Chapter Text
Sungho had been wandering for four years. He has no memory of how it all started. He has been living alone for all these years. He wasn't even sure if he actually was dead or alive. It felt like he was just stuck somewhere in between.
He could do all human activity but no one could see him or hear him. He could touch things, move around,and play his guitar which was with him as long as he remembers.
Whenever he tries to remember something, the first thing that comes to his mind is that he was standing alone in the middle of the road with a guitar on his back.
No idea how he got there or what was happening around him. When he came to his senses, he dashed towards the sidewalks. He was lost and frustrated.
It took him months to accept what was happening to him.
He realized soon that he could walk into buildings, as long as no one lived there.
Houses where people still breathed and laughed seemed to reject him. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t cross their doors.
He discovered he could play guitar, pretty well, and that's what kept him busy. But it was for a while. At first, he used to play his guitar all the time. It was the only sound that made him feel real. But as the years went by, even that faded. The songs started to feel empty when no one else could hear them. So he played less and less until silence became normal.
Some days he would wander around here and there to find new places. It's not like he had a permanent address or a home to go back to.
He would watch people interact with each other. Maybe he was doing it to not forget how to communicate. Maybe someday he could communicate. Maybe someday someone will notice him, someone will know he was there as well.
Every day it was a new place, with new faces. He would visit the ones he liked for few more times till he was bored of it too.
One afternoon, he ended up near a small coffee shop where music instruments were available as well. Guitars and keyboards were displayed through a large glass window. Just from the outside he could smell the pleasant aroma of the coffee.
He casually went inside. After looking around for a while, Sungho sat outside at one of the benches behind the shop where barely anyone came.
The place was peaceful, filled with the soft rustle of wind and the lazy movements of cats playing nearby. He liked watching them. Even though they could see him, they didn’t know what he was and they didn’t seem to care either. He found himself smiling faintly as he watched them play. It was quiet and calming. He sat there for, almost, an hour and was thinking where to go next.
Suddenly he heard someone's footsteps coming from behind.
He didn't bother looking back as it wouldn't matter anyway. They wouldn't see him. And in no time that someone was standing right beside him.
It was a boy. Probably around his age, holding a coffee cup. Bag hanging from his shoulder. A quiet look on his face. He sat down on the bench, completely unaware of the person sitting beside him.
It wasn’t the first time for him tho.
Sungho didn’t move or paid any attention to whatever he was doing. The boy placed the cup between them. Sungho just glanced once. He took out his earphones from side pocket.
Sungho was busy watching the cats. Though he could hear everything he was doing as it was pretty quiet there.
Sungho heard a tune coming from his earphones, a faint tune that softly filled the quiet silence between them.
He listened for a while and then turned his head slightly. It was simple, gentle, and somehow catchy. Something about it caught his attention immediately.
He didn't want to interfere then again he couldn't help himself.
He leaned in a little, moved his head closer to his, trying to catch the sound better. Sungho tried leaning a bit more. And suddenly, the boy started singing, softly, almost like he didn’t want anyone to hear.
Sungho was startled by his sudden action. And the next thing he knew he was already looking at his face, a little too close. Being all flustered he looked away immediately.
The boy had low and calm voice, but there was warmth in it. He hadn’t heard a real voice, from this close for so long that it made him forget for a second that he wasn’t supposed to be there.
Before he could even realize, the song stopped halfway. The boy sighed, looked down for seconds and then got up, that startled Sungho. He packed his stuff and headed towards the entrance . And just like that he was gone.
Sungho just watched him leave. He sat there till it was almost dark. That day he didn't go anywhere else.
At night, on a rooftop he was just strumming his guitar, no tune in particular, just whatever came to mind. For some reason he couldn't stop thinking about the song he heard earlier.
He tried playing it but kept missing out on something.
"It won't sound like his"
He tried a few more times until he realized he was getting a bit too caught up in it. He stopped and tried switching to something else.
That night nothing else sounded right to him.
But that wasn't the problem. The real problem started after a few days.
He didn't think much about it at first, he thought it would go away eventually. But with time, it grew more on him.
Sometimes, he’d catch himself humming it without even noticing. It kept looping in his mind. And the thing that bothered him the most was that he didn’t know the next part. He thought he could just find it, after all, all he had was time.
The next 2 days he went crazy. He was searching every where, every way possible.
That was the first time in a while he had something he was interested in. His not so interesting life had been disrupted. He went all out to find it.
But soon enough he realized things don't really go his way. It was nowhere. Nothing. No trace of it.
A possibility crossed his mind "Wait was it his own?” Now that was a problem if that was the case he thought. "I should've gone after him... should I..." He was going crazy, he thought. For some reason he was still hopeful. But there was still no clue even after searching for days like a maniac.
He snapped out of this thoughts. " No… I ain't stalking someone out of curiosity! " He tried convincing himself and decided to let it go for his own good.
But his actions didn't follow his words.
He was at the shop the next day and the day after and for the whole week. Circling the place, glancing at the entrance.
His curiosity won over his principles. He kept making excuses, to himself.
