientist with absolutely no ethical approval.

you slept on the couch. nothing. you tried the breathing exercise. nothing. you stayed awake until exhaustion dragged you under. nothing. you fell asleep thinking about home. nothing.

once, embarrassingly, you even placed the notebook beside your head as though detailed documentation might somehow convince the universe to review your case.

nothing.

january arrived anyway, you had celebrated a new year you had already lived once. it was weird, still is. you mother still has made the same wish when she blew out the candles of your traditional new years cake, still hugged you with so much love and adoration. youn needed it, but still felt bad. you aren’t her real daughter, you think.

and now it is february, it is still cold, more ao than back home. maybe the emotional coldness adds to the temperature outside, you’re not sure.

your phone vibrates against the mattress. you lazily turn your head to where you put it.

[jeongguk;07:18] nervous

the word is so simple that it takes you a moment to understand what he is actually saying. no joke, no excessive punctuation. no terrible photograph.

just: nervous

rolling over to lay on your side, you pull your knees toward your chest. some of your bones pop gently as you shift in your place, trying your best to get comfortable. this is another thing that has changed. months ago, every message from him made you remember a dead man. now, sometimes, a message is simply a message.

you don’t know exactly when that happened - you aren’t sure you want to know. your fingers move.

[07:19] good

three dots appear immediately.

[jeongguk; 07:19] ???? tf

[07:19] means you care

you think for a moment, lip pushed between your teeth.

[07:20] would be more concerning if you weren’t nervous

nothing. then:

[jeongguk; 07:20] that’s horrible advice??

you smile.

[07:20] i never said i was good at this

you look around your room, unsure about what you should do next. a minute passes.

[07:21] you’ll do fine

you stare at what you have written before sending it. there are a thousand other things you could say. you know pieces of what lies ahead. you know that the venues will become bigger.

that there will come a time when japan will not be some frightening foreign market they are trying to prove themselves in but one of many countries waiting for them.

you know he will someday stand underneath lights so bright that photographs of this tour will look impossibly small beside what comes later. but telling him any of that would be cruel in its own way.

this matters now; these stages, these nerves, followed by doubt and hope. it all matters now. so you don’t tell him that he will become bigger. you don’t tell him that this is only the beginning.

[07:22] you worked hard. enjoy this one first.

the response takes longer. by the time your phone vibrates again, you have already gotten out of bed and did some of your morning stretches. when it comes, you are already gulping down your entire water bottle, stray drops rolling down your jaw to your neck.

[jeongguk; 07:41] okay

[jeongguk; 07:41] eat breakfast

you wipe away the water with a silent rise of your eyebrow, phone in your left hand.

[07:42] excuse me

[jeongguk; 07:42] you forget when you study

your jaw slacks a bit. when did he learn that? he hasn’t even been to school that much after their comeback, barely even finding time to leave the practice room.

your eyes move toward the books beside your bed. then toward the dark notebook hidden beneath them.

three months.

apparently long enough for people to learn things about you too. you place the phone face-down onto the mattress. for a moment, you simply sit there.

the room is quiet again, save for the muffled sounds drifting in from the kitchen. a cupboard closes. something sizzles faintly in a pan. the familiar melody of the morning news seeps through the apartment walls, low enough that you cannot make out the words anymore, only the cadence.

funny.

there had been a time when every sound inside this apartment felt foreign, like you were breaking into somebody else’s life and desperately trying not to leave fingerprints behind. now you know exactly which cupboard your mother keeps the tea in. you know that she hums whenever she cooks eggs.

you know the bathroom mirror fogs over before you even finish brushing your teeth because the ventilation has always been terrible.

you wish you didn’t. the thought comes and goes so quickly that you almost miss it. or maybe…

maybe you don’t. your gaze wanders toward the bookshelf beside your bed.

the notebook remains hidden beneath a stack of lecture books you technically should not own yet. its spine peeks out just enough for you to know it is still there.

waiting. always waiting.

you haven’t written in it for almost two weeks, not because there is nothing left to remember. because remembering has become-

different? less frantic… less desperate.

there are still things you force yourself to record whenever they appear unexpectedly - your father’s laugh, the layout of your university office, the route between your apartment and campus back home - but they arrive less often now.

sometimes you have to chase them. that terrifies you more than anything.

⸻

“who are you and what have you done to my friend?”

back then, this would have terrified you. but now, as you have grown to know and actually understand your friend, his dramatic exclaims pull an amused huff from your lips.

you roll your eyes and continue to walk, knowing that jaemin would follow immediately. “c’mon, we promised.”

never in your sevente- eh, thrity-two years of your life could you have imagined that back to school shopping will have you feeling this excited. you guess it is because this time, you are in a whole different cultural environment, their focus and celebration of new starts a stark contrast to what you are used to.

and in addition to that, you also promised to partake in the charity campaign. meaning that jaemin and you [much to his dismay] will bake some muffins for the volunteers to sell at the spring festival.

you missed it - being a part of something.

you have also come to the conclusion that there are few things more dangerous than placing two seventeen-year-olds in front of a bookstore with spending money.

the first twenty minutes had gone surprisingly well. suspiciously well, even.

you had crossed three items off the list your mother handed you before leaving the apartment - muffin liners, flour and vanilla extract - without either of you getting distracted by something entirely unrelated, which, considering jaemin’s attention span whenever technology or discounted snacks were involved, should probably qualify as some sort of personal achievement.

it lasts exactly twenty-three minutes.

“…absolutely not.” you don’t even have to turn around.

the sentence leaves your mouth on instinct, years of friendship apparently capable of predicting disaster before your eyes have even located its source.

behind you comes an exaggerated gasp. “how dare you?”

back then, perhaps, that question would have lodged itself somewhere beneath your ribs. now, after three months of slowly replacing the idea of jaemin with the actual person standing behind you, dramatic enough to mourn the loss of somebody who very much continues to exist, it merely earns a quiet breath of amusement through your nose. you continue walking and he simply follows, shoes sliding across the polished floor.

of course he does.

“c’mon,” he complains. “we said we’d each get one unnecessary thing.”

“we absolutely did not.”

“we implied it.”

“you implied it.”

“same difference.”

you glance over your shoulder. he is still holding the ridiculous plush keychain he found near the entrance, staring at you with an expression usually reserved for national tragedies.

“…put the chicken down.”

he kisses his teeth, mock offended, “his name is harold.”

“put harold down.” rolling your eyes, you just start walking again.

he eventually returns harold to his family with considerably more dignity than the situation deserves. the shopping basket between you grows heavier.

flour? check. sugar? check. paper cups? they aren’t that cute, but oh, well. check. a bag of chocolate chips that had somehow become your responsibility after jaemin declared himself morally opposed to baking? also check.

however, you don’t remember agreeing to that arrangement. you hadn’t realised he’d stopped walking until you notice him still standing several steps behind you, until you stopped the sound of his shoes craping along the floor.

turning around, you ask, “what?”

he shakes his head, hand running through his hair. “nothing.”

both of you continue to stand there, silently looking at each other. “…you keep doing that.”

“doing what?”

“looking like you’re about to remember something.”

the words settle between you far more gently than they should.

you blink. “uh, well… i am.”

“does it ever come back?”

your fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around the paper handles digging into your palms. “…sometimes.” what a weirdo.

he nods once, then again. “must be annoying.”

he starts walking again before you have the chance to answer. you don’t even know what to answer. he does that sometimes, you think to yourself. asking weird questions, getting for an answer that is not exactly what he hoped it would be, and then just move on.

whatever. Men are weird, a fact that does not seem to change no matter which dimension you are in.

it tastes weird – calling this place a dimension even though you seem to fit so perfectly. You have to find a better name, you decide. A name that would do all these people, these personalities and memories justice.

“oh, man,” jaemin groans as he stretches his arms above his head, bones popping one by one, “no wonder mom comes back pissed after shopping. This is too exhausting.”

you roll your eyes, pushing the heavy bag into his hands, “maybe thank her more often for the meals, then?”

he parrots you with a high pitched voice, earning a slap on his back.

“ow! when did you turn out to be so aggressive?!”

“ever since you decided that your sole personality trait is to be annoying.”

before he can counter, your phone rings loudly, its standard ringtone sending shivers down your spine. ugh, you hate calls.

fishing your phone out of your jackets pocket, you cant help but choke on your spit when your eyes stumble upon the callers id.

jeongguk

looking over your shoulder, his chest brushes against your arm, “ugh, what does he want?”

you elbow his torso and step away from his pained cries, finger swiping across the screen to pick up the call.

you automatically put him on speaker, a habit that developed across your many years in academia and the need to balance more in your hands than any normal human would.

“hello?” jeongguks voice comes out washed, though his polite tone barely hides the shyness dancing in his voice.

You look back at jaemin, his hand still holding his torso. “you called?”

