Let it go, let it roll right off your shoulder, don’t you know, the hardest part is over–

Mark probably should’ve known that being alright at street dancing didn’t mean he could do a pirouette. Some moves were just too ambitious, and he’d always just been too daring to think otherwise. An attempt on one such move nearly landed him flat on his face, but his reflexes let his bear the brunt.

“Ow!” he yelped. Less painful, but still painful.

“Don’t remember you doing ballet.”

He turned to the door, finding a girl garbed in her trademark neon streetwear. Her hair was dark but her bangs were blonde – Shim Ryujin always liked being a rebel. Pigtails and a prep school could turn her into a model law school student in seconds, but she always chose to deviate.

She held out a carton of what looked like a five-year old’s banana milk and plopped beside him, she herself on a lollipop. Geez, he thought. He didn’t know how they’d managed to stay friends, especially with her mental age.

“You must think I’m five,” he scoffed, wrinkling his nose at the banana milk.

“You are – to everyone,” she laughed. “Seulgi-hyung, especially. I was my dad’s office a week back and I told Seulgi about your upcoming show, and she said she’d bring along a crate of banana milk. Apparently, she remembers how much you loved it when you were little.”

Mark emitted a loud groan and shoved his head into his hands. Ryujin started snickering like a hyena, and honestly, if she wasn’t a lady, he would’ve smacked her. Yeah, he definitely didn’t know how he’d kept her around, considering most of the time he didn’t know if she was his friend or his enemy.

Her laughter slowly tapered off, mostly thanks to her lollipop. “So,” she continued, “how’s your new place?”

“It’s alright. Bit small, but I make do.”

“And how’s your sister taking the move?”

Mark inhaled a breath. He’d distinctly remembered hearing his sister sobbing herself to sleep in the days leading up to his big move. He figured he would give her some space, but in retrospect he probably should’ve spent more time with her, watch more movies or something.

It’d been just the both of them against the world, at least for a large chunk of his life. She was the one who did his laundry, cooked his meals, and toiled through countless grueling part-time jobs to put him through school. She was more dedicated than most parents, despite her size, age and temperament. He knew he meant the world to her. And, despite his choice to move out, she was the world to him, too.

“Not too well,” he admitted. “After our mom died, she pretty much took over the role. I suppose she just didn’t think the day would come.”

She nodded quietly. “So why’d you move out? Could’ve waited until she got married, no?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I feel like I’ve been holding her back, like I’ve kept her frozen in place.” He lowered his head, fiddling with his shoelaces. “I figured I’d relieve her of some burdens, let her live her life without a twenty-five year-old ball and chain, you know?”

Ryujin nodded again. She, more than anyone else, would be able to understand. After all, she’d freed her mom the same way. Perhaps not the same way, but with the same intentions.

She leaned her head back, pressing herself against the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. “When I stopped by my dad’s office, I gave him my paycheck.” She chuckled softly at the memory. “You won’t believe it, but the old man actually cried.”

Mark threw her a skeptical look. He’d met Ryujin’s dad –Changmin– a few times before. The man was handsome, but he also had eyes of steel. He didn’t know how Johnny and Seulgi could work with the man without pissing their pants on a daily basis. He didn’t know how Ryujin could’ve even rebelled against such a father.

“I’m sure your sister cried too, right? The first time you slipped her your paycheck?” Ryujin turned to Mark, watching him nod slowly. She chortled. “It’s weird thing with parents, huh? They want you to spread your wings and fly off, but get all sad when you do.”

He broke into soft peals of laughter. That really was Wendy, in a nutshell – nagging him on a daily basis for his lack of maturity but sobbing a fountain when he wasn’t around.

He poked his straw through the foil over his banana milk, sipping slowly. He did have some free time that night. He could afford to stay over, and maybe leave a shirt or two.

“What? You’re going to Tokyo to donate your bone marrow?”

Johnny didn’t know which was more startling – the fact that one of his closest friends had just dropped a bomb about his family situation, or that he himself seemed like the only one at the table who was actually startled. Except Jungwoo, but Jungwoo was always a drama queen. The boy could put on a whole ing show of being startled by the existence of cronuts. He didn’t count.

He at least expected Wendy to be up on her feet, but she was holding her silence, nodding in quiet support of Yuta.

He jabbed an accusing finger at Wendy. “You knew?” he gaped. “And you didn’t bother to tell the rest of us?”

Next to him, Seulgi narrowed her eyes. “That’s rich coming from you, Johnny Suh.”

“Oh, stop it, Seulgi, I’ve already apologized to you more than a hundred times!”

Jungwoo poked his head out of the fridge, having extracted a cup of jelly. “So, what do you plan to do?” he said, sticking a spoon his cup. “Are you planning to move there for a while to take care of her?”

“No.” Yuta shook his head. “I’m just going to be there for two weeks.”

Seulgi leaned over. “And the legalities?”

“Yixing,” and Yuta saw both Jaehyun and Seulgi wince, “already helped to confirm the legality of the donation. Shouldn’t be an issue.”

Wendy nodded. She patted Yuta’s back encouragingly. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks.”

Honestly, Yuta had been close to turning Shotaro down. He had gone back-and-forth on his decision for weeks, weighing out a lot more than he needed to. Yuta wasn’t one to overthink, but in such times, Wendy’s habits truly grew on him.

