Archive of Our Own

     There is someone sleeping in the extra bed when Felix walks in. And the first thing he feels is dread.

     His dorm is claustrophobic enough when he’s the only one living in it. The lights are never bright enough when he turns them on. During the daytime, trees crowd the field behind the small slidable screen at the back of the dorm, casting a strange shadowed glow throughout the dorm, little flurries of sunlight scattered in the room in a pathetic attempt to make up for the dimness. Felix never quite feels like it’s morning when he wakes up.

     And now, someone else is sharing this joy of a dorm room. 

     Felix sighs in resignment as he goes to unpack his textbooks onto his desk. He’s known this was going to happen for a few weeks now, and come to think of it, he should have tried to savour the peace, the only gift this room gives him. Now even that is gone.

     Felix takes out his phone. The first thing he notices is ten missed calls. That’s ten less than yesterday. The second thing he notices is the time. Felix frowns.

     8 pm. It’s too early to sleep, yet that’s the first thing this new dorm dweller has chosen to do. A long journey? Jetlag? No, that makes no sense, he’s been told his new roommate is simply switching to residential living from his own house.

     Felix’s eyes shift towards the bed. Blankets bury whoever is underneath. Felix briefly worries that they’ll suffocate and briefly wonders if he should gently pull the blanket back. He casts the brief thoughts away. He may not love this new arrangement, but he’ll leave his new roommate be.

     And he’ll be hospitable too. With a heavy sigh, Felix turns off the lights in the room. He rolls his chair towards his desk and spins it around a few times; a rare pleasure since this room clearly offers none, and opens his textbook before turning on his desk light for homework.

     It isn’t bright enough. It never is. 

     Felix wakes up too early for comfort.

     He studied late into the night on a single light and his brain is overstimulated. It’s mundane, tedious work, but Felix is always able to keep his end goal in mind. At least, he thinks he has a goal. It’s getting all too easy to lose where he’s going these days.

     He could go chill in one of the university’s coffee shops until his morning lecture or… he could bake something for breakfast. The thought brings just a ghost of a smile to his face. He never manages to wake up early enough for the luxury.

     Felix’s specific residence has a communal kitchen for use of the students. It’s a tiny space, often occupied by other students who get there earlier, but it’s finally empty today for Felix’s use. He’s thinking scones. To be fair, he’s always thinking scones but today, it’s time to act on the thought.

     The lights aren’t quite bright enough in the kitchen either but Felix finds himself guided by the smell of chocolate and brown sugar. As he pours a bit extra of the latter, he realizes he might have overdone it. Felix pauses for a moment, before shrugging and adding more. With the mood he’s been in these days, he’ll probably hardly notice.

     His phone rings just as the oven dings to welcome the arrival of the freshly baked goods. Felix glances over at the caller ID before promptly ignoring it and opening the oven instead. 

     Too much chocolate. Good. Felix also probably baked too much for one person, but he’ll worry about storage later. He picks a scone straight from the baking tray and takes a bite, ignoring the stab of heat between his teeth as they sink into the dough.

     Way too sweet. They’re perfect.

     His phone rings again. That’s when someone walks into the kitchen.

     Felix freezes mid-scone, ignoring his phone, painfully aware right now of his four-night pyjamas, bed hair and chocolate that is most definitely smeared on the sides of his mouth. It’s only when he properly sees the new arrival that he almost sighs in relief.

     This boy has seen better mornings. He wears a black hoodie practically hanging off his body, hood loosely coiled around his neck. His brown hair curls over his head like streamers and his wire-rimmed glasses fog over his eyes, tipping dangerously close to the bridge of his nose.

     Too close. Ignoring his own misgiving appearance, Felix gestures towards his own nose. “Your glasses…”

     The boy stares at Felix blankly before stiffening in realization. “Oh…”

     Felix doesn’t need glasses himself, so he doesn’t know why it’s only when the boy adjusts his own that Felix realizes he’s never seen this student before. Which means…

     “You’re my roommate,” Felix says, finally deciding to wipe his mouth to get rid of the chocolate. “Uh- welcome! My name is Lee Felix.”

