[PART 1]

(NELL-White Dwarf Star)

_____

After The Storm

There are storms that change the skyline, that leave patches of blue where branches had once spread their brittle fingers. And in the aftermath, an eerie calm settles over the forest, as shell-shocked birds sing warily in the sunlight. The nervous flutter of their injured wings, barely audible above the hammering of a hummingbird’s heart.

You once told me the wind is silent. How his sound can only be heard through collision. Last night, he cried with a violent yearning while he tore through the trees. As he brought down their twisted branches, I thought of the first time you said my name.

You were the storm that changed the skyline. After the damage and deluge, I could see things so much clearer. There hasn’t been another like you since.

In 1953, we began naming hurricanes so we could remember them beyond the wreckage. So we could make sense of the destruction. It is the way I remember you.

-Lang Leav

_____

When Seungcheol left Jihoon and closed the door with a soft click, the air circled heavily like a million invisible vultures were above him waiting to pounce on his fading, rotting body. He didn’t acknowledge the other students talking in the halls, casting glances over at him and his lonesome self. He made his way to the floor above Jihoon’s and trudged the stairs like he was in a hazy dream, passing giggling ghost-like bodies.

“Seungcheol?”

He passed by Hansol and walked straight into their shared room. The other immediately followed, dropping his stack of books on his own bed and then fluttering around Seungcheol like a concerned friend would.

“Is something wrong with Jihoon?” He asked, looking back down at the hall and contemplating running down the stairs to Seungkwan’s room. “What happened?”

Seungcheol lay down on his bed, facing the ceiling with a blank expression on his face. Not even a twitch of his hands could clue Hansol as to what was wrong with his friend. The others had ended practice long ago when Jeonghan and Soonyoung came back to update them. Meanwhile, Seungcheol and Jihoon had been given space for as long as they needed. Though, now that Hansol had seen Seungcheol, maybe it wasn’t long enough.

“Just tell me if you’re okay at least.”

This finally got a response, and Seungcheol turned his head to look at Hansol. “Don’t worry about me anymore, it’s selfish and stupid. Especially when Jihoon’s down there suffering.”

“It’s more stupid to think that you’re okay just because someone else is suffering more than you.”

He huffed quietly, knowing Hansol wouldn’t leave him be unless he gave him an answer. “I’m fine, Hansol. I just feel so ashamed and sorry.” He turned over in his bed and closed his eyes like he was preparing to sleep for a hundred years. “I wish I could take it all away from him.”

Hansol knew that he was holding back from saying a lot of things. All of his thoughts were probably pressed painfully against his skull, trying to wriggle their way out.

“I can’t stop thinking about myself. About how I’ll get through this, about how I’ll get over losing Woozi, about how I’ll be able to live with myself.” Seungcheol scoffed at his words. “It’s the first time I’m seeing the way my mind has been working these past few years.”

“Don’t blame yourself for that, it’s not-”

“What about him?” Seungcheol asked himself, caressing his loathsome, guilty words with a gentle whisper.

“Seungcheol…”

“How many other people have I’ve thrown away that could’ve become someone important to me? It could’ve been you, or Jeonghan, anybody. I wish I’d never let myself become someone different.”

Hansol stood there with his arms crossed and let his best friend run his thoughts from his head himself. He decided to break the news to Seungcheol about what had happened when they left. “Did anyone tell you what Jihoon did after you guys left?”

“Yeah, I know he went to talk to Haneul.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Hansol hesitated. “He deleted his account. There’s no more Woozi, it’s all over.”

Like all the wind had been knocked out of him, he closed his eyes tight and let all the tangled emotions of shame and anger wash over him in a thick wave. He lay there, beneath the waves and waited for it to pass.

“You need to sleep.” Hansol turned off Seungcheol’s lamp with a simple click and let the darkness fade over them. “I’m going to hang out with Seungkwan and I’ll be back to check on you soon. Please, sleep Seungcheol.”

When Hansol left Seungcheol tried his very best to let his consciousness slip away. Although he tried, he couldn’t sleep very well.

He was tormented with patched sleep throughout the next week and half, much like the boy who slept the floor below him.

_____

Over the next few chaotic days it was almost rare to see Jihoon alone, not accompanied by someone. Whether it be Wonwoo and Mingyu on either side of him as they walked to the dining hall, or with Seungkwan and Hansol on the way to the practice rooms. It was always someone.

There was one day when Jihoon was handed off from Minghao to Jeonghan in one simple motion. Halfway down the hall, he had gently guided Jihoon next to Jeonghan and told them he was parting back to the dorm rooms to drop off his books. The two hadn’t said anything really. Jihoon bid the boy goodbye and continued on his way next to Jeonghan.

