18^th September 2017.

Daniel didn’t think he’d ever regret his decision to run so bravely for Student Council President. He’d thought of it as part and parcel of his duty, having been an active member of the Council since freshman year, a feat most students his year-level could hardly even fathom, much less accomplish. More than that, however, it was a way for him to live up to the expectations he’d set for himself, having been the top-ranked student for three semesters and counting. The public, as it happened, expected no less from his unfailing capabilities.

Be that as it may, he could never have foreseen that part of such duty would involve having to share a room with Ong Seongwoo, and that was enough for him to wish he’d never even thought of running for Council that very first instance in the first place. Ong Seongwoo was infamous for stirring up trouble wherever he went; he had a reputation for picking fights with the most illustrious of professors, was rumoured to have dated thoughtlessly and broken hearts left and right, and pretty much was the guy Daniel prayed he’d never, ever have to run into.

But fate, it seemed, had other plans. Seongwoo had gone overboard on his rule-violation streak, and that in turn, had prompted the vice-principal to suggest that Daniel take Seongwoo under his wing instead, since he’d already tried and failed on multiple occasions to keep Seongwoo as far away from trouble as possible (which, it turned out, had even less a chance of happening than Daniel losing by a landslide at the annual Council elections).

And so here they were, attempting to fit themselves into a single space, and five seconds upon making it to the living room, Seongwoo had already managed to get Daniel’s blood boiling at the mere sight of him as he rested upon Daniel’s original bedroom space.

“That’s my bed,” Daniel exclaimed, watching furiously as Seongwoo settled himself onto the bed closer to the living area. “Get off of it.”

“Says who?” Seongwoo countered. “Who gets which bed is arbitrary, and since I occupied this one first, you have no choice but to take that other one.” He pointed a thumb at the bed next to window.

“Ugh,” Daniel groaned. “No way.”

Daniel, in fact, had an irrational distaste for beds next to windows, and that was the reason why he’d kept his bed smack in the middle of the bedroom area even as he occupied the room on his own. For starters, he disliked how the sun shone through the panes every morning, and having been a light sleeper, the harsh sunlight streaking through had an uncanny, and utterly vexatious ability to jolt him awake at any given moment. Furthermore, he was terribly paranoid of the possibility of someone climbing into the room through the windows to murder him in his sleep, or of some sort of otherworldly creature peeking at him through the glass, as if to plot its next sinister mission.

Yes, he was a gutless scaredy cat, and even the slightest noise of unknown origins could very effectively give him the willies.

And there was no way in hell he’d ever tell Ong Seongwoo any of that.

He walked towards the foot of Seongwoo’s bed, crossing his arms over his chest in a show of menace.

“I think you’re forgetting something here,” he said. “You’re the troublemaker, and I’m the guy who has to suffer through making sure you behave. So between you and me, I should be the one that gets to choose first.”

“I think you’re forgetting something,” Seongwoo argued, not moving even an inch. “Based on the order of seniority, I should be given priority, don’t you think? And why aren’t you addressing me with ‘hyung’, anyway? I’m older than you by at least a full year.”

“I’ll call you ‘hyung’ if you give me that bed.”

“I’ll give you this bed if pigs start flying, or if dinosaurs begin roaming this earth again.”

Daniel’s right eye twitched in irritation. Well, Jisung-hyung roams the earth, he thought. So I guess we’ve got that dinosaur bit covered.

“Wait a minute,” Daniel exclaimed, stopping himself. “Why am I entertaining this nonsense you’ve been spouting, anyway?”

“’I’ll wait for you to give in,” Seongwoo said, resting both hands behind his head coolly. He turned to his right, eyeing the small photobook Daniel had forgotten he’d left on the bedside table. “In the meantime, I’ll just look through these…”

As soon as Seongwoo reached for the album, Daniel launched himself at Seongwoo’s bed, effectively throwing Seongwoo back against the pillow stack as Daniel landed cleanly on top of him.

Daniel’s nose was inches away from Seongwoo’s the moment he could even begin processing what he’d just done.

“Well,“ Seongwoo exclaimed, after having managed to regain his composure. “This wasn’t how I expected you’d confess to me, but okay. Whatever works for you.”

