what if...

Red Carpet - Jaebum

New Year ’s Eve.

You’ve grown used to spending it with the familiar waft of cookies and hot chocolate, the crinkle of wrapping paper, and carols softly playing on the radio. This year, you spend the last night of the year alone, ironically so amidst the energetic chaos flying about backstage. At some point, you’d escaped the insistent hands of your stylists and bowed past several of your seniors, never lifting your head to make eye contact. Utmost respect meant quick greetings. No questions asked. No suspicions. No one took notice when you slipped out the back exit and ascended up the flight of stairs leading into the rooftop.

Nausea hits you as soon as you peer over the edge and spot the red carpet below, still bustling with activity. The flashes from the paparazzi are blinding even from far away. Around them, fans crowd behind the barricades, holding up signs and gifts. A wall of security stands guard at the sidelines. Sleek, black vans with tinted windows roll slowly down the street, dropping off the stars of the night. Just hours ago, you were one of the many idols who walked down that glamorous path.

Your stomach flips at the memory of the event.

There was an overwhelming response to your arrival, even more so when your name made headlines after your iconic debut stage.

______,The Rising Star. Korea’s Next BoA. The Nation’s Pride.

Crippling pressure weighed on you as soon as you first touched limelight. Your fans rapidly accumulated. Your albums sold out in mere days. You received offers for commercials and acting roles, you were invited to guest on entertainment shows. Your company’s sales soared, and in turn, they prioritized your promotions over your label mates’. After all of this, tonight, on the red carpet, they had asked you how you felt.

You now chuckle sadistically to yourself, grabbing onto the metal railing and hardly feeling the cold there.

They think you’re ecstatic. Absolutely thrilled and honored to be here amongst the leading celebrities of the country, ending the year with trophies and explosive performances. Tonight, the world expects you to live up to their expectations.

How can you possibly fulfill these demands when your stomach is in knots and your throat is chocked with anxiety?

Dropping your hands from the railing, you step back with wobbling knees. Your dress suddenly feels tight around your body, locking you in a wicked grip. The worst of your fears race through your head.

What if you don’t deserve all of this attention after all? What if you break on stage? What if your voice falters and cracks in the middle of your performance? What if your fans are disgusted by your self-composed songs?  

If they hate it…

The shock of this thought shoots through your bones like lightning, and you stumble back, your heel snagging in your long dress. You yelp in surprise as your body loses balance and falls backward, colliding with a broad and solid chest.

A pair of gentle hands catches you by the shoulders.  

“Breathe, sweetheart.”

The voice is deep and quiet. There’s familiarity in the man’s tone, as if you’d heard it before in a passing conversation. Your guard raises, and you pull away to face the stranger who you assume to be a passing senior or staff member.

“I’m sorry. I’ll head back in-“

“I don’t think taking a few breaths calls for an apology.”

Im Jaebum, leader of Got7, stares back at you inquisitively with a raised brow.

Your heart stutters in your chest. The last time you’d seen him, it had been in the dressing room hours ago, when he’d been sitting in front of the mirror having his hair styled. You were passing by in the hall and your eyes met briefly through your reflection on the glass. He looked startled, smiling politely before blushing by the tips of his ears. The staff had abruptly the door to his dressing room before you could react.

In contrast to then, the Jaebum in front of you now no longer seems so shy. Dark eyeliner accentuates his eyes, adding a heavy undertone to his gaze that warms your insides. You panic slightly under the weight of his undivided attention, eyes unnervingly focused and…concerned?

Surely, you must be wrong.

“If you’re questioning my motives, then yes, I actually did follow you up here,” Jaebum’s lips curve into a smile. Your face warms in response. “You looked sick and pale, and I know that look all too well.”

“You do?” you blurt out, eyes widening at yourself. You never do this. Never respond to your elders informally or entertain colleagues who made their advances. In revealing something more than your stage persona, you were afraid of exposing your vulnerabilities. So you became a shell. Bathed in the spotlight, but never letting anyone touch your core.

Jaebum has thrown all of your practice out the window.

“I remember when I felt that way,” Jaebum nods, as if confirming something in your eyes. He’s reading you as easily as an instruction manual, and you can’t bring yourself to look away. “I felt something like it after Jinyoung and I stopped promoting as JJ Project.”

Jaebum’s gaze softens. He slides past you to look over the railing where the activities of the red carpet event have begun to dwindle. You watch his back and taut shoulders for a moment, hesitating. He could be up to something. Leading you to let down your guard so he can tease and torture you about it later.

You’ve heard stories during your training period. How seniors sometimes pressured rookie artists, manipulating the rules of seniority in order to bully the ones on the lowest of tiers. The end goal was to drive the rookies to quit, weeding out the competition so the ones at the top may stay there. It was a sick, twisted game played by a select few, but still a possibility in this line of business.  

But to be played by Im Jaebum?

You shake your head.

He’s better than this. You know it with certainty. Those eyes that met with yours in the mirror held the truth, and somehow, you know you can trust him.

