Chapter Text
There were three boys standing in Sunoo’s garage.
The first thing that Sunoo noticed was that they were very, very, cute. The next thing he realized was that they most definitely were not real, given the fact that they had just materialized out of nowhere in front of his very eyes.
He wondered if this was one of the side effects of grief Dr. Shin had talked to him about. He had been missing his mom, sure, and most nights he dealt with it by eating pints of ice cream with his dad while bawling his eyes out to some heartfelt rom-com. Hallucinations, though? That was new.
Sunoo squeezed his eyes shut. He pinched his arm. Wake up, wake up.
When he opened his eyes, the three phantoms would be gone, and Sunoo would wake up in his bed and realize that his whole day up until now had been a dream.
He took a deep breath, and opened his eyes.
Eight hours earlier
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound of his blaring alarm pulled Sunoo out of the dream he had been having. He groaned, flopping over to stare at the ceiling. It had been a good dream.
He had been in the garage with his mother, the garage that functioned as her music studio. His father had sold his car years and years ago and started taking the bus to work, insisting that it was the more eco-friendly option. Sunoo suspected he just wanted to give the space to her.
They’d been sitting side by side at the piano, Sunoo sightreading the chords she’d scrawled on a piece of paper for him, while she sang in her high, clear voice. His mother had always written the most beautiful songs. He wanted to sing with her forever.
He hadn’t sang at all since she died.
Sunoo’s phone buzzed with a text from Jungwon. He checked it, and his heart dropped. Speaking of not singing for over a year, his friend had just reminded him that today was his last chance to re-audition and save his seat in the music program.
They’d been lenient with him for as long as they could, but even he understood that there was no space in the music program for someone who didn’t make music anymore.
Today could go one of two ways: he’d magically find his voice and blow everyone away, securing his spot, or he would choke in front of everyone. Despite wanting to be optimistic, he knew the latter possibility was highly more likely.
He sighed and swung his feet over the edge of his bed and began getting ready for school. Today was going to be an eventful day, for better or for worse.
—
“Seriously? Park Sunghoon still?”
“Can’t a boy dream?” Sunoo sighed hopelessly. Sunghoon’s locker was just ten or so down from his, close enough to stare, but far enough away that it wasn’t obvious. Of course the downside was that he got a full view of Sunghoon’s boyfriend as well.
Jungwon clicked his tongue in dissaproval. “Worry your pretty little head about keeping your spot in the music program first, then you can daydream about boys you’ll never have.”
“Have you so little faith in me?” Sunoo pouted.
“I have faith in the fact that he and Jake are definitely gonna get married and have a litter of children.”
Sunoo wrinkled his nose. “Ugh, don’t put the image of Jakehoon babies in my head.”
“Don’t ever say Jakehoon again,” Jungwon shuddered. “Ship names are so cringey.”
Sunoo snorted. “You literally tweeted ‘Name a more iconic duo than Sunwon’ just last night.”
Jungwon swung an arm over his shoulders, pulling him around so that their backs were now turned on the school’s most popular couple. “We are the exception, Ddeonu, not the rule,” he stated. “What’s so special about him anyway? I mean, sure he’s eye candy but…”
“Sunghoon is a sweetheart,” Sunoo protested.
Jungwon raised an eyebrow at him. “And you know this from all the riveting conversations you’ve had together,” he said dryly.
“He’s a talented cellist?” Sunoo tried.
“Well if you want to continue seeing his cute ass playing the cello everyday, you need to save your cute ass from getting kicked out of the program,” Jungwon said, swatting him on the butt.
“Wonie!” Sunoo reprimanded, scandalized.
“What?” The boy asked innocently. He grinned. “You got this, Sun. Go get em, tiger.”
—
The last ringing notes of the cello faded away, and Sunghoon stood up with a bow. Sunoo clapped enthusiastically, even as the butterflies in his stomach grew into a full on swarm.
“Wonderful as always, Sunghoon-ssi. And up next, we have… Kim Sunoo?”
Everyone’s heads turned towards him in curious expectation. He gulped, and stood up from his chair, sheet music in hand. The papers rustled as they shook in his trembling grasp. As Sunghoon passed by him to retake his seat, he smiled at Sunoo in acknowledgment. It did nothing to soothe his nerves.
