The moment he stepped back and saw the five Abyss members standing side by side, including Cha Hohyeon, he realized the identity of the strange sense of déjà vu he’d been feeling.
Those five suited each other so well.
Anyone could see they dressed alike as if they were the same group, cared for each other, and being together didn’t seem strange at all. And he realized the truth.
The fact that he couldn’t perform on stage with Cha Hohyeon as part of the same group.
Abyss would probably synchronize their choreography as five people, sing together, have meetings together, stand on stage, and hold concerts just like Fort had done. When he thought about it, he envied the Abyss members who could stand shoulder to shoulder with Cha Hohyeon.
“I just wanted you to stay alive.”
When I said I just wanted you to stay alive, now I’m asking you to stay by my side. Even as I felt disgusted with my selfish self, on the other hand, I felt so sad that I could never get back those past moments. It wasn’t bad for Cha Hohyeon to make a fresh start as Ka Jerim.
But what about us who are left behind?
It felt like Cha Hohyeon was severing his relationship with Fort and leaving, making me feel hurt even over trivial things and having all sorts of thoughts.
But if I show this anxiety to Cha Hohyeon, given his kind nature, it’s obvious he’ll try to accommodate me somehow. Because I don’t want to see that, I’m trying my best to endure it…… but I can’t help but feel troubled.
When Go Yoon was lost in thought, inhaling the acrid smoke with his eyes closed while leaning quietly against the wall, he opened his eyes with a start at the sound of the door opening. The person at the counter had definitely said people rarely come to the smoking room upstairs. Wondering who it was, he opened his closed eyes and widened them when he confirmed who it was.
“……You.”
“Hyung, that’s burning out. Hurry.”
It was Jerim.
As soon as he entered, he pointed at Go Yoon’s cigarette that was burning down quickly, and Go Yoon hastily stubbed out the cigarette at Jerim’s words and quickly flicked the butt into the ashtray.
“Cough, cough—”
“Let’s go out. The cigarette smell is bad for you.”
Go Yoon, who had been standing there dazed after putting out the cigarette, belatedly came to his senses seeing Jerim cough and hurriedly got Jerim out of the smoking room. Go Yoon followed him out and stood alongside Jerim inside the balcony.
“Why did you come?”
Hearing Go Yoon’s words, Jerim pressed his lips into a line and tried to bow his head, but Go Yoon quickly reached out and caught Jerim’s forehead with a tap from below to above as he tried to lower his head, preventing him from doing so.
Go Yoon, who had hastily grabbed his head, cast a reproachful look at Jerim.
“You hurt your back, how can you bow your head?”
“……Ah, right.”
After properly lifting Jerim’s head back up, Go Yoon playfully ruffled his purple hair with his hand and pulled away. When Jerim sniffed at the sharp smell of cigarettes coming from Go Yoon who was rubbing his hair, Go Yoon stepped back and frowned.
“Does it smell? I left the deodorizer in the car…… Should I stay a bit farther away?”
“No. It’s fine!”
Go Yoon said this to be considerate of him who had terribly hated the smell of cigarettes, but Jerim shook his head saying it was okay.
Silence flowed between them, and Go Yoon just quietly waited for Jerim to speak first.
“Hyung.”
“Yeah.”
At the answer that came immediately without delay, Jerim blinked apologetically and said,
“You were hurt, weren’t you?”
As expected, he seemed to have sensed his state.
Go Yoon thought about whether the emotions he had just felt could be simply expressed as being hurt. It was a more profound and complex feeling than the word “hurt.”
Watching Cha Hohyeon, with whom he had spent several years,活动 in a different group, and watching those members try to care for him more attentively than himself who had known him for years…… it didn’t end with just being hurt.
“I wonder.”
When Go Yoon said he wasn’t sure, Jerim stared at him blankly and fidgeted with his fingertips.
‘It’s nice that there are five of you.’
When he heard those words, he was in the corner of the elevator and didn’t have time to see Go Yoon’s face in detail. But the loneliness and solitude seeping through the end of those words struck so terribly that it felt suffocating.
He had come up to talk a bit about that, but now that he was up here, Go Yoon was giving off an atmosphere that he didn’t particularly want to talk about it, so Jerim closed his mouth and brought up what he hadn’t been able to say properly earlier.
“And about getting hurt…… I couldn’t bring myself to tell you properly because I was afraid you’d worry too much.”
“……”
“You know. Because making people worry is what I hate most in the world. I’m sorry for lying, which you really hate. But I……”
Even while speaking, Jerim carefully chose his words over and over again. Go Yoon quietly watched him.
