7

It's soon declared that Jae's inner side was not hidden, it's more to the fact that it never existed when he stopped showing up through September, through October. It gradually came to a point that Jae never wore his nerdy glasses anymore, that he never played his guitar anymore and never sang a note since. Jae was a mess. Jae hadn't believed in the Sunday morning story he told, or made up. Jae contemplated on giving some things up after so long of struggling to save them.

It then reminded her that Jae was never another warm country to stay. Jae was never another river rolling deep.

Today she found a note stuck at the same polaroid picture the last summer night, where she fell asleep exactly the same spot the downpour had her, consumed her, where Jae had set that tuning fork down and turned his stereo on instead. "This is Park Jaehyung you wrote to, not Jae. If Jae is hateful, Park Jaehyung is worse." It wrote back.

Jae. As in Park Jaehyung.

She let out a sigh, long and wheezy. On the days before, the downpour could've gotten her intolerance to stay out in the open, but things were different, things had been different the moment Jae moved into the unit next to her. It's been swirling and whirling and jarring and gagging and everything else besides.

Things were good. To be precise, really.

8

It came to this point, where Chloe thought of a truck of haps she could've thought of earlier(but we don't talk about that now). That Jae used to get up early on Sunday mornings, took double shots of espresso and played his guitar. But the Park Jaehyung she just knew weeks before started sleeping in when it came to Sundays, saying that he didn't want to get up finding no fairy tales like he'd sung of existed, or that his guitar broke and he had to surrender twenty-two hours putting it back together. Albeit in truth, it's his own life he wanted to fix.

Jae had always sung a lot about Sunday mornings. Jae reminded her that although the weather wasn't good, the song was. But Jae was also long lost, no glasses, shots of vodka replaced Americano, trails of silence replaced strums, dead leaves replaced rainwater, molded concrete and an empty chair replaced him.

Agony spoke louder than rustles of leaves in autumn that year, it's as if the city was deaf, or blind to the pain, flitting it elsewhere. The days were good, the days were fine, the days were golden under tunnels of sleepy branches and wilted leaves. The barks were pelted until their skins showed, dusts were trapped everywhere that you didn't know which window to open so that they'd go away, just go away if they ever would.

Sometimes Jae went out, but most of the time he stayed in. It's really bad but bad wasn't his concern, she thought. Perhaps he walked to the nearby grocery store and picked things up, then he's going to come home again and surrender his twenty-two hours, calling it an unconventional curfew. It's not, to be precise again.

She still had no clue about his existence in the first place, or his absence right here right now. Until one day Chloe inhaled a throbbing, familiar scent of espresso. Caffeine. She shifted her curtains, wheeled the slide door open.

He was sitting there, earphones stuffed deep and gaze blank in a way he had never been. After so long of sitting-beside-you-and-I-had-to-break-the-silence, "So is everything good? The past weeks and months?"

He turned.

That instant, Jae had a pair of empty eyes(not that they weren't before). "Good things don't come with time, good things come with price." Was all he said.

9

There was a long time in November where Jae only worked on repairing his guitar, his danged guitar. Always out of tune, always had broken strings, always this, always that. He kept running, like he'd run away from singing, from the songs, from everything until he crashed into himself. Emaciated figure, and he was still running. He ran to the music store too, buying endless strings and discarding them again because they broke, continuously.

Somehow he didn't seem to remember anymore, albeit he still walked down the street to get his usual toast in the morning, still drank americano at some point, but he didn't sing. A Jae without music, a Park Jaehyung without himself. Paper house, paper hearts. Bull conception.

So every once in a while Chloe would still stop at his doorstep, pondering whether she should believe in Sunday Mornings after all. And every once in a while she hoped for the rain to fall again, hoped for Jae to sit at his balcony casually, flip through tabloids and one of them might land on his coffee, and it's still fine if he didn't sing, it's still fine if all he did was, being Jae.

10

It was another modeling event, in November, on the next year. New York city must be weary by now, the streets were still bustling and it was at least 10 degree celcius, since it's nearly winter. Chloe didn't know how the hype of MMG company dug its way out of the obnoxious cold, or how Chelsea Silverstone could wear a slit dress, a slit dress, in that kind of outdoor runway show. It's particularly insane, and again, modeling events were too fancy, fancy in a way that things became unimpressive altogether.

It was still New York, was still as crammed as a suburban would be.

Through the days, Chloe had thought, were only confusement, and particles, the ones that bombarded everything askew, powder on Brian's outfit, powder scattered over the floorboards, vague imperfections and atop all, silence. She couldn't exactly hear the pitter-patter, regardless if they were there or not.

Brian Kang was there, up under the million dollar entourage. He was still the model, she was still the make up artist. She was still supposed to clear things up and bring about a roar in the audience.

Things hadn't changed.

She worked, her fingers tocking out concoct