Taeyeon asked the driver to stop by the main gate of the Ewha university. The sun was setting down, and she could see the tall glass walls of the campus, magnificent and illuminated by the countless lights inside. She was cold in her jacket, so she crossed her arms, hiding her palms from the wind. She stood, watching students and tourists strolling around, taking pictures with their selfie sticks and climbing uphill to the grand old buildings of the late nineteenth century. A lot had changed. A lot remained the same.

Taeyeon was different, too. The memory of her past self – clever, pure, purposeful – was still vivid in her mind, and yet painfully remote. She had lost her compass, her determination, let herself stiffen.

Where do all the dreams go?

She wondered if Eunsook was already there. If she was still what Taeyeon remembered from their young days, she had a loose relationship with time. She wanted to see her, and she was afraid at the same time. If, like Taeyeon, her former best friend had changed a lot, it would feel as if a certain door would be shut forever – the one through which she'd never stepped again, and yet liked to keep just slightly open. And if, after all this time, Eunsook was still the same – brilliant, funny and somewhat eccentric – she might sense her own change even sharper, and start longing for the long gone past and maybe even question some of the choices she'd made. She was going to lose either way.

One thing that was constant was her precision when it came to time. She was never late.

Eunsook wasn't there when Taeyeon arrived at the restaurant, but the other people were. She was greeted by a shower of praise mixed with envious looks. She couldn't help wondering how different their behavior would have been if they'd known that she was soon to divorce her rich, handsome husband – how many expressions of humiliating pity she would've had to receive.

Indeed, chatting with the women whose names she barely remembered felt like a scene from long ago, when she would stand in the hall with their younger versions and be talked to: in the past, the way they felt about her changed so often, and she could sometimes tell from the way she was being treated if another popular guy from church or a common group of friends fancied her – she never really noticed those things herself. Her whole world was studying and being friends with Eunsook. And even now, when she'd learned about so many ways to be happy and sad, it seemed that it had been the best time – that world had been enough.

Taeyeon scolded herself mentally for questioning whether she wanted to see Eunsook or not – of course, she did. Surely, she hadn't come all the way here for eating fat food and wondering if she was a bad person for not caring one bit about her ex-groupmates' news. (Even if it did make her a bad person, she still didn't care.)

Taeyeon wanted to go inside, since it was cold to be standing out on the street, but the other people were doing so for some reason, so there she remained, hugging herself and nodding at whatever was being said. At one point, something prompted her to turn around, and when she did, she saw her.

Eunsook was standing on the other side of the street, straining to see something. She saw Taeyeon and her face relaxed. They smiled at each other.

“How have you been, Eunsook?” Taeyeon asked after they hugged.

“I'm fat, and you?” Her friend replied with a big smile. Then she realized what she'd just said. “I mean, I meant to say ‘fine’, I don't know why I said ‘fat’. Maybe because I am!”

Eunsook laughed nervously.

She hasn't changed at all.

“No, you're not. I'd say that you are pleasantly… plump,” Taeyeon said softly in her schoolgirl voice.

“You should've seen me before the samba club, then – there was even more pleasant plumpness there! I'd say that you are pleasantly...” Eunsook studied her friend's face for a second and... was it a momentary admiration sparkling in her eyes? “…pretty.”

This time, she didn't sound like she was joking.

The other smiled shyly, tucking her hair behind her ear without even being aware of it.

“Oh, thank you.”

Not everyone was oblivious to that little exchange of compliments, and one woman who'd never particularly liked either of them, whispered to her friend:

“Still weirdos.”

The friend grimaced in agreement.

“Wanna go inside?” Eunsook offered.

“Sure,” Taeyeon chirped, and they went in, not caring about anybody else – just like in the old times.

The memory of the body is an incredible thing, and Taeyeon soon found herself sticking to Eunsook's side – when they were taking group photos and when they were chatting with other people, and, of course, they ended up sitting at the table together, too. Thirty years ago, those little maneuvers had been her daily practices.

They weren't absorbed with each other to the point of ignoring everything and everyone around them, but there was some kind of magnetic force that drew their eyes towards each other's faces.

