"hey, win, didn't you say you were friends with this guy?" emmy shows nakwon her phone, where a thumbnail of the article is pulled up. "or, it was someone in this group, right?" nakwon peeks over from her laptop, where her cursor blinks at the corner of a google docs screen that bears nothing but her name and a page number. she's grateful for the distraction from the paper she currently has no motivation for, and seeing tae's face on a rather popular kpop news site is definitely a great one.

 

"yeah, this guy, on the left! mr. 'v for victory'." nakwon chuckles to herself as she thinks about the cheesy choice in stage name. "are they getting big now?" emmy inquires, pulling her phone back. "mmm...i'm not too sure, honestly...i feel like my subjective interest in them isn't a good measure of their popularity in korea." nakwon chuckles, but her mind starts to wander as she registers what the title of that article said.

 

sitting up a little straighter, she types some words into the search bar - and there it is. 'BTS V & Jimin - 95 Graduation'. she sneaks a quick glance at emmy, who is still engrossed in her phone, and slips her earbuds in.

 

"win- hey winnie, are you crying?"

 

---

 

 

"it's not that she doesn't want to visit you, she just...has a lot on her plate right now. but she misses you. a lot." inyeon assures her brother, who musters a small smile as he looks down at his feet, scuffing them against the dirt. "hey, come on now, don't get your shoes dirty!" she smacks his arm lightly and looks up at him, beaming, trying to brighten the mood. they look at each other in silence for a while and inyeon softens. "oh deundeuni, when did you get so big, huh? you're all tall and buff now..." eden scoffs, rolling his eyes. "i'm just fit, noona, i don't think i can classify myself as 'buff' just yet." she chuckles, "but you're still my baby brother. and hey, umma's not the only one who misses you."

 

eden wrinkles his eyebrows as inyeon pulls out her phone. "what do you-" he trails off as she shows him her screen - 'BTS V & Jimin - 95 Graduation', it says. "-mean..." inyeon grins at him, and they retreat to a nearby bench, pressing play.

 

while eden's definitely experienced his share of unreasonable animosity towards physical affection with his female sister, he finds that at this moment, nothing is more comforting than her arm around him, squeezing him tight as he listens, somewhat bittersweetly, to a voice he realizes he's missed a lot more than he's been letting himself.

 

---

 

 

"did you see what tae released the other day?" byul pops another piece of chocolate in , which earns a side eye from woojoo, but no physical prevention - at least, not yet. he figures he'll let her have, mm, maybe 2 more before stopping her for the day.

 

"oh, are you talking about that song? what was it called, graduation...graduating...something?" woojoo furrows his brows, trying not to let on that he knows exactly what byul is talking about and has just been waiting for the right moment to bring it up himself.

 

"i think it was, like, 95 graduation? how did you like it?" she inquires casually, though it sets off various emotions in woojoo that are anything but casual. "oh, yeah, it was nice!" his tone is nonchalant in an attempt to avoid further conversation about his conflicted feelings, but the 4 years of friendship between the two is not to go to naught.

 

"just nice...? you don't have anything else to say about it?" she gives him a pointed look. woojoo hesitates - it's been a while since the two of them have been vulnerable with each other and talked about anything beyond surface topics. this had never been a problem before, but woojoo can't help but think that the squad's separation post graduation has put a strain on their relationship. to him, that seems like an undeniable truth - with everyone split up, the dynamic is far from the same, even just between him and byul.

 

at least he still has byul, though, he figures. one person not leaving him for some foreign country is better than none. so he confides in her.

 

"i don't know...i mean, i loved it, obviously. but i guess i just wished he could come and say it to our faces, you know? like, if he has the time to write a song..." even as the words leave his lips, he knows he's being ridiculous. byul confirms his thoughts with a sympathetic smile and says, "you know that's not exactly how it works, woojoo." "i know," he sighs. "i just miss everyone."

 

"yeah...me, too." she pats his arm in an attempt to comfort him. "but we'll all see each other again soon, right? so chin up!" she chirps cheerfully, though she's unsure as to who exactly she's trying harder to comfort.

