Work Text:
The tape starts mid-sentence.
“—Wait, is it recording already?”
Kazuha’s face appears, too close to the lens, a blur of brown eyes, messy bangs, sunlight on her cheekbone. She blinks. “You’re supposed to count down,” she whines, like she has gone over this multiple times already.
“Three, two, one,” Yunjin says lazily, off-camera. “Action.”
Kazuha smiles, steps back, spins once with her arms wide open. The school gate behind her glints in the morning sun.
“I am... the knight of the last day!” Kazuha announces, dramatic and silly.
“You’re not even in costume,” Yunjin mutters.
“I have a towel.” Kazuha tugs the makeshift cape tighter over her shoulders, and it's that whiney tone again, like she had told Yunjin this already. “And pathos," she adds after a beat.
The camera shakes as Yunjin laughs. "Pathos?"
Kazuha nods like she's embarrassed, "yeah."
Suddenly the camera drops into the grass and Yunjin scrambles to grab it. Both girls are in frame now, both looking down into the lense. "Hi," Kazuha drags out and makes a face.
Yunjin looks at her and laughs again. "We probably look like idiots."
"Probably," Kazuha agrees, now looking off towards the school, pointing. "We have to go back inside."
Yunjin's fingers brush over the lense, she holds the camera up towards their school building. "This is the last time we have to ever step foot in this hell hole."
Kazuha tsked her off screen, "Yunjin, I said don't cuss in this! My mom will get mad at me."
Yunjin chuckled deeply in her throat like she was definitely going to do it again. "We'll just cut it out."
The footage cut to static then.
The camera cut back on over a high view of the school front yard. The wind was loud enough to distort the mic and Yunjin's hair kept splaying over the lense. Kazuha was sitting on the ledge, her legs swinging over the ledge.
"You're gonna fall off."
"No I'm not," Kazuha called, looking over her shoulder with a childish grin on her face.
"Wouldn't it be a cool ending though?" Yunjin asked, the camera still rolling in her hand. "Girl dies after last day of high school, they would probably say it was a suicide."
"You're not funny," Kazuha said, getting up and dusting off her skirt.
"You laughed," Yunjin chuckled.
"I imagined your speech," Kazuha walked closer, not realizing how close she was to the camera lense. She peered into it comically. "Would you film it?"
"What, you dying or your funeral?" Yunjin asked, deadpanned.
Kazuha looked up at her over the camera, "Yunjin, obviously the funeral." Kazuha had a very sheepish way of speaking, almost like she was almost always embarrassed.
"Probably," Yunjin said, backing up to get Kazuha in proper frame again.
The wind picked up again, rattling something metal nearby. The camera jolted, Yunjin had nearly dropped it.
"You okay?" Kazuha asked.
"Yeah," Yunjin tilted her head back, closed her eyes. "Just thinking."
"About my funeral?" Kazuha had a cheeky grin on her face.
"About after this."
Kazuha chuckled again, but this time it was a little awkward, like she wasn't prepared for Yunjin to say that. "Because I'm going back to Tokyo?" She asked it quietly, suddenly feeling like asking it was selfish.
Yunjin didn't say anything, and the camera didn't move. It was silent for a couple beats, the lense focusing and unfocusing on Kazuha.
"What if we don't talk after this?" Yunjin said behind the camera.
"We will," Kazuha replied, and the whiney tone was there again.
"You don't know that," Yunjin said, dignified, like she did.
Kazuha didn't say anything for a second again. She looked down slightly over the rooftop. "I wanna film the vending machines."
Yunjin sighed heavily, the camera shaking around as she adjusted it in her grip. "What is so special about those-"
Then the recording turned static and faded to black.
It cut back open to Kazuha pointing at the vending machines. "These are vending machines, maybe in the 21st century we'll have better ones."
Yunjin laughed, "the 21st century isn't gonna save us, Kaz."
Kazuha made a face at the camera, "don't listen to Yunjin. The 21st century will save us, soon it will be 2001, and things will be different."
Yunjin huffed behind the camera again, turning the focus onto a small white flower growing out of the crack of the sidewalk. "Different for you."
Kazuha didn't respond, she just laid down on the sidewalk, looking down at the flower. "It's you," she chuckled.
Yunjin sat the camera down on the ground. "It's you." Her shadow casted heavily over the flower and Kazuha as she sat cross legged. "That's gonna be you in Japan, you're gonna think it's too hard. You're gonna wish you never left Seoul, and then you're gonna blossom."