The former top student of their group was giving a congratulatory speech to their English professor, and once again Eunsook felt Taeyeon's gaze directed at her.

“I didn't age well, eh?” she said in a low voice.

“You haven't changed at all,” Taeyeon whispered.

“I must've been a pretty wrinkly teenager, then.”

“I think I've seen teenagers with more wrinkles than you.”

Eunsook sighed.

“They've been getting more and more stress, poor things.”

Taeyeon smiled. Eunsook was always ready to feel sympathy for someone.

“I was sad to hear about your husband, Eunsook,” Professor Hong said when everyone had started eating.

Eunsook, who was putting some more braised chicken into her bowl, sighed.

“He was lucky to get out early. The music is terrible nowadays.”

The joke was met by awkward silence – one half of those who heard it were shocked, and the other unsure if it would be proper to laugh along or not.

“I see you still have your old sense of humor,” the old woman observed. “It's good, I suppose.”

Eunsook shrugged.

“You've got to be able to laugh – life's hard enough.”

Taeyeon couldn't help feeling a little sad. That life was hard, she knew for sure, but she couldn't remember when was the last time she had laughed – light-heartedly, sincerely. Perhaps, when she'd been with Eunsook.

Unsurprisingly, every woman in attendance, except for Eunsook, was married and had at least one child, discussing whom they began shortly: when everyone's looks had been commented on and marital status verified, what else was there to show off?

The quieter part of the table where Eunsook and Taeyeon were sitting, also switched to the same topic between themselves. Taeyeon showed the women the picture she had as the wallpaper on her phone: her and Taemin standing next to each other at some art exhibition opening, her in a blue satin dress with an elegant jacket on top and him wearing a white turtleneck with black trousers and coat.

“What a handsome face,” Eunsook said pensively.

“He looks exactly like her,” the woman sitting next to her noticed.

“Yes, he does... I don't have Jinki's pictures on my phone. When I want to see his face, I just look in the mirror and squint hard,” Eunsook confessed, returning the phone to the owner. Then she bit her lip because she remembered: “Wait, actually I think I do have a couple of old ones...” She began searching on her phone, muttering: “Corgis… samba club... dream homes... vegetables with human faces... yep, here they are.”

Taeyeon and the others leaned in to see the photo.

“He is eating his cellphone,” someone commented.

“Yeah, I think there's one of him making a call with a potato somewhere, too.”

She showed them another picture where a small Jinki was standing among the trees in a red jumpsuit, and it was met with a collective ‘awww’.

“Is he as funny as you?” the old professor asked.

“He's trying his best,” Eunsook answered with a shrug.

She and Taeyeon glanced at each other with a smile.

For the majority of those present, the partying days of their youth had been long over, and the meeting disassembled well before the subway closed.

Before everyone left, cards were exchanged – not only as a gesture of formality, but also with a very real prospect of gaining clients or business partners: a number of women either had some establishment of their own, or were helping to promote their husbands'. Eunsook's position as the owner and manager of a meat shop gained somewhat more respect after it was discovered that she had her own delivery service (namely, a grumpy man on a motorbike and a girl who was saving up money to “get the hell out of this country”).

Taeyeon owned a small boutique in Gangnam.

“I'll be glad if you drop by,” she told Eunsook when they were standing outside, stretching the moment of goodbye.

“And I'll be glad if you drop by,” Eunsook replied with a soft chuckle, putting Taeyeon's card into her wallet (the other cards she’d received were already swimming somewhere in the bottom of her bag). “But you don't eat meat and I won't fit into any of the clothes you sell. Ironic, huh?”

“I'm sure I can find something for you.”

“Will I get a friend discount?” Eunsook asked with a wink.

“I can even give you something for free. If you're nice.”

“What are you talking about? I'm as nice as you can get,” she argued, and they both laughed.

Soon, everybody else was gone. Taeyeon was clutching her phone, ready to call a taxi, and Eunsook had to go to the subway, yet... Yet, both women kept standing in the cold, dark street and shivering in their thin dresses and jackets as noisy, drunken students passed them by.

