Nari knew Bobby was chasing after her into the bar, but he was the very last thing on her mind – a feat she never thought possible. Palms sweating and hands shaking, Nari cautiously made her way through the endless sea of merry-goers, all of them crammed up towards both the bar and the stage as a smooth hip-hop beat sounded from the speakers. For a bar, the place was pretty crowded up, not to mention the pulsing black lights flickering faster than a blink of an eye. Nari found it hard to keep a track of whereabouts she was headed, but she didn’t care. The name on that poster was too haunting to let the chance slip through her fingers.

“He always did have dreams to become a musician…That bastard.” She whispered to herself as she forced her way through the endless clusters of people.

Eventually, Nari found a place to position herself, just about in the shadows to the side of the floor looking up at the small stage. She couldn’t stop biting her nails, a habit she thought she’d long grown out of as her thoughts plagued her mind.

It can’t be him. A place like this, where he’d spent so long in the shadows of the crime world, is the last place he’d want to make a name for himself like this. How could he stay here? After everything that happened? After everything that happened between us…

Nari practically jumped out of her skin as Bobby placed his hand on her shoulder. She quickly wiped away a single tear that had escaped her eye before Bobby could notice – but he knew better.

“It’s him, isn’t it? The one who gave you that bullet wound.” Bobby panted, surprisingly out of breath from chasing Nari through the crowded place. She appreciated the way he avoided saying ‘the one who betrayed you’, but nevertheless, Nari didn’t say a word, “You’re going to have to talk sooner or later. I won’t let you suffer in silence.

Nari avoided his eye contact, partly out of nerves, mostly out of fear of crying. Appreciative of Bobby’s support as she was, Nari wanted nothing more than her hunch not to be true, so that Bobby wasn’t right, that someone wasn’t out purely to get her with such taunts. Forcing away more tears and taking a deep breath, Nari kept silent and awaited the show to begin.

Blackout. The crowd roared as the real music began to play, a soaring bass that vibrated through the ground and the walls, forcing Nari’s pulse to race faster ahead than humanly possible. She gulped as a single spotlight flashed upon stage, engulfing Him in light as the crowd went wild.

“Woo Ji Ho,” The words slipped out of Nari’s mouth, a silent sob that concealed three years’ worth of pain that she’d forced herself to bury. An adolescent infatuation no doubt – but a wound to last her the rest of her life.

Nari’s legs felt as if they would give way under her as she watched him perform; the way he stood there so poise and perfect onstage was a bullet straight to her chest. Only this time, it felt as if he’d hit on target. He hardly looked the same - a slightly different hairstyle, better fashion sense, a stronger swagger about him. Even his eyebrows had evolved to craft this new man before her. Gone was the boy running around on SM grounds, hand in hand with Nari as children. Woo Ji Ho was gone.

Although her muscles weakened under her control, Nari felt frozen to the ground as his set played out before her eyes, his fluency in Japanese unchanged (perfected, if anything) as all manner of other rappers and artists joined him onstage. He soaked up every bit of adoration the audience offered, a legitimate recognition he’d never be able to receive had he not betrayed his Family.

His music was good. His lyrics begrudgingly heartfelt – Nari had to force herself from tapping her foot, but Bobby was evidently enjoying the music. She wanted to gun him down then and there for forgetting the priority – but again, she’d be hurting him because of her personal issues. Two songs haunted Nari in particular; ‘Battle Royal’, lyrics that seemed all too hauntingly fitting for Zico’s Ji Ho’s past life with SM, and the last song – Nari could’ve fainted.

“This last song,” Zico smiled down the microphone, lightly patting away the sweat on his head with a towel handed to him from side-stage, “I wrote it a while ago when an old friend crossed my mind. It’s meant to be sung, by someone else. I think I might be the one to perform it to you today. This last one’s called ‘It Was Love’”

As the words left Zico’s lips, accompanied by a slow beat, Nari’s heart almost leapt out of her chest. There was nothing to say the lyrics were about her in particular, but it made tears silently spill from her eyes nonetheless. Bobby suddenly stopped enjoying the music – Nari didn’t reject him when he held onto her hand. There was nothing erse or repulsive about it; it was the pure support that Nari never thought she’d needed in her life until now. If anything, she welcomed him when he slowly pulled her into his arms. She sobbed into his chest as Zico Ji Ho rapped the lyrics over the sound of the roaring crowd.

“After time passes it’s nothing

I thought I was briefly crazy

It was love it was love

Now that we’re here, I realize I loved her

Words and behaviour unlike me

Heart that has a mind of its own

It was love it was love

There was something more precious than me”

As soon as Zico Ji Ho uttered the final words of his song, the final breath sounding down the mic, Nari didn’t hesitate in running to the nearest exit she could find, leaving Bobby in the dust behind her as the crowd erupted into outrageous cheers. Nari became frantic as all manner of emotions, sadness and nightmares overwhelmed her all at once, mercilessly eating away at her sanity as she tried every possible door she could.

Images of that fateful day resurfaced in her mind faster than she could process, sounds and sights from her younger days adding to her increasingly unstable state of mind as she fell down to the ground repeatedly, grazing her hands on the ground as she carelessly sprinted forwards each time. The oxygen around her seemed to asphyxiate her with every panicked gasp, her chest tightening on her with every step she made. She felt as if every cell in her body was closing in on her, literally becoming a prison cell.

“There’s gotta’ be something somewhere!” Nari sobbed as she tried and failed to open every door that came in her path behind the bar. All manner of staff and stage team members raced about as she continued in her plight, too caught up in their own lives to notice the distress she was in. Her hair stuck to her face with sweat, her face disgustingly sticky with tears as her eyes roamed the place, wildly.

“They probably think- think that I’m some obsessed fangirl…” Nari grumbled ruefully as she made her way towards the red fire exit door.

“Are you supposed to be back here?”

Nari froze. Her stomach dropped at the sound of Woo Ji Ho’s voice. It was kind, and warm-sounding as it always was, absent of the very ferocity he showed onstage not long ago. Nari almost thought she was sixteen again, in love with the idea of love, clueless with so much faith in the future, and her best friend was chasing after her as he always had been.

Something compelled her to look back at the very person who so very nearly destroyed her life three years ago. That time seemed so short at first thought, but the suffering only made it stretch out longer than manageable. What happened changed Nari for good, but Woo Ji Ho seemed no different.

The single glance at her old friend immediately brought Nari to tears; he still had his mysterious look in his eyes, a darkness even Nari had found difficult to decode at best of times, but he maintained that vacant look he often wore. His stance was more confident, his build taller, stronger despite his athleticism in their younger days. But when recognition finally hit him, Nari didn’t hesitate in sprinting for the exit.

“Song Nari!”

Despite her heart and mind begging her to stop for him, just to let her eyes fall on him once more Nari forced her legs to carry her further and faster away from Woo Ji Ho. But even as she stepped