Joining him to stand by the railing, you watch Jaebum examine his hands, calloused and stretched on the back of his palms. With a start, you remember watching an interview of Got7 weeks ago while you were on standby in the waiting room. Jaebum recounted a story of his stray cats in the dorm, each who had bizarre, yet strangely endearing personalities.

You find yourself smiling before he even begins to speak.

“I think my whole world fell apart and rebuilt itself when I re-debuted with the boys.” he folds his hands, toying with his fingers in awkward movements. “I hated them for a time just because they were new and inexperienced. But God, did they grow on me fast. I wanted to show off as their senior, but who was I kidding? I was still shitting my pants before our debut stage.”

You laugh out loud at this, and Jaebum turns to you, mirth in his eyes despite his unfortunate story.

“You know why they call me out for being so hyperactive out there?” he jerks his head to the side, referring to an imaginary audience.

You shake your head, and he sighs softly.

“Because I don’t think I’ll ever forget the energy of my first stage. As in, my first genuine stage. I was happy. I didn’t care about what others might think of me in that moment or afterwards. I was out there losing myself in my craft, and that’s the only thing I hold on to when I perform. That should be your only concern tonight too.”

His eyes dart over to the red carpet briefly, and you shiver, both from the chill of the night and the implication of his words.

“How did you know?” you stare up at him, wondering. In a matter of minutes, he’d figured you out. Related with your emotions and churning thoughts. Though all he did was talk about himself, you don’t think this is really about him. Not completely. Otherwise, he would have approached this conversation with much more arrogance.

No, that’s not it.

He’s comforting you.

The realization has your pulse quickening.  

“You can say I know from experience.” Jaebum grins with a degree of shyness, as if reading into your thoughts.

You hold his gaze for a few beats. The familiar flush on his ears has returned, but his eyes are unwavering. For the first time tonight, you let out an unlabored breath. Your heart is still running a marathon, but this time, in a good way. Jaebum is still watching you as you let your eyes flutter shut.

“Thank you.”

“For what? The pleasure is mine.”

There’s mischief laced in Jaebum’s voice.

You crack an eye open.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know.” Jaebum says incredulously, lips quirking into a smile. “I’m actually one of your biggest fans.”

The world freezes for a second.

The distant camera flashes halt to a stop, the sound of screaming fans dim to an acute noise, and the cold air lifts from your skin, warming your body from inside out.  Your vision blurs from the intoxication of Jaebum’s confession. His timid smile is all you can see.

“Why me?” you ask more to yourself than to Jaebum, recalling all the times you’ve quietly watched him with awe from behind the scenes, the charismatic leader of his team. Someone as occupied and charming as he wouldn’t have time to admire a rookie idol like you.

“Why not you?” Jaebum challenges, raising a brow.

“Because…” you struggle to reason with him. You’re not up to par with him. He’s several years your senior. You have not yet shown your full potential. “…because I’m me.”

“You’re being unfair, _______.” Jaebum chuckles, though his tone is bitter. “I didn’t come up here to get rejected.”

Your eyes shoot up to his in alarm.

“I wasn’t-“

“Rejecting me? I know, it’s hard not to.”

You barely manage to keep yourself from cringing.  

Jaebum, on the other hand, completely fails to hide his horror. Even in the dark, the dim glow of the moon is enough to expose his flushed cheeks.

Vicissitude - Part 3 (Chanyeol)

“Care to tell me why you haven’t been to work for the past three days?”

Kyungsoo is scary.

He entered the kitchen twenty minutes ago without saying a word, silently tiptoeing around you and your laptop at the table to brew some coffee. You’d almost forgotten he was there until he cleared his throat, paused for a solid few seconds, then dropped the big question.

You were hoping he wouldn’t notice.

But his low profile tendencies have a reason behind it, which is being highly aware of his surroundings and noticing changes.  Which you’ve clearly made.

You’re actually doing your homework.

A lot of it.

Along with other things.

“Oh, you know,” you say over the whirring of the coffee machine. “Places to be. People to meet.”

“In the middle of nowhere.”

You never knew Kyungsoo had so much sass in him. The quiet, deadly kind of sass that catches you off guard because he’s being so painfully casual for someone who’s about to pry for information.

And his back is still turned on you.

“I still haven’t gotten my paycheck, by the way.” you’re stalling, which is painfully obvious. “I’m going on strike.”

Kyungsoo finally shows his face after pressing a button on the coffee machine, the whirring immediately subsiding after he lifts the mug from the base of the machine. He studies you quietly without an ounce of emotion on his face, and you try to mimic the same neutral expression but you know you just probably look like you’re constipated.

“Paychecks come out every two weeks. And considering that you’ve also skipped out on the past few days…..” he doesn’t finish knowing that you understand the deal here.

No work, no pay.

You sigh, acknowledging defeat and turning back to your laptop to finish up that government paper you’re only halfway finished with because you didn’t actually start writing it until three days ago. Somewhere along the line, you’ve turned writing papers into a form of distraction.