They weren't even saying anything, so the delay in parting could not be attributed to some engaging discussion – there was no excuse, nothing that could be expressed in simple words... Or maybe it was simpler than it seemed, but just required some courage to be acknowledged?

“I guess I have to...” Taeyeon stammered, interrupting the uncertain silence.

Her voice sounded so girlish.

Eunsook sniffled.

“Yeah, time to bounce...” she agreed, putting, perhaps, too much effort into her nodding.

They looked up at each other. Even though Taeyeon's voice was so high and birdlike and her face still looked the same after all those years, in her dark eyes, there was a veil of sadness that only a grown woman would know. They glistened like two lonesome lights in the middle of a desolate, lonely night. In Eunsook's eyes, she thought she saw some kind of ironic acceptance - she bore her scars with a smile, like a person who could hardly be surprised by anything anymore.

They didn't say anything for a moment or two, and then Eunsook gave up.

“Let's go and have a drink maybe? My treat.”

“But what about the subway?”

“I'm a big girl, don't worry. Come on.”

And she took Taeyeon by the arm to lead the way. It was a bit of a walk to her favorite bar, so they took a bus to Hongdae.

Taeyeon had no coins on her, and Eunsook paid for her trip.

“When was the last time you took a bus?” she asked, motioning the other woman to sit by the window – a reflex dating back to the times when they'd used to take a bus together after college. Taeyeon had liked looking at the road.

“Long before I got my first botox.”

Eunsook scoffed.

“You don't need botox.”

“Peer pressure,” was the explanation.

As they walked through the dimly lit side streets, Taeyeon couldn't help feeling a little self-conscious – they were surrounded by youths everywhere. But Eunsook didn't seem to mind, so, where her friend went, she followed.

The bar was called ‘Planet’, and it was a place that would be hard to stumble upon by chance: they climbed to a deserted-looking staircase, where a hidden sliding door was activated by a button on the side. Inside, it was just a regular bar with yellow lighting and slow pop songs playing on a low volume.

A short-haired girl in a fedora hat brought the menu. Both women considered the cocktails and tonics at first, but settled down on the good old white wine in the end.

“There are only women in here,” Taeyeon observed after she came back from the bathroom, her lips curving in a smirk.

“Must be the embroidery club members.”

“Those two embroidery club members in the corner are making out right now.”

Eunsook took a discreet look and cleared .

“Well, their club is quite progressive, I guess.”

“Do you come here often?”

“Sometimes, when I have things to do in Seoul. Which is almost never.”

They drank to their youth, to their sons, and Love, even though neither of them was sure if it was a blessing or a curse.

“What happened to your husband?” Taeyeon asked timidly after a thoughtful silence dedicated to that last subject.

“Cancer,” Eunsook answered simply. “He burnt up in some weeks after he found out. So fast.”

“What was he like?”

She sighed.

“He was kind, definitely. A bit childish, too. Loved Jinki with all his heart... If only he hadn't started drinking so much... He wasn't a happy man.”

“Why?”

“I couldn't love him the way he wanted to be loved, and neither of us forgot about it... I still loved him, I mean, but... you know.”

Taeyeon bit her lip, looking down.

“He was your friend?”

“Yeah, one of my closest friends. I was moping after a certain someone then, and he was begging me to give him a chance... We got drunk together and I slept with him just to shut him up.”

“Did you like it?” Taeyeon asked in a quiet voice, almost whispering.

“Do you think I did?” Eunsook parried with a laugh. “We woke up in a motel the next morning and agreed that it was a mistake. I had some kind of epiphany about moving on with my life and making some drastic change, like going to study abroad and starting a band or something – like I always do after I mess up. Meanwhile, our ‘mistake’ grew in my belly and rolled out exactly nine months later with a bad food-related pun already in his mouth, I'm sure.”

Taeyeon's eyes rounded.

“Jinki?”

