“Do you know Park Jimin?”

This is normal, right? Just randomly getting asked by someone about your dead friend. By a kid who’s like, four years younger than you. Ordinary, everyday things! I swallow, feeling a lump beginning to clog my throat. It feels as if something heavy is pushing my shoulders down, as if it’s trying to crush me flat like a pathetic soda can.

The clerk doesn’t answer right away, and I press my lips shut. Did I say anything wrong? Did he realize something is off here? Does he happen to know of the rumours that surround me? Does he recognize my name from somewhere? The thoughts bubble up in my head, and just as I feel as though I would explode, Namjoon speaks.

“Which one?” he asks.

It hits me that I know a handful of Jimins aside from this pink haired ghost man. Some guys, others girls. Park isn’t an uncommon last name either. Maybe this is my opportunity to back up and say never mind and move on. He could be thinking I’m a weirdo, a freak…

I glance at Jimin, who’s looking at me like a statue. His eyes are definitely teary, face slack in shock. Oh, great. I’m doing so great.

“The, uh… pink hair.” I say the first thing that comes to mind as I quickly return my focus to Namjoon. This time, though, his attention isn’t diverted. It’s all on me. I hope he didn’t notice anything weird. The random head turn is just some  method for me to recall the past. Not because I had to look at invisible Jimin next to me to come up with a believable response.

Namjoon doesn’t say anything at first. He rubs his hands on his jeans. Looks away. Then he looks at me again. The way he looks at me scares me a bit, because it’s a look that communicates how he is years older, more experienced, and more mature. In front of him, I feel even less confident in being myself. At least the kids at school are my age. This person’s an adult. He can drink, smoke, drive, go to clubs, and do whatever adult things are out there to be done. I’m just a clueless child in comparison, pretending to know his dead friend for...what reason?

“Oh, that Jimin?” I didn’t expect his voice to be calm. He sounds like I asked something akin to ‘how much is this bag of chips’; oh, 2000 won. Oh, that Jimin. That dead friend. He almost sounds apathetic in a way, making me wonder, were these two even friends?

“I… I, uh, knew him.” I try to fill the silence with an excuse. Not exactly a lie.

“Oh. From where?” Namjoon crosses his arms.

I nervously tap my fingers on the counter. My mouth is dry. I pick up the soy milk bottle and take another sip. It’s not as good anymore. Now it tastes like nothing. From where? A few metres away from the spot that he died? I realize I haven’t even asked Jimin about how he died. Maybe it’s a bit rude to ask that. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never had to deal with that problem before.

“We, uh…” I regret attempting to answer without an answer prepared. School? We never went to the same school at the same time. I mean, maybe we did, and I didn’t know. Maybe in elementary school—if he had gone to mine, I would have went to school with him for three years. But there’s no way I’d remember him from there. Do I say I knew him from… church…? I don’t even go to church. Did Jimin go to church? How am I supposed to know anything when I just met the man? All I know is that he’s dead. Which doesn’t take that many brain cells to figure out.

“Say you were one of my students. Piano.” Jimin intervenes just in time to save me.

Piano? I recall the few painful lessons I got as a seven-year-old. My teacher was a middle aged lady, whose son was in high school at the time. She didn’t have the patience to tolerate small kids. She’d hit my palms with a ruler if I didn’t practice enough. I hope there won’t be a random occasion in the future when  this Kim Namjoon guy will force me to verify my piano education. It’s not like he’s going to summon a keyboard in the middle of a convenience store right now and make me prove myself.

“He… he taught me piano,” I say.

“Oh, yeah. He did that.” Did, past tense.

Namjoon’s gaze then falls somewhere far away. I wonder if he’s reminiscing on his late friend. What he doesn’t know, though, is that he’s looking straight through that friend. Jimin looks at Namjoon carefully, as though he were examining a test subject. A moment later, Namjoon looks away from Jimin without even knowing that he was looking at him in the first place. I’m scared the clerk is going to ask me the details of these so-called lessons, so I try to start another strand of conversation.

“Yeah, and like, I, uh…” Unsurprisingly, I find myself successfully failing at it. I really need to practice talking. In general.

“He talked about this friend called Kim Namjoon sometimes,” Jimin helps out again.

“He talked about this friend called Kim Namjoon sometimes.” I repeat his words like a parrot.

“Did he.” Namjoon looks like he’s aged a few years in a few seconds. “What’d he say?” He lets out an empty laugh. I don’t even bother trying to answer and wait for Jimin to say something instead.