In actuality, you hate writing. But it gives you something to do and think about other than the lingering touch of Yixing’s lips and the thin layer of guilt there that you’re still trying to figure out.

As usual, forgetting things isn’t as easy as it seems.

“Please tell me you’re going to go away soon.” you say without looking up from your laptop, because you know very well that Kyungsoo is still standing there with his coffee and he hasn’t shown any sign of movement.

He’s also making you think of things again which is bad. Very bad.

“I’m waiting.”

He wants answers.

He’s been hanging out with Baekhyun too much. He’s slowly getting just as annoying. And by annoying you mean being able to read right through you even with the façade you’re showing.

Are you really that readable?

“Then keep waiting.” you pull down your laptop screen and grab for your coat behind your chair, and only now does Kyungsoo set down his coffee in mild surprise.

“Where are you going?”

He sounds like your mom whenever you ask her if you can hang with some friends she doesn’t recognize the names of at any time past nine in the evening.  

Mind you, it’s only three in the afternoon right now. Therefore, Kyungsoo can’t call you out on this.

“On a walk.” you offer him a salute, which he doesn’t take very well as he scrunches his brows in thought back at you.

Amazing how much character development he can show within only a week or so after meeting him for the first time. There’s also the fact that you’ve somewhat taken a liking to him during your time at the lounge whenever you’d exchange random pleasantries in between working breaks.

Or how he randomly takes care of the people around him without much thought through simple things. Such as waking Baekhyun up every morning without yelling at him about his alarm that wakes just about everyone in the cabin except for him. And how he’ll diligently listen to Chanyeol’s guitar playing and actually give feedback unlike Jongin who merely offers a nod of approval whenever Chanyeol asks for his opinion.

The way he’d wash Yixing’s favorite purple hoodie every night and run it through the dryer because that’s how often that boy wears it.

Now he’s trying to ease off some of the burden from you too.

Except this isn’t his fight.

And he must realize it too with the way he’s fallen silent again.

That is, until you reach the front door and he calls out for you right before you slip outside into the freezing temperatures. You can’t help but stop and wait for his word of advice.

