there's an undeniable hurt that comes with growing up. it is a raw ache that seizes deep inside your bones, never named. nostalgia is too bare, too inconsequential of a word to capture the gravity of it all. wistfulness only conjures soft summer breezes that hide the storms approaching. this is none of that. instead, it's the coldness that envelopes you when the overhead lights go out. it tastes like alcohol the night before and hurts like the hangover the morning after. it's as silent as the steam of coffee to compensate for the too long nights, loud as the argument that echoes in the hallway and in the deep parts of yourself that you won't admit hurt. it stings like a piece of your personal life ripped away from you, displayed all over websites. it numbs like the painkillers for an ankle that needs two months (not days) to heal.

someone once asked, how can you be happy and sad at the same time?

the answer is simple: you learn how to ache. you learn to embrace  the raw and painful ache that nobody wants to name. names only go on things you want to acknowledge after all.

and is the inevitable slow decay one of them?

(fourteen years later as she stumbles out of a bar, she knows her answer. never a strong believer of traditional culture, yet there's something compelling about the man near the bridge selling laterns with wishes attached. hands shaking, she wants to write wherediditiallgowrongwhydiditgowrongiwishimissi-. instead she settles for something simpler.)

(i want it back.) 

(the universe obliges.)

or — for the five members of the nation's former top girl group afterglow, no one ever told it would end not with a bang but with a whimper. with their memories of their past life intact, time travel shenanigans ensue as the cosmos give them another chance to redo their career, starting with their debut: it is the year 2014, afterglow isn't the illustrious but undoubtedly over girl group but rather, sm entertainment's newest rookie girl group.