Poetic

It was all because of Riki. 

At least, that’s what you like to believe. Blaming other people for the mistakes you made yourself has always been your favorite coping mechanism. A bad one, sure—but easier than admitting fault.

It started back in high school. You were seventeen, so was Riki. So was James. You met James through Riki on a random Tuesday afternoon, when you went over to his house for the sake of his grades. It was supposed to be a normal study session. Instead, it became the day you met the rest of his band—James and Maki, and the day your life quietly began to rot. 

You didn’t realise it at first, you never read in between the lines. What you and James were about to become was always going to be destructive. More than friends, less than lovers—nothing more nothing less. 

You arrived with two textbooks in hand to get Riki through calculus. The moment you stepped into his room, you realised it wasn’t just Riki there. Three boys were scattered around the floor in various states of uselessness, instruments leaned against the wall, empty drink cans near the desk, cigarette smoke hanging in the air.

Your eyes landed on James for only a second before turning back to Riki. “What is this?” you asked.

Riki, crouched beside the ashtray, crushed the end of his cigarette into it with two fingers and grinned. “Minor change of plans…no calc today, uh sit down.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Please?” You sighed like someone already regretting their own life and dropped to the floor anyway.

Maki leaned forward first. “We need a female member.”

“For what?”

“The band.”

You stared at them. “I can’t sing.”

“You don’t know that,” Riki said.

“I do know that.”

While they argued with you, James said nothing. He only watched. Later, you’d learn he’d decided the second you walked in that you were the coolest girl he’d ever seen—your hair, your clothes, the way you looked annoyed without trying. At the time, all you knew was that his silence was strangely loud.

Ten minutes later, with no calculus in sight, you stood up. “I’m leaving if none of you are doing derivatives.”

Riki laughed, Maki told you to relax. You were already halfway down the hall when footsteps came after you.

You ran purely on instinct.

“Why are you running?” a voice shouted behind you.

“Why are you chasing me?” you shouted back.

By the time James caught up, both of you were breathless. He bent forward, hands on his knees, trying to breathe.

Then he looked up and said, “Join our band.”

That was the first time you met him. The problem with people, though, is that they are not possessions. You can never keep someone entirely to yourself. Sadly, you learned that the hard way. 

You joined the band, you learned how to sing, you did it because James asked you to. That was how easy you were when it came to him. Somewhere between vocal lessons, late-night practices, and getting to know everyone besides Riki, something between you and James began to blur. 

It started simply. After one normal late-night practice, James asked if you were free. You were. So he asked you to come over. No strange intentions—he just wanted company while he drank.

Problem one: two people alone with too much time and not enough boundaries. Problem two: neither of you were very good at pretending nothing was there.

His apartment was small in the way all first apartments are—barely furnished, faintly cold, smelling like smoke and vodka. A lamp in the corner lit the room badly, leaving most of it in shadow.

You sat beside James on the couch, one knee tucked beneath you, drink balanced carefully in your hand. Music played low from somewhere behind you, half drowned by the sound of your own laughter.

“I’m serious,” you said. “Maki had three weeks to learn that chord.”

James smiled into his glass. “Three weeks isn’t enough for him. Give him a year.”

“You’re a terrible friend.”

“I’m an honest one.”

You laughed again, louder this time, head tipping back against the couch. When you looked at him next, he was already looking at you. That should have embarrassed you. Instead, it made the room quieter. Somewhere in the middle of another joke, he leaned closer without either of you acknowledging it. Not enough to touch, but just enough to notice.

You could smell alcohol on his breath, something mischievous in his eyes. “What?” you asked, though your voice came out smaller than intended.

James didn’t answer right away. His gaze flicked once to your lips, then back up again. “May I?” he asked softly.

You should have asked him to clarify, you should have laughed it off and fuck, you should have remembered every reason for why this was a bad idea.

Instead, you nodded and…he kissed you like he’d already thought about it too many times. Slow at first, very careful, just testing the waters.And then, there was intention in it. When he pulled away, neither of you said anything for a moment.

“Well,” you said finally, staring straight ahead. “That's…uh complicated.”

James laughed quietly beside you. “You think too much.”

That was true, but never true enough for James to care. Things became strange after that. Not dramatically, not all at once—just in small ways that were easy to ignore if you wanted to.

You started slipping away after practice together, he began asking if you were free more often. You learned the walk to his house so well you could’ve done it half asleep. He learned which window of yours to throw pebbles at when you stopped answering your phone.

And the kissing happened again, then again, then often enough that it stopped feeling shocking and started feeling routine. Nothing changed, officially, no confessions, no conversations, no labels.

He still introduced you as his friend, you still pretended that word didn’t sting. It was only kissing—against kitchen counters, in dark hallways, on his couch while some terrible movie played untouched in the background. Nothing more.

Which was convenient, because “nothing more” meant neither of you had to explain yourselves. You were just friends…friends who knew each other’s schedules, friends who got jealous for no reason, friends who belonged to each other in every way except the honest one. Right?

So that was…what you were. You and James got along well—clearly. Talking more about James, one thing that man never doubted was your voice. But you? Oh, you doubted it enough for the both of you. You still remember the first day all of you performed live, in front of real people who would give you real reactions.

