AJ watches as Kiseop changes with the seasons.

He watches from afar, noiselessly, through sidelong glances, and makes clandestine observations with the mentality and diligence of a studious, top-notch student. It’s the small, little things that he notices first, like the way Kiseop’s smile sometimes doesn’t reach his eyes, limp at the edges, or the way that they shine under the studio lights with more than just endorphins. It’s probably just temporary, AJ decides at first, but as the weeks stretch on, he is forced to reevaluate, playing witness to Kiseop’s silent retreat into himself.

It is spring when AJ makes the decision to remedy the situation, the warmer weather chasing away the winter chill and with it Kiseop’s smile. The air taste sweet on the tip of his tongue, the sun warm on his skin, and flowers bloom beside park benches and along the fronts of shops, exultant and iridescent.

His plan of action is simple: smother Kiseop with as much attention as possible. It’s certainly not the best idea that AJ’s ever drawn up – that’s for sure – but he hopes that it’s one of those “less is more” situations. After all, if Kiseop’s forced to endure his company incessantly, he won’t have the time or space to be sad. So, AJ all but super glues himself to Kiseop’s side, tries to include him in every conversation, and goes to unfathomable lengths just to see him smile. It’s worth it, AJ’s convinced, because Kiseop’s smile is brilliant enough to make even the flowers pale in comparison.

AJ’s plan seems to work even better than expected, because by the time that summer rolls around, hot and oppressive, Kiseop appears to have never changed in the first place. He’s the eccentric, selca-taking, cheery hyung that AJ’s familiar with. He plays around on the streets with the others, bursts into dance at random moments, and makes silly expressions at the studio. Nothing seems amiss at all besides the fact that Seoul’s in the middle of the worst heat wave on record and Kiseop insists upon wearing shirts with long sleeves and jeans from last winter.

The success is short-lived; however, as Kiseop’s demeanor drops away with the leaves come October. It’s like a relapse. Kiseop falls back into the same behavior, except it’s twice as bad this time and the distance he puts between himself and everyone else is so sickeningly, blatantly obvious that it becomes palpable and even management begins to notice. The colors of fall, AJ notes, aren’t nearly as beautiful without Kiseop smiling beside them.

By the first snow, Kiseop seems to have placed a blockade big enough to span the entirety of the Pacific between himself and everyone else. He doesn’t pick up his phone, won’t talk to anyone who visits, and rarely leaves his apartment. It seems like a lost cause; seems like Kiseop’s vanished from Korea, from Asia, and the face of the Earth. So AJ is beyond surprised when Kiseop calls him up a week before Christmas, voice vulnerable and desperate, pleading for AJ to meet him at the park three blocks down from his apartment. AJ’s out the door so fast that he forgets to grab a jacket.

Kiseop’s jittery and restless, like he’s drunk too many of Eli’s energy drinks and can’t sit still, and utterly broken and bone tired, as though he hasn’t slept in weeks, all at the same time. He looks like a ghost; a sordid reproduction of the Kiseop that AJ once knew. His hair doesn’t shine, his skin sallow and paper-thin with coffee mug rings around his eyes and canyons ingrained in his lips.

His lips quirk up at the sides when he spots AJ, face flickering with a mishmash of queasy looking emotions, and it’s the sorriest, most painful excuse for a smile that AJ’s ever seen. AJ tries to greet him like nothing’s changed, calling him Kiseoppie, and throwing his arms around his shoulders in a friendly embrace. He feels Kiseop’s entire body slacken in his arms like he’s a balloon that someone let the air out of, hands grasping at the back of his AJ’s shirt as he weeps, tears as hot as ashes.

Against the junction of AJ’s shoulder, Kiseop chokes out, I’m sick, and even the sun seems to dim.

As the snow melts, Kiseop illness seeps further and further into him until it’s embedded in every cell, and fiber, and particle of his being. Incurable, they’re told, terminal, as all six of them sit in a crescent around Kiseop’s hospital bed in hard chairs, listening to the tune of machinery and looking on with varying degrees of disbelief and despair.

We’ll never leave you, Kevin promises, eyes rimmed red.

No more distance between us, Soohyun agrees.

And Kiseop just smiles forlornly. I know, he says, but it was never you leaving that I was worried about.

That summer is cool, but the rain is brutal, like it’s trying to scrub everything away and start afresh.

It’s early, the Earth wet and ripe from last night’s rain, and although the sun is shining, it begins to rain again as AJ steps forward, a solitary white rose in hand. Like the world is crying, he muses, and as it should, because nothing is as beautiful without Kiseop’s smile.