notesofthelivingdead

[notesofthelivingdead]

꒰ pairing ꒱ა park sunghoon x park jay

꒰ word count ꒱ა 20.7k

꒰ synopsis ꒱ა jay returns to the stage after a long silence, carrying the weight of memories he’s never dared to face. as he performs a song that once felt too painful to sing, the past begins to resurface—softly, then all at once. this is a story of music, memory, and the quiet kind of love that lingers long after the last note.

꒰ song ꒱ა always (1995 webley ver.) cover by jay

꒰ notes ꒱ა i highly recommend to play the song while reading this last chapter. i know this last chapter is lengthy but i honestly don't know how to end it well. hhh. still, i hope you'll enjoy reading it. also, read previous chapters here: denial ╱ anger ╱ bargaining ╱ depression

Always, Always (Stage Five: Acceptance)

The apartment felt smaller with every passing day as if the walls themselves were caving in, pressing against him, and trapping him in a space too suffused with memories to breathe. The air was thick with loneliness, the kind that crept in through the cracks that nestled in the corners and refused to be chased away. The days blurred together in a fog of sleepless nights and quiet shuddering sobs.

Jay had spent the past week drowning in sorrow so heavy it felt like an anchor around his chest pulling him under and deeper into a sea of grief that had no shore. Sleep had become a stranger, replaced by long hours of lying in the dark while staring blankly at the ceiling. His body trembling from exhaustion and the weight of emotions he could neither name nor control.

The book lay beside him on the nightstand, pages slightly bent from being turned over and over again while some of them stained with the salt of silent tears.

The book Sunghoon had given him.

The one he had read too many times, the one that had ripped him apart with every sentence, with every underlined passage that Sunghoon had likely traced with his own fingers before giving it to him.

It wasn’t just a book anymore—it was a relic.

A ghost of a time when things were simpler, when Sunghoon’s presence had been a constant, when their laughter had echoed through the late hours of the night.

Now, all of it was gone, reduced to ink and paper, to words that cut like knives.

The temptation to stay in bed forever was overwhelming. To let the grief consume him whole. But life had a cruel way of pulling him back, of reminding him that no matter how much he wished for time to stop, it never would.

A soft rustling sound reached him, and Jay turned his head, eyes catching the thin envelope that had been slipped under his door at some point in the past few hours. He already knew what it was before he even picked it up.

NOTICE OF OVERDUE RENT.

He exhaled sharply, pressing the heels of his hands against his closed eyes.

No one said adulting would be this hard.

Dragging himself up from the tangled sheets, he sat on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, hands weaving through his unkempt hair. He felt hollow. Empty. He had been skipping gigs, avoiding the world, letting himself fall apart in quiet and messy ways. But time wasn’t waiting for him. Bills weren’t waiting for him. The world kept turning, and he needed to keep moving, even if every step felt like dragging dead weight behind him.

Even if it felt like leaving a part of himself behind.

His guitar rested in the corner like a memory half-forgotten, its worn wood glowing faintly beneath the soft amber light of the bedside lamp. When he reached for it, his fingers trembled, ghost-like against the strings—uncertain, unfamiliar—as if the music had left him, as if he’d forgotten not just how to play but how to feel.

A quiet sigh slipped past his lips—but then, like a breeze threading through silence, a voice rose in his mind: soft, steady, familiar.

“A small step is also an achievement.”

Jay stilled. His breath caught midair.

Sunghoon.

He could almost see him again—gentle in the glow of a sleepless night, his presence a quiet anchor against the storm swelling in Jay’s chest. It had been one of those nights when the world felt too heavy, when the weight of who he was supposed to be threatened to swallow him whole. And Sunghoon, unwavering and warm, had sat beside him and offered those words with the ease of someone handing over a lifeline.

Simple. Honest. Obvious. And yet, it had saved him.

Now, in the stillness of the room, Jay held onto them again—not just the words, but the memory they carried. Like a flame cupped between hesitant hands, he let it steady him.

He turned the tuning pegs with quiet care, coaxing the strings into harmony until they thrummed with a resonance that felt like memory. His hands wavered still and his heart beat a fragile rhythm beneath his ribs. But tonight, he had to do this.

Even if he was still mending.

Even if the ache hadn't dulled.

Because tonight, for the first time in what felt like lifetimes, he would sing that song—the one he'd buried beneath silence and time. The one too tender to touch, too raw to voice. The one stitched into the spaces where Sunghoon used to be.

A song of loss.

A song of love.

A song that once belonged to them.

And maybe if he sang it loud enough, if he poured every flicker of what remained into each note, the echoes would find their way to him.

Wherever he was.

Whoever he had become.

Maybe Sunghoon would hear it.

And remember.

The bar was dimly lit, the overhead lights flickering softly like dying stars, their glow casting elongated shadows across the brick walls. The scent of aged whiskey and cigarette smoke clung to the air, mingling with the distant hum of quiet conversations. It was the kind of night where the world felt slower, where time unraveled in languid delicate strands and as if waiting for something or someone.

