“Look how bright the stars are tonight. I can’t believe they’re already out.”

You look over to your best friend, lying with you on a grassy knoll under the fading twilight. The summer breeze blows his newly silver hair across his forehead and his eyes glisten with all the colors of the dying sun. The orange metropolitan glow drowns out most of the stars, but the ones that remain sparkle through the smog.

“Yeah, Jonghyun. They’re really nice.”

You settle your head back on Jonghyun’s backpack, filled with empty snack wrappers and your sundae-stained blouse. After accidentally getting hot fudge on you, he had given you his own t-shirt to wear, opting to go shirtless for the rest of the day and suffer judging looks from the halmeonis that the two of you had giggled at. He had been working out lately, and you couldn’t help but to glare at every single girl who oogled at his washboard abs today.

He turns his head and rests it on a well-muscled arm to look at you, lips twitching when he sees your hair flipped out from under your head.

“Today was crazy,” you muse, remembering the morning spent at Lotte World and the afternoon spent in the park, splashing in the fountains with all the little children.

He laughs, deep in his chest. “Not as crazy as last night.”

Last night, you had gone over to his house to bleach his hair and die it silver. He was sobbing when you got there, and by the time you had fallen asleep on his living room floor, it was 3 in the morning and the two of you were a giggling mess.

He always re-dyes his hair after a breakup.

Jonghyun starts to get a glazed over look in his eyes, lips silently murmuring. You sit up and reach back into his backpack for slightly crumpled lyrics sheets, spots of tearstains on the corners. “Here,” you say, handing them over along with the Hello Kitty pen that was resting at the bottom of the bag, “You look like you have lyrics on your mind.”

“You’re the best.” He takes the paper and pen. “Have I told you that I love you,” he mumbles, scribbling down vague words and messy arrows, hunched over crossed legs.

You laugh. “What would you do without your bestie? Best friend forever?”

Summer was ending, and along with the shorter days came the return of all the friends who went back home during the hot months. Kibum was back on campus, fresh from Daegu with a wardrobe of new clothes and his hair dyed black.

“I don’t know what to think about the new hair,” you muse over a cup of bubble tea. “You’ve been blond for as long as I’ve known you.”

“It’s back to black for my musical this season,” he sniffs “I’m playing the male lead in Bonnie and Clyde.” You sense coldness in the theater major’s voice, and you sigh, slouching back in your chair.

“Yah, Kibum, are you mad at me?”

He doesn’t grace you with a response and continues scrolling through his phone. Minho and Jonghyun have been up at the counter for the past 15 minutes trying to get a discount from Jinki, who works summers at the bubble tea shop.

“Oppa, just give him a discount, he’s not going to let it rest,” you call out to Jinki. Jonghyun flashes you a thumbs up and a wink and Jinki purses his lips. “Go get him, Jjong!”

“You shouldn’t keep leading him on, you know,” Kibum says suddenly. You look up in surprise. Kibum’s sharp eyes are trained on you.

“Who, Jinki Oppa?” you ask in mild panic. You weren’t aware that Kibum knew of your slight crush on the kind, albeit rather dorky senior. Jinki was in the same major as you, engineering, and you had taken a few electives with him last year.

Kibum scoffs. “No, you idiot. Jonghyun doesn’t know whether you’re in love with him or not.”

You can’t help but to snort. “Jjong? That’s ridiculous. He’s been my best friend ever since I socked him in the jaw when we were 11. Anyway, it’s not like he likes me romantically or anything, right?”

While Minho prefers to hang out only with his three favorite upperclassmen and other boys on the soccer team, Kibum knows practically every sophomore on campus. He’s the center for all gossip. That’s why when Do Kyungsoo gets a new boyfriend, Kim Jongin, Kibum gets to know Jongin’s best friend, Lee Taemin. And thus, the sneaky little freshman is brought into the fold.

You actually hear it first from Taemin, while the two of you are studying. Taemin is cramming for a history 100 class that he hasn’t realized is a blow-off yet, and you are diligently chipping away at a 20 page paper for a theoretical physics elective that you really regret taking.

“Hey noona,” Taemin says, on the cap of his highlighter plaintively.

“Can’t help you with history,” you say, flipping through your massive textbook.

“Not that.” He highlights something in his notes and looks up at you. “Did you know that Jinki Hyung asked out Luna today? What’s her real name, Park Sunyoung? Anyway, she’s the really pretty and cute noona, and she sings really well.”

Oh.

You didn’t hear anything past the first sentence. While you knew that Jinki had a huge crush on Luna, you didn’t think that he’d actually ask her out. You feel like you’ve just been punched in the gut.

Blankly, you stand up and close your laptop, shoving it in your backpack along with your textbook.

“Noona, are you okay,” Taemin asks, eyes round.

