in spite of all my dreams, seoul is as lonely as home once was. the friend who's hosted me as i study abroad for the past two years, deokhye, is gone with classmates for a month, and her father fills the first floor of the house with angry, pointless questions and the smell of soju when she's gone. more and more often nowadays, my life seems to be sliding off an uneven table.

deokhye’s oldest cousin is namjoon, and he drops by often with his dorm mates, speaking with me in english with me even though korean is becoming the language i think in. he’s kind but busy, and i almost wish i had not met them. it reminds me of the cliques in high school formed purely of genuine friendships. they were always kind, there just wasn't any space for you at the table. sometimes that makes it worse―the almost-ness of it.

he drops by again today, bringing with him the others, but not for the fun of muddling through a conversation with me. sometimes they simply come to deokhye's house to cook in our house's kitchen, superior to whatever's in their dorm, but today they all look so tired. he says they have today free, although by the way they look, maybe they dumped practice for the day. jimin is pale, and yoongi falls asleep on the floor within minutes. hoseok sprawls in a wide chair and stretches for answers to ahjussi’s irritable questions, and i slide away into the kitchen to take out the trash. jungkook is there, sitting on the counter and eating fruit with namjoon; i want to stay and have someone talk to me, but they don't know me well enough to see me as more than an acquaintance, so i try not to bother them as i wrestle with the over-full trashbag.

it’s raining outside. again. it’s warm and the pavement is cool so i stand barefoot in the driveway for a long time before i go anywhere. the trash bins are down the street, tucked into a steep alley, and i should wear my shoes because sometimes there’s bits of broken glass or soju caps or metal, but i don’t. back home the rain was colder, but i was happier, and there was no bubble around me. here i’m stronger from walking and biking and locking myself away.

when i come back, taehyung is sitting on the pavement. the rain slopes off the roof of the shallow porch and he’s soaked through, with wet hair and grey t-shirt clinging to his skin. he sees me and i stop, like i’ve hit a wall. his eyes are flat, like the dead, pupil-less eyes in anime i used to watch with my friends back in middle school. he looks at my feet and i’m ashamed of my sadness here and of all the locked gates between us. of the fact that i don't care enough to put on shoes.

instead of going past him to get inside, i walk away, down into the street. rain hits harder and splashes up on my legs and melts my shoulders. the cars in the street hishhh through puddles and i’m too heavy to look at them. at the crosswalk i stop and look out, beyond the road, to the water and skyline beyond. it is pale and hazy and welcoming in the way that sleep pulls me towards tired sheets and loneliness.

a car crashes. i don’t really see it happen, but i hear the big pickup crunching with the concrete barrier and flipping over it. it’s almost funny, really, how it drops out of sight to the bay as though following the bend of my thoughts. i don’t wait for the crosswalk to turn green (is the car wrecking me, now?). when i reach the other side, i look down the steep slope to the water and see the truck sinking on its side, its front end crumpled. i can’t see the driver.

i can’t remember calling the emts, so maybe someone else did it. i must have called namjoon, though, because he shows up beside me at some point, squinting down the hill to where the responders are pulling a body out of the cab. not a boy, a body.

“seokjin.” his voice rasps like the bottom of a dry well and he tries to scramble down to the wreck, but someone wrestles him back. taehyung comes up beside me.

“who is it?” he asks, even though he already knows. “i―i have to leave. where’s jin-hyung? he’s supposed to be picking us up. please, tell me where he is―” he crouches beside me on the sidewalk and i can’t hear anything anymore.

it’s jungkook that pulls the two of us away from the wreck. he half-coaxes, half-pulls taehyung to his feet, and when he sees me not moving he grabs my arm and pulls me along. he puts me on one side of taehyung; maybe i’m supposed to help support him in some way, but he’s standing up fine now and i keep forgetting where i am or where i’m supposed to be going. he takes my hand shakily and we walk that way, hand in hand in hand up the hill, back to a home that does not belong to any of us.

“he’ll be fine, he’ll be fine.” jungkook keeps saying. “come on.” taehyung doesn’t let go of my hand until we’re inside, past the ahjussi who wants answers, and tucked back into the kitchen, sitting on the floor. the two of them sit side by side and i wish i was one of them, but i’m not. when yoongi comes in, he tells them to get up; they’re going to the hospital. they’ll take the bus. i think they’re going to leave me but they don’t― taehyung rises and hesitates, looking down at me. i don’t think either of us has said anything.

“you come too,” jungkook says, seeing taehyung’s look.

“why?” yoongi questions, harsh and calculating.

