The image was fading.

A quiet clicking whispered from the VCR, then a hollow whirring. The voices seemed almost disembodied, as though they couldn’t belong to the washed out faces smiling back at him from the rolling film. There was a laughter, a memory that haunted him in the deepest part of the night when even the stars seemed to have fallen asleep.

He loved the stars. JR always peered over his shoulder when he stepped outside into the evening air, certain he would see Minhyun there with his neck craned skyward. He was never there, though. Not anymore.

“JR, you’re not in the frame,” he laughed.

“Ah no?” JR cringed a little at the sound of his own voice, the awkward way he smiled.

The dim light hit JR’s sullen face, the only light in a dark room somewhere that he’d hermited himself away in. Only the sound of the whirring VCR and faint, warped voices from the video could be heard in the room. There was a collection of old tapes in a box next to the television and JR’s chair, a good handful of them spread along the floor. Christmas: 2012, Minhyun’s Birthday: 2014, Graduation, Aron Toothpaste. These were all tapes he’d already watched, tossed haphazardly about the room. Discarded with desperation.

“Look, it’s NU’EST’s JR! It’s really him!” Minhyun was laughing, his voice cracking in a forced falsetto. He waved his hands around, unable to take himself seriously. The JR in the video had his head downturned, flustered.

The JR in the chair had no expression on his face, only bags under his eyes and a slight discoloration in his skin. He went to drink from his mug again, only to find he’d drank his fourth cup of coffee clean. Slowly, his eyes found the bottom of the mug. He sighed inwardly, then stood up and left the room. Several minutes passed, and when he returned he placed a new mug of coffee down at the end table.

“JR, JR really, this is NG. We have to do it again,” Minhyun laughed, the image on the video growing blurry as the camera shook and was turned around. And then the screen went white.

He looked at the time on his phone, then towards the sliding glass door. The sky was growing light as the sun threatened to peek over the horizon. The light blue over the treeline left a sinking feeling in JR’s gut, so he turned off the television and went to his bedroom, throwing all the blankets over himself to block out the rising sun.

“We’ll start our own variety show.”

JR kept hearing Minhyun’s voice in his head. It was always the same things, like a lingering breath at his ear. With them always came a stomach churning guilt, a chest hollowing melancholy that hooked into the spaces between his ribs. They were chains of promises made broken, and JR felt his knees weaken with each reminder.

“We can play host characters. You should be a polite boy-next-door type. That would suit you. But your gimmick is that you always say the strangest things that are almost startling. I think it’d be great. I dunno about me though.”

Minhyun would have been great as the confident journalist with no tact, JR always thought. He was always so humorous and JR could picture him in this role as though he were looking into the future. He knew better though, the vivid images he saw. They weren’t the future. Not the future of reality. Maybe of a future that was supposed to happen but now never could.

Still expressionless, JR put a new tape into the VCR. Proof of Concept: 2015. He took his seat in his chair, staring almost without blinking at the screen as the white light hit his face again.

The video opened with Minhyun looking directly at the screen, camera in his hands. He was smiling charismatically, head tilted to the side, speaking like a professional. “Odd Brothers.” JR only just now remembered the name of their variety show. It felt like a betrayal, and his shoulders fell.

“Ah, NU’EST, I’m a big fan,” Minhyun said, pretending to snap photos between sentences. “Is that a ring on your finger? I knew it, dating scandal. Ah, could you turn your hand that way? It’s a better shot.” Minhyun was only able to hold his character for a few moments more before he began to laugh. “NG, NG, let’s start over!” JR heard himself mumble something from behind the camera before it was cut off and the video returned to a familiar image of Minhyun facing the camera.

He couldn’t remember how many days he’d trapped himself in the dark of the living room with only the company of the dated television, the images of memories faded by dust and old technology. Everything before felt so distant and unfamiliar now. Even people and things felt like illusions, like they were made out of the things dreams are made of. Jeonghan told him he was disassociating. JR wasn’t quite sure what that meant, he only knew that nothing felt right.

It didn’t make sense. How could the world go on when he was gone? How could their friends smile and live as though he’d never been a part of their world? Truthfully, he was growing to resent them. Only deep inside, though. Only because he couldn’t do the same.

The tapes were proof they existed in the same world together. At one time or another, there was a person named Hwang Minhyun, and he the person JR was closest to.

JR didn’t even know if Minhyun was wandering around out there, what he was doing. Everyone else had accepted his absence, but JR couldn’t. It was as though the one thing that held JR to the world had been broken, and now his fingers were growing weak and unable to hold onto the edge.