It had sounded exciting when Riki first said it. A real gig. He’d announced it like it was the best news ever—which it was. Maki had nearly thrown a drumstick at the ceiling in celebration. James had only smiled that small, private smile of his, the one that suggested he expected success as naturally as weather.

You had smiled too. That was your first mistake.

Because smiling made it look like you agreed, smiling made it look like you were excited, smiling made it look like you hadn’t spent the entire car ride there imagining every possible way you could humiliate yourself with a microphone in your hand. What if you forget the lyrics? What if your voice cracks? What if you freeze up?

The venue was smaller than you expected and worse than you feared. Sticky floors—similar to those you see in dance practice rooms, very high ceilings, multiple wires running across the ground like traps—all connected to huge speakers. A stage so close to the audience it felt less like performing and more like one wrong move and your crowd surfing. There were already people there, which felt unnecessary and rude.

You had always imagined failure happening somewhere grander.

At rehearsal, mistakes were private things, missed notes disappeared into the loud bass and drums, forgotten lyrics could be restarted and racked voices could be blamed on lack of sleep, dry throats, cheap microphones, too much smoke in the air—whatever excuse seemed funniest at the time. Practice was forgiving, but the crowd? Fuck no. 

People you didn’t know had begun filing in, carrying drinks and…well, opinions. They stood in loose groups near the front, talking loudly, glancing toward the stage now and then. Some of them looked older than you, some looked cooler than you.You suddenly became aware of everything wrong with yourself.

Your outfit looked stupid, your shoes were wrong, your hair was too flat., your lipgloss felt too sticky, your hands looked awkward and your face felt unfamiliar. Your voice—your voice, the thing everyone had praised all month felt like something rented, not owned.

“What if nobody claps?” you asked no one in particular.

Riki was tuning his bass nearby. “Then we clap for ourselves.”

“That’s pathetic.”

“It’s knowing we’re good enough,” he corrected.

“It’s sad.”

“Stop being miserable.”

Usually, that would have made you laugh, but it didn’t now. You were sitting on the worn leather sofa in the green room, elbows on knees, staring at your hands as if they belonged to someone else. Around you, the room moved in casual chaos. Maki tapped rhythms against the arm of a chair. Riki kept retuning strings no one else could hear problems with and James stood by the mirror adjusting nothing, cigarette balanced between his fingers, perfectly calm in the infuriating way only he could be.

You hated him for it briefly. “How are you not nervous?” you asked.

He glanced at you in the mirror. “Who says I’m not?”

“You look like you’re used to it, used to performing, like–like this is routine.”

“Im just good at staying composed?”

“Ugh shut up.”

He smiled, you looked away first. The minutes felt like seconds, time began collapsing in on itself. Every sound sharpened unpleasantly—the buzz of the amp, footsteps in the hallway, laughter outside the door, the scrape of Maki’s shoe against the floor. Someone from staff poked their head in and said, “Five minutes.”

Five minutes. Fuck, such a small amount of time to contain a breakdown. You stood up too fast, the room was bending in unusual ways. Fuck, not now. You sat back down immediately, hoping no one noticed.

No one did, thank God.

You swallowed, your throat felt tight, you took a deep breath and it snagged halfway down. You tried again, it was worse this time, your hands felt sweaty, your vision was blurry, you couldn’t even breathe properly. Fuck this was ridiculous.

You knew what anxiety was, you knew panic attacks existed. You had, in fact, once described them confidently to someone else despite never having had one yourself. Shortness of breath, dizziness, racing thoughts. You sounded almost like a therapist.

Turns out knowledge was useless when your body decided to act up against you. You took another breath, too shallow. Another, faster. The room seemed hotter now, the air thicker–harder to inhale. Your chest tightened with the malicious efficiency of something practiced, you could hear your heartbeat in strange places—your ears, your wrists, behind your eyes.

Not now.

You stared at the floorboards. If you could just focus, if you could just count. One, two, three—the numbers kept moving, but nothing distracted you from the breaths you were unable to take.

“Yn?” Riki’s voice sounded farther away than it should have. You didn’t answer. “Yn?” Louder now. Closer. “Hey.”

A hand waved briefly in front of your face. You blinked at it, but said nothing. Your breaths came fast and shallow now, each one worse than the last. No matter how much air you dragged in, none of it felt real, none of it felt like it was going in—it was almost as if it got stuck midway and just escaped without really reaching your lungs. You felt lightheaded.

Riki crouched in front of you, concern replacing his usual grin so quickly it made him look older. “Hey… hey, look at me.” You tried, but your eyes dropped straight back to the floor. Your hands had locked around the edge of the couch so tightly your knuckles hurt.

“James.”

You hadn’t realized James was already moving until he was suddenly there beside Riki. The cigarette was gone now, left burning out alone in the ashtray. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. She just—look at her.”

James crouched in front of you. “Yn.” You couldn’t answer. “Look at me.” Your vision blurred when you tried. His face came in and out of focus, the room tilting strangely around him. “Slow breath in,” he said. “Through your nose.” You tried. It caught halfway, breaking into another sharp gasp. “Again.” You shook your head hard, panic rising faster now. Tears burned unexpectedly at the corners of your eyes. “Hey.” His voice sharpened. “Look at me.”

