[Hohyeon-ah, I miss you. Is it so good there that you don’t even appear in my dreams? There are many voices, photos, and videos you left behind, so I can look them up if I want to. But it feels strange. You’ve left so many things behind, but I can’t have a conversation with you, I can’t hug you.
December twenty-one, Cha Hohyeon.
You’re eternally stopped at that time, aren’t you? You said you were born in winter and especially liked winter, so I guess you’re happy to stay in winter for life now. Even if you like it, still, couldn’t you have gone a little later and blown out the candle on your cake?
How was your birthday in heaven? Our Hohyeon likes cake, so did the angels take good care of the cake? You’ll be loved so much there too. If hyung wants to see you, I’ll have to live well and go to heaven.
Hohyeon-ah. We were going to disband, but Yoon said let’s sing. He said let’s try our best to reach you by singing to you, so we’re going to try too. So please listen to our songs there and wait for us.
Hyung has so much to say, but when I try to write like this, only tears come out so I can’t write…… Hyung will live a long time until black hair becomes white roots! If I go there then, don’t tease me for having white hair ㅋㅋ!
I love you. More than words can express.]
Even Ha Moon hyung.
Like this, if I just think other thoughts for a moment, they draw countless moments in my memory. First the suffering of them because of me, then even memories of all of us together in the happy past rose up before my eyes like illusions.
“Please stop appearing.”
I pulled my body back, slipped, and fell on the floor. Perhaps because I hadn’t eaten properly, I got dizzy on the slippery bathroom floor and grabbed my head for a moment, then when I raised my head, the incandescent light looked blurry. And that blurry incandescent light.
“Let’s just stop now……”
Drew an illusion like a flash bursting before my eyes.
Bright flash baptism bursting in front of my portrait photo, and the hyungs who said there’s nothing more embarrassing than crying in front of others burst into tears unable to properly hide with nowhere to hide in front of countless cameras—recalling that, even knowing it was a hallucination, I didn’t have the confidence to look at it properly so I squeezed my eyes shut.
“I want to forget. So don’t appear anymore.”
Let’s try to forget, isn’t it time to stop now—I pleaded and begged my memories, but actually—
“I’m scared.”
I was scared.
While wanting to forget, I was too afraid of actually forgetting, so in the end I turned back, and turned, and turned again.
For 5 years we were so happy, and memories including not just the 5 years after debut but trainee life flooded me like a tide. In the end, I couldn’t easily push away Cha Hohyeon and Fort who had been too happy.
“I wish there were only bad memories. Why did you make me so happy?”
It wasn’t that I was happy because Cha Hohyeon’s happy memories remained for me, Ka Jerim.
“What do I do if you make it so I can’t forget? I need to forget, but what do I do if I don’t want to forget……”
I was unhappy.
The times we laughed, cried, and made noise together were too many.
When I erased one, another appeared. When I erased that one, other memories rose vividly to the surface as if to show off, so I couldn’t bring myself to erase them.
“I can’t do it. I’m really struggling.”
If even forgetting is this hard, how should I live from now on?
The memories with them made my resolution to cut ties with the hyungs meaningless, so after sitting on the bathroom floor and bursting into tears for a long time, I staggered and got up.
And I stared at the mirror.
Bright red eyes, and a tired face was staring at the mirror. Blinking slowly, I clasped both hands together as if praying.
“Just once……”
So this is the last time.
After this time, I’ll truly forget everything. No matter how happy our memories are and how unforgettable, I’ll forget.
“Just one last time, I’ll remain as Cha Hohyeon.”
I gave myself a reprieve. If I speak the fact that I’m Cha Hohyeon for the last time and Juno hyung believes I’m Cha Hohyeon, I won’t erase Cha Hohyeon and Fort. However, if Juno hyung denies me again, I’ll kill Cha Hohyeon’s life to turn away from my pain, and I’ll abandon Fort.
“If it doesn’t work, I can just die. It’s okay.”
Still, if I can’t kill Cha Hohyeon’s life again like this time and can’t forget Fort, I’ll disappear from the world once more. Because I thought it would be better to disappear forever and feel nothing rather than being in pain again like this because I can’t abandon Cha Hohyeon.
Actually, death was too frightening. But if I had to experience this pain throughout my life, this was hell and suffering worse than death.