“Yep, that one. By that time, our panicking parents had made sure we were married and all was nice and proper. And I have to say, it didn't seem to be a bad idea at the time. Passion isn't always good for you, but having a soulmate is a great luck, right? I did learn, however, that, just because someone is exceptionally kind and it's good to be able to call your spouse a friend, it doesn't mean you should be marrying your actual friends. Unless they've knocked you up, that is.”

Eunsook saw the fleeting expression of compassion that flashed across her friend's features. She was telling her story like an anecdote, an amusing tale of twists and nonsensical characters, but a funny story it obviously wasn't.

“When I first realized what all that vomiting and craving for coconuts in the middle of the night meant, I thought that the universe hated me. But now I'm both grateful and able to appreciate her sense of humor. That little nerd who never calls is the best thing that has ever happened to me,” she told Taeyeon, as if assuring her that she didn't need to be felt sorry for.

She, Taeyeon, wasn't so sure about herself.

“I love Taemin more than anything. But I never thought it would be so hard...” her voice trembled.

Eunsook leaned in and wrapped her warm hands around the other woman's. You can tell me anything, her kind, warm eyes – eyes full of sunshine – said.

And she wanted to, honestly. But years of the silent dialogue she had shared with her pain, all those times when she had looked at her harrowed, bare reflection in the mirror in her ornate bedroom in both terror and self-pity, and told herself that she was alone, that she was no good, kept her lips sealed. Eunsook didn't know what she had become.

Eunsook's fingers caressed her palms gently.

“Your hands are so white compared to mine,” she said with a smile.

“They are just for manicure and signing checks, don't forget,” Taeyeon joked.

“I'm divorcing my husband,” she confessed, as it was the easiest secret to unveil.

“Um... you have to tell me how you feel about it first, so that I know how to react.”

“I'm happy.”

“Good for you, then. I saw you when I took Jinki to Jeju in the early nineties, by the way... You were with your husband and I thought you had done really well for yourself, because you looked so radiant then.”

Taeyeon blinked impassively as the memory reel flashed before her eyes: the turquoise sea, the green slopes of the great volcano, the blood smeared on the white tiles in the bathroom and the cool feel of them against her cheek. And the pearls. Slippery pearls scattered all around her on the floor like frozen tears.

She wanted to tell her – oh, how she did. But the shame that couldn't be put to rest was gripping her neck too tight.

“I did do well for myself, but it's time to move on now. Eunsook...”

“Hmm?”

“Has there been anyone else for you?”

Eunsook studied Taeyeon's face calmly before giving her answer. It felt like she was reading her soul like an open book – looking over the mess, the doubts and all the regrets that hung over everything like a damp, suffocating fog.

“There hasn't been anyone,” Eunsook said. “Relationships are taxing. You?”

Taeyeon set her hands free gently.

“No one,” she murmured, looking down.

Taeyeon promised to call. She gave the taxi driver the address and waved to Eunsook, who waited as the car took her away. Her friend was smiling her usual big, hearty smile, but there was some sadness behind it. Taeyeon knew. She was feeling the same way, but she smiled, too, hiding her heart from the very person who was perhaps the only one who'd be able to understand it.

The car sped away and the other woman's figure disappeared into the night. Taeyeon turned around to face the road, and her smile faded.

“Goodbye, Eunsook. Please, be happy.”

She could hear her own trembling, tearful voice saying those last words, as if it was still the same long-gone day. If she closed her eyes for a moment, she would be there again – sitting on her bed, pressing the receiver to her chest and suffocating in her sobs and the feeling of inescapable doom.

The lights behind the window glass became blurry, and a teardrop got caught in her lashes.

I still remember the touch of your lips.

She could see and feel it all: the sunlight sparkling through the leaves, sitting on the grass, Eunsook's bare knees and the accidental brush of her soft skin against her own... Her deep laughter... the kiss… The kiss that had been neither innocent nor a result of mere curiosity, shared between the right people at the right time, and happened to be seen by a wrong pair of eyes – a beginning of the painful, almost comically predictable, end.

She caught her own reflection in the rear-view mirror – a little girl with a woman's face.

What are you crying about, you old fool? Everything's over, and nothing matters.