     Felix almost thinks his roommate didn’t hear him, seemingly preoccupied with untangling his hood until it hangs behind him, strings frayed as if they’ve been twisted, and even chewed on, to ruins. But he then makes eye contact with Felix again, hunching his shoulders down timidly.

     “Oh- Felix. Nice to meet you.” The boy smiles. It looks like it’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, lips pursed together almost painfully. His eyes narrow as he surveys the kitchen. “Baking something?”

     Strange that Felix has just remembered the scone in his hand. He awkwardly takes a tiny bite and shuffles to the counter. “Yeah, scones. I made a lot, you want some?” It dawns pleasantly on Felix that this is the perfect way to welcome his roommate, and he hopes he’s not chewing too loudly to muffle the words.

     “Sure.”

     It’s not an explosive reaction and Felix doesn’t know why he was expecting one. He can only conclude that this boy is shy, and probably not much of a morning person on top of that, as he sets the scones as neatly as he can on a plate.

     Shoot. The sugar. The scones are definitely way too sweet. But it’s too late to say anything, as the boy is already picking up a scone. Felix can only stand frozen by dread, knowing he will be seeing this student every day after this potential disaster.

     The boy doesn’t say anything and doesn’t sit down either. He takes small bites, putting a hand in front of his mouth as he chews, and keeps the same expression, mouth pinched in a frown and eyes drooping down tiredly.

     Felix can’t take the silence. “Is it… good?”

     The boy pops in the final piece. “Good. Really sweet though.” He had shown no acknowledgment of the fact the entire time, no pleasure, no disgust. As if he simply didn’t feel… anything.

     “You could qualify for one of those judges on those cooking shows with that poker face!” Felix said, unable to push down the urge to crack a joke. 

     The end of the boy’s mouth tips up for a moment, before his eyes find the floor and he looks so… tired. That’s all he looks like. Felix can’t tell if he has made the boy smile, but his eyes don’t mirror it, swimming in exhaustion at the simple action.

     There’s something so heartbreaking in that moment, something that makes Felix want to find every blind in the residence and push it aside, let the meagre sunlight of the early morning enter the shield, let flurries of sunlight envelope them in the dawn, because Felix can’t shake the feeling that this boy needs to see, needs to feel something beautiful, when the only thing his eyes are glued to is the dull grey floor covered in shifts of flour.

     Or more simply, Felix thinks this boy needs a hug. But he can’t really do that either.

     “What’s your major?” he asks instead.

     “Film.”

     “Nice, I’m chemistry.”

     “Right… baking, chemistry, makes sense.”

     Felix bursts out laughing. It’s not a very funny joke but heck, right now, it's hilarious. “I wish! I have an equilibrium lecture starting in an hour that is anything but labs and ingredients.”

     An hour. Shoot! “I’m really sorry, but can you help me clean up? I gotta go soon!”

     The boy blinks twice, as if Felix’s voice is static and he’s struggling to decipher it. Then, it clicks. “Okay, sure.”

     Felix has never been a neat cleaner by any means. So it’s a euphoric relief when the boy, despite walking at a snail’s pace and not once asking where anything goes, produces a spotless counter and dishes all lined up where they should be in the dishwasher. Felix also dejectedly realizes he definitely needs to step up his game in the cleaning department if this is the competence he’s going to be living with for the entire year.

     “You’re a lifesaver!” Felix is just about ready to run off to the dorm room before he practically skids to a stop, forgetting one crucial detail.

     “What’s your name?”

     The boy looks up in shock at the question. Felix has a weird feeling that if he had never asked, the boy would have never told him.

     “Seungmin. Kim Seungmin.”

     Felix doesn’t dwell on it. He’s really pushing his punctuality this time. “Nice meeting you, Seungmin!” Then, he’s off.

     It’s only after he’s showered, packed his books and laptop, and is walking over to the lecture hall that it hits him eerily that he knows he just ate breakfast with his new roommate, but it’s still like Kim Seungmin had never been there in the first place.