It takes a while for him to come up with something this time. “That he’s a good friend,” he eventually croaks.

“Nothing much, uh, stuff like, he’s a good friend,” I deliver a horrible rendition of Jimin’s words. The way Jimin said it makes me feel... weird. I try to find a better word to describe the sensation but can’t. Weird. That’s just it.  

“Wow,” is all Namjoon says in reply. Then he pauses. I hear the clock in the background. It reminds me of a heartbeat. Thump, thump. Tick, tock. The ticking is so faint, like the life of the clock is slowly draining away. Moving closer to the end of its days.

“Nothing more?” he asks.

I shrug.

“Can you ask him?” It’s Jimin that’s addressing me now. I sense his hand on my shoulder. I don’t feel anything, though. If I were to close my eyes right now, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell that he’s touching me.

“Ask him where everyone else is. How Taehyung is.”

Taehyung, I repeat the new name in my head. No face that matches the name pops up in my memory database. Taehyung. Sounds like a common name, but nothing comes to mind.

I pick up my phone from the counter and unlock it, thumb opening the notepad app naturally now. What am I doing again, I ask myself yet again as I type in one word. A question, short and simple.

Who?

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung. He’ll know,” Jimin explains.

I don’t think I’m supposed to know that guy, I reply, rapidly typing.

“Please?” Jimin says it like the magic word will make this farce work. “Just say you knew him through me.”

I angrily slam on my phone screen with my thumbs.

I’ll sound so suspicious, a random stranger asking all these questions

“It’s fine,” he insists.

It’s fine? You’re not the one doing this. I’m the one who’s risking sounding like I’m insane. No, I’m not even risking it. I definitely sound like a lunatic. Or a creepy stalker. I’m not sure which is worse.

Easier said than done, I type.

“Can’t you just tell him that you can see me?” The way Jimin speaks is starting to get on my nerves. He talks like I’m obligated to do these things. I told you, I don’t give a . I can’t afford to. I think in my head. But don’t type it out.

“You quit piano, right.” I look up, remembering that I’m currently in a conversation with this clerk. Namjoon doesn’t phrase this as a question—high school third years have virtually no time for any extracurriculars, so the answer is obvious.

I nod. “A while ago.”

“Have you seen Jimin since, then?”

“No,” I say as Jimin stands beside me.

There’s a pause. He’s probably contemplating whether or not he should tell Park Jimin’s ex-student that her teacher died. Again, I hear the clock. It should be somewhere here in the convenience store, but I can’t locate where it exactly is. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The monotonous continuation makes my skin crawl.

“I, uh, I think I gotta go. My mom’s texting me,” I lie.

Namjoon rubs his eyes, then covers his face with both his hands. He takes a deep breath and slowly lowers his hands. He sighs. “Okay, yeah, sorry. You must be busy. And tired.” He picks up and fiddles with the coin from the broken money drawer. I see the number 100 gleaming on it. He looks straight at me again. It still scares me. There’s something about his eyes that always seems to say I know something you don’t. “Thank you for helping.”

It takes a bit for me to figure out that he was talking about the coins. I had momentarily forgotten that even happened. “No, no big deal,” I say. “Bye.”

“Walk safely,” Namjoon says. I feel like he actually means it this time.

I chug the rest of the drink that was once hot, then throw the empty bottle in the plastic garbage bin. Then I open the glass door right next to it, pushing the metal bar handle. The cold air mercilessly hits my face again. That went well. I’m a such social butterfly. So smooth with people—just perfect, amazing.

I’m never doing this again.

As I take a step out the store, though, I feel like I’m missing something.

“Han Gyeowool!” Oh, right, that. But I don’t care. I keep walking. No one’s to be seen in the streets now. Maybe I wasted too much time in the store. But why did I even bother? Where did that sudden motivation to make conversation with a stranger come from? Why do I keep doing this? Why? So many questions, but I’m not asking for answers. I don’t want them.

“Han Gyeowool.” Jimin is quick to catch up with me. He stands in front of me, blocking my path. I stop and sigh.

“What,” I hiss out loud. The street is empty. If anyone sees me, hears me… I don’t even have it in me to care right now.

“Couldn’t you ask just one thing?” He sounds like he’s begging. I hate it.

“Why should I?” I glare straight into his eyes. Annoyingly teary eyes.