Jay stood beneath the lights, a figure carved from smoke and shadow while his black leather coat folding around him like the night itself. The stage breathed beneath his boots, alive with tension. Slung low against his body, his electric guitar shimmered with the weight of memory and sound—an extension of him waiting to speak.

He approached the microphone, the world beyond a blur of light and shadows, the crowd’s energy a distant hum. For a moment, his fingers hovered over the strings, suspended in time as if caught between hesitation and need, like the breath before a confession, like the stillness that hangs before a storm.

Tonight, it was more than just a performance. It was an offering, raw and unguarded, something closer to bleeding, to unraveling—an act of vulnerability that could either heal or tear him apart.

And yet, he drew in a breath before he leaned in, his lips brushing softly against the microphone as if afraid to disturb the fragile silence between him and the world. When his voice came, it was barely more than a whisper, aching on the edge of something too painful to speak.

“This one’s… for someone I once knew.”

The words hung in the air, suspended like a prayer, like an unspoken apology. They carried the weight of years spent buried in silence, the things left unsaid, the memories left to bleed in the quiet corners of his soul.

A song he had avoided, a song too close to everything he had lost—too close to the pieces of him that would never fit back together.

He didn’t need to explain. The truth was in the way he held the mic, in the way his eyes closed for a fraction of a second, in the tremor that passed through his voice.

This song wasn’t just a memory.

It was a release, a confession of everything he’d kept hidden in the hollow of his chest.

A final whisper to someone who had once been everything.

Then, his fingers moved and the first chords of Always whispered into the dim yet intimate air of the bar. Soft and gentle at first like a memory that had been buried for years and was now daring to return. The notes drifted before his voice rose to meet them. And when the first words escaped him, time itself seemed to bend and collapse, folding inward, pulling him back into a place he hadn’t meant to visit.

“This Romeo is bleeding But you can't see his blood It's nothing but some feelings That this old dog kicked up”

In an instant, he was no longer standing on stage. He was somewhere else. Somewhere with him.

Sunghoon.

Sunghoon in the passenger seat of his car, bathed in the soft glow of streetlights that painted his face in golden strokes, eyes heavy with the weight of a sleepless night, but unwilling to surrender to sleep. His head tilted toward Jay, his gaze soft and distant but always present.

“You should rest,” Jay had murmured, eyes never leaving the road while hands steady on the wheel.

“Not yet,” Sunghoon had replied, his voice like a tired lullaby—soft and unfurling.

“I like watching you drive.”

And so, Jay had driven. Driven through empty streets that seemed endless, past rivers that whispered secrets to the night, while the hum of the engine filled the spaces between them. He pretended not to notice the way Sunghoon’s fingers twitched at his side, almost reaching for him—wanting to, needing to—but pulling back as if unsure of what his touch might mean.

“It's been raining since you left me Now I'm drowning in the flood You see, I've always been a fighter But without you, I give up”

The song wrapped itself around him like a whisper from another time and pulling him deeper into a past he thought he had left behind. It carried him through the nights that had always felt like fleeting dreams. Those stolen moments that were never fully his, never fully theirs, suspended between longing and hesitation, where the words that never came were louder than anything spoken.

He could still see the way Sunghoon’s eyes would find him in the quiet yet so full of something unspoken, something vast and delicate, a tenderness so profound it was almost too much to bear. There was an ache in the stillness, a pull that neither of them could fight yet neither dared to acknowledge.

He remembered the way they lingered in doorways, the space between them crackling with a kind of desperate waiting. Neither of them moved, neither of them breathed too deeply, as if the moment they did, everything would unravel. They were suspended in that fragile silence, each one wishing, hoping, for the other to speak, to close the distance that felt both impossibly far and impossibly close.

It was a line drawn so carefully, so painfully—too delicate to cross yet too painful to leave untouched.

The unspoken words, the unasked questions, the quiet understanding.

They all hung there between them and the weight of it pressed against Jay’s chest like a promise he had never kept, like a story never told.

And now, the song echoed through the air and carrying with it all the unsaid things. All the moments they never allowed themselves to have, all the love they never let themselves claim.

It was all there, in the spaces between the chords, in the silence between the words.

“I can’t sing a love song like the way it’s meant to be…”

The words faltered in the air, like a confession he had never given, a truth he had locked away and swallowed for too long. He could almost hear Sunghoon’s voice, a distant echo from another time.

“Why don’t you write a song about us?”

The question had hung in the space between them, it was simple yet weighted with a depth Jay could never voice. He had laughed it off, shrugged it away, hidden behind the comfort of silence. Because if he wrote about them—if he captured the moment in words—then it would become real.

And real meant facing the vulnerability he had spent years avoiding, the risk of untangling the fragile thread that tied them together.

Real meant admitting they had something, something worth breaking for.

And Jay wasn’t sure he was ready to break.