     Seungmin is a ghost.

     That’s what Felix concludes to explain the flimsy presence Seungmin has in his, or anyone else’s, life. 

     Kim Seungmin has a way of making their conversations feel like a hazy dream. He has a way of being in the bed right across from him yet still having Felix wake up feeling like he’s completely alone in a room that’s too small for anyone to go unnoticed. Seungmin has a way of disappearing even when Felix is trying to find him. Especially when Felix is trying to find him.

     Seungmin swims through a crowd. He casts his eyes downwards, tiptoes across fields of footsteps, erases his trace, never leaving a mark. He never looks anyone in the eye and no one can manage to catch his gaze, even if they wanted to. He blends into the background, renders himself invisible at the simplest brush of shoulders.

     Felix thinks they’re friends. It’s difficult to be friends with a ghost.

     Seungmin doesn’t let himself be seen, and neither does he try to see Felix. Felix will sometimes leave the bathroom with new highlights or even a completely new hair colour and wait expectantly for Seungmin’s reaction, phone ringing in the background. Seungmin will do nothing more but run his eyes over Felix before looking back to the book he’s reading. 

     Felix can only read words and Seungmin never has much to spare.

     He also never texts. Felix has found his texts left on read so many times, that he has concluded the boy simply clicks on conversations but never actually looks at them. Felix ignores his other texts, always musing over how his own are treated similarly. Felix notices how Seungmin scrolls through his phone the same absent way he sees the world. Like nothing exists, not even himself.

     But despite any of that, Felix can’t find himself disliking his roommate.

     There are moments. Few of them and, again, Felix isn’t entirely sure they happened, but he has no choice but to believe they did. Moments where Seungmin tips his mouth up in what Felix now concludes is a smile, or maybe he imagined it. Moments where Seungmin lets out a chuckle, appearing to be choking on the sound before coughing and pinching his lips once again, or maybe Felix imagined it. Moments where Seungmin talks enough for Felix to notice the nasality of his voice, chatter at the frequency of bells, the airiness as if he speaks in stolen breaths of oxygen, or maybe Felix imagined it.

     Moments where Felix is lying on his bed, hands holding his chemistry textbook over his face as he squints in a haphazard attempt to make out the words, and he feels a body lie down next to him. Neither boy says a word as they both look at the book, Seungmin’s eyes moving over the page as if the words, for once, actually exist. Then, Felix eventually hears soft snores beside him and, not moving an inch in fear of disrupting his roommate's beauty sleep, puts his phone on silent, eventually dozing off himself, textbook flat on his chest. 

     Or maybe Felix imagined it. Seungmin is gone in the morning.

     Whether he’s pursuing friendship on the basis of fake moments or not, Felix can’t deny that Seungmin has a way of making people believe in him. He has a way of showing little pieces of himself that make Felix crave more. He has a way of giving hope that he will someday fully reappear into the world, let sunlight cascade over his hazel hair, have the flurries rest on his skin, clear out the fog over his glasses so that he can truly see people and people can truly see him. A ghost no more.

     Seungmin is never here, but he carries his invisibility so naturally that Felix never once thinks Seungmin is broken. Kim Seungmin isn’t a problem. In fact, there are days when he looks so put together that Felix admires him, a boy so unbothered when the world offers so much to be bothered about.

     It makes Felix feel almost okay with the fact that his desk light is never quite bright enough when he studies and Seungmin sleeps.

     Seungmin has a way of bleeding without feeling the pain, of showing red eyes and pale skin without feeling the exhaustion. Felix will take Seungmin out to eat (Seungmin doesn’t say no. He never says no,) and somehow always ends up ordering something way too spicy than what he can handle. Felix cries and complains in agony throughout the delicious meal. Meanwhile, Seungmin has red cheeks and tears streaming down his face, but continues to take careful bites, chewing the food with the same aloofness he had Felix’s sugary scones. The spice gets to him but can never quite penetrate. 