Taeyeon took out her phone and activated the screen. Taemin was standing next to her, smiling faintly. She wanted to call him, but couldn't – he wouldn't like that. So, she looked at his image and it with her thumb.

I only have you.

It was raining outside, again. Taemin had been lying in the dark for a while, listening to the music, half-asleep, but the hunger made him move. He looked at the vegetables, thought of the dumplings in the freezer, but ended up getting a cup of noodles from the kitchen closet – he'd grown used to the taste of cheap instant spaghetti and even craved it sometimes.

When he was done, he threw the cup, together with the disposable wooden chopsticks, into the trash, and sat at the desk, by the solitary lamp that provided a gloomy, yellow glow that spread shadows across the room. It didn't create a cheerful atmosphere, but was way better than the straightforward light of the ceiling lamp, which he found disagreeable for its harshness.

Taemin opened his laptop, entered the password, and prepared to do something that he was putting less and less faith into lately.

The Notepad app loaded and he started typing.

“Letter #whoingcares”…

His fingers froze. He'd had something on his mind that he wanted to write just a moment ago, but he forgot it now. What was it? Maybe it wasn't important... Otherwise it wouldn't have slipped his mind so easily, right?

He chuckled.

He was writing a letter for no one in particular – not even himself, because he'd delete it as soon as he was done. He was whispering at walls with the tips of his fingers. No part of that could possibly be important enough for him to fret over the fact that some of those murmurs had gotten lost in the fog of his wandering mind.

…“Jinki”…

He recalled telling him he ‘liked him a lot’ for the first time. Onew, because that was what he had been called then, had frozen up and stared back at him from behind his glasses uncertainly, a little fearfully – like an owl woken up at the wrong time of day. His Adam's apple had jumped up, he'd made a very obvious and forgettable pun about steak, and said nothing more.

And you had so much crap to say when it would've been better to stay quiet. Two things were wasted on you – love and silence.

“You poor, dumb, delusional sack of ,” Taemin muttered into the hand his chin was resting on, talking apparently about both of them.

There was no vitriol in that statement. In his mind, there was hardly any anger left at the moment. There was hardly anything else, either.

“What should I tell you about?

I'm back to dancing. Nobody really likes me there, yet they wouldn't argue with the fact that I'm better than most of them. The director who happens to be mom's buddy has been praising my ‘fine artistry’ to the skies and wants me to take part in the concert in April despite me being late with the preparation – he knows I don't need much time. He also happens to have asked for my phone number to take me out for coffee (his treat) from time to time. He is not a tough man, never mentions his wife, but always mentions my ‘fine proportions’ and ‘inner flow’, and I'm afraid I'll have to let him me at some point – out of pity. His sad eyes are ridiculous.

As for you – whatever you really are – I was remembering our whole debacle again, and an obvious thing came to my mind: it was doomed from the beginning, as paying someone for and also forcing them to talk to you isn't exactly synonymous with finding a soulmate and building a well-balanced relationship. Not that I believe in soulmates... Both life and people are just too random to allow for such constants to occur.

I've found that, whenever I try to imagine your face, my mind can't wholly reconstruct it from my memories. I remember your eyes, nose, lips, jawline, your Adam's apple, and the overall mood of your face, but somehow, they all exist as separate pieces that no longer fit into the same puzzle. Although I would recognize you in a heartbeat if I spotted you on the street, the look of you is fading away from my mind. I remember you, but I don't? Strange how it didn't take that long.

And I'm nothing but a blur to you, too, now. What do you remember of me? Do you remember the way I laughed and bit you and misbehaved? Do you remember me begging to let me see you and crying and telling you lies? Perhaps with time I was reduced to my flaws and weaknesses, something miserable, something you would never want to revisit? I find that the thing hardest to accept is not the fact that you left with the bits of me at my worst, but the fact that it's not my damn business. I'm a narcissist after all.

Yet, even I understand that all shall pass. Like your face, other parts of you will fade away, and the love that I can still feel somewhere in a part of my mind that stubbornly rejects reality, will disappear as well. It's a blessing, I think.