He was surprised when Jeonghan continued to lead them to the restaurant where everyone else was. He didn’t shoulder him or let any sort of smart comment leave his mouth. It was almost weird being in this tug-of-war with him. He never even realized he’d been playing in the first place.

“Do you have a lot of homework? We were planning on practicing today in Seokmin’s room after dinner.” Jeonghan looked over at Jihoon who was entirely bewildered and almost taken aback. He gently shook his head and muttered a simple “no.” The other hummed in thought.

“Good, because we have a lot to practice.” He looked like he wanted to say another little thought but decided against it. Jihoon noticed this because of how intensely he was observing him. He didn’t think his eyes left his profile even once.

Seungcheol and Jeonghan had once been something...like a gentle whisper of breath. No matter how light, it still existed. Maybe it was gone now but it had been there once. Jeonghan had gotten to see that side of Seungcheol. He’d gotten to see the layer beneath that exterior, as Seungcheol himself. He didn’t have to talk through a screen to see it. Jihoon wanted so badly to ask Jeonghan what it had been like to be with him.

“How are things lately?” Jeonghan asked suddenly, making Jihoon’s eyes bounce back to the scenery in front of him.

“They’re quieting down I guess. I’m sure you can hear people knocking on our door sometimes to try and meet me.”

He laughed softly, though not with malicious intent. He understood because he was in the same hallway with him and could probably hear people outside just as easily as he could.

“Nearly keeps me awake at night,” Jeonghan mumbled. “I can’t imagine how it must be for you and Seungkwan.”

Jihoon thought about the many nights Seungkwan scared all of the people off for him, almost like he enjoyed doing it. That thought made his problems less burdensome but he had no clue if his roommate was faking it or not. He was the kind of person who would.

“I think he likes scaring the kids off.”

“Oh yeah?” Jeonghan laughed, the wind carrying his long hair in the wind as it fluttered behind him. “I don’t doubt that.” Jihoon was enraptured.

They walked the rest of the way in silence and when they arrived at the restaurant everyone was already there talking and hanging out--rather loudly.

Almost like a reflex, he looked around the room to make sure nobody was there that could hurt him. He hadn’t heard or seen from the four blue ties but he was sure they were still around somewhere. It was stupid to believe that they’d get dismissed from Pledis for what they did. Jihoon had heard that Seungcheol was doing all he could to get them suspended or even expelled for the rest of the year but he couldn’t do much when he was fighting against four powerful and--not to mention--rich students and their headstrong families. Now that he had Seungcheol and eleven other people fighting for him he didn’t feel so powerless. While he couldn’t prove that the four ties had done anything, Seungcheol’s word was enough to get them in some kind of trouble.

The whole situation had ended a mess. Just imagining the headmaster running around and picking up the pieces of who he used to be was satisfactory enough. It’s not as if his alias had been anything to mess with. Woozi wouldn’t be erased forever, not really, as long as Jihoon still existed. Now the headmaster had angry fans probably knocking at the Academy’s door. It would be an awful lot of fun to be scampering after loose ends to try and cover that up. Of course, this was all gossip that Jihoon heard from others. Seventeen had done their best to shield him after the incident.

Jihoon expected there to be some kind of police involvement but so far there hadn’t been word of anything. No investigations, no officers for the welfare of students, no snooping journalists at the gates. It didn’t take a genius to realize why. Where people had connections--where money was involved--there was corruption.

“Stop daydreaming and get over here, we’re starving!”

“Yeah, let’s eat.”

Seungcheol left an open seat next to himself and Jihoon took it, avoiding the boy’s eyes. Though if he had looked he would’ve seen a whole universe of untold stories unfold within.

~

At five years old, he’d sit out in the faraway woods and think about everything, even though his house-maid scolded him for it. There were two things he liked to think about back then and that was his friend and music.

Abundantly, like the distant ocean, he’d think about those things. The country boy with the thick accent who cared for him despite all the kids who spat at them. He remembered the look in those bad kids’ eyes when they ridiculed his very being, his own five-year-old self, and made him feel all completely less than human.

