before;

The small yet quaint living room was filled with silence.

Daehyun waited in front of the TV with the peculiar box in hand as he stared at the TV. He pushed the tape in the VCR (yes, he’s that old-fashioned) and waited for it to play.

A few seconds passed.

Half a minute has passed.

He walked around the coffee table in front of the TV and plopped down on the sofa, staring sleepily at the screen.

It’s been a minute, yet nothing’s playing on the screen.

“That’s funny,” he said out loud with his eyes squinting at the box, then back to the black screen in front of him.

He picked up the remote to his TV, pointing it at the screen and pushed some buttons. The volume bar popped up and rose higher. “The TV’s working, is the VCR at fault here?” Being the couch potato he is, he decided to just wait it out. He remembered that he needs to have his VCR fixed, because it is an antique; yet somehow the anonymous sender of the tape knows that he still uses VCR. How peculiar.

It must’ve been from somebody who knows him well, or somebody who’s been to his apartment.

After gazing at the black screen for another minute, Daehyun groaned as he threw himself up from his comfortable position and dragged his legs lazily to the TV. He pressed the eject button and picked up the tape, turning it around and inspecting it closely before continuing his inspection on his VCR. Possibly the tape is broken, or maybe his VCR just couldn’t handle it anymore and just malfunctioned. He decided to give it another chance by doing his reliable trick as a kid; opening the VCR lid and blowing all the dust inside.

He did so, resulting a sneezing blond, and pushed the tape back in.

The screen flickered and he fell backwards to the floor as a blast of loud music was played on the TV.

He reached for the remote and literally rammed his thumb on the arrow down button, hurriedly turning down the volume before his neighbors slammed their fists on his door.

As the volume was low enough for him to hear clearly, he got himself up and sat down on the edge of his sofa, his elbows on his knees as he observed the blurry recording shown in front of him. He squinted his eyes, trying hard to make something out of the shaky footage. Before he could groan in annoyance, the footage suddenly became clear. Apparently, it was from a video camera, recording people dancing in a night club; explaining the loud music and the shaky footage, probably the person recording this was dancing as well.

At first, Daehyun observed the recording carefully, yet after 5 minutes, he became bored. He started organizing his letters; throwing advertisements and pamphlets, and keeping the ones from his family and his business partners. He scanned through all the letters once more, hoping that he accidentally missed a familiar name he hasn’t seen in a few months, yet no luck. He sighed as he dropped the letters on the empty seat beside him.

Plenty of useful pamphlets that he wouldn’t mind reading in the bathroom later on, a few magazines he would read later when he can’t sleep, a stack of unread newspapers that hasn’t been opened since he doesn’t have time to spare in the morning, and a whole bunch of letters, yet none from his baby.

Daehyun is a working man; or businessman, if you’d prefer, of a small yet active company. His company sold thousands of pastries and desserts each and every month, and only located in the middle of Seoul. He’s in his early 20s, and as a spirited and fresh entrepreneur, it’s normal for him to be active in the business world. His office was small, yet it was home; at least Daehyun thought of it as his second home, besides his apartment, but he slowly feels like his office is where he spends most of his time. His apartment hasn’t been like home these past few months, because he was alone; nobody welcoming him home whenever he got back from work, nobody cooking for him, nobody cleaning up his messy habits, and nobody to wrap his arms around. He missed that, a lot. It was normal for him to check his mail once a month, since he doesn’t have that much spare time after work, which he usually spends his time sleeping.

He almost dozed off when he heard a familiar voice coming from the TV. He jumped from his seat, his eyes widen and his jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe his eyes, ears—senses, as he stared at the screen, everything around him blurry as if it’s dissolving and the TV screen just got clearer and clearer. 

“Jung Daehyun, are you having fun?”

He held his breath, shutting his mouth in the process.

“I’m tired, let’s go home.”

He blinked as he tried remembering when and where he had heard those exact words before.

“I don’t care whose place. To me, it’s all the same; what’s mine is yours, right?”

He choked his breath out as his eyes starts tearing up.

“Are you drunk? Fine, let’s go to your house. I’ll drive.”

He dropped onto his knees, his eyes not leaving the screen.

“Next time, we should go to a library; it’s quiet and lesser chances on you getting drunk.”

As his mind was done processing all of this, he could finally speak up.

“That’s me, and… Youngjae.”

The tape was filled with him and Youngjae and mashed up footages of their dates; a few breakfasts in cafes, skiing down a mountain in Gangwon-do, countless visits to Lotte World, a visit to Daehyun’s hometown; plus the best beach in Busan, a few dinners at either a fancy restaurant or a fast-food one, a long and boring (at least for Daehyun it was) time at the library, and last but not least is a visit to the Seoul Tower. It also had some of their friends and family in it, and it was mostly recorded by Daehyun.

Why did he forget all about this tape?

After half an hour of watching the video without pausing, the screen flickered; Youngjae and Daehyun was shown sharing a chaste yet sweet kiss after locking their named padlock on the fence of the Seoul Tower, then the screen suddenly went black and silent.

Daehyun rubbed his teary eyes and stood from his seat, panicked at the thought of his VCR finally decided on destroying itself along with the tape.

Right before he rushed over to the TV, the screen showed footage of Youngjae sitting on an unfamiliar sofa in an unfamiliar room, staring directly at the video camera. His shoulders are shaky and his nose is red; as if he had cried for hours. His eyes are swollen and his red lips are parted, followed by faint hiccups. His hair was a mess; which was a big deal since Youngjae was a fan on being neat, as Daehyun recalled, and he was wearing a white and crumpled shirt that was obviously a size too big for him; which was also a big deal since Youngjae was a perfectionist that always wore anything exactly his size and hated the slightest wrinkle on whatever it was that he sees, also as Daehyun recalled. Daehyun squinted his eyes at Youngjae’s overall appearance; he still couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t like the Youngjae he knew at all.

“Daehyun-ah.”

Daehyun blinked his eyes widely as Youngjae started talking to the camera. Daehyun sat on the floor right in front of the TV, leaning himself forward and watched Youngjae’s obvious difficulty in bringing up the words. Youngjae wasn’t the one for emotions, as Daehyun recalled.

“I—uh, I’m at my uncle’s house, in Uijeongbu. You might be wondering why I’m giving you this tape filled with our memories together, how I got a hold on those tapes which you recorded, and why the hell do I look like right now. You will know the answers soon enough. First thing’s first; how are you? I hope you’ve been well. Apparently, I’m doing fine; despite my current state and my brother is doing well with his girlfriend. My parents are doing well too, as well as my grandparents. You’ve met them all before, you must remember how healthy they all looked—not that your family isn’t healthy-looking as well! Well—you get what I mean. So, uh, continuing; I was…”

Daehyun listened to Youngjae’s endless drabbles with a few chuckles and a very satisfied smile smeared on his face. He was very happy that the other was doing well, yet he longed for the other to come back. He had promised to come back on his recent text message; which was last April.

“…and guess what? My brother was proposing to his girlfriend! No wonder he was really furious at me for walking in on them in the living room!”

Daehyun chuckled at the other’s silliness and at his laugh that he always found funny. Despite his outstanding grades and his reputation on getting 90% on most subjects in his school life, he was quite dense and very much oblivious. He remembered how they used to have fights about obviously quickly-solved problems; Youngjae just had to make everything complicated and tactical.

“Anyways, enough catching up with my life so far. Since I can’t hear you, I can only hope that ever since I—uh, left, your life hasn’t gotten worse. Uhm—so, uh, here’s what I actually wanted to tell you.”

Daehyun shifted closer to the TV and focused all his attention to Youngjae.

“I’m not coming back.”