I thought silence would be a blessing on the bus ride home. I was wrong. The silence now is more like dark clouds above our heads, foreshadowing a storm coming without telling us when exactly. Park Jimin, the thunderstorm waiting to happen, sits with his elbows on the armrests of the bus seat. He stares at something far away, something beyond the rearview mirror on the bus where I can see half of the bus driver’s face. He’s been like this the whole day. I glance at the digital clock on the bus. 10:13. It’s almost been 24 hours since… since the thing.

I don’t know what else to call it.

He hasn’t said anything the entire day. Maybe I should try to tell him something… comforting. I did try, actually. Told him things will get better. He didn’t say anything in reply.  

Honestly, I don’t even know how things could get better. I don’t even know those people. They’re his friends, not mine. My fake second cousin Kim Namjoon is a near stranger to me. His other friends I’ve never seen until yesterday. The way Min Yoongi glared sends a shiver down my spine even by just recalling it.

Still, I feel bad. I’m worried. I remember when Jimin got mad at me for lacking human decency. Now I guess I do have decency, the moral obligation to be compassionate toward other humans. In this case, a few other humans and a ghost.

I wish I could do something. About Namjoon, about Jimin. I really didn’t expect Jimin to cry. I thought he’d somehow shake it off and say it’s okay, even though it’s obvious it’s not. It’s absolutely an iffy situation, but isn’t Park Jimin the kind of person that makes death jokes as a dead person? The kind of kid to get excited over caramel popcorn less than a second after worrying about whether seeing a movie as a ghost was breaking the law?

I really don’t know Park Jimin well, do I?

Jimin, who seems to be oblivious to my worries, stands up from his seat as the monitor attached to the ceiling of the bus goes ding! He looks at me, still silent. He seems to be trying to project the message of we need to get off.

I’d like to, I don’t know, smile at him and joke whether he went mute or something? Is that a proper way to address sad people? Is that going to make them mirror my smile as well and break their depressive burden, or is it going to be interpreted as mockery?

I wish I had time to talk to him in private today, but at school, it’s near impossible to find a personal space. Everyone at school knows me as the friendless girl, so just hearing me speak would surprise all of them. And hearing me speak to someone who’s not there? I don’t care about the people at school, but I don’t want to add to the rumours that could follow me out of school and make it to my parents’ ears. Final year of high school is not prime time for revisiting my therapist.

The bus skids to a stop. Today, we have the bus driver who rushes like there’s a gold mine at the final stop again. A few people stumble and grumble at the driver who seems to be deaf to complaints, but Jimin doesn’t even lose his balance. I suddenly recall the first bus ride he experienced as a ghost, how he didn’t know how much force he could apply to real life objects without passing through. How he slowly sank through the floor, drowning in reality.

And I ignored him at the time.

That’s how good a companion I’ve been to him. Ignoring, mocking, inconsiderate. The only reason he’s still by my side has to be not because he likes to deal with me, but because it is obligatory for him to keep existing. Without me being near him, he would merely exist as an observer. No free movement, only seeing and hearing.

When I get off the stairs of the bus, I see Bang Yongguk the firefighter ghost waiting patiently for his wife at the bus stop as I lift my head. I look back to check that Jimin is right behind me. The other people who got off the bus are starting to walk away to their own destinations. For a winter night, it’s not that cold. I check the time. Half an hour till 11.

Whatever.

Yongguk’s face brightens a bit as he sees the two of us. Us two are probably the only ones that can acknowledge his existence, meaning he spent all day in solitude. I wonder how he copes with that. Maybe it’s an adult thing, being okay with loneliness.

“Hello.” Yongguk smiles.

I smile back and nod. Speaking to him right now with a few people in earshot doesn’t strike me as the safest idea. But I do take a seat right next to him on the bench. Jimin looks at me with wide eyes. He doesn’t say anything, still.

“Hello,” I mouth at Yongguk. Jimin bows at the firefighter and takes a seat on the bench. Instead of choosing to sit right next to me, though, he sits next to the firefighter.

I try not to wonder why he’d do that. Try not to connect it to my concern that he really doesn’t enjoy my company, that he wishes for a different companion to be by his side when he’s having a hard time.

Stop overthinking, Gyeowool. There was just more space on that side of the bench, that’s all.

“You look down today,” Yongguk says as he turns to Jimin. “Is everything alright with you?”

Jimin looks at Yongguk. I expect him to nod and force a smile. Expect him to say yes. Because that’s what Park Jimin does when someone asks him if he’s fine.

Instead, Jimin shakes his head feebly.

I bite my lip.

Grief makes me uneasy.

