He wished he'd run into it on accident. He wished he hadn't been weighed down by loneliness until he was drowning in it. He wished he hadn't come there to sit and let memories flood in and suffocate him.

It had been intentional. Serves him right for choosing to stay and live near that place,

The ride to the house was all too familiar, the path he used to pass with his friends beside him nearly hurt to be passing by himself.

Stepping out of the car, Woosung looked up at the house covered with vines, the balcony where they used to spend a lot of time given that the weather was nice.

He opened the gate and the creaky sound it let out in the silence of the afternoon made Woosung feel like an imposter, even though the house currently belonged to no one. It had become a shell that held memories.

He walked through the front yard, stepping on broken glass, rotten wood and branches. The grass hadn’t been cut in years. No one had been looking after the small garden. The white garden table was rusted and broken.

Woosung went to the door. He had to put in some strength to open it and much like the gate, it made a groaning noise.

The dust made him cough and he waved in front of himself to try and get some out of his face. The hallway was dark enough, but as soon as he stepped into the living room, the sun coming through the broken windows made him squint. The entire room was white, too white with its bleached walls and covered furniture.

The sight saddened him, how lonely and abandoned it all was.

A keyboard used to stand in the upper right corner. A set of drums used to be in the middle by the wall, right under the biggest window. The left wall was where a few guitars used to hang and the rest of the equipment like mic stands and speakers used to sit in the upper left corner.

All gone. They’d gathered it all and taken it to their new homes, away from one another. What remained were the couch and the lonesome armchair in the centre of the room.

Woosung’s original plan was to go upstairs as well, to visit their rooms and the balcony. However in that moment he was too overwhelmed to even move and he felt that seeing any more of their abandoned house would break him.

Vision blurred by tears he felt his knees buckle. Since he didn’t want to collapse in the middle of a dusty wooden floor, he took a few steps and instead collapsed onto the armchair, although it was equally as dusty.

The sun was in his eyes and he was temporarily blinded by it, by the tears and reality made way for memories to come back.

They were vivid and yet chaotic.

Woosung remembered the moment the four of them had first stepped into the house, but everything after that was blurry.

He remembered them playing loud music while they unpacked. He remembered them being exhausted that evening, all of them cuddled up on the couch and fighting over the best way to get comfortable.

He remembered Dojoon sitting alone on the balcony, he remembered himself along with the other two coming to keep him company, to ask him if he needed anything. He remembered how the four of them had all fit onto the barrier, because they’d wanted to give Dojoon the warmest affection and comfort.

He remembered Hajoon’s dangerous enthusiasm, him jumping onto the others’ backs for sudden piggy back rides, lying down on top of them or otherwise trying to cling onto them. He remembered Hajoon once nearly falling off of the balcony and laughing afterwards.

He remembered Jaehyeong trying and often succeeding in organizing all four of them to just play, write or compose music for hours, although it used to be difficult getting Hajoon to calm down for as long. He remembered Jaehyeong’s oddly tame passion. He remembered how Jaehyeong never sought out comfort but always gave it to anyone who needed it.

He remembered how they never slept in separate rooms, how one of them always caved and asked to sleep with someone else and how usually it ended up with all four of them in one bed.

He remembered them being inseparable.

Woosung wanted to remember the good parts only. He wanted to remember only everything before it all fell apart.

He was crying, swallowing sobs, not wanting to disturb the silence. But he didn’t hide, he let his head fall back and he let his tears roll down his face; he didn’t try to stop or collect himself until he was numb.

Even when he got up he was still shaking, still drawing an occasional painful breath that left his chest aching. He walked back to the hallway, to where the picture still stood. Perhaps it was the only piece of decoration that remained in the house. No one had wanted to take it.

Woosung remembered when they’d made it, all four of them on the floor with scissors and glue like a bunch of preschoolers. Hajoon had hung it up on the wall. It had been his idea and he’d been very proud of the result. It used to be their beacon of hope. Now, it was just a painful reminder.

As he stood on his own before the picture, where they used to stand together, Woosung broke down crying again and still made no effort to stop. There was no one to see and no one to judge. He thought he’d be alright, but he ended crumbling and sitting on the stairs, holding his head in his hands and staring at the ground while tears left his eyes and dripped onto the floor, making tiny circular marks in the dust.

He didn’t know where his friends were. He didn’t know if they were alright, if they were living well, if they were satisfied or happy. He hoped they were but the fact that he didn’t know and had no way of knowing was killing him.

He wandered if they missed him as much as he missed them.

Woosung hoped that they weren’t as alone as he was. He hoped that they were happy, that they’d made new friends, found new partners and built their lives the way they wanted them to be.

But there was tiny part of him, the selfish part of him that hoped that the three of them, wherever they were in the world were also crying and missing how it all used to be.