Kazuha looked up at her, resting her chin on her hand. Yunjin reached out and rubbed her hair out of her face. "Right through the crack?"
Yunjin suddenly broke into laughter, triggering the other girl to laugh too. "Don't say it like that!" She fell over onto her side, now visible in the camera as well.
They both laughed so hard tears came out of their eyes. "Buttcrack," Kazuha wheezed. Yunjin laughed harder than physically possible, falling flat onto her back and covering her face. She tried to catch her breath, dramatically sucking in air.
Kazuha straightened up, grabbing the camera and pointing it towards Yunjin. "It wasn't that funny."
Yunjin sobered up quickly, sitting up with tears burned down her cheeks. She snatched the camera away from Kazuha and turned it towards her. "Then why are you crying?"
Kazuha didn't respond, just laid back against the pavement. Yunjin silently placed the camera back down and joined her on the ground.
"Wouldn't it be so sick if it rained?" Yunjin asked, adjusting her hair underneath her head.
"Sick? Yeah, you would get sick," Kazuha chuckled, knowing exactly what the other girl had meant, but liked pushing her anyways.
Yunjin didn't bite it, she just put her arms up and stretched her fingers out. Kazuha looked over at her hands and gasped, grabbing her by the fingers and pulling them down to her eyesight. "What the heck did you do to your nails?!"
Yunjin pulled her hand away from Kazuha, "you just noticed?"
Kazuha sat up hastily and pulled Yunjin by the hand to be in the camera view. "She colored her nails in with-" Kazuha started confidently. "Wait, what is this?" It was obvious she wasn't asking the camera but asking Yunjin instead.
"It's sharpie," Yunjin whispered to her.
"Sharpie!" Kazuha said, back to the camera again. "I could have lent you nail polish, you dodo."
"Yeah but you don't have black," Yunjin said. Her voice sounded a little like Kazuha's then.
Kazuha rolled her eyes at the camera, "this girl..."
Yunjin snatched her hand away and stood up, taking the camera with her. Kazuha jumped up as well, "hey, where you going?"
"Nowhere, I'm getting up," Yunjin replied deadpanned.
Kazuha looked down at the pavement, "you know, if we laid there long enough, our bodies would have left prints."
"Yeah, if we laid there a million years."
Kazuha slapped the camera playfully and it turned static and buzzed out to black.
It opened back up on the two of them, clearly already in the middle of something.
Their pants legs are rolled up their calves and they are barefoot in a creek. Yunjin has mud on her elbows and Kazuha's hair is pinned back. They both look like they have fallen a couple of times. They both had wide smiles on their faces.
"I am a greaser! I am a JD and a hood! I beat up people, I rob gas stations. I am a menace to society! Man do I have fun," Yunjin yelled out with her hand raised dramatically in front of herself. Kazuha had joined her by the end, both of them laughing.
"Why do you fight, Yunjin?" Kazuha asked.
"I like showing off my muscles," Yunjin replied cheekily, a reference from the book they just finished reading in class. "Why do you like to fight, Kazuha?"
"Self-defense," Kazuha replied, putting on an accent she imagined a greaser would have. "I would be Ponyboy, if I was a greaser."
Yunjin chuckled, "guess that means I'm Johnny then."
Kazuha laughed, "you aren't like Johnny though, you are probably Two-Bit or something."
Yunjin only laughed, "I meant, well, whatever, yeah, I guess I am."
Kazuha stomps through the water and mud, reaching over the camera to grab her shoes. Yunjin joins her to do the same. "Stay gold," Kazuha says, peering into the camera lense as it goes black again.
The next clip is short. It's a shot of both of their legs and bare feet walking down the road. The sun is setting and making the entire world look slightly orange, maybe gold.
"Do you even have any money?"
"No."
And then laughter.
It opens back up with the shot facing an old convenience store.
Kazuha is in frame, pointing at the sign on the door. "No shoes, no shirt, no service," she read.
The camera pans down to both of their bare feet. "Too bad," Yunjin said.
Kazuha looked at her like she was excited to break a rule. Yunjin stepped forward and pushed the door open, walking in.
"They won't even be able to see our feet at the checkout spot," Yunjin whispered. Kazuha giggled.
They went to the back and both grabbed a bag of seaweed chips. "Who's paying?" Kazuha asked. Yunjin chuckled. "Me I guess, since you're broke."
"I'm not broke," she whined.
Yunjin took the bag from her and turned the camera around as they both walked towards the checkout line. The man behind the cash register looked done with his shift, and Yunjin laughed to herself as soon as saw him. She handed the camera to Kazuha so she could pay when it was their turn.