But now, as the song spilled from his lips, every lyric felt like a wound he was too late to heal, a confession he had let slip through his fingers. The words hung in the air, each one heavier than the last, like a love letter written in ink that had already begun to fade.

It was too late for promises they never made, too late for the songs unsung. He had never written their story, never dared to give voice to the love that swelled between them, too afraid that naming it would destroy the fragile thing they had built.

And now, standing on stage with every note tearing through him, Jay realized that the love he had kept hidden had already left its mark.

In the spaces between the chords and in the ache of his voice was everything they had been… everything they would never be.

It wasn’t just a song. It was a goodbye he hadn’t meant to say.

“Through the wind. Through the snow. Through the driving rain. I’ll crawl all the way home… Oh baby, baby, baby… to be back in your arms. Just to taste your kiss, just to hear you say—baby, are you alright when I’m not there… Yeah.”

Jay sang each word like it was being pulled from the deepest part of him, like it had lived in his chest far too long and had finally found the courage to rise. His voice quivered with devotion, thick with longing, every syllable saturated in the kind of ache that only comes from loving someone so deeply, so quietly, for so long.

It wasn’t just a song.

It was a confession wrapped in melody, a soul laid bare beneath the glow of the stage lights.

With each lyric, he let himself fall into the memory of Sunghoon’s touch, the way his hands had always found Jay’s with quiet certainty, the way his voice had softened when he said his name.

Jay remembered the curve of Sunghoon’s smile in the half-light of dawn, the way his head would tilt slightly when he listened, like he was holding every word Jay spoke as something sacred.

He remembered cold nights spent in the car with the windows fogged, silence between them full of everything they couldn’t say, and the warmth of fingers that brushed, then lingered, then retreated, always almost—but never quite—enough.

And then… the guitar solo began.

Not with grandeur, but with a whisper. A single note stretched out like a breath held too long, trembling at the edges. Jay’s fingers moved slowly and reverently as if each string carried a memory, and each chord pulled him closer to a past he could still feel pressed against his skin.

It rose like a tide at midnight, quiet but certain, swelling with every ounce of emotion he could no longer contain. The sound wept through the amp, it was raw and aching as if the guitar itself mourned with him.

It wasn’t just music.

It was everything he had never said, everything he had buried beneath silence and fear.

Each note shimmered with the ghost of Sunghoon’s laughter with the echo of moments they never let fully bloom. Jay’s chest tightened, his breath caught between phrases as the melody grew louder and wildern like a scream trapped behind closed lips.

His fingers shuddered with the weight of it, with the love that still clung to his bones, with the ache of knowing he could never play loud enough to bring him back.

There was grief in the bend of every string, yearning in every swell. His eyes burned, but he kept playing because if he stopped now, it would all fall apart. This was the only language he had left. This was how he begged the universe to remember them, to hold their story gently in its hands.

The solo surged, cresting into something fierce and desperate like a heart breaking open mid-prayer. And in that storm of sound, Jay was no longer just a performer.

He was a man in love.

A man in mourning.

A man trying to hold on to the fading warmth of someone he’d never stopped reaching for.

Because in that music, he had finally said everything.

In that moment, Jay surrendered—not to pain, but to truth.

To the love he had once hidden in silence, the yearning he had locked away behind soft smiles and stolen glances. To the life they might have had, if only they had been braver.

And when the final note faded, leaving only silence in its wake, Jay stood there—eyes closed, heart open, finally unafraid of what he felt.

Because this song wasn’t just for Sunghoon.

It was for the love that had bloomed in the spaces between them.

For the nights they never named.

For the goodbye he never got to say.

And for the part of Jay that would always, always be waiting to find his way back to him

He opened his eyes slowly as if waking from a dream he didn’t want to leave. His gaze swept over the crowd, a sea of dim faces blurred by the haze of low lights and memory. Shadows moved, drinks clinked, someone laughed somewhere too far away. But none of it touched him.

And then… he saw him.

Sunghoon.

Still.

Silent.

There.

Standing in the middle of the room as if he had stepped out of Jay’s heart and into the world again.

No spotlight, no sound—just him.

Real, impossibly real.

Watching.

The breath caught in Jay’s throat. The air around him seemed to still as though time itself had bowed its head in reverence to the moment. The bar faded. The crowd dissolved. The world narrowed to a single point, a single presence. Jay and Sunghoon anchored in the space between then and now, in all the things they were and all the things they never dared become.

Sunghoon’s face was unreadable. But Jay didn’t need expression.

He knew.

He felt it.

His fingers fell still on the strings, the echo of the last chord fading into silence. Slowly, he reached for the mic with his both hands wrapping around it like it was the only thing holding him upright. His knuckles were white and breath shallow as the weight of everything gathered in his chest.

His voice when it came was frayed and aching, stretched thin by memory and meaning—fragile but unflinchingly honest. Laid bare beneath the lights, he held on like he was holding onto the last thread of Sunghoon’s presence.

“And I will love you, baby, always. And I'll be there forever and a day, always. I'll be there 'til the stars don't shine. 'Til the heavens burst and the words don't rhyme. I know when I die, you'll be on my mind. And I'll love you, always.”

