#restlessmaknae

“I like you.”

“I like you, too.”

That would be all too cute and romantic and unicorns and sunshine if the guy was Park Jongseong instead of Lee Heeseung, and if the girl was you instead of Oh Dohee. Because you have a crush on Heeseung, and Jay has a crush on Dohee, and it’s exactly your crushes who confess their love to each other in the hidden corridor beside the school storage room, and it’s exactly you and Jay who happen to walk in on their confession.

What a boomer, really. If Miss Ryeong hadn’t selected you and Jay to pick up the giant world map and the Korea posters for the Geography class right in that minute, just for the next class, exactly on 14th December aka Hug Day in Korea aka the day couples show their affection towards each other with a hug or with a confession that ends up in a hug, you wouldn’t have witnessed the confession for yourself.

Both your and Jay’s steps falter when you hear the words and catch sight of the two students in the secluded corridor (students only ever come here if they are ordered by a teacher to grab something from the storage room just like now), and at first, you fail to notice anything about the boy’s behaviour because you are too shocked by the sight in front of you.

You have told yourself that maybe, just maybe, this isn’t a one-sided crush because you and Heeseung have been talking more and more lately, but it seems you’ve seen it all wrong. Maybe he was there for the after school study sessions because he wanted to talk to Dohee, not because he wanted to discuss the homework with you. Maybe he signed up to be an organiser for the winter ball because Dohee was the class president, and she needed a helping hand, not because you also applied. Maybe he sat at your table in the canteen because Dohee was usually around, not because of you.

Oh gosh, how could you have been so blind?

You may have been oblivious to all the signs, hence you’re the one to blame, but it doesn’t mean that it hurts any less. In fact, it hurts even more because it seems like you have seen something into Heeseung’s actions that you really shouldn’t have. It would have been one thing if you had just gotten to know about the news through your classmates, but to hear their confession in person? That’s just brutal, especially because it’s your first ever crush. To be precise, your first ever one-sided crush, it seems.

To make matters worse, Jay manages to kick into the nearby broom (remember, you’re in front of a storage room), and the two lovebirds distance themselves from each other as if they’ve been caught, staring at the two of you, wide-eyed.

“We didn’t hear-” You’re trying to say that you didn’t hear anything, hoping to save the four of you from further embarrassment even though your words would be a part of a big fat lie, but the boy beside you doesn’t seem to cooperate.

“We won’t tell anyone,” he manages to burn your plan to the ground with just a few of his words, and you really, really have the urge to facepalm. Or to evaporate. Because it’s just so damn awkward idling in front of the storage room, neither of you knowing what to do because now it’s out in the open that you’ve heard their confession (and saw them hugging each other too), and clearly, that’s not how Heeseung and Dohee planned this to go.

There’s no bell or a nosy teacher to save you from the awkwardness, and even though you’re usually terrible at dissolving the embarrassment in the air, this time your broken heart is more desperate to escape this situation that it is afraid that you would say the wrong thing, making everything even more awkward.

“We’re just here for some maps for Geography,” you let them know matter-of-factly, immediately reaching for the storage room’s door knob. You don’t wait for anyone to reply, you open the door wide, walking into the place as fast as if your life depended on him.

You hear the door close behind you after a few seconds, and Jay indeed follows you, although with a very disheartened expression. At that time, you can’t quite put your finger on his behaviour as he seems surprised, but it’s not something you can blame him for.

“Heeseung and Dohee... Who would have thought…” He mumbles under his breath while he’s making his way towards the maps, and you can’t disagree with him either, so you merely nod to his words. Maybe if you hadn’t been so blind, you could have seen the signs, but it’s too late now... You were too late.

You two pick up the maps quickly, and head back to the classroom. Thankfully, Heeseung and Dohee aren’t in the corridor when you get out of the storage room, but when you and Heeseung lock eyes once you get back to the classroom, you can feel your heart being shattered into tiny little pieces. Is this really how first loves should go? Already with a heartbreak before anything could happen?

Jay still can’t process what he has seen and heard earlier that day even though it’s almost the last class of the day, it’s PE on top of that, and the girls are running around the football field that’s occupied by the boys playing football, so it’s a chill class. Their school has this huge indoor sports field that comes in handy in winter when no one likes to work out outside, and the senior year students are no exception.

Jay is glad that they don’t have strength training that day because that would really just top the list of his unpleasant surprises. He can just mindlessly kick into the ball when it’s around him and run a bit from goal to goal, it’s not like he’s the ace of football anyways. Of course, it’s Heeseung who’s the best. That boy is the top of the class, a born athlete, applauded for his good looks and manners, so really, he’s the dream of every girl, and apparently, the dream of Jay’s crush. How could Jay even dare to challenge him? That would be ridiculous! He shouldn’t have even thought about standing a chance with Dohee. After all, Dohee and Heeseung are like a match made in heaven. Jay, on the other hand, isn’t exceptionally smart or exceptionally good at sports, so what these two could talk about would probably seem like a foreign language to him.

The more he thinks about it (even though he shouldn’t), the angrier he is at himself. What kind of a fool would even think about being liked by Oh Dohee when he’s like Jay? Gosh, he’s so pathetic, he knows, but what can he do about it? He can’t control his heart and his feelings, and it’s time to admit that he has lost against Lee Heeseung.

Jay huffs as the realisation hits him yet again and kicks into the ball with all his might, hoping that he could at least score a goal against Heeseung’s team because he shouldn’t lose this match if he has already lost that day. However, Jay manages to kick the ball so hard that when it flies out of the field (missing the goal by a tiny bit), it hits one of the girls who are currently jogging behind the goal... Right at her face.

Everyone stills for a bit, and Jay’s first thought is that he managed to aim right at his crush’s face, and now he really should dig his own grave because he has done something unforgivable.

On the other hand, it’s you who has been hit by the ball, and it’s your nose that starts bleeding, not his crush’s which is just a tiny bit better than if it were to be Dohee. The situation still sucks, obviously, but Jay is there in no time, panting as he asks:

“Are you okay?” He knows it sounds dumb, but you appreciate it nevertheless because at least he’s not a jerk about it. So you nod, trying to hold your hand to your nose, so that the blood wouldn’t be dripping everywhere.

“How could she be okay? Take her to the infirmary immediately!” Mr. Jung orders the boy who wouldn’t object yet you would, but the PE teacher gives you such a pointed look that you dare not go against his words.

So you and Jay walk side by side through the corridors until the infirmary, and it’s such a déjà vu feeling that you almost expect Heeseung and Dohee to pop up at a corner, hugging each other, even though the boy is on the field playing football and Dohee is running around the field with the other girls. Perks of having a crush on your classmate is that you can see them all the time, and the cons is that you can see them all the time (even when they confess to somebody else).

Once you get inside the infirmary, the lady cleans up the mess around your nose, examines it and gives you tissues to help with the bleeding. Then, she excuses herself to go and get a pack of ice from the administration office because they have a fridge where they keep ice packs.

“I’m so sorry. It wasn’t on purpose,” Jay apologises immediately, running a hand through his jet-black locks, eyes full of remorse. You sigh, pitying him and pitying yourself for ending up in such a situation again, but you know it’s not his fault.

“It’s okay. I guessed that it wasn’t intentional. What reason would you have for hitting me in the face?” You joke lightly, trying to dissolve the solemn atmosphere, but even you feel ashamed by your attempt because you’re the least in the mood for joking around.

“This day really can’t get any worse, huh?” He huffs, scratching the back of his neck, and you can’t help but agree (even though he’s only thinking out loud).

“First, Heeseung’s confession, then this…” You sigh, looking out of the window for a few seconds. You feel like you wouldn’t be surprised if it started raining because this morning was the first time in a while when you didn’t bring an umbrella, and if life keeps throwing such calamities at you, then you wouldn’t be in for a surprise if being hit by a ball wouldn’t be the last unfortunate thing happening to you that day.

“Wait…” Jay breaks the momentary silence a bit tentatively, and you turn your head towards him, curious. “Do you perhaps... you know... have a crush on Heeseung?”

He puts together the pieces with a bit of uncertainty, and you realise that your previous wording gave you away. There’s no way you could save yourself from this, especially after you open your mouth to deny it, yet nothing comes out, so you just stare at him open-mouthed as the seconds roll by.

“Wait! Then, do you have a crush on Dohee?” You ask as the thought hits you, and you think back to how disheartened the boy was beside you when you heard the two students’ confession. You assumed that it was merely because he didn’t see that coming, but could it be because he likes the girl whom your crush likes?

“Ah, no, no, I don’t... What? Why would I? Pff…” Jay snorts, but the way he jumbles over his words gives him away. Someone as confident and eloquent in his speech as the boy himself doesn’t really mess up his speaking unless he’s nervous or lying. And well, he could be both if he was talking about his crush.

“Was it obvious that I just lied?” He exclaims when he catches onto your deadpan expression.

“Yeah, a bit.”

You two are silent for a moment, processing the fact that you two out of all people were the witnesses of the confession between your crushes. You wouldn’t be surprised if a few other guys had a crush on Dohee because she’s smart, pretty and confident, and Jay wouldn’t be surprised if other girls had a crush on Heeseung because he’s every girl’s dream (and probably every mother’s dream).

“I’m sorry, that sucks.”

“I’m sorry for you, too,” the boy replies immediately, and it’s just so bad. Saying sorry for each other, but at least you two can understand each other’s feelings. Or well, you’re the closest to understanding it out of all people.

The nurse comes back in that moment, and she furrows her eyebrows when she sees you two sitting there in the room as if you have been run over by something.

“Come on! Are you two really that sad that this happened?” The lady inquires in an almost mother-like tone, and you could laugh at how innocent her question is, but you really don’t feel like laughing.

So you just shake your head, and Jay does the same, and it’s just so unbearably awkward that you’re glad that the nurse doesn’t ask more questions. Instead, she hands you the pack of ice, and tells you that you can keep it with you and take it back the next day. Additionally, she writes you an excuse letter for leaving school early that day, and as she’s handing you the paper, she looks at Jay, and writes another for him, too.

“But-” The boy tries to protect, but the woman merely shushes him.

“Just take it! Others would fake their death for me just to get it,” she mentions with a knowing smile, and so you two leave the infirmary together with the excuse to go home early, and maybe, it’s really for the best. You don’t have to suffer through a Maths class which Dohee and Heeseung would probably both nail anyway. You would feel heartbroken if either of them gave the correct answer to a question.

As you’re walking back to the changing rooms, you stop dead in your tracks when you hear something. As you look out of the windows in the corridor, you let out a whimper.

“I can’t believe it!”

“What is it?” Jay asks, perplexed, and you point at the raindrops dotting the window. Just exactly what you needed.

“It’s raining, and obviously, today is the day I forgot my umbrella at home.”

“I can lend you mine. Or we can go together until the bus stop if you’re going that way. After all, we can both leave now, right?” he offers casually, and you’re just about to protest when he holds up his hands, silencing you. “Take it as a way to make up for hitting you with the ball.”

He says it so desperately that you don’t have the heart to say no. He looks like a sad puppy with those achingly twinkling eyes, those messy jet-black locks and the ghost of a smile on his lips, telling tales about the pain of the day behind him. You probably look somewhat similar, especially with the pack of ice in your hands, so you give in, telling him that you would change back into your school uniform and gather your stuff from your locker before meeting him again at the entrance.

Having an interaction with Jay for the third time that day isn’t as awkward as the first two. Or well, it wouldn’t be if it weren’t for his stomach growling from time to time as you’re walking to the bus stop. Feeling pretty sorry for him for having him keep the umbrella above your head and feeling sorry for you too after today, you blurt out without much thinking:

“We can stop by the corner store if you want. I’m also pretty hungry,” you admit a bit nervously, keeping the fact to yourself that you skipped lunch because you didn’t feel hungry after getting to know that your crush likes someone else. Some might call you overly emotional and dramatic, but what could you do? You really did like Heeseung, and that scene in front of your eyes really did hurt, but now you were also really hungry, so no more skipping meals over heartbreak.

“For real? Are you not saying this just because you found it awkward how my stomach grumbled?" Jay inquiries directly, and it’s the first time that day that you actually let out a giggle.

“For real. Now, let’s go eat something!" You prompt him with a smile, and he spares you a few more suspicious looks, but he seems to believe you once you grab your favourite instant noodle pack and also a sandwich, ready to dig into your sandwich while you wait for the noodles to soak up the boiling water.

You love sitting inside these stores, waiting for your ramyeon to be ready, and even though you’re usually alone or with your little sister (you have an older and a younger sister, too) who’s in her growing phase, so she craves noodles a lot of times after school, you don’t mind being around Jay this time.

You take your seats by the window, looking out at the rainy scene, and as you’re thinking about how the PE class is nearing its end by now, you can’t help but ask:

“Since when did you have a crush on Dohee? If you don’t mind me asking, of course,” you offer because you don’t want to burden him with an invasive question. To prove that, you tell him about how Heeseung helped you in your junior year when you were visibly struggling during a science experiment, and he ended up being your science partner for the whole year. You gradually became more and more enamoured by him, and it’s been a constant fall since then.

The boy tells you that it started for him in junior year too when he saw the girl working hard for the school trip, arranging the wooden houses for the students, and making last minute adjustments to help their homeroom teacher. Since she was the class president, he always looked up to her and to her dedication, and he even signed up to help with the winter ball because of her.

“No way! I signed up for that because of Heeseung!” You chirp in, and Jay’s eyes widen in surprise. After bathing in your mutual understanding towards the other’s choice though, you both retreat to your nostalgic, bittersweet self quickly, no wonder Jay blurts out:

“I guess we now have to bear the consequences of that, too. We’ll probably have to see those two being all lovey-dovey as we’re decorating the sports hall for the ball.”

“At least, it’s not today. Today is already bad enough,” you point out, your lips curling into a sad little smile. You know it’s just to hide the pain, but smiling sadly is still better than crying your eyes out (although you’ll probably do so when you watch the next episode of your currently watched kdrama because your single ass won’t be able to bear the second male lead syndrome resembling your life all too well).

“Yeah, and I don’t know about you, but it sucks less because someone knows how I’m feeling,” Jay admits in between two bites from his sandwich, and you hum while you’re inhaling your ramyeon. He’s damn right about that, and the fact that he voices it out loud makes you feel a bit better, too.

Just like the rest of your conversation with the boy that makes you forget about why you ended up at the corner store that day. He makes you forget about the painful encounter with the ball and the even more painful confession you heard in the morning. Sure, the atmosphere is still a bit melancholic, you can almost feel this feeling hovering above the two of you, but you feel lucky that after all the calamities, you can find some peace and quiet. And someone who can share his umbrella with you on your way to the bus stop because let’s be honest, that’s important, too!

So stomach full and lips curled into a genuine smile, you thank the boy for his assistance after you empty your cup of noodles and finish your sandwich and after you get to the end of your conversation, the sky already darkening outside. You might have been excused to leave school early, but you would still go home later than usual, not like you mind. You feel like the day beside Jay (quite literally) has mended your broken heart a bit.

The worst thing about being in the festive season is not exactly being in the festive mood. They say that it’s the most beautiful time of the year, but not for you, nor for Jay, not after being witnesses of the confession of your crushes.

Yet, you can’t do anything about it, the winter ball is coming up, and since both you and Jay have signed up to help out, you have to go and help out no matter even if it’s the last thing you would like to do. It’s fine until you catch sight of Heeseung and Dohee smiling at each other and the girl blushing whenever the boy is close to her to assist her, and it’s fine until the others start cooing around them (because obviously the two couldn’t hide their feelings towards each other, and they confirmed their relationship in front of the class a few days after their confession). You can’t help but imagine how it could have been you, but you guess that Jay is the same, seeing his dreamy expression when he averts his eyes to the new couple.

“Wanna help me put up these garlands?” You nudge the boy in the side, partly because you want to distract him, so he wouldn’t feel so bad and partly because you actually need help. You need someone to hold the ladder while you put them on, and the boy gives in with a sigh, but you can feel that his thoughts are somewhere else based on the way he looks out of his head.

You start putting up the garlands diligently, making your way around the room with Jay’s assistance. After you put on another one in very vivid colours, you look down at the boy holding the ladder, staring bitterly at Dohee making silly poses for Heeseung who takes pictures of her. Your heart sinks at the sight. Maybe he thinks no one’s watching him (just look how you hope no one catches onto you gazing at Heeseung from time to time), but you do, and it’s difficult to not feel heartbroken over his expression. Especially because you know how it feels.

You let out a sigh, and take a step down the ladder, making an attempt to move on with the decorations quickly, so you two can leave the place equally quickly. However, as you take the next step, you miscalculate the landing, and your right foot touches only the edge of the rung, meaning that you lose your balance, falling down abruptly (and not at all graceful).

You land with a loud thud, but instead of the ground, you land on a softer surface. Suspicious, when you open your eyes to see what it is, your heart skips a beat. It’s Jay. You landed on him, and he landed on his back, and the loud thud was probably his head hitting the floor.

Your eyes are probably eyes wide as the boy’s when you look at him, the close proximity taking your breath away. You never noticed the mole around his eyes or the different shades that collide in his dark, deep orbs. You never noticed how elegant the arch of his nose is, or how perfectly carved his jawline seems. You never noticed how fluffy his jet-black locks are, and how - even despite his disheveled state - handsome he is.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay?” You hear someone ask from behind you, and that’s when you and Jay both come back to your senses. You awkwardly push yourself off the boy while he kindly helps you steady yourself before he also pushes himself off the ground, though with a hiss.

“Are you okay? You must have hit your head badly,” you exclaim at the noise, and take a step closer to the boy to examine his head, but the movement just makes the whole situation even more awkward. Since when were you so awkward around Jay? But the boy is the same, and it doesn’t help the situation either.

“It’s fine,” the boy tries to shrug it off nonchalantly, but you’re not that lenient. Neither is Heeseung, it seems, as he walks up to the two of you, worried, Dohee following him closely.

“You should go to the infirmary. We’ll finish the garlands, don’t worry about it!”

“Yeah, you two can go. You’ve already helped enough,” Dohee chirps in, and as the kind class president as she is, she’s thankful for your work even though you’ve probably done only half of what you should have.

Their words kind of warm your heart and break it at the same time. The way they look at you two makes you think that Heeseung is really better off with someone like Dohee. They are the ones who can make each other happy, not you and Jay, and while it sucks, they seem kind of cute together. Really, you can’t deny that, and this scene is just another proof of that.

So not wanting to make a fuss, you and Jay head to the infirmary together, and you can’t stop apologising to him on the way.

“It’s fine. You can say we’re even now after I’ve hit you with the ball. The umbrella wasn’t enough compensation anyway,” he protests coolly after about your tenth apology, and you find yourself speechless, not having any more reason to argue. Thus, you nod, letting silence take over the two of you until you arrive at the infirmary and the nurse bellows:

“You two again?”

You explain to her what happened, and she shakes her head as if she couldn’t believe how unlucky the two of you are. Well, you can’t believe it either. Nevertheless, she prepares a pack of ice for Jay, going to the administration office for it just like last time. Maybe it’s because you two were unlucky enough to need ice for your injuries, but you wonder why the infirmary doesn’t have its own fridge with packs of pre-prepared ice.

As this thought goes through your head, Jay clears his throat, a bit awkward.

“You know, actually, they seem perfect for each other,” he blurts out quietly as if he’s ready to admit his defeat, yet doesn’t want to say it out loud. You don’t even need to be told who he refers to.

“I was actually thinking the same while we were dealing with the garlands.”

“Funny how I’ve wanted to ask her to go to the winter ball with me, and just imagine how awkward she would have felt if I asked her, and she was hoping to go with Heeseung. Which she will probably do now,” he admits, and lets out a bitter laughter. His confession is so sudden that you don’t even have time to be shocked because it just comes out so quickly. You applaud him for his bravery because you aren’t sure you would have dared to admit that you were hoping you wouldn’t go alone either if it weren’t for him, but after he does so, it isn’t that awkward to admit it yourself.

As always, the nurse seems to come just at the right time, and you don’t know how much she has heard, but after handing the pack of ice to Jay, she looks at you two and suggests:

“You two should go to the ball together!”

As absurd as it seems at first, it doesn’t seem like a terrible idea later on, yet you don’t say anything about it that day, not even when you two grab your stuff, take the same bus for a while and bid your goodbye when he hops off the bus first. You realise you get home that day with a somewhat lighter heart.

The more he thinks about it, the less weird the idea seems, so when Jay actually asks if you want to go to the winter ball with him (to save both of you from the embarrassment of going alone), you say yes without much contemplation. After all, he’s quite a nice guy, and after your very unfortunate and close encounter with him, something bubbles up inside of you that you’ve thought died with your crush turning out to be one-sided.

However, you don’t give it too much thought, and just think of this whole winter ball thing as something you can overcome quickly and thankfully less embarrassed now that you have someone to go with. Your determination to not think about how gorgeous he looked from up-close is thrown right out of the window as soon as you two meet at school, and he shows up in an elegant suit and cotton pants. It looks like his whole outfit was tailored for him, and he even styled his hair, parting it sideways. You open your mouth to drop a compliment, but he beats you to it.