He slowly took a seat at the piano. He propped the music up on the stand, then stared down at the keyboard. His mind was a flurry of thoughts, yet he felt like he was blanking. What was he doing here? How could he have even thought to try? He hadn’t even practiced in a year. He was a joke.
He stood up abruptly, the bench screeching painfully on the linoleum floor. “I’m sorry,” he said to his teacher. She looked at him sorrowfully. They both knew that this was the last chance she could give him. He fled the room.
Jungwon buried his face in his hands. Park Sunghoon stared after him, a small, worried frown on his face.
—
“Sunoo.”
Sunoo looked up from where he’d been poking mindlessly at his food, the debacle of earlier still playing in his head in a mortifying loop. “Hmm?” He mumbled distractedly.
His father cleared his throat awkwardly, which Sunoo recognized as a telltale sign that he was about to touch on an uncomfortable subject. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “There’s a lot of… clutter, in the garage,” he phrased carefully. “I thought it would be a good idea to clean it up a bit, maybe move some stuff up to the attic.”
Sunoo nodded slowly, wondering where he was going with this. Was he trying to ask for Sunoo’s permission?
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” his father continued. “I thought it would be a good idea for you to do it—” Sunoo froze, “It could be a healing process even,” he said hopefully. Sunoo looked down at the table.
He hadn’t been in the studio in a year. He hadn’t taken even a step inside, or touched anything since his mother died. That included the piano, which was why he had failed so spectacularly today. But his father seemed so optimistic that he couldn’t say no. And if the studio was going to be cleaned out either way, he preferred it to be done by him.
“Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll take a look.”
His father’s face split into a grin and he reached over to ruffle Sunoo’s hair. “That’s my boy,” he said proudly. Sunoo wondered how quickly that proud look would slip off his face once he found out that Sunoo had lost his place in the music program today.
Sunoo grabbed the rusted handles of the double doors that had gone unopened for so long. They gave way with a loud, creaking groan, and the studio was finally revealed to him once again, like greeting an old friend.
He stepped inside apprehensively. It felt familiar and strange all at once. Familiar, because he had practically grown up here, and strange because it felt so empty. So lifeless.
He scanned the area, taking into account all the things he remembered. There was the grand piano, pushed against one side of the large room. Next to it was the drum set, now coated in a thick layer of dust. On the opposite side was a long couch and table, where Sunoo’s mother would often find him dozing after falling asleep in here by accident.
Guitars, both electric and acoustic hung from the walls like brightly painted trophies, and sheet music littered every flat surface. Sunoo sneezed. He really had to dust the place.
His eyes watered, and it took him a moment to realize it wasn’t a reaction to the mustiness of the room. “Mom,” he said out loud. His voice wobbled. “Are you here?”
Silence- of course she wasn’t. The place was abandoned, empty. But part of him still hoped that her spirit was lurking around here somewhere, that she was still living in the lines of the sheet music and in the steel strings of the guitars. He would sit down at the piano and press his fingers to the keys, and she would appear beside him, singing softly and weaving her voice with his, just like they’d always done. It was a nice dream to have.
“If you’re here,” he choked out, “send me a sign.”
He waited. Nothing happened. His mother didn’t appear. He didn’t hear the faint sound of her voice calling to him from the distance. No heavenly light shone down on him with a message from her.
He was disappointed, but not surprised. Things like “signs” didn’t happen in real life. Once people were gone, they were gone. Whatever connection this room had that tied him to his mother had been severed, snapped like the broken string of a violin.
The studio was crowded with heaps upon heaps of cardboard boxes, all filled to the brim with assorted stuff. That was new. He assumed his father had gathered everything and organized it into containers, but had yet to sort or move it anywhere. That job was apparently up to him now.
With a sigh, Sunoo made his way over to the couch, collapsing onto it. The regret came immediately as a cloud of dust billowed up around him. He gagged, struggling to hack the particles back up out of his lungs.
He started with the nearest box, the one sitting right on the table in front of him. He pulled it closer and looked inside. The first thing he noticed, sitting at the very top, was yet another cluster of sheet music. He shuffled it into a neat pile and set it aside.
The next two things caught his attention. There was a white t-shirt, a size too big for him, and it looked completely plain. On closer inspection however, there was something written on the back, two letters.
