"Ruby had grown so much, she’s no longer a puppy. She’s a number of years old now, what’s the longest life span of a dog? Can she be with us til…” Didn’t she have a dog too which you deemed ugly as her?

“Oh, isn’t it time for dinner? Well… perhaps I can cook for the group while the rest are still not here.. Gotta go with something healthy.” Healthy?.. You could have used that word instead of fat when you decided to say something about her.

“I’m just… I’m just gonna..” Sigh. Letting out a sigh was all I could do. This was how tonight’s episode of i-did-things-in-the-past-that-up-to-now-still-haunt-me episode started.

Mark and Donghyuck had school, Jaehyun and Yuta had their individual schedules, Taeil Hyung was out with his girlfriend, so I was left alone in the dorm today. And this was how my endless thoughts of self-destruction always kicked off. And this was how I started dreading being left alone. Whether I have nothing to think of, or a heap to think of, but everytime I was alone, it just happened. No matter how I try to talk to myself aloud to overshadow the other voices that constantly tried to make me sick, no matter how I try to persuade myself that they’re fine now.. she might be fine now.. no matter how much messages I’ve read that what I did was a product of childhood attitude and everyone’s probably fat shamed someone once in their life… no matter what.. Someone was carrying the whole world upon her shoulder and I made everything worse for her… and it was too late when I realized that.

This is Lee Taeyong, son of a well-off couple, grew up getting anything I wanted, spoonfed with whatever I needed, have-it-all, shameless and an a-hole.

6 years ago, I scammed people using 6 different IDs and even had the audacity to send them threats the moment I got caught I was lying. But that problem had long been solved, of course it would be when you got parents who have extra eyes and ears to keep their image unstained.

But the misbehaviour didn’t stop there and I thought it might have gotten worse as I grew older. A year after, out of the blue, when his opinion was never asked, when he could have just said it to himself and not let the whole know, Lee Taeyong who thought the universe kneeled in front of him, fat shamed a girl who he only knew by face and by name.

 “There’re only ten people in this photo, but because of Han JinHae , it looks like there are thirteen people.”

I swear I remembered her name vividly, even before all these were publicized. Han Jinhae, a person from my class, who was fat and got only a quarter of my daily allowance as hers. She's easy-to-get. There was once I tried to talk her out to doing a project for me, extra curricular activites as a reason and she didn't hesitate to say yes. She was always on top of our class. And that was everything I knew about her. As to why she’s so extra in keeping her circle of friends and how she managed to afford the costly education the school offered, I didn’t know.. Or not that day I was at my -est and made that douche comment.

But among the list of people I have wronged, when some senses finally dawned into my being and realized all the mistakes, she’s the one that affected me the most.

I entered high school, that might have been the time where I started to grow up and get a life. That was when I saw that there were a lot of things in the world more than just asking up-to-date gadgets from my parents and always getting it. It was more than just people always looking my way when I walk by because everybody thinks mine was an ethereal beauty. That was the time I realized, everything wasn’t just about me. Gradually, like a morning glory blooming as the sun rises up, my heart softened as I learned my lesson through the years.

About three years ago, at the most random place and time, I met my former classmate in high school while I was out to get a new pair of shoes at Lotte Mall. For about 20 minutes, we just stood across one shelf full of shoes in display and talked about things we've been doing. Basically how boys do "chitchat". And that was the same day I heard about the biggest mistake I have ever done my entire life.

"By the way, do you remember Han Jinhae?" My eyes widened at the mention of her name. Of course I did, and I had wanted to apologize to her in any way I could. I was about to ask him if he had her number so I could finally contact her but he continued. "I'm not so sure if it ever reached you, but that same night you said.. You know, something about her, did you know she was told she was adopted? Also, did you know that he had a huge crush on you?" And as to why MyunJin was smiling while he asked me that, I never knew. I could only guess. Did he never grow up? Did he never realized how childish acting superior to everyone just because we were from more privileged families back in high school was? I wanted to punch him at that moment. Apart from he was smiling while giving a bad news, I wondered why he had to open it up to me that way. Did he think I was going to feel victorious? Or did he want to make me feel guilty? Either way, I thought he was a kid at that age. A grown-up seventeen-year-old doesn't talk like this. And maybe it'll take a few more years before he reaches emotional maturity.

So when I figured out how that one blow, which I thought was nothing for a person who barely got anyone’s attention, actually made all things twice as hard for her, I felt beyond bad and angry at myself. It was difficult to put in words how this had got me into this state, but right now, among all things I have done in the past that were stupid, this had to be the worst. This was how I felt even before I was officially introduced as one of SM Entertainment's trainees, and someone had done some digging, found the mortal sin, and publicized it.

Now everyone knows how terrible I was back then. Or was terrible enough to describe me?

And ever since that day, what little self-trust I had, even lessened. And the regret just got greater. At some point, I thought I was becoming too soft. But then I guessed perhaps this was how karma works.

I could still recall there were countless of times I thought I had seen her at random places--while I was at Myeongdong trying to find a gift for my sister on her birthday, while I was just around my home’s neighbourhood trying to walk Ruby with a leash, and at fansigns… did you really think she will become a fan of yours after what you did to her? Everywhere.. But I would always end up disappointed, and the realization would then dawn upon me that it’d always been just my desperation of wanting to see her and apologize that’s making me imagine a face close to hers.

I had tried to search for her name in every search engine I can access, but there's just little to nothing that I could find.

And my last attempt was that time I thought composing an apology song for her would work as a sincere one.. So I did. I wrote down all the things that I had always wanted to tell her.. That I was terrible. That I didn’t know anything, but even i had known, I still shouldn’t have done it. That there’s a long list of people I had wronged, a long list of people I need to say sorry to, but I’d always felt that the only time I’ll be able to let go of the darkness of my past and see the sunshine of the future is when I get to see her again and give her my sincere apology. And instead of using her actual name, I gave her a pseudo one in the song, Sunshine. Because her forgiveness was sunshine that I had long wanted to get.

But it’s either the word “sorry” appeared too many times or I wasn’t actually writing an apology song but a letter, that the draft was right away thrown into the trash bin when I passed it to one of the music directors. They chose the other one which had the concept they originally wanted me to make, a diss about the haters trying to pull me and my future group down. There'd be another way, don't worry.

They say we can never move forward if we allow our past to pull us back. Oh, how true. Because right now, I've debuted as an idol. I get just a maximum of 5 hours of sleep a day because of tight schedules. I barely had time to be alone, but everytime I did, she's still the first thing that creeped up into my mind.. And I get one more idea added to my bullet-list of plans on how to find her again everytime these thoughts cloud my mind... The only thing lacking was the chance. When?