Chapter Text
The school was quieter than usual.
Not because it was under construction, but because it was in that strange state between ordinary and celebratory. Strings of lights hung loose between trees, their wires still visible in the daylight. Foldable tables sat scattered across the quadrangle waiting for booths that hadn't arrived yet. A half-painted sign leaned against a wall, the word FESTIVAL still missing its final letter.
By evening, the place would be crowded. For now, it belonged to volunteers.
The air smelled faintly of paint and dust. Someone was testing out the speakers near the stage, humming the tune of Emergency Room by izi. Every few minutes, a burst of static rolled across the grounds before dying just as suddenly.
Youngjae followed the sound of voices through the backstage corridor.
Inside, Dohoon wore his final costume for the play.
At the center of the practice room, there stood a faceless mannequin wearing nothing but a white, translucent polo. Dohoon's eyes fixed on the mannequin—his hands moving through the wind as he reenacted one of the final scenes of the play. His eyes filled with worry, his breath heavy—like the entire festival hung around the success of his performance.
His hands trembled slightly as he reached towards the mannequin’s shoulders before falling away again. For a moment, it felt less like a rehearsal and more like desperation.
Youngjae knocked softly against the doorframe. Dohoon stopped in his tracks, catching up with his breath. His sweat dripped onto the floor, his hair disheveled, and his legs weak as he looked back at Youngjae staring brightly at him. Youngjae flashed him a soft smile, moving towards him, his shoes echoing with each step.
Dohoon's eyes flickered between the mannequin and Youngjae. Only for a moment.
“Hey,” Dohoon smiled, raising his hand and waving to Youngjae in, what many people consider, an awkward way. “What brings you back here?” he asked, putting his hands inside his pockets as he stood right beside the mannequin.
“Just killing time…gotta make sure this place doesn't burn down before sunset,” Youngjae giggled, looking at Dohoon's sweaty face panting in front of him. He grabbed a towel from the vanity right next to him and offered it to the guy. “Here, wipe your face. You'll look better that way,”
Dohoon took the towel with not much thought. As he wiped the sweat off his forehead, Youngjae looked around the room. The several costumes for the other characters hung on the walls—right next to it were some flowers and words of encouragement from Dohoon's league of fans eager to watch him perform. “What were you performing just now?” Youngjae asked curiously, his eyes catching the mannequin in the middle of the room.
“Watch the play to find out,” Dohoon joked. Youngjae smiled at the thought.
“What’s it about?”
Dohoon froze for a half-second because of the question. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he joked again, which made Youngjae giggle even harder. Youngjae checked the watch on his wrist, noticing it was already half-past 9AM.
“I gotta leave, there's some things I need to look into. Good luck later!” Youngjae waved goodbye at Dohoon. Before Dohoon could even react, Youngjae was out the door. Now, he stood alone again with the mannequin. Dohoon looked back at the clothes it was wearing. He rolled one of its sleeves up to its elbow and unbuttoned one of the buttons near its neck. “Perfect,” he murmured.
Junghwan rushed to the door in a hurry, his palms sweating as he caught his breath leaning on the doorframe of the practice room. Due to the sudden noise, Dohoon looked back as to where Junghwan was standing. “Where have you been? Youngjae's looking for you,” Dohoon asked Junghwan, offering him a bottle of water.
At that name, Junghwan straightened slightly. “I got held up,” he said, stepping inside while shaking his hand through his hair. “Traffic was worse than usual,”
Dohoon leaned casually against the table, twisting the bottle cap of his water bottle between his fingers. “There’s someone I keep noticing lately,” Dohoon exclaimed which made Junghwan choke on his water—the sudden change of topic startled him.
He glanced up towards Dohoon. He noticed how Dohoon's eyes drooped and looking back at the mannequin.
“Oh?”
“Yeah,”
Dohoon smiled slightly, but didn't look at him. “Not loud, not obvious, just…there,” Junghwan nodded, already forming an image in his head.
“It’s not like you to get caught up in a girl,” Junghwan joked which made Dohoon let out a small laugh. “Yeah, something like that,” he responded. Junghwan didn't press any further.
Junghwan stepped out of the practice room before he fully decided to. The hallway felt brighter than it should be, he thought.
Festival lights were already being tested outside, leaking through the open exits in thin, uneven lines. The noise of the ground came in waves—voices, metal clinking, someone laughing too loudly at something that wasn't funny yet.
He shouldn't have followed. But he did.
Youngjae was standing right in the middle of the corridor. Not waiting, not looking for him, but talking to a festival volunteer—existing in a space like it didn't require effort.