“If you can’t tell me, tell someone who deserves to hear it.”

~~~

Your little ‘walk’ lasts about ten minutes tops until you decide to turn right around and come back to the comfort of the fireplace indoors. It must be below zero degrees today, with the fog making it nearly impossible to spot anything more than a foot away from you.

You’d only gone out about half a mile or so, but twenty minutes later you’re still walking and slowly beginning to panic as time continues to stretch and you fail to spot the cabin or the others that should be nearby.

Your vicinity isn’t exactly at its best given the circumstances.

To add on to the already dangerous situation, you hadn’t brought your cell phone with you either.

Brilliant, _________, just brilliant.

You wanted to drift far away from your problems but you didn’t actually want to be this far away.

Not even a sign of civilization.    

You’ve never hated yourself more than you do now.

Another set of time passes, you have no idea how much, but by then your nose is frozen and you’re certain you’re only minutes away from getting frostbite on your toes. Along with that, you’re also left with some thinking time, and said thinking time encompasses just about everything odd and dramatic that has occurred throughout the course of this trip and what exactly you need to do to survive this and finally untangle the tangled affairs of your heart.

And just when you think you might die without clearing up your ongoing issues, salvation comes.

There’s a guy wearing a bright orange jacket walking in the opposite direction as you, and at first you think it’s Taemin because you’re very familiar with that jacket.

Though when you yell out and frantically flail your hands to catch his attention, you realize two things.

One, the guy is certainly not Taemin. His shoulders are too broad to be Taemin and he’s also a few inches taller than Taemin.

Two, Kyungsoo’s words of wisdom just slapped you in the face.

“_______? Are you okay? What are you doing out here? God, you’re freezing.”

There are hands on your cheeks. Warm ones. Warm hands in the middle of Arctic weather. And if you close your eyes long enough, you can almost picture home.

“Chanyeol, I’m cold.”

His hands slip from your cheeks and you hear the unzipping of his jacket, crunching of the snow, and then there’s fabric being wrapped around your neck.

You open your eyes, instantly regretting it after finding Chanyeol standing closer than before. While he’s focused on burrowing you underneath his scarf, you take in the bits of snow nestled in his bright hair and the urgency in his movements.

The deep line of worry across his forehead.

You don’t know what to make of this. You don’t know what to make of anything.

All you know is that you have to tell him something.

Anything.

“Let’s get you back inside.”

He’s tugging at your arm, and when you don’t respond, his hold slips to your wrist and he forces you to stumble after him.

He’s not asking any questions.

Which worries you more than the cold piercing into your skin.

“Chanyeol.”

“We’ve got about fifteen minutes before you start developing frost bite, but I don’t think we’re too far from the cabin. We’ll make it.”

That all sounds great and relieving but it’s not exactly why you called him in the first place.

“Chanyeol.”

“We should really pick up the pace, though. Just in case I’m wrong about where we are and we both end up-“

“Yeol.”

That seems to quiet him.

He slows his pace but doesn’t stop. You still consider it a small victory as his ears flare a hint of pink at his newly birthed nickname, and you feel yourself flush too. You aren’t concerned with that because your whole face is too frozen to show a hint of color anymore.

It’s just the embarrassed feeling that lingers.

That’s not stopping you.

You need to say this before you get back to the cabin and the magic of being alone and somewhat courageous out here begins to wear off.

“In sophomore year, my favorite instrument was the guitar.” you feel his grip on your wrist loosen which means he’s finally listening. You sniff and breathe out, watching your breathe puff out in a white cloud before disappearing into the fog surrounding the two of you like a heavy cloak. “And then I went out with Yixing.”

Chanyeol stops so suddenly you nearly walk straight into him.

He turns to face you, and as soon as he does you launch into an unpracticed narration of a story you haven’t told in a while and count down the minutes you have left before you really need to book it back indoors and possibly hide forever.

“I was ignorant to music until I heard him one day in the practice room, strumming some random song I wasn’t familiar with, and I don’t know why I stayed but I did until the very end of my lunch period and he looked up past the glass on the door straight into my eyes after the song ended. I knew I loved him the moment he sang to me that same song in front of the whole student council.”

Chanyeol’s eyes have gotten so wide his whole pupils are showing.

“People said things, of course. We broke the sacrilegious rule of seniors exclusively dating seniors. But that didn’t matter. I didn’t care as long as we were together. What really mattered was that he scored a scholarship in Europe and he was bound to leave the day after his graduation.”

You’ve started shaking and it isn’t from the cold.

Chanyeol reaches out towards your shivering fingers, hesitates, then stuffs his awkward hands in his pockets as a final resolution, and you mirror his position as you bite back tears.

“He gave me a note through his music player. Some sort of voice note on why he didn’t want to leave. But you see, I knew he had to. I wasn’t worth a promising future music career. There was so much waiting for him over there, but with me, he’d forever be stuck over here. I wanted to be selfish and that thought scared me.”

You’re almost done here. It’s obvious the ending sounds near and Chanyeol knows it too. He’s looking at you as if the world is falling. You’re glad the crisp, cruel air dries your eyes and snatches any chances of tears trickling down.  

“The last thing I heard from him was that he loved me. And the last thing I told him was goodbye.”

There’s a hole in this story.

Not a fairytale ending or a solution, but an important puzzle piece that you’ve missed. One that’s been there all along, hidden, unknown until you heard the gentle strings of the guitar again two years later.

And that single piece throws you off kilter. Rearranging everything else in a whole different picture.

What terrifies you the most is that it’s standing right in front of you.

“Was it, though?” Chanyeol’s voice has gone quiet in a way that you recognize because that’s what people sound like when they’re shattered. “Was it really a goodbye?”

Yixing and Chanyeol are friends.  

You weren’t aware of this and from the looks of it, neither was he, which means that Yixing has kept more secrets than you realize and maybe Chanyeol knows more than what you give him credit for.

You want to call it unfair that one day, you’re still stuck trying to get over the image of your first love and then in the next, he’s tugging at your heart again but it’s refusing to follow. Not anymore. There’s a new reason behind the pounding in your chest and you hadn’t expected to identify its source in the middle of nowhere.

Where it’s just you and the boy who’s asking if you’re willing to give the past a second chance.

“I don’t know.”

Chanyeol nods in slow motion, like he’s confirmed something scientifically. His feet are heavy when he turns, his boots driving deep into the snow, and you want to follow him and ask why he’s trying to solve a mystery that you feel is only a misunderstanding.

That would’ve been easier to do if you hadn’t seen him bite his lower lip before shutting you out.

He’s not the only one who’s made a breakthrough.

It doesn’t hit you suddenly, but it settles in as slowly as Chanyeol is trudging away. The image of Yixing trapping you that day against the shelves flashes through your memory, and you faintly remember closing your eyes, feeling tender lips that are certainly not Yixing’s.

You know how his mouth fits against yours already. You’ve always known.

The moment you closed your eyes and imagined someone else was a different story. Nowadays, you wish you never have to close them because there’s only one thing that enters your mind and it has nothing to do with Yixing.

Instead, it has everything to do with his friend, and what it would be like to melt against him.

Today - Jaebum

September 22, 2017

Contrary to what they say in trashy teen magazines, first love doesn’t always begin with a heart fluttering, innocent and graceful encounter. You feel obligated to correct that misleading piece of information. You almost mark it out with your pen, correcting the writer’s mistake, but then you remember that you’re not supposed to be the critic here.

You’re supposed to be searching for inspiration. Finding a subject for your next article. You’ve sat in this God-knows-where cafe for an hour, pouring over a pile of publications, desperate to find something. Blindly reaching for an unborn idea.

“Your stories have become bland.” Mark, your editor and usually kind companion, had delivered an uppercut punch before he even finished reading your last feature article. His blatant criticism shocked you. Not once has he ever complained about your writing. It quickly became a quest to please him again.

“This writing no longer sounds like you. Are you even enjoying this anymore?”

It’s not that you’ve lost interest. It’s just that sometimes, you find yourself holding back.  

“Write me something compelling and don’t even think of that promotion until you win me over.”

You didn’t think he was cruel enough to hang the managing editor title over your head. Additionally, he had struck a chord by sneaking in several romance pieces in your resources pile.

You get the hint.

In fairness, there used to be a time when you would eagerly compose romantic writings and hold on to love stories as if they were your own. Your former self embraced romance and took any risk that came your way. That was before he taught you to think twice. He taught you the reality to false beliefs. He taught you everything you know today.

These days, you’ve learned to choose your battles. Today, you find yourself surrendering to the nearly forgotten memories. As you read further down the advice column on first loves, clearly written by a young and inexperienced writer, you’re brought back to the first time you ever gave your heart away.

The very first meeting. When it was nowhere near how the fairytales described it, or how you imagined the love of your life would come to you.  

Because the weather is fair, because Mark is telling you to, because you don’t have much choice, you allow yourself to remember.

Just one last time.