“uh- yeah! What- how are you?” you can hear him shift in his place, something in the background falling onto the floor.

“where are you?” you ask instead, tongue swiping across your lips.

He must be in Japan still, you think. And if you look at the time, the concert wont start for the next two hours.

“backstage,” he confirms, followed by another dull thud. “we finished rehearsing.”

“and now you’re destroying the venue?”

a small laugh brushes against the speaker. “no. that was taehyung-hyung.”

“of course it was.”

beside you, jaemin makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a scoff. you turn your head just in time to see him adjust the shopping bag in his hand, his face carefully arranged into an expression of complete disinterest. it would perhaps be more convincing if he had not moved closer to the phone.

there is a short pause on the other end. “is that jaemin?”

jaemin leans towards the device before you can answer. “no.”

you close your eyes.

jeongguk seems to consider this. “i can hear you.”

“then why did you ask?”

another pause. it is fascinating, really, how quickly the atmosphere changes. jeongguk had called sounding almost timid, his voice softened by distance and whatever nerves continue to eat at him backstage. now, there is something firmer underneath it. not anger, exactly. irritation perhaps, the childish kind that only appears when one person has decided they do not like another and no longer requires an actual reason to maintain it.

you look between the phone in your hand and jaemin beside you. wonderful, really.

“why are you with her?” jeongguk asks. your eyebrows rise.

jaemin’s do too, though for an entirely different reason. “because she begged me.”

Your head snaps to him, clicking your tongue. “i did not?”

“you literally cried.”

“i elbowed you.” You brush your elbow against his arm in a threat. He shrugs you off, scoffing.

“violently,” he adds, rubbing his side again as though you have punctured one of his organs rather than lightly pushed him away. “there were tears.”

jeongguk laughs. it is barely more than a breath, slightly distorted by the speaker, but jaemin’s entire face changes upon hearing it. his mouth presses into a thin line, eyes narrowing at the phone as if jeongguk has personally delivered an insult to his family.

“what’s funny?”

“nothing.”

“then stop laughing.”

“what if i don‘t.”

“i’ll make you.”

“good luck, jaehyun.”

you stare ahead. seventeen, you remind yourself. You look at the couple passing by, the mother carrying her twins. Anything, trust, anything is worth more than listening to these two bickering at any given chance.

they are both seventeen. their brains are not fully developed and you should therefore practise patience, compassion and, if necessary, physical restraint. Be the wonderful lecturer every student would want. Be the kind person kids look up to.

Though you must admit that being thirty-two has never felt more exhausting.

“we’re buying things for the spring festival,” you explain before either of them can find another single-syllable word to weaponise. “we promised to bake something for the charity stand.”

“you’re baking?” the surprise in jeongguk’s voice offends you more than it should.

“why does everyone say it like that?”

“because she can’t bake,” jaemin answers.

“i can bake.”

“you can read instructions.”

“that is what baking is.”

“no, baking requires instinct.”

you turn to look at him properly. “you wanted to put four bags of chocolate chips into twelve muffins.”

“people like chocolate.”

“people also like having functioning arteries.”

jeongguk laughs again, louder this time. jaemin’s grip tightens around the bag. you try to bite back a laugh.

“shouldn’t you be practising?” he asks, directing the question towards the phone with all the sweetness of somebody politely requesting another person’s immediate removal.

“i already practised.”

“do it again.”

“shouldn’t you be carrying the bags?”

jaemin looks down at the bags currently hanging from both of his hands. you follow his gaze, then look back at the phone.

“…he is,” you admit.

“then why is he complaining?”

“i wasn’t complaining.”

“you always complain.”

jaemin halts. because you had continued walking, you are forced to stop several steps ahead of him. when you turn around, his eyes are fixed on the phone with something close to personal betrayal.

“you don’t even know me.”

“i know enough.”

“you met me three times.”

“four.”

“the fourth time you didn’t even speak to me.”

“because you were annoying.”

you bite down on the inside of your cheek. perhaps this is what raising children feels like. not the love or sacrifice or quiet pride people usually speak of, but standing outside a shop with too many groceries while two boys attempt to reconstruct several months of mutual dislike through a phone speaker.

“alright,” you interrupt. “that’s enough.”

“i didn’t do anything,” they answer at the same time.

silence follows. jaemin looks vaguely disgusted by the accidental harmony. somewhere in japan, you imagine jeongguk wearing a similar expression.

Biting back that laugh gets harder with each second. Man, you wish you had your old hone back to record and post it on tiktok.

You almost slip.

“did you eat?” jeongguk asks after a moment.

the question is directed at you this time. you know because his voice changes again, some of its sharpness retreating as though jaemin’s existence has been temporarily pushed out of the conversation.

temporarily.

“yes.”

“she stole half of my breakfast,” jaemin says.

“you said you weren’t hungry.”

“that doesn’t mean you can take it.”

“you pushed the plate towards me.”

“out of kindness.”

“you called the eggs depressing.”

“they were.”

“how can eggs be depressing?”

You scoff, your hand now holding your wrist to support the weight of the phone you have held up to jaemins level, “you should have seen them.”

another quiet laugh leaves the speaker. jaemin kisses his teeth. “stop encouraging her.”

“i wasn’t.”

“you laughed.” “because you’re not funny.”

“that doesn’t even make sense.” “it does to me.”

you begin walking again before the two of them can drag you into another trial, shifting the phone into your other hand when the paper handles start digging too deeply into your skin. jaemin follows, of course. he always does, even when he makes a performance out of not wanting to.

for several seconds, all that can be heard is the sound of your steps against the pavement and the muffled chaos behind jeongguk. voices pass somewhere near him, followed by a door opening and somebody calling his name.

he answers them quickly before returning to you.

“i should go soon.”

“fianlly,” jaemin mutters.

you glare at him. he just looks away, entirely unrepentant.

“are you still nervous?” you ask.

jeongguk hums. it is not quite an answer, though you understand it anyway.

“he called you before a concert just to ask whether you ate?” jaemin asks.

there is something strange about his tone. the mockery remains, but it has quietened around the edges. his gaze moves from the phone to your face, lingering there long enough to make you straighten.

“i didn’t call just for that,” jeongguk protests.

“then why did you call?”

silence. you glance down at the screen as if the answer might appear there.

nothing does. jaemin waits. when jeongguk does not respond, the corner of his mouth lifts with the slow satisfaction of somebody who believes he has finally won something.

“that’s what i thought.”

“i didn’t call you,” jeongguk says.

“you called my morning.”

“it’s afternoon here.”

“that sounds like a personal problem.”

“jaemin,” you warn. he raises one shoulder and continues walking, the bags rustling against his legs.

“i just wanted to talk before we started,” jeongguk finally admits. the words are quiet enough that you almost lose them beneath the sounds surrounding him.

jaemin hears them too. you know because his steps slow for half a second.

something inside your chest shifts. not painfully, not in the sharp way it once did whenever jeongguk unknowingly placed another piece of himself into your hands. it is softer now, which might somehow be worse. pain was at least easy to recognise. this has no name you are willing to give it.

“well,” you clear your throat, looking towards the crossing ahead, “you talked.”

“that’s all?”

“what else do you want?”

“something helpful.”

“i told you that you’ll do fine.”

“you also said being nervous is good.”

“it is.”

“horrible advice,” he repeats, tone amused.

“and yet you called for more.”

jaemin snorts beside you.

“don’t start,” jeongguk immediately says.

Jaemin rolls is eyes, bending down to talk into the speaker in a smug tone. “i didn’t say anything.”

“you made a sound.”

“am i not allowed to breathe anymore?”

“preferably not that loudly.”

you press your lips together, though the laugh escapes through your nose anyway. both of them fall quiet. it takes you a moment to realise why.

“did she laugh?” jeongguk asks.

“no,” jaemin answers immediately.

“i heard her.”

“must have been the traffic.” there is barely any traffic.

you turn towards him. “why are you lying?”

“i’m protecting your reputation.”

“from what?”

“him.”

“i can still hear you,” jeongguk reminds him.

“tragic.”

“do you always answer for her?”

jaemin’s eyes flicker towards you. the question should be harmless. annoying, perhaps, but harmless. still, something changes in his expression so briefly that you almost convince yourself you imagined it. his lips part, then close again. the amusement leaves his face before returning a moment later, carefully placed.

“someone has to,” he says.

your steps falter. only slightly. jaemin continues forward as though he has said nothing strange at all. as though the words have not found their way beneath your skin, pressing against every question you have tried not to ask during the past three months.

someone has to. you stare at the back of his head.

then he glances over his shoulder and rolls his eyes. “are you coming or do you plan on standing there until next year?”

next year.

your fingers tighten around the phone. jeongguk says your name from the speaker, the irritation in his voice immediately replaced by concern. “what happened?”

“nothing.” you force your feet to move. “jaemin is being dramatic.”

“i am carrying your entire bakery.”

“two bags.”

