Knock, knock.

Junho taps his foot nervously on the concrete floor while he waits for someone to answer the door. It has been a little bit over five years since he last visited this house. Who knows if they have moved somewhere else? Nobody could tell. It is his fault for not staying in touch with his high school friends but then, they all said that she has been living a quiet life. Nobody has heard of her after Junho left his hometown to join JYP Entertainment as a trainee five years ago.

The door finally opens.

Junho lets out a subtle sigh of relief.

"Lee Junho?"

"Aeri noona," Junho nods at the woman in her mid-thirties. So they all still live here, thank God.

Aeri looks to her back and then back at Junho immediately, looking a little anxious. It seems like Junho's sudden visit is not very much welcomed compared to when he did five years ago. A lot of things can change in five years, Junho reminds himself.

Aeri carefully steps outside and closes the door behind her.

"Are you here to see her?" Aeri whispers.

Aeri is being too careful that Junho begins to grow suspicion towards the whole situation. He wonders what happened to this family?

"Yes. Is Jiyoung home?" Junho replies with another question.

"Of course she's home," Aeri is still whispering, but Junho couldn’t help but feels a little offended at the hard edges he could sense in her voice. Everyone in the family knows Junho, he is almost a part of the Min family. Yet, Aeri treats him like this when he comes to visit without much explanation.

"Can I... See her?"

"No," Aeri tells him firmly.

"No? Why not?"

"She can't see you right now."

"Is... Is she okay? Can't I see her just for a while?"

"Not now, Junho, it’s too sudden. I'm sure you already heard about her. Please come another day, but not now."

"How about tomorrow?"

Aeri sighs. Junho could sense the pain she is going through from her eyes; her shoulders droop with the heavy burden. Thankfully, she doesn’t seem like she despises him or anything, but there is something else she is hiding from him. Something about Jiyoung.

"I'll tell Jinyoung that you're coming to visit her. I'll call your house tonight and let you know if you can meet her tomorrow, okay? For now, just leave. Please," Aeri lowers her gaze as she retreats back into her house and clicks the door shut.

-

Junho helps his mother with the dishes after dinner. After he finishes, he retreats to his room and sits at his desk. He used to cram the whole night on this desk before exams because he isn't the type who constantly studies and read text books, but practiced dancing and singing instead. He used to do it together with Jiyoung all the time.

Junho reaches a picture frame with an old picture in it. There's a young Junho in that picture, along with Jiyoung and a couple of his close friends. They were all smiling in the picture. Yesterday, Junho bumped with one of the guys in the picture. That was how he knew about what happened to Jiyoung. He heard that Jiyoung has been hospitalized at a mental institution twice before. Nobody knows the details because her family has been keeping the matter as private as possible.

He wonders what went wrong. Jiyoung used to be a very cheerful and kindhearted girl before. Her family fully supported her interest in singing and songwriting. He and Jiyoung used to be together all the time. They talked about music and made music together. They went around to competitions and street perfromances together that people thought that he and she were dating. She was also constantly surrounded by friends and fans alike. How can she, out of all people, gains a mental illness?

Junho puts back the picture frame on its place and leaves the desk. He lies down on his bed, staring blankly at the white ceiling. He hears the faint sound of the telephone ringing from downstairs. The ringing stops immediately after.

"Junho, a call for you!"

Junho's mother yells from downstairs. Junho gets up and runs downstairs. He hopes that's Aeri, telling him that Jiyoung is ready to see him tomorrow.

-

Just like yesterday, Aeri doesn’t look pleased when Junho comes. She has a grim look on her, but what's important right now is that he gets to see Jiyoung today.

"Whatever you want to talk about just don’t bring up the past," she warns.

"Why not?"

"I'll explain to you later. Just don’t say anything about the past, strictly from the moment you left this town. Understand?"

"Yes, noona," he has no idea what to talk about if he's not allowed to ask about how she has been doing these past years, but he guesses he'll find a way.

Aeri leads him through the wide foyer of the bungalow towards the furthest room at the left side of the house. There is a gay melody of piano coming from the room. The sound ends briefly after Junho arrives at the door.

"Wait here," Aeri tells him before she enters the room. Junho grows a little anxious and curious as to how does Jiyoung looks like now. Few moments later, Aeri comes out from the room with a couple of girls aged about ten years old. She had told him previously that Jiyoung mainly stays at home and teaches piano to kids these days. Aeri herds the kids along with her. She briefly nods at Junho, cueing him to get inside.

Junho takes a deep breath and knocks on the door thrice. He pushes the door open and steps into the room.

There she is, looking out the tall windows. Her straight, long black hair falls freely, almost reaching her waist. She gently turns around and reveals her gentle smile. Her hands are fidgeting, which shows that she is an anxious as he does.

"Hey, Jiyoung. It's me."

"Junho..." her voice trails off into the deafening silence at the background.”It's... It's really you."

"Yes, I'm here. I'm back," Junho puts on the brightest smile he could ever manage. His heart races harder when her smile grows bigger. She runs towards him and wraps her slim arms around his neck. Junho hugs her back.

"You're back!"

"Yeah, I'm back."

It's only a few seconds into their meeting, but Junho already notices her little changes. She looks really thin, to the point that she looks fragile and a little unhealthy. Her speech and demeanor seems as gentle and fragile as she appears as well. She used to be very cheerful and active.

"I'm glad to see you again," Junho tells her after he pulls back. Jiyoung smiles at him. The kind of genuine smile you see on a face which hides so many scars and pain beneath her shell. Junho can hear that silent noise of his heart cracking, threatening to break anytime. He doesn’t know why, but he just feels that way the moment he sees her.