I don't want to weigh on your mind. Forget me if you feel like it. And maybe I'll stop being mad at you for having got rid of me so easily… I’ll only be sorry. Sorry for you as I would be for any fool who responds to the words of love with silence.

T.”

Taemin stared at the screen of his computer, the familiar trembling woke up in his chest. Nothing was helping. Nothing was on his side. And his love, he was supposed to get over.

He dropped his head on his hands and cried in the silence of his darkened room, alone with the world.

Kibum finally came with his tray and grimaced at it in disdain as he plopped on the couch and observed its contents.

“What?” Jinki asked through his burger, because he'd already started eating.

Kibum pouted.

“What's the point of exercise if I go and eat these carbs after?”

“To give you an incentive to keep exercising.”

He reluctantly unwrapped his burger.

“But that means that all the effort goes into reducing the damage instead of bringing benefit. And it's not even that tempting, I mean, look at this sad processed chicken meat… Couldn't we get Popeyes at least?”

Jinki shrugged.

“They have onion rings here.”

Kibum couldn't argue with that one point and confirmed it by dipping three of said rings at once into ketchup and stuffing them into his mouth.

They were sitting at the second floor of a Burger King right by the entrance to the subway station. At the moment, the restaurant was bustling with students from at least two of the local universities, which put a lot of strain on Kibum's eyes, never not ready to discover someone's physical beauty.

“Ruining this body with cheap junk food like this is the same as spitting on a work of art…” he kept whining. “When do you have to head out?”

Jinki checked his phone.

“In twenty minutes.”

“Why do you have to go all the way to damn Jamsil? Couldn't you find pupils closer to home?”

“It's the same subway line and the pay is good. I don't mind.”

“How much are you getting?”

“80 thousand for two hours.”

After performing some mental calculations, Kibum seemed to change his mind:

“Jamsil is awesome, I've always said so. Do they need an English tutor by any chance?”

“They already have one. A foreigner.”

“Of course, they would...” Kibum sighed, chewing his ‘X-tra Crunchy Chicken’ burger. “Damn, I really need to find something to do.”

“What did you do today?”

“Made a soap. Watched videos on how to keep your toy poodle's fur soft and shiny...”

“You don't have a toy poodle,” Jinki reminded him.

“You're saying I should get one.”

“No, I'm-”

“Yeah, I'd make a great poodle owner, not gonna argue with that. But I'll have to provide for the family. I guess I do need to find a job...”

“You can find a pupil if you want.”

“I don't look for people. People look for me.”

“Put out an ad, then. It's not that hard to do.”

But Kibum changed the subject, which may or may not have had something to do with the fact that talking about poodles was far more engaging than discussing ways to provide for them.

“So… did you read Jonghyun's manhwa?”

“Is it finished already?” Jinki asked, crumpling the former burger wrap into a ball.

“By now, it is, I guess. I've told you about it at least a few times.”

Jinki's eyes flickered.

“Oh. Did you read it?”

“Um, yeah, yeah...” Kibum answered, nodding pensively as he sipped his cola. “It's quite… individual.”

“‘Individual’?”

“Well, I mean...” He looked at the ceiling, waiting for the right words to come. “I mean, he's talented, of course, but... Nah.”

“‘Nah’?” Jinki repeated, amused.

“I'm just saying that I was pushing you to read it, but if you don't wanna read it, it's fine.”

“But you were hyping it up so much.”

“It's fine. Maybe you won't even like it.”

“Why?”

“'Coz... I don't know! Whatever.”

Kibum frowned.

“Now I'm kinda curious,” Jinki said with a smirk.

“Because you like doing things the opposite way of what I tell you?”

“Well, I admit it is kind of intriguing: first, you're telling me to read it, now you don't want me to read it...”

“I'm not telling you not to read it, I'm just saying that it's not so good that you definitely have to read it! Maybe you're better off not reading it at all, that's all I'm saying!” Kibum cried, losing his patience. Then he realized that he had maybe said too much, and cussed.

The other laughed.

“Uh, you,” Kibum grumbled.