His parents were severely rich. There were two pianos in the house but even more than those instruments were guitars and violins. Yet for some reason, despite loving music, every time he picked up those instruments he thought about other things he would rather be doing. Things he loved more at the time like sitting in the forest or looking at plants closely. Like laying his chest on the ground above the strong smelling earth and letting his heartbeat greet the ground with a gentle, re-occurring knock against the soft grass. He would rather think about his friend from the countryside. The boy with bright, gentle eyes and a charming scar above his lip that he loved more than anything. What kind of childish love could he describe that sort of thing? He loved his friend the way he loved music. The way he loved to listen to it but forbade himself from playing it. The way his body tricked himself to think something different. His heart longed for those kind of things, always.

When he grew up he was caught for defacing property. He was hanging around one of his rich friends. He called him that because it was all that they were. His name started with a J and followed with an “i” and an “n,” yet he never remembered the rest of it. No matter, where there was money there was corruption and at that time it was all that he was made up of. His whole world was made up of money. He helped Jin destroy the property around his father’s house. Jin’s father had grounded him for having a sip of soju. It was the tiest reason for destroying property that Seungcheol had ever heard. When they were caught it was himself that had paid for it.

He still remembered the way that grown man had grabbed the back of his head and threw him to the ground like he was nothing. Jin had run away. He remembered the way his twelve-year-old self called out for his mother that lived houses away. The way his chest met the ground and his heartbeat greeted the soil after years, the way the man kicked him in the ribs breaking everything inside like he was made up of glass. It was like he was an inside-out porcelain doll; he broke all too easily. He called out for his mother as that grown, entitled man had beaten him. He was yet a small little boy in a grown up’s world.

When it was time for things to be settled the man had agreed not to press charges as long as they’d let go of the fact that he had beaten him: a twelve year old boy. The problem had been settled right on that man’s front lawn and the cops had not been called. His mother, dressed in soft flowing robes did not help Seungcheol up from the ground. Though his mouth was stained with blood and he could barely lift his head she did not help him. He realized that day that he was nothing more than a transaction, nothing more than a bothersome deal. He’d done nothing wrong except make a stupid choice.

When he got home his mother called their family doctor over and he was bandaged up easily. The pain he felt was the worst he had ever endured in his life and it had nothing to do with his injured body.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry.” He called. “Don’t you hear me?”

At the young age of twelve he finally realized why he was always off on his own. Why his parents never cared where he was or why they never looked over him when he played in the woods alone. He thought their world would be more kind to him but it wasn’t at all. The world he had been brought into was everything and nothing.

“Mom? You hear me?”

There was nothing he ever said that she heard.

He realized that night that a man who would beat him without a second thought would surely beat their own son. He never learned Jin’s full name but he hoped that night that he would be okay. Whether they were both stupid kids making stupid decisions, it wasn’t their fault that they had done it.

What a shame it had been, to see himself as a man at twelve years old. To be treated as such at that age.

~

Every other day Seungcheol and Jihoon gravitated toward one another. At first, Jihoon had resisted against it as hard as he could. The first day Seungcheol showed up was after practice, in the late evening. While Jihoon was in bed reading an assignment for class, Seungcheol had taken the chair near his computer. They sat in awkward silence without talking at all. After an hour and a half he set aside the book and watched Seungcheol as the other raised his eyes and met his own. Simply, he packed up this things and bid him goodbye.

“See you tomorrow, Jihoon.”

Then he’d leave quietly and let Jihoon simmer in the scent of worry that he had left behind. That first day had been the worst because he’d sat there and not read a word of his assignment at all. He just listened to the quiet breathing that was across the room that had not sounded like anyone else’s. Nothing had calmed him down more, had taken away his pain more than listening to his breathing like he had in that quiet room. An hour and a half of that would’ve drove anyone crazy but not to him.

When he had erased Woozi, he had also erased all of S.Coups. He was now forced to blend Seungcheol and his counterpart together. Just like Seungcheol was learning to do for him. Listening to him breathe was like meditation because he had suddenly become one person in front of him. He still hated him but if he said he didn’t like having him in the same room with him then he was a damn liar.

The day after that was much better. Jihoon remembered Seungcheol asking him if he could help him with any homework. He asked as if he didn’t already have enough on his plate.

“Yeah, the homework that was assigned today is complete bull.” Jihoon tested and handed him the book with multiple assignments tucked inside. It was for Musical Performance. “Can you do it for me?”

Seungcheol took it without hesitation and sat at the edge of his bed. “Sure, it’s actually really easy though, if you want me to teach you.” He started to fill in answers while he talked, “Even though you’re his favorite student I know Jung wouldn’t hesitate to fail you if you didn’t get this concept on the test. He’s a complete , so if you don’t get it I don’t want you to fail so-”

Jihoon snatched back the book and closed it without a word.

Seungcheol was an idiot.