Daniel sat himself up in alarm, ashamed of what he’d just done.

“G-give it back,” he said. “That photobook.”

“What are you trying so hard to hide from me anyway?” Seongwoo asked suspiciously. “You haven’t got pictures of women glued to this thing, have you?”

“Do I look like a ert to you?” Daniel demanded.

Seongwoo’s brow shot up, scanning Daniel’s scandalous positioning as he straddled Seongwoo on top of his bed.

“Of course not,” Seongwoo replied, grinning at him playfully. “Girls throw themselves at me on a daily basis, so why should the experience with a grown- man be any different? Not that my legs are going numb under the crushing weight of your thighs, or anything.”

Daniel blushed from head to toe. “Give me that back, and I’ll get off of you. I’ll let you have this bed, too.”

The truth was, it had never even occurred to Daniel that a photobook could be used to stash a collection of highly inappropriate photography. It was the album his mother had given him as a child, and was filled with pictures of him from his childhood: overweight, insecure, and cast away by his peers, save for a little boy who studied at the school right across from his. It was a past he’d been ashamed to reveal to anyone, but the album held memories dear to him anyway, and so he’d kept it with him all those years.

And he was not about to let a stranger browse through anything that important to him, not for as long as he could help it.

“Fine then,” Seongwoo said, giving in and handing him the photobook hesitantly. “But if you pester me with any more talk of our sleeping arrangements, I’m stealing that thing away and hiding in your closet for a day, so I can jump-scare you out of your wits in the middle of the night.”

“What?” Daniel demanded, wondering how in the world Seongwoo had known he’d harboured a massive, and rather unreasonable fear of ghosts. “How did you…”

“A guy with an image as spotless, and a repertoire as impressive as yours?” Seongwoo said. “There must be something you’d be weak against. Nobody’s as picture perfect as that image you portray to the public, you know. Besides, I saw it coming the moment you leapt almost ten feet into the air when this cat your ankle out of nowhere.”

He pointed casually at Peach as it at its paw contentedly. “Are pets even allowed in this place?”

Daniel coughed awkwardly, ashamed that Seongwoo had seen him jump in surprise at Peach’s customary greeting. The cat always liked to welcome him as he arrived at the door, but for some reason he never failed to freak out, if it so happened that he didn’t notice as Peach slinked towards him ever so stealthily.

“Council privileges,” Daniel clarified. “Allow us to keep whatever sort of pet we’d like in these rooms. I think the school acknowledges the fact that I’m responsible enough to care for Peach as much as is needed.”

Peach made its way towards Seongwoo then, staring at him blankly with his large, beady eyes.

Seongwoo picked Peach up from where it settled atop his right foot, ruffling through its hair affectionately. Peach mewled at him loudly, pawing at the air in frustration.

“This cat kind of looks like you,” Seongwoo noted. “And look, it wants to claw my eye out, too.”

“Hey, Ong Seongwoo,” Daniel said. “Stop it with the insults already.”

“Okay,” Seongwoo said apologetically. “I’m sorry, Peach. Being compared to Daniel must’ve hurt your feelings.”

“Ugh,” Daniel grunted. “One day in, and I’m already over this.”

He watched in annoyance as Seongwoo stood up from the bed, carrying Peach along with him. He walked towards the refrigerator, retrieving the carton of milk he’d placed in then earlier. He rummaged through the cupboards for a Tupperware, retrieving one to pour the milk into. He crouched to settle both the container and Peach onto the floor, watching in fascination as Peach began at its contents.

“That’s a good girl,” Seongwoo said. “You look like you’ve been rather hungry.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of Daniel’s lips before he could help it.

Well, he thought. At least in some ways, I think your presence is tolerable.

“Daniel doesn’t take very good care of you, does he?” Seongwoo asked. “I’d be a much better owner, right?”

“Ugh,” Daniel muttered, hating himself for ever thinking it wise to give Seongwoo the benefit of the doubt for even a second. “I take it back. You’re a massive pain in the , and I really, really dislike you.”

“Thanks,” Seongwoo deadpanned. “Guess we’ve finally found the one thing we agree on.”

21^st September, 2017.

