chapter two

It is warm out, especially for the days preceding the beginning of winter. The building is tall and imposing as it casts a shadow over the humming girl who sits on the bench. Her feet can’t quite touch the concrete ground, so she swings her legs back and forth in a manner not unlike a child.

She’s wearing a white lab coat that drapes along her thighs. She says that all the students were forced to put them on while looking at the cells that they had begun to grow in the school’s laboratories. When she first showed it off, she stood and twirled in circles, the hem of the coat spiraling outward and fluttering gracefully in the air. It was impossible to not be affected by the proud expression on her face.

“It’s hard,” she says now with a small pout. “I mean, it has to be. But sometimes I wish they’d cut us a break.” Although she’s whining, it’s obvious that she’s not actually upset about anything as the traces of a tiny, satisfied smile lingers along her lips. She uses her fingers to tug at a miniscule wrinkle on her lab coat.

“You work really hard.”

She lets the words dangle in the air before grinning. “I have to. Only the students that work hard here can become surgeons. And only surgeons that work hard can become good surgeons.”

“Miran, do you ever regret choosing such a tedious job?”

She doesn’t hesitate before shaking her head. It’s a question that has been asked many times before, and the response is always the same.

“Never. Not once.”

--

Hyesung sat upright in his bed, panting. His heart pounded in his ribcage, the painful thumping reverberating in his mind. The blankets fell to his lap.

He hugged his knees and began to rock back and forth in his wrinkled blankets. The alarm clock had been sounding for who-knows-how-long, but he wasn’t in the mindset to care about that now.

“It’s okay,” he muttered. His voice sounded anxious and shuddery, even to himself. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”

He remained in the position until his breathing and heart rate returned to normal. The alarm clock continued to sound, and Hyesung reached out to turn it off, taking a look at the time. He was up three hours later than usual. He exhaled in disappointment, his mouth dry and irritatingly itchy.

He stumbled out of bed, nearly tripping over his own feet as he did so. The warmth from the artificial heating system did nothing to heal the mark left behind from the dream.

Or, it wasn’t really a dream. He burrowed into the cupboards of his kitchen, pawing out some instant noodle packages. If there was one thing worse than obscure dreams, it was the appearance of memories while he was sleeping.

He mechanically prepared some of the instant noodles and sat silently at the table as he munched. They were definitely overcooked, but he couldn’t be bothered to care.

The thing about sunny memories was that when those events were happening, they would be very enjoyable. But afterward, there would always be some form of poignant and impossible longing to return to those times. Then, no matter how beautiful those memories might have been, they ached; like a broken bone that hadn't been mended correctly.

After a meal of soggy noodles, Hyesung effortlessly tossed on his coat and decided on earmuffs and a scarf for the day's disguise. Putting the scarf up over his nose, he was up and out the door.

It was frigid out, and Hyesung was already well into his stroll before realizing that he probably would have been better off if he brought gloves or mittens along with him. He tucked his cold hands into his coat pockets, crumpling them into fists in hopes that his fingers would feel less frozen in a bit.

It took him some time in order to create a certain distance between him and the apartment building. He didn't even know where he was going; but he did know he was going somewhere. As he walked, he stared at the little patches of snow that passed underneath his feet, which had been left behind from the previous night's shoveling. He was being taken somewhere by those shoes of his.

He lifted his face and his steps slowly faded away. His lips separated behind the covers of the scarf as he looked up at the fountain in front of him.

It was an arbitrarily large public work, pieced together by tiles of several shades of tan and peach. There were no special carvings out of it, only pedestal-like objects stuck in the middle that - had it not been winter - would be spouting cascades of water. It was just like every other generic park fountain out there.

Hyesung sat on the edge of the fountain, not caring how the cold of the tiling seeped through the fabric of his jeans straight through to his skin. It felt empty. Empty because there was no sound of splashing water from the fountain behind him. Empty because of that memory he thought he had forgotten, but had risen from the depths of his mind while he slept.

He sighed and shut his eyes, suppressing the bubbles of sad reminiscence that were forming in his ribcage. It took him years to forget. Yet within two days, everything was rushing back at him. 

"Hyesung?"

His eyelids flew open. Before he had the time to worry about whether he had been spotted by another fan, his eyes met a pair that looked very familiar.

"Eric," he said, although it was more of a breath of relief than anything else. 

Eric stood in front of him, wearing a dark overcoat and a pair of black gloves. In his hands he held a brown bag. A knit hat was tucked over his ears and a large scarf was twined around in circles over his face. Although Hyesung couldn't see it, he could guess that Eric was grinning based on the twinkling in his eyes.

"What are you doing out here?" Eric asked as he carefully seated himself nearly a foot away from Hyesung on the same fountain. "It's cold out." He shifted the bag into the crook of one elbow, using his other hand to tug the scarf down from his nose.

"I don't know," Hyesung admitted, his words muffled from his own scarf. He burrowed his face deeper behind the knitted yarn. "I guess I just wanted to take some time by myself."

Eric nodded in understanding, the movement stiff. Quiet instantly took the space between them as both of the two searched for words the clear the awkward atmosphere that had formed.

"Do you have any activities lately?" Eric asked, clearing his throat. "Promotions? Recordings?"