     Or he’ll walk the long route to the arts building for his classes, never bothering to catch the bus, and not once will Felix see him stagger back to the dorm. He walks with his head high, shoulders stiff, strides long and steady, and distance fails to matter anymore. It was a faithful winter day when Felix had noticed how red Seungmin’s feet were after his afternoon classes. He had given Seungmin toe warmers. Seungmin hadn’t said thank you. Felix continued offering them.

     But perhaps the most fascinating thing Felix has witnessed is what happens when it rains. 

     They’re outside on a particularly nice day studying, phones left inside. Sometimes Seungmin joins Felix, sitting down on the grass with barely the rustle of sound, his fingers sticking to the keys of his computer and lifting off wordlessly until Felix looks to his left and jumps in surprise. Usually, Felix is the one who joins Seungmin. Seungmin doesn’t turn him away. Seungmin never turns him away.

     Then, the tiniest droplets of water fall, staining his textbook pages. Felix is quick to close his books, hugging his laptop tight as he rushes back inside. Soon, the rain patters down in torrents of water and Felix is anxiously shaking his hair out for even the smallest excess dewdrop.

     Then there’s Seungmin. Felix sneaks a look outside and sees him just… standing there. His hair, soaked with water, falls down his neck in wet locks and his hoodie droops down even lower. Yet Seungmin doesn’t move an inch. He stands there, his eyes cast upwards for the first time, and Felix thinks he can finally see Seungmin. Thinks that perhaps not everything in the world goes unnoticed by his roommate.

     When Seungmin comes back inside after a minute too long in the rain, water trails over the floor and his glasses are foggy with vapour. But he doesn’t bother to take them off. He doesn’t bother to change into something dry. Felix gives him a towel and Seungmin takes it quickly, ignoring Felix’s looks of concern. He’s gone again.

     When Felix sees him the next morning, he’s sure Seungmin is sniffling from a cold. But he’s out the door before Felix can acknowledge it.

     And yet, even after that day, Felix does not think Seungmin is broken. There is nothing wrong with Kim Seungmin, nothing that needs to be fixed.

     There’s also Felix’s phone bursting to the brim with missed calls and unchecked messages. There’s nothing wrong with that either.

     Felix falls asleep for the first time in the middle of class.

     He’s bored out of his mind. He’s been bored for the past few weeks. He’s beginning to hate his major and that hatred is scaring him. If this isn’t the path for him, he has no idea where he’ll go. He never thought about it. Never really thought in general until he found himself walking and looked down to see what path he was on.

     Felix usually can’t notice Seungmin when he’s fully awake. So he doesn’t know why Seungmin’s presence wakes him up today. Maybe he’s gotten better at sensing his presence. Maybe he can see ghosts now.

     All he knows is that, without words, as he usually is, Seungmin pushes a chicken wrap in Felix’s direction. He then opens his own and begins to eat. The lecture hall is dark after class hours, the side lights casting a distinct outline around Seungmin’s figure.

     Felix looks at his phone, ignores the notifications, and sees how late it is. His stomach grumbles on cue. “Thanks,” he tells Seungmin as he opens his wrap and gobbles it hungrily.

     Seungmin doesn’t seem to hear him. But Felix is okay with that nowadays.

     Felix’s phone rings. Felix cringes at the sound, beginning to despise its constant presence.

     Seungmin’s eyes shift towards the sound. This was the one thing Felix didn’t want Seungmin to notice. It’s strange, because Felix doesn’t believe in signs, but this looks like one.

     Felix ends the call and silences his phone. Seungmin doesn’t bother to ask why. For once, Felix is glad that not much matters to Seungmin.

     But like this chemistry lecture hall, Felix is becoming less and less okay with what he’s constantly doing these days.

     One day, Felix hears Seungmin singing. He’s sure he imagined it.

     Felix doesn’t even stop at the dorm that day. He’s late for a class so he’s only pausing to check if he left his laptop in the room.

     The first thing he hears is the fragile strums of a guitar. Felix didn’t even know Seungmin owned a guitar, much less played it. He probably keeps it under his bed. Regardless, Felix isn’t hallucinating the beginning pitchy but striking chords.