"Yep, thanks," Kazuha mumbled to the man after they had paid. They both walked towards the door to leave and Yunjin gave Kazuha a quick glance that she didn't have enough time to process before she was already doing something.
"Bet you didn't notice that we didn't have shoes, Mister," Yunjin called. Kazuha shushed her and pushed her out the door before anything could happen.
"What are you doing, you big, dumb idiot!?"
Yunjin laughed, letting Kazuha push her around. "What, What? I didn't do anything, just letting him know. What, seriously? He deserved to know, truly." She sounded so casual, obviously using the tone to get under Kazuha's nerves.
Kazuha accidentally smacks the camera out of Yunjin's hand, and the last shot is Kazuha with her mouth comically open in shock.
The camera cuts back on and it's dark out. Yunjin is filming, of course. In order to get the shot right, she's leaned over awkwardly, the camera showing Kazuha lit up by the dull streetlight. She wasn't looking at the camera, quietly munching the seaweed chips.
Neither of them were saying anything at all.
The wind was blowing slightly, not as bad as it had earlier that day, but still giving Kazuha a side parted hairstyle.
"Yunjin!" A woman's voice came from behind Kazuha, from far off. She looked back startled, "It's your mom." She whispered, making eye contact with the camera instead of the girl.
"Shut up, I know," Yunjin whispered. "Yes mom?" She called back.
"It's dark, you need to come in soon," her mom called.
"Okay... Wait, I thought I was going to Kazuha's!" She yelled back.
Kazuha looked at the camera awkwardly, rubbing her knees together.
"Kazuha? Is that Kazuha?"
Kazuha looked back sheepishly, but she knew Yunjin's mom couldn't see her in the dark.
"It is," Yunjin responded.
"Oh, well okay then." With that, the door closed.
Kazuha looked back at the camera and then up slightly at Yunjin. "We can't keep that in," she whispered through giggles. Yunjin shushed her and then the camera shut off.
It opened again in Kazuha's bedroom. Both girls were in frame, laid out in the floor on a strawberry printed blanket.
"What's a food you've never tried?" Kazuha asked Yunjin.
"Pickled eggs, um, anything pickled," she responded quickly.
"Yeah, no, you aren't missing out. What... who was your least favorite teacher?"
"All of them," Yunjin answered.
"Oh come on," Kazuha whined. "Who's your, who's your best friend?"
Yunjin was silent for a long time, and then made a slick motion with her hand, pointing to Kazuha discreetly so the camera would see.
"Oh, I don't know. I guess I would have a friend that qualifies as a best friend, I guess I would consider her my best friend. Yeah, probably. She's like, really weird. Not in a cute, fun way either, I mean seriously weird. She's got long black hair, never once told me her shampoo. I once watched her eat a whole pizza to herself, that solidified it. I was thinking, if this tiny girl can fit a whole pizza in her belly, she can surely fit me in her heart. So she is my best friend."
Kazuha was looking at her like she was waiting for something else.
"Oh yeah, I'm sitting in her bedroom," Yunjin continued, poking Kazuha's thigh. "She'll be leaving for Japan in a few days, and we just spent the whole day together. She'll probably make new, Japanese friends, or maybe she'll meet a Korean and be best friends. But I'll never have another Kazuha again."
When Yunjin finally looked at Kazuha she was crying. Small, sad tears just slinking down her face. "I'm sorry," Yunjin immediately said. She leaned over and used her sleeve to gently wipe her tears. "I didn't mean it," she muttered. Then she laughed, because she did mean it. She leaned her head down next to Kazuha's, "yes I did."
Kazuha wrapped her arms around Yunjin from beneath her and suddenly Yunjin felt numb. "Kazuha..."
The other girl didn't let go, held on tighter, actually.
"I love you, Yunjin. I love you so much, thank you for being my best friend."
"Thank you... thank you, too."
The camera made a beep sound, signaling it was going dead, however neither girl moved.
The camera opened again on Yunjin, in a different bedroom than before. Her own.
"I finally found the charger," she said, flipping her hair out of her face.
"I don't know what to say here, really. You're already in Japan, probably settled into your new house. Maybe you can mail me some pictures, or something. I really miss you, I haven't really left my room so much since you left. My mom thinks I'm dying. Yeah... it's almost August. That means only four more months until 2001, the 21st century you were so excited about. Is it treating you well, the approach? I hope it is, I hope you are having fun there. Maybe when I'm an adult I can come visit you. Maybe we could even live together in Tokyo, in the 21st century. I hope you are still happy, Kazuha. I hope you are still shining, brightly."
