Jun See came back in the room pulling their mother, my youngest daughter, into the room with her. They only stayed for a short while before they needed to head back home in order to get the youngest in bed for school tomorrow. It was just enough time to tell her her favorite story; the fairytales she enjoyed so much.

I eyed my own daughter the entire time as she carefully watched her own while also peaking glances at me. I would miss her.

“Come, Ji Ae,” the mother said sternly after I had finished. She had put on Jun See’s coat and was preparing to leave. I didn’t want her to go. I didn’t want to say goodbye.

The older girl straightened up in the car. “I would like to stay, mother,” she said.

My daughter sighed heavily as she looked over at me. I smiled warmly at her and nodded my head. She came over swiftly and planted a warm kiss on my forehead.

“Bye daddy,” she said. I watched as a tear escaped before she brushed it away before the girls could see. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, daughter,” I told her. It was the only thing I could say.

The last goodbye stuck in my throat.

She sat up just as quickly, nodded and pulled herself and the youngest out of the room. I sighed.

Ji Ae ignored them as she faced me once again as turned another page in the photo album. I could see she was posed to ask her next question as she traced over another photo; our two youngest members, Sehun and Kai, bundled up in their winter clothes and smiling for the camera.

But I could see as she quickly changed her mind.

“Why did you stop talking to them?” Ji Ae asked. She was slowly leaned across my bed as she placed the book in my lap again. “These four, she said point to the pictures, I know they never moved on either. They’re the ones I read about the most.”

I looked down at the photos. Another that she pointed to was one I didn’t recognize. Lay was seated at a recording booth, his face concentrated on all the buttons below him; a smile etched onto his face. Though, his face was much older than I remembered he still looked happy.

Then another, of my fellow elder member, Luhan. He had a baton in his hand and was directing a choir of children in front of him. Memories flashed as I noticed the décor behind him. The glass walls and the hard wood floors, I would know that place like the back of my hand. A place where we had spent countless hours working, sweating, dancing, and having fun. My chest ached at the sight.

“They all stayed in the music business,” she started again. “You know they’re the best dancers, producers and vocal coaches Korea had to offer. We learned all about them in music classes.”

I nodded. “They were all very talented,” I said simply as I took a hard gulp.

She frowned. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I-“ I started, words not coming out. “It was hard.”

“What was?”

“Seeing them. It was better not to. It was better for us to move on with our lives.”

Ji Ae rolled her eyes at me. “But that’s the thing, grandfather. You didn’t move on. You’ve never moved on from this. I’ve seen it all my life. If you didn’t want to keep in touch with them then why did you never let go?”

I leaned into her. “Because…” I answered. “Because I never wanted to say goodbye.”

She tilted her head at me. “What?”

I sighed. “Saying goodbye means going away. And…and going away means forgetting. I never wanted to forget.”

“But grandfather, you could never say goodbye to them even if you wanted to.”

This time it was my turn to be confused, “And why is that?”

“Because I know your secret,” she said as the tears started to fall from her eyes unexpectedly. “I know you tried to hide it from everyone, perhaps even yourself. And you never revealed your true feelings.

But after hearing this, the way you spoke about them all today, I know it now.”

I frowned. “What is it?” I asked in a hush whisper.

“You once told me that no matter what, people are destined to be together. They're meant to be regardless of the time or the hardships in their lives. Their souls are bounded together. And the ties may bend and they may tangle up but the thing is, they’ll never break.

And today you chose to tell me about your brothers, grandfather. You told me about they bonded together and I could tell they each found their soul mates within each other from the way you spoke about them. And I know you think that you never found yours.” I frowned at her as my heart clentched at her true words. “But that’s not true at all. You just never realized it because you were looking for just a single person. When, in fact, they were all standing right in front of you.”

I held my breath.

“You didn’t give away just one piece of your soul; you gave away eleven. And I know that’s why you never wanted to talk about it. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much.”

And with that, we both cried. Something I was sure I hadn’t done in almost 40 years. Her words sailed in my mind and repeated themselves over and over.  Even through the tears, I couldn’t help but smile in satisfaction.

As I closed my eyes I found myself sitting outside on an icy bench in a dark secluded park. I looked down at my hands, they were small and the skin was soft. I pressed them together, they were strong. I moved them up to my face where the skin was as smooth as silk. I took a deep breath and could see the fog escaping from my mouth, it was so cold.