“she was there at the crash. and―” he glances back through to the living room towards ahjussi. “i don’t really want to leave her here.”

yoongi nods, and we slip out the back door together. i stick on sandals and walk behind them until yoongi gestures irritably. “get up here. if you’re coming then don’t get left behind.”

taehyung paces himself beside me after that. on the bus, jungkook and i sit while yoongi and taehyung hold onto the overhanging grips, standing close above us as though to shield our own private grief from the rest of the passengers, to keep it something sacred and afraid.

jin’s hospital isn’t far, but by the time we reach it, he’s already dead. yoongi gets namjoon's text when we're just outside the big sliding doors, and he doesn't say a thing at first, but we can tell by his face.

“too late,” yoongi says at last, shaking his head. he curses bitterly until his own tears cut him off, and jungkook turns his head away. taehyung keeps walking, so i stick with him, following blindly until he stops and looks through a half open door. namjoon is sitting with his head in his hands, crying. seokjin’s body is on the bed but i don’t want to see his face. we stand there a long time, tae and i, until he turns away.

“i’m going home.” he says, and i don’t turn to watch him go.

after a while, hoseok and jimin run in past me; yoongi follows them at a walk.

“are you alright?” jungkook asks, trying to stall even though we both know he’ll go in.

i nod, and watch the horror congealing in his expression as he blows out all the air in his lungs and then reaches for the door. i can't bring myself to follow him; i walk home by myself, not taking the bus in an attempt to wear off the grief and shock sitting in my bloodstream. it doesn’t work.

at home, ahjussi interrogates me: all the questions i don’t want to think about and don’t want to answer. he gets angry when i’m slow to answer, yelling at me. (are there never any neighbors to hear?) but i don’t have anywhere else to go. instead of arguing, i just slip away to my room once he’s started running out of steam and wanders into the kitchen to find leftovers.

(i don’t cry myself to sleep, because i don’t fall asleep. i watch the truck flip over a hundred thousand times and i hear all the sounds i don’t want to remember. namjoon’s yelling as the paramedics held him back; jungkook’s constant murmuring reassurances, the angry scuff of yoongi’s boots on the asphalt. i just do  n o t  want to think about it, but i do. i do until the sun comes up, and then i find the sleeping pills in the cabinet and try to get a little chemical-induced rest.)

around noon, i get a text from jimin. i didn’t even know he had my number; maybe he got it from deokhye? he says something’s come up with hoseok and he’s at the hospital. if i could let them come over for the afternoon, he says, it would be a lot easier than riding the bus all the way back across the city right now.

i ask if he needs help with hoseok, but he says they’ll be fine. i walk out to meet them at the bus stop but don’t make it past the first crosswalk, staring out at the street until i see them on the far side and have to snap awake to wave back at jimin.

hoseok seems normal, except that he’s exhausted and crashes into a lanky tangle on the couch almost as soon as we’re inside. jimin seems just as drained, but he is careful to pull a blanket over his friend, and he keeps a nervous eye on him even as he sleeps. when i ask what happened, jimin explains in pieces; hoseok, like me, had not been able to sleep. like me, he’d taken sleeping pills to try and get some rest last night. unlike me, he’d taken a few too many.

“and he’s already out of the hospital?” i ask, now understanding jimin’s constant fearful glances.

“they said it wasn’t too serious an overdose, since they basically flushed whole pills out of his system. i didn’t know if he’d done it on purpose, so i told them it was an accident; we’ve been there since about nine last night.”

“do you think he...meant to?” i ask, seeing the slump of his shoulders and the shadows beneath his eyes. he shrugs, helpless.

“i tried calling namjoon, but he wouldn’t answer. thanks for letting us stay here.”

“it’s fine. but how did you get my number― i didn’t know yours.”

“namjoon had it. i think―” but he hesitates, looking away embarrassed. “i think deokhye wanted him to look out for you when she was away. namjoon...he’s never been fond of his uncle. is he...are you alright here?”

“he doesn’t hurt anyone. he’s just bitter, i think. that makes him angry about a lot of things.”

“well, i think namjoon meant to drop in on you more often and make sure everything was going smoothly, but he’s so busy.” jimin looks at the phone in his hand, tapping it against his cheek. “we’ll get going as soon as hoseok wakes up― suga should be able to come pick us up soon.”