Yunjin stopped talking for a long time, wiping her eyes like it was instinct.
"I'm definitely cutting that out."
The camera faded to black.
The screen flickers, and this tape looks old. It's clearly been recorded over multiple times. Colors are washed out, the timestamp reads June 27, 2000.
It's from their last day of school.
It's Kazuha —too close to the lens, her messy bangs in the way.
"Yunjin I told you to warn me before you start recording,” her voice came through whiney, like it always did.
It's a different clip, one Yunjin didn't remember filming. She would have never even seen it had she not rewatched it before mailing it to Kazuha's new address.
It's a different take but it's the same sunlight, same towel cape.
This time, Kazuha isn't being silly. She stares into the lense a second longer.
“Yunjin, are you too cool for me, be honest?”
Her voice is small, like she was joking at first. There’s a flicker in her eyes, like she means it.
Yunjin responded quick, and she cringes hearing her own voice in recording. "Obviously not."
Kazuha steps back, spins in the towel again.
“I’m Kazuha, the knight of the last day!”
A beat passes.
“...and I hope this tape survives the 21st century.”
She blows a kiss at the camera, then turns and runs toward the school gate.
The screen stays on the empty frame where she was for just a little too long.
The sound of her footsteps faded, and then it cut to black.
And then maybe—just maybe—a soft click. Yunjin wasn't sure if she imagined the sound. Like someone pressed stop.
She watched the rest of the clips, mostly with a sour face. She laughed when it was funny, until she realized these moments had passed and she would never have them again. She barely got through the recording in Kazuha's bedroom, she hated it. She stupidly wished Kazuha could have just stayed in Seoul forever.
Yunjin braced herself for her own video, the clip she recorded in an emotional haste after finally charging the camera. But it didn't immediately come.
Instead, she was met with a clip of Kazuha, dark and in a night gown. Clearly from the same night. She looked over her shoulder, probably at Yunjin who would have been sleeping on the floor.
Her voice came through in a slightly distorted whisper. "I'm not sure if this will even work, I'm not sure if it's dead." She adjusted the straps of her gown and then carded her fingers through her hair.
"I wanted to record this for you, Yunjin. Maybe you will never watch this through, so maybe you'll never see me here, but I'm here. I wanna tell you that I live in your heart, Yunjin. I exist wherever you are, right now. If you are watching this, in the future, after I'm already gone, I want you to remember me as who I am now. I will always know you as my precious best friend, Yunjin. The girl who wasn't afraid of anything, and was always next to me. The girl who wasted all the storage on her brand new camera to film me being stupid all day. I meant it when I said I love you, and I know you love me too, even if you didn't say it. I know you don't like to say that kind of thing out loud. Yunjin, I hope you don't lose yourself in 2001, it's gonna come and it's gonna be big. I can- I can- I can-" the camera started to glitch. "Feel it, Yunjin. Feel it- Feel it."
Then it cut out completely.
Seoul, 2004
It was late when she found it again.
Tucked between old sketchbooks and a cracked case of blank CDs, the camera had somehow followed her through three apartments and two failed attempts at college.
Yunjin sat on the floor in her new place, cross-legged, half-eaten cup noodles going cold beside her. She hadn’t meant to look for it. She was just cleaning. Or maybe avoiding sleep.
She charged it this time without hesitation.
No drama, no recording, just the quiet click of old plastic and the dim buzz of something old booting up.
And then there they were.
All over again.
The grainy sunlight. The towel cape. The school gate.
That same dumb laugh she hadn’t heard in years.
She didn't cry as she watched it through, twice.
Kazuha had reached out, twice, but they never saw each other in person again. Never at all the next year.
After it ended the second time, Yunjin sat there for a long time. Just her, the soft hum of her fridge, and that emptiness you get when someone makes you laugh in a memory you can’t touch.
Then, without really planning to, she took the tape out.
Wrapped it in an old scarf.
Wrote an address she wasn’t sure was still accurate.
Added a note inside.
“I found it. You were right.
The tape survived the 21st century.
We did too
- YJ.”
No return address. No PS.
She mailed it the next morning.
And maybe it never got there.
Maybe it sat in a postal office in Shibuya until someone threw it away.
But maybe—just maybe—Kazuha pressed play.
Maybe Kazuha knew, the 21st century was coming, had come. Maybe she could still feel it.