~~~

September 21, 2013

The crash happens while you’re attempting to merge lanes.

You swear you made sure to look, not once but thrice, gauging the blurred lights on your side mirror and passing in front of the car that had seemed far away enough. You could say it was because of the rain. You could say that the pressure overcame you, that you were racing against the passing time that refused to wait for you.

A minute ago, you’d been accelerating without fear of the wet roads, pleading that you make it in time for your first internship. A minute later, you’re hearing the screech of metal and your body is being jolted forward. You don’t realize your car has lost control until you feel the wheels under you skidding sideways to a stop, just missing the guard rail, your life quite literally flashing before your eyes in an instant.

You find your hands shaking when you glance up at yourself through the crooked rearview mirror.

Except for your flushed cheeks, there are no signs of injury. No blood. All limbs intact.

The storm of honking behind you brings you back to your senses.  

“Are you fucking crazy?”

The driver of the other car is knocking on your window.

Drenched in rain, he has his phone pressed against his ear, probably calling for the police. Instead of worry, anger lines his face like the crack of thunderbolt.

His rude shouting somehow dissolves your fear and aggravates you, while a part of you admits that you’re mostly at fault. But your swelled up pride wins out over admitting your faults. The idea of losing even such a trivial and obvious battle as this one is utterly humiliating and embarrassing for you.

Especially since you just made a rookie mistake by trying to rush to work.

At least you’re willing to admit that you’re about to do something incredibly stupid.

Instead of rolling down the window and apologizing profusely or trading insurance information like what you’re generally supposed to do after a crash, you unbuckle your seatbelt and step out into the rain.  

The guy is in mid sentence on his phone--something about giving directions and reporting a crash caused by ‘a dumb bitch’--when you slam your door closed and look up at him with blazing eyes.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that the idea of courtesy died with the beginning of your very existence.” you shout over the roar of the storm, the cars whizzing by, and the driver’s angry conversation over the line.

He stops yelling into his phone for a moment, jaw dropping open at your brazenness. You can see that he’s pissed, absolutely insulted, and you can already tell what kind of response he has in store for you.

“What did you just say to me?”

He steps forward with a threatening glare, puncturing your personal bubble until your back hits the side of your car. From up close, you can tell that he’s young, maybe around the same age as you. The sharp angles on his face create an illusion of older age. You know better than to be fooled, because a proper adult wouldn’t choose to wear ripped jeans on a rainy day or drive at sixty miles in a forty zone. A proper adult wouldn’t stand in the rain long enough just to fight a reckless girl and get their clothes soaked.

You’re aware of all this, yet you’re still fanning the flames.

“It’s shitty enough that I’m late for my internship. But to get hit by a self absorbed asshole? I must’ve murdered a whole town in my past life.”

“Are you kidding?” the guy scoffs, pounding his hand against your car. “I think you’re forgetting who fucking swerved into my lane without even thinking about it!”

“If you care to know, I checked three full times and saw a clear road!”

“Well damn then, let me call an eye doctor for your blind ass while I’m at it!”

“My ‘blind ass’ happened to keep your speeding ass in check!”

“Fuck me, you’re one to talk!”

“I may have lost a very important job opportunity because of you!”

“And because of you, my boss is going to slit my throat once he finds out that I wrecked his company’s car!”

You’re close to throwing fists by the time the police and ambulance arrive. You only break apart when an officer threatens to arrest the both of you if you don’t stop disturbing the peace. This makes no sense to you as the thunderous sky and building traffic are nowhere close to peaceful, but you step back and allow yourself to get examined by the paramedics.

On the other hand, the driver that had hit you is preoccupied with inspecting his car, running his fingers over the dent on his hood somberly as if he’d just lost a precious member of his family. Obviously, he has more concern for his vehicle than an actual person.