“Yeah,” you say robotically. “I’m going out for a walk.” Fleeing out of the library, you step into the quad, covered in flaming scarlet and orange leaves. The campus is empty at 2 in the afternoon, and you seat yourself on a bench and bury your face in your hands. 

When Jonghyun is let out of his last class, the first thing he does is to search the campus for you, because he’s already heard the news. He finds you sniffling alone on the same bench you had settled on an hour earlier, and sits down beside you.

You’re alerted of his presence when he takes his scarf off and wraps it around your neck.

“You’re so stupid,” he says quietly as he takes off his leather jacket and drapes it over your shoulders. “You’ll catch a cold.”

“How could I ever compete with Luna,” you choke, pulling his jacket closer around yourself. “She’s perfect.”

“Hyung doesn’t know how much he’s missing out on,” he says, eyes trained on you.

“I’m such an idiot,” you sob into his scarf. “I knew that he liked Luna. I’m such an idiot. How could I fall in love with someone who will never love my back.” Something flashes in Jonghyun’s eyes, something indescribably sad.

“You’re not an idiot,” he mumbles stubbornly, rubbing your back. “You’re just in love.” His words make you cry harder, and you clutch at his arm.

It’s winter when he leaves. Jonghyun doesn’t tell you, and it’s Kibum that finally decides to sit you down and spill everything that your circle of friends had been forbidden to share.

Outside the window of the café, white, fluffy snow falls onto the streets, making the campus look like a Christmas card. Kibum sits across from you, nursing a peppermint white chocolate frappuccino.

“He’s leaving, you know.”

You look up from the latte that Kibum had bought you. “What?”

Kibum delicately wipes foam off his lip with a napkin, eyes diverted from yours. “Jonghyun. He’s leaving. He got a record deal. His train for Seoul left a few hours ago.”

Your heart hits your stomach, and you don’t know what to think because Jonghyun has always been a constant in your life, through breakups, through your parents’ divorce, through the death of your grandfather, he’s always been there. How could he possibly be gone?

You sit, frozen in your seat because you simply can’t comprehend it.

“That’s not the most important part, though,” Kibum plows on, and you look up at him in surprise.

“What is,” you say, voice barely above a whisper.

Kibum is still avoiding your gaze. “He was in love with you. For years. You never realized it.”

“No,” the word falls out of your mouth before your mind catches up. “He couldn’t have been, he had all those girlfriends—“

“Didn’t you notice that they’re all similar to you,” Kibum cuts you off, anger flashing onto his face for the first time. “Didn’t you notice that every single girl he went for was similar to you in some way?”

Your heart pounds as you realize, the first one had the same sense of humor as you, the next one looked like you, the one after that was in all your classes and extracurriculars. They never lasted, though, and after every breakup, he had come running back to…you.

Kibum goes on sharply, “and all the songs that he wrote, didn’t you notice they were about loving someone who didn’t love you back? Didn’t you see the way he looked at you, the way he took care of you? Especially after Jinki asked Luna out, you were crying because you thought Luna was too perfect for you to compete against. Do you know how Jonghyun sees Jinki? Do you?” His voice trembles and your heart sinks even further as he slowly continues. “He always thought that he could never compete with Jinki to have you.” Kibum throws the napkin on the table and looks up, eyes cold and bitter. “God, how can you be so stupid? How could you not have realized?”

You stand up, breathing heavily, blinking tears from your eyes. “I need to talk to him,” you say breathlessly, desperate. “I need—“

“No.” His voice cuts like steel. “There’s a reason he told us not to tell you. Don’t contact him.”

“He’s my best friend,” your voice catches in your throat and cracks. “I can’t just let him go.” The tears spill over and you start sobbing.

Kibum’s expression softens. His eyes look a hundred years old, and he sighs heavily. Reaching into his bag, he places a CD case on the table. Through the clear plastic cover, you can see Jonghyun’s distinctive chicken scratch in Sharpie on the disk inside.

“Close the Door—summer 2013—thanks for the good times—sorry”

“He left this for you,” Kibum say softly. He gathers his things and stands up to leave. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”

When he steps out of the café, for the first time in years, you feel utterly alone.

When you get back to your apartment and give the song a listen, you realize that it’s the last time you’ll hear Jonghyun’s voice talking to you. You savor each note, because when the song is finished, it will just be another recording, another old memory. You curl up on the couch that smells of Jonghyun’s cologne and cry as his familiar voice chips away at your heart, piece by piece.

Baby it was crazy, last summer, the stars came down from the sky
In front of us, no inside your eyes
Dreaming of forever, I imagine our future every day
Warmly, like that, we promised to be together till the end

...

I would give you my everything, everything in my dreams and future
But you keep opening and closing, please close me now

Baby please close the door in your heart
Someday you’ll realize everything that you lost