“I know how to do it.” Jihoon muttered, angry that he had passed his silly test.

“Are you sure? Because I can-”

“Seriously. Sorry I was just…nevermind.”

Seungcheol watched him warily before standing up and heading over to the desk to sit down. He pulled out his laptop and began typing away. Probably starting the long list of things he had to get done. Maybe Jihoon was the idiot.

The following few days Seungcheol had come over in the morning to walk to the hall for breakfast, and then during the evenings to take him back to the dorms where they did their homework together. It was rare that they talked during their walks but it had been nice to be in one another’s presence. It was like some kind of therapy for the two to be together to get used to the idea of their real selves.

The odd thing was that Seungcheol walked into their classes late sometimes and most of the time he was fuming. It was things like this that he never noticed. Before he had chalked it up to his personality but now he wondered if maybe he was angry because of him. Maybe he had just come from the headmaster’s office and spent his voice yelling at the man for him.

Maybe everyone was fighting a lot harder for him than he realized. As hard as they could in their little dim dome.

Despite the inner fights within themselves, Seventeen still practiced during lunch and often in the early morning for the upcoming competition. They weren’t prepared at all, like Seungcheol had constantly reminded them. Even Jihoon had to agree that they were set so far back he didn’t believe they’d even have a chance at winning in any category.

Still, Seungcheol put him as a number one priority. Everyday he came to his dorm without fail and talked with him about the day. Their favorite subject was to talk about how awful Mr. Jung was and the weird obsession he had with big words. Seungcheol’s favorite thing to do was to imitate their teacher and get a laugh out of Jihoon.

That was probably the reason why it had come as such a shock when Seungcheol had wanted to talk about something other than their old-fashioned teacher. Something serious. Jihoon knew it right as he walked through the door with that hardened look in his eyes. It couldn’t have come at a worse time, though.

He didn’t knock as the door flew open. Jihoon halted his movements in changing from his uniform. His shirt was the only garment that was removed but his whole body flushed from embarrassment.

“Let me tell you something.” Seungcheol said, his backpack still on and barely through the door. Jihoon looked up, startled with his uniform shirt hanging in one hand. The other had simple acknowledged the situation and moved on with closing the door tightly. He stopped himself from stepping too close.

“Nobody has changed me as much as you have. You even changed me back then, when I didn’t know it.”

Jihoon exhaled a small breath of air at the confession.

“Look at what I’ve done to you.” He didn’t take his eyes off him, not once. He let his eyes gaze over his healing body, from the bandages to the bruises.

“It wasn’t you who did this.” Jihoon quickly shrugged on a thin black sweater and then rolled one sleeve down so his wrist showed. He stuck it out at Seungcheol who glanced at the small circles of darkened skin. “This is what you did. Though you weren’t the one who burned me you sure as hell could’ve stopped it.”

Seungcheol stepped closer to Jihoon and really took a look at his arm for the first time since it happened. They were faded but still there and every time Jihoon looked at them a painful memory must’ve bloomed.

“These won’t heal like those will.” Seungcheol murmured and motioned with his eyes to Jihoon’s body. “I’ve never treated someone I loved so terribly.”

Jihoon’s breath caught at that word. He’d used it so easily and so confidently that it scared him to think of what could’ve been going on in that mind of his. That made him really think about the other’s thoughts and his situation. Jihoon had admitted that he loved S.coups in some kind of way. Was Seungcheol also thinking the same this whole time?

“I want to know everything about you. I want to hug you, I want to do all kinds of things with you.” Seungcheol admitted.

He let go of Jihoon’s arm. It was at the exact same time that Jihoon had pulled away from him.

“I respect you more than anything or anyone in this whole universe. If you tell me to leave you forever, it will be the most painful thing I’ll ever have to do but I’ll do it because it’s what you want.” Seungcheol looked like he was holding back so desperately. “Is that what you want?”

Jihoon shook his head, his widened eyes holding unshed, angry tears.

“I want us to go back to the way we used to be but neither of those people exist anymore. It’s just us now, Jihoon. I respect you. I’m sorry.” He moved, almost fighting against himself to not hug the smaller boy to himself. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know what to say...” Jihoon sat himself on his bed and looked up. “But I finally hear you. I’m beginning to hear you for you. That’s good enough right now, isn’t it?”

Seungcheol smiled and nodded feverently. His smile made Jihoon fragile. Made him want to try something so incredibly stupid that he’d only be able to regret it when he was laying in bed that night.

“I want to try something.” Jihoon looked up at Seungcheol and beckoned him to stand in front of him. “You told me you wanted to hug me. So hug me.”