“You’ll watch these tapes in the future with me, right?”

JR nodded quietly in his chair at the Minhyun on the screen. He smiled back, and for a moment JR thought he had seen right through and looked at him. His heart stopped, and then he remembered. He sighed and fell back into the chair, like his body were melting into it.

“We’re probably the only idiots who would still record with tapes, aren’t we?” Minhyun laughed. “There’s nothing like a tape recording, though. I think, anyway.”

It was strange, but JR agreed. He wasn’t sure, however, if it was the same kind of feeling they were both having. The nostalgic essence of a tape recording that Minhyun felt, it was haunting JR. As though the tapes were hungry for energy, for a life within reach. Like they had a consciousness weakly clawing at the corners of the room begging for sustenance. A final breath before surrender.

JR related to that feeling from the tapes, though. They’d become like friends to him now, and he knew there was a part of him, a weak and withering part of him that was desperate for a familiar voice, a familiar face. But there was only one that would do.

He leaned over his knees, staring at the tapes on the floor.

“Why did you go?” his voice cracked; he hadn’t spoken aloud in several days, he realized. The sound of his own hollow voice broke something in him that was barely being held together, and hot tears began to well in his eyes.

JR was on a new box of tapes. He’d already gone through so many, he’d lost count by now. He wasn’t sleeping in his own bed anymore, instead he had curled himself in various, uncomfortable positions on the chair with the television on. Only the sound of Minhyun’s voice could get him to fall asleep now. Otherwise, the room was too big and quiet, and the thought of his creeping loneliness left him feeling like he would drown.

It was time to put a new tape in. Almost none of these tapes were marked. That didn’t matter to JR anymore, though. He was long past paying attention to the time, and which memories played on the screen weren’t important now. The only thing that mattered was the moment in which he could suspend reality and believe he was existing inside them.

The screen was blank for a while, longer than all the other tapes had been before. For a moment, JR thought that maybe this one was blank yet. Then, finally, after a few moments of pixelation and fuzziness, Minhyun appeared on the screen. It was a recent recording, JR realized. His hair was the same as he’d been styling it right before he disappeared.

“JR,” Minhyun began, his voice trailing off and his gaze falling away from the camera. He struggled to continue for a moment. “It’s been a while since we’ve used this thing, huh?” JR could see that he was sitting down and alone wherever he was. He had no memory of this tape, and his heart started to pound heavily in his chest. He sat upright, eyes wide at the screen.

“You said you would watch all these with me in the future, right? You promised, so I’m going to believe that you will.” Minhyun smiled back at the camera, a slight sadness in his eyes. JR stared, trying to pry the words from his mouth. He was going to say more, he had to.

Minhyun folded his hands and looked down at them, sighing. “This tape recorder is so old now, I don’t know how this is even recording. I’ll try again later.” He stood up and turned it off, and JR felt as though the world around him had just crumbled. He waited for the screen to turn back on, but it was the end of the tape.

JR threw himself down on the floor and began digging through the second box of tapes. The one he had just watched wasn’t marked. Most of these tapes weren’t. He felt as though Minhyun were at the end of a hall running away and JR’s legs were in cement blocks. His hands shook as he grabbed another tape and shoved it into the VCR.

Minhyun’s pitched laughter echoed through the room. “JR, those are tomatoes!”

He removed it and put in another one.

“This is an important memory, you’re finally learning to ride a bike!”

Another.

“Clean that up off the floor you slob! I just mopped in here!”

JR was biting down on his bottom lip now, afraid he was losing control of himself. He shoved another tape into the VCR with little hope.

It began with a long, blank screen just as the other one had, and JR could feel his heart beating against his chest. And then, Minhyun was sitting in the same chair with the same outfit, staring back at JR from the other side of the screen.

“It looks like this thing is still kicking, huh?” Minhyun smiled, but it was forced. JR was certain in his desperation and relief, he would start to cry. There was a sigh from the other side of the screen. “JR, I don’t know how much more time we have.” He kept pausing between sentences, thinking hard about what he was saying. Like there was so much he wanted to say, and yet he couldn’t explain. It drove JR mad.

“What happened, Min?” JR breathed, as though the Minhyun on the screen would answer his call.

“I feel like I’m really gonna miss you,” Minhyun responded.

JR raised his voice, panicked. “Where did you go?”

Minhyun was looking at the floor by his feet again, smiling. It was the kind of smile that was ironic, it masked what he was really feeling. JR could tell.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to come back. Not by myself. You said you would watch these tapes again, so I believe you. If anyone can find me and bring me back, you can.”

