Present Day — Seoul, South Korea, 2025
POV: Jungkook
The walls were sweating.
Not literally, of course, but it felt that way.
The studio was too warm, the kind of stale heat that clings to skin long after the air conditioner’s hum has faded. Jungkook rolled his neck, pulled the collar of his black hoodie away from his damp throat, and exhaled hard.
The rehearsal floor stretched out before him, mirror-walled and softly lit, one of HYBE’s older practice rooms tucked deep in the west wing. At this hour, it was empty. Silent. His favorite kind of sacred.
2:14 a.m.
The red glow of the clock on the wall throbbed like a heartbeat.
It was always this time when the weight set in.
He turned back to the mirror. Let his body move, not with choreography this time, but instinct. Breath. Habit. Ghosts.
He’d danced this freestyle so many times now, he’d stopped knowing what it meant.
But tonight… his hands felt wrong.
Every movement started too late. Ended too soon. His body twisted through the motions like it was chasing something just out of reach.
He was used to perfection. But this?
This was like dancing underwater. Like mourning something you couldn’t name.
He stopped mid-spin, fists clenched.
The silence pressed in.
That was when he felt it.
The shift.
A chill, not from the air, but from the mirror itself. A second pair of eyes. A shape not belonging to him.
He froze.
Turned.
And saw him.
The man stood just inside the door, barely lit, dressed in all black.
Face shadowed by a low-brimmed cap, fingers gloved, back relaxed against the frame like he’d been there for hours.
Jungkook didn’t know him.
But his heart knew something. It kicked once, hard. A strange pulse. Recognition without reason.
The stranger took a step forward.
“I thought this room was empty,” he said.
His voice was deep, quiet. Polite, but not shy. The tone of someone who didn’t speak often, but when he did, you listened.
“It usually is,” Jungkook said, voice hoarse from disuse. “But it’s fine. You can stay. If you want.”
The man nodded once. Stepped in. Let the door whisper shut behind him.
He walked past Jungkook without a second glance and sat on the old piano bench by the corner wall.
No sound. Not even footsteps.
He was light, too light for the world around him.
Jungkook turned away, unsettled, but not enough to leave.
He pressed play on his tracklist and tried to move again. His limbs resisted.
The presence behind him was too loud in its silence.
The music felt wrong now. Too thin.
He stopped it halfway through.
Turned back.
The man had taken out a small notebook. He was writing in it, head down, pen moving with eerie fluidity.
Jungkook took a breath. Crossed the floor.
“Are you a producer?”
“No.”
“Songwriter?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
That voice again. Quiet. Unreadable.
“You write for HYBE?”
The man didn’t answer right away. He looked up.
And Jungkook saw his face.
The air in the room shifted. He took a step back without meaning to.
Those eyes.
He couldn’t describe it, but they didn’t belong to a stranger. They looked like they had seen him before. Not recently, deeper than that. Like they had watched him sleep a thousand nights. Like they had mourned him. Buried him.
Dreamed him.
“You alright?” the man asked.
Jungkook blinked. “What?”
“You looked like you saw a ghost.”
“Maybe I did.”
The man smiled, faintly.
They sat in silence after that.
Jungkook didn’t leave. He didn’t ask for a name. He didn’t even ask why his hands were trembling.
Instead, he found himself watching the stranger’s hands move across the page.
The pen glided smoothly, like it was remembering rather than creating.
“Do you only write for idols?” Jungkook asked after a while.
“I write for whoever forgets me.”
Jungkook furrowed his brow. “That’s… poetic.”
The man shrugged. “Not really.”
Something shifted again. Subtle. Heavy.
“Do you believe in past lives?” he asked suddenly, flipping a page.
Jungkook hesitated.
“…I don’t know.”
“I think you do. Or you will.”
“I’ve been dreaming weird shit lately,” Jungkook admitted, watching the man’s eyes carefully.
The pen stopped.
“What kind of dreams?”
Jungkook licked his lips. “Fire. Paint. Screaming. A boy. I don’t know.”
“Was the boy beautiful?”
“…Yes.”
“Did he always die?”
Jungkook froze.
The man’s voice was gentle. Not teasing. Not curious. Just… sad.
“You dreamed about me,” the man said, softly.
It wasn’t a question.
Jungkook’s pulse stuttered. He opened his mouth, then closed it.
The man stood slowly, slipping the notebook back into his pocket. He crossed the floor until they stood an arm’s length apart.
Jungkook didn’t move.
He felt like moving would wake something he couldn’t contain.
“Your soul remembers before your mind does,” the man whispered. “That’s why it hurts. That’s why it always hurts when we meet again.”
“Who… are you?”
The man tilted his head.
“You always ask that,” he said. “Every time.”
He reached out.
And for a moment, his fingers brushed Jungkook’s jaw. The touch was featherlight—barely contact. But it knocked something loose behind Jungkook’s eyes.
Suddenly:
Screams.
Burning.
The sound of bells.
A knife at his throat.
A kiss in the rain.
A locked asylum.
A lullaby in a language he didn’t know.
The scent of sandalwood.
The sound of Taehyung saying his name like a prayer, like a curse.
Jungkook staggered.
The man caught his elbow gently. Kept him upright. Didn’t say a word.
When Jungkook looked up, the man’s eyes weren’t just sad.
They were old.
He let go.
“You’ll start remembering now,” he said.
“Wait—” Jungkook grabbed his sleeve. “What’s your name?”
The man looked down at the hand on his coat.
He didn’t answer.
Then, softly, without anger:
“You’ll forget again tomorrow. You always do.”
He turned.
And left.
Jungkook didn’t move for a long time.
When he did, it was only to walk back to the mirror, barefoot, heart still racing.
He stared at his own face. Touched the spot where the stranger had grazed his skin.
In the glass, his reflection flickered.
For half a second, he wasn’t alone.
A second boy stood behind him, dark hair loose over his shoulders, lips parted, eyes full of firelight and sorrow.
Jungkook turned,
No one there.
Back in the corner, the old piano bench creaked softly.
A notebook sat on it.
Jungkook approached slowly. Picked it up.
There was only one thing written on the last page:
“He always forgets.”
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