Pleasure is the flower that passes; remembrance, the lasting perfume.

ミ★~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~★彡

Jieun’s POV

            I took slow steps as I approached my house, staring at every little brick and memorizing every little exterior flaw of paint as if it would be the last time I would see this place. I was going to move into the dorms soon, so I wouldn’t be coming back home much anymore. In fact, the dorm is my new home. As I walked up towards my door I saw the little smiley face on my mailbox I drew with permanent marker when I was only eight and never knew better, and now, standing in the exact place ten years later I can only smile at myself for how much I’ve grown. The sky was an ocean of navy blue, making it just much more difficult to dig for my house keys in my bag but when I finally found it, the sterling silver reflected the starlight making it impossible to lose sight of. I never bothered to check what time it was, nor did I care. I only knew that my trip home took over three hours, even outside of Seoul’s rush hours and I wanted to just sneak to my room silently. Luckily, my dad had fallen asleep on the sofa with the TV on and my mom had already gone to her room, which meant she wouldn’t come out until morning. I began to creep down the hallway past my dad when I heard a disturbing grunt, forcing me to turn around. I watched my father sleep for a moment, listening to the rhythmic sounds of his breathing mixed in with wheezing and flinched when he shivered. Even though it was summer now, sleeping without a blanket could still give you a cold. My daughterly instincts must have gotten the better of me because before even I was aware of it, I had grabbed a fleece blanket and covered my dad’s body from neck down.

            “Sleep well, Appa,” I whispered, and scurried to my room as soundless as a mouse. Even though he had caused a lot of grief in my life lately, I couldn’t bring myself to think badly of him for long because in the end, he was still my father. I wasn’t going to see my parents often anymore when school starts, but I had a feeling that the distance would only bring us closer together. I didn’t need an escape from my parents, I just needed a break. I finally remembered to check the time and was baffled to find out that it was 3:00am. Staying up late was never my forte but I didn’t feel the least bit sleepy, so instead of forcing myself into insomnia, I began to clear up my room and packing up my stuff. The noise level stayed relatively low as I moved around in my room, shoving stuff in separate boxes labeled ‘old’, ‘garbage’, ‘clothes’, and more. By the time it was 4:30am, my closet was completely emptied except for one box in the centre, the box I had been so hesitant to touch since I got home. Inevitably, I reached out to grab it and placed it gently on my bed though I knew nothing fragile was inside. There was no need to blow off any dust particles on top because there were none, but still I was hesitant to open it. One side at a time, I forced the cardboard to bend against the side revealing the inner contents and sighed. It seemed like just yesterday when I was digging frantically through it, looking for my ideal song to showcase. In fact, it was just yesterday. I giggled at my own memory flaws and pulled out a pink folder with some rumpled pieces of paper thrown inside. I separated the ruffled pages from the perfect ones and threw them in the recycling bin beside my bed; they were the rough drafts to my songs. Then, I held the pile of perfect sheets in front of my face and smiled, browsing through the different compositions I created up until now. I smiled at my own dorky lyrics that I came up with from back when I was only ten, and flipped through the chronological order until I spotted the sheet dated June 2011. Taking that one sheet, I placed the others back in the box and ventured brainlessly to my window, singing the first verse in my head. After the last line of the first verse I stopped and chuckled to myself as I read the title,

            “Say you love me by Lee Jieun,” It felt like every emotion I put into writing this song disappeared, but just to be sure, I sat on my bed and sang the chorus quietly to myself. My voice was barely louder than a whisper, but I could hear it perfectly in my soundless room.

Say you love me

You know that it could be nice

If you’d only say you love me…

            I never felt the mind jolting feeling I once did when I sang this, or the heart-wrenching anxiety I once had when I wrote it. It was confirmed; the feeling was gone now—but not completely. I reached back into the box and grabbed another recent composition; the one I sang with Wooyoung at our graduation. After one quick scan of the lyrics I felt my mind becoming even more confused, and out of frustration I tossed both sheets onto the floor, not caring to watch where they landed. I allowed my head to drop hard against my soft pillow, feeling my crashing body form a temporary dent in the centre of my mattress and shut my eyes tight. In the secure darkness of my mind, I was free to think about anything, imagine anything—in my mind I was safe. Or so I thought. The image of Wooyoung’s broken expression after the audition continued to replay in my head, and even when my eyes were closed the darkness could now overthrow the hurt I saw in his eyes.

            “Lee Jieun; you pabo,” I scolded myself again and again, suppressing the tears that wanted to escape. I cried enough on my way home, and now it was time to move on.