“it’s okay. i wouldn’t make you leave at all, but when ahjussi gets home he probably won’t want to see you here.”

we make lunch together, and hoseok wakes up when he smells japchae. he seems paler than usual, but he wolfs down the food and laughs with me when i accidentally spill noodles into my lap. maybe the overdose was an accident after all; none of us mention it. all i can think is that a person as sunny as hoseok doesn’t belong in a hospital. i don’t understand why heaven would give such pain to someone like him.

they leave after lunch. suga barely speaks to me when he shows up to take them, not even coming inside. for once, the afternoon is clear, but i don’t feel like going outside. instead i watch them drive away and then clean up the dishes, leaving them halfway through to change into something cooler and cleaner. somewhere between pulling on clean track shorts and finding a hairband i get lost, and wind up sitting at my desk. i fall asleep over old textbooks and a handful of receipts, not dreaming at all until the sun fades far to the other side of the house and ahjussi comes home.

i hear the reckless clatter of dishes first, and it shakes me out of the sleep i’d lost the night before. downstairs i can hear his heavy footsteps, and i feel like someone has called my name, although it might have been a dream. i stand and walk downstairs, cool wood against my feet as i step into the kitchen, standing in the half-light of the doorway and watching ahjussi’s back. it’s past time for him to be back from work, and i’m glad jimin and hoseok are long gone.

he starts slowly, complaining about the dishes i left unfinished and moving on to the leftovers jimin and hoseok ate, his voice sloppy and stained dark in the buzzing light of the kitchen. while it dissolves into cursing and threats i don’t think he’ll carry out, i finish washing up and set out what’s left of the japchae and use the same escape technique i always do. stepping out into the cooling-down air of the porch and swinging the light trash bag in my hands, i brush moths away from my hair and walk out into the alley.

it’s strange out here. the asphalt is still warm but the air, out away from the house, is cool. i toss the bag into the dumpster, watch the gnats flitting beneath the streetlight, and dismiss them. tears splash down the front of my shirt and i walk further from the house, towards the fuzzy boundary line of light and further down the narrow street. up above the wall, the stewed green trees in the park loom, and the chk-chk-chk of a sprinkler up in the grass puddles cold water down to the alley. i flinch and shudder as it swings around again, water spraying my face and running down my neck with the smell of irrigation tubes and soft earth. i don’t walk on; as though craving the sensation of something else, or stopped by someone i cannot see.

something in the evening changes; a sound or a lack of one. i look up into the trees and see taehyung, his white t-shirt an unnatural block of colorlessness against the near-black foliage of the park.

“taehyung-sshi.” my voice breaks the night air, too small. he wavers at it, opening his mouth to speak but not finding the words he wants to use. even standing above me, he seems slight and frightened, like when he was crouched beside me on the sidewalk at the accident.

“are you okay?” i ask. he doesn’t answer, but the sprinkler splatters up against him as it sweeps around again, and this time the stray drops of water strike me in the face. i flinch away, raising a hand to my face and then realizing that i’m still crying, and it would be better not to wipe my face now that i have an excuse for it to be wet. taehyung scrambles down from the wall, and i realize that for the second time, i’m not wearing any shoes. it seems like a silly thing to focus on, but i feel vulnerable and raw.

“can i ask you for help?” tae’s voice is so low the sprinkler almost drowns it. “i’m sorry. i’ve tried calling namjoon, but he won’t pick up, and i―” his breath hitches. “i need some help. my phone’s dead.”

i nod dumbly, noticing the way he bites his lip as though to keep it from tremoring. the sprinkler splatters us again, but this time taehyung shields me from most of it. we walk back towards the house into the streetlight, and he stays close at my shoulder, not speaking.

“how do i help you? i don’t have most of the boys’ numbers, but i can call jimin or―”

“can i use your bathroom? and if you have gauze and a clean t-shirt for me…?” he trails off as i look at him in surprise. the streetlight illuminates what i didn’t see before: one of his hands is cut, both bloody and broken-knuckled. the splatters on his white shirt are blood, not a pattern.

“what happened?” i whisper, feeling as though i’m in two places at once.

“i don’t really want to talk about it right now. please,” he’s begging me. i run over the possibilities; an accident, a fight. maybe he hurt himself on purpose like hoseok did.