“Insolent prick.” you mutter under your breath when he later joins you in the back of the towing truck.

“I heard that.” he hisses back, the driver next to you shifting uncomfortably at your exchange of hostilities.

It takes hours to settle your dispute and walk away as calmly as you can with your car totaled and many dollars to spend. You contact the internship (Mark)

His face isslightly blurry in your vision and your eyes squint against the blinding light,but you don’t have to see clearly to know who he is.

ParkChanyeol.  Resident goofball of thehospital. He’s been been a leukemia patient for a year and a half, spreading joythrough his light hearted jokes and impromptu singing in the hallways. He’dbeen somewhat of a best friend who helped you brave through the countlessneedles, the chemo, the boredom of lying on a bed for days, aching everywhere.

The lasttime you saw him, he was sleeping on a lazy Saturday afternoon,uncharacteristically quiet with concerned doctors surrounding him.  

The memoryjars you, making you realize where you truly are.

“No.” yougasp just as his face comes to full focus.

The same ruffled,boyish hair and pointed ears. The same cheeky smile. The only difference is hischeeks no longer look gaunt and the dark circles under his eyes have faded asif by magic.

Hisexpression only cheers at your blatant shock and horror.

“What, isthat how you greet a good old friend?”

“You’rebarely over twenty, Chan.”

He shrugs,eyes glistening with a happy mist you haven’t seen him wear before.

“Yeah, well.So are you.”

You shakeyour head, struck by awe. You’ve thought about what might happen after death.Some nights, you’d wake up gasping from terrible dreams. The impending doomthat you knew would eventually overtake you and eat at your veins no matter howhard you tried to resist. As a cancer patient, the last thing on your mind wasyour possible Ascension.

“Thinkingabout what you did to deserve this?” Chanyeol asks, reading into you as always.His voice goes quiet as he takes a step closer. “You saved me, you know.”

Your chestconstricts at his honesty, your breath hitching and skin warming, and you wonderif your heart is still beating here even though it had already stopped on Earth.

“You diedwith me,” you counter Chanyeol. “You died because of me.”

“Correction,I died before you. That automatically exempts you from being at fault.”

You merelystare back at him, unable to argue while he shifts on his feet, restless, thisnewfound physical energy of his so alien to you. He’s always been energetic nomatter the circumstance, but here, after the pain and misery, he looks morealive than he’s ever been.

And from hiseyes, you just might look the same way.

“Now there’sthat smile.” Chanyeol grins, nudging you in the shoulder, and he looks so giddyyou can’t help but laugh with him.

“About that,” you chuckle brokenly, averting your eyes when you find Kyungsoo’s face distorted in confusion. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided to go to Taiwan instead.”

“Taiwan?” Kyungsoo is trying to figure you out, but you’ve closed your doors long ago. “That’s…really sudden.”

You shrug, gathering enough strength past your heavy limbs to clap a hand on Kyungsoo’s shoulder.

“Trust me, it’s better this way.”

“But I don’t understand,” Kyungsoo takes your hand and his. You pull away from him, suddenly awake. “I thought you wanted to stay together.”

“Yes, well,” this time, you pour yourself the drink. “I figured I’d like to be closer to home.”

Further away from him and her.

Kyungsoo’s silence threatens to choke you. You can see the inner workings of his mind struggling to process your decision. Trying to justify your sudden change of plans.

“I’ll keep in touch,” you lie, downing your fourth shot to suppress the sting in your eyes. “I’ll check in with you once in a while.”

“______-“

“You’ve been a great friend, Soo,” your voice betrays you by cracking.

“Is this your way of telling me you’re tired?” Soo muses, already reaching for his coat behind his chair, and your fingers dig into your thighs to keep from holding him back.

“Very,” you sigh, releasing a shaky breath that Kyungsoo misses, courtesy of the alcohol. “Bye, Soo.”

“Call and let me know when you plan to leave.”

“Okay.”

Little didanyone know that Jongin and her would end up getting married in the long run.The first out of their close knit group of friends. Which means they’ve beatenyou and Minseok too.

“To be fair,Jongin has kept you all to himself all night. “ your arms lock around abewildered Minseok. Out of habit, his hands find their way to your hips. “I’monly doing him and his wife a favor.”

“Why do Ifeel like this is a strange case of déjà vu?” Minseok lifts a brow, surrenderingto your naughty antics and bending down to touch your forehead with his.

“Hopefully,the next one will take place at our wedding.”

Your headtilts up, waiting, and Minseok’s lips meet you in the middle.

You want to tell him that there’s no point in trying. That the moment he missed his timing at the bar, he had already killed you even before the accident. You’d washed away his rejection with tequila shots, numbing your hurting parts. You didn’t bother to stop him from accepting beer from his friends.

You suppose that part was your fault. You wanted to test what kind of truth alcohol will lead him to confess.

You never did get a proper answer.

Funny how you’re hearing it now, after Junmyeon has realized what he has lost.

