- the forgotten -

Saeybul had only been in Korea for two weeks and already hated it. And the more she thought about it, the more she looked inside herself to find the reason, the less she really understood it. It had been ten years since her family had moved away to America, ten years during which she had only come back to visit a handful of times, ten years in which she had craved Korean food that was not cooked by her mother and in which she had missed her friends and constantly felt like an outsider. No matter how much her English improved, her Korean accent never quite disappeared and no matter how much she tried to become part of this new society she was stuck in, deep down she always knew that she would never be American. She would always be Korean.
But then she tried to go back to Korea for good and it made her realize that, although she had believed herself to still be the same person who had left, she had changed. No one expected her to come back. Old friends had families and jobs and responsibilies and barely any time for her. Some listened to her adventures in America as if they were a random movie plot they would quickly forget about because it was not connected to their own lives.
After exactly two weeks then, when she had shown some of her work to an old friend who owned a gallery in central Seoul and when he had nodded at it and told her that Americans sure had a different taste, she had finally understood. She could not simply resume her old life. Too much time had passed and no one wanted her to come back. No one really cared that much.
In the end, she was neither quite American nor Korean, like a science experiment gone wrong.

And then, like a sign of doom, she met Chanyeol as he stood in front of a convenience store and gulped down a can of beer. It was such a comically bizarre situation. A week earlier she had sat in his family's kitchen and had eaten hot pot while he had acted like a complete stranger who was not in the least interested in her presence. Ten years earlier he had held her hand at the airport and told her over and over again that he would call her every day, no matter how much it was going to cost and that he was going to save money so that he could visit her. Eleven years earlier they had kissed behind the school for the first time on a warm day in spring. And the ten years before that they had played pranks on each other and teased each other and walked to school together. He had copied her homework and she had always wanted to be like his sister because she had no siblings of her own.
She had thought that all their history was a thing of the past, just like everything else she had left behind in Korea. But as he noticed her in front of that convenience store in the late evening while the voices of  hundreds of people buzzed around them, he hiccupped, "Kim Saebyul, long time no see. Wanna get a drink? I've just had a day."
He clearly already slurred his words and she knew that it was probably due to that, but there was a vague sense of familiarity that touched something inside her. So she said, "Park Chanyeol, do you honestly think you can keep up with me?"
At first he just gave her a strange expression as if it took him some time to process her words but then he grimaced, "Pah. I don't care if you think you're American now or whatever, but I've had years of drinking here. We're a nation of alcoholics."
She laughed at that and he grinned and somehow it felt if nothing had changed after all. He was still the boy next door.