I hurriedly stopped thinking about death as I was about to fall into endlessly dark thoughts, and thought of a way to tell Juno hyung that I’m Cha Hohyeon. When I was thinking blankly for a while, I finally recalled the promise I made with Juno hyung in my previous life and hurriedly looked for my phone.
“Is there battery?”
I went to the studio and finally found the phone that had been turned off and neglected for a long time, and turned it on. As the phone turned on and delayed contacts came in, I checked the date on the screen and confirmed that exactly two days remained until my meeting with Juno hyung, then immediately started working.
Outwardly it just looked like working on a song in the studio, but this work wasn’t work as Abyss’s Ka Jerim. It was leaving a last song as Cha Hohyeon.
Like that, for two days I didn’t have a single useless thought for even one minute and focused only on song work. I kept playing and revising, playing and revising so that various instruments tangled in a mess could achieve harmony.
I completed the Intro and sang the guideline with a voice that didn’t come out well because it was hoarse.
I completed the Title and sang the guideline clutching my painful throat.
I completed the Outro, and because my throat condition was serious and I couldn’t sing the high range at all, I sang it in a low tone entirely then raised the key.
[Album]
0, 1, 2.
“……It’s done.”
Intro, Title, Outro
Despite being a shabby album with only three songs total, relief that I finished on time made tears burst out. During the work, anxiety and nervousness rushed in at the tight time causing stress and difficulty, but I was grateful to my body for ultimately holding onto consciousness, completing it, and enduring until the end.
I finally named each track, then transferred the version containing the guideline, the original song, and even the program files to a USB.
“Five hours.”
With five hours left until the appointment time, the USB containing the completed file was finally in my hand. After staring blankly at my completed work for a moment, I took out a name pen and started writing on the USB.
“For……”
The fatigue that had accumulated all this time rushed over me like a tidal wave in an instant as tension released, making my arms tremble and my eyelids heavy. Trying to come to my senses, I forcefully stiffened my body to write, but it felt like forcibly winding the spring of a completely broken doll. Using my creaking body, I wrote carefully letter by letter with trembling hands when suddenly my vision became blurry.
Drip—drop—
At that moment, blood dripped from my nose, but worried it might touch the USB, I hastily grabbed my nose and continued writing what I had been writing.
“Di, n, o……”
The nosebleed didn’t stop and kept flowing down. I grabbed my nose with my other hand to try to stop it from flowing between my hands, but uselessly the nosebleed dripped onto the desk. My face was probably a hideous bloody mess.
Yet I burst into laughter. I cried and laughed for a long time like that, looking at the USB alone, not knowing what was so funny. Looking at my face reflected in the studio glass, my condition was so bad I should go to the hospital right away, but even seeing such an appearance, I just laughed.
“Is this me?”
A person messed up beyond recognition, not knowing where to start fixing, was looking at me, but I was happy even though I couldn’t find even a hair of the old Cha Hohyeon’s appearance.
“No matter where I look, I’m not there.”
If I fail this time, looking at this face, it seemed like the plan to kill everything of Cha Hohyeon inside me could be kept. So I was happy. In the old days I was afraid of disappearing, but now I’m happy because I can live by disappearing. This fact was truly ironic and bizarre.
A tall body that would never be thin because I rather liked eating. And Cha Hohyeon who always had a playful smile hanging on the corners of his lips, and Ka Jerim in the mirror now. These two, especially looking at the current appearance, didn’t resemble each other in any way, so it was fortunate that it seemed I could erase them more easily.
“……What I want to say.”
I stopped idle thoughts and closed my eyes, carefully recalling in my head the words I would deliver together with this USB when I go to meet Juno hyung.
The result of my last struggle.
“I hope it still remains.”
Please, may the moment I kill myself not come.
Like that, I clasped both hands and prayed.
* * *
“Go Yoon. Why can’t I reach you?”
“CEO-nim.”
Go Yoon, who had finished practice, met the CEO in the hallway. Seeing Go Yoon coming out of the practice room, the CEO smiled with satisfaction.
“It’s good to see you practicing hard. What about the other members?”
“They went home first……”
“Really? Ah, by the way, is your activity this time starting torn apart?”
Hearing those words, Go Yoon stopped treating the CEO with an indifferent expression, raised his head straight, and stared at the CEO.