The words cracked like a vow breaking open. His voice fractured on the last note, not from weakness, but from the weight of truth finally spoken. A truth that had lived inside him far too long. And still, he kept going because this wasn’t just a song anymore.

It was a surrender.

This was him laying it all down.

Letting go of the weight he had carried in silence.

Letting go of the might-have-beens and what-ifs that haunted the edges of every lyric.

Letting go of the fear.

Of the guilt.

Of the ache that had long since become a part of his breathing.

He wasn’t letting go of love.

No. Never that.

He was letting go of regret.

The final chord drifted into the air like a whisper at the end of a dream.

For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.

And then…

Sunghoon smiled.

Just a flicker and almost gone before it fully formed. But it was enough.

Enough to shatter the dam inside Jay, enough to stitch something back together in his chest.

Because in that smile was understanding.

In that smile was forgiveness.

In that smile was everything Jay had hoped for and feared he'd never receive.

He had heard it all.

And in the quiet that followed, Jay finally understood.

Sunghoon had always known.

Even in the moments where words had failed the when they danced around what was too fragile to touch, Sunghoon had known. Every hesitation, every smile that lingered too long, every time their fingers brushed without ever truly meeting. It had all meant something.

And now, standing there with the weight of years pressing down on him, Jay couldn’t deny it anymore. The silence between them, the distance, the unspoken love—none of it mattered now.

He had carried the question in his heart for so long: What if? What if they had been braver? What if they had dared to speak the words they never said?

But as the silence stretched between them, the answer became clear.

It had always been enough.

The love they shared, unspoken yet undeniable, had always been enough.

Always.

He could feel it now, settling deep inside him. That was all they needed, all they ever had. They had always been enough even when they had failed to see it.

And with that understanding, Jay finally let go.

Let go of the doubt, the fear, the regret.

He accepted it all.

Accepted them, for everything they were, and everything they could never be.

But Jay would carry him inside his heart, a quiet echo in every chord he played and a whisper in every lyric he wrote.

Sunghoon would forever be his muse, the unspoken breath behind every story. His presence would linger in the spaces between the sentences, in the silence between the words, the ink that stained his pages.

Even if they were apart, even if the world kept them miles away, the memories would never fade. They would live on in the music, in the rhythm of time, in every melody that touched the air.

For what they had was not bound by distance or time.

It was a love etched into the deepest corners of his being, woven into the rhythm of his pulse, resonating in every note, every word, every breath he took.

Even in their separation, they would carry each other. Forever and always, stitched into the moments they had shared, into the melodies they had made.

As the clock struck midnight, a hush fell over the world as if time itself paused and holding its breath for the quiet moment that would never be forgotten. The chime rang softly through the night, its sound a gentle reminder of what had been, of what still lingered between them, a silent vow that couldn’t be broken.

And so, in the quiet aftermath as the seconds drifted by, Jay whispered into the stillness of the world:

Always, always.

A vow to the past.

A promise to the future.

A love that would never fade.

No matter the distance.

No matter the time.

Forever and always.

꒰ to the readers ꒱ა

thank you so much to everyone who read this series from beginning to end. truly, it means more than i can say. i wrote this story with a heart full of emotion, and a reason tucked gently behind every line. i hope, in some way, that you found something here—solace, comfort, a moment of quiet understanding.

please remember this:

broken people are still worthy of love. you are allowed to be loved, fully and deeply, just as you are. don’t let the world, or your own doubts, steal that from you. love is not reserved for the unscarred. it’s meant for the soft-hearted, the healing, the ones who still choose to feel even when it hurts.

if this story reached even the smallest part of you, if it made you feel a little less alone, then i���ve done what i came here to do.

thank you for letting this story hold your heart for a while.

be gentle with yourself. you deserve the kind of love that stays.

always, always. with love, s.

[notesofthelivingdead]

stage four: depression

꒰ pairing ꒱ა park sunghoon x park jay

꒰ word count ꒱ა 18k

꒰ synopsis ꒱ა jay walked away from sunghoon, convinced he wasn’t worthy of love, believing it was for the best. years later, a mysterious book of love letters arrives, revealing the depth of sunghoon's feelings—a love jay had never fully understood. as jay reads, he is forced to confront the painful truth of what he lost and what he never allowed himself to keep. now, with regret and a shattered heart, jay must face the haunting realization that it may be too late to reclaim the love he let slip through his fingers.

꒰ song ꒱ა all i wanted, never enough, this love, the one that got away

꒰ notes ꒱ა read previous chapters here: denial ╱ anger ╱ bargaining

Worn-Down Strings (Stage Four: Depression)

Days turned to weeks.

Weeks turned to months.

Months turned to years.

And yet, time had done nothing to erase him.

Sunghoon remained in every empty space Jay occupied, in the quiet hum of the city at night, in the worn-down strings of his guitar, in the lyrics he could no longer bring himself to sing. He was in the air Jay breathed, in the spaces between his ribs, in the aching hollow of his chest where love used to live.