Hyesung shook his head. "No. Probably soon, though. The manager's talking about another winter album and it's about time to start preparing for that."

"Exciting," Eric remarked, sounding entirely sincere. "All I ever get to do is boring old office work. In a cubicle." He snickered to himself. "It's that job that no kid dreams of having because it so badly."

Hyesung cracked a smile. Eric seemed like someone with quite the childish personality; he could barely picture him sitting sedately at a desk doing paperwork. "Then why do you do it?"

Eric shrugged. "Gotta do what you gotta do, you know? It puts money in my pocket, food on the table, and gets school tuition for my sister."

What a sad life, Hyesung thought, careful to keep that comment to himself. He knew that he was one of the few people who was lucky enough to be able to make a career out of something he loved. He didn't have to give up passion for money. And sitting right next to him was someone who did have to do that very thing.

"Shouldn't you be at work, then?" Hyesung asked. "It's Monday, isn't it?"

Eric held up the brown bag. "Lunch break. Came out here to buy some food." It was still early in the morning, and he was on lunch break? Hyesung didn't bother asking. "I'd rather stick around to talk to you, though, instead of having to go back to that office early."

Hyesung barely reacted enough to feel flattered when Eric said, "Back to the exciting topic. Your music. Why are so many of the songs sad? You don't seem like a very...sad person." He pursed his lips. "At least...you're not bothered by something every single day like you were yesterday, right?"

Hyesung paused. Eric was right about that - he wasn't always in a terrible mood. There were...circumstances.

But for his question, Hyesung thought about giving the same response he always did when an interviewer asked why he focused so much on ballads: that he just liked them. It wasn't a lie, but it certainly wasn't the complete truth, either.

"When I started singing, I did slow ballads because that was the genre I was interested in," he said. He snuck a glance across to Eric, who was nodding as if he had heard the response millions of times before - which could have been true, if he were one of those fans who liked watching Hyesung's interviews.

"Man to man, though," Hyesung continued, "that's only how I started my career." He sensed Eric cautiously look over at him. "A few years back, my manager wanted me to do some kind of image change. He wanted me to do livelier tunes. I thought it was a good idea, too, so I agreed to it. The next album was supposed to feature an entire tracklist of them. Almost no ballads."

Eric's face became one of confusion. "But you...I don't want to sound like some kind of freakily obsessive fan, but none of your songs are...lively."

Hyesung dug his hands further into his pockets. "That's because before we could start recording for it, the girl I loved the most..." He fumbled over the next word as it got lodged in his throat. He had to force the next words from his tongue.

"She died."

He didn't know what he was expecting. Did he want to feel relief by voicing what had happened, as if the truth would put him at ease? Of course that wouldn't happen. The heavy anvils of regret and sorrow came piling down on him as soon as he said it: nasty reminders of reality.

"I couldn't be happy after that," he drove on, his mouth moving before he could stop it. The words came pouring out - hopeless attempts to purge the suffocating feeling that was tangling around his heart. "No one knew about our relationship. My manager didn't know. So they all still expected me to take on songs and lyrics that were upbeat, just like I agreed to do. But I couldn't. How was I supposed to do that? I didn't want to sing at all, let alone -"

"What was her name?"

Hyesung recoiled at the question. He held his breath, glad that Eric stopped him before he got too carried away. However, the new issue came along in the form of a name that was uncovering itself from the dust in the back of Hyesung's brain.

He opened his mouth and replied, "Miran."

The word seemed alien to him. The two syllables clung to his tongue, fading into a sour taste in his mouth. Suddenly he gained the overwhelming urge to cry. The thought nearly made him laugh. Cry? In front of Eric? In front of himself?

"A nice name," Eric commented, his peppy voice replaced with a gentler vibe. 

Just as quickly as the change in tone occurred, Eric abruptly rose to his feet. "I should get going," he said, his voice back to its bright state. It made it seem like he never made the previous comment. "Lunch break will be over soon and I don't want my boss to yell at me."

"Oh, right," Hyesung said, swallowing a disconcerting feeling. 

He expected Eric to scramble away, but instead he found the man pausing to stare at him. After a moment of thought, Eric shoved the brown bag into Hyesung's arms, Hyesung revealing his hands from his pockets to secure it. Warmth emanated from the sides of it to Hyesung's bare palms.

"You can have this," Eric said.

Alarmed, Hyesung began, "But isn't this your lun -"

"I'll be fine," Eric asserted firmly. He poked his own stomach. "I eat a little too much all the time anyway. And you idols on your crazy little rabbit diets need to eat more so you don't pass out on the stage!"

He didn't give Hyesung the opportunity to protest again as he darted away. Hyesung remained, stuck to his seat, clinging to the sides of the crumpled bag. He stared after Eric until he was too far away to spot.

There was a delicious buttery scent wafting from the open top, and Hyesung's stomach - which had only consumed some disgustingly-prepared instant food beforehand - grumbled.

He pried open the bag and peeked inside to see multiple pieces of bread, each wrapped in plastic. He reached in and took out a random one, some kind of fluffy heat spreading through his heart and tugging a smile onto his face.

"Weird guy," he mumbled, unwrapping the plastic.