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“……Haha.”
Bunhong swept his hair back with his hand, not caring whether it got dirty or not, laughing with self-derision mixed in.
Why was it Ido, of all people, who opened the door and came in at this moment? No, why had it been him in every moment up until now? He regretted it. Because it was miserable.
Bunhong was the first of the two to speak.
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
Why did he feel alone even when they were together? Harboring such doubts, he slowly parted his lips. Since he felt like his trembling pupils would be caught if their eyes met, he continued speaking with his gaze fixed far away.
“You said you made a song for me, but I’m not in it.”
“…….”
Conversations with Ido were always like that. No matter how much they spoke face to face, it only felt hollow, as if Bunhong alone was delivering a monologue on an empty stage.
Moreover, his own voice, which had become noticeably rougher recently, felt desperate enough to match this current situation, making him think it was prepared just for this stage.
“You said let’s go up together…… but you were always above me.”
He was sick of it. This eye level. The moments when he always had to look up to meet eyes. The unrequited love where he had to stand on tiptoes, being anxious and pitiful.
His toes couldn’t touch the ground, just floating, so it felt like he was alone in midair. It was scary and lonely.
“……”
“If I always have to turn my head for us to meet eyes…….”
So he had to cling even more desperately. Because he needed to plant his feet somewhere. He had hoped that maybe, just once, a hand would reach out to him.
However, the only moment Ido had approached Bunhong first was just once – the day they first slept together.
As Bunhong continued speaking, he bit his lips hard. Looking back, even though Ido had made the first move, he resented why he hadn’t given love.
“In other words, if I don’t look back, it’ll be over forever.”
“…….”
“Hyung never once…… looked at me first.”
And why hadn’t he waited for him? Because Bunhong had always waited for Ido.
He wondered if he had known that.
Even if their walking pace was so different to walk together, if he had just stopped and waited without taking one more step. Just one step. Wherever that was, Bunhong would probably have followed Ido to the end and loved him for life.
Even though he had already seen the end of such pathetic emotions that couldn’t be undone anymore, he wanted at least the memories between them not to be tainted. Though it was a miserable relationship, it was precious memories for him to that extent.
When he thought about it, there weren’t many things he had chosen while living his life. He had always just let his body follow the flow, never living independently.
So, although he was blaming Ido for the end of their relationship, in the end, choosing to love him had been Bunhong’s choice.
Though those feelings had seeped in so quietly that even he could hardly notice them, loving someone was something you couldn’t do without your own will.
Though he was speaking calmly, his heart was gradually closing up firmly.
It was the first time Bunhong had seen Ido looking shaken.
“I…….”
Ido reached out his hand and made a motion as if unconsciously trying to help Bunhong up, but Bunhong rejected it, screaming and pushing him away.
“Don’t touch me!”
And he immediately left that spot and headed to the practice room first.
After barely forcing himself to finish practice, it was dawn.
Remaining alone in the practice room, Bunhong blankly looked at the mirror inside the practice room. Looking at the afterimage reflected there, he muttered weakly.
“Who are you.”
There were things in the world that didn’t work no matter how hard you tried. Even knowing this, thinking this time would be different, he felt stupid for becoming an idol again and repeating this behavior.
“Everyone was making a fuss wanting to look back on their past. Why am I such a fool?”
There might have been plenty of better choices.
‘Even though I pretended to abandon my lingering feelings, I actually wanted to stay by hyung’s side.’
What was so great about that love…… Looking at his phone meaninglessly, he exclaimed at a familiar name he discovered.
“Ah.”
So much time had already passed. The audition program Hanbit was supposed to appear on was already recruiting participants.
‘These people are so desperate.’
While skimming through people’s audition videos, Bunhong suddenly remembered.
The trigger that first made him take Ido into his heart. Unlike himself who was lost, he had admired the clear dream that person seemed to have.
The stars he would be able to see when he reached the heights Ido longed for.
Bunhong let out something like a sigh.
“Why…….”
Because he realized that the longing he had thought belonged only to others also existed within him.
* * *
The next day, the manager who pushed past Bunhong and opened the studio door first covered his mouth with his sleeve, then coughed and spat out curses.
“Jeong Ido, this crazy bastard.”
When Bunhong glanced from behind, thick cigarette smoke was rising.
“Keep smoking without restraint like that and you’ll really die early, you bastard.”
Then Ido, who had been alone immersed in darkness, answered unexpectedly obediently.
“……I was working.”
Without turning around even at the voice calling him, concentrating only on the music equipment in his hand, he slowly moved his mouth and ground out the cigarette he had just been smoking in the ashtray.
The manager sighed and answered.
“Even so, don’t you think about other people?”
At those words, once again, smoke spread from Jeong Ido’s fingertips. And then, just like a flower blooming, it quietly spread out and soon disappeared far away – he watched that trace for a long time.
As if locked in his own world that no one could invade.
“What does it matter?”
It was an infinitely sunken voice, perhaps sobbing with mockery.
“Anyway, everyone can’t do anything without me.”
Hidden exquisitely behind the manager, he seemed not to have noticed yet that Bunhong was inside.
Bunhong crouched down, thinking to quietly just take the sheet music and leave since he didn’t want to get involved in this situation.
“……”
“……”
However, they were eventually caught through each other’s reflections in the glass window of one of the machine equipment Ido was using.
The face of Ido he saw like that had a strange expression. As if he was about to say something like “Why are you here?”
Bunhong said to the manager.
“I’ll go to the car first.”
He went to the car first like that, but those two didn’t come until the car started. Eventually the assistant manager drove to the filming location.
“They said they’d come separately later.”
Before they arrived, the set was already perfectly installed. Having finished preparations first with nothing left to do, Bunhong went up the stairs out of curiosity. He crouched down on top of them.
“……”
He was watching the dazzling lights turning on one by one from below his feet.
The light that devoured darkness was splendid.
‘It’s so bright that even I seem to become blurred.’
Bunhong quietly stretched out his feet, swinging them back and forth. A lighting director passing by recognized Bunhong and said.
“It might be dangerous if you go up there.”
Then Bunhong looked down at the lighting director and greeted him lightly.
“I’ll come down soon.”
It was interesting how looking down from above, the bottom looked like a completely different world. Recalling the lighting director’s warning, Bunhong thought.
‘Is it dangerous?’
Come to think of it, the set he was sitting on shook a little. It seemed scary, but also like he could enjoy this tension, so Bunhong didn’t avoid it.
‘I’m so unstable right now, but everyone else seems to live as if nothing’s wrong.’
He was just lost in thought watching the people passing by below. He was curious how they could do that. Looking from above, it seemed like everyone except himself was living just fine, buried in their daily lives.
‘I must be the strange one.’
He felt frustrated. Even though there was nothing touching his back, Bunhong tilted his head back and gradually laid his body down.
Wondering if it would look a little different upside down – he had childish imaginings. Up began to change to down, down to up, and he felt a strange satisfaction in a world where everything was turned upside down.
“Kim Bunhong! Come down right now!!”
At the manager’s scream – when had he arrived – Bunhong smiled mischievously.
“I understand.”
As he smiled brightly while hanging upside down, the manager looked furious.
“These guys taking turns making people’s insides……”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
