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From the comfort of the rooftop of his posh downtown apartment building, Seungmin drinks in the beauty of Seoul City.
Tonight is yet another night of him playing the “Will I…? Won’t I…? ” game, flirting with the idea of flinging himself off the roof’s ledge and finally becoming one with the stars that distantly twinkle above.
The night air is pacifying, the sounds of the city below are grounding, and yet the dolor Seungmin feels cannot be quelled.
And as he stares at the sidewalk 20 stories below, expression blank, toes of his white trainers pressed against the ledge, he seemingly can’t derive any concrete reason as to why he shouldn’t tilt forward and paint the pavement red.
For Seungmin, every day is brimming with copious amounts of mental anguish, and every breath he takes is akin to standing on an open nerve.
Stepping off the ledge tonight would be reminiscent of stepping off that exposed nerve, finally extinguishing a purposeless, painfully mundane existence where the only form of companionship came from the nagging voices in his pretty little head urging him to end it all.
Being the only child to wealthy and well-established tiger parents who only ‘love’ you when they can claim your successes as their own, Seungmin is no stranger to depression.
It just wasn’t always this bad.
At one point in his life, he was able to self-medicate, throwing himself into his studies to dull the sadness that incessantly tugged at his chest and pooled in his back.
But after graduating from a prestigious university with honors, the undeniable desire to die, the intense want to break his own bones and tear open his own skin became more difficult to ignore.
Having two degrees (a bachelor’s in economics and a master’s in business management) in programs he had absolutely no interest in and having been immediately hired by his father’s company following graduation so that he may take his position as CEO in the distant future, Seungmin is aware that his life is not his own.
It never was.
Seungmin is simply a pawn, and tonight may just be the night he permanently takes himself out of his parent’s soul-sucking game.
He peels his eyes from the (should be daunting) drop below to the darkened blanket of revel blue above, adorned by scattered stars.
His hooded eyes settle on a lone star, and he stares at it for so long that it begins to shift about with minuteness in an act of pareidolia.
Seungmin doesn’t necessarily believe in a higher power.
But tonight, as he focuses on this single vibrating star, he entertains the idea of something potentially listening to him as he (literally) teeters on the ledge of life and death.
“Give me a sign to stay,” he says softly to it, weight balancing between his heels and toes as if he’ll fall forward any moment now.
“Give me a sign things will get easier.”
☄ ⭒ ☄
Seungmin stands alone on the rooftop, waiting for anything to happen--a nocturnal bird to drop from the sky, a car to crash below, a song to blast lyrics he can resonate with from the window of one of the units.
Hell, even a disfigured Gwishin materializing out of nothing to scare him out of jumping would suffice.
But, as to be expected by rational minds, nothing happens.
Still, Seungmin waits a few moments more because he is in his mid-20s, and people his age look for signs--even if there are none to be found--when hope is lost and prayers go unanswered.
When the seconds turn to minutes, Seungmin interprets the bustling sounds of Seoul as indifference.
He is merely another insignificant thing on a floating rock; what will the world stand to lose once he splatters on the pavement below?
Seungmin closes his eyes, a silent goodbye to no one in particular, and just before he can push all of his weight to his toes to tilt forward, the heavy rooftop door slams shut behind him.
Seungmin’s eyes snap open, and he whips his head towards the direction of the metallic door.
There stands a tall, gracile man who looks about his age, give or take a couple of years.
Jet-black hair pulled back into a loose poney-tail, the man dons a fitted wife-beater with loose-fitting cargo pants and white socks in lieu of shoes.
A thick quilt drapes over his broad shoulders and a tall can of Pringles is in his grasp.
He looks harmless, and Seungmin releases a breath he doesn’t remember holding.
With the edges of his pouty lips upturned, the man smiles at Seungmin, and despite being a little bit of a ways away, Seungmin notes that this mystery person is quite pretty.
Out of politeness, Seungmin returns a small smile--as his father would refer to it, a ‘business’ smile.
“I hope you don’t mind if I join you,” says the stranger as he cautiously approaches Seungmin, closing the distance between them and opting to stand beside him.
It is then that Seungmin notices the mole under his left eye.