“You look really pretty,” he says genuinely, and you go speechless at his unwavering confidence. You didn’t bother to look for a new dress, you merely decided to go with the dark blue one you wore for your older sister’s graduation ceremony, and it was a quick choice even back then. There’s nothing extra about your dress, not even about your high heels, the only part you put some effort in was your hair, so really, you didn’t expect him to make a comment on it.

“But won’t you be cold on your way back home?” Jay inquires, tilting his head to the side. Once again, you find yourself speechless at his thoughtfulness, but try to pull yourself together quickly.

“It’s fine. My sister will pick me up when I tell her to come.”

“That’s good.” He nods briefly, prompting you to go inside the sports hall where the ball is actually held. You nod, and follow him inside.

Yet, for the rest of the night, you can’t help but notice all the little things that Jay does to make it a better night than you’ve expected it to be. He holds doors for you, he pours punch for you first, he suggests sitting down when he notices you turning your ankles in your high heels, he requests your favourite song for you after you two start complaining about the awful songs being played by the DJ, and he suggests leaving when he catches you rubbing your eyes more.

Truth to be told, you wouldn’t mind staying longer because it’s great getting to know more about Jay, his dreams, his interests, his childhood, his family, even about his taste in fashion. No matter what he says, you find yourself being drawn to it, and you wouldn’t mind getting to know more. Which is weird since you haven’t felt this way towards anyone before developing a crush on Heeseung, but that’s exactly why it’s scaring you. You don’t want to fall head-on yet again, plus he caught onto it well, you’re actually pretty exhausted, so you call your sister, telling her that she can come now, and leave the sports hall with Jay.

“We can give you a lift. It really wouldn’t be a bother,” you offer as you two walk towards the entrance, remembering that he goes the same way home as you do, he lives even closer to school than you do. Even though he initially objects and you let him, your sister suggests the same when he sees the boy beside you by the stairs outside of school. The boy doesn’t protest when he’s offered the second time, and gets in the car with you.

Thankfully, your sister doesn’t make it awkward by asking anything about Jay (even though you haven’t told her about him before), she inquires about the ball instead and starts reminiscing about her own. Somewhere along the way, it turns out that Jay’s older brother and your sister are actually studying under the same department at the same university, and the car ride seems more than comfortable with such topics. It’s funny how easily your sister gets along with Jay, much like how you seemed to hit it off with him from the start - even though it was over mutual heartbreak.

Despite your sister asking about the boy after you give him a ride home, she doesn’t push the topic further when you tell her that he’s a great guy and you don’t know what’s going to happen to the two of you, but you enjoyed your night with him. And it’s no lie, you really did enjoy your night with him. It turned out way better than you could have thought so.

After the winter ball, things start to shift between you two. You’ve already exchanged numbers prior to the winter ball, so you can easily message each other during winter break, wishing each other merry Christmas and a happy new year. Then, random texts came from random moments - such as the time he’s going to the mall with his family and the song that you’ve agreed was probably the worst song that year came on the radio, or the time an ad came up for you with his favourite fashion brand, and you’ve thought of him because before getting to know him, you didn’t even know this brand existed.

Slowly and naturally, as you two are talking more and getting to know each other more, winter turns into spring, and the months until your senior year exams become fewer and fewer. You find yourself spending more time with Jay as time goes by, and your sister can’t even help but give you a knowing glance whenever you two talk and she asks about the boy. It’s all too natural this way, and falling for him seems steady and serene. It’s not as quick and reckless as with Heeseung, but that’s exactly how you know that it’s more real, that it has more potential to blossom into something more.

So when you two have a random conversation before your exams, wondering what would happen to the two of you in half a year, and where you could be, and Jay takes his chance to ask you out on a date before it’s too late, you know it’s because both of you are now sure enough of not only your feelings but the other’s as well.

“I’d love to,” you conclude with a wide smile, and both of you are giddy and a bit shy, but it’s all okay. Being happy that a crush isn’t just a crush, it’s the start of a blooming relationship instead isn’t anything to be ashamed of.

You weren’t the type to be late from somewhere. In fact, you didn’t even remember if you had ever been late in your whole life. Even back in high school, you had woken up early, so that you would get on the bus on time, and even if the bus would be late, you would still arrive at school on time. If you were meeting up with others, you set out early, so that you would be there way before the agreed time in case you got lost.

Yet, today, you had to face one of your worst fears: being late from somewhere. It wasn’t even your fault, and it sucked even more for this reason. It was all because of your forgetful flatmate who had thought that she hadn’t had her keys in her bag, so she had grabbed the keys from the bowl by the front door (aka your keys!) and let herself out of the flat with them, and you had been stuck in the flat because both her keys and your keys had been with her, and there were no spare keys.

After frantically messaging her and asking her to come back to give you your keys, you ran to catch the bus, then you ran all the way to campus, all the way until the huge double door of the lecture hall. When you arrived there, you let yourself catch your breath, nibbling on your lips as you were trying to gather the courage to open the door and face having everyone’s attention on you when you walked into the lecture hall. It was inevitable since the squeaking of the doors was so annoying that everyone turned their heads towards it when someone arrived after the lecture started.

You fidgeted with your bag as you were standing there, but the clock was ticking, and you didn’t want to be late even more. You were just about to take a step forward when a fast figure bolted up towards the door, hands already grabbing the handle. However, he hesitated for a moment and turned towards you a second later.

“Are you also coming in?” he inquired, eyes twinkling with warmth, tone kind. You had to admit that he looked cute even with messy, chocolate-brown locks and a plain grey hoodie, and there was just something very comforting about his presence. It was as if his whole aura radiated calm and serenity.

“Yeah. I just…” You started, stumbling upon your words, not sure how to form coherent sentences. Would you be lame to confess that you merely didn’t want to gather attention by arriving late? Not to mention that he seemed a tad bit familiar, and it seemed even more embarrassing telling someone who seemed familiar and whom you might meet again (given that you were going into the same lecture hall) something like that.

The boy cracked a smile, the sides of his lips turning upwards in a rather cute way, and understanding flashed across his warm mahogany orbs.

“Come in after me a few seconds later. I’ll leave the door open,” he offered kindly while bobbing his head in the door’s direction, and then he did just as he had told you so.

You couldn’t believe what was just happening, but you waited as the immensely considerate boy had suggested, and managed to sneak in without gathering anyone’s attention. The door closed behind you quietly (thankfully), and you let out a shaky breath as you stood there in the back of the lecture hall. You looked around, searching for empty seats, yet there was no way you would take your usual seat in the third row. That would gather even more attention than opening the door yourself, so the back seats were the only safe option left.

As expected, the seats in the last row were almost all taken, full of students who didn’t even pay attention to the lecturer or who were quietly munching on their breakfast as it was the first period of the day. There were empty seats on the left side in the last row, but there was a guy sleeping in the first seat to the side, so there was no way you would wake him up and ask him to let you sit beside him. So that left you with the right side, and the only seat left was right beside the previously met stranger who actually caught your gaze while you were looking around, and directed a friendly smile at you.

Tentatively, you made your way towards him, but he didn’t flinch even when you took the seat beside him, so you silently thanked him with a rather coy smile, and started packing your things out, starting to take notes as soon as possible.

Thankfully, the most awkward part of your day was over, but you had to force yourself not to turn your head towards your kind stranger and his soft features. No, that would make things weird, and you definitely didn’t want your saviour catching you stare at him no matter how adorable he looked in that oversized hoodie and its hoodie paws that he played with absentmindedly while listening to the professor. You wondered whether it was a habit of his or just a one-time thing.

However, when the lecture came to an end, and you packed your stuff, ready to head to your next class, you couldn’t stop yourself from turning towards him:

“Thanks for earlier,” you sighed out, holding the books to your chest as firmly as if your life depended on it.

“No problem. I usually come in late anyways because of my practices,” he explained with a shrug of his shoulders, and you didn’t need to be told what his words indicated: that you looked like you didn’t usually come in late, that’s why he had been so considerate. No wonder your cheeks turned burgundy at the implication behind his actions.

“You do sports?” You found yourself asking, but you immediately felt the need to facepalm because come on, he could have been a musician, too! Or he could have been doing photos or anything that needed practicing.

The boy, on the other hand, nodded to your words as you two were heading out of the lecture hall.

“Yeah. I’m in the college rugby team,” he confirmed with a surprisingly shy smile, and it dawned on you in that moment that it must have been why he was familiar. Even though you weren’t up-to-date with the sports teams of your college, the rugby team was said to be the most successful, and rumours had it that they had the most handsome boys on campus, too. Well… now you could say that the rumors were probably right though he didn’t look like your typical shallow-minded athlete who only cared about parties and girls. He looked way softer, and he was a physics major with you given your shared lecture, so he was probably pretty smart, too.

“That’s good,” you mumbled out, not knowing what else to add, so you just smiled at him, and he did the same. Before it could get more awkward though, the boy spoke up:

“I gotta go now. See you around, I guess?” he announced with an apologetic smile, but there was something in the way he told you this, something that made you hope that you could see that wide, toothy smile of his, and that you could actually speak to him more.

So you mirrored his smile, and watched as he jogged off, finding yourself blushing at the sight.

The next time you had the lecture for the same class, you weren’t late. Which meant that you were supposed to take your usual seat in the third row, and forget about what had happened last time as if nothing had happened. You assumed that the boy from earlier would come in late again, so you wouldn’t have an excuse to take the seat beside him anyways.

Yet, when you walked into the lecture hall, the kind rugby player was already sitting in the last row, head buried into a book. You were caught off-guard for a few seconds because you were so sure that he wouldn’t be there that you didn’t even move, and he happened to look up at this exact moment. When your eyes met with his warm, chocolate brown orbs, you felt a blush creeping into your cheeks, and if his affectionate gaze wasn’t enough, he was also giving you a small smile that melted your heart a bit, and you found yourself walking towards the row he sat in.

“Is this seat taken?” you asked first things first, pointing at the seat that was not right beside his one but the one beside that. You weren’t bold enough to take a seat right beside his one yet again.

“No. You can take it,” he offered gently, and his voice was so soft, so mellow, so silky. As if his voice matched his gentle soul, it felt like he wouldn’t be able to hurt a single soul.

So you took the seat with a grateful thanks, and started packing out of your bag. You had your notebook and your book alongside your pencil case and your phone, and as you were flipping the pages of your notebook to where you had left off last time, the boy spoke up beside you.

“Did you look at the example calculations at the end of the previous lecture’s slides?”

“Yeah, I did.” You nodded, wondering why he must be asking that, but he told you the reason without you asking about it:

“Could you help me with one of them? I didn’t fully get how we got the answer that was indicated,” he explained, a bit discouraged, but your lips turned into a soft smile. He looked like he was quite disheartened by the fact that he didn’t manage to solve all the examples by himself, and that just showed how hard-working he was, so why would you say no? You respected him for admitting that he didn’t manage to grasp everything.

“Sure,” you gave in immediately, and gathered your notes related to the said task, then started explaining it to him. You weren’t sure how well you were doing, but he nodded, telling you that he was following your explanation, and slowly, as more and more numbers and equations were jotted down on your blank piece of paper, he seemed to understand the solution.

“Oh gosh, thank you! I get it now!” He exclaimed beamingly as his hands flew to his head, holding it as if he was unable to believe that he had managed to understand the problem. Then, he let his hands fall back to the table, right on top of his papers. “I really appreciate it,” he added as he turned to you, toothy smile on full display.

He had such puppy-like features, both his eyes and his soft facial features told you so. He also had this calming yet affectionate aura, akin to the feeling dogs give you when they snuggle up to you after you had a long, tiring day.

“No worries. You can say we’re equal now,” you noted, pointing out that he had helped you out last time, so he didn’t even need to feel like he was indebted to you because you helped him this time.

You didn’t even have time to talk more because the professor walked in, and the class started. You tried your best to concentrate on the material, but you had a hard time when the boy was yet again playing with the paws of his hoodie, and you found it so adorable that you wished to look at it time and time again. You realised that it was probably a habit of his because he did it only between taking notes, so when he didn’t have anything to do, but it was adorable nevertheless.

The class came to an end in no time with you having such thoughts, and as you were packing your books into your bag, the puppy-like boy’s mellow voice was like a jingle of bells in the cacophony of the sudden noises around you.

“I’m Jake, by the way,” he introduced himself with a bit of a shy smile, and your heart skipped a beat both at his introduction and that smile. Jake. What a lovely name to a lovely boy.

You introduced yourself just as well, both of you smiling to yourselves when you realised you were suddenly out of things to say, but this time, the goodbye was even less permanent than last time. Now you had a name to attach to the boy, and you had a seat to go back to when the next lecture would roll by.

And so it became a habit of you two having the same seats in the last row, and even when Jake was late because his practice ended later than usual, you would save that seat for him, and wait for him earnestly.

As you two got to know each other more, you didn’t talk only about university anymore. Though you had to admit that you had never met anyone as enthusiastic about physics as he was, and it was adorable whenever he was talking about a concept with his wide, star-filled eyes and that excited tone of his. He had such a soothing voice that you were sure that if he were to lend his voice for an audiobook, people would be head over heels for it. He also made the topics he was enthusiastic about seem so fascinating, and it wasn’t that rare that you searched for physics-related stuff together or you watched some videos together, sharing the same interest in the field.

Yet physics aside, you got to know about how he had become interested in rugby, and how he had made friends with his team members in the college rugby team. You got to know about stories regarding his childhood, his family and his upbringing, and it was just something you couldn’t get enough of. Let it be about his new favourite movie or his all-time favourite song, or about how he took his coffee and what kind he liked, or whether he loved cats or dogs more, you were sucked in. He was like a black hole that pulled you in, and didn’t let you go. Yet, you didn’t mind, and you just wanted to get to know him better.

Not to mention that Jake was so kind, probably the kindest person you had ever met. He might not have said it out loud, but his actions really did speak for themselves, and it wasn’t just toward you (though it fluttered your heart whenever it was towards you); he held the door for whoever that came after him, he picked up books and pencil cases that fell to the floor, he grabbed books for you in the library when they were on higher shelves, and he always spoke so politely and kindly. It was impossible not to fall for him.

That day was no different. He was being a real angel when he put down a box of banana milk on the table in front of you, but you, not knowing the reason, wanted to object at first:

“You’re really kind, but I wouldn’t want to have it instead of you,” you explained with a half-smile as you pushed it towards him. He looked perplexed for a moment, but then, he reached into his bag and brought out another banana milk.

“I’ve got one, too,” he stated the now obvious, and bobbed his head in the direction of the box in front of you. “I got it for you.”

You looked down at it, a blush already making its way onto your cheeks. Gosh, how could he be so sweet? You were sure that your feelings were written all over your face, so you tried to pull yourself together and form coherent sentences:

“Oh, well, then, thanks.” You bobbed, nibbling on your lower lip to hide the widest smile that was starting to invade your lips. On the other hand, Jake took your stillness as a wrong sign, and asked, worried:

“You don’t like banana milk?”

“Yes. I mean, I do like it. It’s just…” You mumbled nervously, hoping that you wouldn’t turn the situation even more awkward with the words that were searing your tongue. “I’m touched that you got it for me,” you confessed anyway, turning your head to look at the boy, but if anything, the sight of his slightly coloured cheeks made you even more shy.

“Well… yeah, I’ve thought of you when I was at the convenience store,” he admitted as he scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, flashing a bright smile at you nevertheless.

You two just kept looking at each other while smiling, getting lost in each other’s eyes and the curve of the other’s lips and the dimples hidden in the corner, the depth of the orbs, the shade of the locks, and the softness of the heart. It was a fuzzy feeling, and you felt warm from head to toe, bathing in the genuine affection of the boy.

Jake broke the silence first, yet his words rendered you speechless. In the best way possible, actually.

“You wanna... maybe, but just if you want to, come to one of our matches? The next one will be on Friday at 5pm,” he inquired, blinking at you all coy and tentative, but your smile immediately deepened, and your cheeks immediately reddened. You felt the need to fan yourself, but you held yourself back for both of your sakes.

“Yeah, sure. I would love to see you play,” you gave in without hesitation because honestly, you had been meaning to attend one of his games, but since you knew nothing about rugby apart from what he had told you before, you were clueless, and it would be awkward to suggest going yourself when you didn’t even know the rules. Yet, now that he asked you to come (wanted you to come!), it didn’t feel so awkward.

So you shared another smile before the professor walked in, but your heart was pounding in your chest throughout the whole class and throughout the week until the Friday match.

On Friday, you were sitting in the host team’s sector, typing an encouraging message to Jake, confirming that you had made it to the venue. As expected, you weren’t late to the match, so you scrolled through some news sites while you were waiting for the game to begin. You didn’t even expect Jake to reply to you because he must have been busy preparing, and you just wanted him to know that you were there whether he saw your message pre or post-match, but your whole face lit up when you got his grateful message with an adorable emoji.

Since you were really new to such things, you were in a constant daze during the whole match because you were so focused on what was happening all the time. Your heart skipped a beat whenever Jake seemed to slip a bit, but thankfully, he didn’t fall or injure himself, it was just you not knowing anything about rugby and how intense it could be. So you were literally on the edge of your seat the whole time, listening to the announcer’s remarks that could help you understand the game and its rules a bit more.

You couldn’t deny that seeing Jake playing rugby was very different from seeing him in his oversized grey hoodie with its paws and his starry eyes whenever he was talking about physics. This time, he was obviously more intense, he appeared stronger, bolder and more confident. He cooperated with his team members, and they relied a lot on each other to execute the formations and to score goals. You could see that they had great team dynamics, no wonder rumours were going around saying that they might have been the best sports team at college, the other team didn’t even stand a chance against them, and the Hybe Hawks won fair and square.

There was a bit of an after-match buzz after the winner was announced, and no one moved from their seat for some time, so you sat there awkwardly, eyes on the boys who were joyfully cheering on the field while forming a circle. You smiled beamingly, equally happy for their win, but then Jake looking around caught your eyes, and you wondered whether he was looking for you or it was just a silly little hope on your part.

You were proven right though when the boy’s eyes settled on you, and he waved in your direction with a bright, toothy smile. You did the same, and since he was standing still in front of your sector, you decided to make your way down there once the crowd started to dissolve.

“Hi!” He greeted you once you got there, and he was still a bit short of breath, drops of sweat dripping down his cheeks.

“Hi!” You beamed, and you were glad that you weren’t the only one whose face was red. For him, it was because of the game, and for you, it was because of the cheering. “You guys were awesome! Congratulations on your win!”

“Thanks,” he breathed out, his lips curling upwards. He reached to wipe the sweat off his face, and to ruffle his dark locks that stuck to his forehead, but even in this dishevelled state, he looked good. You couldn’t deny that, he really did look good.

However, before either of you could keep up this conversation, two other guys showed up by Jake’s side, and interrupted your little catching up.

“Hey! You must be y/n! We’ve heard so much about you. Only good things though, I doubt Jake would be able to say anything bad about you,” the shorter, sharp-eyed boy commented with a sly smile, exchanging a glance with the taller, prince-looking one who stood beside him. They both looked as if they were trying to hold back their laughter.

“Come on, man!” Jake nudged his team member’s shoulder, but you couldn’t deny that you caught his ear reddening. The boy tried to pull himself together, and cleared his throat. “So this is Jay and Sunghoon. We’re the same age, and we’re all in the rugby team since our first semester,” he introduced you to the guys, pointing at the sharp-eyed one - Jay - and then the prince-looking one - Sunghoon. You bobbed your head, flashing a friendly smile at the two of them. They seemed like good friends, it could be seen that even their little teasing didn’t hurt the physics major in any way.

“Obviously, we’re in the same team. We’ve just finished a match, Jake,” Sunghoon pointed out with a chuckle, and you laughed along with them, causing Jake to blush even more. You had seen Jake nervous before, but never to this extent although his already flushed face might be the one to blame.

After laughing about stating the obvious, a momentary silence fell upon the four of you, but it wasn’t really an awkward one since there was such a hustle-bustle around you all that it could hardly be called silence. Nevertheless, when neither you, nor Jake knew what to say, and Jay’s eyes shifted from his friend’s face to yours, you knew that he was about to speak up.

“So you two are heading somewhere after this?” he inquired casually, and you couldn’t tell which one of you was more nervous: Jake or you.

“Oh, it has not yet…”

“We haven’t really talked about it before the match,” the boy explained to his friend as he scratched the back of his neck, sending you an apologetic albeit awkward glance.

“Then, you should do so now. There won’t be an after-match party today anyways,” Sunghoon chirped in, and you swore that you could feel where this was going, and the two guys’ slight acting didn’t help the situation either.

Seeing how you two didn’t know how to react, Jay let out a chuckle, and nudged Sunghoon’s side, exchanging a glance.