Before he knew it, Jerim’s voice, trying to explain as much as possible using clumsy gestures, grew distantly far from him. Only Jerim’s face filled his vision as all the noise completely disappeared.
Jerim and Cha Hohyeon.
The two’s appearances didn’t resemble each other in any corner, but everything from their words to actions was Cha Hohyeon himself. Go Yoon, who had been persistently looking for Cha Hohyeon in Jerim, grabbed his arm as if to tell Jerim, who was rambling on trying to appease his anger, not to say any more.
“Cha Hohyeon.”
Having been called ‘Jerim-ah’ all day and now being called ‘Cha Hohyeon,’ Jerim somehow felt strangely choked up and stopped what he was saying. And as if knowing his heart, Go Yoon called Cha Hohyeon’s name once more.
“Hohyeon-ah.”
“……Yes.”
Go Yoon smiled slightly at Jerim who barely managed to answer and continued speaking.
“While we weren’t seeing each other.”
He could proudly say he knew everything about Cha Hohyeon because he had lived with him for such a long time. That was true not only for Cha Hohyeon but also for the members of the same group. Because they all had spent more time together than with family, they were special to each other and knew each other that well. But.
“I was scared that the parts of you I don’t know keep increasing.”
“……”
“That you might not be you.”
I was scared.
A completely different face, a different group, and the more he saw different aspects of the member he had been most confident he knew best in the world, whenever the thought came that Jerim might not be Cha Hohyeon, Go Yoon found it hard to endure the fear that crept up eerily.
“Hyung, this is.”
And hearing Go Yoon’s words, Jerim opened his mouth with a shocked face. It was too shocking for the only person in the world who truly knew him to say he couldn’t believe in him.
If Go Yoon no longer believed he was Cha Hohyeon, he would never be able to be called by the name ‘Cha Hohyeon’ again. And just imagining that was too terrible and frightening.
Whether or not Go Yoon knew what Jerim was thinking, he quietly looked at Jerim before turning his gaze to the window to stare at the rain that had been falling little by little since who knows when. The rain continued to fall, drizzling and giving off a gloomy atmosphere, and perhaps because of the rain, his mood seemed particularly more depressed.
“It’s raining.”
When Go Yoon spoke while staring at the falling rain, Jerim also turned his gaze to look outside. The sound of rain filled the silence, and Go Yoon watched the gradually intensifying rain before turning his gaze to look straight at Jerim.
“Do you know your habits?”
At the unexpected words, Jerim tilted his head.
“When you put down chopsticks, you place them on top of the bowl, and you notice like a ghost when I’m in a bad mood…… What else was there. When you’re surprised, your fingers flinch before your face reacts? And you tilt your head slightly when I talk.”
“I do?”
When Jerim’s eyes widened as if hearing this for the first time, Go Yoon burst into laughter.
“All the members know except you. You usually have the least awareness, but you notice really quickly when we’re in a bad mood.”
“Ah.”
“Anyway, watching these habits of yours, what I felt was.”
Even now, his fingers were flinching.
And seeing that, I discover you in your trivial habits and feel happy.
“Even if your name has changed, your body is different, your voice has changed, and you’re in a different group from us.”
Cha Hohyeon who was tall, Cha Hohyeon who liked to hug his hyungs from behind with his large build. But as his appearance changed and his living environment became different, those habits would disappear or change in the future.
It’s a bit sad that the color of your habits dyed by me seems to be fading.
“You’re still Cha Hohyeon.”
Go Yoon felt his thoughts, which hadn’t been organized until just now, becoming organized through their conversation. Change would be impossible to stop no matter what, and the reality was that he couldn’t stand shoulder to shoulder with Cha Hohyeon.
There was only one thing he could do here.
“So don’t change too quickly until I catch up.”
Running quickly to catch up with the changing Cha Hohyeon.
“I wish Hohyeon’s running was a bit slower.”
He thought he shouldn’t look for the past Cha Hohyeon anymore and impose it on the current Jerim, who is Cha Hohyeon. Instead, he would catch up with the present. Rather than feeling hurt watching the changing Cha Hohyeon like this, catching up with and accepting that change would be the best he could do right now.
Jerim honestly didn’t completely understand what Go Yoon was saying, but he could know just that one thing. That he would stop continuously looking for the past Cha Hohyeon and support the current Cha Hohyeon, who is Jerim. That was both very sad and grateful.