Daniel had no idea what had gotten into him that he’d somehow decided to make Seongwoo his breakfast.

The thing was, Seongwoo got up surprisingly early every morning to prepare breakfast for the both of them, be it a bowl of cereal, heated leftovers from dinner, or a meal he’d cooked up himself, which turned out to have been infuriatingly delicious.

This of course, might’ve been because Daniel had gotten used to his own cooking, which he preferred to make for himself whenever he was much too lazy to wake up in time for the cut-off on Jisung’s breakfast specials at the Imugi.

Whatever the case, he hated owing anyone any favors, especially not a guy like Ong Seongwoo. He was much too inclined to rubbing in the fact that Daniel was in his debt, for keeping him well-fed and practice-ready, even though he’d never been asked to make sure of such thing.

And that’s why, for some confounded reason, Daniel had taken it upon himself to wake up at half-past five, in order to make Seongwoo his breakfast no matter how much he at working the kitchen.

“It’s instant ramyeon,” Daniel told himself. “There’s no way I could possibly mess this up.”

He unlidded the pot in which the soup had been simmering. The proper moment for adding in the noodles seemed to have passed five minutes ago, so instead of waiting for the water to bubble up as it reached its boiling point, he threw the noodles into the pot, then began tearing at the extra pack of seasoning and the tiniest packet of dehydrated vegetables.

“There are instructions on this thing aren’t there?” he muttered to himself, examining the piece of plastic the ramyeon had come in. “And it doesn’t seem like I’ve skipped any steps in here, so far.”

At that moment, Seongwoo shifted noisily in his sleep, startling Daniel almost to the point of accidentally chucking the plastic wrapper into the pot, as he hurriedly tapped the seasoning and the vegetables out of their packets and into the soup.

“That looks kind of bland,” Daniel whispered to himself, reaching for the spices sitting by the knife rack. He held the tiny containers up to his face one by one, irritated that Seongwoo hadn’t thought to label them properly so that he could tell which one was which.

They were in shakers anyway, so he poured the contents in with the rest of the ingredients little by little, eyeballing the amount he needed to liven up the taste of his cooking.

“This feels like the part where everything starts going gradually downhill,” Daniel whispered to himself. “But somehow the color of that looks better than when I started.”

After he managed to transfer the contents of the pot onto two separate bowls, he rifled through the utensil drawer for a pair of chopsticks, not wanting Seongwoo to have a taste of his cooking before he could even verify if he’d come up with something even remotely digestible.

He blew at the steam judiciously, before slurping cautiously at the noodles, lest he burn his tongue for what might’ve been the twentieth time that week alone.

“Not the worst I’ve ever made, that’s for sure,” Daniel muttered to himself. “But maybe if I added just a bit more seasoning—“

“What are you doing?” a voice spoke up behind him. Daniel jumped in surprise, taking one startled step back and accidentally stepping on someone’s bare feet with the rubber sole of slipper.

“OUCH!” Seongwoo exclaimed, flashing Daniel a furious glare. “Is this how you normally say ‘good morning’?”

“Sorry,” Daniel apologized. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Well,” Seongwoo said. “Unless you’ve sprouted an extra pair of eyes behind all that hair at the back of your head, I really wouldn’t think you did, either. Why are so jumpy, anyway? You hiding anything?”

“No,” Daniel said, more hastily than he’d intended. He pushed the bowl of ramyeon away from Seongwoo’s line of sight.

What were you thinking, Daniel? His inner voice chastised. You shouldn’t even have thought to carry out chores for a guy this infuriating in the first place.

He watched as Seongwoo swept a glance over his frumpy appearance.

“That baggy sweatpants and chiseled abs combo,” Seongwoo muttered. “Is starting to get on my nerves. What have you got against shirts anyway, that you stubbornly refuse to wear the pile of them collecting dust in your closet?”

Daniel blinked at him for a long moment, before fully processing the fact that he’d been strutting topless around the kitchen all morning.

“I was, uhm… busy,” Daniel explained pathetically. “Doing homework.”

Seongwoo’s eyes narrowed at him, entirely unconvinced. “And it requires a wanton display of your upper body? Wow, why can’t our homework be that exciting?”