“my entire future is in these hands.”

“your future is very cheap.”

“see?” jaemin says towards the phone. “violent and cruel. you can have her.”

Jeongguk smacks his lips, the sound sounds almost robotic, “i didn’t ask you.”

“good, because i wasn’t offering.”

“both of you,” you groan.

a voice calls jeongguk again, louder this time. he exhales. “i really have to go.”

“then go,” jaemin says.

“you first.”

“how would that even work?”

“i don’t know. just go somewhere else.”

“i am somewhere else.”

you rub your thumb against your your temple. “jeongguk.”

“right. sorry.”

“don’t apologise to her,” jaemin mutters. “apologise to me.”

Jeongguks voice rises in suspicion “for what?”

“existing loudly.”

you lower the phone before they can begin again, twisting your body away.

“do well,” you say, directing the words towards jeongguk and attempting to press everything else you cannot say into them. “and try to enjoy it. at least a little.”

the other end remains quiet for a moment.

“okay,” he says eventually. “i’ll call you after.”

“it will be late.”

“you’ll still be awake.”

“you don’t know that.” You bite the inside of your cheek, shifting in your place.

“you always are.”

beside you, jaemin looks over. not at the phone. at you.

“yeah,” he says quietly. “lately, she is.”

something cold moves along your spine. before you can determine whether there is anything hidden beneath the sentence, jaemin lifts the bags and peers inside one of them.

“we forgot the butter.”

you blink. “what?”

“the butter,” he repeats, already turning back towards the shop. “your mother put it on the list.”

the moment closes as easily as that. perhaps there had never been one.

“good luck,” you tell jeongguk, your attention still caught on jaemin as he walks away. “call me later.”

“not on speaker,” he says quickly.

jaemin turns around despite already being several metres ahead. “i heard that!”

“good.”

the line goes dead.

---

the muffins survive.

not elegantly, and certainly not without sacrifice. three remain welded to their paper cases, one is missing most of its top because jaemin insists on testing whether it has cooled with his finger, and an entire row leans slightly to the left for reasons neither of you can explain. still, they are edible. more importantly, they are no longer your responsibility.

four days after you buy the ingredients, jaemin carries both containers into the school courtyard and places them on the charity stand with the solemn care of somebody surrendering his firstborn children.

“be gentle with them,” he tells the girl arranging the baked goods. she stares at him.

“they’ve been through a lot.” “they’re muffins.”

his expression hardens, coated with the pain of a person that has seen too miuch, perhaps against theri will, but nevertheless seen it. “you weren’t there.”

you catch the sleeve of his jacket and pull him away before he can begin explaining the structural difficulties of chocolate-chip distribution to someone who very clearly has somewhere else to be.

behind you, the girl lifts one of the lids.

“don’t judge them by appearance,” jaemin calls over his shoulder.

you flex your jaw, trying your best to appear as civilized as can “keep walking.”

“they have character.” jaemin tries to defend himself, to no avail.

“they’re concave.”

“they’re humble.”

“they collapsed!” you huff, grip around his sleeve tightening.

he shrugs, “aesthetic differences.”

you release his sleeve once there is enough of the courtyard between him and the muffins to prevent further emotional interference. jaemin looks back twice anyway.

the festival has consumed most of the school grounds. paper flowers hang from the windows, their colours made almost painfully bright beneath the afternoon sun, and handwritten signs have been taped over every available surface. music travels from somewhere near the gymnasium, repeatedly interrupted whenever the speakers lose connection. students move between the stalls in loose groups, carrying paper cups and plastic bags, liberated from their uniforms for one afternoon and therefore behaving as though they have escaped institutional oppression entirely.

you stand among them without quite belonging to the movement. it is not an unfamiliar feeling anymore. perhaps that should concern you more than it does.

“are we getting food?” jaemin asks, pupils blown out. you don’t ave enough patience for this.

you shake your head, sighing. “we just delivered thirty-six muffins.”

“that wasn’t my question.” “you ate three while we were packing them.”

jaemin licks his lip in remembrance, “quality control.”

“you said the first one tasted fine.”

“i had to check for consistency.”

“the second one was from the same tray.”

“and yet you still refuse to thank me for my service.” he huffs, nose pointing up.

you look at him. he looks back with the unearned dignity of a man who had spent most of the previous evening sitting on your kitchen counter and dropping chocolate chips directly into his mouth.

“i saved lives,” he concludes, chest lifted with pride. you should smack him.

“you stole ingredients.” you deadpan instead, hands now resting on your hips.

“same profession, different methodology.”

despite yourself, something small pulls at the corner of your mouth.

jaemin notices. he does not mention it. he only nudges your shoulder with his and begins walking towards the row of food stalls, apparently trusting that you will follow. you do, because this is the shape your friendship has taken: one of you moving first, the other complaining while falling into step. you make it halfway across the courtyard before a burst of laughter rises somewhere to your right.

the sound catches your attention before the people do. they are gathered beside one of the game stalls, five girls pressed together while one of them attempts to throw a ring over the neck of a glass bottle. another covers her mouth as she laughs. a third is filming the entire failure on her phone, promising loudly that she will delete it later.

you recognize them. recognition is no longer the correct word, perhaps. you know their names. you know which of them used to lend you lip balm beneath the desk and which one cried in the bathroom after receiving a poor mathematics grade. you know the songs they listened to on the bus home and the particular bench behind the sports hall where all of you used to eat whenever the weather allowed it.

you remember them. they no longer remember you in quite the same way.

one of the girls manages to land the ring. the others scream as though she has won something greater than a cheap stuffed rabbit. for a moment, you can almost locate the space in which you would have stood among them. not at the centre. never there. perhaps beside soojin, leaning away when she shouted too close to your ear. perhaps holding somebody’s bag while they played. perhaps laughing despite yourself when they accused the stall owner of moving the bottles.

there had been a place for you, or well, someone like you, once. it simply belongs to someone else now. never to you. They would never know you.

“are you planning to challenge them to a fight?” jaemin’s voice pulls you back.

you glance at him. “what?”

“you’ve been staring at them for nearly a minute.” “i have not.” You feel the heat creep up your face, fingers tingling.

“forty-seven seconds, then.”

“you weren’t counting.”

“I became concerned after thirty.” There it is, the time in which the two of you simply refuse to back down and would rather throw meaningless phrases at each other.

“you should find better things to do with your time.” you say this time, sticking out our tongue.

“i tried.“ jaemin lifts his hand to grab the tip of your nose, you swat his hand away, “you refused to buy me food.”

“i am not responsible for feeding you.”

he smirks. “your mother would disagree.”

“my mother thinks you’re malnourished because you make yourself look tragic whenever she enters the room.”

“it works.” “that doesn’t make it less shameful.” “it makes it efficient.”

he steps in front of you when you attempt to walk past him, forcing you to stop. there is still amusement in his face, though his eyes briefly move towards the group behind you.

“you don’t talk to them anymore.” it is not phrased as a question.

you slide your hands into the pockets of your jacket. “we talk.”

“you said hello to soojin last week and then escaped into the library.”

“are you stalking me now, loser?“

“answer my question.” he looks serious like this head tilting to the side, eyes darting across your face. you feel seen, too much of it.

“i had to find a book.” you look past his shoulders, can’t bear the weight of his gaze any longer.

“that isn’t how returning things works.” “you understood what i meant.” “i genuinely didn’t.”

you try to step around him again. he moves with you. “jaemin.”

“what?” his tone drops.

“you’re standing in my way.”

“i’m standing normally. you keep choosing the wrong direction.”

you groan, foot hitting his in protest, “you’re impossible!”

“and yet i’m your only friend.” the words are light. deliberately so. they still settle somewhere uncomfortable. jaemin appears to hear them only after they have left him. something small shifts in his expression, but before he can take them back, you lift an eyebrow.

“bold of you to assume we’re friends.”

relief moves quickly across his face. “your mother invited me for dinner yesterday.”

you know. she has started cooking his favorite meal this morning, her gentle smile gracing her bbeautiful face. she is a nive person like that. “she feeds the neighbourhood cats too.”

“then she has excellent taste.” he brushes a stray strand of hair off his face.

“one of them has fleas.” “that comparison says more about you than it does about me.”

you finally manage to move past him. jaemin follows, close enough that the sleeve of his jacket brushes yours every few steps. the noise of the festival folds around you again. someone calls his name from across the courtyard, but he only raises a hand in acknowledgement without stopping.

“what happened?” he asks eventually.

“to what?”

“you and them.” you do not need to look to know where he means.

you decide to tell him the truth. “nothing happened.”

“that’s usually what people say when something happened.”

you sigh, getting tired of his endless questions. “sometimes people simply stop being close.”

