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The first time he feels this way is back in 2006, there was a moment when he dropped off his neighbors package. Standing in the sudden summer shower, he felt like that, like he was waiting for someone to suddenly show up. Except no one did and he was standing there, getting drenched like he was misplaced and out of time. There was a part of him, an irrational part of him that said “wait” but there really wasn’t anyone there.
.i.
Ryu Sunjae had an average life till 19, at least that’s what he tells himself. He was as normal as could be being a pro athlete and later a singer. A part of him was always acutely aware that some things about him let him be greater than.
Ryu Sunjae, the potential Olympic athelete, Ryu Sunjae the frontman for Eclipse. Whatever he was appeared greater than.
Yet here he was exhausted from band practice and meetings with managers on what strategies to promote their upcoming band. Staring out of the window like he was waiting for someone new. The waiting always made him feel less than, like he there was someone he loved waiting to pop up, almost invisible like a ghost.
.ii.
The first song Sunjae writes is titled “waiting for you”
I am waiting needlessly
Convinced someone I love is on the other side
Of this shut door I am never able to open
Waiting for someone dear, I’ve never known
It’s offbeat and morose. The agency puts it on hold till album number 2 where it becomes a sleeper hit. This spurns the fan theories and a hidden concept for their remaining three albums.
In Hyuk is the only one who truly asks him, it feels weird to even tell him. It’s like time moves differently for him entirely. “ I think I am in love with someone I’ve never met” it never makes any sense anyway.
.iii.
Sunjae’s first girlfriend is at 21, almost 2 years after his debut and he meets her after a shoot for a perfume brand he never correctly pronounces. It’s a good relationship, she’s a model, smart, funny.
The first time they kiss, a quick peck hidden in the company stairwell, his mind flashes back to 16 and there was another girl instead. She was so much smaller, he remembers his lips, plush and soft against his. The gentle waves of pool water lapping and the smell of chlorine and just her, small and tiny under his fingertips.
“Wow” his girl friend draws back, she’s taller, sharper and beautiful. He reaches back to kiss her again, new memories don’t flood his mind and he tamps the broken fragments down his mind.
“Did I date anyone in high school”
InHyuk laughs, “yes did you forget your boyfriend”
“It’s really weird but I remember a girl”
InHyuk looks at him curiously, “it’s really weird but…” whatever he’s about to say gets cut off with their manager stepping in.
He dreams of her two more times, once in a soft sweater, smelling like flowers and the wet earth. She’s cool to touch and weeping in her arms “are you a fool? Why do you keep following me? Why won’t you take care of yourself?”
She kisses him at the end of the dream, more like falls on his lips smelling like flowers and cheap soju. Still soft and tiny beneath his fingers, he only remembers her pale pink sweater when he wakes up.
.iv.
He dates two more girls after his model ex, one was another Instagram model or ulzzang back in the day. A sharp contrast to the girl in his dreams and his last ex, a fellow pop star. He remembers her just as tiny, pale pink and shy.
“Is that your type” InHyuk teases just as such and only once he calls her “Sol” by accident.
“Who is Sol?”
It’s a whole fight that follows, telling her he’s never known a girl called Sol is absurd and bizzare.
Much later in frustration he tells InHyuk who looks weirded out, “I only know one Sol, Taesung’s ex… I guess not ex”
Sunjae tries to hide the fact that he is curious, he always had a weird rivalry with Taesung that only existed in his head.
Sunjae justifies that partly it was because Taesung was so avidly scouted and the heartthrob for many a girls in high school and he surely played that to his advantage.
“His not ex?” Sunjae prompted, strangely pleased by this stranger Sol not falling for his charms.
“God it’s a whole story” InHyuk sighed “they’ve been friends for ages but she’s made it clear she only sees him as a friend”
Sunjae only barely manages to suppress his smile “really?”
“Yea it’s weird but I think she really helped him clean up his act. Did you know he even went to college”
Sunjae quickly loses interest in the topic as they zone out, the not quite ex Sol still lingering in his mind.
.v.
The next time he hears about Taesung is almost a decade later which coincidentally is right after he drops off his girlfriend.
“Oh man she really does look like Sol a little bit” Hyunsoo says and whatever hand motion InHyuk waves over doesn’t instantly stop him.
“Taesung’s ex” Jay asks and Sungjae distinctly feels left out of the loop.
“Not ex” Inhyuk says almost like a reflex but sighs instead “that’s one pairing I will never understand”
Sunjae leans against the wall like he’s not interested “she looks like my girlfriend?”
“Like all your girlfriends” Jay pipes in, “
“You might know Sol” InHyuk interjects “I think you’ve must have seen her, she went to the school next to ours”
Except it’s like his mind draws a blank, InHyuk searches his phone for her insta id but never finds it.
.vi.
Sunjae dreams of a lot more when he nears his 30s it’s almost incessant how much she haunts him.
It’s awful because it coincides with his rapidly deteriorating mental health as well, he voluntarily withdraws from his band. It takes all of him to convince InHyuk that withdrawal is the right call or at least a hiatus.
He dreams of her, always crying, always sad. Sometimes in the railway station, sometimes drowning, sometimes drunk but always beautiful and always in tears.
A shaman convinces him it’s a virgin ghost, “she saved your life in a past life and now can’t move on” it scares him as much as it makes him sad. His invisible ghostly companion.
.vii.
His worst nightmare strikes him at 33, it’s an awful new year right after his concert. His impending sense of doom almost causes him two panic attacks, he is rushed to the hospital immediately because his manager thinks he’s having a heart attack.
It turns out to be a culmination of sleep deprivation and low blood sugar, it’s serious enough that he spends two days in the hospital.
He dreams of her a lot more, he dreams of dying. Blood blooming like a flower against his abdomen, dreams of drowning in dark water, so deep and desperate and her face in vivid clarity. The redness of her cheek, her doe eyes tear filled “Sunjae ah” a scream so piercing that it pulls him awake
Im SOL he breathes.
Later he stares at the flower bouquets in his room, and his exhausted dad. He whispers to InHyuk “I think the girl I dream about is called Im Sol”
InHyuk makes an expression that Sunjae has never seen before, “let’s talk about this later”
Almost a week after he is discharged he sees InHyuk again “it’s so weird you would mention her” he says, “the day you fainted she was in an accident.”
Sunjae sits up straight “she’s fine now, but apparently she’s been stalked by a serial killer for the last 15 years, Taesung got there just in time”
It really does sound like a fucked up fairytale, girl meets boy, girl gets stalked for 15 years, boy becomes a cop, boy shoots the stalker dead.
A fairytale that just doesn’t sound right to him.
.viii.
At 34 he meets her for the first time, bumping against her on a stairwell that almost sets her sprawling.
He knows it’s her right away, her doe eyes, pale skin and plush lips, her eyes filled up with tears
“I didn’t make you cry did I”
She just smiles through her tears “I am a fan”
It’s sounds like I love you instead.
Epilogue
It still astounds him a little when he sees her in the morning.
How beautiful and ethereal she looks against his deep blue sheets, he thinks she makes him a poet.
“Are you done staring at me” she jokes, sleep groggy voice that sounds adorable
He kisses her forehead instead “sometimes I think I’ve made you up” he half jokes “you need better imagination”
He only holds her tighter in response.
He can almost feel like the time has been set back in order and whatever he felt was more than just a weird coincidence
“I feel like time is back in order” he tells her instead “in my arms everything feels right only now” she only snuggles closer instead “I love you” she whispers.