“What happened? How did meeting your old friends go?” Oh, so Yongguk does remember what we told him yesterday. Jimin was too excited, too nervous about it. Wouldn’t shut up about seeing them for the first time since the accident. I was annoyed. I must have sounded annoyed. Must have appeared annoyed.

Now I feel bad.

“Not… not good.” This is the first time I’ve heard Jimin speak since yesterday, and hearing his voice so weak and unhappy makes my heart drop. And how he answers immediately to Yongguk’s question while he refused to talk to me all day makes me feel… I don’t know what this feeling is. It’s certainly not a good feeling.

But then what did I expect? For him to be willing to talk to me after I’ve been such a crappy person to ask for help?

“What happened?” Yongguk sounds genuinely worried. Concerned. Even I feel it, and I hope Jimin would as well. I’m jealous of it. How empathy comes to Yongguk so naturally.

“They…” Jimin takes in a short, sharp breath. “They’ve changed a lot.”

“How long has it been?” Yongguk asks.

“Four months. Almost five.”

Yongguk inhales deeply and sighs.

“Time does many things to people, Jimin.” The way Yongguk talks sounds like he’s been through too much. But I mean, a dead firefighter must have seen horrors I can’t even imagine. “Everyone changes. To remain the same even as time goes by, as everyone moves forward, is only regression.”

“B-but I didn’t change.” The way Jimin says it makes him sound like a pouting preschooler.

“You must have changed in some way. You yourself cannot recognize it. Only others can.” I notice that Yongguk has a habit of rubbing the ring on his hand. The plain golden ring has also faded with his ghostly fingers. “Of course, you and I… the changes we go through are far less drastic than those who are alive.”

I, one of those who are alive, feel a bit excluded in this conversation.

But maybe it’s better that way.

“Our time ended back when…” Yongguk reaches to the thin air with his left hand as if he’s trying to grasp something, but withdraws it slowly. “When the light started calling us. We don’t belong in this world anymore, Jimin. We’re prolonging the days just for the sake of existing. As nothing.”

Jimin doesn’t say anything.

“It is truly a blessing that we are allowed to do so, however. That’s what you should keep in mind. Everything else around us is out of our bounds.”

Yongguk smiles widely at Jimin and pats Jimin’s back reassuringly.

Making me realize, Yongguk can touch Jimin.

Of course, they belong in their side of the world, I belong in the other. We can’t touch their world, and they can’t truly exist in ours. So all I can do is merely watch as Jimin takes in a shaky breath. Yongguk’s definitely better at consoling.

But how do I be better? What do I have to do to know what to say in these situations? Die? Would being dead as well help Jimin cheer up at my words?

I feel a surge of annoyance build up in my chest.

“See, Park Jimin.” Yongguk points at the faraway sky. The moon shines bright above us in white. “It’s a half moon.”

Jimin’s gaze follows Yongguk’s fingers, watching the moon that hangs above us. Illuminating the world in a different warmth from that of the sun’s. Not bright, not hot, but just enough to lighten the dark. Jimin nods.

“Remember how the moon looked a few days ago?” Yongguk’s looking at Jimin, waiting for his answer. Jimin stares at Yongguk for a while, only to shake his head. Yongguk, instead of getting mad at Jimin for not knowing the answer, chuckles.

“Yes, you don’t really take time to look up there when you’re busy moving forward. I, however, have all this time to myself to be awed at the wonders of this world.” Yongguk makes a rectangle with his thumbs and index fingers. He leans back, angling his finger frame as if he’s trying to take a photo of the moon. He grins at what seems like nothing. He’s one smiley man.

“Some things only your memory can hold,” he says in a near whisper.

It seems as though the night has a magical power of some sort. I find my gaze fixed on the moon, and as I glance sideways I find Jimin’s eyes are glued on the moon as well. I return my attention to the moon. When I stare hard enough, I see the other half of the moon covered by the dark shadow of the Earth the moon is destined to orbit around for eternity.

Sitting here, next to two ghosts, listening to the dead firefighter speak softly yet with power is an odd experience. Nothing in the real world seems to matter anymore at this moment. Not the pedestrians walking by, not the occasional car filling the street with engine sounds and headlights. I feel like I’ve been into their side of the world. The world of the dead.

“A few days ago, the moon was a full moon.” Yongguk continues with his odd speech on the moon. “Before that, it was another half moon. But... ” He breaks his finger frame and flips his hands so the hand that faced him before is now facing the sky. With a newly formed rectangle, he again points it at the moon. “The opposite way.”

Jimin and I don’t say anything.

“Everything in this world goes through a cycle. What’s full needs to be emptied, what’s empty needs to be filled. That’s the way the world of the living works.” Yongguk puts down his hands on his knees and turns to Jimin.

“And we stand outside of this cycle.”