“why?” you shrug. the movement feels unnaturally deliberate. “we outgrew each other.”

jaemin is quiet for several steps. it is the easiest explanation because it is not entirely a lie. you have outgrown them, only not in the gradual, harmless manner the sentence suggests. they continued forward while you woke one morning carrying years they had never lived. they remained seventeen. you returned to it.

there had been no argument. no betrayal. nothing you could point towards and call an ending. only the quiet realisation that sitting among them now required a performance you no longer had the energy to maintain.

“you outgrew all of them at once?” jaemin his voice is light. he has this habit in which he bends his spine slightly to shove his face ito yours.

you turn your head away, breathing through your nose, “do you need a schedule?”

“yes, actually. i’d like advance notice before you outgrow me.” he straightens up, hands now in the pocket of his school uniform. it is still in that ugly yellowish color. yellow never looked that good on you.

you hum, hands clapsed behind your back, “you should have received it already.”

“i knew you’d say that.”

“then why did you ask?”

“i wanted to see whether you had developed new material.” he sighs, “it’s hard being the only original person left.“

you roll your eyes, not even hiding your amusement anymore “and?”

“disappointing.”

“you’re still here.”

“i’m charitable.”

“you forced me to pay for your drink this morning.”

“emotionally charitable.” “that means nothing.”

“it means i provide companionship while remaining financially unavailable.”

you let out a breath that comes dangerously close to a laugh. he smiles, though it fades before it fully settles. for once, he does not use your amusement as evidence of his own brilliance. instead, he watches the path ahead, nudging a loose stone with the side of his shoe.

“you know you can tell me if it wasn’t just that.” the gentleness of it catches you more effectively than suspicion would have.

you keep your eyes ahead. “it was.”

jaemin nods. he does not say that he believes you. he does not say that he does not.

“fine,” he replies. “i never liked them anyway.”

you cant help bt laugh, head thrown into your neck, “you spent two years trying to impress soojin.”

“i was young.” he waves his hands in the air, “i was young and wild. wanted to see what the hype was about.“

“that was last year.” you decide to remind him, grinning at his groan.

“a dark period.”

“you wrote her a poem.” “it was not a poem!” he fastens his steps.

you continue with your own pace, too happy to change anything, “it rhymed.”

“coincidentally.” “you rhymed ‘eyes’ with ‘skies.’” “i was under pressure.” “you gave it to her on pink paper.” “i had limited resources.”

“she showed it to everyone.”

his face tightens. “and this is why people should allow friendships to die peacefully.”

this time, the laugh escapes you before you can stop it. jaemin points at you as though you have proven something important. “cruel.”

“you wrote four lines about her hair.” “five.” “that’s worse!”

“the fifth line provided thematic closure.”

you laugh again, quieter now, and the strange weight inside your chest loosens enough to let you breathe around it.

jaemin bumps his shoulder into yours. you return it immediately.

he stumbles a step to the side with insulting theatricality, clutching his upper arm. “violence. in public.”

“you survived.” “physically.”

you shrug, “unfortunately.”

there is no sharpness beneath it. no question of where either of you stands. the insult travels between you and returns harmlessly, softened by years of repetition. across the courtyard, soojin wins the stuffed rabbit. her friends surround her, laughing as she holds it above her head. you watch for one moment longer. then you turn away.

“come on,” you say. “i’ll buy you something.”

jaemin straightens immediately. “i knew emotional manipulation would work.”

“you’re paying me back.”

“i don’t have any money.” he argues, already walking toward the stand he has been eyeing for the past ten minutes.

you follow. of course you do. “you told me you did.”

“i lied.”

you know.

---

by the time you see jeongguk again, the festival has already begun disappearing.

the paper flowers are the first to go, taken down from the windows before the tape can leave permanent marks against the glass. then the handwritten signs vanish from the corridors, followed by the folding tables and the last paper cup somebody discovers beneath a bench several days later. for a while, the pale strip of paint jaemin had accidentally pulled from the courtyard wall remains as the only evidence that anything happened there at all.

after that, even the weather changes.

the cold retreats without announcement, loosening its grip upon the mornings until you no longer need to bury your hands inside your sleeves on the walk to school. trees that had appeared dead only weeks ago begin producing colour with almost offensive confidence. students carry their jackets instead of wearing them and complain about examinations with the careless certainty of people who believe this spring belongs to them.

you envy them occasionally; not enough to wish yourself seventeen again. you have learned that youth, when experienced from the inside, contains significantly less poetry than people assign to it afterward. mostly, it consists of poor sleep, fluorescent classrooms and adults asking what you intend to do with the rest of your life before allowing you to use the bathroom.

still, there are moments when you watch the people around you occupy their age so naturally that something inside you aches. then, one thursday afternoon, jeongguk sends you a message while you are waiting for the bus.

[jeongguk; 16:08] are you still at school

you stare at the screen for several seconds before responding. [16:09] no

three dots appear almost immediately. [jeongguk; 16:09] liar

oh, you wish you could just smack that rude boy across the face.

your head lifts. the road ahead is crowded with students making their way towards the station, their uniforms dark against the soft colours beginning to collect along the pavement. buses move through the traffic with exhausted groans, swallowing people at one end and releasing them somewhere else. nothing appears unusual until your gaze reaches the convenience store opposite the bus stop.

jeongguk stands beside the drinks refrigerator outside it, half-hidden beneath a black cap and a jacket much too large for him. The sleeves are way too long; he has folded them sloppily.

from this distance, he could be anyone. another student waiting for somebody, perhaps, although the mask pulled over his mouth and the way he repeatedly glances towards the road make subtlety increasingly unlikely.

your phone vibrates again. You don’t hesitate this time. [jeongguk; 16:10] you looked directly at me

[16:10] then why did you ask where i was

[jeongguk; 16:10] wanted to see if you would lie

[16:10] congratulations

[jeongguk; 16:11] come here

you look towards the approaching bus, then back at him. You roll your eyes. Demanding much, huh.

jeongguk follows your gaze. even from across the road, you see his shoulders sink. it is such an unnecessarily dramatic display of disappointment that you remain where you are out of principle. he takes his phone from his pocket again.

[jeongguk; 16:12] i bought you something

[16:12] bribery is a crime

[jeongguk; 16:13] then stay there

he reaches into the plastic bag beside him and removes something wrapped in silver packaging. you cannot make out what it is before he deliberately returns it to the bag.

the bus stops in front of you.

people begin pressing towards its doors while you stand perfectly still, caught between sensible public transport and whatever deeply unimpressive snack jeongguk has apparently purchased as leverage. somebody bumps your shoulder on the way past. by the time the bus pulls away again, you are still on the pavement.

across the road, jeongguk’s eyes crease above his mask. insufferable.

you wait for the crossing light before joining him, refusing to hurry despite the way he rocks impatiently from one foot to the other. he has been back in korea for some time already, though being in the same country has made surprisingly little difference. rehearsals became concerts, concerts became recordings, and recordings turned into late-night messages he was usually too tired to finish. there had always been something else waiting for him.

today, apparently, there is you.

“you missed your bus,” he says when you reach him.

You shrug, hands in your pocket. “you made me miss it.”

His eyes begin to twinkle in that, well you know. In his own way. “i told you to stay there.”

“after showing me food.” “i didn’t know that would work.”

You tilt your head, “then why did you do it?”

he considers the question while lifting the plastic bag from the ground. “hope.”

you hold out your hand.

He turns aay, shielding the plastic bag with his body. “hello to you too.”

“give it to me.” You make a open and close your hand rapidly, growing impatient.

Jeongguk huffs, voice careful, “you- you haven’t even asked how i am!”

“i can see how you are.” the answer quietens him for reasons you had not intended.

up close, the weeks are more visible. tiredness sits beneath his eyes despite the cap shadowing most of his face, and the skin around his knuckles is rough, one of them marked by a small healing cut. he appears thinner than he had before japan, although it may only be the oversized jacket swallowing the width of his shoulders.

then he reaches up to pull the mask beneath his chin, nudging the brim of his cap in the process, and you see his hair. the warmth has been taken out of it.

what had appeared brown beneath the lights in japan is now nearly black, the colour cool enough to turn faintly blue where the afternoon reaches the strands near his ears. it has been shortened too, though not by much. the same heavy fringe remains trapped beneath his cap, threatening to fall into his eyes.

the change is almost laughably small. your body recognises it before your mind has time to protect you.

wet pavement. white shirts. flower petals scattered across the ground. a motel room lit in colours too beautiful for what happens inside it. seven boys running towards a future none of them can see, preserved forever at the edge of adulthood because millions of people will eventually learn how to miss a youth they never shared.

and later, a trophy.

jeongguk lifts a hand towards the back of his head, eyes now looking down at his own feet. He shifts again, then clears his throat. “it isn’t permanent.”

you blink. “what?”