“Alright, we’ll go now, we’ll let you talk about your date. It was nice seeing you, y/n!” Jay exclaimed, and in a rush, the two guys left the scene before Jake could have come after them because he seemed like he was about to do so, alarmed by Jay's choice of words.

“D-date…” he mumbled under his breath, blinking frequently as if he was trying to dissolve the awkwardness in the air by looking around more. You, on the other hand, found it difficult to even catch your breath because you were just as surprised by the intention behind the two boys’ words as he was.

“I mean… I don’t have anything to do after this,” you blurted out, hoping to save the day, but Jake’s eyes widened to an extent you had never seen before.

“Does that mean you want to go on a date after this?”

“I was just trying to say that I don’t have anything planned, I didn’t mean that we have to go on a date. You know, I…” You started, the words flowing without you thinking about what you were saying. Which resulted in a disappointed pout from the boy, and in your panicked state, you continued, and now you were really not thinking what you were saying. “I was just thinking that yeah, we could grab something if you want to, I’ve never dared to think that you would bring up a date because I don’t know how you feel about me, and I didn’t want you to feel pressured by your friends’ implication…”

And you were sure you could have gone on forever, maybe causing even more awkwardness, but Jake (god bless him!) interrupted you with a question that left no room for misunderstandings:

“If I said, I would have wanted to go on a date with you even without my friends’ nudging, would you have said yes?”

You blinked at him, touched and confused at the same time, but there was nothing that you could have taken in a different way from his words, so you nodded.

“Yes,” you replied in a second, your heart pounding in your chest. You might not have imagined this scenario - him, being all sweaty and you being flushed because of the excitement from the match, on the rugby field, after meeting two of his team members and friends - as the one where he asked you out on a date, but you would have never had it another way. Not when he was trying to contain his overflowing happiness by biting down on his lower lip, but the sides of his lips curling upwards gave him away anyways.

“Then, we can go on a date after this,” he announced sheepishly, and you nodded, feeling like you had just hit the jackpot.

Valentine’s Day.

Seems like such a cliché concept in today’s world with Love Alarm being around. When you can have an app that notifies you when someone within your 10 m radius likes you, why would you need a special day to celebrate love? One can receive so much more love each day (such as celebrities) than anyone throughout their entire lives, and if it hasn’t been apparent enough before, now with Love Alarm, the difference is exceptionally striking.

Sure, you know the feeling all too well. The pressure to download the app because everyone else has it and the foolish hope that maybe, just maybe someone who you might not have thought would like you actually likes you, your Love Alarm finally ringing when you two are close enough to each other. You know how you were the same deep down when you were younger; even though you were buried under school and stress and the pressure to do well as the youngest sibling, you were hoping.

Only to realise that you couldn’t like the one who rang your Love Alarm, and no one has ever rung it since then. You haven’t rung his Love Alarm then, and you haven’t rung anyone else’s since then either.

Ironically enough, you haven’t yet deleted the app either because this way, you can prove to yourself that you aren’t lovable enough, and that your heart is closed off, and no one can break through. Love is such an odd phenomena to you; even when you hear the all too familiar ringing sound on the streets, even when you see the ads based on people ringing each other’s alarms, even when you witness just how frequently your older sister’s Love Alarm rings whenever you walk down the streets with her, you feel like it’s the furthest thing from you when love is literally shoved up in your face even more these days than ever before.

You are fine this way though, and the sight of the pink and red balloons by the entrance of the bookstore and the countless heart-shaped decorations hung on the shelves don’t faze you either. Neither does the sound of a few alarms ringing around you, signalling how people around you like each other. You know what you need to pick up from the bookstore, and you know where to find it, so you make your way to the English section, standing by the shelf to scan through the books, holding your phone in your hand to keep checking the exact title of the book.

You don’t even pay much attention to your surroundings, but when you hear the ringing sound from your own phone, your breath is caught in your throat. You look down at the screen, confused, your heart making a silly little turn. Surely, there’s something wrong. The app must be malfunctioning. It can’t be that you meet someone at this bookstore, someone who knows you enough to like you, and they’re just close enough to you to ring your Love Alarm. There isn’t even anyone in this row who could-

Turning your head, you realise that there’s actually someone standing a few steps further from you, looking just as bewildered to see you here as you are. Maybe not just because of the fact that you’re here, but also how you’re here, between rows of books, being the only two students looking for a book.

Just like almost two years. At the library of your high school.

When he rang your Love Alarm, and you didn’t ring his back.

Lee Heeseung.

Yours wasn’t a typical popular boy and smart girl kind of story. In fact, it couldn’t have been further from it. Heeseung and you were the two top students, so it wasn’t just you who studied well, and even though he was known in your class, he wasn’t one of those shallow-minded popular kids.

Which also meant that your parents expected you to be better than him; to be the top of the class, not just the second one or being tied for first place at least. Which was difficult considering that Heeseung was really smart, not just in the way you were. You were the kind who worked hard to remember concepts, details and topics, but you wouldn’t be able to recall what you’ve learnt later on. You just studied hard enough to remember everything until it was needed. Heeseung, on the other hand, was interested in the topics, and he seemed to study by finding connections, by conceptualising and visualising what he was learning. The outcome wasn’t different in terms of grades, but you’ve always known that you weren’t as smart as him. If you were smart, then he was intelligent.

Since you two were constantly the top students, you should have seen him as your enemy or some kind of competition at least. You should have hated him, wishing that he would fail, wishing that something would happen to him, so that you could beat him as the top student. On the other hand, you could never think of him as such. Your parents might have compared you to him, but you knew that it wasn’t his fault, and you also knew that he had worked hard for the grades he had gotten, so why would you have wished anything ill onto him?

You just felt this bitter pang in your chest whenever you walked by his seat with the second best test in your hands, his being the best one. Sometimes you caught his eyes, and his stare almost felt like a punch in the face; his doe eyes, shade of the warmest brown, akin to the chestnuts at the peak of autumn, swimming in guilt. It was as if he had felt sorry that he had done better. You had an idea why he acted this way, for he had overheard a quarrel between you and your mother as you were exiting school one day, your mother telling you to do better than him.

“If he can enter that Maths competition, why can’t you?” Your mother had asked, voice accusing as if you hadn’t felt bad already.

“Because I just can’t enter every single competition that’s out there. He’s better at Maths than I am anyways,” you had replied, averting your eyes from your mother’s frowning face to the carpet of fallen leaves by your feet, autumn entering your sophomore year just like that.

But autumn had never felt so cold before. It had never felt so lonely.

As you had been looking around, you had caught sight of Heeseung passing by between you two, directing a polite bow in your mother’s direction while she had been still going on with her monologue.

“Why can’t you be better then? Maybe we should-”

“Mom!” You had cut her off, already weary, as you had caught Heeseung’s eyes, and you had known, you had felt that he had wished he could have helped. Because that was just who he was; Lee Heeseung had always been willing to help anyone asking for his notes or an explanation regarding a task, he had been willing to stay at school to assist with the classroom decorations or carry some books for teachers when he had seen them struggling. You had never met anyone as selfless as Heeseung, and it had just broken your heart even more; the way he had looked at you then, as if he had been ready to tear down the sky for you, so your heavy heart could finally rest a bit.

Back then, you had thought that it was because of how selfless he had been. You would have never dared to think that he would ring your Love Alarm one day, and still do so almost two years later when you meet again.

“Heeseung…”

Your voice is barely a whisper when you finally find the will in you to speak up, breaking the silence into tiny little pieces. As if woken from a daze, the boy blinks a few times before clearing his throat and immediately does as he did so in the past:

“I’m so sorry,” he gulps as if he was caught red-handed. At first, you don’t even know why, but then he looks down at his phone, and you realise why. He just rang your Love Alarm, and you didn’t ring his back. Yet again. Or should you say, still?

It feels a bit like déjá vu, but this time, you find your voice before he can leave with dozens of apologies leaving his lips like a lythany. This time, your heart is a bit less heavy, and bitterness isn’t lacing your words as much.

“No. It’s fine, really,” you try to shrug it off, but you can see something flashing across his orbs. Oh, those beautiful orbs, how they always shone so brightly, so clearly and ever so vividly even in your memories. Memories that you kept in your heart like a secret in a hideaway journal, going back to them once in a while, smiling to yourself bitterly, hating and pitying yourself at the same time.

How can it hurt to not love someone? And how much would it hurt for him to still love you knowing that you don’t reciprocate his feelings?

“How have you been?” You ask, gulping down the nervous knot in your throat.

When Heeseung looks back at you, you think for a moment that you shouldn’t have spoken up. You think that you better be leaving, you better just move on with your day and act like nothing happened because it would hurt him less then. It would hurt both of you less.

Yet, in the next second, the corners of his eyes deepen, and his gaze softens. You feel your shoulders relax, your body slowly letting go of the tenseness running through your veins.

“I’ve been good. How about you?”

You nod to his words, glad that he seems to be doing okay. On the other hand, you aren’t sure how to respond because can you really say that you’ve been doing well? That everything was okay when you’ve never felt so lost in your life even though it’s already your third semester at uni? When you’ve never felt like you would wish to turn back time so badly? When you’ve been regretting the choice you made in senior year, when you’ve never hated yourself more for giving in to your parents’ expectations instead of following your heart?

“Me too,” you croak out nevertheless, directing a hopefully convincing smile at the boy. It’s not like it’s his problem that you don’t like your major, and you feel like you would do anything else but search for a specific book on this fine Sunday afternoon for one of your classes that’s only sold at a handful of stores including this one. So you keep the words to yourself, and instead, inquire about his reason to visit when you’re reminded why you came here in the first place.

“Do you come here often?” You look up at him, genuinely curious. How has he really been? Is he enjoying his major? Is he living his life to the fullest? Is he still so kind and selfless to everyone around him? Is he still that humble of a boy?

You realise that you could ask him so many questions, but your mind freezes a bit when he shakes his head.

“I work here,” he explains with a half-smile, pointing at the name tag attached to his shirt. Your lips part in confusion at first, but then you guess:

“Oh, you mean part-time besides uni?”

That seems like a reasonable explanation in your head, but when he continues, you’re proven wrong. So wrong that you can nearly not find the right words to say.

“No. I left university after my second semester.”

His answer sends a wave of shock through your body. Lee Heeseung, the other top student in your class, someone who has been good at every subject, referred to as an excellent pupil all throughout your years together, and it hasn’t been a question that he would get into his desired major has left university after his first year. You know that it seems particularly shocking because it’s him, but you also know that it seems shocking because of the prejudice of being a top student. As if you are supposed to dedicate your whole life to something and go down a path just because you’re good at something.

Since you have no idea whether he didn’t like his major or there was another reason for his departure, you don’t pressure the topic. You know it would break your heart if someone asked about your reason for leaving university, so you don’t do so. Instead, you ask him if he could help you find the book for your class.

Heeseung nods and after a look at your phone’s screen, he starts walking towards a different row. You follow him quietly, yet the questions just don’t leave your mind. What happened that made him leave university? How can he seem so unbothered about it? How can he be so honest about it? You know you wouldn’t be able to do the same, so it’s all the more reason to have doubts.

“Here,” Heeseung reaches the book out to you once he gets it off the shelf, and you reach for it, breaking free from your questions. Your fingers touch for the briefest of a moment when you get your hands on the book, but it feels so much longer with you taking in the boy’s features.

The last almost two years or so have matured him. He has always seemed more mature for his age, but his features are sharper, more defined, and there’s less of a childish innocence to him than before. Now, he radiates calm and serenity, warmth and reassurance. His chestnut-brown orbs still shine so bright, so genuine. Even the way he ruffles his fringe out of his eyes, it seems so familiar yet unfamiliar. He has changed yet he hasn’t. Maybe it’s all what growing up is about.

Can he say the same about you though?

“Thank you,” you mutter out, holding the book to your chest. You know you’re supposed to wish him a good day and then turn around to leave, paying for the book without looking back, but something keeps you there. Something that makes you blurt out the question: “Do you like working here?”

Heeseung seems a bit taken aback by your question, but his lips curl upwards when he meets your eyes. He is truly happy, you can see that. You can see it in the way his smile is so effortless, so natural as if he himself was weightless. You can see it in the way his orbs light up like the stars dotting the night sky. You can feel it in the way he speaks, thorough yet light.

“Yes, I do. I’ve always liked books, and I get to help people, so it feels meaningful. There’s also a café part in the middle of our store where anyone can sit down and read a book and students sometimes work on their assignments, so it’s really cosy.”

“I’m happy for you,” you say, and you really mean it. You’re happy for Heeseung. If he’s happy with his life, you’re too. It’s just that feeling that he’s happy even without that grand life that was planned for him that doesn’t sit right with you. Why can’t you imagine it about yourself? Why can’t you just change your life, so that you would finally enjoy it? You know you aren’t an exception, but still…

“Is there something wrong?” Heeseung asks, quiet, gentle yet confident. You look up, then immediately look back down at the book in your hands. You can’t bear his gaze, you can’t bear the affection in his eyes, you can’t bear the fact that he likes you - still - even after how you have treated him in the past, even if you don’t like him back.

Just how far someone’s love can reach when someone doesn’t like them back? When will he stop ringing your Love Alarm?

“It’s fine. I should get going anyway,” you announce hastily, hoping that he wouldn’t pressure the topic. You feel suffocated as if the air has been punched out of your lungs, and you just want to breathe.

Can you ever freely breathe though?

“Yeah, right. Sure.”

You can hear it in his voice that he would be willing to listen to you and your worries, but you’re afraid. Of opening up. Of admitting how you’re feeling. Of seeming like a failure in his eyes. So you just do as you’ve said, thanking him once more before walking away from him and paying for the book.

Before you leave though, you look back from above your shoulder, and you catch Heeseung’s worried expression, looking at you just standing there beside a row of books. He’s still as if he was waiting for you to go back and tell him what’s wrong, but you can’t.

Not yet.

Being the two top students in the past, Heeseung and you didn’t exchange a lot of words. You had your own methods of studying, you were usually fine doing the tasks and assignments on your own, so you didn’t ask for the other’s help. Even when it came to group work, teachers usually assigned you to different groups, so you could help out other students. Hence, you couldn’t say that you talked a lot to each other, not about feelings at least. You didn’t even want him to know you more than you would have been able to open up, and knowing what he had heard between him and your mother in sophomore years, you weren’t sure that you would ever be able to talk to him honestly.

At this time, you hadn’t yet downloaded Love Alarm, and there was no rumour about Heeseung ringing anyone’s Love Alarm even though a few girls did ring his. So when he stepped to your desk, there was nothing signalling his feelings about you, though maybe if you had known about how he had felt, you wouldn’t have been so harsh on him.

Yet, you were standing in the middle of a hurricane, swept up in your own self-hate, and there was no way out. You had to wait until the storm would go away to be finally free.

“Hi!” He greeted you in his own gentle tone, and you looked up from your notes, squinting your eyes at his figure.

“Hi!” You mirrored his greeting though you weren’t sure why he was there at your desk. Did he need help with something? Or was it about what he had heard between you and your mother?

Gulping tentatively as the thought crossed your mind, you kept looking at him until he put down a book on your desk. When your eyes scanned the title, you looked back at him.

“I’ve thought it might be helpful for your English competition,” he reasoned a bit coyly, scratching the back of his neck. Unable to know about his feelings at this point and not noticing how nervous he was to actually blurt the words out, you assumed that it was about something else, and immediately snapped at him:

“So you think I need it? Because I probably won’t do well?” Just like how your mother was pressuring you to go over some topics with her, just like how your after school English teacher was giving you extra homework, so that you would do exceptionally well at the competition. Because you had to in order to make them proud.

Heeseung looked so alarmed that his eyes grew twice as wide as they were before, his voice coming out thin and insecure when he justified:

“No. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know you’ve heard what my mother said, and I don’t need your pity,” you hissed at him, your voice lacking any kind of empathy. You were just so fed up with people “wanting only the best for you” when it was about nothing but their own selfishness to channel their desire onto you, so that they could feel good about themselves. Because when you did something right, when you achieved a perfect score, it was their win as well, but when you failed, when you didn’t live up to their expectations, it was your fault and yours only because they tried their best.

How many more people would want to make you feel small? Even Heeseung now?

“It’s not about that. I know you can do well, just thought that maybe this would also help,” he explained, stumbling upon his words when you still didn’t soften your gaze.

You felt something bubbling up inside of you when he kept on justifying himself, and you didn’t care that he said that he knew you would do well, you rose from your seat and left the classroom. Left the perplexed Heeseung behind who didn’t even try to come after you.

Thank god he didn’t because you didn’t want him to see how you’ve tried to hold back your tears, and how you needed to muffle your sobs when you closed the restroom’s cubicle on you, feeling like the world was crashing down on you. In that moment, all you could think about was Heeseung seeing you as less capable, and wanting to help you out because you were the second best student in the class.

In that moment, you saw him as an enemy; as an enemy who deemed you weak, so he felt the need to help you.

Because you were weak, and now even Lee Heeseung knew that.

You tell yourself that you don’t come back to the bookstore where Heeseung is working because he’s working there, but you aren’t so sure about that anymore. You might need another book that can be purchased at their store, but no one asks you to stay and work on your assignment with a cup of latte in the café that’s built as a circle in the middle of the whole store.

It’s just that you can’t really wrap your head around the fact that Heeseung still rings your Love Alarm. After almost two years of not seeing each other, of not knowing anything about each other, he still rings it. He still likes you. How is that possible? How can he like you still above anyone else even if he might have encountered multiple girls ever since your graduation, even if you have not been the kindest to him in the past? How can someone’s love towards you be this pure, this unwavering?

You don’t know, so you bury yourself into your assignment instead, checking on the rain outside from time to time because you didn’t bring an umbrella with you, so you want to wait for the rainstorm to quiet down. It doesn’t seem to do so, yet you’re already approaching closing time, so you should probably head home soon.

You decide to finish this paragraph in your assignment before going, but when your phone buzzes on the table, your Love Alarm app signalling that someone in your 10 m radius likes you (it does send you the notification even when you mute your phone), you look up from your laptop just in time to see Heeseung walking towards you with an umbrella in his hands. He must be preparing to leave, you think to yourself.

“Hi!” He greets you with a friendly smile, and you wonder whether he does it with everyone else or his smile is only this radiant when you’re around. How could you have not known in the past? How could you have not caught onto any of his secret glances or affectionate gazes or the way he was trying to help you out?

You know the answer all too well by now; because you didn’t think that you were worthy of love, and you didn’t think that anyone - Heeseung out of all people - would be able to like you when you didn’t even like yourself. You still find it hard to believe for you didn’t grow up in the most loving household, but now you can see more clearly. Now you can see the signs. It just breaks your heart to know that you can’t like him back.

Not yet, at least.

“Hi!” You greet him back, trying with a smile as you point at the umbrella in his hand. “Heading home?” You inquire, not thinking too much into it, but his next words take you aback.

“This is for you. I’ve seen that you didn’t come in with an umbrella, so I’ve thought you might need it,” he explains gently, and for a moment, you don’t know what to say. Heeseung has always been assertive, but you only realise now how assertive he has been towards you and your actions. He has even noticed that you didn’t come in with an umbrella.

“Oh no, I can’t accept it. How will you go home then?”

“We always have spare umbrellas in the staff’s room,” he adds with that same old gentle edge to his voice, and you feel your heart thaw. How can it be that words can be more comforting than grand actions? How can it be that he bares so much of what’s hidden in his heart with only a couple of words?

“I-I’m…” You try to object as usual, but you begin to falter, and you don’t know how to end the sentence, or whether you would want to end it. Back in the days, you would have told him that you were fine on your own, you didn’t need his help but now… You aren’t sure that you would feel okay if you did so.

“Just accept it. I have my own umbrella with me, so I’ll be fine,” he continues explaining, and you look from his face to the umbrella in his hands, and decide to reach for it.

“Thank you,” you smile as you do so, and your heart feels lighter this time. Oh, how you wish you would have done the same in the past! When he secretly or not so secretly tried to help you out. All you should have done was to accept his help and thank him, but instead, you pushed him away again and again.

Still, he’s here, he noticed something small that you didn’t even think he would notice, and he’s offering his help and now, you’re ready to accept it. So, you two head to the bus stop together, talking about whatever that comes to your mind while the rain is pouring onto your umbrellas, and by walking beside him like that, you realise that the storm is only outside, it’s not inside of you anymore.

It was only a matter of time until you broke down under the pressure; until you gave in, your emotions overtaking you instead of numbing your senses. Because that was the thing about working so hard throughout your sophomore then your junior year that you didn’t even have time for yourself and trying to live up to everyone’s expectations; that you discarded your own feelings, and slipped into this dark, bottomless mass of numbness. You didn’t feel your feelings until you did, and then, they were all too much.

With the senior year exams approaching, you had pushed yourself harder than ever even though you had already worked so hard that it was a miracle that you could have pushed yourself further. Yet, you did, and it backfired; your tests coming back with more and more mistakes, sleepless nights spent with agony and guilt, overthinking about the future, fearing the next day with all its expectations and that damn pressure. You lost yourself along the way, and your body felt like an unfamiliar place. You just wanted each day to end, so that you could spend the night with your thoughts spiralling down, but you would have never dared to admit that you were struggling. You told yourself you needed to suck it up to make them proud, you had to.

