THIRD

The instant Taehyun found out the writer’s name, he knew he was in too deep. This was going beyond caring for a fictional character, because, well, Seungyoon was real.

He found the name scribbled somewhere in one of Seungyoon’s anecdotes. He had written about that one time he fell asleep on the train only to be thrown off at un unknown station, in an unknown city. He hadn’t panicked (which he admitted to himself was both stupid and brave), instead he had made himself home in a nearly abandoned coffee shop and he’d written an entire new song. Sadly for him, though, he had completely lost track of time. Meaning he didn’t catch the last train back and had to find a place to stay. His luck also had it when his battery died and he couldn’t call his mother, although Seungyoon was fairly convinced it wouldn’t matter to her anyway. Little did he know then that he’d get the biggest scolding he’d received till this day the second he’d arrive home and sheepishly call out “I’m back.”

And that’s how Taehyun learned about Seungyoon’s passion for music, fearless attitude towards the unknown, and how the boy preferred his coffee black with two sugars.

But Seungyoon’s writings didn’t stay all happy-giddy. To be correct; there had only been a few times (eight—Taehyun counted) the boy had written about past memories. Other than those, he rarely reminisced. It was almost as if he tried his utmost best to avoid his past, and of course, that made Taehyun wonder.

Yet more than the wondering, Taehyun worried.

He worried about the slow, but definitely there, change in Seungyoon’s way of writing. Whereas it had started with clear beginnings, obvious middles, and heartfelt endings, now, there were only phrases. Random words, as if they were mere fleeting thoughts thoughtlessly jotted down.

And all would have been well if Taehyun would still be able to make sense of it all, but that was no longer the case.

Thoughts weren’t just thoughts anymore either. Most of them were interrupted, halted mid-may, and every time Taehyun pondered why Seungyoon had stopped. Was it because halfway through he figured that maybe he was wrong? Maybe he’d forgotten what he wanted to write so just ended the phrase there? Or maybe, and that’s what Taehyun feared the most, Seungyoon simply lost interest.

Everything had turned confusing, dark, and grim.

Taehyun drew a sharp breath when he carefully turned the page over.

Black. The entire page was filled with black ink, almost aggressively smeared over the paper. It even had a few small holes in it from having pushed too hard with his pen.

Taehyun stared at it for a little too long, trying to comprehend whatever had been going through the boy’s mind when he’d done this. It wrenched his guts in a way no book had ever done before and he momentarily didn’t know how to react. He felt frustrated, sad, angry, and all of it didn’t make sense to him.

After a while, his eyes automatically began searching for words. But there weren’t any.

It worried him. It worried him how chaotic the thoughts had become, and every time another part stopped, so did his heart for a moment. It felt as if someone was holding Taehyun over a cliff with the help of only a thin thread, and it was about to snap very soon.

Carefully, to be sure he didn’t miss even the smallest splash of ink, his eyes scanned down the page. The longer it took for him to stumble upon a new piece of writing, the faster his heart raced.

Before he fully realised it, he began to fear pages that hadn’t been vandalised.

With trembling fingers, he flipped the page.

Toda