He was talking to the volunteer with ease, half-turned, one hand loosely holding a clipboard he wasn't really reading. The other hand gestured absentmindedly as he spoke, like the conversation didn't need to be finished to make sense. Junghwan stopped a few steps away. Not close enough to interrupt, close enough only to hear.
“...please make sure that the timing doesn't overlap with the starting scene for Act 3,” Youngjae was saying, then paused, nodding like he was already moving on to the next thought. “Yeah, that should be fine,” he continued the conversation. The volunteer left after getting feedback for his work. Youngjae turned—and finally saw him.
There was no reaction that made it obvious. No surprise. No change in posture. Just a slight shift of his gaze, like Junghwan had always been somewhere nearby and was only now becoming relevant again. “Oh,” Youngjae stopped. “You’re here,”
Youngjae gave him a look—quick, asserting, and unkind. “You’re late,”
“You already have someone telling me that,”
“And it’s true,”
That made Junghwan exhale through his nose, somewhere between amusement and surrender. Youngjae didn't stay still when talking, he never did. He would shift his weight slightly, glance towards the stage, then back at Junghwan like the conversation was one of several tabs open in his head.
Junghwan noticed that. Not in a way he could explain yet. Just in a way that made him feel like he had to keep up. “You were looking for me?” Jeonghwan asked.
Youngjae paused for half a second.
“Dohoon said you weren't around,” he said, like that was the whole reason. Then added more casually, “And I needed someone to check the sound booth later,”
Junghwan nodded. Of course, it made sense. It always started with Youngjae—a practical reason, necessary, something that didn't sound like it really mattered…but it did.
“Okay, places people. Let's make Hanlim proud!” Youngjae started.
The festival didn't feel like it was ending or beginning—it felt like it was holding its breath.
The sky had already started to shift into a muted orange, the kind that made everyone look slightly than they actually were. Not sunset yet, but close enough that people began speaking a little louder, as if trying to outrun the running quiet.
The school grounds were fully alive now.
Booths that had been half-built in the morning were now fully cluttered with movement—paper signs fluttering, plastic cups stacked too quickly, strings of fairy lights flickering on and off as if testing whether they were needed yet. The air carried overlapping scents of fried food, paint thinner, and sweat that had already stopped being noticeable to anyone except newcomers.
Somewhere near the quadrangle, a host was shouting into a mic that kept cutting a syllable too late. Laughter broke out in uneven waves. Music from different booths collided in ways that weren't coordinated but somehow still worked.
Everything slightly felt too full. Too loud, Junghwan thought. Like it was trying to exist all at once before it ran out of time.
Near the stage, technicians were adjusting lights for the evening performance. The glow was stronger now—stage lights warming up against the dimming sky, spilling onto the ground in uneven shapes that didn't match where people were standing. Everything looked slightly staged, even the parts that didn't.
But amidst all the chaos, Junghwan caught Youngjae. Not all at once.
First, it was the direction of movement.People didn’t exactly follow him—but they adjusted around him. A volunteer stepping aside mid-walk. Someone paused a sentence because Youngjae had started speaking. A clipboard changing hands without argument.
Then it was the sound. Not louder than the rest of the festival, but clearer in it. Like his voice didn’t compete with noise—it organized it.
And then finally, him.
Youngjae stood near the edge of the quadrangle, half-turned toward the sound booth setup, one hand lifted slightly as he corrected something a technician had gotten wrong. His posture wasn’t performative. It didn’t ask to be looked at. But it didn’t need to.
Junghwan slowed without meaning to. The camera was already in his hand. Not raised yet—just present, like it had been waiting for this specific alignment of time and space. He watched Youngjae speak again, a short instruction that made two people immediately move faster, like they had been waiting to be told they were allowed to.
Then Youngjae paused. Not because he noticed Junghwan. Because he didn’t need to. He was already turning.
“Oh,” Youngjae said. “You’re still here.” Junghwan let out a small breath through his nose.
“That’s one way to put it.”
“You’re late again.”
“I’m starting to think that’s just my role in this festival.”
Youngjae hummed like he was considering whether that was acceptable. Then he shook his head slightly. “It isn’t.”
A beat.
Not sharp.
Just final in a quiet way.
Junghwan should’ve responded. Instead, he lifted the camera. This time, fully. Not as a habit. Not as a reflex. As a decision.
Youngjae didn’t stop him. He didn’t pose either. He just…continued existing the same way he had been a second ago—mid-motion, slightly angled toward the booth, caught between tasks he was already halfway done solving.