 

her heart twists a little at the suddenly very palpable absence of her friends, and sensing the oncoming anxiety, byul automatically reaches for another piece of chocolate, but then she stops herself. all this talk about the friend group gets her thinking about them - about eden, who never sugarcoated his concern for her. about chaewol, who made sure to only gift her chocolates on special occasions. and about taehyung, who essentially started it all, and who's always said he is eternally apologetic for doing so.

 

byul was never upset at him for introducing the food into her life, though. sure, her relationship with chocolate wasn't the most healthy, but it was all thanks to chocolate that she had met the daegu squad and was able to make such special friendships! *actually, scratch that.* she thinks as she decidedly pulls her hand away from the mini snickers in front of her with a small, nostalgic smile. *it was thanks to taehyung.*

 

---

 

 

so did you LISTEN to the SONG???

 

chaewol scoffs out a laugh. it's only been a couple hours since he's even released the song, but at this point, that's a record. she remembers back when he very first debuted and he would text her seconds after anything went up on their youtube channel - he was that excited. and she was, too! she was always ready to support him and this time was no different.

 

well, it was a little different. because this time, it was for her. it was for them.

 

yes yes of course i did

 

she chuckles at the immediate emergence of three dots, bouncing at the bottom corner of her screen.

 

did you

like it

 

what??

why are you asking such dumb questions

 

not dumb!! i'm genuinely curious!

i want to hear your opinion

specifically yours

just yours

because yours is the only one that matters

 

she rolls her eyes at this. if someone else had read this without context, they might've raised their eyebrows at what seemed like suggestively romantic content, but chaewol knew what it was really about.

 

you know, if you want to know what they think about it, you could just ask them.

 

even as she says this, though, chaewol knows she's being a hypocrite. who is she to say anything about reaching out to their high school friends after years of not talking when she herself has lost nearly all contact with them? at least taehyung had an excuse, she would think - he's actually busy, while she was here wiling away her time in university with no idea what she wanted to do with her future.

 

i mean, not really...we're all so separateddd and it's just...so harddd

 

well yeah but i mean...why is it so easy for us two to keep in touch?

 

the pause is only for a couple minutes, but chaewol knows they're both feeling how vast the silence is...because the truth is, neither of them knows the answer to this question. they don't know how their tightknit group fell apart like this, or why they're one of the only ones who still keep in contact with each other, or what's keeping them from changing that, but they try to find comfort in the fact that the dejection is mutual.

 

i don't know man

but hey it's ok

i promise, one day, we'll all be back together again and it'll be like nothing has changed :)

 

---

 

 

she's listened to the song about 50 times by now and it's brought her the most emotion she's felt in a while. it makes her want to cry and laugh at the same time, and she doesn't know whether she wants to shout to the whole world that this songs exists or just keep it to herself forever.

 

it's only been a year since graduation but high school already seems so far behind sekyung. crowding into taehyung's tiny bedroom to study all together, playing children's math games in the pc room, slurping instant noodles at ungodly hours, staying up on school nights just to see the sunrise - all these memories feel so distant to her...or is it actually the happiness associated with them?

 

training to become an actress has been a rough and rather lonely path, and though sekyung tries to convince herself and those around her that she's fine, this song, so simply titled (and, at this point, so excessively played), is starting to prove her wrong.

 

she misses her friends. she tries not to think about them and how she so effectively distanced herself following graduation and how much she regrets doing so, but...this song. this song makes her do all that.

 

it's not so much the actual song than it is the outro message, sekyung finds. everything is fine until that all-too-familiar voice echoes through her headphones, calling out to her like nothing has changed.

 

 

 

친구들아, 어, 내 졸업식 못 가서 진짜 미안하다. 내 맘 알지? 어...고등학교 졸업하고도 우리 평생 친구, 맞지? 우리 깜찍이들! 내가 많이 연락 못하고 못 만나도, 좀만 기다려줘. 아, 진짜, 내가 많이, 진짜...진짜! 사랑합니다.