WOOHYUN

As soon as our bikes exited the darkness, silence slit through us. The stark brown terrain, the light green fields at near distance, the waves of the ocean softly grazing the sand…

It all seemed surreal. It seemed too good to be true.

I got off my chariot and turned to find Kairi beaming at the vast space with eyes that looked like they were hidden by circle lenses. Maybe it had been our previous hide-out, or maybe the idea of any emptiness being as fulfilling as this was unbelievable.

Paradise. This was the colloqiual name given to the peninsula we were on. The real name was something long and incomprehensible but if translated to a language the world understood, then it was simply Paradise. Rumours said that this was the land where the last drop of the Fountain Of Youth had been drained. But the world we lived in today only begged for our lives to move on faster. Paradise had been saved by it’s own destroyers.

“Certainly,” Seohyun breathed with a smile on her face. “This is Paradise.” She caught me looking at her and I pursed my lips together, the maximum smile I could give.

“Aye,” she brushed off, “I know you can do better. I saw it four hours ago.”

Knowing what she meant, I cleared my throat and whistled. “Ah! The breeze is too cold.” Rubbing my gloved hands against my jacket, I walked away as Seohyun chuckled to herself.

The girl was stronger than she looked, Seo Joohyun. Yonghwa had by mistake called out her name wrong. Ever since then, that became her name. Seohyun. The epitome of purity.

I wasn’t exaggerating, really. It was a fact that my elder brother and fiance had been killed off by a whole system, but they had been part of it and knew what was in for them, right from the beginning. But Yonghwa? Yonghwa just wanted to do what he was good at and help the world.

That’s how the two had met. Seohyun was an ace pianist and at some point, I must have too had her enter my school and take away some award for best musician, best pianist, best scholar. She was an all-rounder and until her breaths could go on, she would continue learning and improving herself.

Yonghwa and Nicole weren’t related but since their surnames were the same and they had been family friends for long, the two were as good as siblings. When Nicole heard that Yonghwa’s keyboardist had fallen ill before a show, she instantly speed-dialed the prodigy in her class, saying, “Seohyun? I need your help. I’ll owe you my life, really!”

“This is Seo Joohyun!!” Nicole shouted over the sound of Jungshin tuning his bass with the amp on. The dark lights of the pub failed to help Yonghwa see his friend’s classmate.

“What?? Seohyun???”

“Seo Jooohyuunn!! YAH LEE JUNGSHIN!”

Nicole ran across the stage to scold the poor musician while Yonghwa was left to manage this crisis backstage.

“Aish, I can’t even see your face—”

The lights switched on and Yonghwa stopped talking. Standing infront of him was a timid girl in a pair of blue jeans, brown top-siders and a simple green and blue plaid shirt. She was as tall as him but the light smile on her face gave off a different aura.

“Seo Joohyun,” she said, slightly bowing. Yonghwa blinked and raised his palm.

“Ah, th-that’s not needed… So for how long have you been playing Seohyun?”

The girl pursed her lips as she realized the boy’s mistake and sighed. “Nine years.”

Yonghwa’s mouth fell open. “That’s more experience than Taemin… Okay, anyway, the important question is : you’ve played a keyboard before?”

Seohyun nodded, confidence in her eyes. Yonghwa gave out a sigh of relief and led her to the stage, called Taemin on his phone and left the two to discuss on how to play the missing bandmate’s parts.

The concert ended well and some even thought that the clash of having a demure looking girl with the three troublemakers looked stunning onstage. Yonghwa insisted to the crazy girls that she was a substitute but before she left, he ran upto her.

“Seohyun!”

“It’s Joohyun,” the girl muttered to herself and turned around. “Excuse me Yonghwa-sshi, could you pleas--?”

Yonghwa threw her a hearty smile that stalled her and she watched as he handed her an envelope.

“You did well,” he grinned. The girl smiled and nodded, turning around to walk away.

“Uh wait, Seohyun!” Yonghwa rubbed the back of his head. Joohyun waited for him to speak.

“How are you going back home?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Metro,” she replied, like it was obvious. Yonghwa’s ears turned red and he nodded.

“Right… oh wait. It’s dark, you should probably….”

“Do you want to walk me home?”

Yonghwa blinked at the girl. He swung his guitar case on his back. “Let’s go,” he smiled.

“Also… my name is not Seohyun.”

“Really? I thought it suited you well.”

“No, it’s..”

“Eh! Seohyun sounds nice. I’ll call you Seohyun from now onwards. Call?”

“But…”

“I’m a Busan man! You really want to argue?What? Oh, no I didn’t mean to scare you….”

It was my fault.

Had I not insisted that Yonghwa become a part of our team, he would have still been alive.

Had I not insisted that Yonghwa become a part of our team, then Seohyun and him would be a married couple, the perfect one.

Had I not insisted that Yonghwa become a part of our team… then I would have not become like this.

As I watched Seohyun playfully wrap her arm around Kairi’s neck, my insides tugged at each other.

Kairi was now a member of our family, regardless of how much I didn’t want it to be so. But Kairi would be different from Yonghwa. She would understand that the world was bad. I would help her understand that there was no sympathy for outcasts like us. She would learn to survive, even when all this comes to an end, because…

Because I will stop someday too.