That was what made it hard. There was nothing to correct. Nothing to arrange. Nothing that looked like it needed permission to be seen.
Junghwan framed him. The background was chaos: festival booths, shifting crowds, moving light, blurred banners, overlapping color and sound that refused to settle into one thing. But inside the frame—Youngjae was still. Not physically. But in the way the image decided what mattered.q
Click.
It was softer than the festival noise. Almost swallowed immediately. But Junghwan felt it land anyway. Like something had been stored before he had time to name it.
Youngjae turned his head slightly. “What was that?” Junghwan lowered the camera too quickly. “Nothing.”
A pause.
Youngjae studied him for a second longer than necessary. Not suspicious. Just aware. Then he exhaled lightly, like he had already moved on internally. “Try to keep documenting the play,” he said. Junghwan nodded. “Yeah.” But he didn’t check the photo. Not yet.
Because just beyond them, the festival kept expanding into its own noise—and somewhere deeper inside it, the stage lights were warming up fully now. Not rehearsal anymore. Not preparation either. Something closer to beginning. And Junghwan, still holding the camera, realized he was no longer just documenting the festival. He was inside the part of it that would later be called the start.
Junghwan started looking around the crowd as Dohoon sang in front, with his choreography accompanying him. Youngjae continued with his rounds, murmuring towards the volunteers and through the crowd. They continued to cheer on Dohoon who had locked eyes on them. Yet, Junghwan knew. Somehow.
Dohoon's attention wasn't on them.
His camera followed his gaze, doe-eyed and on someone that he couldn't quite make out. At first, those eyes shifted. From the edge of the quadrangle, to the sound booth, backstage. Yet it also flickered between his co-actor’s eyes—and no one in the audience ever noticed his shifting gaze. No one, except Junghwan.
It was, as if, Dohoon was constantly pulling in and out of his character.
A few hours later, the play had finally ended. Everyone gathered around Dohoon who was still smiling ear-to-ear, holding a bouquet of flowers from his fans in the audience. Junghwan sighed, capturing the moment with his camera. He hadn't seen Youngjae for a while, yet that was to be expected. For someone like Youngjae, it was common for him to be gone in events like these.
The crowds dispersed a few minutes later. Confetti laid on the wooden floor with the balloons floating in mid-air. Junghwan moved back to a private room reserved for volunteers only to retrieve his jacket. Yet, at the center of the room was a table, where Youngjae's bag was placed neatly. Right next to it was Youngjae's notebooks and a folded post-it note pressed against its pages.
Junghwan knew he didn't want to pry or to invade Youngjae's space. Yet, curiosity got the best of him. The post-it note was marked with a red pen, on it was written in Hangul.
To Choi Youngjae,
with love
Junghwan's fingers moved to take the post-it note. Pressed between his fingers, he slowly opened the note with his right hand. The handwriting was familiar, he thought, but he couldn't quietly place whose. It read:
Please stay after the play. I need to tell you something. Signed, Kim Do-hoon.
Junghwan didn’t remember leaving the room properly.
One moment he was standing over the table, the folded note still between his fingers. The next, he was already in motion—footsteps too fast for the quiet left behind by the festival crowd.
Outside, the air had changed.
The sun was lower now, slipping behind the school buildings in a way that made everything feel slightly detached from itself. Lights were fully on across the quadrangle, but they no longer looked like preparation. They looked like a continuation. Like something had already begun without asking permission.
Junghwan tightened his grip on the camera strap without noticing.
The note stayed in his pocket. Unreadable now in a different way. Not because he didn’t know what it said—but because it had already changed what “knowing” meant.
He moved through the corridor fast enough that the noise of the festival became a blur of overlapping sound behind him. Someone called out his name once, maybe, but it didn’t stick long enough to matter.
Junghwan pried the door open, slightly so that the people inside wouldn't notice that he was there.
The auditorium doors were quiet. That was the first wrong thing. There should still be volunteers by now. Backstage lights spilled into the hallway in thin, angled lines, like something had been left unfinished mid-breath. A stagehand passed by carrying cables without looking at him. No one stopped him. No one asked.
The auditorium was not empty. But it was emptied in the way aftermaths are—not absence, but rearrangement.
A few lights were still on overhead, dimmed now into a softer gold. The stage curtain hung unevenly, not fully drawn. Props had been pushed slightly off-center, as if someone had left in a hurry without deciding what counted as “reset.”