“Shut up, Gong Seongwoo,” Daniel said, messing up Seongwoo’s surname on purpose. “You wish you had a figure like mine.”

“Can’t wish for what I’ve already got, sorry,” Seongwoo countered nonchalantly, his gaze moving downwards from Daniel’s torso to his hand resting awkwardly at the table behind him.

“Is that breakfast?” Seongwoo asked, having seen the bowl Daniel tried his mightiest to hide away. “Did… did you make that for me?”

Seongwoo’s eyes found his momentarily, twinkling in what seemed like delight. Moments later, he broke out into a dazzling smile, revealing deep-set dimples Daniel didn’t think he’d seen before.

And for the very first time, his traitor of heart skipped a beat, jumping as he did almost straight out of his ribcage.

That smile, Daniel thought to himself. Where have I seen that before?

And yet it’s as if I’ve never seen anything like it.

“Seongwoo leaned in towards Daniel as he held an anxious breath, pulling the bowl towards himself. He raised it to his nostrils, sniffing tentatively at its contents.

“Smells delicious,” Seongwoo remarked. “Didn’t know you could cook.”

“I can’t,” Daniel admitted, swallowing nervously. “It’s instant ramyeon. Even a rookie can make that properly, given enough time.”

“Well then,” Seongwoo said, raising a handful of noodles to his mouth. “Bon appétit.”

Daniel watched in horror as Seongwoo gobbled up colossal helpings of the noodles, as if he hadn’t had a proper meal in days.

“I must say,” Seongwoo uttered. “This surprisingly doesn’t taste like the end of the world.”

Daniel grimaced at him. “I can’t tell if that just then was a compliment, an insult, or one with a back-handed mix of the other.”

Seongwoo smirked at him. “It’s actually a…” he trailed off suddenly, the earnest expression on his face replaced abruptly by one of distaste.

“ACK,” he exclaimed, sticking his tongue out. “That aftertaste is nasty!”

“Hey!” Daniel exclaimed. “You didn’t have to say it that way, you dummy!”

I knew it, he thought, hands at his sides in a rage. I should never have done this idiot a favour.

“Now that,” Seongwoo continued. “Tastes like failure and depression.”

Daniel’s mouth flew open, offended by Seongwoo’s blunt remark.

“Fine then!” he screamed, almost at the top of his lungs. “You go hungry for the rest of your life!” he pulled the bowl of ramyeon away, blushing in utter shame.

Seongwoo let loose a burst of laughter, and the sound of it set Daniel’s unwary heart afire.

“No need to yodel at me,” Seongwoo said, pulling the bowl towards himself yet again, picking it up and off the table so that Daniel could no longer touch it. “And don’t be stealing this away. This one’s mine.”

Daniel clutched at his chest, a futile effort to calm the unsteady pulse of his punch-drunk heart. He watched helplessly as Seongwoo heartily scarfed down his unsavoury cooking, as if he’d never tasted anything more delightful. Once the bowl had been wiped clean of soup, he set it once more atop the table, patting at his tummy contentedly.

“Thanks,” Seongwoo said, grinning from ear to ear. “You’re a horrible cook, but I’m giving you an A-plus for effort.”

Daniel stared at him, dumbstruck. He was almost sure that in a few hours’ time, Seongwoo would return home, claiming an upset stomach he foolishly brought upon himself to begin with.

“And you’re an idiot,” Daniel retorted. “And for that, I think we’re even.”

“Even?” Seongwoo asked. “Even where?”

“Even,” Daniel repeated. “Now I don’t owe you for making me breakfast these past few days.”

“Wait a minute,” Seongwoo exclaimed haltingly. “Does all this mean that if I make you breakfast further down the road, you’re going to have me endure through more of your kitchen experiments? Because I don’t think my intestines were made to withstand that sort of pain.”

Daniel scowled at him, utterly insulted. “Fine then!” he exclaimed. “I’m not doing you any more favors, you dummy!”

“Never asked for them,” Seongwoo argued. “But like I said, thanks for the meal. It isn’t every day that I’d be honoured to have the Student Council President volunteer himself as my personal chef.”

Seongwoo reached out to ruffle his hair, and Daniel stood stock-still, the physical contact catching him entirely off-guard.