Three years.

Three years since Jay walked away, believing he was doing the right thing. That Sunghoon deserved more—more than a man who only knew how to leave, more than someone who couldn’t even love himself properly, more than someone who is running from his own ruin.

He had always been a mess. No, worse than a mess. He was a hurricane with no warning, a wildfire that didn’t know how to stop burning. A man who destroyed everything he touched, whether he meant to or not. His hands were made for breaking—guitar strings, promises, hearts.

And Sunghoon?

Sunghoon had been the only softness in his world of sharp edges. The only quiet in his endless storm. The only light that had ever reached him, even when he swore he didn’t deserve it. Sunghoon had been warmth, a place to rest, a love so gentle it should have been enough to save him.

But Jay had never known how to be saved.

And Sunghoon had never known that love alone wasn’t enough to keep someone from running.

So Jay did what he always did—he left. He convinced himself it was for the best. That Sunghoon deserved someone who wasn’t made of ruin. That loving Jay would only ever end in heartbreak.

But if that were true, then why was Jay the one left in pieces?

He had told himself that Sunghoon would move on. That he would forget. That Jay’s absence would eventually mean nothing.

And tonight was no different.

He came home from a gig, his voice hoarse, his fingers aching from pressing down on steel strings too hard. He kicked off his shoes, let his bag fall to the floor, and rubbed at his tired eyes.

That’s when he saw it.

A package. Small, wrapped in plain brown paper with no name, no return address.

Jay stared at it for a long time, his heart racing and each beat loud in his chest before his fingers trembled as they tore away the wrapping. Inside, there was a book.

Not just any book.

A book of poems.

A book of love letters.

A book filled with Sunghoon.

The first entry made his heart stop.

“The first time I saw you, you were on stage, drowning in your own voice. Eyes closed, lost in the music, like nothing else in the world existed but the melody spilling from your lips. And I thought… if I ever fall in love, I want it to feel like this. Like a song I could never forget, even when the music fades. You didn’t see me that night. But I saw you. And in that moment, I knew—before I even learned your name, before I ever touched your skin, before I ever felt the weight of your love—I knew that I was already ruined for you.”

Jay let out a quiet, broken laugh because wasn’t that just like Sunghoon? To put into words what Jay had spent years running from.

Because maybe love had always been waiting for him, sitting quietly in the front row, watching, waiting, and believing in him before he ever believed in himself.

And Jay… Jay had been too blind, too scared, too much of a coward to see it.

He turned the page.

Jay swallowed hard, his vision swimming as his thumb lingered over the familiar strokes of the handwriting.

"The first time I touched you, it was an accident. A moment so small, so fleeting, it should have meant nothing. But it did. We were at the bar, sitting close but not close enough. Your hand rested on the counter, and when I reached for my drink, my fingers brushed against yours. Just for a second. Just a whisper of skin against skin. But even that was enough to set my heart on fire." You flinched. Like love was something sharp, something that could hurt you. But I wanted to hold you anyway. I wanted to stay. I wanted to hold onto you as if you were the one thing I could keep in this world that kept slipping through my fingers.”

Jay squeezed his eyes shut, as if that could stop the ache, as if that could rewind time, as if that could change the fact that in the end, but it was useless.

Another page. Another wound ripped open, deeper than the last.

Jay’s breath stilled, his hands gripping the edges of the book like it was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

And maybe it was.

“The first time you kissed me, you were drunk. You tasted like whiskey and sadness, like something fleeting, something I was never meant to keep. You were reckless with it. Desperate. Like you needed to drown in something other than the liquor burning your throat. And for a second, just a second, I let myself believe you meant it. But then you pulled away. Eyes clouded, hands shaking, like you had done something unforgivable. And then you apologized… Like loving me, even for a moment, was something to be sorry for. I should have been angry. I should have walked away. But I didn’t. Because you looked at me like you were begging for forgiveness. Like you wanted to take it back before it could ruin you. And I kissed you again. Because if loving you was a mistake, it was the only one I ever wanted to make.”

Jay let out a broken laugh, choked and bitter, because of course Sunghoon had remembered. Of course, he had written it down like it was something beautiful, like it was something worth holding onto.

But all Jay could remember was the look in Sunghoon’s eyes after that second kiss—hopeful.

And then, the morning after—shattered.

His fingers trembled as he flipped through the book, each page feeling heavier than the last, each word cutting through him like a shard of glass. His chest ached with every letter, every sentence, until he thought he might suffocate under the weight of it all.

And then he turned another page.

There it was, in Sunghoon’s handwriting, a memory Jay had tried so hard to forget. A memory he had buried deep, where it still festered and ached, like an open wound that would never heal.

“The first time you told me you liked me, you were tipsy. Just drunk enough that your walls cracked, but not enough to forget. Your eyes were soft, and you leaned in too close, your breath warm against my skin, a whisper escaping your lips like it was something too fragile to say out loud, something you were scared to confess even to yourself.”