“the colour.” his fingers disappear beneath the cap, scratching awkwardly at his scalp. “you keep staring at it.”

you had not realised you were. “i’m looking at you.” the words leave before you can reconsider them.

his hand stops moving. somewhere behind you, the convenience-store door opens with a bright electronic melody. a woman steps outside carrying a coffee and moves between you without looking at either of you. the interruption should make the moment smaller.

it does not.

“why?” jeongguk asks.

there is no answer you can give him. not one that will not tear the afternoon apart and leave eighteen years scattered across the pavement between you.

“it makes you look older,” you settle on.

his entire posture changes. his shoulders straighten beneath the jacket, and the uncertainty leaves his eyes so quickly that you almost regret speaking.

“really?” you bite back a groan at how happy he sounds.

Your shoulders sink, “slightly.”

“how much?” “that isn’t measurable.” “eighteen?”

You almost laugh. “no.”

“nineteen?” “you still look seventeen.”

he clicks his tongue, turning towards the narrow row of tables beside the store as though personally offended by the failure of hair dye to accelerate time. you follow him, watching as he chooses the table furthest from the road and lowers himself into the plastic chair.

“you’ll appreciate that eventually,” you tell him, fighting off the urge to pat his shoulder. Your hand tingles inside your pocket. You roll it into a fist, nails pressed into the soft flesh.

An airy laugh escapes his lips, “you sound old again.”

Well, You are. “i am older than you.”

“by three months.” by fifteen years, you think.

eighteen, if the life waiting ahead of him is included. you sit opposite him before either calculation can settle too deeply. jeongguk places the plastic bag between you and begins removing its contents: two bottles of banana milk, a triangle of kimbap and the silver packet he had used to lure you across the road.

you pick it up. “hotteok?”

“you like it.”

Your disappointment sinks deeper, “i missed a bus for this?”

“give it back.” his hand moves across the table, but you pull the packet against your chest before he can reach it.

“i didn’t say i don’t want it.”

“you looked disappointed.” Well, at least now you can confidently say that he is an attentive person.

“this is my normal face.”

“that explains a lot.”

you tear open the packaging while he leans back, satisfaction returning once it becomes clear that you intend to eat what he bought. the hotteok has already cooled, the dough slightly tougher around the edges, though the syrup inside remains warm enough to collect against your thumb when you break off the first piece.

jeongguk watches you chew. His own food is left untouched, eyes solely focusing on you and the way you rreact to his gift. “well?”

“it’s food.” You swallow. It warms your inside, maybe not your stomach, but definitely your heart.

He throws his head back, “you’re horrible at compliments.”

“thank you for the food.”

He huffs, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “forced.”

“i could give it back.” You suggest, holding it up.

“you already bit it.” “then stop complaining.”

he smiles despite himself and reaches for the kimbap, peeling the plastic apart with more concentration than the task requires. for several minutes, the conversation becomes unnecessary. traffic moves steadily beyond the low railing, and a delivery truck blocks most of the street while its driver carries boxes into the store. jeongguk eats as though nobody has fed him since japan, finishing half the kimbap before remembering the banana milk beside him.

“have you been practising all day?” you ask. You already know the answer. Know why he oh so desperately wanted some company while he ate his lunch. Who knows when he had his last.

He nods, cheeks full. “since the morning.”

“for the comeback?”

his eyes lift.

the movement is small, but you see the caution enter them.

so, you decide to ease his mind. you break another piece from the hotteok. “you told me there was a comeback.”

“i did?” he pronounces each syllable slower than before, careful.

You nod, eyes looking at the piece of dough in your hand. You turn it a bit, inspecting the piece from different angles. “several times.”

“did i tell you anything else?” he sounds upset, at who, you have no idea.

“mostly that your legs hurt.”

“they do.” He sighs, tension leaving his shoulders.

“and that taehyung fell asleep while sitting upright.”

jeongguk’s mouth twitches. “he said he was resting his eyes.”

“for forty minutes?” “he was very tired.”

You hum.

the suspicion leaves him, though not entirely. it has begun happening more often: these brief moments in which you step too close to information he does not remember giving you. each time, you find some ordinary explanation and watch him accept it because the alternative would be impossible. you wonder how many impossible things a person can overlook before they begin forming a pattern.

“we filmed something too,” he says, lowering his voice although nobody nearby is listening. “but i can’t tell you what.”

“then don’t.”

his eyebrows draw together. “what?”

you swallow. “nothing.”

“you look annoyed.” He places his kimbap down, fingers twitching.

“i’m not annoyed.”

“you always ask questions!”

Rolling your eyes, you lean back against the plastic stool. “you complain when i ask questions.”

“well- tha- that doesn’t mean you should stop!”

you study him across the table. “what would you like me to ask?”

jeongguk looks down at the remains of his kimbap, apparently unprepared for the responsibility of directing the interrogation himself. “you could ask where we filmed.”

“where did you film?” you parrot, already knowing his answer.

“i can’t tell you.” He grins at you sheepishly, eyelashes fluttering against his cheek gently.

“this has been incredibly productive.”

his laugh is muffled behind the back of his hand. it is quieter than it had been over the phone with jaemin, stripped of the deliberate provocation the two of them seem to inspire in one another.

“outside,” he offers.

“most places are outside.” “at night.”

you glance towards his knuckles again. there is dirt caught in the pale stitching of one shoe, and a faint purple mark disappears beneath the sleeve around his wrist. “was it cold?”

his eyes widen as he nods, clearly affected. “very.”

“did you get hurt?”

his thumb passes over the cut on his hand before curling into his palm. “not really.”

the lie is not convincing, but neither is it serious enough to challenge. filming an era remembered for its beauty had apparently required the real boy inside it to stand outside at night until his hands split open from the cold. it should not surprise you.

beautiful things have always been particularly skilled at concealing the labour that creates them.

“will you watch it?” he asks.

you raise your eyes to his.

“when it comes out,” he adds. “the video.”

“of course.” Maybe you should be a bit more enthusiastic. For some reason you can’t bring yourself to pretend.

“immediately?”

“eh, i will probably be at school.” You tilt your head and look up, mentally checking your schedule and compare it to the release time.

Though jeongguk does not give up. “after school, then.”

“are you assigning me homework?” “you have to tell me if it’s good.”

“what if it isn’t?”

he appears genuinely disturbed by the possibility. “lie.”

It kinda annoys you. Maybe because his desperation makes your heart sting. His want, his need for his hard work to be perceived as good.

“you just complained that my compliments sound forced.” You remind him.

“practise before then.”

you fold the empty wrapper into increasingly smaller squares while he continues eating. the wind moves between the buildings, lifting the hair that has escaped beneath his cap. for one moment, with his cheeks full and one hand wrapped around a bottle of banana milk, he looks nothing like the figure your memory attempted to place over him.

relief moves through you so suddenly that it almost resembles grief. he is still here. not in an old video. not frozen inside the age from which you came. simply here, occupying a cheap plastic chair and stealing glances at the bus schedule because he knows you missed one for him.

“when is the next bus?” he asks.

You look at the analog clock on the wall of the store. “twelve minutes.”

“i can wait.” He suggests, more like demands.

“don’t you have to go back?”

“not for twenty.” he says it casually, as though eight spare minutes are nothing. you know better now.

you slide the unopened banana milk towards him. “take this one too.”

“i bought it for you.”

“i don’t like banana milk.”

“you drank it last time.” “because you bought it.”

his fingers settle around the bottle without lifting it. something in his face becomes still. “then drink it again.”

you stare at him. jeongguk nudges it back towards you, using enough force that it crosses the table and bumps against your wrist. when you do not move, he places two fingers against the cap and pushes once more.

“you’re annoying,” you tell him.

“you missed your bus.” as though that explains anything. you open the bottle. his smile remains even after he looks away.

—

april moves differently after that.

perhaps time has always been uneven, and you only notice because you already know which date waits at the end of it. school days drag beneath the weight of application meetings and mock examinations, while entire weeks disappear from your phone whenever jeongguk becomes too busy to answer.

your homeroom teacher gives everyone a sheet on which to list three possible universities and two intended fields of study. around you, decisions are made with varying degrees of panic. somebody behind you announces that his parents will disown him if he applies for music. another student chooses business administration because she cannot think of anything else and suspects money might compensate for the absence of conviction.

you stare at the empty boxes until the lines begin to blur. in your first life, the decision had felt like an opening. literature had promised language for all the things you could sense but did not yet know how to explain. you had entered university believing that understanding stories might help you understand people, only to discover that people were significantly less cooperative about being interpreted. You still stayed, you always do.

choosing the same path now would be easy. that is precisely what frightens you.

“ever heard of relaxing?” jaemin lowers himself into the chair beside yours, turning it backwards before sitting so his arms can rest across its back. his own form has already been folded twice and shoved into his pocket.

“what did you write?” you ask.

He shrugs, head nodding to his seat across the room. “things.”

“which things?” “future things.” “inspiring.” “thank you.”

you reach for the paper protruding from his pocket. he twists away before you can catch it, nearly tipping the chair in the process.