“Stop that,” Daniel said, rearranging his rumpled locks. “You can’t touch me like that without my permission.”

“Sorry, pretty boy,” Seongwoo said, turning his back partially towards Daniel, about to make his way to the bathroom. “But I refuse to play by rules apart from my own.”

Daniel sighed in defeat, dreading the road ahead of him as he struggled to keep Ong Seongwoo under control.

“You,” he whispered. “Are really, truly, completely, annoying.”

15^th October 2017.

“You think Kuanlin and Jihoon are doing okay?” Daniel asked. He was sitting across from Seongwoo at one of the tables at the Little Byeongari, the restaurant Jihoon’s aunt had been running quietly for over a decade.

“Why not?” Seongwoo replied. “Those two are grown-ups. They can handle themselves just fine.”

“Still…” Daniel began, shifting uneasily. “It’s their very first date, after all. And they’ve gone on an overnight trip to South Gyeongsang, too. What’s gotten into Kuanlin all of a sudden, that he’s decided to drag Jihoon that far along, anyway?”

Seongwoo smiled wittingly to himself, looking out to the view of the horizon from where he was seated adjacent to the window. “You’ll see,” he said knowingly. “I’m sure Jihoon won’t mind the journey there, once he finds out what they’ve come there to witness.”

 “You helped him plan this, haven’t you?” Daniel inferred, sure Seongwoo’s habit of butting-in unnecessarily played a part in the events leading up to Kuanlin and Jihoon’s sudden departure. “I know that foxy expression of yours. You’ve done something extra and you’re immensely proud of yourself for it.”

“I simply,” Seongwoo said. “Gave Kuanlin the push he so urgently needed, to confess his long-standing feelings to the guy he’s pined for since he arrived in Korea. It’s do or die this time, you know? His father’s about to do the unthinkable, so it’s about time one of us stepped in to keep such an atrocity from ever coming to fruition.”

“You think having them embrace their feelings for each other will help?” Daniel asked, unsure. “I just don’t know…”

“Honesty always helps,” Seongwoo said, almost wistfully. “Without it, love is unhappy and incomplete. If you have to keep on playing detective with the guy your heart belongs to… at times it’s a sign that you’ve got to pack up, say your goodbyes, then move on.”

As soon as the words left Seongwoo’s lips, something heavy and haplessly burdensome dropped onto Daniel’s shoulders, and he struggled mightily to bear the weight of it as he remembered all the secrets he’d been keeping from Seongwoo until then.

I haven’t even said it, he thought. That I love you back. Even though you’ve whispered the very same words into my ears, more times than I can bear in this sorry heart of mine to count.

You can’t hide away forever, Kang Daniel.

Or else the burden of guilt will overwhelm you, steal your breath away, and leave you wishing you never started what you hadn’t the courage enough to finish.

“You spineless coward,” Daniel muttered to himself. “You can’t keep on living this way, forever.”

“Wow,” Seongwoo mumbled. “Is it that time of the day already, when you hurl random insults my way for no acceptable reason whatsoever?”

“No,” Daniel said, apologetic. “I just… I think you’re right. It’s time for us to move on.”

“Wait a minute,” Seongwoo blinked, taken entirely aback. “Is this what I think this is? You trying to end what you never even gave us the chance to start?”

Daniel shook his head, steeling himself for the impact of what he was about to say next.

“No, dummy,” he said. “This is me starting what it is that I sincerely hope we can end, the exact same way we began. Together.”

Daniel gulped, reaching out to take both of Seongwoo’s hands in his. Seongwoo watched gingerly as he did so, intertwining Daniel’s fingers with his as soon as the tips of them reached the slightest point of contact. “I don’t think I follow.”

“Hey, Ongcheongie,” Daniel said. “You wanna go ahead and do it?”

Seongwoo stared at him blankly for a hot minute, before color rose unexpectedly to his cheeks. He gasped audibly, one hand rising abruptly to cover his mouth, as he’d gone slack-jawed at the audacity of what he’d assumed Daniel was suggesting. “Do… do ‘it’? Right here? At this table? In public? No, Daniel! I may be forward in bed, but I’m no exhibitionist.”