The only thing you forgot was to make yourself proud.

With all the stress and the sleepless nights, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that you found yourself dizzy during PE class, but it wasn’t until you actually lost your balance and hit your head on the ground that the PE teacher caught sight of your condition, and sent you to the infirmary. It was humiliating enough when you walked away from your classmates and they parted in front of you as if you were contagious, but it was even more so when the teacher sent Heeseung to check up on you.

“I’m fine,” you told him when the boy caught up with you, and you started walking towards the infirmary together. You didn’t dare look at him though, and all you could hear for the next few seconds were the sounds of your footsteps echoing back from the ground.

“Mr Park said that you should take the rest of the day off if you feel unwell,” Heeseung let you know, and you pursed your lips together to hold back a curse.

“I’m not going to take the rest of the day off. I don’t want to miss out on our classes,” you hissed as if it hurt to admit something like that, but it did in a way. You hated to appear weak because being weak meant that people were more lenient towards you, and in this situation, you would hate nothing more than to go home because you hit your head. Go home and face your mother’s questioning as if she had no idea why you weren’t taking care of yourself. As if it was suddenly your fault that this happened.

You didn’t want to face that, you couldn’t, but of course, Heeseung didn’t know that.

“I’ll lend you my notes and send you the homework if you want to,” he offered firmly, but you shook your head. All you wanted to do was to be done with it as soon as possible.

Heeseung didn’t question your silence, and you didn’t have more time to talk because you arrived at the infirmary and the school nurse took care of your scar, disinfecting it and putting on a big plaster, so that it would cover all the skin that was bruised. You could feel Heeseung’s eyes on you the whole time, and it just made you even angrier. Not because he would mock you for your injury or take advantage of the situation, but because he saw you like this. Weak. Yet again.

Your anger didn’t dissolve even when you were finished, so once you left the infirmary, you turned to face the boy, your voice coming out hoarse when you spoke up:

“You can go back to the others.”

“But what if you fall again?” He asked, worried. He might have assumed that you had fallen because you were lightheaded, but he didn’t need to question you like that.

“Then what? You think that me falling will change anything? That it will make my parents change their mind about how I should put school first and me second or even lower? Do you think it would matter in the single bit?” You croaked out, your voice surprisingly not faltering at all. Yet, there was hurt and fury and disappointment lacing your words, and you almost felt sorry that you raised your voice for the second time when it came to him.

What could you do though when he always saw you at your worst?

“I don’t know what your parents are telling you, but getting into a good university isn’t the only way you can live a fulfilling life,” he mumbled quietly, almost like a whisper, but he appeared to be screaming in your head for he was so wrong. So dead wrong.

“Then why are you doing this? Why are you studying so hard?”

“Because I like studying,” he admitted easily, and gosh, how much you wished it would have been that easy for you. You couldn’t have been more different, it seemed. Sure, you had to be the only one suffering. He couldn’t understand you. Maybe no one could at this point.

“Well, good for you, but it’s not like that for me. It’s never been,” you bit out and turned around to walk away from him, not stopping even when he was calling after you.

What did you even think? That he could understand you? It seemed even more impossible now than before, and you didn’t need anybody else to not understand you. You just wanted someone to understand. Was it too much to ask?

There’s something in the way Heeseung cares. It’s gentle like the spring breeze, it’s  there yet still almost unseen like a shadow, and it’s lingering around you whenever you are at the bookstore, searching for one or working on an assignment in their café section. You wouldn’t say that it’s like a ray of sunshine; radiant and warming. No, it’s more like the serenity after a stormy night; it’s reassuring and hopeful.

You don't know what it is that makes you go back to the bookstore again and again. Maybe it’s because Heeseung knows you, knew you at your worst and still talks to you, still rings your Love Alarm, still likes you. Maybe it’s the hope that one day, you might be able to do the same. You don’t know, but for now, it’s enough for you that he’s in your life again, filling it with his understanding and empathy. You feel like you learn a lot from him even though neither of you are very old and wise and experienced, but he’s been through something you look up to him for. It’s just the way he carries himself, the confidence he has towards his future and how things will work out no matter what and the bravery he had to decide to drop out of university to figure out what he wants to do with his life.

When you ask him once if he doesn’t feel guilty or doesn’t feel like falling behind his peers, he simply says:

“I’m not saying there aren’t moments when I feel guilty, but you need to realise that for some people, university has never even been a goal. For some, it’s something they never even considered or couldn’t afford to consider. Just because it’s something glorified for us, the straight A kind of students, doesn’t mean that we will be happy if we go down this path. Nothing is a one size fits all experience in life.”

He has told you that it took some time for his parents to accept his choice, but he trusts himself and he knows that he’s happier ever since leaving university than during those two semesters he has spent there. Since you’re especially curious about his opinion on the subject, the boy catches onto it, raising an eyebrow tentatively.

“Are you thinking of dropping out?”

You shudder. It’s like being caught red-handed. Suddenly, your secret is out in the open, and your silence is an indicator of the confirmation he needs. You don’t dare to meet his eyes, you look out of the window overlooking a busy street with high school students running to the bus stop and important-looking people in business outfits checking the time on their watch; everyone having something to do, something to work towards, and you envy them. You envy them because you want to feel like you have a destination just like they do so, but it seems like running in circles.

“It’s okay. A lot of people are thinking of dropping out,” Heeseung speaks up gently after a few seconds of silence. You have a feeling that he has noticed in the past two months since you have started talking again that you aren’t exactly happy with where you are in life, but he’s as kind as always, trying not to push you for answers or overstepping your boundaries.

“But I can’t… I just can’t. My parents would be so disappointed in me,” you mumble, averting your eyes to your intertwined fingers, picking on a nail absentmindedly.

“And how about you? Would you be disappointed in yourself? Or would you actually be proud of taking this step?”

When Heeseung puts it that way, your throat closes up, and you feel your heart drop. Suddenly, it’s like opening up a wound that you’ve been trying to hide for so long; the pain comes back, first in a small wave then in bigger and bigger ones until you feel dizzy. You purse your lips tight, but you feel tears pricking your eyes, and before you know it, the first teardrop escapes your eyes.

Weak, weak, weak… Hold it in, hold in it…

But it’s too late, and Heeseung already rises from his seat to crouch down beside you, reaching out a tissue. You sniffle as you take it, and you’re thankful that you two are the only ones left at the bookstore with Heeseung closing the store because you aren’t sure that you would be able to take the curious glances or judgemental ones. Heeseung’s worried expression is enough to make you shiver, to make you feel vulnerable and bare; like a naked body shown to someone else for the first time.

“It’s okay. You aren’t weak for crying. In fact, I’m glad you do. You must have kept it all to yourself,” Heeseung whispers gently, and gosh, could he have hit it on the head even more accurately? But then again, it’s him, and he has seen you in the past, and he sees you now, and there’s a lot more he must know without telling you.

Still, the fact that he’s there, soothing you and you can see a heart displayed on your phone because of your Love Alarm notification signalling that somebody in your 10 m radius likes you makes you feel less weak. Maybe it’s not so wrong to show your vulnerability to someone else, maybe you should have done it sooner.

You try to wipe the tears away, but they just keep on falling, falling and falling relentlessly. Through the curtain of your tears, you notice Heeseung putting down a plaster on the table in front of you. You don’t ask about it, but he tells you nevertheless.

“It’s for your heart,” he explains quietly, his words bouncing back from the walls like a ballad. “Let it receive the care it needs,” he adds gently, making you break down completely. He has always seen through you, it seems, even when you wanted to hide your feelings. He has always seen through you even when you wanted to be invisible. He has seen through you, and tried to help, but you pushed him away because you didn’t want him to help you. Because you didn’t think you deserved it.

I’m sorry, you want to scream, shout and throw a tantrum, but instead, you let him wrap his arms around you, and this time, you don’t protest. And he stays. Being weak beside him doesn’t mean he will leave, and for the first time since seeing him again, you realise why he still likes you.

He hasn’t given up on you, he accepted you with everything that you were and still does so, and that is enough for you to hold onto him as he’s hugging you. To really hold onto him.

You downloaded the Love Alarm two weeks before finals.

You convinced yourself that the timing was perfect because your senior year exams were coming up, so in the unlikely event of anyone ringing your Love Alarm, it wouldn’t be that awkward to face them since you two would most probably not see each other again after those weeks. Your sister was being very pushy to get you to download it because ‘who knows? someone might actually like you’, but you knew that she did it because she wanted to prove to herself that she was the first choice for others, not you.

The favourite child and the perfect girl, someone who was loved so much by others. Your parents were lenient with her because she was sociable, having tons of friends and being on good terms with teachers even if she didn’t study particularly well. She got into an average university, but your parents didn’t care. Why? Because she was already someone at her school, she was already someone known and loved.

The only way you could be someone at your school was by being a straight A student, and it couldn’t have been more obvious when you tried to argue with your parents why they didn’t care so much about your sister’s grades and they said that it was completely different with her. Of course, it would be different with her. Everything was different with her. Her Love Alarm was ringing like crazy back in high school and even strangers came up to her to tell her how beautiful she was.

You told yourself that it didn’t matter anyway if you downloaded the app or not because you wouldn’t tell her even if someone did ring your Love Alarm. You didn’t believe in it, you were sure nobody would ring it, but you were proven wrong the day after downloading the app.

Since phones were collected during the school day for the sake of peaceful classes without the constant ringing, you only got your phone back after the school day, and the first thing you did was to go to the library to search for a book on essay writing in English.

You didn’t even think too much about having your phone back, but as you were trying to reach for the book you needed, your phone buzzed. The sound of the notification sent a shiver down your phone. It was a ringing sound; the ringing sound of your Love Alarm app.

Confused, you looked down at your phone, but the screen said the same: Someone in your 10 m radius likes you with a giant heart in the middle. You furrowed your eyebrows in question, turning your head left and right until you noticed Heeseung standing by the end of the row, apparently as bewildered as you were.

Lee Heeseung liked you. He rang your Love Alarm. But how? And why? There was no reason for him to like you. You didn’t even treat him well. All you wanted was to push him away. If anything, he should have hated you and despised you and avoided you as much as possible. So why? Why did he like you? It must be a glitch, it had to be, it couldn’t be that he…

“I’m so sorry,” Heeseung spoke up suddenly, interrupting your train of thoughts, and all of the explanations you were trying so hard to bring up were thrown out of the window. Heeseung liked you, and he was apologising for it because you didn’t ring his Love Alarm back. If your current state wasn’t enough to make you hate yourself, not being able to like someone who actually liked you made it hard to stand yourself in that moment.

“I… No. I…” You were stuttering, trying to tell him that you were the one being sorry, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say it. You were still so shocked. When had he even started liking you?

“I’m sorry. Please, don’t feel pressured by my feelings. You can just ignore it. In fact, I can delete the Love Alarm app if you want to,” he suggested hastily as he was already typing something on his phone, but you told him not to.

“I mean, you can if you want to, but it doesn’t bother me. I’ll just leave it on mute, I guess,” you offered, trying so hard to make this work, but you couldn’t deny your feelings (to be precise, the lack of your feelings), and it hurt you. It hurt you to look at him still trying to make compromises and trying to make you feel better about the situation when he should have been blaming you, hating you, calling you names…

But he didn’t. He did neither.

“I’m sorry. I-” The boy was already walking away, probably in an attempt to save the situation, but then he turned around before disappearing by the corner. “I hope that you can tend to your heart one day, and give it the care it deserves.”

And then he was gone, and for the first time in what felt like ages, you started crying.

If you assumed that Heeseung would look at you any differently because you broke down in front of him, you would be wrong. He didn’t. In fact, he helps you with whatever he can when you decide to drop out, and he even helps you when you talk to your parents because you have a feeling that your parents would feel more reassured if they knew that someone like Heeseung was happy without finishing his degree.

At first, they aren’t in the least happy about it. They are even trying to tell you that Heeseung is being a bad influence, and you shouldn’t meet him. Then, they start noticing the changes. The way you begin to speak up during family dinners; the way you leave the house more often to go visit some places with Heeseung or to discover a new one by yourself; the way your lips curl upwards more naturally whenever you smile; the way there’s actually enthusiasm in your voice when you talk about your day at the stationary store you work at, and the way you’re just being more at ease with yourself.

You know you have to make the choices, you know you have to change the way you think about success, happiness and yourself and you also know that there’s still a long way to go, but now more than ever, you feel at peace. Your heart is lighter, and you let yourself feel emotions. You let yourself cry over seemingly stupid nothings or sad movies, you let yourself be angry and disagree with someone, you let yourself feel frustrated and stand up for yourself, but most important of all, you let yourself be loved and love others.

You can’t even tell when the fine line between you and Heeseung starts to shift because you begin to date even before you can ring his Love Alarm back. He doesn’t push you, but you tell him that you want to repay him for all that he has done for you, and you feel like this is the only way you can give him a chance: by allowing him to love you and hoping that one day you can love him back.

No matter how torn you are over this, Heeseung reassures you again and again that he doesn’t mind. He loves being beside you, and he doesn’t mind if you can’t love him back yet. He’s willing to wait, just like he has done so since your graduation. Since he’s okay with it, you don’t try to pick yourself apart for not being able to ring his Love Alarm. You know that with the way the boy is, the day will come soon, you just don’t know when.

One day, you go on a date with him - one out of many -, and as you walk up to him on the streets, you hear the familiar ringing coming from your phone. Yet, the boy also looks down at his phone, and his lips twitch.

“Did you…” He starts by mumbling, and you don’t even know what he means until he shows you the screen of his phone. You see the big, beating red heart on his screen alongside the notification, and your heart beats alongside the news. You just rang Heeseung’s Love Alarm! You did it, you finally did it! You are so shocked and amazed yet so happy at the same time, you don’t even know what you should do with yourself, there’s just this overwhelming wave of emotions inside of you that wants to break out.

So you let it.

“I love you, Lee Heeseung,” you exclaim as you close the distance between you two and he immediately wraps his arms around you, then spins you around. Then, he puts you down, and as you look up at him, you can see tears in the corner of his eyes.

“Thank you,” he whispers, touched, and how much you wish you could have done it sooner for the smile on his face is anything you could have ever wished for. For as long as you can remember, you thought that you had to be the picture perfect of your life, but now you know that this moment is your forever picture perfect.

It’s perfect just like the hearts of yours beating at the same time, beating at the same rhythm and beating for the other.

Seungyoun had always been the one you would walk through fire for, you would fight wars to protect him and keep him away from all the bad in the world, you would travel countries to see him again because you loved him so much, so deeply, so naturally that being beside him felt like breathing, and you felt suffocated whenever you were away from him.

He was the one for whom it didn’t feel like sacrifice when you put him first; when you would stay up late at night to make him lunch for the next day, so he wouldn’t live on takeout constantly; you would check on him despite being exhausted yourself because you knew he tended to stay out late at the studio to work on songs; you would cancel plans just to spend more time with him because being with him (the one who knew you better than anyone else) still meant more than being with anyone else; you kept your worries and problems to yourself, buried them deep under caring words and gentle acts when his depression was resurfacing, and he needed you more than ever.

He was always the one who meant the most to you, and if he had asked, you would have run away with him, no matter the destination, no matter the consequences. You would go with him without question.

Until you wouldn’t.

You loved each other deeply, intimately, unconditionally; two souls of the same heart, two flickers of the same flame, two galaxies colliding, complementing each other perfectly, the darkness and the light finding its perfect balance in the bodies of you two.

Until you weren’t.

You held each other’s hands through thick and thin, through your inner and external demons, through the cruel twists of fate, through loss and grief, through ups and downs of life.

Until you didn’t, and you didn’t know anymore how to reach out to hold each other’s hand, but you weren’t ready to let go yet.

And then, on the verge of a break-up, a pandemic happened, and you were stuck together under the same roof, doubt and uncertainty numbing your pain like the best pain killers would.

You were at work when you heard the news: the government shutting down the borders, the citizens asked to stay at home and avoid leaving their house if not for groceries or exercise, places where people from different households could mingle asked to close including the café where you worked. Everything in the matter of 24 hours. You never knew how little 24 hours could mean if it was about something so life-changing.

Somehow, you managed to keep yourself together throughout the rest of the day, but only because it didn’t feel real. This virus that had been such a distant phenomena so far had just turned your life upside down, and you could do nothing about it. You felt as if it was a stupid joke, and the next day, you would wake up and it would go away. It would all go away, and you could come back to this café, and serve the customers with a smile on your face as you had done so for the past years.

Instead, customers were panicking, employees were panicking, and your boss was making phone calls with the local government to ask about the sudden closure. You were sent home early, the place closing sooner that didn’t seem futile considering the lack of people who would come by after the news.

Yet, just as you were heading home, you realised that a different kind of chaos was waiting for you, and you weren’t sure that you could take it considering the consequences. You secretly hoped that Seungyoun wouldn’t be home, so that you could avoid seeing him first things first, but the world turned its back on you multiple times that day, and it didn’t go easy on you when you arrived at your shared flat with your boyfriend of 5 years.

Seungyoun was in the kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee when you made your way to the fridge, putting in the last two boxes of milk you could find at the store.

“Have you heard the news?”

He asked as if the world hadn’t turned upside down, and no one had been panicking, but maybe with him spending most of his time at his studio, secluded from the rest of the world, the news of lockdown was a rather recent event for him.

“Yeah,” you kept it brief, not finding it in yourself to pick a fight with him or pour your frustration onto him. The truth is: even if you had wanted to go elsewhere, you had nowhere else to go. Neither of you had. So even if you could feel a possible break-up looming over the two of you, you couldn’t run away from the place where it would probably happen. You were stuck there for god knows how long.

“What did they say at the café?” Seungyoun inquired, his voice raspy yet worrying.

“That they are going to try and figure things out,” just like you should have done so with him. It was killing you inside; the unsaid tension in the air. You could feel it clutching at your neck, squeezing your throat. “How about you?” You asked instead, busying yourself with making a cup of tea. You always preferred tea over coffee, just another difference between you and him.

“I’ll work from home. I’ve picked up my essential equipment, and I’m going to do it from here.” he replied almost monotonically, lacking any enthusiasm. Maybe he was merely trying to be sympathetic, knowing all too well that you - a waitress at a café - couldn’t possibly work from home, but you still felt bitterness twist your stomach. He was so lucky. 

“That’s good.”

“Yeah,” he added as if he didn’t want silence to cover the two of you, but his word was drowned by the sound of the water boiler anyway, and then you were left alone in the kitchen with a searing cup of tea and more questions than answers. You didn’t even know who could give you the answers you wanted. Probably no one. And you weren’t ready to face the truth, not yet.

That night, you slept on the couch in the living room, already thinking of using the excuse of sleeping through a movie you watched on TV (a bad habit of yours), and turning in as you turned the TV off.

But Seungyoun didn’t ask about it the next day, and you didn’t do so yourself.

Lockdown didn’t seem to do you good, neither of you actually, not individually, not as a couple. It wasn’t even that you picked fights in the beginning. If anything, silence was the one that kept distancing you two which was odd since it had been something that had brought you closer before.

With Seungyoun, even silence used to feel comfortable. Even silence had its own melody beside him, its own story, its own comfort. Neither of you were talkative extroverts, so it meant a lot if you didn’t feel awkward around someone else in silence, but with him, it had been rather something warm, something cosy instead. You even remembered how he had dared to hold hands with you for the first time while walking home from the cinema in utter silence, and how quiet it had been (apart from the crazy beating of your heart) when he had first kissed you. As if the world had fallen silent when you were with him, and it was just you two, your hearts beating for the other, and no riot, no revolution could stop that.

Until it became the sly, sneaky illness that crept up from the within, and started destroying you from the inside, attacking your lungs (finding it hard to breathe beside him) and your heart (finding it hard to feel your heart beat for him again).

Later, as time went by, and the situation didn’t seem to clear up (it got only worse), the silence turned into nasty words and petty fights, both parties weary and impatient. Neither of you were wrong or right, you were just frustrated, and having no one else around, you dumped your frustration onto the other.

“What?” Seungyoun asked once as you stepped into his room early in the morning, and he slid his headphones onto his neck, raising an eyebrow tentatively.

“I’m going to the grocery store. Do you need anything?”’ You asked, hoping to be peaceful and helpful now that you had more time on your hands. You even tried with a little smile, but your lips quivered at his hardened expression and knife-like tone:

“I’m in the middle of a meeting.”

The truth is: he was always working, lacking a proper schedule. Let it be at the break of dawn or sunset, he was most often curled up in his room (the closet that he had turned into his own studio room ever since the beginning of lockdown because it was almost empty anyways), working on songs with his headphone on his head. It didn’t help at all that he couldn’t hear a thing when he was working, so even mealtimes were spent separately, and you no longer found joy in cooking for him (even if that seemed the only thing you could do given the circumstances), seeing his reaction all to yourself.