“ahjussi is home. i’ll need to sneak you upstairs; there’s a bathroom there.”

we slip in through the side door, which avoids the living room altogether. i wave him up the stairs ahead of me, then slip back into the kitchen to grab a package of ramen and put the kettle on low. i check the downstairs bathroom for gauze and don’t find any, but i might have some in my tiny first aid bag upstairs. avoiding the creaky steps, i head up to my room and find gauze in one of my drawers. i slip across the hall to the bathroom, glancing down the stairs to make sure ahjussi is still watching the news before knocking lightly. tae opens the door, and i slip in, setting one of my large, shapeless t-shirts on the lid of the toilet and the gauze on the counter. his hoodie is sitting in a heap on the floor; i bend to pick it up, but he whispers, “don’t. i just need a...a paper bag or something, to put it in.”

i look up, caught off guard. “okay. you can change into that― i’ll be right back, okay?”

i step out again, creeping close to the wall along the stairs as i return to the kitchen, taking off the kettle before it starts to whistle and pouring it over the ramen in a bowl. the grocery bags are all kept in a squeaky drawer, but i ease it open far enough to get my hand in and snag one, wincing at the plastic rustle as i pull it free. tucking it into my back pocket, i pick up the bowl with a pair of chopsticks and head back to the staircase.

“what do you have?” ahjussi rumbles from the living room behind me. i freeze with my foot on the bottom step.

“ramen. there’s more, if you want it...” but his attention is already gone. i hold my breath and the hot bowl with burning fingers, not looking up until i reach the top of the stairs. taehyung is there, standing with the door open a few inches, and he pushes it further to let me in.

“i heard him talking?” he asks, expressionless.

“it’s fine. i thought you might want to eat something; here’s a bag for your clothes.”

he mumbles a thank you, but i notice his hand is still bleeding.

“do you need help with that?” i whisper.

“i already cleaned it, but i can’t wrap it up properly with just one hand.”

i work for a few minutes, in silence, putting the first pad of gauze on the cut in his hand and wrapping it with the second. his fingers are shaky.

“can you still move your fingers properly?” i ask, trying to imagine how many nerves and veins could have been damaged. he wiggles his fingers, then takes my wrist in his hand and squeezes firmly, wincing at the pain but not lessening his hold until i nod.

“thank you for helping me.” he whispers as i hand him the bowl of ramen and begin wiping up the counter. “i’ll do that. honestly, you shouldn’t have to.”

“just eat, it’s okay.” i feel scared,  but not of ahjussi or of taehyung. i’m afraid of how he got hurt and why and when and i wish he’d explain, but i also hope he won't.

“i know you want to ask, but can you wait?” he asks. i look up, seeing him behind me in the mirror and wondering if i actually spoke or if he read the question off my face. “please, i’ll― i’ll explain everything. just not right now. please.”

i nod.

he finishes his ramen on the floor of my bedroom while his phone charges, while i double check to make sure the bathroom is spotless. when i return, i pick my phone up off the desk where i fell asleep and find namjoon’s number, handing it to him.

“you can try texting him, if he hasn’t answered any calls―” on the floor, tae’s charging phone vibrates, lighting up with an incoming call. he sets down his bowl with a hasty clank on the floor and hands my phone back to me as he answers.

“hyung? you weren’t answering, so i went to deokhye’s place―” he stops short, listening. “yeah, she’s here. can you?” he pauses, and i watch relief seep over his face like watercolors soaking into paper towels. “thanks, hyung. i’ll meet you outside. oh― do you want me to ask her?” he tilts the phone away from his mouth and asks. “they’re coming to pick me up, and they’re going to go get dinner. namjoon is asking if you want to come?”

“it’s alright,” i say, thinking of ahjussi downstairs.

“please? you took care of me; i owe you. have you eaten?”

i haven’t. “we’ll sneak out the way we came in. please?” he looks scared, which doesn’t fit with his request.

“okay.” i grab my varsity jacket and slip into its puffy sleeves, reaching up to brush hair out of my face and realize it’s still damp from the sprinkler. i’d forgotten.

we creep down the stairs at each other’s heels, leaving the blood-stained, heart-pound hush of the bathroom and the stifled soju scent of the living room behind. out on the clean, cool sidewalk, we stand and wait for the others to come pick us up, and taehyung steals a glance or two at me. he looks down at his shoes when i look at him, but then asks his question anyways.

“why were you crying?”

“crying?” i echo, remembering the soft warmth of teardrops on my bare feet. now i’m wearing sandals but the memory’s still there.

“under the streetlight,” he prompts. “are you okay?”

“i don’t want to talk about it.”

he hesitates, but bites his lip and nods.

“that’s fair. i’m sorry for prying.”

i smile--a tentative smile, but still an attempt to smooth the wrinkled, unspoken reasons in the dark paper of the air.

“i’ll make you a deal; when you tell me what happened to you tonight, i’ll answer your question.”

he looks at me for a long breath, and nods. “that’s fair. more than fair, actually. you didn’t have to help me. i’m...i’m really grateful.” his voice sounds shaky again.

“i was happy to help, taehyung-sshi. i just hope you didn’t...do anything you’ll regret.”

his face goes blank, and we don’t speak again.