EN-
Sunoo squinted, trying to make sense of it, then shook his head, and that too, he tossed aside. The other thing was a CD. It was in a blank case, and when he opened it up, the CD itself had no label either, just a pretty gradient print that reminded him of the sky at dusk.
He looked at it curiously. Because he figured he might as well have some background music while he cleaned, he stood up and popped it into the CD player, pressing play. The sound of a string instrument— maybe a harp?— started playing, and Sunoo’s ears perked up. It was a nice hook.
~Wake up in day, one~
Sunoo closed his eyes and listened. He didn’t know why his mother had the CD of some random band, but their lead singer’s voice was stunning. He relaxed and gave himself in to the music.
Suddenly, he heard a noise that was definitely not part of the song. It sounded like faint screaming, and as Sunoo listened it grew louder and louder, like it was coming closer.
He flung his eyes open just as three boys materialized out of thin air and flopped onto the floor like dead fish. They rolled around, groaning.
Sunoo stared, wide eyed. He closed his eyes, willing himself to wake up. But when he opened them, they were still there.
The three apparitions pulled each other to their feet with a huff, straightening their clothes, which consisted of ripped jeans and muscle tanks and leather jackets. The tallest one had shaggy black hair, while the two others were bleached, one an ashy blonde, the other a platinum dyed undercut. Silver chains dangled from their belt loops and from around their necks.
They looked like they’d teleported straight from the aisle of a Hot Topic into Sunoo’s garage.
Platinum Undercut was the first one to notice Sunoo sitting there, and he looked at him in surprise, as if he wasn’t the one who had just fallen from the sky. The eye contact was what finally jolted Sunoo to his senses and he let out a shrill scream.
“AHHHHHH!!!” Platinum screamed back at him. Ash Blonde and the black-haired boy winced and covered their ears as Sunoo and their companion yelled in each other’s faces for a good thirty seconds.
Sunoo tried to scramble backwards, but the backs of his knees hit the couch and he collapsed into another cloud of dust. The intruders looked at him in curiosity as he started coughing furiously, holding his fingers up in the shape of a cross.
“What are you doing in our studio?” Platinum asked, looking extremely casual for someone who had just been shrieking at such a high pitch that dogs all over the neighborhood had turned their heads.
“Your studio?! This is my mom’s studio,” Sunoo exclaimed around coughs.
“Ahhh,” the black-haired one said, a look of understanding dawning on his face. “Well, our band uses this place to practice sometimes,” he explained. He stepped forward with his hand held out. “I’m Heeseung by the way.”
Sunoo shoved his finger cross in his face, and Heeseung flinched back, his hands held up in surrender. “What the hell do you mean you practice here? Nobody has been here in over a year,” Sunoo spluttered. Nothing about this situation was making sense right now.
“Hyung, maybe we should formally introduce ourselves,” Ash Blonde said, nudging Heeseung. The boy nodded.
“One, two,” he counted off, “We are… Enhypen!” All three shouted in unison.
“Bless you,” Sunoo said.
“No!” Platinum cried. “Enhypen is the name of our band. I’m Jay, the best guitarist in the world,” he said with a grin.
“You’re not even the best guitarist in Enhypen,” Ash Blonde snorted. Jay smacked him, and gave him a pointed look. “Niki,” the boy mumbled his introduction with a roll of his eyes. “Drummer.”
Sunoo let out a loud groan. “Why do I need to learn your names if you’re not even real?”
“Excuse me?” Jay said, looking affronted.
“We are real,” Heeseung insisted. “We’re just dead.” He scrunched his brows together. “It is strange that you can see us though. Are you a ghost whisperer or something?”
“Dead?!” Sunoo shrieked.
“We died last night,” Jay informed him.
“W-What happened?” Sunoo questioned, wondering why he was even entertaining that any of this could be plausible. He whipped out his phone and began typing in a panic.
“Well see, we don’t really remember,” Niki said, “but I suspect that Jay finally annoyed us all to death.”
“It says here you were in a car crash,” Sunoo said, staring at the headline that had popped up. So they were a real band after all. He had only found one obscure article detailing the incident, and there was no follow up story. But there it was, their band name, and an accompanying photo of three faces which perfectly matched the people in front of him. He could hardly believe it.
“Ah that makes more sense.”
“But you didn’t die last night,” Sunoo continued, “this article was written three years ago.”