Now, he most often didn’t even wash up after himself, and he didn’t even comment on your cooking. Sometimes, you even had to be the one to bring him food because he didn’t feel like coming out of his studio room.

So your hopes of being friendly with him completely crushed, you tightened your jaw and asked with a bit more fury this time:

“Do you need anything or not?”

“No.” He shook his head, and was about to put his headphones on yet again, but before he did so, he asked. “And next time, please, knock before you come in.”

“Oh, please. Next time, I’m not going to ask if you need anything,” you snapped back vigorously, and slapped the door behind you, your body trembling as you walked away from his room.

This tension was killing you, and you literally had to live with it all day, every day. You weren’t allowed to leave your neighbourhood as per your local government’s guidelines, and besides, where could you have gone? You hadn’t talked to your parents ever since they had given up on you when you had failed to get into a university, and opted for working right after high school. You had moved away from them and worked at a hostel first where they could provide accommodation on top of a moderate salary. Then, when you had made enough money to afford a monthly pay-flat for yourself, you had started working at the café and ever since moving together with Seungyoun two years before, you really had nowhere else to go.

This was a fact that you had been living with for the past few years, but now, this fact seemed to mockingly laugh at you, point its finger at you and call you names each and every day when you either picked fights with your boyfriend or you stared at the wall in front of you, completely alone in the living room.

Sometimes, your arguments were finished there. You picked a fight, and it died on its own like a flower petal thrown into the flames, and you watched as it crumbled into pieces, then into ashes. And sometimes, it snowballed into another fight that wasn’t as petty, but that’s why it hurt more. Because you were scratching a surface that was deep and personal, and it had been some time since you had been deep and personal with the other if it weren’t for an argument.

This time, it was the latter.

“About earlier…” Seungyoun mumbled as you passed by him in the kitchen that night, putting your mug into the sink.

“It’s fine. You can totally act as if I’m the bad one here because you can work from home, and I can’t. I get it. Sorry to have interrupted you.” You shrugged nonchalantly as you started washing the dishes that were piling up there, standing with your back to him. Maybe you were trying to scrap the dirt off a bit too vehemently, but you didn’t care. How you looked and how you felt could be complete opposites, but it had been sometime since he had dared to ask about it. Probably because he knew that he was the same.

So you weren’t even surprised that you were almost halfway through the dishes when he spoke up next.

“I didn’t want you to feel this way. I was just a bit frustrated,” he admitted, and while he did seem genuinely sorry, you felt annoyance bubbling up inside of you again, and it was like a cough that you couldn’t keep down. You had to let it out to be able to breathe properly.

“Over having a job? How bad for you.”

Silence. Again. Not a comforting one. Again.

You were almost completely done washing the dishes when he spoke up next with the same quiet, gentle, almost uncertain tone of his. As if he was trying to be hopeful when even he himself doubted his own words.

“I know it’s hard for you, but we’ll get through it, okay? I make enough money-” He started almost like a reassurance, but you cut him off immediately.

“I know you do, but you know I’ve always hated to depend on others.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t hate it so much. When will you ever accept the help others are trying to give you instead of always doing everything for others yourself?” Seungyoun counter-attacked, his voice rising. It unnerved you how wise he seemed about how you should be feeling when he didn’t live by his words either. You were both crumbling down like sand castles swept up by the waves, but neither of you could admit it, or dare to hope for a better outcome: a stronger, more resilient sand castle built up by the two of you that couldn’t be torn down.

When you finished with the last plate, you put it onto the drying rack, and dried your hands in a rug. Then, you turned around, facing the storm eye-to-eye.

“And when will you finally believe that you’re not a burden, and that you can actually tell me everything because I’ll listen to you, and I’m not lying when I say I do?”

You know it was a low blow, but he needed to hear it. And when was a better time to tell him when he had been cooped up in his studio room, working almost all day, and all the times you could see him, you were almost always picking silly little fights or being in complete silence? As if you had nothing to tell each other anymore. As if you had nothing to fight for. As if there was nothing left off you two anymore.

Seungyoun let out a shaky breath, and closed his eyes for a few seconds before he opened them again. You almost took your words back for they seemed too cruel, but an apology died on the tip of your tongue. You just couldn’t bear to say it. You wanted to understand him and be understood, but you couldn’t feel like either of them could be accomplished given the circumstances.

“You know, it’s hard for me to open up, but I’m working on it… and actually, you’ve helped through it. You’ve helped me so much to cope with my depression, so let me at least help this time, okay?” He offered quietly, almost pleadingly, but your head was splitting, and you didn’t have the will in you to continue with this.

“I’m going to sleep,” so you announced, and with that, you walked past him, straight into your shared bedroom, awaiting yet another sleepless night.

He didn’t even stop you, and you didn’t stop beside him either.

Days turned into weeks, and after a while, you lost count of the days of the week. There was no Monday or a weekend anymore, it was just the same. All the same. You were lucky that the government implemented a furlough scheme, and you could be paid to a certain extent of your usual salary, so money wasn’t that much of a problem anymore. However, the uncertainty was killing you, and it was killing your relationship as well. You were literally trapped in your own misery, and it seemed like there was no way out.

You began sleeping more on the couch in the living room, numbing your feelings with another series you could binge-watch, and Seungyoun didn’t say a word. You had a feeling that if you were just honest for once, it would help, but it seemed that neither of you wanted to be honest. Which was understandable given that the world was going crazy around you, but you two were the only ones who could talk to each other, yet you didn’t do so.

Hence, you didn’t even go easy on the other when it came to fights, and it didn’t seem to change as time went by. You were running in circles, and even if you were running on full-speed, with all your might, it wasn’t enough. Because this time, you should have been running with your heart, not your mind.

The clock said 02:19 when you looked at it from the couch. Sadly, you lay awake, unable to go back to sleep after being woken up by Seungyoun who had gone to the bathroom to take a shower. Maybe he didn’t even know what time it was. Or he didn’t care.

On the other hand, when he came out of the bathroom, you rose from the couch and took a few steps closer to him, crossing your arms in front of your chest. He came to a halt when he caught sight of you, awake at such an hour.

“Please, can you not take a shower at 2AM? I keep waking up in the middle of the night because of you,” you told him straightaway, your patience running thin.

He looked back, alarmed and scared, like an animal trapped in a cage, and when you looked into his eyes, you remembered how much you had gazed at him (and how much you had loved doing so): at his slightly longer raven locks, at the fine arch of his thick eyebrows, at the lines his emotions painted onto his parchment-like skin, at the curls of his lips and of course at his deep, dark, captivating eyes. This time, they looked like black holes; bottomless and mysterious, almost out of reach.

“Sorry, I got a bit carried away lately with a song that I’m working on,” he admitted quietly, his voice coming out hoarse.

You let out an aghast sigh, wondering how you can avoid picking a fight yet again, but you were weary and bruised and so very sick of what was going on in your flat that you didn’t stop there.

“You’re working from home, Seungyoun. Can’t you have a schedule for yourself?”

“You don’t even have anything important to do, why does it bother you if I have a schedule or not?” His voice wasn’t accusing, more like defensive, but his words still felt like arrows aimed at your heart. You saw realisation flashing across his eyes when the previous calmer expression fell from your face, but before he could take back his words, you spoke up.

“You’re right. I’m just wasting my time, trying to make homemade bread for us, cooking us all three meals, cleaning, taking out the trash, doing grocery shopping because I have nothing else to do. Or wait, it’s actually because I would rather seem busy than wonder when the fuck will I ever be able to work again, and if I can ever go back to being a waitress when they say there will be more waves, and it might last for years,” you threw your words at him, fighting against him with your own words while your body remained stiff and still.

You were bleeding, searching for a different weapon to use, and a different method to save him from bleeding, but neither of you knew anything better than words. You were so bad at them yet they seemed to be your only salvation.

Seungyoun took a step closer to you, looking straight into your eyes as if he was trying to pin you there with his gaze. It worked because it was the first time for weeks that you were so close to each other, daring to look the other in the eye. It was both familiar and unfamiliar, the sensation sending chills down your spin.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that,” he mumbled quietly, taking another step closer to you, and having him so close, your heart sank. For him, for you, for the both of you. For everything that was going on in the world, in your flat, and in between you two. You felt yourself trembling a bit, a sudden wave of emotions overcoming you because of how intensively, how caringly he looked at you. It’s been so long. Or maybe you had both been blind to see beside the other’s intentions because you were so far from each other (your hearts were) even though you were in the same place.

You balled your hands into fists, pursing your lips tight, but when the first teardrop rolled down your face, you knew you lost. You had been playing this losing game ever since you two had started drifting away from each other, and the lockdown had only made everything worse. Yet, you had never faltered, you had never appeared weak because you had wanted to seem strong. You had always wanted to seem strong for him because you had always wanted him to know that he could go to you, that he could hold onto you, and that he could use you as a shield against his depression. But maybe you had never been as strong as you had wanted to.

“Hey…” Seungyoun whispered gently, reaching out to you tentatively, and this time, you let yourself fall into his arms, admitting that you were weak, that you needed support, and that you needed him. It had been so long since he had touched you so lovingly, so intimately, and just more and more teardrops fell at this realisation.

That maybe he hadn’t been the only one who hadn’t trusted the other with their feelings, you hadn’t trusted your own feelings either. Because facing them would be more difficult than numbing them. Until they burst in the form of searing tears, a gentle pat on the back and a hug that seemed like a haven from the outside world at that moment.

That night was like an unsaid confession between you two. You tried to be more patient with the other afterwards, and Seungyoun tried to create a schedule for himself, you could note that. Once, he even joined you for a movie you were watching. Another time, you even had breakfast together. A few days later, you saw him cleaning his own plates. Tiny little things that seemed to work so smoothly now, but they had created so much tension in the past.

Nothing was really announced between you and Seungyoun, but there were definitely less fights and less silly little nit-picks. You could feel that you both needed time to come to terms with your own feelings first, and that’s what you were also trying to do. However, you knew that you still needed to talk it out with him, it was just a matter of time.

So a few weeks later, when you heard him walk out of the bathroom at night, you went after him, quietly joining him at the kitchen table. There was just something about this night, something that didn’t let either of you sleep, so you reckoned that it was best if you weren’t alone.

You didn’t want him to be alone.

“Sorry, did I wake you up?” Seungyoun inquired quietly, but you shook your head.

“No. I just can’t sleep either.”

Since he didn’t object, you knew that you were right about him not being able to sleep. He was the type who had too much on his mind, but while in the past, you had asked him until he had given in, recently you hadn’t even asked him in the first place. It was so sad, how much you two had changed in the past few months. Maybe it was adulting, or maybe it was because you had been together for 5 years already, or maybe you had both managed to get into a slump at the same time, and there was no one who could pull the other out of the darkness when you couldn’t even find each other in the pitch-black maze of life.

He had been your one and only love, he had been your first in all aspects, and you knew that it was the same for him. You had found each other just at the right time, you had both needed someone to be there for you, and you had both saved each other. You had loved so much, so deeply, and you had felt like you could live with him for the rest of your life because you would trust him with your heart and soul.

In the past few months, everything from the years before had just seemed to go up in flames, hence when lockdown had started, you had both been burning already. At one point, you had felt that you had already turned into ashes, but that night gave you hope that maybe, you two could be reborn from the ashes, and fly again like a phoenix.

Maybe Seungyoun was reminiscing just as well for he was staring far ahead without saying anything. That’s how you were just sitting there for minutes, only the sound from the clock on the wall filling up the room with any kind of noise. No wonder you averted your eyes so suddenly when he actually broke the silence.

“Look, I’ve been thinking, and you’re right. Lately, I’ve started bottling things up again. I mean, already before the lockdown, but it’s just…” He started, hesitant, visibly struggling to get the words out. You bobbed your head, even tried with a little smile to prompt him to go on. You would wait for it. “You seemed so happy and upbeat every time you came home from work, I didn’t want to bother you with how low I was feeling,” he admitted hoarsely. Then, he looked down at his intertwined fingers, probably replaying the sight of your bright smile from those times.

You gulped, feeling his sorrow all too well, and knowing exactly what he meant by it. In a way, you were doing the same. He tried to hide his pain because you seemed so happy, and you were trying to be strong for him because he seemed like he needed it. Gosh, how much you had done for the other without actually realising it.

“Seungyoun, you…” You started, unsure how to continue when there was just so much to say. You weren’t sure that you would be able to say the right words, but you continued either way. “You give me more happiness by being honest with me than any work day could,” you admitted gently, your lips curling into a bittersweet smile. Gosh, how much you wish you had said it sooner. Maybe he would have stopped doubting himself, maybe he would have dared to reach out, maybe… there were too many maybes now.

You pulled yourself back from your agonising thoughts, directing your full attention at the boy in front of you. A boy, or maybe a young man by now, but he was still that kind-hearted boy you had met years ago with his heart in pieces and smile so scarce that your heart did little summersaults whenever he smiled at you (or because of you). You had been through thick and thin together, and it was breaking your own heart how you had been at the edge of the cliff a few weeks ago. Now, you were at least trying to reach for something steady, so that you wouldn’t fall. You were both willing to save yourself and the other.

“I know how difficult it is for you to open up, so when you do, I feel like I fall in love with you again and again because you let me see your soul, and it’s so beautiful, I wish you could see it and believe it for yourself,” you added to your earlier confession, words tender like the sunshine melting the snow on a frosty morning and quiet like a whispered lullaby to a child before bedtime.

You kept your eyes on him, and you only realised how big of a confession you had made when his lips started quivering. It’s been so long since either of you had said that you loved the other out loud. This sentiment had disappeared with the monotonous, gloomy days of lockdown, the invisible yet very much present tension and the break-up that you had been oh so painfully nearing. You had started to think that you would do him good if you actually let him go, and maybe he had felt the same way, and that’s why you hadn’t been so keen on confessions.

Yet now… as you looked at each other, and you felt just how deliberating it was to admit that yes, you loved him, you still did, and you were willing to be honest with each other in hopes of trying to save your relationship, you couldn’t have been further from that feeling.

Instead, when Seungyoun’s eyes started getting teary, you felt yourself being moved by the sight. It was almost automatic how it crept on you, and churned your heart.

“I’m sorry. I should have been more honest with you,” he remarked hoarsely, putting his head in his hands, quieting his sobs. Your hands were shaking as you were reaching out to him, but when your fingers touched his knuckles, you didn’t feel any objection. Instead, his grip softened.

“I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry that I’ve probably made everything worse during lockdown. So thank you for telling me this now,” you croaked out between two sobs, taking his hands into yours, intertwining them.

When Seungyoun looked up and your eyes met, you realised yet again just how much you loved him, and how much you wanted him to be happy. Through your tears, you saw the boy who had waited for you in front of the café with a bouquet of flowers on your 1-year anniversary. You saw the boy who could have hardly believed that he had received an award for his work no matter how talented he was. You saw the boy who had made you a surprise breakfast in bed when you had had a particularly painful period, and couldn’t have left your bed for the love of god. You saw the boy who had kept dropping by a bakery on his way home after you had mentioned that you loved their almond croissant the most. You saw the boy who had brought you medicine at the break of dawn when you had been sick, and who had said that he would rather be beside you at such times than worrying from afar.

And now, you saw the boy whom you had hurt and who had hurt you, but all you could think was that if he was willing to let you put the pieces together, you would gladly mend the heart you had broken.

It was like falling in love all over again, except that you had a shared past together with Seungyoun. Yet, with each day and interaction, you discovered a different side of his, and you slowly started to slip into this cosy, soft feeling. You began to trust him, to feel comforted by him and to let him see your vulnerable side again. You began talking, actually talking again, and spending time together that didn’t involve wanting to avoid each other most of the time and not saying a single word to each other.

Yeonjun was soft, oversize hoodies, sweaty hugs, the fluidity of dance moves, the duality of him on and off-stage, the green tea shampoo he used, the cherry blossom detergent he washed his practice clothes with, and the gentle smile looking back at you in the mirror.

You and Yeonjun met at a dance studio. Not so surprising because he was a professional dancer there, but you didn’t know that, and you went there for a beginner hip-hop class because you had been eyeing it for some time, and you finally decided to give it a try. Since you had never been to the practice rooms before, only at the offices to hand in your application, you asked the receptionist where you would find the practice room for the beginner-level class starting at 7. She told you the directions, and then you went on your way.

Initially, you were very confident, remembering every direction the receptionist had just told you, but when you walked into a practice room, and only one sweaty boy was there, you were quick to turn on your heels.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to interrupt you,” you apologised with a semi-awkward smile, knowing all too well that your teacher would be a female dancer, so it couldn’t be your teacher who was there before the beginning of the class.

Not to mention that this boy looked as if he had run a marathon, sweating through his grey hoodie (yet not discarding it) and panting while you were excusing yourself. He wore sneakers and shorts with the hoodie which seemed like an odd combination to you since you were the type to feel cold in your legs first, but maybe he felt cold in his upper body first.

He raised his hands in the air, motioning you to stop, and you did so, taking in his slender figure, those deep, jet-black orbs and those fluffy, midnight-black locks. He ran a hand through his hair before clearing his throat, speaking up.

“No, it’s fine. Have you booked the slot after mine?” he inquired as he put his hands on his hips, furrowing his eyebrows as if he wanted to make sure that he didn’t interrupt your practice session which couldn’t have been further from the truth.

“Uhmm well, no. I was looking for the practice room for the beginner-level hip-hop class, and I’ve thought that it would be this one, but it turns out it’s not,” you stated the obvious, letting out a chuckle, soon followed by the boy’s wholehearted laughter.

“Ah, that’s fine. This place is like a labyrinth,” he added casually, probably to soothe your nerves, but if anything, him with that lopsided smile, his sweaty yet attractive state, and those warm eyes only made your nerves act up even more. “Let me help you find your practice room,” he suggested in a friendly way, but you were quick to protest.

“Oh, no, you don’t need to! I wouldn’t want to keep you up.”

“You’re not keeping me up. I was supposed to finish about half an hour ago, but I got carried away,” he admitted a bit sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. He averted his eyes to the clock on the wall, nodding to himself as if confirming that he was indeed staying longer than he wanted, then looking back at you. The way he looked at you so expectantly made your heart go wild, and you really couldn’t say no to him when he looked at you like that.

“Well, thanks in advance then,” you gave in, flashing him a friendly smile, and he did the same, jogging up to you to fall in step with you.

While you were walking towards the practice room he thought where the class would be (he told you that beginner-level classes were in a different section of the building, and usually night classes were held in the same rooms each day), you exchanged introductions. The boy even told you about how he had ended up at the HYBE Dance Studio, and you listened to him attentively, absorbing his words as if it was medicine. It could be seen based on even such a short conversation how much he loved dancing, and it made you smile - his passion and enthusiasm for something that you had been also eyeing for some time. Sure, you didn’t want to become a professional dancer yourself, but his enthusiasm was definitely contagious. You felt like you were at the right place to learn dance.

That day, before you would say goodbye to each other, he gave you his Kakaotalk ID in case you needed help with the directions in the building, or if you needed help with dancing, and you couldn’t help but blush deeply, not knowing just how much time you would spend with him in the future.

Yeonjun was childlike sulking, flirty remarks and teasing smiles, the energy that lifted you up, the joy that slowly crawled into your days, the warmth that spreaded through your veins whenever he was around, and the sunshine peaking through the clouds after a stormy night.

After your first encounter, Yeonjun started dropping by the practice room where your class was, and while it was initially embarrassing because he would come to see you dance and practice with the others, and you were nowhere near good, it became less awkward after a while. The boy was as supportive as one could be, and he usually stayed after the classes to help you whenever you were under the weather because you didn’t get a sequence right. And even though he would take it seriously to help you with dancing, otherwise he was joking around so much that your stomach usually hurt after meeting him. He wasn’t afraid of breaking into twerking or dancing foolishly, but he also showed you the Watermelon Sugar & Blow performance he was working on, and it literally blew your mind.

“You can’t tell me you find my dancing enjoyable when you dance like this,” you chuckled, sinking down to the ground to do some cool down exercises.

The boy dropped a lazy, pretty smug grin, and you wished you could give him the satisfaction of not seeing you affected by his actions, but your cheeks flushed immediately, and he caught sight of that which pulled his lips into an even wider grin.

“But it’s soooo cute!” He cooed as he leaned closer and raised his voice to sound more high-pitched. You laughed, nudging his shoulder to hide your embarrassment at his words (and also to push him further from you because he appeared dangerously close). Yeonjun joined you in on the laughter, then cleared his throat.

“Anyways, dancing isn’t just about how it looks. It’s also about how it feels, and it can be seen that you enjoy it, and that you’re confident even though the moves may not be on point all the time. You may not believe it, but it’s something that people who have been dancing for years find difficult: to appear confident. So that’s why I like watching you dance. You have the confidence and the passion, and it shows.”