Another breath, too quick, too thin—it didn’t work, you couldn't breathe. Your chest felt caged, your fingers were trembling. You couldn’t even hear James anymore. His lips were moving, he was saying something. You tried. You really did—you tried to focus on him. You couldn’t. Your whole body felt numb, you were shaking, your lips trembling, you felt sweat drip down your forehead.

James stood abruptly and grabbed your wrist. “Come on.”

Before you could even try to process what was happening, he took your wrist and pulled you to your feet. The sudden movement made everything tilt again. He steadied you without comment and guided—dragged you through the green room door and into the hall.

Behind you, silence lasted half a second. Then Riki muttered, “Ah.” Maki made a noise of understanding. Neither followed.

By the time James shoved open the bathroom door, you were too busy failing at oxygen to care about the fact that  it was the men’s room. He dragged you into a stall, locking it behind you both, fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. You braced both hands on his shoulder bending forward, dragging air into lungs that rejected the offer.

“Hey.” You shook your head. “Hey.” Closer now. “Look at me.” You tried, but your eyes only fluttered uselessly before dropping again. Your breaths were still jagged, fast, painful things—coming in sharp pulls that gave you nothing back. Your hands trembled where they gripped his shoulders, fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt like it was the only stable thing left in the room.

James didn’t tell you to calm down, He didn’t ask questions, He didn’t waste time with words that would’ve bounced right off the panic anyway. Instead, his hands came up to hold your face. Firm, steady, warm. “Look at me,” he said again, softer this time. Your eyes found him for half a second. Long enough for him to know you were still there somewhere beneath it all.

Then he kissed you.

It wasn’t dramatic, It wasn’t greedy, It wasn’t even particularly slow. It was deliberate—the kind of kiss meant to interrupt something spiraling out of control. For one startled second, your mind blanked completely.

No fear, no noise, no crowd waiting outside, no lungs refusing to work. Your brain just stopped working.  It was just him. You and him. When he pulled back, you sucked in another breath. It still shook, but it reached deeper this time.

“There you are,” he murmured.

You blinked at him, dazed, chest still rising too fast, took another breath. Still uneven of sorts. He kissed you again. Shorter this time. A press of lips that felt less like affection and more like being anchored. One hand stayed at your jaw, thumb brushing absently beneath your eye where tears had gathered without permission.

By the time he leaned away, your breathing had slowed enough to count. You stared at him like he’d performed witchcraft. He smiled. “Better.”

You tried to answer, but only a weak exhale came out.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Talking’s overrated.”

Your forehead dropped against his shoulder, equal parts exhaustion and surrender. He let you stay there, one hand rubbing slowly up and down your lower back while the fluorescent and cold lights hummed overhead. Outside the stall, muffled through the bathroom door, the venue carried on without you—voices, footsteps, someone laughing too loudly.

Inside, there was only the sound of your breathing learning how to be normal again. After a moment, James tipped your chin up gently until you looked at him. “When we go out there,” he said quietly, “I want you to sing to me.”

You frowned weakly, still catching up to consciousness. “What?”

“Don’t sing to them.” He nodded vaguely toward the walls, toward the crowd beyond them, toward every stranger waiting outside. “Don’t sing to the room, don’t sing to the lights, not even the crowd. Look at me..” His thumb brushed once across your cheek. “Sing to me.”

And because your pulse had finally steadied, because your lungs had stopped trying to betray you, because it was James asking—and so, you nodded.

When you stepped out of the bathroom, the hallway felt colder than before. Or maybe that was just the sweat drying against your skin. Your breathing had steadied, though not completely. It still came a little too carefully, like your lungs no longer trusted themselves. James walked beside you as if none of what had just happened required acknowledgment. As if dragging you into the men’s bathroom and kissing the panic out of you was an ordinary part of pre-show routine.

Across the hall, Riki and Maki were exactly where you’d left them, leaning against the wall with matching expressions of suspicious innocence. A cigar moved lazily between. Riki looked at you first, then at James, then back at you. His grin widened with the kind of joy only a person uninvolved in disaster can feel.

“You alive?” he asked.

“Unfortunately,” you muttered.

“Good enough.” Maki held out a half crushed bottle of water. “Try not to collapse on stage. It’s bad for our reputation.”

You took it. “Thank you for caring so much.”

“I’m famously warm.”

Riki tilted his head toward the bathroom door. “Everything sorted?”

Before you could answer, James walked past him and pushed open the green room door. “We’re on in one minute.” That was all.Riki watched him go, then turned back to you with exaggerated seriousness. “Interesting.”

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

He smiled. “True.”

Inside the green room, everything was suddenly too fast. Someone from staff was speaking in rushed sentences no one listened to. Maki was checking drumsticks like they were sacred objects. Riki retuned strings he’d already tuned three times. James stood near the door adjusting the strap of his guitar, calm in that infuriating way he always managed to be.

You hated him briefly for being composed. Then he looked at you. Only for a second. Long enough to ask a silent question, you answered with the smallest nod.

I’m okay. Or close enough.

The stage manager shoved the door open. “Now.” No one moved immediately, then everyone did at once. It was getting realer now. The walk to the stage felt longer than it should have. The corridor narrowed around you, packed with cables, stacked speakers, peeling posters from bands no one remembered anymore. The closer you got, the louder the room became. Voices layered over one another. Anticipation from strangers who had no idea they were about to witness the most humiliating moment of your life or maybe the best?.