“I was foolish,” his voice cracks as the nurses begin to gently pull him away, and he recoils from their grip. He’s whispering, but you hear every word clearly spoken in your dead ear. “I didn’t want to ruin what we already had.”

Oh, but we could have had so much more.

He’s fading. Your vision is beginning to blur. Something bright, burning intensely in the distance, urges you to abandon everything you’ve left here and go.

“Please, _______. Please come back to me.”

Perfect, composed Junmyeon. Drunk, distraught Junmyeon.

You loved all of him. You loved him when he fell asleep on your shoulder for the first time on the bus. You loved him when he helped you clean your house, leaving it messier than its original state. You loved him when he had his first girlfriend. You loved him when they separated. You loved him even when he was stumbling under your arm and clumsily sliding into the driver’s seat. Even now, you love him at his most vulnerable state.

“Jaebum.” you sigh when you reach the isolated end of thebazaar, standing on the pier that overlooks the city in the distance.  

“Yes?”

Arms gentle as the lazy waves rolling at your feet envelopeyou in an instant. His touch is all too familiar for you to panic. By instinct,your body sags against his chest, a magnetic force that brings you togetheragain and again, even when your worlds themselves have forced you apart.

Sometimes it’s you who finds him. Sometimes it’s him.Always, you meet when the sun has kissed the horizon goodbye.

“Hi.” it’s a simple greeting. Casual. Overlooking the spacesof time you’ve spent alone. Wondering. Wishing. Hurting. Loving.

The curve of his smile against your cheek steals theremaining words from your mouth.

“Hey.”

And when you kiss, he brings the breath back in your lungs,conversing through the clash of tongue and teeth and lips.

I love you.

Tonight, you feel whole again.

The driver of the other car is knocking on your window.

Drenched in rain, he has his phone pressed against his ear, probably calling for the police. Instead of worry, anger lines his face like the crack of thunderbolt.

His rude shouting somehow dissolves your fear and aggravates you instead, while a part of you also admits that you’re mostly at fault. But your swelled up pride wins out over admitting those faults. The idea of losing even such a trivial and obvious battle as this one is utterly humiliating and embarrassing for you.

Especially since you just made a rookie mistake by trying to rush to work.

At least you’re willing to admit that you’re about to do something incredibly stupid.

Instead of rolling down the window and apologizing profusely or trading insurance information like what you’re generally supposed to do after a crash, you unbuckle your seatbelt and step out into the rain.  

The guy is in mid-sentence on his phone--something about giving directions and reporting a crash caused by ‘a dumb bitch’--when you slam your door closed and look up at him with blazing eyes.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that the idea of courtesy died with the beginning of your very existence.” you shout over the roar of the storm, the cars whizzing by, and the driver’s angry conversation over the line.

He stops yelling into his phone for a moment, jaw dropping open at your brazenness. You can see that he’s pissed, absolutely insulted, and you can already tell what kind of response he has in store for you.

“What did you just say to me?”

He steps forward with a threatening glare, puncturing your personal bubble until your back hits the side of your car. From up close, you can tell how young he is. The sharp angles on his face create an illusion of older age. You know better than to be fooled, because a proper adult wouldn’t choose to wear ripped jeans on a rainy day or drive at sixty miles per hour in a forty zone. A proper adult wouldn’t stand in the rain long enough just to fight a reckless girl and get their clothes soaked.

You’re aware of all this, yet you’re still fanning the flames.

“It’s shitty enough that I’m late for my internship. But to get hit by a self-absorbed asshole? I must’ve murdered a whole town in my past life.”

“Are you kidding?” the guy scoffs, pounding his hand against your car. “I think you’re forgetting who fucking swerved into my lane without even thinking about it!”

“If you care to know, I checked three full times and saw a clear road!”

“Well damn then, let me call an eye doctor for your blind ass while I’m at it!”

“My ‘blind ass’ happened to keep your speeding ass in check!”

“Fuck me, you’re one to talk!”

“I may have lost a very important job opportunity because of you!”

“And because of you, my boss is going to slit my throat once he finds out that I wrecked his company’s car!”

You’re close to throwing fists by the time the police and ambulance arrive. You only break apart when an officer threatens to arrest the both of you if you don’t stop disturbing the peace, which makes no sense to you as the thunderous sky and building traffic are nowhere close to peaceful. But you’ve done enough damage here. At least you allow yourself to get examined by the paramedics.

On the other hand, the driver that had hit you is preoccupied with inspecting his car, running his fingers over the dent on his hood somberly as if he’d just lost a precious member of his family. Obviously, he has more concern for his vehicle than an actual person.

“Insolent prick.” you mutter under your breath when he later joins you in the back of the towing truck.

“I heard that.” he hisses back, the driver next to you shifting uncomfortably at your exchange of hostilities.

It takes hours to settle your dispute and walk away as calmly as you can with your car totaled and many dollars to spend. You contact your internship with dread in your chest, your mouth going dry when the famous reporter, Mark Tuan, answers the phone in an effortlessly smooth tone.