Jimin takes off his eyes from the moon and looks at Yongguk’s face. He blinks slowly as if he’s trying to decipher what the other just said. Being honest, I don’t quite understand why the moon would matter to Jimin. Why is Yongguk bringing it up now? How was that speech out of nowhere relevant?

But Jimin nods after a long silence. As if he understands.

“It’s interesting to watch the world move on with your absence so naturally.” Yongguk turns around to point at one of the new rows of houses being built. His ghostly finger pushes through the semi-transparent plastic wall behind the bench.

“You see those houses?” he asks, and I nod with the slightest movement I can allow myself.

“None of those are sold yet. No one lives there. But for some reason, a month ago, someone ran away after lighting a house on fire. The third… no, fourth one from the left. In broad daylight. Can you believe that?”

For a second, I wonder where this subject came from. It seems as random as the moon being brought up at first. But then I see him fully equipped in a firefighter uniform.

I’m so slow and dumb, aren’t I?

I feel heat rising to my face and worry that Yongguk can see it. But Bang Yongguk continues with a change in neither his tone nor expression.

“The construction workers were trapped inside.” Yongguk pauses.

“Is that how you died?” Jimin blurts out. I look at Jimin, shocked. I didn’t expect him to say anything, let alone such a blunt question. But maybe it’s okay for him to ask that. He’s dead too, after all.

Yongguk nods. “Not exactly the fire. The pillars fell on me. I couldn’t move.” He again states how he died like he’s recounting his lunch menu from yesterday. Just like how Jimin talks about dying.

How can they be so calm about it?

“Did it hurt?” Jimin asks again. “Dying.”

Yongguk slowly turns to Jimin. “How did you die, Park Jimin?”

“Car accident,” Jimin answers, tone blasé.  

“Immediately?”

“Yeah.”

The way these two ghosts converse about their death so casually is so off-putting to me. They seem to be fine with it, I guess.

“It’s not a pleasant feeling, of course. Death in the fire comes slowly. The flames, the smoke eat you away bit by bit until you’re completely gone.” Yongguk speaks slowly. My mouth is awfully dry.  

Then he smiles as if he didn’t just describe his prolonged painful death. “There’s really no point in discussing what has been done. So, Jimin.” Yongguk resumes talking as he turns to Jimin.

Jimin’s eyes are glued on Yongguk as if his face holds the answers for all the questions that bubble in his head. His eyes are imploring and lost and I take this time to notice how young he looks. The firefighter’s ghost puts a hand on Jimin’s shoulder.

“I know, I understand.” As Yongguk says this, Jimin raises his hands and covers his face. I worry that a sob would escape the gaps of his fingers, that the tears of the ghost would drip through his hands.

But how’s my worrying going to help him in any way at all?

“You can cry,” Yongguk says softly. “If you want. No one can hear you except Gyeowool and I. No one cares.”

Maybe, Yongguk, maybe me being able to hear is a problem.

He doesn’t trust me as much as he trusts you.

Instead of crying, however, Jimin rubs his face and lowers his hands. His eyes seem to be glistening with tears, but it might just be an illusion of the light. It’s hard to tell when he’s a ghost.

“It’s okay.” The old Jimin returns. I’m really not okay but I’m just going to say I am okay Jimin. I’m not sure if I should be relieved or not. “Thank you.”

All Yongguk does is smile. “No big deal, Jimin.”

The 319 bus pulls over and I again see Yongguk’s pregnant wife slowly get off the bus, one hand grabbing the bar for support and the other hand on her abdomen. He said the baby’s due in a month or so. I look at Yongguk sitting next to me, and sure enough, his attention is suddenly all focused on the woman. Her long, slightly curled dark-brown hair comes down to her waist. Her frail figure seems too weak against the world as she stands alone in the winter night. I feel Yongguk’s gaze trace each footprint she leaves behind in the real world. Where he doesn’t belong anymore.

I wonder how he feels about that. Being a husband, a future father. He’s probably no older than thirty. What Jimin asked a few days ago pops up in my head again. How does it feel to die when you’re married? You vow that you’ll stay with each other, growing old together. I don’t know the answer for that. I’m not at an age to get married, not old enough to be a parent, not dead yet. Only Bang Yongguk himself knows how that feels. Only he has the answers.

But me, I’m alive.

I don’t think I have the right to ask the question.

_{things are getting better!! will gradually get better!! i promise!!!} 

_{the more chapters i write the more cringy the old episodes seem... i really want to rewrite them but i should finish this haha the edits will take forever (cries in the corner}

_{anyway thank u for reading as always! u guys are great :D}

_{(in case ur wondering how long this story will be im estimating 36 episodes plus 2 special eps??? i think???? )}