“why are you being secretive?”

“i’m not.” A light blush covers his cheeks. That idiot.

But you won’t back down. Not with him. “then show me.”

“you’ll judge me.” “i judge you without documentation.”

“exactly. imagine what you could accomplish with evidence.”

the teacher calls for everyone to return to their places before you can attempt another theft. jaemin rights his chair and rises, but his attention falls to your still-empty form.

“you’re writing literature, aren’t you?” the certainty with which he says it unsettles you more than the question should.

“maybe.”

“you’ve wanted to since middle school.”

someone squeezes between the desks behind him, forcing jaemin closer until his hand braces against the corner of your table. he does not appear to notice the movement. he is still looking at the sheet before you, at the future he assumes has remained where you left it.

“people change their minds,” you say.

“you didn’t.”

“how do you know?”

his expression shifts, amusement softening into something you cannot immediately read. “because you still look like that whenever you read.”

“like what?”

“stupid. Bye.”

you shove his arm away from your desk. jaemin grins, retreating towards his seat before you can reach him again. the moment passes, yet the question remains long after the teacher begins speaking.

is repeating a choice the same as choosing it? you write nothing before the bell rings.

—

jeongguk’s messages arrive in the spaces between everything else. sometimes they come shortly after midnight, when you are attempting to study and he is travelling back from the company.

[jeongguk; 22:31] my knees are broken

[22:33] both?

[jeongguk; 22:34] yes

[22:34] unfortunate

[jeongguk; 22:34] you’re supposed to be concerned

[22:34] have you tried turning them off and on again

he does not answer for nine minutes.

[jeongguk; 22:49] i asked namjoon hyung [jeongguk; 22:50] he said stop talking to you

other times, he disappears for two days and returns by sending you a photograph of a ceiling with no explanation. you learn to recognise his exhaustion through the deterioration of his spelling, the way complete sentences become fragments before collapsing into photographs, complaints and voice messages in which somebody is usually shouting behind him.

once, shortly before three in the morning, he asks whether something can be good even if nobody notices it. you read the question until the screen dims in your hand. there are too many possible answers and only one that will not betray you.

[02:57] yes

his reply comes several minutes later.

[jeongguk; 03:10] how do you know

you lie on your back, listening to the silence of a house whose future inhabitants are sleeping around you.

[03:11] being noticed and being good are two different things

this time, he does not respond at all. in the morning, there is a message waiting beneath the question.

[jeongguk; 04:39] i hope people notice this one

you close your eyes.

“they will,” you whisper into the empty room. you do not type it.

—

on the nineteenth of april, the comeback trailer appears.

you watch it alone, seated on the floor beside your bed with your schoolbooks still unopened across the desk. yoongi’s voice fills the room while water moves beneath a basketball court and the title you have been avoiding finally appears on the screen.

화양연화.

the most beautiful moment in life.

the characters should be familiar. you had seen them printed across albums, merchandise and banners; had watched them become shorthand for an entire generation’s relationship with youth. now they seem almost intrusive, as though something that had once belonged safely to memory has followed you here. a moment can only be called beautiful after it has begun to end.

perhaps that is the cruelty hidden inside the title. nobody standing within the most beautiful moment of their life knows to name it. they are too occupied by the ordinary discomfort of living through it. jeongguk does not know. he is probably practising while you sit on the floor mourning a period that has not yet happened to him.

your phone lights beside your knee.

[jeongguk; 17:45] did you see it

you consider pretending you have not.

[17:46] yes

[jeongguk17:46] and?

your fingers remain above the keyboard.

[17:46] it’s beautiful

the response appears almost immediately.

[jeongguk; 17:47] that sounds sad

you look back towards the final image frozen on your laptop.

[17:47] beautiful things often are

[jeongguk; 17:52]] you really do sound old

the laugh that leaves you is small, but real enough to loosen something inside your chest.

[17:53] go practise

[jeongguk; 17:54] how do you know i’m practising

you look at the message. then at the time.

[17:55] aren’t you always?

the three dots appear, disappear and return.

[jeongguk; 17:57] lately

you do not ask whether he is happy. you are beginning to understand that happiness is too blunt a word for what this means to him.

—

the album is released on the twenty-ninth. despite your promise, you do not watch the music video immediately.

you carry the knowledge of it through the entire school day instead, beneath conversations you only half hear and lessons that end without leaving anything behind. by lunch, clips have begun circulating between students. somebody plays the song from a phone near the windows, the volume too low for the teacher to identify where it is coming from.

the first notes reach you anyway. your hand stills above your notebook. you had forgotten how fragile the beginning sounds.

not because the song itself has changed, but because the people inside it have. the voice you once heard through headphones now belongs to somebody who sends you photographs of ceilings when he is too tired to speak. you know how his laughter catches when jaemin irritates him and how he eats faster when he believes he has only a few minutes left. you know he bought two bottles of banana milk despite already knowing he would try to make you drink both.

distance had once made loving them simple. proximity has made it unbearable.

“isn’t that your friend?”

jaemin’s question is quiet enough that nobody else hears it.

you close the notebook. “what?”

he tips his head towards the music leaking from the other side of the classroom. his own lunch remains untouched on the desk between his elbows.

“jeongguk.”

you look towards the phone, though the student holding it is hidden behind several people. You don’t know if you are supposed to be surprised that he said his name so, well, less with spite?

“yes.”

“it’s good.” the lack of mockery makes you turn back.

jaemin lifts one shoulder. “what? i’m capable of recognising music.”

“you listened to the same song for four months.”

“it was a good song.”

“it was the ringtone that came with your phone.”

“a classic.”

you expect him to continue. instead, he studies your face with the same quiet attention he has begun giving you whenever he believes you are somewhere else.

“have you watched the video?” he asks.

You shiver. “not yet.”

A confused sound leaves his throat, “why?”

“i’m at school.” You wave your hand to emphasize your point.

“that has never stopped anyone.”

you place your pen inside the notebook and align it carefully with the spine. “i said i would watch it later.”

jaemin remains still for a moment, then reaches for his chopsticks.

“right,” he says. “later.” he does not ask why you look frightened of something you have been waiting for.

—

you watch it after sunset.

there is no ceremonial reason for waiting so long. your mother asks you to help with dinner, and afterward there are dishes to dry and an assignment you pretend to begin before accepting that none of the words will remain inside your head. only once the house has quietened do you place your laptop on the bed and close the door.

the video begins. memory meets reality imperfectly.

you recognise the petrol station, the bathtub, the flickering motel sign. you remember namjoon’s lollipop and the expression on yoongi’s face before the room burns around him. some images arrive exactly as you expect them to, while others seem newly sharpened, disturbed by details your mind had discarded over the years.

then jeongguk appears. he is younger than memory allowed him to remain.

there had always been makeup, editing, choreography and the distance of a screen between you. now those protections fail. you see the boy from the convenience store standing beneath artificial light, carrying emotions created for the camera while still somehow looking more vulnerable than the role demands.

you wonder whether the bruise beneath his sleeve came from this. whether his hands had been cold. whether somebody gave him something warm to drink afterward.

the music continues while your thoughts drift beyond it, towards things the video will never preserve. the hours of repetition. the waiting rooms. seven boys checking charts and refreshing pages, attempting to measure whether years of work have finally become visible.

your phone begins vibrating before the video has fully ended. jeongguk’s name fills the screen.

for one irrational second, you consider allowing it to ring. you do not know how to speak to the person you have just watched without letting the weight of everything else enter your voice. the call almost ends before you answer.

“hello?” “you watched it.”

it is not a question. you pause the video on a black screen. “how do you know?”

“you weren’t answering.” “i was busy.”

“watching it.” you hear movement around him, then the scrape of a chair and somebody laughing far enough away that you cannot identify them. jeongguk seems to be searching for somewhere quieter. a door opens, closes, and the noise dulls.

“well?” he asks.

you shift higher against the wall, drawing one knee towards your chest. “you already know it’s good.”

“i want to know what you think.”

“i think it’s good.”

“that’s all?”

“the song is good. the video is beautiful. you worked hard.” the last sentence changes something.

his breathing, perhaps. it becomes quieter against the speaker. “could you tell?”

you look at the frozen screen.“yes, Of course.”

“how?” his voice pierces through you. The way he sounds so relieved, scared, hopeful, and much more you can’t even put into words. Wouldn’t dare to.

you could tell him you saw the tiredness he had attempted to hide beneath his cap. that his knuckles had been split and his knees hurt badly enough for him to complain to you after midnight. you could say that being familiar with the finished product has made you more aware of every human thing sacrificed outside the frame.

instead, you rest your cheek against your knee. Your voice is softer than you want it to be. “because i know you.”

silence follows. not the empty kind. this one seems to gather around the words, making them larger than you intended.

you straighten, clearing your throat. “a little,” you add.

“right.” you can hear the smile in his voice.

