It wasn’t uncommon anymore to find Junhong wandering the streets in the middle of the night.  The soft light of street lamps and neon signs guiding his gate.  At first they had told him he was sleep walking. But he wasn’t. He knew what he was doing. 

Searching.

 He was constantly searching.  Seeking out the ghost of another that had haunted him for as long as he could remember.

“He isn’t real. You have to give this up.”  His parents would plead with him. “You need to stop running away. It’s dangerous! Why do you keep doing this?”  Their words would become angry and Junhong would stay quiet.

“I love him.” He would whisper, large sad eyes looking up to meet those of his parents, his friends, anyone who asked.

“Love who? He isn’t real. Yongguk isn’t real Junhong!”  They’d all say the same thing. And Junhong, he would watch his hands; keep his mouth shut, anything to not start a fight.  He loved him even if he hadn’t found him yet. He knew he had to keep looking.


“You don’t understand.” He would say to their backs as they finally left him alone.

It was when he was sixteen that they took him to the hospital. Four days of searching, drifting through the city, running when he’d thought he’d found him, and slowing when he realized he hadn’t.  They found him in a doorway, scanning the passersby for the face that he could read every detail of.  

He watched his mother’s back, as her shoulders shook.  They wouldn’t know what it was like to be lead.  To feel the warmth of another who wasn’t there yet, to hear their voice so clearly. “Come on.”

The ghost of a man who was still alive, waiting to be found, “Come on.”  His voice was deep, riding through the air like a pollen.  And it would pull Junhong along.

Anxious to keep searching he would stay silent on badly upholstered sofas.   Running his fingers over scratching fabrics and shaking his head as they tried to explain why he was wrong, why he should stop looking.

“Your love is a delusion.”

“My love is simple.” Soft spoken, and cruelly hopeful. 

Silence again after that.  Until the next meeting, until they found him wandering around the hospital wings, until they locked the doors so that Junhong couldn’t get out. “Come on.”  And Junhong knew that he was not wrong. He could feel it in his bones, breathe it into his lungs.  But he learned, letting obedience spread through him like a virus. Stay quiet, stay stationary, but keep yourself open. 

“We’re letting you go home.” 

Junhong’s eyes were met with bright sunlight, looking out from under the awning of the hospital. It was then that every colour shifted, the world changed as warmth spread across his skin. Flesh touched flesh and the ghost of a man was replaced with flesh and blood.  The same smile, soft eyes, dark hair. “Yongguk?”

“I was wondering when I’d find you.”  The same deep voice, soft and alluring. “Come on.”