“You cold, Minseok?” I heard a velvety voice ask to my left. I looked up as I watched Luhan walk toward me with a grin on his handsome face. He was wrapped in many layers of clothes from head to toe. “Here,” he said as he took off a jacket and handed to me. I slide it on quickly as the cold started to dig down into my bones. “Looking old there, buddy,” he said as he took a seat next to me and put his hands in his pockets.

I laughed quietly. “I could say the same. But then again, you’ve always looked older than me.”

He smiled with his trademark crinkles forming around his eyes. “That’s true,” he replied nonchalantly.

We sat in silence for a few minutes before I spoke up again. “I’ve had these same dreams for a long time now,” I told him. “But they’ve never been this…peaceful.”

“Hm.”

“Why are you here now?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I thought you could use the company.”

I sighed and leaned back onto the cold bench. I looked up at tree above us that was slightly illuminated by the streetlamp nearby. I could see the small pieces of snow that were falling to the ground every time the wind passed by.

“It’s been a long time,” I commented.

He ignored me as he stared out in to the darkness. “No need to make small talk, Minseok. You know I’m not a fan of that anyway.”

I nodded as we fell back into a silence.

He sighed as if he was irritated before turning his gaze onto me. “Do you remember what our manager had told us that night we all went to get coffee the night before debut?”

I thought back, “No,” I replied honestly.

He rolled his eyes and turned forward again. “Funny,” he said with a bitter remark. “You can remember all the horrible gruesome details of everything that happened to us but you can’t remember something like that. That’s so typical of you, always getting stuck in the bad.”

I frowned. “That’s not true at all.”

“Then tell me.”

I thought back to the night as I tried hard to recall the details; it was a distant memory. I had been around 22 years old at the time, I believe. We had just finished our dance rehearsal, the final one before we were finally to make our grand debut the next night in front of hundreds of thousands of people. You could tell that we were all buzzing with excitement but then at the same time there was a sense of absolute fear behind all of our eyes. Would we mess up? Would people even like us? We’d trained so hard for so many years and now it all finally came down to this.

Our manager had noticed our tension and suggested that we stop at a café on the way home to our dorms.  “Some coffee and cookies will do you all some good,” he had said. We were all excited, as we hadn’t been able to eat sweets in months.

He took us to a tiny coffee shop that had been off of a deserted road somewhere far from the studio. As we stepped inside I noted the worn leather chairs and the shabby Christmas lights that hung from the ceiling. And yet, it was so peaceful.

I remembered getting a giant cookie and devouring it within a couple of seconds, causing little Sehun to laugh beside me. I remember trying to make him laugh more that night. He was the youngest and so small. I couldn’t even imagine his anxiety level in that moment. I tried to recall how, even though he was so scared, his eyes shined brightly back then. He was so excited for journey, like the rest of us.

I remember watching Kai and SuHo dance and sing to the tacky karaoke music that had us all laughing to the point of almost peeing our pants.

I remember smiling and laughing and feeling all my troubles fade away in the time we had spent there.

“I want you to remember tonight,” our manager told us as we received another round of hot chocolate from the waitress after we settled back in our seats. We all looked at him expectantly. He smiled warmly. “I want you guys to remember what this feels like and never forget.”

We all looked around at each other. Some of these boys that I had known for years and others that I had met only months ago; it still felt like we had known each other forever. “It doesn’t matter that your lives are going to change tomorrow,” he continued on. “What matters is that you’re all going to go through this together. So lean on each other.

The most important time in your life is going to start now. It won’t have anything to do with the fans or the music or the money. There is a reason why you all are here together. You all need each other, nobody does it alone. Remember that. Don’t ever give up on each other.”

I remember smiling warmly at him as we all nodded. It was hard to take in the full impact of his words that night.

Luhan eyed me and smiled again. “It’s okay that you didn’t remember it all, Minseok-y,” he coddled. “Words fade, in the end they don’t matter.”

I turned to him frowning. “They did matter though. They mattered more than anything.”

“No,” he said shaking his head. “Did you end up doing what he asked?”

“No.”

“Yes, you did,” he took his large hand and placed it on my chest. I could feel his warmth seeping in through the jacket.  He whispered the next words so quietly I had to strain to hear him. “Do you remember what it felt like? Not just the bad, but do you remember all the good feelings too?”

I looked down at his hand, his warm hand. I wanted to reach out and grab it.

But I didn’t. A dream would never suffice for the real thing. “Yes,” I told him nodding.

He smiled. “Then you did what he asked. Those feelings, those are what mattered the most.”