“What?! Three years ago?” Jay exclaimed. “But we were just about to perform last night…” He trailed off, his face pinched as he tried to figure out just what had happened.
“Well three years have passed since your “last night,’” Sunoo said apologetically. “It’s 2021.” All three boys’ jaws dropped. “Look,” he sighed. “I’m really sorry about what happened to you, but you need to leave.”
“Leave?” Niki said forlornly. “We have nowhere else to go.”
“This place means a lot to us,” Heeseung said, presenting Sunoo with puppy dog eyes that almost had an effect on him.
Sunoo’s mouth twisted bitterly. “Yeah well, it means a lot to me too.” He cast his eyes up to the ceiling. “I asked my mom for a sign,” he said in disbelief. “And instead I get sent three punk rock himbos?”
“What’s a himbo?” Jay asked curiously.
Niki pointed to something propped up against one of the walls. “That.”
Jay looked at it and frowned. “That’s a mirror,” he said uncomprehendingly.
Heeseung looked at Sunoo in exasperation. “He’s good at guitar,” he explained.
“I’m sure,” Sunoo replied dryly.
“Look, Sunoo-ssi,” Heeseung addressed him. In his ongoing daze, Sunoo failed to notice that the ghost somehow knew his name. “We’ll clear out soon. Just… can we have a moment to say goodbye?”
Sunoo bit his lip, then nodded. “You have until tomorrow,” he said. He pointed a finger at them in warning. “Just don’t break anything.”
“I don’t know if that’s even possible,” Jay informed him cheerfully.
Sunoo rolled his eyes and slowly backed out of the garage. “This is so freaking weird,” he muttered to himself, still not entirely convinced he wasn’t dreaming. He glanced back one last time at the ghost band. Jay gave him a little wave, Heeseung smiled at him, and Niki was already off inspecting the drum set in fascination.
Sunoo shut the door.
“Did you have a productive cleaning session?” His dad asked him when he stepped back into the house.
“Yeah,” Sunoo grumbled. “Real productive.” He paused. “Dad,” he said. “Have you heard of a band called Enhypen?”
His father frowned. “Enhypen? It sounds familiar. I don’t know. What are some of their songs?”
Sunoo opened his mouth to say that truthfully he had no idea either, when the sound of loud rock music suddenly came blasting from the direction of the garage. He froze.
“What the hell is that noise?” His dad blurted.
“I was playing some music on the speakers, I must have forgotten to turn it off,” Sunoo stuttered frantically. “I’ll go do that right now.” He dashed back out the front door towards the studio, not bothering to see if his father had bought his half-assed excuse or not.
He flung the garage door open with a bang. “Are you out of your goddamn minds?!!”
Three heads turned towards him in unison, and the music stopped. Heeseung and Jay muted the strings of their instruments, and Niki froze with his drumsticks hanging in the air.
“Do you realize the whole neighborhood can hear you?” Sunoo cried.
Heeseung frowned. “People can… hear us?”
“Yeah, that’s generally what happens when you’re banging on the drums loud enough to wake the dead,” he retorted. He realized something. “How are you doing that anyway?”
Niki shrugged. “These are our instruments. I guess we can touch whatever is ours.”
Heeseung clutched at his bass guitar, something like mounting excitement in his eyes. “Do any of you realize what this means?” He asked them.
“That Sunoo wants us to shut up?” Jay suggested.
“No,” Heeseung said exasperatedly.
“Yes,” Sunoo interjected.
“It means we can still play music,” the bassist carried on. “We can make music, and people can hear it.” He grinned, a giddy smile that took up half of his face. He really is cute. Sunoo quickly knocked the intrusive thought out of his mind. “We may be dead, but Enhypen isn’t.”
Silence fell over all of them, as Jay and Niki fell into contemplative shock.
“I need some air,” Sunoo mumbled, suddenly feeling lightheaded. He stumbled out of the garage in a trance.
He didn’t want to rain on their parade, but he couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t fair. Why did they get to come back as ghosts, and be able to touch their instruments? Why not his mother? He leaned against the wooden fence of his yard, sucking in deep breaths.
“She talks about you a lot you know.”
Sunoo jumped in surprise, not noticing that Heeseung had snuck up behind him. He cocked his head in question. “Your mother,” the boy explained. “She mentions her son Sunoo all the time. I assume you’re him.”