Jay’s heart skipped a beat, and he closed his eyes, letting the memory flood back. The way Sunghoon had looked at him—vulnerable, almost fragile, like he had placed his heart in Jay’s hands without even realizing it. But Jay had been too scared, too broken to hold onto it.

“I wanted to believe you. God, I wanted to. But when morning came, you didn’t bring it up. You didn’t even look at me the same. Like it was nothing. Like it didn’t matter.”

Jay’s breath hitched as he read the next part.

“So I didn’t either. Because I knew, deep down, that love only existed for you in the spaces between drunken confessions and fleeting touches. In the soft edges of moments you could never fully grasp. And still, I stayed.”

Jay could feel the sting of every word, the truth that had always been there but he had been too blind to see. Sunghoon had known. He had always known that Jay wasn’t capable of holding love, wasn’t capable of staying. He had loved Jay in the quiet spaces—the ones Jay had never been brave enough to claim.

"Because even if your love for me was just a brief moment, a passing glance in your life, I still wanted to be loved by you.”

Jay’s tears fell now, a steady stream, as he crushed the book to his chest. Because Sunghoon had loved him. He had loved him with everything despite the mess Jay had made of everything.

Despite the fear Jay carried.

Despite the distance Jay had put between them.

And still, Sunghoon had stayed.

But now… Jay was the one left in the ruins.

He wiped his tears away, his hands shaking as he turned another page. His chest felt tight, constricted by something too heavy to name as he read on.

“You always said you were a mess. That you were too broken, too lost, too much.”

He could almost hear Sunghoon’s voice in the silence, soft and tender, like he was right there beside him and caressing his cheek as he spoke.

“But Jay, love doesn’t ask for perfection. It doesn’t need you to be whole. It just needs you to be here.”

The words landed on him like a balm, soothing and burning all at once. He could almost feel Sunghoon’s fingers tracing the line of his jaw, his thumb brushing away the tears that refused to stop falling.

Love doesn’t need you to be whole.

He could hear it now, Sunghoon’s voice rich with quiet conviction as if it were meant for Jay and only him.

Just be here. Just be enough for me.

But Jay had never believed that. He had never thought he could be enough.

Now, as he read on, it was like Sunghoon was there, saying the words right to him, his warmth radiating through the ink.

“And I would have taken you—shattered pieces and all. Because even in your chaos, you were still the most beautiful thing I had ever known. Your cracks only made you more real, more alive, more you. The way your flaws danced in the light, how they shaped you into someone so raw, so perfectly imperfect. I would have held you in your darkness, kissed your wounds, and made peace with the parts of you that felt unlovable.”

“And I would have loved you—every broken piece, every heavy burden you carried. Because even the most shattered souls deserve to be loved. I would have carried it all with you, every weight, every wound, because love isn’t just about standing beside each other when things are easy—it’s about helping each other rise, even when the world feels like it's too much to bear. You don’t have to carry it alone because I would have carried it all, with you.. Because that's what love is: a shared journey of healing and growth.”

Jay let out a strangled sob, his chest tightening in agony as he pressed the book harder against his chest, as though trying to hold onto Sunghoon’s words, trying to hold onto him. It felt like Sunghoon’s hands were there, cupping his face gently, his thumb running over his cheek in the way he always did when he wanted to comfort him.

I would have taken you.

The words echoed in Jay’s mind, and for a moment, he almost felt it—almost felt the touch, the warmth of Sunghoon’s hand, the promise of love that had always been there, waiting for him to accept it.

But it was too late.

He had pushed Sunghoon away. He had let his own fear build walls too high to scale, too deep to fill. He had been loved, so deeply, so completely and still, he had been the one to walk away.

He should have stayed.

He should have believed Sunghoon when he said he was enough.

But he hadn’t.

Now, all he had left was this empty ache. The feeling of Sunghoon’s presence just out of reach like a dream fading the moment he tried to hold onto it.

He could almost hear Sunghoon whisper, “It’s okay, Jay. You were always enough for me.”

But those words would never be said again. And no matter how tightly Jay held the book, no matter how desperately he tried to summon him back, the space beside him remained painfully empty.

With trembling hands, Jay grabbed his phone, his fingers slick with sweat as he scrolled through the list of names. His heart pounded so loudly in his chest that it drowned out the world around him. When his eyes landed on Sunghoon’s name, everything else blurred. It felt like the earth had stopped spinning, like the only thing that mattered in that moment was the hope that maybe he could still reach him.

His fingers hovered over the call button, each second stretching into an eternity.

Would Sunghoon even answer?

Would he even want to?

The doubt gripped him like a vice, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Not the shame. Not the regret. He had to try. He had to hear his voice, even if it was just one more time.

His thumb pressed the dial button. The ringing started.

Once.

Twice.

Each one felt like a slap to his chest, each ring echoing in the hollow space inside him.