But then, as they said at the wobbly table of street stall covered by plastic planes, she did feel the same distance she had felt at his house. At first they had laughed hysterically as Saebyul told him how she had spent the years they had been apart. She told him about San Francisco and about university and her friends and her family and about the ex-boyfriend she had been on a road trip with and about the first time some of her artworks had been featured in an gallery. And he said that he always knew she was talented while he poured her yet another drink. She couldn't even tell how many bottles of soju they had had at that point because the stall owner had been so kind to collect them whenever she brought them a new one.
But then the conversation immediately got stuck when Saebyul finally ran out of stories and asked him how he had been. He talked a little about his work in a bike shop and about how the rack with bells had broken the other day but then he already became weirdly gloomy.
"My life isn't really that exciting I guess," he said after a while and nipped at his glass. There was a plate with grilled chicken wings in front of them and Saebyul realized that he had not really eaten anything. Like a hungry beast she had gobbled down spicy rice cakes and grilled octopus and kimchi and he had only drunk and drunk and drunk.
"Are you still friends with anyone from school?" she asked because she wasn't sure what else to say.
For a second he frowned at her as if he couldn't decide whether or not to tell her what was on his mind. Then he blinked and shrugged, "Not really." It sounded like a lie.
She wanted to ask more. She wanted to talk about school and about their old friends and teachers but she knew that, unless he talked first, she couldn't. Because she knew what had happened to Byun Baekhyun. When Baekhyun had died, Chanyeol had stopped calling and writing and Saebyul had been too far away to help. All she had had were a few emails from some other friends who had told her that Chanyeol hadn't come to school for a while after Baekhyun's accident.
She worldlessly chewed on a piece of chicken while he stared at the blurred world behind the plastic plane, when she understood that the reason why he hadn't talked to her in his kitchen was that her existence probably reminded him of a time in his life he wanted to forget.
She pressed her lips together and considered to make up an excuse to leave, but then she took a deep breath and forced a smile on her lips. "So why was your day ?"
He looked at her in puzzlement, so she explained, "Remember? That's what you told me when you asked me out. That your day was so you needed a drink."
He only sighed while he poured her another glass.
"Did something happen in the shop?" she asked encourangingly and realized how little she really knew about him. As children she had known almost everything about his life but his older version was a stranger.
"No," he said and sounded oddly resigned. "Not in the shop." He made a long pause and she thought he was not going to continue, when he said, "I met this guy. And he said some things, and it's like..." He trailed off and spun his glass on the table to that some of the liquid splashed on the shiny red surface. "Deep down I know that what he said makes sense. I know that I need help but that's... That's just hard to accept."
"What did he say?" she asked and wondered whether she should have first asked what kind of guy he had talked to or what Chanyeol needed help with.
Chanyeol blinked at her as if he only now realized what he had said. His jaw muscles moved under his skin as he stared at his glass before he completely downed it. Then he shrugged, "That I live in the past. That I let my life be dictated by ghosts." He let out a humorless laugh as if he could force himself to make his words sound funnier than they really were.
"Is this about Baekhyun?" she whispered before she really knew herself what she was doing and he stared at her with wide eyes.
He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something and then closed it again while he filled his own glass and took another sip. Then, suddenly, he slammed down his glass and furiously drew down his brows while he fixated a spot to his left. "Okay, no, that's just messed up. Shut the up."
His words came so sudden that she choked on her own breath and knocked down the bottle with soju that spilled on her skirt.
"Oh," he said and now looked at her while he jumped up. "Oh, no." He quickly looked around himself. "No, no, no." He stole the paper napkins from the table next to theirs and then almost fell as he hurried around to her on wobbly legs. "I don't mean you. I don't want you to shut up. I'm just..." he muttered and dropped some of the napkins on the floor while he attempted to wipe the soju off her lap. Then, with his hand on her bare knee, he seemed to realize that what he did probably wasn't terribly appropriate.
"Sorry, I shouldn't..." he said and tried to take a step backwards when she caught his hand.
"Park Chanyeol," she said gently as she intertwined her fingers with his while he looked down at her curiously. "Remember when we snuck off during the school trip to Jeonju and hid in the woods?"
In the dim light she couldn't be sure whether he blushed but he did look flustered, so she continued, "Back then you did worse than to touch my knee."
He let out a strangled laugh and then seemed distracted by the way her hand felt in his. He looked at them as if he the concept of holding hands was new to him.

Saebyul knew loneliness because she had felt it often enough in her life. Loneliness had been with her during her first years in America and had tucked at her when she had lost contact to Chanyeol. It had chilled her bones after every break-up that followed and after every moment of failure. It had followed her and kept her awake during her nights in the guest house room of her estranged home country.
She knew the feeling like an old friend, so she could tell how lonely Chanyeol was when his hands held onto her back and when his lips grazed her jaw. She could feel it when his forehead rested against her neck while she tried to open the door to her room. The keys jiggled and she swayed because she was drunk and foolish and because he was heavy. She saw the loneliness in his eyes while he looked at her in the grey darkness of her sad, little room.
And then, when they were inside, they suddenly didn't know what to do any longer.
"Are you thirsty?" she asked in a hoarse voice and fumbled for the light switch when he took her hand in his again. He quietly blew air throw his nose in a toneless laugh.
"You know," he began and moved his head closer again so that she could feel his breath against her cheek. "I forgot what it feels like. I wasn't alone but I wasn't really with anyone either and I didn't think of it as strange because I couldn't remember the difference."
She sighed into the crook of his neck and pulled him closer with her free hand. It broke her heart to see him like this because this was not the boy she had left and in her drunken stupor she hated herself for not coming back sooner. In all these years, she had sometimes thought about him but only as a fleeting memory.
"I just forgot," he muttered into her hair. "But then that guy, this guy I ony met for the second time today somehow knew. And he took my hand and it was... I never noticed how warm a hand feels. I forgot how warm it feels to touch someone."
"Mh," she said while his hand wandered under her blouse but then she suddenly realized something. She freed herself enough that she could move her neck back enough to look him in the eyes. "You..." she began and searched his gaze. "You're not gay, are you?"
As she said it, she knew how ridiculous it sounded. Here he was with her, but something felt off. She expected him to laugh but he only frowned at her and let go of her hand as he kissed her a little too abruptly.

"No, you don't know what you're talking about," she heard Chanyeol's quietly say as she woke up to the rays of the morning sun blinding her. He sat behind her on the mattress that lightly shook as he probaby got dressed. Something prevented her from turning around. It wasn't shame, not really, but now that she was sober and that her head seemed about to burst, she wasn't sure how to face him. Him talking on the phone to someone didn't make it easier.
"I don't care what you think. I'm not going to stop," he hissed angrily. "You're not the one who has to pretend not to see you every single ing day. He said he can help make it easier."
The was a pause during which Chanyeol stood up from the bed. She quickly closed her eyes in case he looked at her.
"No, that's not what I-," Chanyeol began and then let out a deep sigh. When he continued, he sounded much gentler. "I didn't say that. I'm not trying to get rid of you. I'm just trying to deal with it better. You know exactly what happened when-."
She heard the door open when he said, "Just let me do this. Please."
When she opened her eyes again, she was unsure what to think.