“Why? You…why, you…” He seems to be at a loss for words. Good.

“Really, why? Do I know you?” Saying the words out loud isn’t as bad as I imagined. “I don’t give a about you or your stupid unfinished business.”

“You’re… you can see me.”

“Yeah?”

“You can hear me.”

“So?”

“No one else can,” he says like he’s spelling it out for me, as if that’s a proper reason to keep me around. I mean, logically, he only has me and no one else, like he said himself.

But why is it always me?

“So what do you want? For me to go up to a stranger like hi, I can see ghosts, I can see your dead friend Jimin, in fact, I lied about being his student, I actually just met him yesterday, he wants to ask you…” I stop to catch my breath and collect myself. My voice is starting to feel shaky.

“Ask you about Taehyung,” Jimin finishes my sentence. “And the others too.”

“I’m not your messenger, for god’s sake!” I snap, maybe a bit too loudly. I don’t care anymore. I really don’t. As much as I hate it, I feel a sudden hotness rising to my cold face. I can’t cry. Not in the middle of the street, screaming at nothing.

He looks taken aback. “Who else am I supposed to ask?” Jimin’s voice is now harsher. Colder. “I would have done it for you if you were dead and I was alive. I have something called human decency.”

Decency. Is he implying that I’m not acting like a decent person? Maybe. Yeah, definitely. I’m a jerk. I’m really the only one that can help him. It doesn’t even take much effort to ask one question. It could mean the world to this man. I know that. I’m overreacting. I know.

But I’m just… me.

And I have abided to only one rule when it comes to dealing with ghosts for many years of my life.

Don’t.

“I’m sorry,” I let out a shaky breath. “I can’t.”

The ghost’s expression turns grave. “Then what do I do?” he mutters. “Just stand around and wait for someone else to hear me?”

“If you want.”

I don’t tell him that there’s no one else around who has the same curse as mine. I don’t want to tell him anything right now, or else something will break inside of me, and I won’t be able to stop it.

“It’s cold. I’m going home,” I continue in a clipped tone. I step back, still facing him. I expect him to insist on following me as usual. After all. as he said himself, where else can he go?

“Okay,” Jimin spits out instead. “Alright.”

He turns away, runs into the glass door of the convenience store, and effortlessly passes through. As soon as he turns left, he disappears completely from my view.

He’s… really gone? I stand there even moments after, staring at the space where he had been. What’s he going to do, he wouldn’t know, he’s—I stop myself. There’s no reason for you to worry about him, Han Gyeowool.

I realize my fingers are turning numb in the cold and blow on my hands, rubbing them together. I can go now. He’ll never find me again. Problem solved. That was easy. Nothing to worry about. As long as I stay away!

Then I stop as something dawns on me.

Well, isn’t this a parallel. I silently laugh at myself, you’re just the same as before, aren’t you?

I take a step. And another. Each step I take is one step away from trouble. The first few seconds, I feel like I’m dragging a ton of weight along with me. Images flash across my eyes. Summer clothes. Pink-haired man reaches out for a snowflake. It lands on him, and he looks so delighted. It’s just a snowflake.

He looks around at my school in awe. His old school. It’s just a school, a boring school to me. He sits next to me during lunch and dinner, commenting on this and that, small little things, trivial things, nothing important.

He reaches out for me when I fall on the sidewalk. I flick my hand through his. It passes through. Because he’s not real. The way he sinks into the floor of the bus. He tries to stand up. He fails. Sinks deeper. He looks at me as if he’s asking for help.

Like I can do anything for him.

He’s dead. What can I do?

I blink and the images fall from my eyes. I wipe my face. Short flashes of memory well up in my eyes again, now from a distant past. Stories I thought had faded away. My vision is foggy. I blink away the tears.

One more step. And another. I kick the ground. A weak attempt to shake off the burden weighing down my feet. I’m getting further away. Faster. Faster. Eventually I’m running. To my house, but I can’t remember from where. Once I start sobbing, it’s hard for me to stop. Idiot, idiot! I curse in my head. Over and over.

I don’t know what else to do.

_{i actually looped the song butterfly while writing this and now it's going to be stuck in my head even as i sleep}

_{the song fits the storyline pretty well i think?? also i finished writing this hours ago but it just didn't sound right so here i am at 4am rewriting the whole thing loll}

_{again thank u so much!!! everyone who's reading this!!! you truly make my day!! aaand now i should sleep}