“don’t sound so pleased.”

“i’m not.”

“you are.”

“you said you know me.” “i’m reconsidering.” “too late.”

another door opens near him. somebody calls his name, and jeongguk answers without moving the phone far enough away.

“we have our first stage tomorrow,” he tells you when the interruption passes. “will you watch that too?”

“don’t you think you’re becoming demanding?”

He groans, and you can already imagine how he throws his head back. “you said you would support me.”

You hum as if deep in thought, “when?”

“before japan.”

“i told you not to fall off the stage.”

“same thing.”

“that is an extremely loose interpretation.”

“so you’ll watch?”

you allow your head to fall back against the wall. “yes.”

“immediately?”

“jeongguk.” his laugh reaches you before the line fills with movement again.

“i have to go.”

“then go.”

“you sound like jaemin.”

“hang up.”

“you really sound like him.” you end the call before he can make the comparison worse.

the screen returns to the paused video. your own reflection is faintly visible across the darkness, interrupted by the white progress bar near the bottom. for years, you had remembered the twenty-ninth of april as the beginning of something. sitting here now, you understand that beginnings only look clean from far away. up close, they are made of missed buses and bruised wrists, unanswered messages, cold food eaten between rehearsals. they begin long before anybody thinks to record the date.

—

on the fifth of may, you wake before your alarm. the knowledge is already there.

it follows you through breakfast and sits beside you in every lesson, growing heavier as the hours pass. you remember the outcome. the date has survived inside you with the strange clarity reserved for events that once seemed important enough to become collective memory.

bts’s first music-show win.

i need u.

the show.

you know the footage: their disbelief, their tears, the way the trophy passes between unsteady hands as if nobody quite trusts themselves to hold it. you remember jeongguk’s face. at least, you remember what the camera preserved of it.

that should comfort you. it does not. certainty had been easier before you began interfering with the past. before you crossed a classroom to speak to him. before he began calling you from backstage and wasting twenty minutes beside a convenience store because you missed your bus. perhaps history is fixed. perhaps every choice you make has already been folded inside it, invisible but necessary.

or perhaps the smallest alteration only becomes visible when something fails to happen. by the final lesson, you have read the same sentence seven times.

jaemin reaches across the narrow space between your desks and presses the end of his pen against your page.

“you’ve been staring at that paragraph for ten minutes.”

“i’m thinking.”

“about the paragraph?” his breathing irritates you. You stay calm. Try to.

“among other things.”

he follows your gaze towards the clock above the board. “are you waiting for something?”

“no.” the answer comes too quickly. Amybe you should shove him away.

jaemin turns the pen between his fingers. he has become better at recognising your lies, though whether that is because you have grown worse at telling them or because he has begun looking more carefully remains unclear.

“you’re doing that thing again,” he says.

“what thing?”

“where you look stupid. you always do, but this time its worse.”

you ignore him. zen. zen. zen. you are a composed woman. zen. “maybe i’m tired.”

“you’re always tired.”

“then you’ve solved it.”

his pen remains on your desk until the teacher looks in your direction. only then does he withdraw it, bending over his own work with an obedience convincing enough to last precisely thirty seconds.

the moment the teacher turns around, a folded piece of paper lands beside your wrist.

you open it beneath the table.

did something happen to him?

the question strips the irritation from you.

you look at jaemin. he does not return the glance, though the tension in his jaw tells you he is waiting.

for all his bickering with jeongguk, he has never treated what exists between you as trivial. perhaps he does not understand it. you are not certain that you do either. still, somewhere between the interrupted calls and late messages, jaemin has learned that when your attention disappears like this, it usually travels towards the same person.

you write beneath his question. no. something might happen today.

the paper returns to him. he reads it, frowns and writes again.

good or bad?

your pen hovers. good. i think.

jaemin studies the answer for longer than necessary. then why do you look ill?

you fold the note without responding.

—

the hours after school refuse to pass normally. you complete your chores before anyone asks and carry your books upstairs, though studying is never a serious possibility. at seven, you open the broadcast on your laptop. at seven fifteen, you close it because nothing has begun. at seven twenty, you open it again.

your phone remains face-up beside you. jeongguk has not messaged since morning.

that, at least, makes sense. he will be surrounded by staff, cameras and six other people attempting to appear less nervous than they are. perhaps he does not know. perhaps none of them have allowed themselves to consider winning when being nominated is already more than they expected. at seven forty-three, jaemin sends you a photograph of his mathematics homework.

[jae-theman; 19:43] number six

[19:44] what about it

[jae-theman; 19:44] answer

[19:44] do it yourself

[jae-theman; 19:44] i tried

[19:44] try correctly

three dots appear.

[jae-theman; 19:45] whatever is happening today has made you cruel

[19:45] liar

[jae-theman; 19:45] am not! [jae-theman; 19:46] good luck to your strange little friend

you stare at the message. [19:46] he isn’t little

the response arrives before you can put the phone down. [jae-theman; 19:46] that’s what offended you?

despite the pressure lodged beneath your ribs, your mouth almost curves. you mute the conversation and return your attention to the broadcast.

the programme begins. performances pass in bursts of colour and sound. presenters smile into the camera, moving through scripts they have rehearsed while numbers continue accumulating somewhere beyond the stage. you attempt to watch without checking the time. it does not work.

when bts finally appear, your body reacts before thought can intervene. suddenly, your feet tingle, your jaw tenses and you can feel your bladder sit uncomfortably inside you. you never dare looking away, though.

there, jeongguk stands beneath the lights with his dark fringe separated over his forehead, dressed in white and black. makeup has sharpened the eyes you watched crease above a convenience-store mask less than a month ago. he looks composed until the camera moves close enough for you to see the tension in his mouth, corners pulled into a straight line. he had asked whether you would watch. you wonder if he believes you kept the promise. your phone vibrates against the blanket.

for one terrible moment, you are afraid to look. then the screen lights.

[jeongguk; 20:07] we’re nominated

another message follows before you can answer. How is he able to text there anyway?

[jeongguk; 20:07] for first place

you read the words twice.

on the laptop, the presenters are still speaking. graphics move across the bottom of the screen while three names prepare to appear. you have known this date for years.

you know the result. you know the trophy, the tears and the speech. you know that people in the life you left behind will one day celebrate this moment every may, passing the same photographs between them as proof that impossible things occasionally happen to those who survive long enough to reach them. but the future has never felt less certain than it does with jeongguk’s message open beneath your hand.

[jeongguk; 20:09] are you watching

your fingers tremble against the keyboard. you know the results, know that bts are only moving up from that point on. but you guess it isn’t only about jung kook of bts anymore; it is jeongguk and his annoying habit of whining at any and everything, his big eyes that seem to look at things in a way you could have never imagined. a whole new someone who has silently intertwined into your life and refuses to go away.

[20:10] yes

the first-place candidates appear on the screen, and there they are. they should be your focus, the way the tension leaves their shoulders, their eyes widen and some of the members even fall into each other’s arms, the only thing you truly notice the way a relieved sigh leaves your lips.

you fall back onto the soft cushion, the pounding in your head slowly creeping away.

they won. they still won. nothing has changed; everything is the same. having tried your best to ignore it, you only realize now how much the fear you carried around has burdened you. the fear of being an obstacle; the fear of influencing anything negatively in a way that would harm the group.

it had followed you quietly since the day you arrived, hiding beneath every conversation you ended too early and every question you swallowed before it could leave your mouth. it sat beside you whenever jeongguk appeared at school after several days of absence and climbed onto the bus with him whenever he left again. you had treated your distance like a form of protection, as though keeping your hands close to your own body could prevent you from leaving fingerprints on the past.

yet here they are.

the trophy is placed into shaking hands. music rises around them, partly swallowed by the cheering inside the studio, and the members bow before falling into one another with expressions that do not yet seem to understand what has happened. one of them begins to cry almost immediately. another stands frozen, mouth parted, while confetti catches in his hair.

you know these images. you have watched them in compilations uploaded years after the fact, accompanied by sad piano music and captions about perseverance. you have seen the photographs reposted every fifth of may, have read translated fragments of the speech and watched people point towards this exact moment as the place where the incline began. before tonight, the footage had belonged to the category of memory despite never having been yours. something already completed, safely flattened beneath dates and numbers.

now the confetti is still falling. the camera moves across their faces and finds jeongguk near the edge of the group, blinking beneath the lights as though somebody has turned them brighter without warning. his lips move, but you cannot hear what he says. one of the members reaches for the back of his neck and pulls him closer.

your phone vibrates again.

[jeongguk; 20:14] we won

a laugh escapes your mouth before you can stop it, small and slightly wet. you wipe beneath your eyes with the sleeve of your shirt, although you cannot remember beginning to cry. how did that idiot even manage to sneak in his phone and text in front of the others?

[20:14] i can see that

three dots appear almost immediately.