- trustworthiness -

Minseok was early in the office the next day, but not quite so early that he would have beaten Junmyeon to it. When he arrived and half expected the door to still be closed, he already heard a radio playing inside and found Junmyeon humming a tune while he watered the many plants in the office.
"Hyungnim, good morning," Junmyeon said happily when Minseok put his bag on his desk and hung his jacket on the back of his chair. Minseok was the oldest summoner now but he still felt as though Junmyeon actually was the wiser one. He had been with the Office for seven years now, ten years less than Minseok, but he already was better at dealing with people and ghosts and superiors and basically anyone with a conscience. They all actually listened to them. He never had to claw ghosts out of hosts, never had to make them shut up, probably never walked home completely drained because he had fought them rather than to try harder to understand them. And although Jongdae and Yixing constantly called him dopey and lame, they eventually followed his words, too.
Minseok had complete faith in Junmyeon, so although he wouldn't normally have talked to anyone about his progress, he said, "I met Park Chanyeol yesterday."
"Hm?" Junmyeon asked as he turned around to him with the watering can still in his hand. He crinkled his eyebrows in thought because he didn't seem to recall the name, but then he said, "Oh, the new recruit?"
Minseok nodded and when Junmyeon looked impressed, he hurriedly explained, "He called me first. I didn't do anything."
"Oh, I see," Junmyeon said in an appreciative way that made Minseok still feel as though  he had done good anyway. Rather than to ask anything, he seemed to wait for Minseok to say more out of his own volition. There was something strangely paternal about the way he acted sometimes.
"I listened," Minseok said and then added, "Like you told me to."
"So how did that go?" Junmyeon asked and finally put down the can as he sat down on the edge of Yixing's desk next to him.
Minseok wasn't sure how to answer at first. It had not exactly gone well this time either. He and Park Chanyeol had met in a crowded family restaurant where no one had paid attention to them. He had chosen the place exactly because it was noisy and he was glad that he did because at one point Byun Baekhyun had tried to pick a fight.  Minseok had tried hard not to take the bait while Park Chanyeol had been overwhelmed by the situation.
But still, despite everything, Minseok was positive that this time he had actually got through to Park Chanyeol, so he said, "Better."
"Hm," Junmyeon said in thought. "So what did he say?"
"He said he's well," Minseok replied and finally sat down at his desk with a sigh. Junmyeon raised his eyebrow at him, so he explained, "He kept repeating it. I doubt that anyone who really is well would do that."
"Probably not," Junmyeon agreed and folded his arms in front of his chest. They both knew what it meant if a ghost caused discomfort to a human. This was normally when it was their turn to act. The only problem was that this was not a regular possession. Byun Baekhyun had even told him that he had been careful to follow their rules. He had never possessed anyone, regularly left Park Chanyeol alone and even maintained some sort of protective sphere around him to make sure that other ghosts rarely got close to them. Byun Baekhyun had more of a conscience than most ghosts but that was exactly why Minseok trusted him even less.
"To be honest, I'm still not sure how to assess the situation," Minseok admitted and rubbed his dry hands. "I don't understand what makes them stick together."
"Friendship?" Junmyeon suggested and Minseok frowned at him. He was sure that he himself had not talked about the two before in detail but Junmyeon still sometimes knew things.
"I'm not sure that's really fully it," Minseok said and tried not to sound too uneasy. Maybe it was a mistake to talk to Junmyeon. Maybe it was a mistake to talk to anyone at all. He after all still acted against the original orders of the Office.
But it did worry him and as he looked down at his hands, he felt unusually helpless. The longer he had spoken to Park Chanyeol and Byun Baekhyun, the more he had understood that they shouldn't have left them alone for so long. The air around them had been cold and there had been a lingering sense of malice. Maybe it only was because of him, maybe Byun Baekhyun was not always that hostile, but the mere thought that someone had to live in such an atmosphere without any idea how to fight it, had tightened Minseok's chest. At one point he had pulled at Byun Baekhyun's hand to put it on Park Chanyeol's on the table just to see what would happen. Normally, living humans got startled at the coldness that came with being touched by someone dead. But Park Chanyeol had only reacted when Minseok had taken his other hand in his.
It had been odd and as Minseok flexed his hand it felt awkward. Just that short moment of touch seemed to have kicked something loose.
"What are you going to do now?" Junmyeon asked and Minseok snapped out of his thoughts.
He considered the question for a moment and then shrugged, "Listen some more I guess."