     Then comes a voice.

     Now, a few months have passed by now, so while Seungmin isn’t a talker, Felix knows very well what his friend’s ( friend’s) voice sounds like. But he isn’t prepared for this. This has purpose. This has sound, this has direction, this… exists. Exists more than what Felix has ever seen of Seungmin. He can’t hear what Seungmin is singing, can barely hear the melody, but he knows it’s there.

     Felix’s phone starts ringing. He curses under his breath before quickly turning it off. He flees the scene, scared of breaking the strums of guitar, scared of breaking a voice that fills the space and might just leave a mark where Seungmin has left nothing.

     Felix’s laptop is in the study hall. And by the next day, he’s forgotten the sound of Seungmin’s voice.

     These days, Seungmin wakes up with tears in his eyes.

     He hides it well but Felix still notices. He sees Seungmin wiping his face as he sits up from sleeping, a split-second action before he continues on with his day. He sees the redness in Seungmin’s eyes that he can’t quite mask. 

     Felix doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t know how to. Seungmin wears his pain well and Felix can only guess how much of it he’s really feeling inside.

     He’ll regret it one day, but Felix begins to see this pain as a part of Seungmin. He’s not broken. He’s meant to be this way, red eyes on an emotionless face. His tears are like raindrops. They fell and he got wet but in the end, it’s only rain. Seungmin seems to like the rain.

     Felix’s phone pings with a text message. He shoves his phone in his pocket and wordlessly hands Seungmin a tissue, before leaving for class.

     He has his first fight with Seungmin. Felix doesn’t know how he managed it. Actually, he does know. But he still must have imagined it.

     It’s the middle of the night and Seungmin is also studying in the room, so Felix can turn the room lights on. They’re still not bright enough.

     His phone rings. That’s how it always begins. But Felix can’t tear his eyes off the frustrating formulas he needs to memorize, even if he wanted to answer. He’s close to tears on these problems. He can’t stand their taunting ways, their twisted solutions, their tiny errors. He can’t stand how he can’t pick up a phone and say what he really wants to say.

     “Aren’t you going to answer that?”

     Seungmin is speaking and Felix wants him to stay quiet. Shame burns through his skin but the anger is stronger.

     “No,” he says curtly, scratching his pencil down his textbook.

     “It’s been the same number every time.”

     Where was the Kim Seungmin who didn’t even notice what was right in front of him? “Okay, and?” Felix can’t hide the annoyance in his voice.

     “It might not be right to keep on ignoring someone-”

     Felix explodes.

     “You’re one to talk, huh!? Quit being a hypocrite and go back to pretending I don’t exist, why don’t you!?”

     He’s not being fair. None of it is fair. But Felix can’t bring himself to think about the Seungmin who brings him dinner at the lecture hall late at night, who falls asleep by his side like it’s no big deal, who never says no, who tries to laugh at his jokes, who tries to smile when Felix is happy. Instead, he thinks about Seungmin never acknowledging his dyed hair, never answering his texts, walking long distances, staying out in the rain, never noticing how Felix worries, how he wonders if something’s wrong, if something’s broken-

     Felix turns his phone off. He slams his textbook shut. It’s the middle of the night so he can’t exactly storm off, but he heads to bed with loud stomps and clenched fists.

     He doesn’t fall asleep. And he doesn’t think Seungmin does either.

     Seungmin doesn’t come to the dorm much for the next two weeks.

     Good, Felix thinks. It’s the same as before. It’s just that Seungmin is… actually not here. No big deal. He’ll use this time to focus on himself, on his neverending chemistry problems and constantly ringing cellphone.

     He doesn’t answer either of those but that’s beside the point.

     The problem arrives when Felix begins to feel Seungmin’s absence. Seungmin’s silence had a sound and he can’t hear it anymore. His presence had a warmth and its loss is stark. His voice had a character and Felix misses the few times it lets itself be shown. 

     Felix is in the art building for the first time in a while after the end of a late-night class. He stopped to meet some friends and is heading back. His pathway aligns with the film theatre.