Your hands started trembling again, you flexed them once and then twice. Useless. The microphone was already set up when you stepped onto the stage. The lights hit first—white and blinding, hot enough to erase the edges of the room. Beyond them was only shadow and movement. For one awful second, your chest tightened again.

Not now.

Riki counted beats under his breath, Maki adjusted his stuff, someone in the crowd whistled, someone else laughed, you wrapped both hands around the microphone stand because it was the only solid thing available.

Then you remembered. Sing to me. You turned your head, James stood a few feet away, guitar slung low, fingers resting over the strings. The stage lights caught in his hair, he was already looking at you.

He gave one small nod. That was it. No grand gesture, no smile, no fucking speech about believing in yourself. Just a nod, like the rest of the room had ceased to matter. Then Riki started playing. The opening bassline rolled through the speakers, Maki came in a beat later. James followed, guitar sliding neatly into place. The song you’d rehearsed a hundred times suddenly sounded larger, sharper, alive in a way practice had never allowed.

Your cue arrived, you opened your mouth…and nothing terrible happened.

No cracked notes, no forgotten lyrics, no public collapse. Just your voice, clear and stronger than it ever sounded in cramped bedrooms and dusty practice rooms. It moved out into the crowd like it belonged there. You kept your eyes on James through the first verse. When nerves threatened to rise again, you looked at him harder. He played without missing a beat, watching you with the faintest trace of satisfaction, like this had always been inevitable.

The second verse was easier. By the chorus, you almost forgot to be afraid.

The crowd changed shape as you sang. They stopped being people with opinions and became noise, heat, movement—background to the private world you’d accidentally built at center stage. There were dozens of strangers in the room, yet it felt suspiciously like being alone with him.

You hated how much power that gave him. You loved it too.

Somewhere near the bridge, Riki grinned at you mid play, delighted you hadn’t combusted. A girl near the front began moving with the rhythm. Someone cheered when the chorus returned.

Real reactions.

You almost laughed. You’d spent hours fearing mockery only to discover people mostly wanted a good time. How embarrassing. The final note came sooner than expected. Your voice held it cleanly, then let go. Instruments rang out behind you before cutting into sudden silence.

For half a breath, no one moved. Then applause hit the room all at once. Loud, messy, genuine. You stared out at the crowd, stunned. They were clapping for you. For all of you, yes—but also for you. The girl who’d nearly died in a bathroom ten minutes ago.

Riki whoo-ed like he’d won in life, Maki screamed obnoxiously, you turned toward James before you could stop yourself. He stepped closer under the cover of noise, close enough that only you could hear him.

“Told you.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“It’s enough.”

He reached past you to adjust the microphone height for the next song, fingers brushing lightly against your wrist in the process. Casual enough to deny, intentional enough to remember forever.

Then he glanced sideways at you, mouth curving faintly. “You think too much.”

And with the crowd still cheering around you, with adrenaline still burning bright in your blood, you realized something deeply inconvenient. You would have sung anything he asked for.

That was your first gig together, just you and them. 

The band was supposed to be permanent. At seventeen, everything was. Friendships were forever, cities were temporary, and the future was something that happened to other people. You never looked at the three boys in that room and thought one day this would end. Why would you? Back then, endings only existed in songs.

The band was never just a band either. It was where all of you kept yourselves. In between school, parents, deadlines, report cards, and every adult asking what you planned to do with your life, there was this small, loud thing that belonged only to you. A room full of amps, cheap cigarettes, tangled wires, sometimes bottles of alcohol and people who understood you better than they should have.

Some nights rehearsal was useless. Riki would play too loud on purpose, Maki would forget the same part three times and swear it was experimental, James would smoke by the window and act like none of it concerned him until he suddenly stood up, rewrote half the song, and made everyone follow.

Then there were nights when everything worked.

Those were dangerous nights. Because on nights like that, it felt impossible to imagine ever becoming anything else. The songs sounded bigger than the rooms they were trapped in. You remember how James would glance at you halfway through the song, and suddenly your voice would become something bolder than it was five seconds ago.

You lived for those glances more than you should have.

Before every performance, he always looked for you first. It was such a small thing you nearly missed it. Rooms full of people, cables snapping under shoes, strangers shouting for drinks, staff yelling nonsense—and still, somehow, his eyes found you before the lights came on.

Sometimes he’d nod once, sometimes smirk, sometimes just stare long enough—with eyes too full of adoration for your stomach to ruin your concentration. Then he’d step onstage like the room belonged to him, you used to think James loved music most. Later, you realized he loved being wanted by it.

There is a difference.

He wrote songs the way some people start fights—quickly, recklessly, and expecting everyone else to deal with the aftermath. He’d bring in half-finished lyrics on crumpled paper, melodies hummed under his breath, chord progressions he refused to explain. Then he’d hand them to the room like gifts.

But there were songs he only ever handed to you. A chorus lowered because your voice sounded warmer there. A bridge repeated because he liked the way you breathed before the third line. Notes he insisted you hold longer because “it hurts better that way.”

“What does that even mean?” you asked once.

He shrugged, cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Means do it again.”

So you did.

You always did.

No one said anything about the two of you, not directly. That was the strange kindness everyone offered. Riki would raise an eyebrow when James disappeared after rehearsal and you vanished five minutes later. Maki would sigh whenever one of you snapped at the other over something that was clearly not about music. But no one asked questions.

