“Hey, I want you to listen to something.”

“Oh sure, what is it?”

Jaehyun’s palms are sweating, and he thinks the guitar might slip from his hands. Despite being good at what he does (Jaehyun likes to think), he had never actually performed in front of anyone. On top of being self-taught through videos he searches online, he took classes in secret. He participated in the vocal and guitar lessons his primary and middle school offered, but he never performed in any recital. Despite his love for music and desire to perform, he was too scared of his dad finding out.

But he’s had enough of that.

“Just… a little song I wrote,” Jaehyun musters up the courage to say.

“Wow, you’re so talented,” the girl in front of him replies so sincerely, Jaehyun’s heart fills up with butterflies. Instead of meeting the girl inside the library in their usual table, Jaehyun called her from outside before she entered the building. He led them to the staircase leading up to the entrance and they stand by the side along the railings.

“You haven’t heard me sing yet,” Jaehyun says, head down and cheeks red. He takes off his flannel shirt, lays it on a step, and gently pulls her by the wrist to guide the both of them into a seated position.

“I just know.” She turns her head away, and mumbles. “You’re… you’re an amazing person, Jaehyun.”

And so, motivated, Jaehyun places the guitar on his lap, his left hand finding its position along the fretboard and his right hand strumming hesitantly, quietly, as if afraid to disturb the quiet.

She keeps silent as well, losing every fibre of herself, all attention into Jaehyun’s song.

He’s fallen in too deep. He wants to paint a picture for her. What her eyes can’t see, Jaehyun wants to communicate instead to her heart, something she will be able to feel rather than see. And so he tries to do that by singing.

His voice cracks a bit at the first line, throat too tense from nerves. “I’m being pulled by the current; the more I try to come up to the shore, I keep being pulled back into the ocean.” Jaehyun clumsily readjusts his fingers to form the next chord. “The vision of paradise escapes me, and I’m quickly losing faith.”

But as he catches his rhythm, his confidence picks up, and so does the volume of his singing and playing. “I was born a loner, but I think I’ve found someone - someone willing to walk with me though I’m slow, though I stumble.”

Jaehyun hums the chorus, a melody he hasn’t written words to yet, and chances a look at the girl sitting beside him. She has her eyes closed, so Jaehyun is unsure of what she’s feeling, if she likes what he has so far or not. If she realizes Jaehyun had dedicated this song to her.

As he finishes the chorus, the sound of guitar fizzles out into the air, becoming one with the cold autumn breeze. His voice lingers as he sustains the last note, before he stops and so does the moment.

The girl opens her eyes, breathes out, “Wow.” She turns to him, “That was so good, Jaehyun.” And she looks so honest, so genuinely enamored by the song and Jaehyun can’t help but smile.

“It’s not yet finished, though.” Jaehyun scratches the back of his head.

“But it sounds amazing so far. I can’t wait to hear the rest of it. You’re such a great singer,” and her cheeks flush, “I… figured that just by listening to you talk. Your voice is… soothing.”

Jaehyun gapes, unsure of how to respond. The only person to have ever complimented his singing was his mother.

But she saves the awkward silence by moving to lightly punch Jaehyun on the shoulder, missing and her knuckles brush against his bicep instead. She says after a forced laugh, “Why so suddenly, though? What’s this song for?”

“Oh, right. I haven’t told you,” he places the guitar back in its case bag. “The university is holding a songwriting competition. It’s mostly for music majors but… I decided to join.”

“I see. That’s really cool, Mr. Businessman.”

“Please don’t ever call me that again,” Jaehyun huffs out, but the smile is evident in his voice. “But about that… Yeah…”

He regrets that he hadn’t thought in advance how he is going about this, and he struggles to find the words when the girl asks him, “What is it?”

“You… said that you wanted to listen to the whole thing. When - when it’s finished,” Jaehyun stutters out. Damn it. His palms start sweating again and he wipes them on his jeans. “If - if you’d like to come to my performance, that’ll be -”

“Yes.”

“- pretty cool… Wait, what?”

“I’ll be there,” she smiles back at him, almost as if she were soothing a nervous, bumbling child. “I’ll… I’ll be sure to make time for it.”