     Felix doesn’t know what’s in his head as he decides to open the door to it. He’s craving a chicken wrap. He wants to eat one with someone. He wants to eat it with Seungmin-

     So that’s why he opens the door.

     The theatre is huge, bigger than any cinema Felix has ever been to. It’s dark. It’s empty. He almost leaves.

     Then, Felix sees Seungmin. It’s dark, it’s empty, and he can’t see anything. But he sees Seungmin. 

     Felix isn’t thinking, he has no plan. All he knows is that he sees Seungmin and he misses Seungmin. He misses him like a kid would miss an old toy. Imperfect. A little odd. Ignored. Not broken. Never broken. But special. Special because Seungmin is his friend and Felix can’t believe he’s waited this long to seek him out again.

     Felix freezes in his spot as the sound of crying reaches his ears.

     They’re soft, delicate sounds, practically disappearing as soon as they’re choked out. They sound so heartbreakingly like Seungmin and it only hurts Felix more, that he’s avoided his friend for so long when he’s grown to recognize his pain, to hear it and give it a name before it vanishes.

     So Felix unfreezes and slides into the seat next to Seungmin. Seungmin immediately looks up, not bothering to wipe away the tears sliding down his cheeks. This is possibly the most aware Felix has ever seen Seungmin, as if his sorrow brings the world into a shattering clarity.

     “This seems like a pretty depressing place to finally let it all out, don’t you think?” Felix says, because Seungmin has never rejected his jokes and Felix doesn’t think he’s going to start now.

     Seungmin shrugs, tears dried up as if they were never there. “I guess I’m… not very good at grieving.”

     Grieving. Seungmin doesn’t say anything further. Felix doesn’t expect him to.

     “Do you… like your major?” Felix asks instead. He looks around the theatre, the one place Seungmin has decided to come to find solitude.

     “Love it.”

     “That’s good,” Felix says. “... I don’t.”

     “Oh.”

     And just like that, Felix feels like he’s climbed a mountain. He thinks he’s finally stopped pretending and he realizes the only thing he ever wanted was to come clean. Not to know where he belonged but to admit it isn’t here.

     “Yeah. I guess I’m grieving too. Grieving what I could have been doing instead.”

     Seungmin lets out a small laugh. It’s hidden behind sniffles but it’s there nevertheless. “That sounds rough. I wish… I wish my problems were that simple. Instead, I shut down. I don’t know how to come out again and… exist .”

     Seungmin doesn’t say anything more. Felix doesn’t make him. He wants to tell Seungmin that he does exist. Maybe as a ghost, but Felix can see ghosts after all.

     But he doesn’t say anything. Because his phone rings at that moment.

     Seungmin is staring at him. Felix quickly hangs up and turns his phone off. He can sense Seungmin’s silence, the thousand burning questions under his unquestioning facade.

     “Aren’t you going to ask why I keep on hanging up?” Felix asks, unable to keep in his own questions.

     “You… don’t want me to.”

     “I do!” Felix says, turning around in his seat to face Seungmin. “I’m happy you asked and that you didn’t let it go, because I think that’s all I’m going to be doing. Putting it off until the calls stop coming.”

     “Do you want them to stop coming?”

     Felix shivers, hugging himself in the air-conditioned theatre. “I don’t know…”

     Seungmin turns his body too, fully facing Felix. “What happened?”

     This is the most seen Felix has ever felt by Seungmin. But maybe Seungmin has always seen him. Maybe he’s just been pretending he doesn’t because seeing others means being seen himself. Being seen too much for comfort.

     This is a sacrifice and Seungmin is making it for Felix.

     Felix shrugs, fingers tingling with warmth and they drag over his phone screen, leaving foggy trails on the grass surface. “A fight. But… I think I’m over it.”

     “Then why do you ignore the calls?”

     That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? “I might mess up again. I’m not worth all these calls and texts. It’s best if we both move on.”

     “Is it?”