"This place smells nice" " That guitar looked fine" " I'm here for the cats", though there were no cats in sight.
It became his daily routine.
One evening, inside the shop, he was looking at the instruments in front of the glass window. He wasn't even expecting anything, more like he forgot why he was even there again. It seemed like he was back to his daily life, before meeting that stranger.
He was casually checking the instruments , and glancing outside in between, seeing people pass by.
And suddenly he was there, out of nowhere, when he wasn't even expecting to see him, he appeared in front of him.
He froze for few seconds, stopped whatever he was doing. Many thoughts ran through his head. If it really was him or not , what should he do if it really was him, would anything change if he went after him...
Before he knew, he had already turned around and was running. His body reacted before his mind could organize those thoughts.
In no time he caught up to him. All his thoughts and hesitation disappeared.
He even forgot the reason he was looking for him. Just seeing him again was worth everything. He walked beside him, glancing and smiling until the boy reached home. He watched him go inside, stood outside for a while and went back his way.
He was in such a good mood he couldn’t stop humming. Humming that song.
“Wait… the song!!” he stopped. He forgot about the song...
He turned around and almost went back to his place but then stopped himself. After all it wouldn’t let him in anyway. He sighed and left.
The next day he was at the same spot, waiting for him. This time outside the shop. He circled the front of the shop, like a cat waiting for his owner to come back.
For some reason just the sight of him made Sungho happy. He walked with him till he reached his place. It became his new routine.
And just like that almost one week passed by.
Everyday he would walk with him, sometimes sit beside him when he stopped at the coffee shop. It seemed like he was working on that song of his so he would play it frequently.
Sungho noticed a few things about him. He wore black most of the time, his earphones were wired, other than his own song he usually listened to rock music. He barely talked, well then again it was not like he had seen him with anyone.
"Am I the weird one.." Sungho thought, as he talked to himself all the time.
That wasn't even the main purpose anyway. The song, he had to hear the song properly.
"He's taller than me...Taller than most of the people around me.” he spoke his mind. It was very random but he couldn’t help but notice. He had to look up to meet his eyes. But he always walked a bit further from him to not cross the line, though there were none to begin with. “Why are you so tall!!" he said while looking at him, annoyed.
Sungho had this habit of talking to people even though they had no clue of his existence. "He looks younger than me though…" he sighed.
As time passed by his curiosity about the taller one was prioritized more than his song.
The song was the main reason he was even here in the first place. And the boy came along with it.
And he realized it when the taller one played the next part of the song out of the blue.
He was captivated by it, once again, just like the first time.
It was beautiful, better than what he had expected. It made him feel so many emotions. Sungho couldn't wait to try it on his guitar.
He said bye to him (obviously he didn't hear) and was about to leave.
"What is this called?" He asked, "You gave it a name, right? What’s the title?" he tried peeking at his phone as the music was still playing, maybe he saved it by its name, he thought.
And suddenly he paused, a realization struck him that moment.
"What's YOUR name?!"
He stood there in disbelief. All these times this thought never crossed his mind that he didn't know his name.
Maybe because in his heart he already knew even if he called him by his name he wouldn't know, wouldn't respond. That realization brought him back to reality.
He thought he shouldn't get into all this too much. Though it was breaking his heart that he had to draw a line. After all it was all an one sided interaction. He was invading some stranger's life who had no idea of his existence and it was like a violation of his privacy.
While all these was running in his mind, the taller one kept going his was.
By the time Sungho noticed, he wasn’t beside him anymore he had gone quite far already from where he was standing. He felt he was left behind, their distance grew and he didn’t chase him this time.
He watched him leave while he just stood there. He walked back with a heavy heart that night.
His usual place was an abandoned rooftop with an open space once meant to keep unused things. An old sofa and a few worn-out pieces of furniture sat there. Everything was nearly ruined, yet he somehow made it work. The previous one was a lil bit better than this one. But someone decided to demolish it, he had nowhere else to go. It was almost a year ago.
One thing about him was that he was afraid of dark, empty places. They felt suffocating. Living under the open sky felt like the only solution.
He didn't go to see him for 2 days.
Quite embarrassing but that was his limit.
The next thing he knew, he was in front of the shop, again, at the exact time he usually passes by.
While waiting, his conversation with himself had turned into a debate.
"What are you doing here again?! stop committing crimes!!" "Who cares. I am a ghost anyway…. probably.” His disciplined self was leading at some point until the taller one showed up in front of the shop, in front of him.
He ordered a drink and waited until it was ready. Sungho just watched him do nothing. He headed to his usual spot. Sungho casually went with him as if it was the most usual thing to do.
They sat at the same bench. He didn’t even realize that he was smiling. The boy put on his earphones, and that same familiar tune drifted through the air again.
Sungho went a little closer to hear it better yet kept a proper distance.
He knew each and every part of it by now. He had heard it more than enough time to know it word by word. Still he craved for it like it was his favorite dessert.
Though it was the voice behind, what he craved more.
He loved listening to it even though it was just a few lines. It was exactly the same. Incomplete, beautiful, and frustratingly short.