[jeongguk; 20:14] we really won

[20:15] i can still see that

[jeongguk; 20:15] you don’t understand

perhaps you do not. you understand the shape this moment will eventually take, the importance strangers will assign to it after time has supplied them with an ending. you know what comes next and what comes after that, can name albums he has not recorded yet and cities he has never visited. but you do not know what it feels like to stand beneath those lights after years of being told that effort does not necessarily produce reward. you do not know how heavy the trophy is or whose hand is trembling around it. you do not know what the members said to one another in the seconds before the camera returned, or whether jeongguk had eaten properly before going onstage.

knowledge, you are beginning to understand, has very little to do with knowing.

[20:16] no, i probably don’t

your thumb hovers over the screen, doing a little dance before moving again. your lower lip now stuck bewteen your teeth.

[20:16] but you did well

you want to write more. congratulations feels too small, while anything larger threatens to split open beneath your fingers and reveal all the things you have no right to know. that this is only the first. that one day they will stand on stages so large tonight’s audience would fit into a single corner. that he will become someone whose name can cross countries before he does.

that he lives long enough to do all of it. your throat closes around the thought.

[20:17] try to enjoy it. at least a little

the message is read, though no response follows. on the laptop, the broadcast moves on without consideration for the fact that something has changed. presenters return to their marks, cameras shift and the song continues beneath voices too unsteady to follow it properly. the members attempt to perform their encore while wiping at their faces and laughing at one another’s inability to sing. you remain where you are until the stage empties. even after the programme ends, you do not close the window. the frozen screen illuminates the room in pale blue while you stare at your own faint reflection over it, face drained of the panic that had occupied it less than an hour earlier.

they won. the words no longer bring the same violent relief. once repeated enough, they begin to raise questions of their own.

perhaps the future cannot be changed. perhaps it corrects itself whenever you push against it, quietly returning every important piece to where it belongs. or perhaps your presence has already altered a hundred smaller things and tonight simply happened despite them. one trophy cannot tell you whether time is fixed any more than one warm day can prove winter has ended.

still, for the first time since october, the future has given something back instead of taking. you close the laptop before the thought can become hope. your phone remains silent for another forty-three minutes.

you attempt to fill them with ordinary things. you carry the empty mug from your desk to the kitchen, rinse it, wipe down a counter that does not need wiping and return to your room only to realise you have left the phone beside the sink. by the time you retrieve it, there are three messages from jaemin.

[jae-theman; 20:31] did they win

[jae-theman; 20:34] should i assume your silence means no

[jae-theman; 20:35] do i need to prepare a speech

you lean against the kitchen counter, chuckling.

[20:36] they won

his response takes longer than usual.

[jae-theman; 20:38] good

that is all. no insult concerning your strange little friend, no claim that his well wishes were responsible for the result. only good, sitting alone on the screen with a sincerity that makes you look at it for longer than necessary.

[jae-theman; 20:39] you can breathe again now

your fingers still.

you tell yourself there is nothing strange about the message. he had seen you before the broadcast, had watched you check the time and insulted the way your leg bounced beneath the table. jaemin notices things because that is what he does, storing your habits somewhere behind the careless expression he wears whenever you catch him looking.

even then, a faint unease moves along the back of your neck. before you can answer, jeongguk’s name replaces the conversation.

the phone nearly slips from your hand. you accept the call and lift it to your ear, only to pull it away again when noise bursts through the speaker. several voices overlap in the background, somebody shouts close enough to the phone to distort the sound and jeongguk laughs - a full, breathless laugh you have never heard from him before.

“hello?”

“we won!”

you press the volume button twice. “yes, i gathered that from the broadcast, the photographs and your four separate announcements.”

“i only told you twice.”

“you told me once before it happened.”

“that doesn’t count.”

“why?”

“because we hadn’t won then.”

you return to your room with the phone against your ear, closing the door behind you while another cheer erupts on his side. there is movement in every sound he makes, the rustle of fabric and a door opening before the noise dulls slightly.

“where are you?”

“hallway.”

“are you allowed to disappear?”

“i didn’t disappear.”

“you left the room without telling anyone.”

“i told hyung.”

“which one?”

jeongguk pauses. “one of them.”

you sigh, “very convincing.”

“why are you interrogating me?” he asks, though amusement continues to soften his voice. “i called to tell you we won.”

“you already told me.”

“not like this.”

your hand tightens around the phone. he is right. the messages had carried the fact, but not this: the unevenness of his breathing, the smile stretching certain words and the disbelief that still catches whenever he says won. somewhere behind him, a door opens and somebody calls his name. jeongguk answers that he will be back in a minute before moving farther away.

“did you cry?” you ask.

he exhales shakily, “no.”

“liar.”

“i didn’t!”

“your voice sounds strange.”

“we were singing.”

“you are a singer. that should not injure you.”

he makes an offended sound. “i called you first and you’re making fun of me.”

“i doubt you called me first.”

there is a pause, brief enough that somebody else might have missed it.

“after my parents,” he says.

something shifts beneath your ribs. you lower yourself onto the edge of the bed, pushing one of the cushions out of the way with your free hand. “you should go back. they’re celebrating.”

“i am celebrating.”

“in a hallway?”

“i wanted to call you.” his answer arrives without hesitation, too simple to defend yourself against. you look towards the laptop, its dark screen now reflecting only the room you have somehow begun to recognise as your own.

“why?”

“because you watched.”

“millions of people watched.”

“i didn’t ask millions of people.” a door slams somewhere on his side, followed by footsteps and a voice shouting something you cannot make out. jeongguk covers the speaker, though his laugh still reaches you in softened fragments. when he returns, he is breathing harder.

“i have to go soon.”

“then go.”

“you always tell me to leave.”

“and you never listen.”

“i listen sometimes.”

“name one occasion.” silence follows. you wait, lips pressing together when it stretches long enough to become an answer of its own. “see?” you say.

“you told me to enjoy it.” the humour leaves his voice so gently that it takes you a moment to notice.

“i did.” outside your window, somebody drags a chair across a balcony. traffic moves below in brief flashes of white and red, ordinary life continuing several floors beneath a night that people will remember for years.

“a little?” you ask.

“a lot.”

“good.”

“were you worried?” the question strikes too closely. you bend forward, resting your elbow against your knee while your gaze settles on the floor.

“about whether you would win?”

“yes.”

you consider lying. the strange thing is that both answers would be true. “a little.”

“but you knew we could.”

“that isn’t the same as knowing you would.”

“you looked like you knew when we talked.”

“i was trying to make you less annoying.”

“it didn’t work.”

“clearly.”

he laughs again, quieter now. you close your eyes and allow yourself to listen. years from now, after the accident, people will circulate recordings of his laughter as if sound can preserve a person. they will collect clips, interviews and songs, gathering every remaining piece of him into enormous digital monuments nobody knows how to leave. you had believed you understood the cruelty of that until now. the recordings never contained the warmth of a phone against your ear. they never paused to breathe.

“jeongguk,” you begin, though you do not know what is supposed to follow.

“hm?”

congratulations. i am proud of you. you are going to be fine. please do not die. each sentence presses against the back of your teeth.

“you did well,” you settle on. “all of you did.”

for once, he does not ruin the moment with a joke. “thank you.” his voice is so soft that the celebration behind him almost swallows it.

“go back before somebody finds you and confiscates your phone.”

“they can try.”

“terrifying.” you cant help but roll your eyes.

“i’m serious.”

“so am i. go.”

another voice calls him, closer this time. “i’ll message you later,” he says, a sigh escaping his lips.

“you should sleep later.”

“i’ll message you before sleeping.”

“that was not permission.”

“bye.”

“jeongguk-”

the call ends.

you lower the phone and stare at his name until the screen goes dark. the apartment falls quiet around you, but it is no longer the same quiet that had met you in your own living room months - or years - from now. this one contains the faint ringing left behind by his voice. it contains seven people celebrating somewhere across the city, a trophy being passed between hands and tomorrow waiting to turn tonight into history.

before arriving here, you had thought history was made from events. dates, releases, victories, losses; points arranged neatly enough that a person could move through them without touching anything. you know better now. history is also a boy leaving his own celebration to stand in a hallway because he wants to call you. it is jaemin asking whether he needs to prepare a speech and your mother complaining about the kitchen light being left on. it is sweat beneath stage makeup, unread messages and all the ordinary minutes cut away before the footage reaches the future.

and now, somehow, you are inside those minutes. your phone vibrates once more.

[jae-theman; 21:04] are you breathing or did the little one kill you

your thumb moves over the keyboard, smile already gracing your lips.

[21:04] he isn’t little

the response arrives almost immediately.

[jae-theman; 21:04] still what offended you?

you stare at it, an odd laugh pressing against the soreness inside your throat. nothing has changed. the thought comes more gently this time. then, before you can stop it, another follows.

not yet.

—

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