     Seungmin’s quiet voice echoes through the walls of the dark theatre, echoes everything Felix has been fighting with over the past few months. When he looks up at Seungmin, he only shrugs in response, turning back to the screen.

     They are enveloped back into silence. It’s uncomfortable, but Felix keeps it. He needs to squirm, to feel the prickly sensation down to his toes and fingertips, to finally deal with so many unwanted feelings that he’s beginning to want again. 

     “Thank you,” he tells Seungmin.

     Seungmin doesn’t respond. Doesn’t offer any more of himself than what he’s already risked giving, and Felix is okay with that.

     From then on, Seungmin comes back to the dorm in the evening. He doesn’t cry anymore. Felix hopes it’s because he doesn’t feel the need to, but he knows better by now.

     Everything changes when Seungmin starts singing again and Felix stays.

     He didn’t mean to. He wants to let Seungmin keep his secrets. He’d let his friend take them to the grave if that’s what he feels is safe.

     But in the end, Felix doesn’t truly believe that, because here he is, pressed against the wall next to the dorm, ears open and heart clenched.

     The guitar strums. Seungmin sings.

     The first thing that makes Felix’s eyes widen is the familiar words. Seungmin sings in English. And not only that, but crisp, unaccented English. Felix finds himself leaning closer to listen. His own Australian English has often been described as deep and hollow, consonants spit out wildly, recklessly, vowels open and pleasantly accented. Meanwhile, Seungmin speaks his English with a sort of elegance, carrying the vowels of a prince. He doesn’t emphasize anything, letting the words fall loosely off his tongue, consonants lightly tipped at the end, and Felix can understand him perfectly. Seungmin begins quietly and the silence is beautiful.

     Because second comes the lyrics.

     Youngblood thinks there’s always tomorrow.

     I miss your touch on nights when I'm hollow.

     Seungmin sings under his breath, a certain fear hidden in the hollowness of his low notes, taking on every word and tone.

     But it’s only at the third line where tears spurt into Felix’s eyes. It’s sudden and he can’t control it.

     I know you’ve crossed the bridge that I can’t follow.

     Felix understands everything now.

     Since the love that you left is all that I get, I want you to know.

     Seungmin becomes louder, and that’s the third thing. His voice.

     Felix isn’t a singing expert but all he feels is warmth. Seungmin’s voice is like his guitar, subtle but gorgeous. A soothing timbre weaves through his notes. There’s a sunlight in his nasality that embraces his vocal cords. He steals the air in the room, hugging it close on his falsettos, expelling it powerfully for his high notes, along with thousands of emotions that Felix can’t even begin to make sense of. 

     And sometimes Seungmin steals too much air, because Felix can’t breathe and the tears burn hot on his skin as he continues to listen.

     That if I can’t be close to you.

     I’ll settle for the ghost of you.

     I miss you more than life.

     And if you can’t be next to me.

     Your memory’s ecstasy.

     I miss you more than life, I miss you more than life.

     Seungmin would probably go on but his strumming stops abruptly, pausing his singing so suddenly that Felix almost stumbles and he knows he’s broken the moment.

     No, not broken. Felix walks into the room and decides to join the moment.

     Seungmin doesn’t turn him away. He never does.

     “You’re crying,” is all Seungmin says.

     Felix smiles, not bothering to wipe his tears away. He’s comfortable here. More comfortable than he ever thought he’d become. “It’s a pretty song.”

     “It is.”

     Felix sits gingerly on Seungmin’s bed but keeps his distance, because he knows now that next to Seungmin is the spirit of someone else, a gaping hole that Felix can never fill, one that he doesn’t need to, because it will always be there and Seungmin keeps it close.

     “I’m sorry,” is what he says.

     Seungmin nods sullenly. “A car accident. I wasn’t driving, but it was still on the way to my house… I thought moving to residence would help.”

     “Has it?”

     Seungmin offers Felix a weak smile. It reaches his eyes. A little. “I think it will now.”

     The realization weighs down on Felix. “I’m sorry- that I didn’t ask beforehand. You carried around this weight for so long.”