He was out of fries now, so he checked Jinki's, and seeing that his bag was empty, too, cussed again.

“Bummie, if you didn't want me to read it, you could've not mentioned it at all. I'd forgotten all about it anyway.”

Kibum scoffed.

To raise his boyfriend's spirits, Jinki took out the last onion ring he had and put it on the young man's wedding finger.

“Are you marrying me?” Kibum muttered, somewhat less mad.

“No, I was gonna say, ‘One Ring to rule them all’...”

“Did you want me to disappear or be hunted by a bunch of bloodthirsty goths on horses?!”

Jinki's brow furrowed in confusion.

“I bet that if you and I made it to the Mount Doom together,” Kibum continued, “and I told you to throw the Ring into the fire like the good hobbit you are, you'd turn to evil and prance around with it just because I asked you not to!”

“What?!”

“I thought I'd be Legolas or at least Galadriel, but I'm ing Sam! A sad, closeted gay gardener whose ideas are never appreciated!”

“That backfired,” Jinki sighed, shaking his head and putting all the tissues and wraps on the tray to take away the trash. Since Kibum unambiguously pushed his tray in his direction, too, Jinki took care of it also.

“Thanks for your last onion ring. I know how painful it is for you to share your food,” Kibum said when they were outside the subway station. Jinki had to go down and to a completely different part of the city, he – walk to Hongdae, because the weather was nice enough.

“You're welcome.”

As they were saying goodbye, Jinki did a weird movement, as if he was going to lean in for a kiss, but then caught himself and went for a weird handshake, but Kibum simultaneously prepared to hug, so, after a brief, but painful awkwardness, they eventually settled on a hug. When they let each other go, Kibum's cheeks dimpled in a smile, and Jinki had an embarrassed expression.

“What?”

“You wanted to smooch.”

“No, I didn't.”

Kibum gave him a hearty punch on the arm.

“Yes, you did, and I can't blame you!” he argued, beaming.

Jinki rolled his eyes and turned to leave, but not before pointing out:

“Actually, both Frodo and Sam sailed off to the Undying Lands in the end. So, Sam was fine.”

“They ended up in undying gay marriage?!”

“Um, it wasn't in the book, but...”

Kibum bit his lip, thinking hard.

“Do you think Frodo's finger loss affected the quality of his s?”

“I think it was his… left… hand…” Jinki clarified, somewhat disturbed.

“What a relief! Did Legolas also go to the Undying Lands?” Kibun asked with a wink, and Jinki quickly walked away, because the preservation of his sanity demanded it.

When the tutoring was over for that day, Jinki felt like every ten-thousand won bill he was bringing home in that crispy white envelope was well earned: his pupils, eleven-year-old twin boys, were much less keen on Geometry than they were on annoying their tutor. They had given him a headache.

He managed to grab a seat in the subway train and turned the Wi-Fi on. The signal wasn't strong enough for watching videos, and, since Kibum had made him delete the ‘soul-consuming’ bubble game from his phone and his favorite webtoons hadn't been updated yet, Jinki randomly decided to finally check out Jonghyun's infamous creation.

Simply named ‘The Coffeeshop Boys’, the story was witty, occasionally dark, sensual and, of course, unabashedly explicit – for every 8 pages of dialogue, there were, it seemed, 8 pages of graphic scenes, past which Jinki scrolled fast, in case the older lady sitting next to him was peeking.

Someone does love his screwing.

Which was surprising in a way: Jinki had never heard Jonghyun talk about much, even though that was the thing that had essentially brought them all together – yet, his art was bursting with ism.

The first chapter served as an introduction where the reader got to know the three main characters, after which a few episodes centered on Jonghyun's character (named Jongwoo) followed. The author had managed to present those crude real-life situations (mixed with a fair amount of fiction, of course) in such an ironic, lighthearted way, that Jinki even found himself reminiscing the actual events that had provided the inspiration with a nostalgic feeling.

He couldn't fathom why Kibum had advised him against reading the story – it was engaging in a way.