And then, that all-too-familiar voice that wasn’t Sunghoon’s. The one that had haunted him in the years since.

"The number you have dialed is currently unavailable."

Jay’s stomach lurched. His breath hitched in his throat, the air thick with the weight of everything he had lost. He tried again. His hands shook violently as he pressed the dial button again.

Once. Twice. Three times.

And each time, that same message. That same cold, empty response.

"The number you have dialed is currently unavailable."

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t feel anything but the crushing realization that it was too late. Sunghoon was gone. Really gone.

"Please." He whispered, voice breaking like glass. "Please, Sunghoon. Pick up."

But there was no answer. No soft voice, no comforting words. Only silence.

His legs gave way beneath him, and he crumpled to the floor. His body collapsed, falling into a heap of desperation and grief. The phone slipped from his hand, and the book—the book Sunghoon had left him—fell from his lap and tumbled to the ground, pages flipping wildly in the air as if the wind itself mourned with him.

The pages fell open to an entry.

Jay’s vision blurred as he looked down at the words, forced himself to read them through the haze of tears that blurred his eyes. The ink seemed to swim, but he could still make out the familiar handwriting that tore through him.

“The other night, I walked into that bar again. The one we used to go to. It had been so long, but it felt like the walls still knew me, like the smell of old whiskey and spilled beer still carried your name. And there you were, standing on stage, holding that guitar like it was part of you, your voice pouring out into the room like it was the only thing keeping you alive. I watched you sing. I don’t know why I came back. Maybe it was the pull of something I couldn’t forget, or maybe I thought I could erase the years of silence by hearing you sing again. But when I saw you there, on that stage, something inside me cracked. After all these years… I still love you, Jay.”

Jay’s hands clenched the book so hard, his knuckles turning white, his breath coming in short, desperate gasps. The ache in his chest was unbearable. I still love you. Sunghoon’s words echoed in his mind, bouncing between the walls of his skull, cutting through him like a blade.

“And I thought, maybe it’s stupid. Maybe I’m foolish for still feeling this way after everything. After you left. After the distance. After all the times I told myself to let you go. But I can’t. I never could. You were always the one who made me feel alive, even in the quiet, even in the pain. I love you. And maybe it’s stupid to admit it. But it’s the truth. It always was.”

The tears fell, blurring the ink, turning the words into smudges. Sunghoon had come back to that bar, after all this time, after all the silence, and he still loved him. Even when Jay had never been brave enough to return the same.

“I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know if you’ll ever hear me. I don’t know if you’ll even want to. But I needed to tell you this. I needed you to know that after all this time, after all the years of pain… It has always been you. Just you.”

Jay’s body trembled, a violent shudder that seemed to rip through him from the inside out. The book slipped from his hands, falling to the floor with a soft thud, but the weight of its words lingered, pressing down on him like a storm he could not outrun. His hands pressed to his face, trying to stem the tide of tears, but they came anyway—sobs that tore through him with a ferocity he hadn’t known he could feel. They wracked his body, violent and raw, as if every single ounce of grief he’d carried for years had suddenly broken free.

Sunghoon had never stopped loving him.

Even after the silence, after the distance. Despite all the time that had passed, despite the hurt that had fractured them, Sunghoon had loved him still.

And Jay—Jay had never been able to return that love. He had let it slip away like sand through his fingers, too scared to hold it, too lost in his own mess to see what he had before it was gone.

The truth weighed heavy on his chest. He couldn’t fix what was broken. The cracks between them, the unspoken words, the years of regret, it could never be mended. He had tried, but time had slipped like water, and what remained was a fractured reflection of what could have been. He couldn’t erase the silence nor couldn’t undo the distance he had created.

And maybe Sunghoon wasn’t waiting anymore. Maybe the boy who once loved him so completely had finally realized that some love stories were never meant to be rewritten.

No more second chances. No more waiting at the edge of the storm.

And in that silence, Jay realized that perhaps it was he who had walked away all along. Not with his feet, but with his heart. He had stepped out of the story before it even had a chance to end.

The world outside felt unbearably quiet now. It was a silence that pressed in on him from all sides, deafening in its stillness. There was no one left to call, no one left to reach for. His phone sat silent, the number forever unreachable. He was left with nothing but the hollow ache of love lost.

An ache so deep, so pure in its pain, that it felt like a wound that would never heal.

And all he had now was the haunting whisper of a love that had quietly slipped through his fingers, leaving him with nothing but the bitter taste of something he hadn’t known he was losing until it was already gone.

A sharp ache settled deeper in Jay’s chest. He had always known that Sunghoon’s love for him was unwavering, even when Jay pushed him away. But he hadn’t been strong enough to fight through his own demons, his own self-doubt. And now, all that remained was an empty space where Sunghoon used to be.

It hurt.

The idea that he might never get the chance to apologize, to fix what had broken between them, gnawed at him. The chance to hold Sunghoon, to feel him beside him again, to tell him everything he should have said all those years ago.