“Really?” and Jaehyun really does light up like a child, senses perking up as his heart fills with joy. He catches himself, smooths down his t-shirt and coughs out, “I mean, that’s… cool.”

“I can’t wait.”

--

Now that the invitation is done and over with (‘Finally,’ Jaehyun internally breathes a sigh of relief), things go back to normal between the two, and regular conversation inside the library resumes.

Jaehyun doesn’t know how it comes up, but somehow their conversation led from themselves, to Doyoung, and then to Taeyong. Jaehyun dreads even hearing his name.

He’s even scared of asking, but the question has been eating him up on the inside ever since he realized he might be harboring jealousy when it came to the two of them. He just has to know:

“What are you and Taeyong?”

He braces himself for the impact, for disappointment, and he’s already halfway through building a wall of defense for his mind and heart when the girl simply replies, “He’s my best friend.”

The jealousy inside of Jaehyun is a little bit skeptical at that, so he probes, “Best friend?” Nothing more? From what he’s observed, they’re surely more than just friends.

“Yes, the closest,” she says. “Like I’ve said before, we’ve known each other since we were kids. Neighbors.” The girl sighs wistfully, as if remembering something from the past. A smile graces her face, although a little pained, bittersweet, as she continues, “We were all each other had.”

Jaehyun looks up from the report he was typing on his laptop, intrigued by whatever she has to say. He could tell she wants to share more, from the way her fingers tap on her cheek in thought, as she lays her chin on her palm, book completely forgotten.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, you know… We had always been different.” Her free hand leaves the bumps on the page and plays with the edge instead. “I was a blind girl, he never got along with boys his age. They’d tease and avoid… None of the neighborhood kids wanted to play with us.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” This was new to Jaehyun. The fact that children would bully someone for being blind builds up something akin to rage inside of him, although he was never on the receiving end of such actions.

“It’s fine, really,” she reassures, but he still has a hard time believing it. “I don’t blame them. I mean, I barely understood what was going on with myself at that age. My vision was debilitating fast, I was losing sight real quick… And me, it took me years to finally accept that. To expect them to understand what I was going through, even before I did so myself, was expecting too much.”

And Jaehyun understands. “You’re right. But it was still wrong.”

“Yes, and it hurt,” and she lays both hands on the desk. “But it doesn’t anymore.” She gives Jaehyun her most reassuring smile and it works, as the anger bubbling inside dissipates into admiration. For her strength, for her being in itself. Jaehyun is in awe.

She continues, “When Taeyong and I were growing up, all we wanted was to fit in. But we never did. I wanted to be able to do everything a sighted person can, even when I knew I couldn’t. I was… mourning the loss of my past, and what I had wanted to be when I grew up. I had to re-learn everything from scratch: to read, to navigate my way through my home, to be… to be happy.

“And Taeyong, he was there for me when none of the other kids were. Perhaps he was alone, too - he wasn’t interested in sports, or racecars, or rough play like most boys his age were. He didn’t belong anywhere. But he couldn’t change himself. And I couldn’t change myself either. That’s why we clicked.

“As we became older, we realized just that. We’re not meant to fit in, to blend in with everyone else. We’re meant to stand out. And now… we just feel comfortable in our own skin.”

And Jaehyun has learned so much about her in these past few minutes compared to the entirety of the time they’ve spent together. He appreciates how raw and how trusting she was, showing a vulnerable side to her when normally she keeps a strong and independent facade. Jaehyun feels like he’s being let in, like she’s beckoning him to be a significant part of her life. Like she is to his.

And maybe Jaehyun could relate a little bit to that. He’d been trying to fit in with the other students in his major, no matter how hard it’s been. He’d been trying to fit in his supposed role in the family, but perhaps she was right. Maybe he isn’t meant to be confined to that.

And Jaehyun feels like he knows the girl more. After a long pause as Jaehyun absorbed the story and his own thoughts, he says, “Thank you. For telling me all that.” Those were words he needed to hear.

“Don’t mention it.” She gives one last smile, before looking down and gliding her fingers across the book she was previously reading.