“Seoul is gorgeous at night,” he continues, eyes seemingly fixated on the skyline.
He introduces himself as Hywang Hyunjin, a new resident on the 19th floor, just one floor level above Seungmin.
While Seungmin’s purpose on this rooftop tonight involved succumbing to his habitual unhappiness, Hyunjin came to stargaze while eating a late-night snack.
Hyunjin (or Jin, as he prefers) invites Seungmin to join him, and Seungmin, charmed by his outgoing demeanor, accepts.
And that is how he finds himself lying beside Jin on his fluffy comforter that smells faintly of lavender softener, sharing a can of salt-and-vinegar crisps while stargazing and talking about nothing and everything at once.
They fall into easy conversation as if they have been good friends for years despite having never met before tonight.
As Seungmin bites into another crisp, he ponders the existence of past lives.
If they do exist, he distantly wonders if they have ever crossed paths before as brothers, childhood friends, or maybe even as bandmates of a K-pop group.
☄ ⭒ ☄
Seungmin learns that besides being his new neighbor, Hyunjin is a choreographer and a painter.
“My parents,” Hyunjin’s tongue quickly darts out to lick the salt collected on his bottom lip before continuing, “wanted me to become a lawyer like my hyung, Changbin.”
When Seungmin asks how he copes with their disappointment, Hyunjin explains that Changbin’s misery is palpable.
As long as he has breath in his body, Hyunjin promises to choose happiness over his parent’s expectations because there is more to life than furthering the ambitions of others.
“I want to live, Seungmin. Not simply exist for the satisfaction of my parents.”
Their eyes lock, and Seungmin swears he can see the sky and all its stars reflected in his orbs.
He thinks back to that lone star.
“Give me a sign…”
Hyunjin managed to say in such few words a secret Seungmin had been harboring since his adolescence.
“To live is the rarest thing in the world,” says Hyunjin, a glint in his almond-shaped eyes that Seungmin cannot identify.
“Most people exist,” Seungmin whispers, “that is all.”
Hyunjin chuckles, “Spoken like a true 19th-century novelist.”
Seungmin pops a crisp into his mouth before saying in a faux-Irish accent, “Oscar Wilde is in the building!”
“You sound like a fucking leprechaun.”
Head thrown back, Hyunjin barks out a laugh, and Seungmin joins him partly because Hyunjin’s laughter is contagious and because he hasn’t felt this happy and carefree in years.
Eventually, their laughter subsides, turning into breathless chuckles before a comfortable silence falls over them as they listen to the city’s ambiance.
It must be very late into the night because Seoul is quiet now, and if it weren’t for the occasional car honking below, Seungmin would be convinced that he and Hyunjin are the only two left awake on this Thursday night.
Hyunjin lays his head on Seungmin’s lap, and Seungmin, raised in a household where skinship was discouraged, allows him to without protest and even enjoys feeling the weight of his head on his thighs.
He finds himself raking his long fingers through Hyunjin’s silky, dark locks as he gazes into the endless blanket of blue.
The scene is incredibly domestic and natural as if he’s done this countless times in a different lifetime with this stranger, now friend.
Seungmin feels a soft pattering in his chest and a fluttering within the depths of his abdomen.
He looks down at the beautiful boy below, immediately met by his soft gaze.
Seungmin wonders how long Hyunjin has been looking at him instead of the stars he came here to admire.
The pattering in his chest quickens.
“...A sign to stay…A sign things will get easier.”
A gentle breeze passes through and softly tousles the dark strands framing Hyunjin’s slender face.
This moment alone confirms coincidences don’t exist.
Something was listening to him after all.
“I’m glad I made a new friend tonight, Jin,” whispers Seungmin into the night air, feeling so vulnerable yet so safe at the same time.
Hyunjin’s smile pushes his eyes into thin crescents, yet they brightly glimmer nonetheless with the stars watching above.
“Me too, Minnie. Me too.”
For tonight’s game of “Will I…? Won’t I…? ”, Seungmin decides that he will not leap from the rooftop.
No, he doesn’t want to--not this night, or any other night, for that matter.
Instead, he’d prefer to count the stars reflected in Hyunjin’s eyes tonight and for as many nights as possible.