"Rolling, tears are flowing, rolling, rolling. Like the silent pain hasn't won." — Park Jiyeon, Rolling

s e u n g h y u n’ s story p.o2 

The white paper, finalists of the auditions, was pinned up right at the end of the corridor, an hour after all auditions ended. The bleak paper was a striking constrast to the black, empty noticeboard as excited boys and girls all crowded in a small group, trying to spot their name there. The atmosphere was a mix of emotions — excited shouts of joy, silent tears of disappointment…

Seunghyun finds Jaejin standing, stunned, as he scans down the list.

It wasn’t hard to find his own name.

There, right below the first and best contestant, was three square letters forming the words of Seunghyun’s name. His mouth fell slightly open as he took in the information, then panic washed over him when he realised he couldn’t find Jaejin’s name. Seunghyun felt the smaller boy beside him tense up as both of them spotted that name they were so desperately finding.

Right at the bottom of the list.

Right at the bottom of the list, three, black, inked words, hitting back reality to the two remaining souls still staring at the piece of paper.

Lee Jaejin.

“Why?” A whispered word of confusion.

The word hits Seunghyun hard, although he didn’t know why. He turned, seeing Jaejin in a state of pure shock.

 “You wasn’t supposed to get in, I was…” Jaejin trails off, then suddenly realizing what he had just said, cupped his hand to his mouth. His pure look of shock was now replaced by a mask of abject horror as the words spilled out from his mouth, scarring the boy who he called his boyfriend, his soulmate. “Seunghyun, I didn’t mean that, I really didn’t!”

Jaejin profusely apologises, to no avail, just as Seunghyun vaguely remembers something that the boy had told him before.

‘Believe in me.’

‘Believe in me…’

‘Believe in…’

Jaejin’s overly confident smirk…

So he wasn’t supposed to believe in himself. He was supposed to believe in Jaejin.

He was supposed to just stand at one side…

and let Jaejin step all over him to get to the top.

—

 j a e j i n’ s story p.o1 

Weeks after the audition, Jaejin sits right at the corner of the room lightly strumming on his guitar. Seunghyun was nowhere to be seen, but Jaejin guessed he was away... again, on some courses the CEO of the company decided to let him go, saying that they could sense a ‘rising star’ in the boy. Jaejin remembers the few times Seunghyun tried to spark off conversations with him, but was usually cut off abruptly by his cold and unfeeling replies. Soon after, Seunghyun stopped trying. Completely stopped trying, if only he knew that if he pestered Jaejin for a longer period of time, the latter might just cave in. Might just cave in to the temptations of giving up. Giving up everything and start over again.

But he didn’t.

After days of getting cold responses, Seunghyun had stopped trying to start awkward conversations anymore. However, he would still hang about Jaejin and ask odd questions like how his day was, and even though they still lived together, they hardly exchanged any words. Jaejin was always busy with trying to polish up his skills as a guitarist and Seunghyun was always... away. Away to places that Jaejin didn’t know of.

Lee Jaejin perfectly knew they were drifting apart, and the claws of desperation tore at the boy’s heart, but he just didn’t let his expressions show. He put on a deadly poker face and pretended that drifting away was the most natural thing in the world. He didn’t try to save it, not a single effort to rebuild the weakening bridge between them, as he was still holding on to the small ribbon of hope that someday... someday he would understand.

Or maybe that was just a lie Jaejin used to hypnotise himself to sleep every night. That everything would be fine, and that Seunghyun would understand. That it was not jealousy or pride that was keeping him away from the latter.

Jaejin closes his eyes, letting out an empty sigh as he lets his numb fingers collapse on the menacing guitar strings, and lets darkness swallow him up whole.

No one saw as the boy in the black corner puts away his guitar and curls up into a small ball.

No one saw as the first tears fell.