Maybe they knew some things died when named too early. You fought often, mostly over songs…and then made up by making out but no one has to know about that part.

He’d cut your verse and call it weak, you’d accuse him of being impossible, he’d say you were too sensitive, you’d say he was arrogant. Riki would quietly unplug his bass and wait for the stormy weather to pass.

Then an hour later you’d be sitting beside James on the floor, sharing convenience store noodles, knees touching like nothing happened.

That was the problem with the two of you—nothing ever happened, everything just continued. You never confessed. He never asked. No one drew lines. No one crossed them either. You just kept slipping further into something neither of you respected enough to define. And because of that, it started to feel endless.

That is what youth does best—it makes temporary things feel permanent. You thought the band would last because how could something built from so much wanting possibly disappear? You thought James would stay because he was always there, leaning against doorframes, smoking out windows, calling you late, asking if you were free. You thought there would always be another rehearsal, another show, another song he’d look at you through.

You thought wrong in the ordinary way young people do.

Looking back, the signs were embarrassing.

Talking more about James always felt a little useless. He was the kind of person who made sense only in fragments.. You could know him for years and still feel like you were piecing together someone from smoke, late night hang(make)outs , and things he never finished saying.

He loved cigarettes first, seven star cigarettes especially—he put you on those too. He was 14 when he started and by eighteen he had preferences. He’d talk nonsense about flavor, filter quality, as if any of it mattered when all of it still ended in ash. He liked the ritual of it more than the smoking itself—you noticed that early, the flick of the lighter, the pause before the inhale and the way he’d tap the end over an ashtray with absent precision. 

Sometimes you thought he only smoked because it gave his hands something to do when he didn’t know how to be touched.

He never spoke much about his parents, which told you enough. Some people describe family in detail because they love them. Others avoid the topic because language would be too complicated for others to learn—sort of like putting a child who only spoke English in Russia, the child wouldn't understand shit. James belonged to those who avoided the topic. You learned in scraps: a father who existed mostly financially, a mother who was easier to disappoint than to know, dinners eaten alone, birthdays forgotten with such consistency they no longer counted as betrayal.

He said it all casually, which made it worse.

Once, while looking for clean glasses in his kitchen, you asked if anyone was coming home. He laughed and said, “To which house?”

That was how he treated pain—like a joke told too dryly for anyone to interrupt.

He didn’t have many friends either. Not real ones. There was the band, of course—Riki, Maki, you. A few names from Seoul he texted at odd hours, people who seemed to exist in stories more than real life. Mainly musicians—you remember hearing about some guy named Martin. Mostly, though, he kept his life narrow. Intimacy required maintenance, and James disliked owing people anything.

He slept badly—insomniac basically.

You discovered that long before he admitted it. He’d message at three in the morning asking if you were awake, then pretend it was accidental when you answered. He’d arrive to practice with the exhaustion of someone who had closed his eyes but never rested. Sometimes you’d find him lying on the studio floor after rehearsal, arm over his face, claiming he was “just thinking.”

He was always thinking. That was the problem.

At night, when the mask wore off and the room got quiet, you could see it on him—the restlessness, the dread, the strange irritation. He was terrified of wasting himself, terrified of becoming ordinary, terrified of being the kind of man who never left the city he was born in and spent the rest of his life explaining why. Maybe that's why he had to get drunk to sleep, it was a coping mechanism—a bad one but at least it helped him get sleep.

Failure haunted him in ways success never did. That was why he drank too young and too often. Not enough to become a cautionary tale, just enough to keep edges blurred. Beer after rehearsal, whiskey someone older bought him, vodka in plastic cups because it was cheap and efficient. He drank like he did everything else to relax first and deal with the consequences later.

You hated it until you understood it.

Alcohol quieted the voice in him that kept asking if he was enough. Cigarettes occupied the hands that didn’t know where to put themselves. Music gave shape to feelings he couldn’t say plainly. And you—well. You were what he reached for when none of the others worked.

That should have frightened you more than it did. The two of you were never healthy. You knew that even then, though youth has a way of renaming damage as passion. You mistook intensity for depth, confusion for mystery, dependency for love. So did he. You were drawn together by matching fractures. Both of you knew abandonment too well, both of you knew what it was to become useful so people might keep you, both of you confused being needed with being cherished.

He wanted someone who would stay no matter how badly he behaved. You wanted someone who would choose you without being asked. Neither of you knew how to request those things honestly—you both were trauma bonded.

So instead, you built a language made of almosts, almost dating, almost confessing, almost staying over, almost saying I need you and almost asking what are we?

He’d kiss you like certainty, then disappear emotionally for three days. You’d punish him with silence, then show up the second he asked if you were free. He’d write songs no one could mistake as being about you, then introduce you publicly as “my friend.” You’d laugh it off, then cry about it alone where pride could survive.

It was ugly sometimes, tender too. Usually both at once. There were nights he’d hold you like the world was ending and mornings he’d act like nothing had happened. There were fights that began over setlists and ended with old wounds neither of you had named. There were apologies delivered through acts of service because neither of you trusted direct language.

If you were sick, he’d appear with medicine and no explanation. If he was spiraling, he’d ask if you were free. That was your entire relationship in two sentences. And yet, it would be dishonest to call it worthless just because it was unhealthy. There was love there, real love, even if poorly handled. You understood each other in the places other people rarely reached. He saw through your sarcasm to the girl terrified of being forgettable. You saw through his arrogance to the boy convinced love was temporary.