You were speechless, safe to say. No one had ever said such a monologue about your dancing even though you showed some practice videos to your friends and family, so he wasn’t the only one who saw you dancing like that. Yet, maybe he was the only one who actually saw you; saw you behind the hairflips and the hip moves and all those confident facial expressions.

Given that he was a professional dancer himself, his compliment felt extra nice, but you couldn’t deny that you were affected by his words to this extent because you had warmed up to each other in the last few months, and maybe, just maybe, someone had fallen in love along the way. Yeonjun was easy to be around, and you found yourself looking forward to your dance practices more because you could meet him afterwards than because of the practice itself. It was silly, you knew, especially since the boy seemed generally very flirty, but the more time you spent together, the stronger your feelings grew, and you couldn’t help it.

So it was not only because of his compliment that your cheeks were tinted burgundy, but of course, Yeonjun being Yeonjun, he couldn’t not comment on your very much obvious reaction.

“Ooooh, you’re blushing!” Yeonjun teased as he pointed at your face, and you yanked his hand away in an attempt to counterattack him, but he didn’t back down. Instead, he let you try and push his hands away time and time again until he caught your wrist and pulled you closer.

You gulped as you looked into his jet-black orbs. You saw your reflection in his eyes, and you wondered what he could see in that moment. You saw him, the slightly amused tugging of his lips, the curiosity bathing in caution in his eyes, the drops of sweat sliding down his slightly heated cheeks, the defined features of a 20-something boy, and you knew in that moment that you lost. You lost against your feelings for him.

“Where does your confidence go whenever you’re close to me like this?” he inquired, but instead of a teasing edge to his words, there was gentleness lacing his question, and it made your heart drop.

“You have this effect on me. I can’t help it,” you admitted, almost as a whisper, a secret shared between the beating hearts of yours, the air around you two still and heavy with questions and anticipation.

“You can be confident around me. I won’t hurt you,” he breathed out as he leaned even closer, close enough for you to hear his even breathing and his steady heartbeat. So he was actually this calm when he was so close to you? His heart didn’t race as yours did. Maybe it’s because everything was written on your face already, but you… you didn’t quite want to believe that he was feeling this way.

“I know,” you confirmed feebly, already falling, falling so hard, but if he was there to catch you, you didn’t mind. He made you dizzy, his closeness making you lightheaded, and the air between you two was searing, and you were afraid that you would burn to ashes if you weren’t careful. But maybe he wasn’t the fire itself, he was the match that lit up the fire inside of you.

“Then, what are you afraid of?”

“It’s scary…” You started, your breath hitching in your throat when you saw his eyelashes fall heavily, painting dark little crescents under his eyes. However, when you continued, he opened his eyes, as if waking from a daze. “It’s scary how much I can feel and how intensively.”

“You’re not the only one who feels that way,” he confessed softly as a small smile was making its way onto his mellow lips, and you were mesmerized by the simplicity yet complexity of such a gaze, of such a touch, of such a proximity. You were feeling nothing and everything at the same time, you felt heavy and weightless, your heartbeat was loud and silent. Everything was like this with him; having two sides, making you feel so deeply.

Yet, when he leaned even closer, the world went quiet, and your heartbeat didn’t bother you anymore. You were bewitched, you were drugged, you were under his spell, but you didn’t want to escape from it. You would gladly stay like that, your lips slowly exploring each other’s, your breaths intertwined, your hands fitting like two halves of the same heart, and your love being engraved into each other’s memories.

Yeonjun was mint chocolate-flavoured kisses, amusement park dates, random plushie gifts out of the blue, mirror selfies being sent each and every day, proud smiles whenever he could call you his girlfriend, and couple outfits that he picked out for the two of you.

Honestly, just as much as you were different with Yeonjun, you found out that you two were pretty compatible with each other despite all of your differences. While you prompted him to do better with his time management, he helped you to loosen up; while you reminded him to take breaks between his dance practices, he was there to assist you whenever you were struggling with a part in a choreography; while you were sometimes very much affected by others' opinion about you, he was there to tell you time and time again that you were enough just the way you were, and whenever he doubted himself because of a mistake he made, you supported him, even if it meant repeating the same soothing words into the phone at 2AM or getting him his favourite mint choco ice cream.

With him, every day felt like a new chance, a new opportunity to learn more about each other, and while you had initially assumed that he was always very confident, very flirty and sometimes very smug, he could be doubtful and shy and going into his little shell, but you loved him even more because he dared to show you such sides of him. You did the same, too, though it was difficult to not feel like a bother whenever you were down, cried because of something that someone said to you, and you just wanted to escape reality. He was there to remind you that he wanted to listen to you, take care of you and see you even if you were under the weather because you did the same, and because he wanted yours to be a genuine relationship.

Sure, there were ups and downs, but for all the times you shared a wholehearted laughter, for all the times he ruffled your hair only for you to do the same to him, for all the times he backhugged you in the middle of showing him a choreography you were taught, for all the rare times he blushed and pursed his lips when he was trying to hide how pleased he was, for all the times you could call him your boyfriend and he did the same, for all the times he greeted you with a quick, sweet peck on the lips and said goodbye to you with a long, remedy-like kiss, and for all the times you felt found and loved and cared for, you would have never regretted meeting him.

Not to mention that going on dates was always an adventure with him. Sometimes it was because he was so clumsy, and literally anything could happen to him while he was doing something (like how he almost fell into a pond while you were visiting a traditional Korean palace, how he spilled coffee onto you the first time you went on a coffee shop date, how he tripped over himself and fell to the ground while you were trying to find your seats in the already dark cinema hall and so on…), you just enjoyed being together with him, no matter the outcome.

No wonder you were so curious as to what you could expect that day, but wanting it to be a secret, Yeonjun kept his mouth shut, failing to hide his smirk whenever you gave him a glare on your way to the place he was taking you. You took the bus together, and you were playing the sulky one, pouting as if it could change his mind.

“Nope. I won’t tell you. You can look at me with those puppy eyes, but I won’t tell you. What’s the fun in that?” He stuck his tongue out at you, and you scoffed at that.

“You know I like routines, and I like planning ahead,” you reminded him as you crossed your arms in front of your chest as if you were actually angry with him, hoping that he would get the sign and try to make it up to you.

However, the boy merely let out a chuckle (a genuine, joyous one that was filled with affection, care and amusement), and leaned closer to ruffle your hair.

“I know that very well, but it’s my job as your boyfriend to surprise you from time to time. You don’t want a boring boyfriend, right?” He wiggled his eyebrows, and gosh, how could you object? He was right, he was so damn right, and he knew it. He liked acting so cocky when he knew he was right, you just tried to deny it (and you usually failed terribly because your blushing cheeks gave you away), but you liked when he was acting like that, you just wouldn’t want to admit it.

“Well, I guess you might be right…” You said with a sigh just as the bus came to a halt, and the boy grabbed your arm, hurrying you to get off because it was your stop. In a hurry, you both ran to the nearest door and hopped down, panting from the abrupt jog. Then, you exchanged a glance and burst into laughter. That was just so like him; so like the dates you were on with him.

You needed to walk a bit further to get where the boy planned your day to be, but when you saw the sign by the entrance, your hands flew to your mouth in disbelief.

“Oh my gosh! You really brought me here!” You exclaimed beamingly as you turned to the boy who boasted a content smile.

“Well, yeah, I’ve remembered that you said that you couldn’t have a dog while you were growing up, and you can’t do now either because you rent a flat and you wouldn’t want to burden your flatmates, so I’ve figured you might still enjoy walking some dogs,” the boy explained thoroughly, and just by his words, you realised yet again just how attentively he was listening to you, and how much he remembered about what you had said in the past.

He was right, so bringing you to an animal shelter to walk the poor dogs that were still stuck there was literally the sweetest, most wholesome date he could have planned. You both got one puppy at first, and you walked them around the green area that was around the animal shelter, but you didn’t stop there. You were there literally the whole afternoon, walking the dogs and playing with them, and just as good as the boy was with people, he befriended the doggies pretty quickly, and you had such a fun time with him and the cute pets that you took dozens of pictures and videos, and you still looked at them as you were on your way back home on the bus.

“I’ve told you it would be worth it, right?” Yeonjun teased you, and you didn’t even want to counterattack him. You had the best day ever, and you felt like you could hug him forever, that’s just how thankful you were.

“You were right. Thank you so so so much again!” You said, pressing a kiss on his cheek before snuggling up to him to rest your head in the croak of his neck while you intertwined your fingers with his. It seemed just so fitting, so perfectly fitting: your hands in his, your hearts beating at the same time, your memories being displayed in your head.

“You’ve already said that and I’ve already said it, but you’re welcome,” he mentioned with a slight chuckle, and pressed a soft kiss on your forehead.

Yeonjun was the light and the dark, the hope and the sorrow, the hard work and the joyous play, he was all the colours on a palette, both the sunset and the sunrise, and the fragrance of the cherry blossoms at the beginning of dawn, inviting you on a hopeful journey, transitioning nature rotationally.

Choi Yeonjun often thought that life was like a chess game: full of black and white spots, wise and well-thought decisions mixed in with abrupt, desperate ones, and when one was about to believe that they would win the round, the opponent made a devastating move, and there was no hope of winning for a long time ‒ or more like, forever. Yeonjun found himself on the ground so many times, won over by the evil twists of fate, darkness engulfing him, that he didn’t know whether he would be able to win any round, whether he even wanted to.

He had been a loser whom no one had wanted. He had been an orphan because his parents had left him behind without any explanation when he had been 3, so he had no recollection of his parents (maybe it was for the better now). He had been adopted by a couple when he had been 13, but it had soon turned out that the couple had wanted a perfect, well-behaving son who would make the family name proud, not a hopeless kid who had never been interested in studying, not even daring to hope to make it into college, so why care about studying?

His adoptive parents had fought more than they had talked gently to each other, and slowly, he had realised that it had been better if he had just pretended that he hadn’t heard them or hadn’t taken notice of the tension between the two of them. The only reason they had let him stay had been because of the supplementary money the government had given them for raising an orphan, and the only reason he had stayed had been because he had had nowhere else to go, and he hadn’t turned an adult yet. After he had turned an adult, he had planned how and when to move out, but what he had earned while having a part-time job during his high school days hadn’t been enough for a fresh start, so he had needed to wait and work even more.

The only ray of hope in his life had been music. He had learned how to play the guitar at the orphanage because some kid had left a guitar behind, and he had learned the basics from another kid, then he had self-taught himself when he had gotten out of the orphanage. He had found it easier to write his feelings out in lyrics than in journals, and he hadn’t even dared to think about his voice being any good, but his high school music teacher had been so pleased with him that she had made him join the choir. That’s where he had met Beomgyu and Hueningkai, the ones with whom he had created Gen Z Tragedy, a punk-rock band singing about the struggles of their generation, Hueningkai being their drummer, Beomgyu their bassist and back vocalist and Yeonjun being the lead vocalist and rhythmic guitarist.

Initially, Yeonjun hadn’t wanted to give in, but his adoptive parents hadn’t cared about him by that point anyway, so he could have easily sneaked out to band practices. Luckily, the other two guys’ parents had been supportive, and Hueningkai’s father had been a musician, so they had had a studio where they could have practiced and recorded songs.

He had never dared to dream big or to hope for a bright future because a part of him had always been afraid of losing, of failure, of the bittersweet twists and turns of destiny, but with Gen Z Tragedy, he had dared to hope. His hopes were crushed one more time when it turned out that their newly accepted bassist had lied to them, betraying his previous band.

“Look, let me explain!”

Jung Wooyoung’s pleading was very much necessary given that the Gen Z Tragedy members including Hueningkai, Beomgyu and Yeonjun had to learn that Wooyoung had been a part of a previous band for five years, and he had left them behind to join Gen Z Tragedy ‒ meaning that he had left without a proper explanation, the other band getting to know about his audition once he had passed.

Yeonjun snorted, the kind of snort that was both frustrated and angry. Despite Hueningkai’s seemingly calm demeanor and Beomgyu’s quiet suspicion, Yeonjun knew that they both felt the same way: they felt betrayed. As the oldest and the leader of the band, he felt like it was his responsibility to make things clear. Even if it meant having an argument in front of a handful of other people; eager eyes at the bar where they had been previously against four other instrumental bands, hoping to win a local band battle. Now it seemed that they had more important issues than being concerned about missing a beat or winning over their rivals ‒ one of those rivals being Wooyoung’s previous band: Rebel Rhapsody.

“You know, we didn’t ask a lot of questions when we held the audition because we didn’t want to get too personal,” Yeonjun started, his voice dangerously low and raspy. “I know all too well that it could get too burdensome, so we didn’t want to know who raised you or what shaped you as a person. Yet, I believe it’s basic decency to tell people you would want to trust you something like leaving behind a band, and choosing us over them.”

Yeonjun could feel his voice rising, but he didn’t want to hold himself back. Not when he had been kicked to the ground, being trampled upon, and fooled too many times. He hadn’t given away his trust as easily as if it had been a free sample at a beauty story. His heart was frozen, and only his band members could get close to melting it, but now Wooyoung had just managed to break a part of the icy surface, forever leaving a scar.

“Look, I just wanted to start afresh.” Wooyoung held his hands up high as if he was trying to defend himself from a physical fight, then let his hands fall by his side when he saw nothing but Yeonjun’s unwavering gaze and stiff body. “I wanted to make it big, and you guys seemed like a good fit for my ambitions. Or you don’t actually want to make it big? Is winning this local band battle the biggest dream of yours?”

Hueningkai’s eyes widened in shock, the ever so joyful smile long erased from his now solemn expression. Beside him, Beomgyu looked like he was about to say something, but he gazed in their leader’s direction before doing so, and Yeonjun’s facial expression made him stop dead in his tracks. The boy was fuming, fury painting wrinkles across his forehead, his lips trembling ‒ a warning that he was trying to contain whatever that was going through his body, but he was close to erupting.

That’s how they stood face to face in the mass of the crowd, some curious eyes still trained on them while others had already left the scene, assuming that it was more of their personal matter than theirs. Yeonjun wished that the Rebel Rhapsody members would have been there to witness just what kind of a boy their previous member was ‒ to not feel any remorse over his lack of participation because he wasn’t worth it. He was too selfish and greedy for his own good.

“It’s not about what we want to do in the future, but about how you left a band behind. Is this what awaits us when we are no longer what you want to use for your own selfish purposes?” Yeonjun exclaimed, taking a step closer to the boy. “Is it really that easy for you to abandon someone?” Another step closer. “Do you not care how much damage you may leave behind? How much pain?” He was so close to Wooyoung by this point that he could see the curls of his eyelashes, and he could see the tremble of the boy’s lips. He was no longer the confident, goofy boy. He was at his guillotine, waiting for his verdict, but instead of begging for a second chance, he let out a sinister laugh.

A laugh that seemed like the final bullet into the boy’s already destroyed heart. There was no more place for wounds for it was full of holes already, not even half of it was left untouched. He was bleeding out dry, and Wooyoung wasn’t even trying to stop the bleeding.

“So what now? Do you want to make me go back to my previous band, asking for their forgiveness? I’ve thought you don’t want to get too personal,” he repeated the boy’s previous words, and he was purposefully riling Yeonjun up, he could feel it from the way the twitches in his lips weren’t out of fear, but of mockery. He was unbelievable. Just because he had grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth, he shouldn’t have taken everything for granted, and he shouldn’t have belittled people’s feelings and their commitments to each other.

“If you want to be the cause of your own misery, so be it! But don’t you drag others down with you,” Yeonjun spitted furiously, his rage going off the roof, and with one abrupt thought, he lurched himself forwards and punched the boy in the face.

Or so he thought.

Wooyoung must have been expecting that punch because he quickly stepped sideways, so whom he actually punched was a very much dumbfounded girl: you. You were just trying to maneuver yourself between the sweaty bodies, leaving work after your shift had ended as a waitress, not paying too much attention to the conversations around you, not even when it got particularly heated.

So maybe that was partly your fault and partly that guy’s who had managed to avoid being punched in the face, but it didn’t mean that it hurt any less.

“Damn. Are you okay?” The pitch-black haired boy who had managed to punch you judged by the way he was so quick to go up to you inquired, eyes ‒ that were just as dark as his hair and his whole aura ‒ shining out of worry. Two boys by his side were seemingly just as concerned as he was, the slightly curly-haired one even having a hand over his heart and the other at his mouth as if he had nearly gotten a heart attack.

“Yeah, sure,” you said automatically, but when you reached for your nose and held your fingers in front of your face, you could see blood dripping from your hands, and you shivered at the sight.

“Should we get some ice?” The third boy ‒ one who looked like a manga character with his almost shoulder-length raven hair ‒ was quick to suggest, but you merely waved off his assistance. You were fine, the bleeding would probably stop soon. Not to mention that you really wanted to leave as soon as possible. If this conversation was this heated, you were better off outside anyway.

“I’m fine, really. Continue what you’ve started.” You gestured frantically in their direction, and seeing the little crowd that had already gathered around them (around you), you were ever so quick to leave the scene.

You didn’t even look back while they were calling after you, asking you to stop, but once you were finally outside, you couldn’t keep up your big girl confidence. You reached into your bag, immediately getting hold of two tissues and trying to clean up the mess around your nose. You didn’t feel like it had broken because it wasn’t that painful, it was actually more than bearable, but it was definitely not a pleasant feeling. The boy’s punch must have been well-directed, so he must have been really angry at the other smug-looking one who hadn’t looked like he had been even a tiny bit concerned about you. You had no idea why they had been fighting, but you couldn’t hold a grudge against the one with the pitch-black hair and the pitch-black eyes because he had seemed way more considerate than the other.

Unfortunately, you didn’t really calculate having to look at yourself while cleaning up the blood, and you didn’t want to go back to the bar’s bathroom, so you used your phone’s selfie mode to help you out. You were managing just well when you heard footsteps behind you that were getting closer, and then a voice accompanying them:

“Hey! Please, don’t leave!” The earlier raspy voice asked desperately, and you swung around, facing the boy who came to a halt in front of you. You blinked up at him, both in shame and embarrassment. The last thing you wanted was for him to feel like he had committed a grave sin, and he needed to take care of you. 

“Let me help with that…” He offered, as expected, the gentleness in his tone in drastic comparison to the eternal darkness in his bottomless orbs.

“No, it’s okay.”

“But..” He protested, but you shook your head, not wanting to burden him further. It seemed like he had become caught up in something far worse than your punch, so you didn’t want him to feel bad for you. He looked way too sad already.

“It’s really okay,” you repeated with a hopefully convincing smile, but it wasn’t enough because the boy practically bellowed in the next second:

“Let me just fix my damn mistake!” His voice was desperate, guilt and hurt and remorse lacing his words. His exclamation shook you to the core, and when he caught sight of the fear in your eyes, he took a step back. “Sorry. I… I’m just so used to things not going my way that when I can help it, I desperately want to find a way to make things right.”

From the way he looked and said so, you couldn’t even question his words. He wouldn’t have snapped at you like that if it had been only about being polite. No. He really did want to make things right, he desperately tried to hold onto it: the hope of things turning out better, of the future being brighter than the darkness that he was.

“Okay,” you croaked out, reaching the tissues out to him, so he could help you clean up the blood. The boy’s shoulders dropped in ease, and he took a step closer to you, working diligently on cleaning up the mess. His touches were gentle and a bit hesitant, but he wasn’t wavering or halting ever so frequently, so you had nothing to complain about. Even if he was close to you, he didn’t make it inappropriate, he was only focusing on the area around your nose, he didn’t even look you in the eye.

“I’m truly sorry. I should have been more careful, you really shouldn’t have ended up receiving that punch. I’m really sorry,” he broke the silence after about a minute, and his apology was like a bitter medicine for he shouldn’t have been apologising so much for something like this.

“That other guy seemed to deserve it. Seeing how he didn’t show any remorse, I hope you actually punched him in the face after I left,” you mused out loud, your tone indicating that you weren’t angry at him, and you hoped that he would take it lightly as well.

“I did.” He nodded solemnly, his attention still on your face.

“That’s enough of a fix for your mistake, I guess,” you remarked kindly, and that’s when his lips curled upwards a tiny bit. Not more, not less. It was enough for you though, truly hoping that the guilt would leave his face soon.

The jet-black haired boy finished up in the meantime, throwing away the bloody tissues into the nearby trash can. That’s when he dared to look back at you, like really look at you, and you chose this time to show your gratefulness.

“Thank you,” you confessed sincerely, but either he didn’t believe that he should have been thanked, or he didn’t want to acknowledge the words because his next question didn’t indicate that he truly believed you.

“Let me repay you with something… lunch maybe? Dinner? A coffee?” He suggested, his voice still a bit raspy and deep. It was as if even his tone had been shaped by whatever that had happened in the past. He could have been merely emotional or bitter, but there was something more behind his cold facade: something that was still destroying him from the inside.

