Chapter 28
January 4th
The start of a new year always felt strangely anticlimactic. The festive high faded, and you were left with the realisation that the new year was just another day in the same cold, dark stretch of winter.
Aside from it now being 2021, it didn’t feel like much had changed.
People went back to work, decorations were taken down, the news still reported covid figures, although the importance of these had lessened to the point where it was no longer top of the news cycle.
The world was moving on.
I never heard back from him. He didn’t call again. Maybe he didn’t even know I’d heard his message.
Maybe he didn’t care.
I saw the post by accident. I’d muted his social media account a few weeks after– well. After.
I couldn’t bring myself to block him, which was how I came to see the post. It was big news in the music community, and my social media algorithms saw fit to push it right to the top of my feed.
He had posted a clip of one of the songs from his album, which was due out later in the month.
It was the song he’d played for me in the sound booth on the day of my interview with ENT, more than a year ago. Except, it wasn’t. This version was slowed down, and instead of the synth sounds and electric guitar, he’d used an acoustic one. He sang in English. I almost didn’t recognise the song. When I’d originally heard it, he’d sung the entire song in Korean.
Hearing it now was like hearing it for the first time, and I wasn’t prepared.
It was only a short clip, forty-two seconds, but for those scant moments, I was yanked through the screen until I was there with him, in a dark room, sitting on the floor, watching as he played the guitar and sang the words to a song that had taken on a completely different meaning.
Hold onto me, even if it’s just for tonight
Don’t let me fade
Pull me closer, like you did before
Hold on, until we can’t anymore
The weight on my chest felt so heavy I struggled with the effort of every breath.
It was only the chorus, but there was so much in those short bars that it left me feeling bereft. I was scorched from the inside out, and the depth of my reaction surprised me, because honestly, I’d thought I was healing.
Seeing him was bad enough, but hearing him?
I was not okay, and in a way, it was a relief to not pretend that I was, because it was quite clear I wasn’t there. Not yet.
I closed my social media and went for a walk.
The next morning, the video had been removed.
January 29th
It’s Official: Baek Jihoon and Lee Hyejin Are Dating, Agencies Confirm.
The news hit the public consciousness that morning.
I sat on a bench in a public park, watching ducks fight over soggy bread as it floated on the surface of the pond. I couldn’t move.
It had started to drizzle a while back, more like damp wind than actual raindrops. Gentle plinking sounds that provided a monotonous backing track as droplets pelted against my raincoat. It protected me from the rain, but my fingers were starting to go numb from cold.
I didn’t move, because I knew that if I did, if I even shifted slightly, I would fall apart in a literal sense.
