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He was leaving tomorrow.
Of course, he had prepared himself; always knowing you have to go eventually sets one up to make peace with it: military service is obligatory after all. Still, that doesn’t make the night before any less restless: any less anxious.
Woojin had done everything he had wanted to in the final days leading up to this point. He had spent quality time with his family, his loved ones. He had said goodbye to CUBS, his gratitude blooming up from the bottom of his heart as he had thanked them for staying, and as he had reassured them about his return in good time.
It still felt strange. Tomorrow, he would be gone: bags packed, turning his lights off for the last time in a while. He wouldn’t be home for the foreseeable future, and it was still a little unnerving if he thought about it too much. But he had made peace with it all. He would be back, and this was just another part of his life, another chapter of his unassuming novel.
He knew, realistically, that he should be sleeping. He should be getting as much rest as he could before he was regimented into the strict schedule that started with his enlistment, but sleep evaded him.
His body was restless, energy buzzed beneath his skin and no matter how much he tossed and turned, he couldn’t get comfortable. His muscles were tense with the urge to just move, and it was getting harder to keep lying there waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen.
He had eventually risen from his bed, throwing on a jacket and quietly sliding on a pair of shoes. He had slipped out of his apartment and headed down the staircase, carefully stepping around the third step before the bottom to avoid the incessant creak it would inevitably groan under the slightest pressure. For some reason, he felt that he should be quiet on his way out tonight: the night felt a little fragile.
In the open street, the night sky was like a fishbowl. It curved around him like a black dome, yet it stretched on forever in a strange image of distorted dark, broken up by the sparse star or two that decided to show itself tonight.
There wasn’t much of a breeze, only a light breath like a whisper. There wasn’t anyone around, not at this time. He was left alone in the street, and it felt too big, different to how his room had felt so small. Whilst he had been smothered in his apartment, the world sprawled around him out here, and he felt as insignificant and tiny as a smudge of dirt in a crack in the pavement.
He tugged his jacket closer around himself: January meant that the weather was bitingly cold, even more so at night. Woojin hadn’t really dressed for the weather, only pulling on a simple jacket in his haste to leave his apartment. He hadn’t realised until he had left that it had felt rather stuffy, and just a bit suffocating. He had been letting himself get trampled by his thoughts, unable to quiet his mind enough to get himself to sleep.
It’s just that he was leaving tomorrow.
Of course, it was something he knew. It was a fact, a figure, a simple notion, a statement. He had known it, yet it was only when he was in bed the night before that it had hit him. That he had really understood the weight of it.
Of course, thinking about it simply, there wasn’t too much weight to it at all. It was mandatory service, most people had to do it at some point. That’s all there really was to it.
Yet Woojin was a thinker. Not an over-thinker, he would argue. He knew deep down that it was pointless to convince himself though, as the argument lacked any truth when faced with any evidence.
Woojin was a thinker, and he thought a lot. Too much really. He had been stuck in a loop of thinking, thinking, and thinking again.
He had looked back at his achievements, his career, his life. He wondered if he had accomplished enough. Had he accomplished anything at all? Had he accomplished anything worthwhile?
Had he lived enough? Had he lived well? Had he lived to the fullest? Had he experienced life in a fulfilling way, savouring each moment? Was everything he had done, everything he had decided, everything he had accomplished, worth it? Was there anything he could have done differently? Or was he satisfied?
He would think and keep thinking. He was filled with unanswered questions, and they thrummed around in his head, detached from his body. Even when he had come outside to try and gather them up, they still raced around in his skull, beating around the bone and gnawing at his mind like little animals. He tried to catch them, quash them down, shove them away, disperse them like they were swarms of flies: only they evaded him like fog, slipping between his frustrated fingers like water.
He leaned back against the wall, and he sighed. He couldn’t change the past, he shouldn’t wish to achieve any more or any less than he had, so he shouldn’t dwell on it. Realistically, he knew this; he could reason with himself. That didn’t stop the constant irk of his thoughts, and they continued to plague him in garbled jumbled of letters and words that weren’t even forming coherent sentences anymore.
Even in the quiet street, in the peaceful silence of the night, his head was too loud. A crackle like static, a nervous stream of never-ending questions that demanded answers he didn’t have, or didn’t want to give.
What was it like to be on top of the world?
The thought slipped up in front of the others like a shadow. He didn’t know how to answer that one. Rather, he didn’t have the answer to that one.
He wasn’t on top of the world, so he couldn’t answer the question. The world was too big, too dramatic, too incomprehensible in its entirety. He was another person out of eight billion and growing, he was another face in the crowd. He didn’t think he was worth all that much, he wasn’t anything special compared to anyone else.
Was he destined for a lot? He hadn’t thought so. He just wanted to sing. It was a simple wish, nothing Woojin had thought would pose more than a few little obstacles, a couple of rocks in the river. Of course it hadn’t been that easy, but he had gotten what he wanted eventually, and he was satisfied. He sang and would continue to do so for his audience, for as long as his life would grant him to do so.
It was fulfilling enough. Nothing grandiose, nothing spectacular or groundbreaking. He loved his fans, and he loved to make music, therefore, wouldn’t he say that he had completed everything he had wanted, that he had done what he wished to do? There was no reason that he should ever be unsatisfied because he had accomplished what he wanted.
Of course, everyone no matter what age or what occupation had wondered what the answer to that question would be. To seemingly have the entire world staring up at you, to be someone they idolise. To control the sway of their movements, to light up billions of faces with a smile just by existing, just by walking into a room. To own as much as you want, to live any way you like; to be unable to look up because you are the highest any man could ever go.
