hanbin leans on the railing, staring out into the water and thinking about how pitch black the han river looks. and how the water is all, eventually, just a reflection of the night sky. he cranes his neck to look up at the sky then looks back down. somehow, the water seems a few tones brighter. 

on nights like this, he wishes there were more stars in the sky. clouded by all of the pollution from seoul, it’s rare to find such light. he takes in a breath and thinks about back when he and the others visited jinhwan’s hometown in jeju, when he looked up and almost felt scared from all the stars scattered above him. no, scattered isn’t the right word—they looked carefully laid out perhaps, by someone, on the dome of the night sky.

he leans his head forward to rest his chin on his arms, and almost as if it were the most natural thing in the world he suddenly thinks about letting himself fall down to the depths of the churning darkness below.

not seriously, of course. he knows he would never. he casts a brief gaze downwards—he knows he would never. this isn’t even the first time he has asked himself this.

but somehow he felt a kind of doubt, or questioning in his mind. what if? he didn’t want to, but he could. and that’s what bothers him.

it’s both normal and not normal, he knows, to have thoughts like this. he also knows the others would never imagine he has these thoughts, at least not tonight. he was laughing and joking around with them earlier, why would he suddenly feel this way a few hours later? and he knows that the others may have thought about it too, once.

and it’s not that he doesn’t genuinely feel happy, when he is with the others. he wouldn’t trade those guys for the world. it felt eerie to him, though, that he can feel so genuinely happy yet so genuinely troubled at the same time. he wonders if he feels this way just because he’s alone.

it scares him, how realistic the question sounds. what if he jumps? what if he suddenly decides to climb over the railing and throw himself—no, let himself fall, into the dark waters of the han river? what if, what if, what if. he closes his eyes for a few seconds before opening them again. it’s not like he never has these ‘what ifs’ in his head anyway. it is part of his language, the words that creep to his vocabulary when he finds his mind drifting off to memories from win or mix & match. and he always mutters them into the darkness, a place only he can hear.

when he had confided in mino about these thoughts, the elder had looked at the ground before reaching out to rub hanbin’s shoulder with a reassuring smile. “it’ll be alright, man.”  he seemed to look into the mirror of their practice room, searching for the right words to say. if there were any, to say. “it’s just general anxiety.” a pause. “it’s alright, trainees get it all the time. you’re not weird or anything.” 

but it wasn’t that hanbin was worried, about being abnormal, or having to be carried off to a mental asylum. he was abnormal. unlike most males his age, he had spent his budding years of puberty locked up in a practice room, staring into a computer screen not at videos of women but rather at bars, of music, beats, lyrics, his own voice.

maybe that’s why he was like this. locked up in a room with no windows, he had accepted introspective thinking as a habit. as easy as it was for him to get into bed and get up in the morning (although that was even abnormal for him, who spent hours upon hours at night in the practice room basement rather than in bed), these thoughts creeped into his mind whenever his surroundings were quiet. 

and maybe that’s why he didn’t think it was too weird of him to think about jumping. to think about the possibility of doing so, and wondering what would happen afterwards. would it be peaceful? would it hurt, when the water rushed into his lungs? what would it feel like, afterwards? to him, being enveloped by the cold water seemed somewhat alluring.

“what would you do, if you woke up one morning and i was gone?”

“gone?”

“gone. nowhere to be found.”

at hanbin’s sudden questioning, junhwe scrunches his nose and stares out the window of the van. the two and the other members are all on their way to the yg building, summoned by the ceo himself, for an ‘important discussion’ in his words. “that’s a weird question, hyung. what’s with you?”

hanbin shrugs and stares down at his knees. thinking, again. and as junhwe looks questioningly at hanbin, the strong-willed leader doesn’t know what to say. he doesn’t know why he asks junhwe, who is easily the least affectionate or emotionally expressive of the seven. but then again, maybe that’s why.

apparently, they wouldn’t be debuting this month. or the next. that was it. “i’d miss you,” junhwe mutters quietly, right before the two of them leave the doors of the building that they all dream, so desperately, to be a part of.

and that’s really all hanbin needs to hear.

the next day, hanbin, jinhwan, and donghyuk sit together in the crammed practice room, all staring into the computer screen in front of hanbin as he plays the other two a song he has been working on for the past week or so. it’s just like always—someone plays a song and it’s a mini-party for all of them, the boys. bouncing up and down in their seats, making lame hand gestures as they move along to the beat of the music. and at this moment, they are happy with just this.

“i think it sounds good,” donghyuk comments after the song finishes, rubbing his nose absentmindedly. “but it’s not catchy enough.”

“screw catchy. we’ll make it catchy if we ever get to debut.” jinhwan is half-joking, half-serious. hanbin cracks a smile and looks back at the computer screen. 

“do you think the ending needs a bit more work?”

but instead of answering the leader’s question, donghyuk stares at the wall in front of him. jinhwan’s comment must have triggered a thought. hanbin nervously waits for the boy’s answer, hoping the thought wasn’t what he was thinking of himself.