     “I never let you,” Seungmin says. “I told you- I’m horrible at grieving.”

     “I don’t think anyone is an expert at it.”

     “Yeah, but-” Seungmin looks down at his guitar and his lip trembles as he speaks. “I don’t know how to come back to all of this. I don’t exist. I’m fading and I miss, I miss-”

     When Seungmin starts to quietly cry, Felix realizes something else. Something big. The sunlight does not cascade over his hazel hair, the flurries don’t rest on his skin, the fog is heavier than ever on his glasses from the tears, but in that moment, Seungmin exists.

     And he always has. Kim Seungmin isn’t a ghost, and Kim Seungmin has left his marks. He left it in the scone crumbs on his plate that first morning. He left it in the dozens of unread text messages that Felix keeps on sending, because it’s what he does and will continue to do. He left it in the mud stains on the dorm floor when he came back from the rain. In the teardrops on his pillow, in the receipt from the restaurant that was overspiced and overpriced, in his silence that lingers and listens and tries its best to see everything. And Felix isn’t so surprised after all by Seungmin’s voice because he remembers it from last time and has always held it like a distant memory.

     Seungmin isn’t a ghost. He simply has been feeling the world too much and it breaks him down. His pain is a part of him and isn’t a part of him, because there’s a boy behind it who simply wants to be happy again. He isn’t broken, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need the strength to keep on going, and maybe that’s what Felix gave him. And it’s what Felix will continue to give because Seungmin is his roommate and Seungmin is his friend, and the room is never too cramped when he’s in it.

     “I thought I had time,” Seungmin says, swallowing his tears and speaking through a cracked voice. “I’m sad, but most of all, I feel guilty that I didn’t savour what I had. I kept on putting everything off until tomorrow. I never said nice things or showed appreciation in the moments I wanted to. But now I know a next time doesn’t always exist, and I just keep on counting how much I really wanted to say and show.”

     Tomorrow. That’s what Felix is waiting for. That’s what he’s always been waiting for, even when tomorrow caught up to him in high school and he’d had to scramble to choose whatever major best fit his undefined box. He hangs up his calls, doesn’t read his texts, because he knows they will come again tomorrow and maybe tomorrow, he’ll want to face them.

     But what if that tomorrow stops coming? 

     The question leaves Felix gasping for air, the panic so sudden, that’s when he realizes what he truly wants.

     “Keep singing,” he tells Seungmin raspily, hoping he’s not sounding too demanding.

     Seungmin smiles again, his eyes lighting up with something that doesn’t quite match, but something that needs to be expressed nevertheless. His fingers wisp against his guitar and he opens his mouth.

     Youngblood thinks there’s always tomorrow.

     I need more time but time can’t be borrowed…

     Seungmin was the first person Felix didn’t wait for. Whether he had been chasing ghosts or chasing a friend, Felix had sought Seungmin out from the very first day. He doesn’t regret it. There’s so much more he doesn’t want to regret.

     Felix runs as fast as his legs can carry him.

     He’s running today because he doesn’t want to wait anymore. He only hopes he can be forgiven for already waiting for so long.

     Soon, he’s outside a single dorm room and he pauses. He’s scared to death. Not that he’ll be turned away and tossed aside, because he deserves that and anything else that happens afterwards.

     He’s scared that he’ll walk away right now, without even trying. He knows he definitely will. He can’t control it, can’t control his dependence on the idea of tomorrow, of closing his eyes just for a little longer.

     He knocks.

     The door opens.

     Felix hopes he’s not gasping too much to be unable to speak.

     “I need to talk to you.”

     The next day, Felix’s eyes are opened and he sees Seungmin clearly.

     That night, Seungmin is fast asleep, particularly exhausted after a busy day, and he lets Felix embrace him for getting through it, if not a bit stiffly. He’s asleep before his head hits the pillow.

     Felix needs to study. He opens up his textbook with the work he hates but he’ll figure that out soon enough. It’s not too late, but it might be if he waits any longer.

     Felix turns on his desk light and for the first time, it seems just bright enough.