What was it like? Well, Woojin didn’t know, and he doubted many people did. When he was much younger than this, he had been curious. He had imagined that being at the top of the world would be warm. Everything would be comfortable and bright: orange. To be loved by so many people would be so incredibly warm, and so, so rewarding. To have your life labelled as a gift, to be seen by others as a light in the dark, a torch like the sun. He had imagined it would be very warm indeed.
Unlike the cold grey-blue of a street at night, wrapped in a thin jacket, staring up at near-invisible clouds because you can’t sleep. If being at the top of the world was warm, could it only be said that it was cold otherwise? Lukewarm at best if you were satisfied? Like he should be?
Woojin didn’t know, because he had never experienced being at the top of the world. He wondered where the question had come from and wished he had never thought it at all.
Who was he to ask questions like that? If you look at it from any perspective, that’s a little selfish is it not? He has so much he could be worrying about, but instead, he was stood here lost in hypotheticals he hadn’t thought about since he was in his early twenties. He wanted to kick himself for being so stupid, because of course his train of thought led him here. It always did.
What was it like to be on top of the world?
He stared down at the cracks in the pavement, and the longer he stared without blinking, the more they started to meld together in a swamp of dark grey. He didn’t know, so he wished his brain would stop asking.
No shops were open at this time of night. Only a few convenience stores still had their lights on, and even then, none were close enough that their windows were visible from his spot outside his little apartment complex.
The moon wasn’t full anymore, and he knew it would continue to wane until it disappeared over the next week or two. It was partially hidden by a dark cloud, like a face turning away to hide. The moon didn’t even want to look at him, or maybe it simply didn’t see him.
He hadn’t really left to much of a mark. Was everyone supposed to try and leave as big a dent as they could? Was it of best interest to create a spectacle and become as well known as you could in the little time you were alive? Is that what humans were supposed to do? Shooting stars that wanted to burn the brightest they could before they disintegrated and fizzled out forever?
Is it the goal of everyone to be remembered? Should he have tried harder to be something more special, more memorable? He wasn’t particularly sure if that’s what mattered, because there were surely more important things in life than that, yet he couldn’t stop thinking about it. When you are left to constantly compare yourself to others, one can’t help but wonder if they should have done better to be remembered.
Woojin was a thinker. He hates that he thinks about this too often. He can’t really help it though, and he knows he will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Some faces are everywhere, and some people have the answer to questions he will go the rest of his life without knowing.
His mind continues to supply him with the same questions again, but he dulls them out this time, scuffing at the pavement with the edge of his shoe. His breath puffs around him like snow, like frost. It’s colder than he thought tonight.
When he’s tired and alone, he sometimes reaches out and wishes to touch even a little bit of the warmth that comes with being on top of the world. That bright, comforting orange colour that appears in his head like the large, blooming flower of a streetlamp; he wishes to just scrape it with his fingertips, to feel the tiniest bit of something he didn’t allow himself to have.
Is it greedy to want? To wonder so much when you were the one to give it up. Woojin didn’t know. He wanted to sing, and he has. He has done what he wanted, so why should he even think about any more than that? He is satisfied. He has accomplished his dream; he has everything he set out to get for himself. He is satisfied. He is satisfied.
He is leaving tomorrow.
Shouldn’t he be thinking about that instead? His life is going to be different for the next year and a half, he won’t be writing anymore music, he won’t see his family for a while, he won’t see CUBS for a long time, and it’s going to be difficult. Yet his mind has wandered too far for his liking.
He is used to working without much company, that’s how it has been and how it will continue to be. He is used to not getting far, his fan-base not really growing much. That’s always been fine with him, because wanting to sing has never really been about fame or attention or money. So why is he stuck thinking about a foreign warmth and unanswered questions? Regret? He doesn’t think he regrets anything. He wouldn’t change anything about his past, for it’s only curiosity that asked the question in the first place.
He swims around the fishbowl, the warped night sky; a tiny fish in a giant glass bowl that’s too big for it. He sees the faint pattern of stars on the outside of the glass, sees the world spinning around him like a muddled kaleidoscope.
He sees in passing, the large, glimmering scales of much larger fish. They are bright in the night sky, stunningly breathtaking, belonging to creatures far too big for him to comprehend. They swim past, and he sees the glittering sway of their tails send dazzling ripples through the water, disturbing the fabric of the night sky.
He wonders what will happen whilst he completes his service. He thinks about what kind of people he will meet in the military band, what kind of people he will be working with. He wonders what it will all be like. It is another unanswered question, another thing that he hasn’t experienced. Only this time he will find an answer eventually, it’s something that won’t go unanswered.
He’ll get to feel it out for himself, discover its colour and temperature. It’s another obstacle to climb, another river to swim down, away from the glass fishbowl. He wonders if it will be grey and cold like the street tonight, or will it be orange and warm like the top of the world must be? Maybe it’s something different? Something new.
Will the people he meets there eventually forget him too? Should he have put in more effort to be remembered? To them, will he just be another passing face that isn’t bright enough to be burned into their memory? Will he slip by unnoticed no matter how much he waves his hands and peers through the glass fishbowl? No matter how many songs he sings, even in the military band? Or will they actually remember him? Will he leave a mark this time?
Will it be different? Will there be friends or companions? Enemies? People that scrunch their nose like every other person in the room is distasteful. Or people with kind smiles and the warming pattern of crow’s feet around their eyes? Or strong soldiers with contagious confidence, sparks in their eyes, and broad shoulders? Woojin, frankly, had no idea what sort of people he would meet there, or if there would even be time to get to know any of them.
Will people think about him after he is gone? Will they remember him? Will they wait for his return? Will people even notice? And why does it matter if they do or not? He’s left wondering if he left a big enough mark before he’s going to disappear. When he comes back and continues to make music, will it ever reach anyone?
He is leaving tomorrow, and he isn’t sure he is satisfied.