The tragedy was not that you loved each other. The tragedy was that you loved each other at the wrong time. A phase full of substances, hurt and just fucked up stuff. Back then though, it felt romantic that he needed you so much. Later, you’d realize people can drown while holding each other.

Still, when James looked at you from the stage, cigarette smell still clinging to his jacket, eyes tired from another sleepless night, guitar hanging low like it belonged there, it was easy to believe love alone could save two broken people.

Youth believes many beautiful lies.

You weren’t innocent either. That would have been easier—if James had been the damage and you had simply received it. But people rarely come to each other whole.

Your mother left early enough that memory could not make her real. She existed more as an outline than a person—old stories, half kept photos, the kind of absence that sits quietly in a room for years. Your father was worse in some ways. Still alive, still somewhere, still technically yours, yet distant enough to feel fictional.

So you were raised by your grandmother, who loved you the way some older women do: through food, rules, sharp words, and sacrifices never spoken aloud. She kept you alive, kept you decent, kept a roof over your head. You learned early not to need much. Need made people leave. Need made you a burden. Better to be useful, easy, amusing. Better to become the girl who laughed first, who helped everyone else, who acted like nothing touched her deeply enough to matter.

You knew how to be wanted. Helpful girls are always wanted. You had no idea how to be loved. That was why James got under your skin so badly. He was damaged in familiar ways, distant in familiar ways, hungry in familiar ways. Loving him felt less like falling and more like repeating something old.

And fuck, did you love him. 

Just never enough to admit it aloud.

Somehow, without discussion and with no real decision made by either of you, you began living together. That was how most things happened between you and James—gradually enough to deny, seriously enough to matter.

At first it was practical. You stayed over because practice ended late and the trains had stopped. Then you stayed because you already had clothes there. Then because your charger lived beside his bed. Then because his kitchen had tea you liked and your grandmother had begun asking too many careful questions.

One morning you realized your toothbrush was in his bathroom cup beside his. Another morning you realized half your sweaters were hanging in his closet. By the time anyone else pointed it out, you had been living there for months. Neither of you mentioned it. Naming things made them vulnerable.

His apartment was still small and badly heated, still smelled faintly of smoke and whatever cheap alcohol he’d bought last. But it changed around you. There were books stacked by the bed now, hair ties on the sink, your rings beside his ashtray, groceries that hinted someone actually cared whether nutrients were consumed, blankets folded properly and plants you insisted would survive and he insisted would not.

You turned his place into something survivable. He turned it into yours. Mornings became their own private addiction. You’d wake first sometimes, half tangled in sheets, the pale light coming through the curtains in weak stripes across the room. James slept badly even in sleep—restless, shifting, brow faintly furrowed like he was arguing with dreams. But when he felt you moving, he’d reach without opening his eyes and drag you back against him with sleepy entitlement.

“Five more minutes,” he’d mumble.

“You said that twenty minutes ago.”

“Then clearly I mean ten.”

You’d laugh, and he’d kiss you before the sound fully left your mouth. Slow, warm, lazy kisses that belonged only to mornings. Nothing dramatic. No hunger, no performance. Just familiarity. Lips meeting because they had learned to begin the day that way.

Sometimes he’d tuck his face into your neck after, breathing you in like something medicinal. Sometimes he’d keep one hand at your waist while scrolling through messages with the other. Sometimes he’d refuse to let you get up at all until you threatened to walk out.

It was domestic in the most dangerous sense. Because it felt normal. You cooked badly together, he smoked out the kitchen window while pretending to help, you stole his shirts, he complained when you reorganized drawers, then asked where everything was after, you fought over whose turn it was to buy toilet paper with the intensity of a married couple, you waited for him after late studio nights and pretended you had only stayed awake accidentally, he learned which tea to make when your moods turned sour, you learned how to tell, from the way he unlocked the door, whether the day had been harsh on him.

People who visited assumed you were together—a reasonable mistake.

You sat in each other’s laps during rehearsals. He kissed your forehead absentmindedly while tuning his guitar. You fixed his collar before interviews. He carried your bag without asking. In public, he reached for your hand the way some people check their pockets for keys—pure instinct.

After shows, he’d pull you into him backstage like applause belonged to both of you. At bars, he’d rest his chin on your shoulder while talking to other people. When strangers flirted with him, his eyes searched the room for your reaction before he answered. When men tried their luck with you, he became cold in a way only you recognized.

Even your little audience noticed.

Two thousand listeners online, maybe less in person on good nights, and still they noticed. Fans made edits of glances caught on camera, comment sections argued whether the chemistry was real, people slowed down videos of him looking at you during choruses like they were studying evidence. Someone once uploaded a compilation titled James forgetting real life exists whenever Yn sings.

Riki laughed for ten straight minutes.

“What?” you said. “It’s weird.”

“It’s accurate,” he replied.

Whenever anyone asked, though, the answer never changed. “We’re just friends.”

Sometimes you said it. Sometimes James did. Sometimes both of you in the same interview, with matching expressions too practiced to be innocent.

Just friends.