Daniel’s eyes rolled at him in exhaustion. He removed one hand from Seongwoo’s grip, leaning forwards to bop him lightly on the head. “I didn’t mean ‘it’, you dummy. I meant the other ‘it’.”

Seongwoo paused for a moment, still utterly at a loss for words. “Daniel, my love, I think your level of Korean has advanced so far ahead of mine that I can no longer sustain a healthy conversation with you without wondering if I’ve gone and lost my mind.”

Daniel groaned, Seongwoo’s earlier blush seemingly transferring onto his face. “Must I spell it out for you to understand what I’m getting at here?”

“Not really,” Seongwoo said. “Maybe not being all cryptic about almost everything would do.”

“I’m asking,” Daniel began. “If you wanted to stop being friends for a while. Or not a while. Forever. If, uhm… that was even possible.”

“Wait, what?” Seongwoo asked, perplexed. “Stop being friends? But I thought we agreed that since you and I aren’t ready to commit, we’re staying friends until…”

Seongwoo paused at that moment, the implications of Daniel’s words hitting him.

In truth, never in a million years did Daniel think he’d be the first to suggest so bold a thing. He always assumed he’d never mind if somebody else were to snatch Seongwoo away, to take from him the one person he’d ever been brave enough to love with a heart he’d thought so incapable.

But things were different now. And sure enough, he’d come to accept, that ever since that very first time he’d seen Seongwoo’s smile as it reached his eyes, the way his dimple rose to the surface, and his heart thumped heavily as if to break out into song, he’d fallen so deeply, and catastrophically in love.

And that was really, truly, completely the truth.

“Is this…” Seongwoo began. “Is this you asking me out on date?”

Daniel smiled, as bright as he’d ever been able to, his heart bursting at the sight of the smile he loved so very much settling onto Seongwoo’s features as it happily returned his own.

“This is me being honest with you,” Daniel said. “Because the truth is all you’ve ever deserved.”

He sat up slightly, leaning himself forwards, one hand leaving Seongwoo’s to cup his cheek, pulling Seongwoo into a kiss. He closed his eyes, savouring the moment, the taste of his lover sweeter than a river of honey, his lips softer than a bed of roses in spring at full-bloom.

I do love you, he thought. And I might’ve since that day we first met, or the day you were forced so abruptly into my life.

And I’ll never know, and it shall never matter.

 Because this… this is everything.

“Ahem,” someone coughed, snapping both Daniel and Seongwoo out of their reverie. They pulled away from each other in haste, embarrassed beyond belief. The waiter was standing by their table, waiting his turn to serve them lunch.

“One Ramyeon Special for Seongwoo, and one Kimchi Stew for Daniel.” He settled the bowls onto their table one after the other, unfazed by their shameless display of affection.

“Th-thanks,” Daniel stammered, avoiding eye-contact at all costs, lest he bear witness to the judgiest pair of eyes he’d ever seen his entire life.

“Anything else?” The waiter added, staring calmly at the window between them.

“Nothing,” Seongwoo replied hastily. “That would be all, thanks.”

“Oh thank god,” the waiter muttered under his breath. “Never wanna see that ever again.”

He brisk-walked away from their table, as Daniel tried his level best not to laugh.

“Well, that was a pleasant experience,” Seongwoo grinned. “The kiss, I mean. Not that robotic guy watching everything.”

“You can say that again,” Daniel agreed. “And sorry about that. I got carried away.”

“Don’t worry,” Seongwoo reassured him. “I kind of like that carried-away side of you. It appears once in a blue moon, you know. I only wish it could’ve lasted much longer.”

“I thought you said you weren’t an exhibitionist?” Daniel teased. “And neither am I, so don’t you dare hope I’ll ever do that again.”

“I never even hoped you’d be the first to ask me out,” Seongwoo admitted. “So maybe it does pay off to hope for more… even just a little.”

Daniel smiled at him, wondering how their relationship had ever managed to turn out this way, despite almost hating each other’s guts the very first time the vice-principal suggested they share a room.

“You know,” Daniel said. “I thought I regretted running for Student Council. Now, however… I regret having regretted that in the first place.”