Sunoo nodded, too shocked to speak. Heeseung smiled warmly. “She’s an incredibly talented songwriter. She inspires me — all of us actually.”
“Was,” Sunoo said quietly. “She was.” Heeseung looked at him in question. “She passed away.”
Heeseung’s face fell. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry,” he whispered. Sunoo would have said that there was no need for the forced words of comfort, but something about the boy’s expression told him that he was belatedly mourning the loss of his mother too. He wondered what connection she had with these three strangers.
“How did you know my mother? How did you use our studio?” He asked.
Heeseung sighed, and joined him in resting his chin on the fence. He had a faraway look on his face as he slipped into a state of recollection. “She found us playing at some lame gig one night,” he said in a soft voice, lost in memory. “It was the only one we could manage to book, and we were desperate, especially since I…” He cleared his throat.
“Anyway, I guess she really liked our set and she told us not to give up our passion for music. Honestly, that night was our last hope. Hardly anyone showed up, nobody was listening to us— we probably wouldn’t have continued on if we hadn’t met her.” Sunoo listened intently, fascinated by any story about his mother that he didn’t already know.
“She gave us her business card and told us if we ever needed a place to practice, this studio was open to us. We took her up on the offer, and she basically became our mentor.”
Sunoo took a moment to absorb this information. “If you were coming over all the time, how come we never crossed paths before?” He wondered. Heeseung looked at him.
There was something about Heeseung’s face that was so open and honest, that Sunoo couldn’t help but stare. It was late in the evening now and darkness had already fallen over the yard, leaving them illuminated only in the dim glow offered by the full moon. It reflected off of Heeseung’s gleaming hair and intense eyes, and Sunoo thought in that moment, the boy looked more like an angel than a ghost.
“We’ve crossed paths now,” Heeseung said huskily.
“So we have,” Sunoo replied in a hushed voice. He looked away, unable to maintain eye contact anymore. His heart was beating erratically in his chest, and like everything else that had happened today, he had no explanation for it. He licked his lips. “If you guys have nowhere else to go,” he said, “you can— you can stay here.”
He hesitantly looked back at Heeseung to see the boy still staring at him intensely, this time with immense gratitude etched onto his face. “Thank you, Sunoo,” he said in earnest. Sunoo nodded awkwardly.
“Well, I should,” he ran a hand through his hair in nervous habit, “I should call it a night,” he said. Heeseung nodded. “Well. Good night.” He turned to leave.
“Sunoo.”
Sunoo whipped back around. “Hm?”
“There was sheet music for a song on the coffee table,” Heeseung told him. Sunoo remembered the stack of paper he had set aside after opening the box. “I took a closer look and it’s from your mom. Addressed to you. I thought you should know.”
Sunoo sucked in a breath. He wondered how he had missed that. “Thank you,” he said to Heeseung genuinely.
The ghost smiled at him. “Of course.”
The next morning, Sunoo woke up earlier than he usually would, even for a school day. He headed outside to the garage with mounting trepidation.
The sheet music was on the coffee table like Heeseung had said, right where he left it. He picked it up, and finally inspected it closely.
To Sunoo-ah,
Let your voice be heard. I’m always here, listening to you.
Love, mom
He breathed deeply, holding back the tears that threatened to spill over. He made his way over to the piano, still covered in a white sheet. He swept it off carefully, having learned his lesson, and brushed off as much dust as he could in small movements, so that it wouldn’t fly up into his face.
Somehow, placing his hands on the keys of this piano felt easier. This piano wasn’t a stranger to him like the one in the music room at school was. This piano had grown up with him, sang with him, laughed with him, cried with him. After his mother was gone, the sight of this piano had broken him down into pieces, and maybe now it would put him back together again.
With his eyes following the notes his mother had meticulously penned for him with love and care, he began to play. He scanned over the lyrics written out over the lines of accompaniment, and hesitated. And then he began to sing.
~ If I fall onto the ground
And my wings cannot be found
You’ll be there for me to hold
And I know you’ll fly me home ~
Standing just outside the door of the garage, his father listened with tears in his eyes.
Not far away, three ghosts stood, entranced by the voice of an angel that belonged to the only boy in the world who could see them.
The boy wasn’t aware of any of this. He was lost in his own world, a world created for him by the person he loved the most. He was making music with her.
For the first time since his mother died, Sunoo felt alive again.