And in the middle of it—Dohoon stood alone. The props for the play had been broken down, and amidst that chaos, he held a bouquet of flowers. He was still in his final costume, a costume that he had worn when Youngjae caught him in the practice room.
He wasn't performing anymore.
Just…standing, like the version of himself that existed between scenes hadn’t found where to go next.
Junghwan’s eyes travelled from the stage to the floor. His breath caught, but he didn’t speak.
Because Dohoon wasn’t alone for long.
Youngjae was there too.
He was standing amongst the confetti and the balloons. One hand still loosely holding something Junghwan couldn’t immediately identify—paper, maybe a cue sheet, maybe nothing important at all.
They locked eyes immediately, as if Youngjae was waiting for an encore from Dohoon.
Junghwan should have moved. Should have interrupted. Should have made his presence known in a way that changed the outcome of what he was seeing.
But his body didn’t cooperate. It only watched.
Dohoon spoke first. Not loudly. Not like a confession anymore. More like something that had already happened and was being reviewed too late.
“—I meant what I wrote.”
Youngjae didn’t respond immediately. That pause was the first thing that felt heavy enough to notice. Not silence. Delay.
Then Youngjae shifted slightly, adjusting his grip on whatever he was holding. “I know,” he said.
Simple.
Even.
Not unkind.
Not warm either.
Just…recognition.
Junghwan felt something tighten in his chest that didn’t have a name yet. Because that answer didn’t land like resolution. It landed like continuation. Like the conversation had already been happening long before he arrived.
Dohoon let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh, but didn’t fully commit to becoming one. “Then why—” He stopped. Not because he forgot the question. Because finishing it would have required something neither of them were ready to use.
Youngjae looked at him properly then. Not like a performance. Not like a role. Just a look that didn’t move away quickly enough to feel casual.
“I didn’t ask you to stop,” he said quietly. A beat.
“And I didn’t ask you to start like that either.”
The words hung there without collapsing into meaning. Junghwan realized, distantly, that this was what it looked like when language stopped agreeing with emotion. Nothing was resolved. But nothing was being denied either. That was worse. Or clearer. He couldn’t tell.
Junghwan didn’t realize he was moving again until he felt his body on the ground. A tear fell down on his cheek as he pried the door further, hoping that it wouldn't creak.
The auditorium felt different from before. Not quieter—just more settled, like it had chosen a version of itself and was now refusing to reconsider. The stage lights were still on, but softer now. Less like performance, more like aftermath trying to pass as normality.
Dohoon was no longer speaking. Youngjae was. Junghwan caught only fragments at first—tone before meaning. “…it’s fine,” Youngjae said.
A pause. Then, quieter:
“…you did well.”
That was the sentence that made something in Junghwan misaligned. Not because it was loud. Because it wasn’t. Because it sounded like closure.
Dohoon lowered his gaze slightly, then nodded. Once. Not like relief. Like acceptance of something that didn’t need to be repeated. And that was enough. Too enough.
Junghwan felt his grip tighten on the camera before he realized he was holding it like an anchor. His mind started doing what it always did when it couldn’t fully process a moment:
It filled in the gaps. It chose a version that made sense.
So this was it.
That was what he had missed.
That was what the note meant.
That was why Dohoon had been looking at Youngjae like that earlier—why the mannequin had felt like rehearsal instead of prop, why the festival had felt like it was always slightly ahead of him. He had arrived after the answer.
Junghwan’s hand moved before his thoughts finished aligning. Camera up. Not to capture. To confirm.
He looked at the photo. The one he had taken earlier. Youngjae in motion. Half-turned. Organizing the space around him without trying. Alive in a way that didn’t ask to be witnessed.
For a second, Junghwan compared the two versions of him: The one in his hand. And the one in the auditorium.
And in his mind, they collapsed into a single conclusion: He had been watching the moment Youngjae chose someone else.
His throat tightened, but he didn’t move. Didn’t interrupt. Didn’t correct anything. Because if this was what it meant, then the timing wasn’t something he could fix anymore. It was already decided somewhere he hadn’t been invited into.
Behind him, someone on stage called for the lights to go down. A cue. A transition. The auditorium obeyed slowly, like it was remembering how endings worked.
Junghwan lowered the camera. This time, not because the moment was over— but because he thought he already understood it. And that was what made it final.
He turned away first. Not running. Not leaving dramatically. Just stepping out of the version of the story where he could still affect what it meant.
And as he walked, the photo in his hand felt heavier than before. Not because it had changed. But because it now contained something he believed he had correctly named—even if, somewhere behind him, the actual moment was still unfolding in a way he would never fully see again.