Regardless, he came to the inevitable conclusion that any stranger, when presented with the opportunity to save someone from a life-or-death situation, would’ve just lent a hand. I’m a kind stranger, he had repeated to himself. Just a run-of-the-mill, courteous, kind stranger.

Jaehyun set his glass down with a soft thud. He levelled his gaze on Yuta, eyes resolved and decisive. “I’ll go with you,” he announced.

“What?” Jungwoo exclaimed.

Yuta shot him a smile, which Jaehyun quickly reciprocated. He knew Jaehyun would’ve made the offer. Wendy wasn’t the only one who accompanied him on his travels to Tokyo, over the years – Jaehyun had unexpectedly made himself available as well. He’d picked up some Japanese flings along the way, but he still went along. Not many people would be willing to drop everything and accompany Yuta on a futile search for the family who abandoned him.

Johnny rose to his feet. “No,” he said, causing the others’ heads to turn, “we’ll all go with you.”

At the beginning, it was a touching sentiment, with all of them following him to Tokyo. But soon, Yuta remembered why his friends were scumbags – entertaining scumbags, but still scumbags.

“Oh my god! This is so good!” Jungwoo gasped. His cheeks were bulging with the gang’s latest find – white bean mochi with a whole, fresh strawberry encased within.

Wendy was flapping and flailing like she’d never eaten a mochi, never set a foot in Japan for her entire adult life. “Oh my god, oh my god!”

For what was one of the rare times in the history of their friendship, Wendy and Jungwoo had put aside their differences to celebrate the one element they had in common – their sweet tooths. Throughout the whole morning, the two of them dragged the other four from stall to stall in the bustling Ginza to test and try a myriad of desserts.

Yuta slapped a hand on his face. I should’ve known. These ing idiots.

“Here, Yuta, have some!”

Wendy shoved a large mochi ball into his mouth. He could swear the act was associated to some sort of Korean profanity, but Wendy had always been a dense, forgetful idiot.

Seulgi raised a weary brow. “Are we really sure he can eat that? Didn’t the doctor say–“

“No alcohol, but he didn’t say anything about desserts. Stop being a killjoy, Seul!” Johnny laughed, slinging an arm over her shoulders.

Naturally, while Wendy and Jungwoo went on a mission to uncover all the dessert shops in Ginza, Johnny had poked into a few liquor stores. He’d manage to procure himself way too many samples of sake, enough to have him staggering back and forth. Seulgi had a mind to fling him off, but she was dead sure he would land on the pavement and end up sleeping there. Johnny was two, perhaps three heads taller than her, and she wasn’t going to take charge of picking him off the ground.

She rolled her eyes. Before she could snap at him, a hand flew through the air and stuffed a mochi into .

“Look,” Jaehyun chuckled, pinching her cheek, “now you’re a mochi.”

The way he spoke to her, anyone would think that things were already fine between them. When their eyes met, their gazes hardened for a moment, expressions steeled to a shiver.

Johnny had wandered off. Even in his inebriated state, he decided he wasn’t going to be a lamp post, travelling to Wendy and Jungwoo to annoy the out of them instead. Jaehyun and Seulgi were left a meter back, to themselves and their unsaid words.

Jaehyun forced a smile. “Now you can stop overthinking, huh?”

What do you mean by that? She stared at him. And what do you want me to say to that?

Anything, Seulgi.

Anything that’ll tell me that I still matter.

Seulgi snatched a mochi from Jungwoo’s tray and pushed it to Jaehyun – right at his lips. “Look,” she retorted, laughing, “now you’re also a mochi.”

Between Jaehyun and Seulgi force-feeding each other and Jungwoo, Wendy and Johnny squabbling about their next destination, Yuta chuckled to himself. He involuntarily pulled out his phone, catching a shot of the moment.

Idiots, he smiled.

The whites and fluorescents of the cold hospital hallways were familiar, but for all the wrong reasons. He remembered all the afterschool afternoons he had spent with Wendy’s mom, until the one he had found Wendy weeping over her mother’s lifeless body. He remembered visiting Taeil and not being able to get past the ward door. He remembered sitting with Johnny outside the operating theater, watching his best friend’s soul leave his eyes.

Each time, something sunk within him. He knew he couldn’t do a thing, even if he chided himself. Life was unpredictable and often futile, Yuta knew. Yet, there he was, on his way to save a life, one that threw him away years before. The irony was as bitter as a poisonous arrow, the one that had been stuck in his heart for most of his life.

Wendy had her arms linked with his, like she’d known he’d felt this way. He smiled briefly at her, and she gazed at him, bright and unfaltering.

You’ll be fine.

“Oniisan, you made it!”

Shotaro’s loud, chirpy voice rang through the hallway. He rushed towards him, stopping a few meters away, startled by the hoard Yuta had brought along.

“My dad and mom– I mean, our mom, is waiting inside for you,” Shotaro said. He then clasped onto Yuta’s hands, causing the latter to recoil. “Thanks again for doing this, oniisan. We really, really appreciate it.”

Yuta gave him a brisk nod. He didn’t mean to be cold, but his usual, amiable senses were malfunctioning. For once, Nakamoto Yuta didn’t have any pleasantries to give.

“You ready?” Johnny asked. He thumped Yuta on the back, towering over him like a teddy bear. A really big teddy bear.

“I think so.”

He turned again to Wendy, who squeezed his arm reassuringly. “You’ll be fine,” she said, repeating a phrase they had thought, said and shouted to each other over the years. “We’ll all be waiting here.”

Yuta nodded. “Thanks.”

He d