“Again,” Seongwoo said, slurping at his soup contentedly. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Never mind,” Daniel grumbled. “I fell in love with an idiot.”

Seongwoo laughed then, and Daniel thought, not for the first time, that that might’ve been his favorite sound in the world. “Is the ramyeon at this place any good?”

The corner of Seongwoo’s mouth perked up. He shook his head slowly.

"Yeah,” he said. “But I like the taste of yours even better.”

“You dummy,” Daniel said. “You absolute dummy.”

“I know,” Seongwoo agreed. “You having any of that?” he asked, cocking his head towards Daniel’s bowl of stew.

“Yeah,” Daniel said, excited by the prospect of digging into one of his favorite dishes, and farther ahead into the future, by the prospect of what was to come as he took his place by Seongwoo’s side, holding hands as they marched steadily towards a higher dream. “I’m having it. And don’t think I’m leaving any for you.”

“Fine by me,” Seongwoo said, smiling happily to himself. “Well then. Bon appétit.”

~END~

Author’s Note:

First of all, I’d like to dedicate this story to Raina at heartykeykeke, one of my closest and dearest of author friends on this site. I know that you’ve been having it hard lately, so I hope this story of mine, short as it may be, was able to make you feel even the tiniest bit better.

That being said… Hello there, friends and readers. This might be a long one (and not necessarily related to what you just read), but please bear with me as I’d really like to pay my respects one way or another.

A couple of days ago we lost a star, one that shone ever so brightly onstage. To this day, he still is one, albeit in the skies up there in heaven, shining his light upon the rest of us the way he has for years. And that’s why I put up this story, so that even just for a small moment, I may be able to put a smile on the faces of those of you who might still be in mourning, and pay tribute through this note to Jonghyun’s everlasting memory. He was a hyung to Wanna One too, and he’d been kind to and cared for them while he was still alive, no matter how brief a time they’d known and interacted with one another.

And instead of the usual discussion on my work, I’ll say this:

Kim Jonghyun was a jewel in this industry, and one that cannot, to the very end, be replaced. I may never have been a Shawol, but Shinee was one of the very first groups I ever listened to, and Jonghyun’s was the very first voice that drew me in, and that’s why in my heart he holds a place so very dear. He was humble, full of life, beautiful inside and out. And to the other members of Shinee, he was their dearest of friends. I don’t think any of us can even begin to count how many smiles he managed to put up on Minho, Taemin, Onew, or Key’s faces, how many precious moments we might not have witnessed had he not been there to make them happy. But above all, he was brave, lionhearted, unafraid to speak out about his own hardships, weaknesses, his struggles with his mental illness.

But not a lot of people fighting through depression are. So if you’re going to leave this story with any sort of takeaway, I hope it is this: If you’re hurting and have strength enough to do so, ask for help as there are always, always people willing to listen. But even if you’re not, take the initiative to reach out yourself to those who are, but are unwilling or incapable of speaking out themselves, because it’s never as easy as you might think. And I want you to know, that no matter how small a gesture, even the simplest ‘are you okay?’, ‘how are you?’, or ‘I’m right here for you’ can spell the difference between life and death. Your words have the power to save lives, whether or not you may know it, so as fans, friends, family members… let’s all do our part. Be aware of the signs, and listen, with an open mind and an open heart.

And cherish your idols. Be their strength through the good and bad. Because they, like us, aren’t going to last forever; so I hope you always remember that idols are humans, too. They think, feel, and are aware of what others are saying about them, and sometimes they might feel powerless to respond. So whatever the case, please don’t spread hate. Spread love instead, as Jonghyun did, and be the light he always sought, and always was in this world of chaos.

And Jonghyun-ah, I want to say thank you. For introducing me to the world of K-pop. For making thousands of adoring fans smile. For sharing your music, and sharing your light, for being the gift that will forever keep on giving. For your bravery, your strength, for ten years’ worth of unforgettable memories. For being more, so much more than any of us ever deserved. And wherever you are, I hope you’re happy. As the rest of us you’ve left behind will try to be.

You’ve said your goodbyes so now it’s time to say mine: 안녕, 종현아. 끝까지 잘했어요. (Goodbye, Jonghyun-ah. You did well, to the very end).