“I-” You immediately wanted to protest, but the sadness in his eyes held you back. You thought of his previous outburst, of how he was ever so desperate to fix things, and decided to let him be. “Okay, that sounds alright,” you gave in, suggesting to exchange contacts, so that you could decide on a date and place to meet.

Truth to be told, you didn’t know what else to say to the boy because you didn’t think that you had any right to ask about what had happened back there in the bar that had made him so furious, and he didn’t seem to know what to say either. So you bid your goodbye to him, telling him that you should catch the next bus, and he mumbled something about having to go back to his band members, so you parted ways just as abruptly as you had crossed them earlier that night.

The jet-black haired boy’s name was Yeonjun, and judging by his Kakaotalk profile and his last words to you that night, he was in one of those bands who had performed at the bar. His profile photo was probably taken in a studio because a drum set, three guitars and three microphones were shown with the name ‘Gen Z Tragedy’ in the middle as if it had been an album cover. However, when you next contacted him, his profile photo was changed to one with him, the manga-like boy and the curly-haired one from the bar, the three of them in front of an abandoned building.

You indeed searched them up and found their Youtube channel, social media sites and even a website where one could see that they were about to release their first album soon. You wondered whether his previous profile photo should have been their album cover, but you didn’t want to ponder over the matter since there was no trace of the newly joined smug-looking boy on any of their sites. Could they have wanted to introduce him with the album? Or was the local band battle where they had shown him to the public for the first time?

Anyways, you had a feeling that whatever had happened that night had an impact on the band’s line-up, but since you were more interested in their music, you decided to check out a few of their covers online, some by Western bands like All Time Low, the 1975, the Arctic Monkeys and some by Korean instrumental bands such as DAY6 and The Rose. They had also uploaded a few of their original tracks, and what you had been able to tell from them was that they had raw, sincere songs about growing up, meeting society’s expectations, finding one’s identity and losing hope over and over again. Themes that could have been engraved into Yeonjun’s skin like battle scars, ones that you could easily imagine him singing about with that aura of his. Since you had not paid much attention to the performers while you had been working at the bar, the songs hit harder than you expected, but it was in the best way possible. Their songs were the farthest from artificial, and you appreciated that.

So you could say that you had checked his band out before you met again, but it didn’t mean that you wanted to behave differently around him. In fact, you felt like a layer of understanding had grown between the two of you, it was just that he didn’t know about it until you sat down in an art café, sipping on your choice of drink. You had a caramel latte while he had iced Americano, the contrast between your choices representing you two perfectly.

The atmosphere was awkward at first, he clearly didn’t think it through when he had suggested paying you back because he was quiet apart from the initial greetings and small talk questions, but since it had been him who had suggested this place, you decided to inquire about the reason behind his choice.

“Hueningkai’s father owns this café. He was a musician, and since he retired, he decided to open this café for all the art and music lovers,” he explained briefly, and his answer was enough to prove why this café had such a retro vibe to it with LP records put on the walls, pastel colours chosen over bright, neon ones and sentimental songs being played in the background. “Hueningkai is my friend and the drummer of our band,” he added when it dawned on him that you didn’t know who this boy was.

“Gen Z Tragedy, right?” You asked though you knew the answer to it. Yeonjun nodded, and while you were at the topic, you couldn’t help but inquire about the origin of the band’s name.

“Well, Beomgyu wanted something generation Z-related because he says Hueningkai’s and his behaviour are peak gen Z behaviour, and I’ve suggested something that represents the music we do, so we put it together, and Gen Z Tragedy was born,” he explained thoroughly, and from the way he spoke of the other two members, you could feel just how much they meant to him. If his life was mirroring the lyrics in their songs, his friends must have meant the world to him.

“How do you come up with songs, and how do you arrange them?” You inquired since you were nowhere near familiar with the music industry from the inside, and even though your question could have been too invasive, the boy didn’t mind to talk about his band, he spoke of Gen Z Tragedy fondly, and his whole demeanour changed when he was talking about the members and their team chemistry.

You listened to him attentively, not too taken aback by the fact that the majority of the lyrics was written by him, but both Hueningkai ‒ their drummer ‒ and Beomgyu ‒ their bassist and back vocalist ‒ wrote just as well. Mostly, they arranged the songs together, working in Hueningkai’s father’s old studio. Hueningkai had been taught the whole process by his father, so he could take charge if a problem arose, but both Beomgyu and Yeonjun had learned from him, and now they were all working hard to improve their music. Despite Hueningkai’s father having connections in the industry, their genre was very different from his, plus they wanted to pave the path for themselves.

“And that’s why we were looking for another bassist that could give more power to our songs, and that’s how Wooyoung…” Yeonjun got so caught up in talking about the band that he belatedly realised that he had managed to bring up the topic he had wanted to avoid the most.

He looked away, ashamed and frustrated, but it was enough for you to put the pieces together: of those three guitar sets on his previous profile photo, of the fight at the bar and of the boy who had smiled smugly even though you had been punched instead of him. He had joined them later, and had done something that had made the original three members think twice about having him in the band.

Instead of pressuring the topic, you inquired from him what kind of musicians influenced him the most, and you could immediately see how his shoulders slumped in ease. You had no right to ask him about personal issues, and since that night had been quite messy for the boy, you had seen it for yourself, you didn’t want to pressure him to talk about anything that might make him uncomfortable, but you were genuinely interested in their band, how it had started, whom they looked up to, and what the band meant to them.

You swore you could listen to him for hours because his voice was deep and alluring, and maybe you could have done so because you didn’t even keep track of time. You got to realise that you had been talking for hours only when the slightly curly haired boy came up to your table with a knowing smile.

“Hey~” The so-called Hueningkai singsonged joyfully. “Can I get you something more?” Hueningkai inquired, and as if Yeonjun had woken up from a daze, he shot his friend a pointed look.

“I’ve thought your shift wouldn’t start until 6.”

“It’s already 6, you dummy,” the boy told him teasingly, pointing at the vintage clock on the wall that was representing the keys on a piano, half of the slots for the hours being the white keys and the other half being the black ones. Yeonjun looked at the clock, too, but when he turned back to the table, he nudged his friend in the side instead of acknowledging what he had heard.

“Who do you call a dummy? I’m older than you!”

“Okay, okay, I came with peace!” Hueningkai held his hands up high in the air, admitting his defeat. Yeonjun rolled his eyes at his friend’s antics, but you could tell that it was out of fondness, not hate. The chemistry between those two could be felt immediately. “So should I get re-fills for you or do you want something else?” He bobbed his head in your empty glasses’ direction, but both of you were quick to object.

Hueningkai noted it with a pout, but when his eyes found yours, and he realised who you were, his hands flew to his mouth.

“Oh my! Are you okay? How’s your nose?” he asked as worried as if you had been still at the bar, and you could detect Yenjun’s second-hand embarrassment by the way he was trying to cover his face with his hands.

“It’s fine. There’s no need to worry.”

“I’m glad then,” the younger boy mentioned as he let out a long, long sigh. You found it heartwarming how concerned he was even though you two didn’t know each other at all. “Then, you two just randomly met here or…” He started as he averted his eyes from you to his friend’s, confusion and suspicion mingling with his innocent, boyish features.

You exchanged a glance with Yeonjun, and you had a feeling that he wanted to answer this question, so you let him explain to his friend that he tried to pay you back for what he had done by inviting you to some coffee, and he had decided to show you this place because it was the closest to the atmosphere of the music bar where you had been working. At least, it was the same in its theme. Then, the boy waved off his friend’s curious questions about how you had lost track of time, and instead, you both agreed on parting ways much to Hueningkai’s dismay.

However, this time, your heart was lighter than that previous night, and saying goodbye to him wasn’t filled with rage and pain and guilt. Maybe the boy could start realising that not all of his mistakes caused devastation, and that he deserved to have some agony being erased from his already heavy heart.

Yeonjun had completed his payback, so you had no reason to see each other again, but oddly enough, you found yourself thinking about the boy again and again. When the peak hours passed at the bar, you were often left wiping off the counter or filling the fridge with drinks, and your thoughts could easily spiral back to the image of his jet-black locks, his equally jet-black orbs and that ever so faint smile of his that you had only seen once. To the sound of his deep, raspy voice that wasn’t dangerously low like a warning, more like the rain that came to wash away the remains of a thunderstorm. To his heart that was ever so heavy, but it was so full of love for Beomgyu and Hueningkai that you wished that someone could love him back the same. Or even more because he deserved it.

Sometimes, you put on their available songs in your free time, the songs making you feel all sorts of emotions, but most importantly: acceptance. The melodies were familiar by now, the boys’ voices like accompanists to your rather ordinary life, and you realised you wouldn’t have it another way. You were fine just listening to them, hoping for them to succeed even more, if it meant that Yeonjun would feel more comfortable this way.

Two months passed by until you met again because Gen Z Tragedy was performing at the music bar, and you thought of it as a lucky coincidence because all sorts of aspiring musicians were performing at your workplace, so there was no guarantee that they would show up, especially after what had happened last time. Not to mention that the band who had won the local band battle was the one who came by more frequently, and thanks to your co-workers’ up-to-date knowledge with the bands performing there, you got to know that they were called Rebel Rhapsody, and they were the previous band that the so-called Wooyoung had played in. Yet, by now, Wooyoung had been neither in their band or Gen Z Tragedy, so you assumed that he had either opted for other bands or had left the music scene altogether. According to the rumours, he had had a pretty bad fall-out with both bands, and if you had really been wrapped up in their fight, you could understand Yeonjun’s behaviour even more.

That night, the three boys performed a few covers, a few of their original songs that you had already listened to, and one that you were sure you hadn’t heard before. The lines such as ‘if I turn around, eventually, they’ll just end up being an unfamiliar someone’ and ‘as my entire heart burns, I’m afraid that only black ashes will remain’ struck you so hard that you needed to hold onto the counter firmly, grounding yourself. You could practically hear Yeonjun’s voice bleeding amongst the words, a young boy who was scared of being loved, and even though you didn’t know his background story, only what you had been told at the art café and what you could have put together from their lyrics, you had a feeling that he didn’t just act so broken, he was broken.

As the song came to an end, the audience clapped for them and you joined them, heaviness settling in your chest. They bowed a few times before packing away their stuff, and they could have easily left after gathering their stuff and putting it in the staff’s room as every performer could do so while they were there, but a very cheerful Hueningkai hopped down on a bar stool a few minutes later, and asked for a glass of orange juice, only to realise that it was you who would serve him.

So by the time his friends joined him, he had already chirped your ears off about their soon-to-be released album, about what had happened to the band in the last two months, and he hadn’t failed to promote his father’s art café either, prompting you to drop by anytime because he was working there whenever he wasn’t practicing with the band and at least you would have a familiar face around.

“I admire the way you promote anything, but I’m sure she would have come by if she had wanted to,” Beomgyu teased him casually, directing a friendly smile in your direction. Even though you hadn’t been introduced to him officially, it wasn’t difficult to know who he was since you had already known the other two members.

“Maybe she was just too shy to come by.” Hueningkai shrugged, and you let out a giggle, thinking that it was adorable how he tried to defend you.

“It’s not about that. I merely don’t move out that much, at least not alone,” you explained while you were handing their drummer his orange juice, and you took the other two’s orders, too. When your eyes settled on Yeonjun’s face, you couldn’t read off anything, not even surprise or frustration, but maybe it was better than if he had been ashamed of seeing you again.

“Well then, that’s great! Come by with Yeonjun next time,” Hueningkai suggested ever so beamingly, with no hint of joking in his voice. Yet, the leader didn’t feel like playing his game, so he nudged him in the side and reprimanded him for saying nonsense.

It wasn’t the only hint Hueningkai dropped that night about you two, but you two always objected, much to Hueningkai and Beomgyu’s amusement. You could sense that there was nothing purposefully offensive in their playful teasing, that’s why you weren’t even mad at them. You were already nearing the end of your shift anyways, and it was fun to get to know the other two members better, especially since Yeonjun was the quiet one, mostly commenting when he wanted to hold back the other two from going overboard or when a question was directed at him. Though at least you could see smiling, the ice around his heart thawing whenever he was around his friends, and the sight warmed your heart.

You said goodbye to them when your shift ended, and you went back to the staff’s room to pick up your stuff, ready to head out of the bar altogether when you caught sight of Yeonjun still sitting by the counter, nursing his drink. You would be delusional to think that he had been waiting for you, but you didn’t want to leave without telling him how much you liked their songs (without Hueningkai’s chirping and Beomgyu’s teasing remarks), so you sat down beside him on a bar chair, and said:

“I’ve just wanted to tell you that I think your songs are great, and it’s amazing that there are still bands like yours that sing about the struggles of our generation. I’m sure many of us can resonate with the lyrics of your songs,” you confessed sincerely, yet when Yeonjun turned his head towards you, he quirked an eyebrow challengingly.

“Does it resonate with you?” He tilted his head, probably debating how much of what you had said was true. Sure, you could have told him white lies, but that wouldn’t have been you.

“I’ve never had big dreams even though I was a good student,” you started a bit hesitant, not sure how much to say to make him believe. You wanted him to believe you. You needed him to believe you. To believe in someone. “I’m lucky that my parents don’t force me to pick up something, but it was always something I’ve been faced with. Seeing how many students go onto higher education, and I didn’t even though I could have passed with my grades… A lot of people told me to find something, I may grow to love it, but I didn’t want to dive into something I didn’t like. So I’ve decided to work instead, and now I’m just kind of floating, trying to find where to settle, so I can relate a lot to that pressure of meeting expectations, of not knowing who you are.”

At the beginning of your monologue, you felt like you were clumsily stumbling upon your words, but the more you spoke, the more confident you became. Yeonjun’s features softened a bit, and that prompted you as well, so by the end, you didn’t feel like it was that big of a confession on your part. You knew he would understand, and so did he.

“It’s okay if you don’t find your dream so early. You’re still young,” he pointed out, his voice neutral, but his orbs telling you tales of how he had been trying to say the same words to himself. You knew that he hadn’t believed that music would be the path for him, so he hadn’t found his dream until he had met his two friends, and maybe he had been just as lost, just as helplessly wandering in the sea of dreams as you did so lately.

You gulped nervously before bringing up the next part of your story, but you felt the need to add it to your previous explanation.

“I know that now, but my previous boyfriend and his family…” You trailed off, the flashbacks coming back at you, pointing their fingers, mocking you. Initially, you had fallen in love with that boy from your high school days because he had seemed too good for you, and you had been flattered that he had liked you back. He had been polite, handsome, ever so considerate and he had been so ambitious that he hadn’t dreamt of anything less than a double-degree programme at one of the SKY universities and an overseas one. His dreams had always been greater than yours, and even though it might not have been striking in the beginning, and it hadn’t made a difference, eventually it had all changed.

“They were of a different opinion, and I found myself in a very bad place mentally because of them,” you concluded briefly because you didn’t want to go into detail about how you hadn’t wanted to study either because the boy had been comparing your results to his, and he had become obsessed planning your future for you, and when you had objected, he had played the victim, and it had all gone downhill. You had been lucky that you had escaped because you didn’t know how much more of his emotional manipulation could you have put up with.

“I’m sorry,” Yeonjun remarked solemnly, his voice laced with a hint of concern. You didn’t want him to worry because it was all good now, so you mumbled:

“I’m better off without him. I’m just glad I had the courage to leave him because him not accepting me without a university degree was him not accepting me as my true self.

The silence that followed your confession was nowhere near uncomfortable. Instead, you felt a strong sense of understanding, and you slipped into this warm feeling quite easily. You hadn’t intended to bring up something so personal when you had walked up to him that night, but he had asked, and knowing about what might have happened to him due to the band’s lyrics, you felt indebted to him, so you wanted to answer all of his questions as truthfully as possible.

“Leaving is sometimes for the better,” he whispered more to himself than to you, but you could feel the plea, the desperation for agreement in the way his gaze stayed on you, eyes not leaving yours. He was so vulnerable like this, like a child reaching his hand out to his parents while silently suffering, that’s why your heart broke for him. You wished you could do something for him, you wished you could be the one to hold his hand when he was asking for help, but you weren’t sure that he let anyone see when he was in his weakest moments.

“Because staying is sometimes more painful than leaving,” you added, nodding along, so that he knew that you agreed with his statement. You knew that he believed you now for trust was finally engraved into his features, and his eyes shone in a different light, but you still felt like there was something that was holding both of you back from getting closer. Or maybe he was merely not ready to let you in.

You sat there in silence for sometime afterwards, but eventually he finished his drink, and suggested walking you home since you had stayed after your shift, and it was even later than you usually went home. You would have objected if it had been for someone else, but with Yeonjun, you had a feeling that his offer wasn’t because he deemed you fragile or vulnerable, but because he wanted to take responsibility for keeping you there.

So you gave in without a second thought, and even though most of your bus ride home was spent in silence, you didn’t mind. Sitting in silence with Yeonjun wasn’t overwhelming, it was oddly calming, like stumbling upon a spot of serenity in the middle of the buzzing city. He might have seemed far away and shone differently than others just like the moon, but his light drew you in, and you didn’t want to let go of him. Even if you eventually had to, at least for the day, and there was no promise of another encounter when he broke the silence as you came to a halt in front of your house.

“Thank you for not leaving when your shift ended,” he whispered raspily, and there was so much in his expression that you found it hard to decipher him. One thing was for sure though: he appreciated your honesty, and you appreciated that he had let you be sincere with him.

“Thank you for walking me home,” you mentioned with a gentle smile, and the half-smile you have received from him was more than you could have asked for. The momentary happiness hiding behind the smile was worth more to you than possible answers to your possible questions.

For now, it was more than enough that you could make him smile like that, though you wished you could have done so more often. Hoping, hoping, endlessly hoping for a fully bloomed smile.

After that day, Yeonjun sometimes came by the music bar, and sometimes you went to the art café where Hueningkai was working (much to his and Beomgyu’s happiness), and bumped into the jet-black haired boy a few times. It wasn’t settled, you never notified the other even though you had each other’s contacts, but you liked it this way. Nothing was pressuring you to meet, but you could see each other if you wanted to, and the other wouldn’t mind.

You liked getting to know Yeonjun bit by bit, and you liked how the distance between the two of you grew shorter and shorter. Neither of you were rushing anything; you understood that the boy needed time and a lot of trust to open up, and you let him test the waters, getting to know you, seeing if he could trust you. You were as honest with him as possible, and not having the burden of living up to his expectations like you had done so with your ex-boyfriend and his family, you felt free like a bird escaping its cage. You felt weightless beside him, and you realised that maybe, while you were in this floating, transitioning phase in your life, there were more opportunities and flickers of hope than you would have initially thought so, and it set you free.

You also got to see Yeonjun smile more often, and while seeing him like that was still like a treasure ‒ ever so scarce yet ever so precious ‒, you cherished each joyful moment with him as if it was the first. You could see him being teasing and goofy with his friends, and you could see him as a flustered boy under the caring eyes of the old couple who lead the tteokbokki place where he was working. They had told you that Yeonjun had been helping them out ever since his high school days, and now he was working full-time, trying to arrange the band’s practices around his working schedule though they tried to be as flexible with him as possible.

With all of these little moments, encounters and conversations, you slowly got to build up the unbreakable fortress that he was, and you got to know the way to his heart: honesty, vulnerability and care. Honesty because he had been fooled and used too many times to bear more liars, vulnerability because he could only begin to let down his walls if someone else around him had done so before, and care because he didn’t believe that he was worthy of love or attention, and he needed constant proof that you wouldn’t leave him one day.

In return, he accepted you as you were, just as you were. He was understanding like no one else, and he cared though he was better with actions than with words. He could know from a fraction of an expression if you weren’t feeling well, and he was ready to listen to whatever you had to say, and he knew exactly just what you needed to hear; he was always giving his portion of kimchi whenever you two were eating out, and he did it without a word each and every time even though you didn’t ask him to; he always walked you home when he didn’t have the night shift or a band practice; and he sometimes asked for your opinion on song lyrics that might resonate with you too, and it meant the world to you.

So knowing about his past, his family background, and the scars that had painted the canvas of his life, you had utter admiration for him and his will to keep going, to keep fighting for his dreams. For you, he was like a compass that showed you the right direction, and for him, you were like the moon that shone upon his darkest hours of the night.

That’s why it wasn’t that surprising that you inquired about his favourite place, and even though he warned you that it was nothing fancy, you were looking forward to it eagerly. You weren’t even taken aback when he took you to an abandoned place outside of the city, somewhere where you could only get to on foot after hopping off the bus. You looked around at all those randomly scattered objects that had been left behind while he was leading the way to the top of the building, and there, he sat down close to the edge, crossing his legs and keeping himself up with his hands on the ground behind him.

“Why does this place mean so much to you?” you asked as you sat down beside him, following his gaze and watching as the light breeze played with the branches on the nearby trees. It was fall, the time when leaves turned into an array of colours, and eventually fell, letting another season come by, but you were still in the early phases of the current season. The weather was tender, almost gentle, and the wind was only caressing your skin as if it was trying to soothe all wrinkles and to tend to past wounds.

