06

painting dreams

Orange light filtered through the glass in slow, sporadic streams. Light of the ungodly hour, Krystal liked to call it. The kind of light that crept in when it was too early to wake up and too late to sleep, a manifestation of her insomnia.

She gazed at Kai, half-awake and completely exhausted. She trailed her fingertips over the knotted sinews on his skin. The curves and the planes, the bruises and the scars. She remembered each one – some from his grueling dance practice, some from surgeries he had not choice but to get, some from times he just felt like jumping around because that was Kai, a man who thought he would be able to fly without wings. They were etched into her memory, as they were etched on his skin.

They were lying on his bed, with Krystal splayed across his chest. He absentmindedly ran his fingers through her hair, her tired head. His other hand was thumbing at his phone, probably scrolling through some nonsensical review of his most recent comeback, or texting Jennie, Karina, Yoona, or knew whoever else was his playmate of the season.

It didn’t matter to Krystal, though. It had stopped mattering to her a long time ago. Because they weren’t the ones there, touching his skin, feeling his warmth, listening to the soft drum of his heartbeat.

His hand stopped midair, letting a rush of cold air blow over the crown of Krystal’s head. Her breath hitched at at for a nanosecond. Kai was hardly stunned by things – not events, not people. Something was wrong.  

“What’s wrong?” she said, slowly raising her head to meet his eyes.

His lips pressed into a tight smile. “Nothing,” he replied. She knew he was lying.

She peered over his arm, eyes catching the harsh blue light of his phone, which morphed into a stark white background with large black letters.

An article from Dispatch.

With the headlines: NEW IDOL COUPLE J&S – TO BE REVEALED IN THE NEW YEAR.

Kai’s expression was hard to look at. Shock and anger contracted across his face, before quickly defusing into a sheen of quiet resignation. He knew who they were. He knew what had happened. And he knew what was about to transpire. Nine years before, the people on the front page were him and Krystal.

“They got caught, huh?” Krystal murmured softly. She didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but for some reason, it did.

He heaved a slow sigh. “Looks like it.”

Krystal rose from the covers, slipping out from the edge of the bed. She picked up Kai’s shirt, which had been tossed haphazardly on the ground the night before, sticking her head through the cold cotton. She didn’t like such situations in general, but more so pertaining to her.

“Where are you going?” Kai asked sleepily. He usually never asked because it usually never mattered. They had a silent agreement between them against questions, curiosity, and complication, all things that Krystal knew best.

She put on a soft, unaffected smile. “To make breakfast.”

“Okay.”

She walked towards the doorway, bare feet cold against the wooden floors. Stopping at the door, she her heel. “You know, it may not be them,” she said.

Kai looked up. “Them who?”

“Jaehyun and Seulgi.”

Seulgi felt boneless.

She was buried under her sheets, head on her pillow and laptop on the empty space of her bed. Her fingers were numb against her mouse, scrolling through the lines after lines of text on her blue screen. There was a sick, grinding feeling at the pit of her stomach.

Dispatch on their new year prowl again. J&S – Jaehyun and Sana? Jaehyun and Seulgi? Oh my god, I hope it’s not Jaehyun!

He promised he wouldn’t date until much later, but he’s dating another idol now? What’s wrong with him?

Let’s boycott his new drama. Then he will understand what it means to keep a promise.

She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the bile rise to . It had been bound to happen. One turn at the wrong alley, one minute longer in the wrong street, one word too many in the wrong place – someone must have picked up something and ran squealing to the nearest tabloids. Never mind being spiteful, at this point it was just profitable to throw two unlikely names under the bus.

“Let’s boycott his new drama.” She felt a pinch at her heart. Immediately, it triggered the memory of fifteen-year-old Jaehyun introducing himself in front of all the trainees, shyly murmuring about his passion for dancing and singing, and how he hoped one day he might be able to appear on the small screen. Thirteen years ago, everyone had laughed, because most people knew that the words of the toothy, dimpled young boy were a dime a dozen. Pipe dreams, they called them, and now there were people who were going to ensure whatever Jaehyun had once thought of having would remain pipe dreams.

He didn’t deserve that. Jaehyun was twenty-eight – young, handsome, and at the pinnacle of his career. She had seen him recite his lines forwards, backwards and in his sleep, as they remained parked in some decrepit parking lot in the middle of nowhere. The circles under his eyes had deepened to the point where it actually began to eat at her heart.

They should have known better. She should have known better. She had spent years steering clear of scandal, to the point that there wasn’t a spot on her name. It would affect her too – him more than her, or her more than him, she didn’t know. But she knew they were both going to drown, and everything they had worked for, every second they had spent toiling their youths away, was about to be burnt to a crisp.

Light spilled through the open door, slicing through the darkness. A small figure stood at the doorway.

“Seulgi,” Irene called, stretching out her hand and holding something to her, “your phone’s ringing. It’s Wendy.”

“Thanks,” Seulgi said, catching the phone as Irene tossed it to her. As Irene left her to herself, Seulgi switched off her power and turned the phone over.

She knew it wasn’t Wendy.

The quiet, muted ringing stopped with an abrupt click. “She didn’t pick up,” Johnny sighed, as though an affirmation was necessary. “Bad signal, perhaps?”

Johnny was trying to soften the blow, Jaehyun knew. He had already watched Jaehyun check his phone restlessly for half the day and stare blankly into space for the rest. He had read the article, perhaps even anticipated it. A time not too long