You explain your situation to the best of your abilities, stuttering an account of the day’s horrific events.

Mark generously offers to cover your medical expenses as soon as he hears the word, ‘accident,’ insisting that the company is also partly at fault for calling you in at such a short notice. You politely decline. You won’t know what to do with yourself if you ever allowed someone like Mark to pay for your mistakes. You tell him that you won’t take it to heart if he chooses to fire you.

“Oh, no. Absolutely not. I’m still more than happy to offer you the spot, Ms. ________.” Mark’s hospitality is so off the charts that you almost wish he had been the one who’d hit you instead.

At least you might’ve reacted a little differently if the other driver hadn’t been so rude. Not that it matters now. You’ve lost your car, yes, but your internship is intact and you’re one step closer to your dreams. You refuse to let one boy ruin this for you.

It isn’t too late. After all, you hadn’t even bothered to learn his name.

~~~

See the Light Gazette is a surprisingly humble building that fits a cozy team of 30. Mark Tuan himself greets you in the narrow hallways, leading you through a short tour of the newsrooms that has your head spinning as busybodies fly past you in full speed, many with paper or cellphones and tablets in hand.

“Sorry for the madness,” Mark says after he’s stopped for the fifth time in the middle of the hall. “We’re nearing a major deadline so everyone is in panic mode.”

“Does this happen often?” you peek around the corner of the break room curiously where a man with fluffy, golden bleached hair is lying face down on the floor.

He shows no signs of movement. He might be dead for all you know.

“Youngjae, please.” Mark groans, as if this kind of scene happens so frequently he’s long gotten used to it. “Now is not the time.”

It takes a short moment, but the body eventually stirs. At last, a sign of life.

“Is that salvation I’m hearing?” Youngjae’s muffled voice responds eagerly. He springs back up to his feet with his hair standing wildly from static, eyes scrunching at you in confusion and then widening in delight when he recognizes the tag around your neck.

He stretches out a hand with a grin.

“Nice to finally meet you, intern. I’m Choi Youngjae. Features editor. Kinda dying. You can find me in the break room napping most of the time.”

“Um, a pleasure,” you glance down at his outstretched hand and then to his electrified hair.  “I think I’ll pass on that handshake.”

Mark bursts out into a short laugh.

“The girl’s got spunk. I like her already. Are you sure Jaebum recommended her?”

“Oh my god,” Youngjae dramatically cups his hands together and presses them to his mouth. “Did you just say ‘spunk?’ I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Youngjae…”

You stop listening when Mark launches into a lengthy lecture. His gentle nagging simply flies by your head. Professionalism. Respect in the workplace. Timely coffee breaks. Forbidding naps in the break room. Etcetera. The two have moved on to discussing the gazette, but your thoughts linger with the name that Mark had previously mentioned and glossed over.

Jaebum.

You frown. You’re somehow familiar with the name but can’t match a face to it. Well, you amend that it’s more of remembering the right person. Jaebum is a common name, after all. You’ve known several Jaebums in your life. One was a mischievous classmate in elementary school. Another was a previous neighbor who smoked half of his lungs away on his front porch every morning. And finally, the most recent one you can remember was your supposed date to prom. Apparently, he’d only asked you out as a dare. He was rewarded fifty bucks for getting you to say yes.

Long story short, you’ve had quite a dark history with boys named Jaebum. You’re certain that every Jaebum you run into will curse your life in one way or another. And even if you’re in the building of your dreams surrounded by people who you look up to, this fourth Jaebum is bound to cross paths with you too.

It’s only a matter of when.

~~~            

Turns out, you don’t have to wait too long to find out.

Jaebum of See the Light Gazette makes his appearance in the middle of your lunch break. You’ve shoved half your sandwich down your throat, counting down the few minutes until you’re expected to return to your desk and continue with filing recently edited papers. You’re so focused on devouring your lunch as quickly as possible that you don’t notice someone approaching your table.

“Oh, you must be the other intern. I’ve got a few ads that recently came in and I could use-“

You recognize each other almost simultaneously, though you’re a little quicker to identify his face.

You actually witness his expression morph from a distant, polite friendliness to pure shock and horrification. Likewise, your face must show a similar type of reaction. You remember clearly now. The brief flash of his license in the rain, being handed to the police. The name imprinted on it. Im Jaebum.

Suspended in a stifling silence, you merely stare at each other for a long while.

“What the hell?” you question out loud just as Jaebum exclaims, “You’re the one who wrecked my car!”

Everyone in the cafeteria stops and turns in your direction.

It takes every ounce of effort to control your emotions, forcing your expression to turn complacent. Casual.

“Sit.” you hiss at Jaebum, ignoring the soft, curious murmurs of the reporters around you.

Jaebum has flushed scarlet, head dipping down in shame before he slowly slides into the seat across from you. Some of the reporters resume eating. Others continue to eye the both of you with interest. You’ve become a show. An embarrassment. All thanks to this jackass in front of you.

And yet….

---