“We’ve been here with the guys a lot of times when we wanted to escape the hustle-bustle of the city, so in a way, it’s our secret place,” he explained, his eyes staring far ahead. It could be seen that he was contemplating whether or not to add something more, so you let him be with thoughts, and decide it for himself. After all, it was already enough of an answer for you.

So you sat in silence for some more moments while only the rattling of the leaves could be heard, but you let it be the background music of your conversation. Sometimes it was the rain outside a window or the subtle clutter in the art café accompanied by some old ballad songs playing in the background. Small, yet significant moments that were still yours, and that’s what mattered.

“And I’ve always felt like this place was similar to how I am. Abandoned, only found and visited by a few people who came by because of destiny,” Yeonjun added later on, but his voice was quiet and uncertain. Or maybe it was that raw edge to it that made you feel like he wasn’t sure that he could tell you this.

“But this place is still here just like you. It didn’t collapse no matter the damage it has suffered, and that’s admirable,” you pointed out, tilting your head to have a better look at him, but he merely shook his head, avoiding your gaze.

“It’ll collapse one day. It’s just a matter of time.”

You knew this side of him: the one that was sure that he was the reason his blood-related family had left him behind, and that his adoptive parents didn’t love him. You knew that he was doubting others’ care towards him, but still, the way torment was carrying his words squeezed your heart. You didn’t want to save him from his demons because you knew that at the end of the day, he would need to be the one to turn against the darkness, but you wanted to be a ray of light in his life, something that he could hold onto when he was sinking alone, something that he could turn to when it became too burdening to deal with his self-hatred.

Thus, you couldn’t give up.

“And what if someone doesn’t want to give up on it? What if someone wants to rebuild it?” you retorted, and there was newfound confidence in your voice. It wasn’t uncommon that you went against his words, especially when he was doubting himself, and this time too, you knew that he was talking about himself, not only the abandoned building. He was still staring far ahead, but the corner of his lips twitched, and he let out a hurtful snort in return.

“Who would do so? It’s been the same for at least a decade.”

“Maybe those who have no reason to leave it like that,” you kept going, more and more powerful feelings lacing your words. You were oh so desperate, not willing to give up on this conversation, not willing to give up on him. Because he deserved it. He gave more love than he received, and you wanted to balance it out. You wanted to be the one he turns to whenever he’s having a hard time or he’s craving some company. Because he needed it. He needed a helping hand just as you needed someone to hold onto.

“Everyone leaves eventually,” he snapped, turning his head towards you, his raw, raspy voice sending shivers down your spine. You kept the eye-contact with him, not scared by the accusation in his voice.

“Only until someone proves you wrong,” you remarked confidently, and you could see the ice around his heart thawing. Whenever he brought up something to object, you were there to contradict him, and his somewhat thankful yet still somewhat broken expression gave way for hope in your heart. “I want to stay in your life,” you confessed sincerely, not averting your eyes from his face because you wanted him to see that you were honest. You may not know what the future holds for you two, but you knew how you felt, and you knew that you wanted to stay by his side, to continue holding his hand if he wanted to, and to be with him even if that meant that you would merely sit beside each other in silence.

He pushed himself off the ground, so that he was in a cross-legged position with his hands resting in his lap, and he leaned forward, close enough for you to see the sun-kissed parts of his face, and to observe every mole as if it had been a part of a painting. You weren’t usually this close to each other, so you could have been taken aback, but you weren’t. You merely welcomed his close proximity for it showed that he was ready to let you in.

“With everything that I am?” Yeonjun whispered, the moment stretching between you two while he didn’t take his eyes off of you.

“With everything.” You nodded without a second thought, knowing that just as he accepted you with every part of you, you accepted him with all the colours he held inside, and with all the burden and pain he carried from his childhood. There was no doubt about it; you loved him, and even if he were to ask you for the hundredth time, you would say the same.

You were ready to get lost in the jet-black sea of his eyes, swimming and swimming in it until you were out of breath, exploring every corner, every different shade. He was a paradox, a metaphor that could only scratch the surface of what he actually held inside, but you didn’t mind taking your time to solve him. If the rattling of the branches around were the background music, the accompanist was your heart that beated louder and louder the closer the boy leaned forward, and you were not only speechless when he pressed his lips onto yours, but breathless, too.

He was taking your breath away in the best way possible, and time seemed to pass by, but you didn’t care. What mattered was him, the trust in his jet-black eyes, the relieved smile in the corner of his lips as you two came up for air, and the palette of colours that shone upon him as the sun was setting behind him.

Because now it seemed that he was ready to accept that he was made up of more than only darkness.

Choi Yeonjun often thought that life was like a chess game: full of black and white spots, wise and well-thought decisions mixed in with abrupt, desperate ones, and when one was about to believe that they would win the round, the opponent made a devastating move, and there was no hope of winning for a long time ‒ or more like, forever.

Now, he had learned how to get up time and time again because he couldn’t give up on his life. He couldn’t give up on what he had, his dreams, his friend, and also you. He might not have always done the right thing, he might not have always been on the winning side, but as long as he could learn from each and every round, he was ready to keep going, to move on with his life no matter what obstacles life threw at him. Maybe that light had always been within him, he had merely not known how to approach it; how to accept that it could be a part of him, that it could keep himself warm, but now, his midnight sky days were over, and he was ready to welcome the sunrise.

Having you by his side helped, too, for he could believe that he deserved love and support, and you proved him again and again that you didn’t have to be blood-related to him to accept him for who he was. In fact, all the people in his life who genuinely accepted him weren’t blood-related, but they were his chosen family, and he was ready to accept that. He was ready to let the light in, to let the suffocating darkness dissolve.

That didn’t mean that it was easy to be himself, that it was easy to put aside his self-hatred and his demons, but he was getting there, and now when he was sinking alone, he couldn’t stop thinking about you, and what you would say to him to reassure him, and that was usually enough to lift up the blinding mist that might have fallen over him time and time again. If not, he let the darkness engulf him completely, but that happened less and less frequently.

You still didn’t know what you wanted with your life and what was your dream, but you decided to enjoy what you had, and whom you had by your side. You loved spending time with Hueningkai and Beomgyu too, having lots of fun and hilarious moments beside them, and you loved when you could feel completely and sincerely at ease with all the members of Gen Z Tragedy because apart from their usual teasing, they were very supportive of your relationship with Yeonjun, and the same went for your parents and the old couple at Yeonjun’s workplace. The boy’s parents didn’t seem to care about his love life, so he didn’t bother introducing you to them after they hadn’t shown interest in getting to know you, but your parents loved him and cared for him as if he had been their kid, too.

As months passed by, and he could finally hope of moving out from his adoptive parents’ house because he knew that he could get by with what he had, and so he started looking for flats, something else happened that he had been expecting, but wouldn’t have thought that it would come true.

So of course he went to see you, knocking on the door at your family’s house, hoping that you would be at home, and when you opened the door, he gave you a sentimental smile.

“We made it!” Yeonjun broke it down to you immediately, but you furrowed your eyebrows in confusion, needing more details.

“What is it about?” you inquired as you beckoned him inside, and as soon as the sentence rolled off his tongue, the first teardrop rolled down with it. You were a bit cautious for this reason, but when you got to know what it was about, you realised those weren’t tears of agony, but of joy.

“Gen Z Tragedy has gotten a contract at an agency,” he explained, his voice breaking by the end, and you were so happy for him that you immediately hugged him, letting his soft sobs reverberate through your body.

Yeonjun wasn’t one to cry easily, he held it inside so well that tears were ever so scarce companions of his feelings, but those tears that he had been keeping for himself all his life had accumulated, and he couldn’t stop crying. Crying for that young boy at the orphanage who had felt all alone and abandoned, his only company being silence and the evil voices in his head; crying for that teenager who had never understood what he had done so wrong that his adoptive parents hadn’t loved him, and who had decided that he had been better alone and pretending that he hadn’t needed anybody; crying for that high school boy who hadn’t dared to believe that Hueningkai and Beomgyu would stay in his life, and that his dream of being a musician could ever come true; and crying, crying, crying for all those times he had wanted to push you away, not daring to hope for someone like you to love him.

It was all too good to be true, you knew that.

It was meant to be wrong anyway, you both knew that.

Yet, you went on that trip that day after Hyunjin had run away from home (for you), and that’s when it happened.

The accident.

Him slipping through your fingers, his eyes covered by terror, his body tangled in a way it should have never been, his pale skin patched with burgundy spots. His dimples hidden by gruesome shock, lips kissing the cold hard ground instead of yours, eyelids getting heavy by the second, and his locks being drenched in his own crimson blood.

And you couldn’t do anything because you got stuck in the passenger’s seat, stuck under the part of the car that had fallen over, stuck in your own misery until you lost consciousness due to the shock and the loss of blood, your world darkening as you shifted into a state between life and death.

When you woke up, your first thought was him: Hyunjin.

Was he okay? Where was he? How badly was he hurt? Was anyone notified what had happened? Millions of questions and scenarios were running through your head the moment you regained consciousness, and only when you opened your eyes did you realise that you were at a hospital, the typical white walls and the smell of sterilizers filling up your senses. Then, came the pain in your leg and the pang in your chest. It wasn’t as excruciating as after the crush, but it was bad enough to make you want to double over and vomit.

“Hey! You’re up!” The only figure in the room spoke up, and you were so relieved to hear a familiar voice that you forgot about the pain for a moment.

“Jisung! What happened? How is Hyunjin? Is he okay?” You threw the questions at him indignantly, and you didn’t even care why Hyunjin’s best friend out of all people would be in your hospital room. What mattered was that he was there, and he probably knew more information than you.

Hearing your questions, the boy’s usually cheeky features darkened, and he let out a sorrowful sigh that didn’t indicate anything good. The way his lips twitched and he was hesitant to speak up said enough. Words weren’t needed to prove how horrible the situation was.

So you just sat in complete silence for a few seconds, and you were ready to rise from your bed, getting rid of everything that was attached to you, rushing to the surgery room, hoping and praying that he would get better. Your grandmother had always told you that praying for someone you loved might attract the gods’ attraction and they would definitely hear you if you were persistent, but Jisung’s belated answer knocked the air out of your lungs:

“They’re currently performing a surgery on him, but he was so badly hurt that the doctors aren’t sure that they can save him. He may be paralyzed for his whole life, or he may even suffer brain damage and become unable to perform everyday tasks or worse… he may…”

You felt like choking on the words, the harsh reality suffocating you. What was breathing when the boy you loved with all your heart was fighting for his life at another part of the hospital because he had decided to come after you? It was all your fault, it was, and no matter what anyone would say, you knew that, you knew that all too well, and you wanted to scream your lungs out, to tear your hair off, anything just to feel the pain instead of him.

“It can’t be! It just can’t,” you tried to tell yourself like a mantra as you pushed yourself off your bed, not caring about all those tubes and not caring about Jisung’s alarming sentences. You didn’t stop until you got to the emergency rooms, and you could have said you had no idea where you were going, so you wouldn’t find him anyway, but the moment you laid your eyes on the two figures by the corner of the corridor, you knew that your heart had led you to the right place.

If anything, Jisung tried to hold you back even more adamantly this time, but you kept walking towards Hyunjin’s parents. You didn’t care about the pain in your leg, it was nothing compared to what he might be feeling, and you kept your chin up high even when Hyunjin’s mother slapped you in the face.

“How dare you show up here? Our son has gone after you, and look what you’ve done! You’ve nearly killed him! How can you even breathe and look into the mirror?” Mrs Hwang spitted at you, eyes filled with fury and disgust.

You knew she had always been like this towards you; you were a nobody in her eyes because his rich son couldn’t have loved such an ordinary, middle class girl like you. You two shouldn’t have even met, it had been a mere chance encounter that the convenience store you had happened to work at had been the one on the campus he had studied at, and one night, he had happened to tell you all about his set-up dates forced onto him by his parents, and how much he had hated to pretend to be someone he hadn’t been just because he hadn’t wanted to disappoint his parents. He might not have told you this if he had been sober, but he had drunk enough bottles of soju after that day, and even though your job had been to serve him, you had come up to him asking if he had been okay when he had still just sat by the window of the little eating area inside of the store, staring ahead of himself. That’s when he had spilled the beans, and after that, your story had been filled with more downs than ups, and you had wanted to give up on this relationship so many times for his sake, but he had insisted to choose love because he had dared to be bold and be true to himself because of you. How could you have gone against him when you had loved him so much?

So much that you now wished that you could have been in his place, that you could be in pain instead of him, and not because his mother kept yelling at you until Jisung dragged you away from her, and not because you couldn’t do anything but cry your eyes out on one of the chairs in the corridor while Jisung was going to the vending machine to get you something to drink, but because of the guilt. His mother was right; if it hadn’t been for you, he would have never left home that day, he would have never wanted to drive you to Busan to see the sea together, and that drunk driver would have never crushed into his car from his side, so that he would be more hurt than you were.

You were so desperate that you did what you had never believed in, putting your hands together and praying for whatever god that was up there to help him, to save his life because he needed to live, he couldn’t die. He had dreams of becoming a doctor, he had a whole bucket list of places he wished to see, he had a little sister to go back to and he had his whole life still ahead of himself. He couldn’t die, he just couldn’t…

“There’s a price for something so grand,” a voice called from beside you, startling you so much that you nearly fell off the chair. The stranger didn’t bat an eye though; he was merely scanning your features with his pitch-black orbs, his equally pitch-black locks falling into his dark eyes. There was just something strangely eerie about him; he was calm, but maybe a bit too calm for someone who had such chaos around him. He looked otherworldly, but in a scary way. Your heart missed a beat when you locked eyes with him.

“What do you mean? Who are you?” You furrowed your eyebrows in question, but he was still so nonchalant, so he didn’t get taken aback by your question, nor did he actually seem interested in your suffering.

Turns out he knew about it anyway.

“I’m Minho, the deity that writes your destiny, and I’ve heard your wish of letting him live. Since I write your destiny and not his, I can’t determine that on my own, but there’s a way to make it work.”

You had been through hell the previous hours, and getting to know that your grandmother had been right about gods listening to your prayers, and about having a deity that writes your destiny was just the tip of the iceberg. You couldn’t believe it, you were sure that you were slowly losing your sanity.

“Why? Is it his destiny to die today? Doesn’t he have more time?” you asked instead of interrogating him about your own destiny because it didn’t matter anymore. Only Hyunjin mattered, even the pain in your leg seemed to be nothing compared to the worry you had towards the boy’s condition, and your guilt numbed everything else anyways.

Minho looked up for a moment as if he was waiting for an answer from above, then he looked back at you, eyes stoic as he said:

“He has twelve minutes left.”

“Oh my gosh, no…” You exclaimed, your heart picking up its beat. You stood up from the chair, putting a hand over your heart as if it could help anything, but it couldn’t, of course it couldn’t. “Then, do something! Anything! He needs to live!” You yelled at him frantically, and looked around when you realised how loud you were, but suddenly, you realised that no one had looked your way. They didn’t even move! It seemed that time had stopped around you. No one was moving, and even the watch on your wrist indicated that time didn’t pass.

Now you were able to believe that this boy was actually a deity. Or you were merely hallucinating, but you didn’t know which one was worse. However, if there was a way to get Hyunjin to live in either version of your reality, you were willing to put up with all this madness.

“I’ve told you. I can’t determine his destiny on my own, but since yours and his are deeply connected, I can make a deal with Bang Chan who writes his destiny. But there’s a price for that,” Minho warned you, but his voice was still as neutral as ever. As if he didn’t feel emotions. How could deities who wrote people’s destinies be so emotionless? Did they even feel sympathy for people who suffered or died? It didn’t seem so.

“What is it? What are you talking about? I’ll do anything if you can save him,” you begged him, falling to your knees in front of him, not being able to bear the uncertainty. Even though time wasn’t passing, twelve minutes wasn’t a long time. It was an awfully short time compared to how much you wanted to spend with him.

“A life can only be exchanged for another life, so if he lives, you have to die,” Minho broke it down to you in an ice-cold tone, eyes dark and deep and telling hundreds of stories full of joy and laughter and pain and suffering. And death.

Your breath hitched, and you needed to hold onto the edge of the chair next to you to be able to keep yourself together. Even though you had been thinking that you would rather be in his place than in yours, being told that he could only live if you die was still excruciatingly shocking and unfair.

“Why? Why are you so cruel? Why do the two of us have to end up like that?” you cried out, your voice weak and broken. Your heart was aching so bad that you kept catching your breath because you couldn’t breathe properly, and the pain was flowing through your veins and limbs and all parts of your body, so it felt like you were bathing in this cold, numb and sticky hurt.

Minho didn’t bat an eye, he merely looked down at you, and in that moment with you being at his feet and him talking so mighty, you two really looked like a deity and a mere human being.

“You two were never going to end up together. You were never destined to be together. Humans learn the most from pain, and Bang Chan has decided that Hyunjin’s family can grow the most from realising their wrong judgement only if he dies. Hyunjin has left a letter behind, explaining to them how much he loves you and how much you have made him want to live, and they are supposed to find that letter and reflect upon their mistake after his death. Hyunjin can give you the least pain if he’s not around, and you can finally learn to love yourself after you overcome the guilt.”

His words might have made sense in a cruel way, but you would never ever want his parents to forgive you only if he dies because then you would never be able to forgive yourself. After all, you had really been the one at fault. If he hadn’t met you, he wouldn’t have driven that car a few hours earlier, and he wouldn’t be lying in the emergency room, fighting for his life. To be precise, fighting for what was left of it.

“But… He doesn’t deserve this. He has never done anything wrong,” you mumbled, the first teardrops searing your cheeks as they strode down your skin. You started to accept the situation, you started to believe that Minho was a deity, and that you could save Hyunjin in exchange for your life, but your heart needed a bit more time to accept your decision.

So when silence overtook you for a few seconds, and Minho didn’t say anything, you looked up at him, and for the first time ever since he had come up to you, you saw a bit of empathy in his dark, seemingly bottomless orbs. Maybe life as a deity who writes people’s destiny had made him numb to the pain and suffering of humans, but in that moment, you could see the walls around his icy demeanor thaw.

“Sometimes you learn a lesson yourself, and sometimes you teach others a lesson,” he broke the silence as you were gazing at each other, and how much you wished he wasn’t right! But he was, of course he was, he was probably hundreds of years old stuck in a young man’s body, and he had seen more births and deaths than you would ever do in your entire life. But still…

You thought of your father who had left you when you had been six. You thought of your mother with whom you had been living ever since and who had never seemed to understand you, leading you to have no emotional support all throughout your childhood, no one to rely on when things had gotten dark. You thought of your high school years, having big dreams of entering university, only to have them crushed the moment you had received your rejection letter. You thought of the excruciating search for jobs for people like you - barely graduated, not going to higher education, not having any experience or whatsoever.

Then, you thought of Hyunjin, and his soft, long locks, his even softer touch, the way your name rolled off his tongue as if you had been a drug - saving him and making him suffer at the same time -, the way his lips curled into a smile like the rainbow after a rainstorm, the way he held onto your hands ever so tightly as if you had been his anchor, and all those sweet little moments shared after your shifts at the convenience store, hidden kisses in the park on his campus, and sleepless nights spent messaging each other for hours on end.

Hyunjin had always been the only light in your life, and you would never want his shine to fade away. He needed to spread that light, he needed to light up others’ lives, he couldn’t die. Yet, for him to keep living, you needed to become one with the darkness you had always been more familiar with.

“I’ll do it. I’ll die in his place. Just tell me what to do,” you whispered mindlessly as your heart was finally ready to accept your decision, and Minho nodded, your words settling in.

“Go back to your hospital ward, then, your death will be quick and painless. Your heart will stop at once,” he told you, and it seemed almost peaceful, almost too easy based on his words.

You were about to ask Minho another question, but he evaporated just as abruptly as he had arrived, and suddenly, your surroundings started moving, patients groaning, wheelchairs being pushed around, and all the noise and light came back to life, reminding you of the painful fact that this would be the last you see of this world. So you looked around in the corridor as if it would have been your first time seeing, smelling, feeling everything, and made your way back to your ward.

As you laid there in the bed, hoping and praying that Jisung would face a queue at the vending machine or canteen or wherever he went, and hoping that it would be just as quick and painless to die as Minho had told you. Oddly enough, the thought made you crack a smile, reminding you of a conversation you had previously had with Hyunjin about whether there was life after death because he had found it ridiculous how married couples said that they would be together until death do them apart. He had tried to convince you that there must be life after death where you could continue loving people you loved in your life, but you had strongly disagreed. Your all too rational mind couldn’t comprehend it.

However, as you were laying there, your body feeling restless and calm at the same time, your heart picking up its speed a little bit, all you could think about was how much you wanted to believe in what Hyunjin had said. How much you wanted to look over him even when you would die.

So in your last moments, you were actually smiling, reminiscing about the times you had spent together, and about how much you had loved loving him, and just before your heart would stop beating for the one person you had loved with all your heart, you said: