“It was super unnecessary for him to take the gun out of the stormtrooper’s hands!” “You should’ve posted it instead or put it in a box, I told you so” “But still! They don’t have to take it out!” “Stop bickering” “But hyung! Feel my pain!”

The stormtrooper figure stood motionlessly in Mino’s cabinet. The memory of the 30-minutes rant on the airport lounge and another 15-minute bickering (which involved a lot of Line & Kakao Talk stickers in the group chat, bag-grabbing, shoulder-shaking, and a lot of pouting) when the airport security took out the pointy gun out of the stormtrooper figure Mino bought earlier in New York was so vivid. Funnily, he could remember to the tiniest details such as the bagels they shared (well, most of them to Mino than to Seunghoon and Seungyoon) for a quick lunch before entering the collectibles store, Seungyoon’s endless lecture of how Mino should prioritize the stuffs he wanted to purchase and his financial management (while Seungyoon at the same time jumpily showed Mino a Dumbledore wand replica and the Sorting Hat), Seunghoon having to usher the two little kids out of the store before they voluntarily donate their entire savings for more collectibles – and yet Seunghoon couldn’t remember how he came to be in Mino’s room again with Mino’s sketchbook on his hand.

Seunghoon wanted to make sure that his mind wasn’t doing some funny business earlier today and the sketches that he saw were indeed of him.

This time, however, he came prepared. He seated himself nicely on the edge of Mino’s bed, the room was brightly lit, complementing the muted yet majestic crepuscular sunbeams of dusk from outside the window. Plus, he had drunk two glasses of water and snacked on a Japanese sponge cake he found on the kitchen a while ago. He knew better than venturing into the unknown world of Mino in dead silence, so he plugged his phone into Mino’s speaker and played a jazz samba playlist that filled the whole room with classy saxophone and upbeat percussion – soulful and dynamic enough for Seunghoon not to feel lonely yet soft and calming enough to prevent Seunghoon from dancing excessively (he was just tapping his fingers on the book and moving his toes).

His heart was thumping as he trailed his hands over the dusty book to open the first page, knowing that inside that book, there were some sketches of him that weren’t intended for Seunghoon to see. He scanned over Mino’s doodles and sketches (they were beautiful). Mino could be so scarily immersed into his sketchbook at some times, just like how Seunghoon is unstoppable when he starts to move his body to follow the rhythm of music; after all, those were their own ways of channeling their emotions and thoughts. Mino used to ask Seunghoon or Taehyun to accompany him to go to art exhibitions or galleries – in return, Seunghoon would sometimes ask Mino to accompany him to a contemporary dance performance.

Seunghoon used to be someone surrounded by walls; a bit untouchable, unpredictable, mysterious. As they progress from a nameless trainee group to Team A to Winner, Seunghoon’s walls started to crumble as he let himself looser around the other members, and pulling them into his inner circle of trust, symbolically inked through the tattoo on his back. Mino played a major role on this – he was the puppy who wags his tail at everyone, anyways. Mino wasn’t turned down by Seunghoon’s often brief responses when they first knew each other. He would always laugh and copy Seunghoon’s jokes and body gags. Mino was the person who waited Seunghoon to go back up and stayed nearby in YG Family Concert’s stage in Singapore when Seunghoon fell off the stage, looking genuinely concerned as Seunghoon was helped by the staffs. He could sense whenever someone around him was feeling gloomy and would do his best to make them cheerful again. Mino was the shot of joy.

Ah, here it is.

He traced his fingers on Mino’s drawing of Seunghoon.

What were you thinking when you drew this?

At that moment he felt like he wanted to rip the page from the black binding ring, frame the drawing and hung it in his room – but he thought, if he rip that page from the book, it would feel like he takes a part of Mino away and since he’s, well, dead, and this sketchbook is the most complete representation of him, he would then damage one of the most intact personification of Mino. He refrained himself from doing so.

It felt shorter for him, but Seunghoon unknowingly spent a good thirty minutes looking back and forth at the sketches of him and his stuffs and his pets. He closed the book and put it back on Mino’s desk after spending an additional two minutes internally debating whether or not he should write a “thank you” in Mino’s drawing of him.

Moving on from Mino’s sketchbook, Seunghoon shifted his focus into Mino’s bookshelf. Monet, pointillism, poetry books, photography books. Above his bookshelf were a maroon-colored teddy bear, the white musk room perfume, some sunglasses, and a desk calendar. Mino had always marked important dates in this desk calendar of his (those such as debut anniversary, WIN Final Battle anniversary, friends’ birthday, vacation dates) and it was quite disheartening to see how there are marks in February, April, July, whereas in reality he didn’t even make it until end of January.

Seunghoon brought his gaze into the 11^th January box and he couldn’t help but feel delighted to see Mino drew a red star outlining number 11 where next to it was his handwriting “이승훈!!!”.

He didn’t make it to that day.

Mino left when the wind was chilly; when in some parts of the city children were caroling, and in some other parts of the city some pyrotechnic engineers were ready to test out New Year Eve’s fireworks samples; when it was supposed to be one of his favorite times of the year.

He noticed that under the red star outline there was a fine thin line from a pencil that crossed 10^th Jan, 9^th, 8^th, all the way to 1^st of January. He flipped the calendar back and saw that the line went up to 11^th December of the last year; where a big ‘X’ sign was located in the middle of the box with an even smaller text that reads “start drawing!!!!”.

Seunghoon wondered what it meant. Surely, the line ended at 11^th January…

He studied the calendar over and over again, but he couldn’t find any further information. He found it bizarre but he shrugged it off as something trivial.

This was when his eyes found a lime green Book with a small text “weird hyung” written in golden ink in the end of the book spine, sandwiched between a “Star Wars: the Blueprints” book and “Spiderman & Green Goblin: Concept Art” book. “Weird hyung” is how Mino saved Seunghoon’s contacts in his phone’s address book.

Even with the glasses of water, slices of Japanese sponge cake, the brightly lit room, and the jazz samba playing, Seunghoon still had this funny feeling from the gargantuan butterfly in his stomach. Like a kid given a Christmas present, Seunghoon took the Book from the shelf. He looked at the front cover – solid green – and the back cover – solid green. The Book was A5-sized and couldn’t be more than 30-pages thick.

Seunghoon still had the funny feeling on his stomach (and he was thinking to go to the toilet from nervousness), but he decided to open the Book.

The first page was a huge block text covering the entire page that reads

“HELLO

SEUNGHOON

HYUNG”

And as he read that text, he heard someone’s voice saying, “hello Seunghoon hyung”.

It was Mino’s voice.