Chapter Text
Baku
It’s been years since Baek Jin died, but it still doesn’t feel real.
Every year, around this time, something shifts inside me. The air feels heavier. The days blur together. And even though everything looks normal on the outside—sunny mornings, kids playing in the streets, people laughing—I still feel like I’m stuck in that one moment when everything changed.
After you passed, I started moving through life like I was on autopilot. I’d smile and joke around with my friends. I’d pretend I was fine. But inside, something was missing. It still is.
I tried ignoring it. Tried to push it down, bury it deep. But grief doesn’t work that way. It finds you in the quiet moments, in the middle of a laugh, or when you're walking home and suddenly can’t remember why you’re crying.
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about what I could’ve done. What if I had stayed with you that day in the rain? What if I had talked to you—really talked—and told you how sorry I was? That I missed you. That I wanted to fix everything between us, if only you’d let me.
My friends noticed something was wrong back then. They tried to reach out, told me it wasn’t my fault. I nodded, lied, said I was just having a rough week and that it would pass. But even then, I knew it wouldn’t. That kind of pain doesn’t just go away. It stays. I feel it even now—guilt, anger, emptiness. Sometimes they all show up at once. Sometimes nothing does, and that’s even worse.
Today is the anniversary.
Like always, I brought a small bouquet of flowers . I made the walk to the cemetery after work, just as the sun started dipping below the rooftops. It was quiet. Peaceful. I sat down next to his grave and placed the flowers gently in front of the stone.
“Baek Jin,” I said softly. “How are you? Missed me?”
I let out a breath. “I miss you. A lot.”
I looked down at my hands, then up at the sky. “I finished high school. I’m working as a gym teacher now. Can you believe it? Me. A teacher.”
A small laugh escaped me before the silence settled again.
“Hyeon Tak’s teaching Taekwondo at that studio Suho opened—you remember him, right? He finally saved up enough. Jun Tae’s working as a elementary school teacher. And Sieun… he’s a doctor.”
I paused. “Crazy, huh? Who would've guessed I’d be the one not to fall apart completely.”
I didn’t even realize I was crying until I wiped my face with the sleeve of my jacket. The tears had been there the whole time, I think.
I stood up slowly, my legs stiff from sitting on the cold ground.
“It was nice talking to you,” I said, looking down at the headstone one last time, smiling sadly. “See you next time, Baek Jin.”
And just like that, I turned and walked back toward the city lights, my heart a little heavier than it had been this morning.
Baek jin
It’s been years since I faked my death and disappeared.
Even now, I don’t fully understand why I did it. Was it shame? Anger? Maybe I just wanted to escape the version of myself that had been tricked so easily. Maybe I was just tired of being haunted by the past . I don’t know—and maybe I never will.
The day were I faked my dead was gray and wet, the air heavy with fog. It reminded me of that day—the one where everything fell apart. The day you told me you were sorry. The day you said I should be sorry, too.
I walked into the bowling place, one of the lackeys told me to wait in a side room. I walked down the narrow hall, my shoes silent on the floor, opened the door, and stepped inside. I closed it quietly behind me.
“Ya, Baek Jin,” he snapped the moment he saw me. “What were you thinking? Huh? What if they had exposed everything? Were you planning to take responsibility?”
I didn’t answer. I just stood there, staring at him.
“Ahh, you really drive me crazy.” He dragged a hand down his face. “You know the only reason I’m even talking to you right now and not beating the crap out of you is because you used to be one of our best. So—what do you have to say for yourself?”
I met his eyes. “I want to quit.”
He stared at me for a second, dumbfounded. Then he burst out laughing. “Yah, Na Baek Jin, you’re hilarious. Seriously—are you joking? Answer me!”
I looked at the ground, then back up. “I’m serious.”
We stood in silence. A full minute, maybe more. Then he said, slowly, “You know what happens when someone tries to leave.”
“I know,” I said. “You have to take a beating. And give up something dear to you.”
“And you still want to go through with it?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t say anything after that. He just started beating me—no words, no hesitation. I let him. I didn’t fight back. I don’t remember when I blacked out, but I remember waking up. A splash of cold water hit my face. I gasped.
I was still on the floor. He knelt in front of me, cigarette burning between his fingers, watching me like I was something strange.
“So,” he said, “what’s the precious thing you’re giving up?”
I blinked slowly, trying to keep consciousness. “My life.”
He paused. Then he laughed again, but this time there was no humor in it. “Na Baek Jin… have you lost your mind? You think if it were that easy—if we could just kill someone and make them disappear without the police breathing down our necks—we wouldn’t have done it already?”
“Then say I died,” I whispered. “Say I died, and I’ll disappear for good. No trace. No noise. And I will send you money every month for a year. And just like that you get rid of me and you get a profit”
”Hah you really drive me crazy Baek Jin, but ok fine, you have a deal just don’ t let me see your face again.”
That night, I using my savings I bought a one-way ticket to Germany, and enrolled in an international school I'd signed up for under a different name.