But then the part about ‘the Nerd’ began, and he felt himself tensing up a bit while reading it. While the main characters in the manhwa bore some features that resembled their real versions (Jongwoo wore turtlenecks, the Nerd had glasses and a college vest on, and Kimbab was fond of accessories), they all had a generic manga look – muscular and y. But when ‘the Brat’ appeared, he looked very much like the real person he'd been named after – slender, but athletic figure, plump mouth, cross-shaped earring, enigmatic dark eyes. How had the author managed to capture such likeness? Jinki couldn't even think of one time when he had seen both him and Taemin at the same place. Had Jjong seen them fighting outside of the cafe?

His mood changed a few times in process of reading. At first, he was intrigued, then perplexed, after that – kind of annoyed, and that's what he was left with in the end – a combination of perplexity and annoyance. He almost missed his stop. At home, he tumbled on the bed and re-read the chapters concerning him. When he was done, the confusion hadn't dissipated.

Jinki tossed his phone away, only to pick it up again and call Jonghyun via Kakao Talk.

“What?” Jjong greeted him.

Jinki had hurried so much to reach him, and yet he didn't know how to express why he was calling.

Shrewd as ever, his friend guessed:

“You've read it?”

“Yes, and I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Why is my character such a ing prick?”

He had found the words.

“Why do you think he's a prick?”

“Well… he is a pretentious, shallow, lying piece of wood who ignores people's feelings and runs from the mess he's made like his is on fire?”

Jonghyun sighed.

“First of all, he's my character, not yours, second, he has his issues and his reasons for behaving the way he does.”

“Is that the way you see me? Is that the way everybody sees me?”

“What does it have to do with you? Why are so sure that that character was even based on you that much?”

“He goes by the nickname ‘the Nerd’, wears glasses and his real name is Joonki?”

“Jinki, I asked if it's okay if you are in the story. You said ‘yes’…”

“Well, maybe you should've asked, ‘Is it okay if he's a in the story?’, instead? Then I'd have known what I was agreeing to?”

“How much have you read?”

“I've finished chapter five, I think.”

The longer they talked, the bigger Jinki felt his dissatisfaction grow, even if he couldn't pinpoint exactly what was causing it. Jonghyun's patience was not boundless, either.

“That's the problem with the unprepared readers who have to bring their ego into everything... Look. What you described are the only elements you chose to see, for reasons only you would know. As an author, I create characters that may or may not have similarities with the actual people I've met, and I do my best to portray them according to the idea of the story...”

“But-”

Jonghyun continued:

“While it's entirely possible that I'm just a really ty author who has no idea what he's doing and no control over whatever his characters come out to be, it's also possible that the reader might have issues of his own, which he should take care of himself, as I'm not responsible for his subjective reactions to the story, especially when he hasn't even read it through yet.”

“Boy, you're a wordy one...”

“You might wanna call me again later. Just saying.”

None of them said anything for a few moments. Jinki admitted to himself that he might have had made conclusions too fast and maybe it was all in his head, but his irritation still wasn't gone completely. At least, now he suspected that maybe it wasn't Jonghyun's business at the moment.

“Well, thanks for warning.”

“No problem. Any other questions?”

“Um... Is it me or does every character seem to have an oral fixation?”

“Bye, Jinki!” Jjong sang before ending the call.

Jinki threw himself back on the bed and closed his eyes. Some things just couldn't be left behind, could they?

Is it time? Is it now?

He didn't want the calm and quiet he'd grown used to to go away. He almost wanted to pray for the peace to stay a little longer, but, unlike Kibum, he didn't have the comfort of the thought that some celestial creatures were guarding our world, and the only thing watching over his tired body and mind was silence. And silence could promise nothing.

A/N: Hey guys! Sorry it took so long to update. I came back to my home country after living for almost 2 years in Korea, and it's been an emotional whirlwind... On my last day in Korea, I got to see Jonghyun in concert for face value, and it's one of those happy memories that will hopefully stick and help me get through the hard times. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I hope to update more regularly in the future. As always, thank you, and I'm always curious to know what you think about the story and its direction(s). Have a good day, everyone~ Liza.