Friends who shared rent, friends who slept in the same bed, friends who madeout in elevators, friend who kissed like lovers, friends who fought like spouses and reconciled like lovers, friends who knew each other’s passwords, scars, tempers, and pulse points.

The lie became so routine it almost felt true.

Almost.

Because underneath all that devotion lived resentment neither of you knew how to bury properly. James resented being hidden. He would never say it plainly, but it came out elsewhere. In the way he went silent after interviews, in the harshness of his jokes when someone called you single and in how hard he kissed you after public denials, as if trying to recover something stolen.

He resented that he was good enough to come home to, but never important enough to name, he resented being emotionally useful while remaining officially nothing, he resented always being almost chosen.

You saw it most on nights after events, when you’d both come home dressed too well and too tired. He’d loosen his tie, light a cigarette, and stand by the window in that dangerous quiet of his.

“What?” you’d ask.

“Nothing.”

“James.”

He’d exhale smoke. “Do you enjoy it?”

“Enjoy what?”

“Acting surprised every time people think you’re available.”

Then the fight would begin somewhere small and end somewhere ancient.

You resented him too, deeply and often. You resented his unpredictability—the way one week he was tender and attentive, the next unreachable inside the same apartment. You resented how moods ruled the room. How everyone adjusted around him when he was dark, tired, angry, distant. You resented that his pain always arrived louder than yours.

Most of all, you resented how much power he had over you.

How a text from him could change your day? How one withdrawn glance could ruin your appetite and how praise from strangers meant less than approval from the man currently ignoring you on the couch.

Loving him often felt like losing arguments you never agreed to have.

There were nights you’d watch him sleeping beside you and feel such tenderness it hurt, there were mornings you’d hear him humming in the kitchen and want to marry him, there were afternoons you’d consider leaving forever because he’d said “fine” in the wrong tone.

That was the shape of your life together: adoration interrupted by emotional warfare and the fear of commitment. And yet, it was not miserable. That was the confusing part.

For every ugly fight, there were ten moments so soft they made you doubt your own complaints. He still kissed you every morning, still saved the last bite of food he knew you liked, still rewrote songs around your voice, still remembered the date your mother left though you’d only mentioned it once, still sat outside the bathroom door when sadness locked you inside it.

For every time he hurt you through cowardice, he loved you through instinct. Which made leaving impossible.

One summer evening, after a rooftop show, the two of you walked home through streets still warm from daylight. You were carrying flowers some fan had handed you. He was carrying your heels because you’d complained for six blocks.

“We look pathetic,” you said.

“We look married,” he corrected.

You laughed. “That’s worse.”

He stopped walking. “Would it be?”

You turned to him, waiting for the joke that would save you both. It never came. Traffic moved below. Somewhere nearby someone was singing badly through an open window. James’s face was unreadable in the streetlight.

Then he shrugged and kept walking. “Forget it.”

You hated him for that for weeks. Because that was another thing he did—opened doors emotionally only to leave you standing outside them.

Still, you followed him home. Still, you slept in his bed. Still, the next morning he kissed you awake like nothing in the world was broken.

Your listeners continued to speculate, friends continued not to ask, the band continued rising in slow, uneven steps. And through all of it, the two of you remained suspended in that ridiculous unnamed state—more intimate than most marriages, less honest than most affairs. More than friends but less than lovers but also too much like lovers to not be lovers—doesn’t make sense right? exactly.

People think disaster arrives with noise. Usually it arrives quietly, disguised as routine. By the time Seoul entered the conversation, you and James had already built a whole life on top of things neither of you were brave enough to say.

So when the whole Seoul thing arrived, it arrived as betrayal.

You noticed it first in the details. James started taking calls in the hallway with the door half shut, started showering before meetings he never mentioned, started wearing the black coat you liked because it made him look put together and started smoking at the window instead of beside you in bed—almost as if it hurt to look at you while smoking to get his mind off of things.

He slept less, smiled less and surprisingly thought more. That was always dangerous. James only ever became soft right before he was about to do something cruel.

The band felt it too. Rehearsals ended in silences instead of laughter. Cigarettes burned quicker, songs sounded sharper…everyone knew a storm was coming. No one wanted to be the first to name it.

It happened on a Thursday after practice. Riki had stormed outside after fighting with James over tempo, Maki followed because someone had to keep him from setting something on fire.

You were left alone in the studio with James. You were coiling cables with unnecessary violence. He was pretending to tune a guitar that was already in tune.

“Yn.” You ignored him. “Yn.”

“What?”

“I need to tell you something.”

You laughed once. “That sentence has never improved anyone’s life.”

He did not laugh back.

Your hands slowed.

“I got offered a contract.”

You looked at him. “Okay.”

“In Seoul.”

The cable slipped from your hands and hit the floor with a flat sound, silence flooded the room. “For what?”

“A new band, with real connections.”

“Connections.”

“Real ones.”

You blinked. “Real ones.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No,” you said quietly. “Say it properly.”

His jaw tightened the way it always did when feelings demanded precision. “I mean chances that aren’t trapped in this city.”

You stared at him like he had become a stranger in your favorite jacket. The couch was the same, the posters were the same, the ashtray you hated was still full beside the amp, his coffee cup was still on the windowsill with your lipstick mark on it from that morning. Yet somehow the whole room had moved one inch to the left. Enough to make you dizzy. “So you’re leaving.”

“I’m considering it.”