It didn’t make sense. JR could tell Minhyun was in the comfort of his bedroom, there was no knife to his back, to gun to his head. There was hardly a sense of urgency in his voice—only the melancholy that blanketed his words like a thick, sticky sap. JR’s face was inches away from the screen, ready to beg Minhyun for answers if that’s what it took.

“I have to go soon, though. I don’t know how soon, but it will be soon. I hope you think to watch the tapes when I’m gone. I’ll make more before then.” And the tape cut out, and the screen was blank.

JR felt like he was suffocating. He plunged his hands back into the box of tapes and looked for the next one, for anything that could give him a clue.

“I don’t know how I know this will happen,” Minhyun said, wearing a sweater this time, “I just know it will. It’s not your fault, though. You can bring me back. I know you can, JR. Don’t leave me for too long, okay? I’m strong, but I have limits, too. Bring me back, okay?”

JR’s vision had gone blurry; there were tears rolling down his cheeks. “I’ll come find you, where are you, Min? Where did you go?”

He played various tapes, searching for clues.

The clicking from the VCR grew angrier and the whirring was like a scream. The scent of something hot and burning filled the room. “No!” JR yelled, smacking the VCR as it fought against him and the tape inside. The image on the screen was distorting and Minhyun’s voice was gone. Then, the screen on the VCR player was blinking: ERROR.

The room was full of JR’s aggravated sobs. His hands were shaking and he felt that his one ounce of hope was dwindling away, falling from his reach. He took a deep breath for a moment, swallowed, and then closed up the box with the rest of the tapes. Wiping away the tears on his face, JR stood and grabbed his coat from the closet, throwing it on quickly before he hefted the box of tapes into his arms and left the house.

He drove for miles along winding roads between cities. Nobody he knew still had a VCR player and they were near impossible to find in thrift shops. He was willing to sell limbs to get one, and more than a few times, JR had lashed out at people who didn’t deserve it in his desperation. He felt the ticking of the clock in the back of his head. He didn’t know for certain, he couldn’t have, but part of JR knew that he was running out of time.

Finally, Baekho had found an old VCR player in his parent’s basement, so JR made his way out to Jeju with his box of tapes.

He barely greeted Baekho’s parents, his mind was so fixated on finding Minhyun. Baekho was out helping his grandmother for the day, so JR would have to watch the tapes alone. It didn’t matter, JR knew, Minhyun knew, that only he could bring him back.

“JR, did you find me yet?”

Suddenly, JR felt like he could breathe again.

“Time is running out, JR. I have to go soon.”

“Why, though?” JR breathed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be okay. I don’t want to do it, but I have to.” Minhyun frowned into the camera. He looked so tired. JR thought he almost looked scared. Then he sighed, and smiled again. Smiling for JR, or smiling for himself? JR couldn’t quite tell. “We always said we were gonna do a bunch of amazing stuff together, right? We promised. I have to go away first, though.”

“I don’t understand, Min. Just tell me where you are,” JR was growing frustrated. How was he supposed to find him if he didn’t tell him where he was?

“I know the others will be fine. You’re the one I worry about the most, though.”

“But I’m coming to find you. Just tell me where you are.”

Minhyun’s voice grew low. “JR?”

JR leaned into the television.

JR you have to rewind the tape. Go back to the beginning.

His mind blank for a few moments, JR nodded absentmindedly before turning his attention to the VCR player. He hurriedly searched for the rewind button and rewound the tape all the way back to the beginning. The screen went white for a moment, then Minhyun reappeared.

“JR, did you find me yet?”

His brow furrowed. “What? There’s nothing…”

Rewind it again.

So he did. The screen was blank and fleeting.

“JR, did you find me yet?”

Again.

No matter how many times he rewound the tape, it only showed a fleeting, blank screen.

“JR, did you find me yet?”

“JR, did you find me yet?”

“JR, did you find me yet?”

Blank, and fleeting.

The tapes were dusty and old. It was outdated technology.

“We’re probably the only idiots who would still record with tapes, aren’t we?”

The images were washed out and the audio was tinny and pitched.

He rewound it again.

The screen was blank for only a few minutes.

“JR, did you find me yet?”

“It’s a white room.” His voice was hardly discernable above Minhyun’s on the tape. JR slowly stood to his feet, as though something else were guiding him. Without another word, he rushed up the stairs and out the door.

“We always said we were gonna do a bunch of amazing stuff together, right?”