“have you ever wanted something so much you don’t even want it anymore?”

hanbin feels like the question has knocked all the breath out of his lungs.

normally, any of them would have retorted with a donghyuk, what the hell or donghyuk, go get more sleep, while knowing exactly what he means and feeling the pang in their chest at the thought, but choosing to brush it away with laughs, hoping that maybe one day the thought of such things would only taste like nostalgia on the tips of their tongues.

why donghyuk? why him? why would he, somehow be thinking the thoughts that hanbin should be thinking? but he thinks it would be foolish to assume the others wouldn’t think the things he does. he just wishes, that he carries all the burden because that’s what he’s supposed to do. that’s what he’s used to doing.

“as if, you don’t know what you would do if you ever have that thing you want. once you have it, you feel like you’d just fall apart.” donghyuk continues quietly. “because your entire life, you’ve been living without it. without it and constantly longing for it.”

hanbin looks at the ground, feeling jinhwan’s gaze on him yet choosing not to meet the elder’s eyes, in fear that he would give anything away. “yeah. i have.”

the dark water seems to hold more questions than answers. 

hanbin checks the time on his phone and exhales into the night, feeling relief in the fact that there were still a few more hours before sunrise. he liked being alone like this while it was dark all around him, not because he turned the lights off and was hoping for everything to go away but because the world was resting. the world was momentarily turning its eyes away from him, so that he could have space, and time to think to himself. be himself.

he hated the sunrise, the sign of a new day. to him, the beginning of a day that would go exactly like the one before, one that would go exactly as the next one would. he liked the night better. he feels like somehow, during the nighttime, something would change. something would happen.

“something,” he whispers into the depth of the waters below him, and grips the railing in front of him more tightly.

in his earlier trainee days, hanbin would feel detached, as was the best way to put it back then, in any crowd of people. he felt lost, as if he had somehow lost grip on himself in the midst of everyone else. and instead of looking from the inside out, he would be looking from the outside in. as if he were a third person, looking at himself, kim hanbin from a different point of view.

someone, anyone, do you see me? he would ask himself this. do you feel the same way as i do? and somewhere someone answered no, we’re fine, why are you like that, hanbin? what do you mean? sometimes he didn’t even feel like the people around him were people. as if he were in a game, surrounded by mirages created by a preset algorithm. he was the odd one out, the real one, the one who felt things. he was terribly lonely, and all he hoped for was the feeling to go away.

but it wouldn’t until he excused himself into some empty space, where he could hide himself for a while. somehow, being by himself felt less lonely than being surrounded by people.

there are usually a few other people at the han river at this hour besides hanbin, and today he sees two friends, he assumes, sitting on a bench near the water. he wonders what kinds of problems they have, what kinds of thoughts are haunting them at this hour when everyone else is asleep. they seem to be around his age, and it really hurts him to know that their troubles are probably very different from his despite their similar age. he is different. similar but different. he has always been. and yet, he still cannot get used to it.

“what do you mean, you want to be like everyone else? so many people would kill to be different like you. think twice before saying things like that.”

hanbin doesn’t need someone to tell him that to know. he is aware that many people aspire to be different, and that the opportunities he has are one in a million. he isn’t ungrateful, and he isn’t greedy either. 

right now, he feels quite similar to the times he looks out the window of their van and sees boys his age walking, in groups, down the street and laughing with snacks in their hands. he sits in front of a notebook, scribbled choreography lines, and wishes, more than anything, to be like them. and he wonders what they see through the darkened window that hanbin sits behind. what they think when they see b.i on tv. do they want to be like him, too?

hanbin thinks it goes both ways. we always want what we can’t have. 

but something that distresses him so much, he doesn’t want to belittle such emotions as common human tendency. 

sometimes hanbin worries that one of the members would wake up some time during the night and notice his empty bed, to come to the conclusion that something was bothering the leader. he didn’t want to create a fuss. no, even if there wasn’t a fuss he didn’t want to open his phone to see a concerned hanbin hyung, where are you? are you alright? 

no, no he didn’t. he really didn’t want that. but he didn’t let that fear stop him. he needs this. he needs some time by himself, away from everything. 

it is the only thing stopping him from ending everything for a long long time. until things become irreversible.

and sometimes he thinks that even if someone wakes up and finds him missing, they would know. they would not say anything about it because they know, they know hanbin doesn’t want him to say anything. perhaps this has already happened, and perhaps this is what is keeping the team together. keeping him, and everyone, together. 

hanbin smiles, because he is thankful. he is thankful that he has himself, s, the two friends on the bench, and the night. he is thankful that when he slides into yunhyeong’s bed that night, he doesn’t ask any questions. just a welcoming, albeit sleepy smile, and a hug that tells him i know, it’s okay, you’ll be okay, everything will be okay.