“You’re leaving.”

“I have to think about my future.”

The cruelty of that sentence was how fair it sounded. You laughed again, and this time it broke halfway through. “Your future.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like I’m evil because I don’t want to rot here.”

There he was. That version of James who struck first whenever fear cornered him. “Rot here?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No,” you said. “Apparently I only know what you mean when it helps you.”

He swore under his breath and stood up.

“Riki thinks this band lasts forever because he needs something to believe in. Maki’s going to law school and barely pretends otherwise. This was never permanent.”

“And me?”

He hesitated…that hurt more than words. “And me?” you repeated.

He dragged a hand through his hair. “yn , I-.”

The room went still, because that was not just about the band.

You nodded slowly. “What I am to you?”

“You’re well, a friend…I-.” He hesitated more, “I don't mean that..”

“It’s what you really mean.”

“No.” He stepped closer, frustration and panic fighting in his face. “I meant whatever this is between us was never enough to hold everything together.”

Your chest tightened. “This?”

He looked away. Coward. You laughed, then started crying in the middle of it. Not elegantly, not one cinematic tear sliding down your cheek. Real crying, ugly crying. The kind of crying that makes your heart physically hurt.  You hated him for seeing it. His face changed instantly. The hesitation gone so fast it almost looked like panic. 

“Hey.”

You turned away.

“Baby.”

“Don’t.”

He crossed the room anyway. When you stepped back, he caught your wrists, then pulled you into him with the same certainty he used for everything that mattered. Your forehead hit his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into your hair. “I’m sorry, baby.”

That word nearly killed you. Then he said the one thing he had denied both of you for years. “I love you.”

You froze. Then cried harder than before, because how dare he? How dare he spend years calling you friend, years touching you like devotion and speaking of you like convenience, years building a home with you out of unnamed things—only to become honest at the exact moment honesty could do nothing. How deep was his love?

How dare he love you and still go. “I really do,” he said, voice shaking now. “I just—” He stopped there. Because there was nothing after I just that could save either of you.

You cried into him until your ribs hurt. He held you all night on the studio couch. Neither of you went home. Sometimes he kissed your forehead, sometimes he brushed tears from your face with trembling thumbs. Once, around four in the morning, you felt his chest jerk once under your cheek, sharp and silent. Even crying had to happen secretly for him.

No plan was made, no promises helped. Morning came anyway and when he woke, you were gone.

You took your toothbrush, two sweaters, your notebook, and whatever pride fit into a canvas tote from his apartment.

He called seven times, you answered none.

The next time you saw him was at the station. Of course Maki came. He already knew about it. He always knew about James and Seoul. He never told anyone. Riki came too, he had too, he accepted it—he had to.

You came because not coming would have confessed too much.

The station was loud. Announcements overhead as James stood near the platform edge with a duffel bag and his guitar case over one shoulder.

He looked like every dream he had ever had. He looked like every problem you had ever loved.

When he saw the three of you, he smiled automatically. It died the second his eyes found yours. Riki hugged him first, hard enough to count as violence. “Don’t become annoying,” he muttered into his shoulder. Maki shook his hand, then hugged him too quickly to be commented on.

Then it was your turn, neither of you moved.

The train doors slid open with a soft chime, passengers stepped out, others stepped in around you, annoyed by your tragedy.

Finally he said your name. Not loudly though, more like a prayer, like an apology and like a punishment. You followed him inside. Riki and Maki stayed on the platform. 

Inside the carriage, he led you to the space near the connecting door, half hidden from the aisle. For a second neither of you spoke, then he grabbed your face in both hands and kissed you. Hard, desperate and fucking furious. Like he could force memory to survive distance. Like if he kissed you enough now, leaving later might become survivable. His mouth tasted like seven star cigarettes—his favourite and the bitter coffee he drank when he was nervous. Your hands clutched his collars so tightly your fingers hurt. He kissed you until breathing became secondary.

When he pulled back, both of you were shaking. “Come with me,” he said.

You almost laughed. “To what?” you whispered. “To become what? Your secret in another country?”

Pain crossed his face so quickly it was almost beautiful. “I would’ve made it right.”

“You had 2 years.”

That silenced him, the warning chime sounded. Doors closing soon.

He pulled you into one last hug so tight it bordered on cruelty. Your cheek pressed against his chest. His heart was racing.

“I love you,” he said again, smaller this time.

You shut your eyes. “I know.”

Then you pushed away first. Because if he let go first again, it would destroy whatever was left of you. You stepped onto the platform just as the doors slid shut between you. For one suspended second, you were separated only by glass.

He lifted a hand, You couldn’t move yours. The train began to pull away. You walked beside it for two steps and then stopped. He remained visible through passing windows until distance turned him into shape, then shadow, then nothing.

Your legs gave out beside a pillar, you sank to the ground, knees pulled to your chest, forehead buried against them, sobbing so hard no sound came out properly. Your shoulders shook. Your hands clawed uselessly at denim.

People passed around you in practiced arcs. Cities are merciful that way—they let strangers break privately in public. Down the platform, Riki stood rigid with his jaw clenched. Maki looked away to give you dignity. As the last carriage curved out of sight, they caught one final glimpse through the rear window.

James had collapsed into a seat, elbows on knees, face buried in both hands. He was leaving, and he was crying where no one could hold him.