Wooyoung’s POV

            I couldn’t stop my head from aching as I walked aimlessly down the streets of Seoul, past flaring car lights and late night workers who never paid me any attention. Tonight, I felt like nothing; and that was just how I was treated. I didn’t know how long I was circling the same buildings but I didn’t care. Time meant nothing to me right now; I just wanted to be alone and away from home. Just to ensure my own peace, I turned off my cell phone. My mom was probably worried sick right now, but that seemed so insignificant compared to how broken I felt. As long as she didn’t call the cops to form a search party for me, I didn’t care where I went for how long. It shouldn’t matter anyway, at least not today.

            “Yah, watch it!” an angry biker rode past me after ringing a bell repeatedly. My ears were too ignorant to listen to his noisy pestering, and I arrogantly continued walking. Wouldn’t it have been nice if he rode right into me? It seemed like physical pain would’ve been more therapeutic for me than my endless walk. My eyes caught sight of a dirt path, probably leading into a park and unaware of my own curiosity, I journeyed in. Rather than a park it led into a neighborhood, dark with no street lights—or any light at all. Still, I chose to be ignorant to my instincts and continued walking in the darkness. The night was so black that I couldn’t even see my white shoes when I looked down. As I walked, I felt like this sidewalk was familiar to me, though my eyes had not adjusted. There was something about this spooky feeling that nudged at my memory as if I’ve been here before. I couldn’t put a finger on what it was that caught my attention but when I stopped walking finally and turned to scan the houses, a memory flashed in my mind and it was as if I was playing an old black and white home movie in my head. My legs stood frozen in front of a house and I recreated the exact scene in my mind, adding in two young boys not older than seven running around the lawn playing catch with a tennis ball. The shorter boy—me—had failed to aim at the other boy’s hand and the tennis ball went flying straight at the mailbox, knocking out a nail that held the mailbox straight against the house. I shook my head back into reality and eyed the side of the house, noticing the same crooked mailbox with newspaper sticking out from the top. This was the same house; I was sure.

            “Wooyoung?” A voice broke through my epiphany as a hand waved up and down in front of my face, “Yah, Yah, Wooyoung!” I blinked twice and turned to see Taecyeon, waving his hand frantically in front of my face with a confused and worried expression. His other hand held onto the towel hung around his neck; his forehead was dripping with sweat.

            “Yah, I’m alive! Stop!” I insisted, pushing his waving hand back to his side and smiled.

            “Long time no see,” I quickly added, turning again to glance at his house in front of me.

            “You never told me you were going to stalk my house at 5:00am.” Taecyeon laughed, wiping his forehead with his towel. I immediately froze when I remembered how far his neighborhood was from Seoul’s Institute of the Arts. I couldn’t believe I walked so far in my sub conscience.

            “I never planned on it.” I replied, scratching the back of my head in my embarrassment. He shrugged and began walking towards his front door, pulling the newspaper from the slanted mailbox and turned to eye me.

            “You coming in or what?” He asked in more of an order. Like a child I nodded and followed him obediently. I took a seat in his dining room as he grabbed a juice box from the fridge and poured us both a glass of strawberry kiwi.

            “So what’s up with you? You never stopped by since that time my dad chased you away for attacking our mailbox.” He joked, chugging down his juice as he eyed me curiously. His question should’ve been easy, but I didn’t even know the answer myself. I shrugged and replied,

            “That was over eleven years ago; I’m sure your dad forgave me by now.” He chuckled and finished drinking every last drop of his juice, placing it back on the table with a light thump.

            “Where are you going for post secondary again?” I asked, an idea glowing in my mind. Wherever Taecyeon went, it was sure to be an art school and I knew without a doubt it wasn’t Seoul’s Institute of the Arts.

            “Canada,” He replied with simplicity, flipping through all the advertisements in the newspaper like my grandpa would every morning. I didn’t reply right away, but I knew what my request would be next. It just felt like a big decision like this required more thought, but there was no doubt I needed to go with him.

            “Let me go with you,” I demanded more than asked. He made a sound like he just choked on his saliva and folded back the newspaper.

            “What?” He asked, choking on his spit. With determined eyes, I insisted,

            “Take me to Canada with you.”

A/N: I apologize for not updating sooner! I got so preoccupied with a bunch of stuff because I'm a reviewer/one-shot writer/beta-reader and a muse so there was a lot of work I had to do hahaha. Here's the next chapter, it seemed a little boring to me but I still had a lot of fun writing it so please post your thoughts in a comment ^^! I'm still looking for reviews so if anyone's a reviewer please let me know? :D!

To kpoprambler - Thanks for suggesting 'Say You Love Me' by IU ^^! I incorporated the song into this chapter just for you (: Even if it's not in the context that you wish it was I hope you still enjoyed reading this! That idea credit goes to you!