Junho keeps his promise with Aeri and stays away from asking about the past. He doesn’t know how bad is Jiyoung's condition; she seems fine in a glance but he doesn’t want to take risk. He asks her about her daily activities. She says she stays home all day. When she doesn’t teach, she plays the piano for herself or read books. Her family still restrains her from doing any housework, just like how things were five years ago. They don’t want to risk casing injuries to her hands. Junho understands that back then she used to win piano competitions and was getting ready to enroll into a prestigious art academy. It's very normal for pianist to be that cautious. He wonders what makes the whole family to be very careful with her hands if all she ever does is teaching piano at home now?

Junho brushes the thoughts away after Jiyoung no longer has anything to share with him. Junho takes the turn to entertain her with his stories. Still being careful with the past, Junho only shares the latest stories of him and the band he is in called 2pm. He tells her about the time they spent in Japan, he tells her about the villa they bought together and how he keeps getting scolded by Nichkhun (a very handsome bandmate of his from Thailand) for making so much noise with the music instruments in his room. He also talks about how he sponsors a child in Africa since a few years ago and finally gets to visit him in his home country recently. Before he notices, a couple of hours pass by and he needs to be home soon.

"We can barely communicate because of the language barrier, but the kids there are all warm and friendly. They were a little shy at first, but after a short while, you don’t feel any barrier anymore. Wait, am I boring you? I've been talking a lot am I?"

Jiyoung laughs, shaking her head, "your stories are all fun to listen to, unlike mine."

"Don’t say that. You should tell me about your students next time. There must be a lot of interesting happenings while teaching young children," Junho finally places back the tea cup in its tray. It's about time he leaves.

“Well, if you insist,” Jiyoung casts a gentle smile.

Junho raises from his seat, and so does Jiyoung. Junho takes her hands in his and looks straight into the windows of her soul. Still no different from the moment they met just now, there’s a disturbing emptiness in her eyes. Junho clears his throat and decides that’s later for him to mull about. Right now, he just wants to redo the detached string of friendship between Jiyoung and him. There’s still so much about her that he doesn’t know yet. He realizes that he needs to catch up on all those to understand how she comes to this.

“I’ll come again tomorrow,” he tells her.

Jiyoung nods, “that’s lovely. I’ll be waiting.”

Junho pulls her fragile frame into his warm embrace and whispers into her ears, “I’ll come tomorrow, I promise.”

-

Junho visits Jiyoung again the next day. Unlike Aeri, her parents seem as warm as they were towards him five years ago when he greeted them. He continues to visit her the day after that, and the next. On the day after that, Jiyoung is taken to a hospital in the city for her regular checkup and tests, so Aeri takes the chance to explain Jiyoung's situation to Junho. She invites him to the library and begins to explain lengthily over warm teas.

"After you left to receive training at the city, Jiyoung was preparing hard for her entrance at the Seoul National Arts Academy. One day, she was involved in a minor accident, but she was alright. However, since the accident, she began to feel pain in her left arm everytime she played the piano. She took a short rest and avoided playing the piano for a few days but the pain came back everytime she played. Later on, she began to feel difficulty in moving her fingers. She couldn’t move them as she wanted. The doctor said she has problem with her nerves. We took her to many doctors and none could cure her."

"She stayed at home since then. Her enrollment at the academy was postponed. I watched her getting moodier as the days went by. She became very sensitive and cried a lot. She cried at every little thing. We had to throw away the tv, radio, music cd's, anything that reminded her of her passion. We even threw away your pictures, because you guys used to do music together."

Junho nods and continues to listen quietly.

"She thought she had lost everything. Her life, you. She felt like she was being abandoned. We sent her to the hospital when we found her in her room, unconscious with her wrist cut. She was admitted to a mental institution afterwards, and released 7 months after. She stayed at home all the time after her release. She started playing the piano again. She wasn’t as good as she was, but she can still play and she seemed content enough; until you made your debut. She saw your face on the magazine, on the billboard in the town, everywhere. Before I notice, she had been crying every night in her room. We sent her to the hospital again so she was hospitalized for the second time. That time, it took her a year."

Aeri takes a sip of her tea, now cold from being left untouched too long.

"It's been barely six months since she was released. If you ask me, I'm totally against you meeting her again. I wish you no longer exist, never exist so Jiyoung can live peacefully. But of course, none of these are your fault. Jiyoung says she is glad that she can see you again and my parents are happy to see you, so I have no say."

"I'm..." Junho wants to apologize but what an apology can do? In this situation, an apology can be an insult to Aeri.

"If you want to see her again, you can come again tomorrow. She will be home late tonight."

"Aeri noona, how can I help her?"

Aeri chuckles bitterly, "help? She's perfectly fine now. She plays the piano again and is content teaching piano to children. I can't ask you to do that. To help her. Because if you really want to help, I'd ask you to disappear."

-

Junho can’t bring himself to believe Aeri. He can’t believe that Jiyoung's condition might worsen because of him. He wants to help her. He genuinely does, but he has no idea how. Maybe making she laugh again will help her to get better. Maybe if he can make her happy, she would recover from her condition. Maybe her mental state breakdown will never, ever relapse again; if she’s truly happy.

He decides to give Aeri a call and asks if he can take Jiyoung out tomorrow. Later that night, Aeri calls him back. She doesn’t sound too happy, but she says, ‘Yes, you can.’

-