The very act of giving permission made the floodgates open.

Seungcheol had immediately swept down and enveloped Jihoon in a gentle hug. He dragged him up until he was on his feet and encased him in such warmth and love that it made Jihoon squeeze his eyes shut. He hesitated to hug back. It was the first time that they had ever touched each other like this.

Jihoon’s face was buried in Seungcheol’s shoulder almost suffocatingly but he was still breathing because he could smell the other’s scent. So unique and beautiful that it had invaded his senses and made him dizzy with lonely hunger. His hands were hovering above his back but within the same second they’d been flattened against him as he gripped at his shirt desperately. He could feel Seungcheol nuzzle his face in his hair.

It was when Jihoon felt wet teardrops fall on his neck and he felt Seungcheol’s very body press against him, shaking with all the weight of the world on his shoulders, that he hugged tighter. He was shaking so badly but he wouldn’t let go. Not for a long time. It was during this that Jihoon thought about what else Seungcheol had said.

“I want to know everything about you.”

He was beginning to think that maybe that was true for him too. He wanted to know about the one who collapsed himself in his arms like a child and cried on his shoulder silently, shaking against his body so tenderly like a withered leaf.

~

He remembered the following year very clearly because it was like he was watching his world spin from underneath a thick sheet of water. His house had been dipped in black coloring; his whole room, the stairs, the dining room. All of it was doused in a deep hell. He’ll remember that time for the rest of his life. When his mother had gathered all of them at the bottom of the stairs and suddenly came out with it. The words that spilled from made no sense. Because she wasn’t crying and she wasn’t sobbing. Her eyes hadn’t even twitched not with anger or remorse or anything that could ever match up with those awful, stitched together, poisonous words.

His father was struck by a car on his way to a meeting and was killed on impact.

His brothers were crying to the left of him as he slipped deep beneath that sheet of water. His mother was looking only at him. Seungcheol wondered then that if his mother was thinking the same thing as him. If she was searching for the same sorrow that he had been looking for just a few seconds earlier. There was nothing. His throat ached, his head screamed at him that he should be feeling something but the man who had died was nothing but blood. He hadn’t seen his father in so long. He caught the tendrils of his scent perhaps once or twice when he was on his way out the door. When he was alone in the house and bored he sometimes smelled his suits or tried on his polished shoes. He was nothing but those tiny things.

He watched everyone around him change. As the year went on he watched his brothers leave out the front door to chase their versions of dreams. When he was the only one left in the house he’d sit at the piano on the first floor and touch each key to try and coax the instrument to speak for him. He hadn’t understood back then that instruments required someone experienced to coerce them into singing. His life had become background music.

He’d been so desperate to feel something that he got girlfriends, he kissed them and showed them his parent’s world. He gave them everything and that’s how he dealt with his lonesome pain.

The next few months he was brought around and shown off. Seungcheol learned many things about music and that was really all he had lost himself in. His mother brought him to shows and they talked as if they were living inside of a perfect painting. No matter how much time had passed, people still gave their condolences concerning his father. Pretty soon, even he tricked himself into being sad about it. He’d chase after his dead father like those tendrils of scent. He’d ask his mother everyday about him but she barely paid any attention to what he asked. As Seungcheol was laying in bed one night he had a thought:

Any father who made himself so sparse that his child had to chase after his simple cologne scent was not a man worth knowing.

Soon after, a strange person had started showing up at their house. Sometimes in the morning and sometimes late in the evenings. It was the summer before everything would begin changing. He was an extremely handsome man. Seungcheol knew because he’d watch him from the second floor as he talked to his mother about the school he was running. He had a feeling that the man knew he was watching him. It was in the way his body relaxed so heavily as if to mock him.

Seungcheol was a smart boy. Though the man stayed for dinner, he never left until the early morning.

When he walked into his mother’s room after a shy knock he observed her as she rubbed lotion on her smooth skin in her vanity mirror. His own reflection was almost pathetic.

“Who is that man to you?”

He posed the question as if he was someone worthy of asking such a thing. He deepened his voice and pulled himself up to his thirteen-year-old height. He tried to act like a man, like one of his brothers. His mother didn’t seem fazed by the question. She didn’t even take her eyes off her skin as she rubbed the cream into her neck.

“He’s the man who will be overseeing your education in the fall, at his academy.”

“My education.”

“That’s right.”

“At his academy?”

“What did I tell you about stupid questions?”

“I’m sorry.”

With that, Seungcheol backed out of the room.

_____