Could he have done more? Could he have stayed, even if it meant tearing himself apart? Could he have fought for them the way Sunghoon had always fought for him?

But the truth — the bitter, suffocating truth — was that it wasn’t enough anymore.

Time had torn them apart, and no matter how hard he tried, the damage was irreversible. The cracks were too deep, the walls too high. He couldn’t fix what had shattered beyond repair.

But the love? The love still lingered, gnawing at him, haunting every empty corner of his soul.

Even in the silence.

Even in the ache of the distance.

Always.

And maybe, in some twisted alternate universe, he could’ve kept him.

Maybe in another life, he could’ve made him stay.

But not here. Not now.

Now, all he had was the cold, cruel reality.

That Sunghoon was the one who got away.

[notesofthelivingdead]

stage three: bargaining

꒰ pairing ꒱ა park sunghoon x park jay

꒰ word count ꒱ა 10.5k

꒰ synopsis ꒱ა jay loved sunghoon—he just never said it out loud. instead, he pushed him away, convinced that sunghoon deserved someone whole, someone better. but now, watching him smile beside someone else, yay is haunted by the words he never said and the love he was too afraid to claim. because the cruelest part of losing him? sunghoon would have stayed… if only jay had asked him to.

꒰ song ꒱ა thinking about you, about you, iris

꒰ notes ꒱ა read previous chapters here: denial ╱ anger

The Prayer That Comes Too Late (Stage Three: Bargaining)

Jay knew he was losing Sunghoon. The realization clawed at him every day, a constant reminder that he had let something good slip through his fingers, and there was no way to take it back.

He had always known, somewhere deep inside, that this was coming. That the moment he started getting too close, he would push him away. Sunghoon deserved better—someone who wasn’t so broken, someone who didn’t live in the shadows of their own mistakes.

But that didn’t make it hurt any less. In fact, it made it worse.

Because Jay was the one who broke him first.

They had been friends for a long time, or at least, that’s what he told himself. That’s what he let himself believe, over and over again, until the lines between what was real and what he wished for blurred beyond recognition.

Friends didn’t kiss like that, didn’t touch like that, didn’t stay up all night whispering secrets into each other’s skin.

Friends didn’t share that kind of closeness, the kind that made everything feel like it could fall apart at any moment.

But Sunghoon was different. Jay knew that.

There was something in the way Sunghoon looked at him that made everything feel dangerous, like maybe if he let himself fall, it would be too deep to get out of.

He had always been afraid of that kind of vulnerability. Afraid of how quickly it could break him.

And so he did what he always did… He ran.

He pushed Sunghoon away, even though every fiber of his being screamed to pull him closer.

Yet, Jay wasn’t whole.

He wasn’t ready. He didn’t deserve someone like Sunghoon, who was light in a world that felt too dark. He couldn’t give him what he needed.

So he let go, bit by bit, until the space between them felt like an ocean. And maybe Sunghoon hadn’t noticed at first. Maybe he had thought it was just a phase. But Jay had seen the hurt in his eyes when he pulled away for good. The confusion. The silence.

And that’s when Jay knew.

He had lost him.

Jay drowned himself in strangers.

Lips that weren’t his. Hands that didn’t know him. Names that blurred into nothingness the moment the night ended. He let them pull him close, let them whisper empty promises into his skin, let them touch him in ways that were supposed to make him forget.

But the truth was, Jay never forgot.

Every kiss tasted wrong.

Every touch felt hollow.

Every fleeting moment in someone else’s arms only made the ache inside him worse.

It was like trying to drink salt water to quench his thirst—desperate, endless, self-destroying.

He knew their names. Knew the way they smiled, the way their fingers traced his jaw, the way their voices dipped when they leaned in close.

But he didn’t care. He never cared. Because none of them were him.

None of them had Sunghoon’s quiet warmth, the way he used to look at Jay like he saw right through him and didn’t run away.

No one held him like they were afraid to lose him.

No one kissed him like he was something to be cherished, something real.

Jay let himself fall into their beds, let them take what they wanted, but he never stayed. Never let them linger in the morning light. He always left before the sun could rise, before the weight of his own loneliness could settle into his bones.

Because the truth was, no matter how many people he let into his arms... he still felt like he was reaching for someone who was already gone.

There was one night—whiskey heavy on his tongue, a stranger’s hands ghosting over his skin—when he closed his eyes and pretended.

Pretended it was Sunghoon.

Pretended it was his fingers pressing into his waist.

His breath against his lips.

His voice whispering his name like a prayer.

And for a second, Jay let himself believe.

But when he opened his eyes, it was someone else. Someone who didn’t have Sunghoon’s brown eyes, full of questions Jay never had the courage to answer.

Someone who didn’t hold him like he was worth staying for.

Jay pulled away. Left without a word. He barely made it down the street before his breath hitched, before his chest tightened with the weight of it all—this endless, vicious cycle of wanting and losing and breaking himself apart just to feel close to something that no longer belonged to him… Oh wait, he never belonged to him in the first place.

God, he wanted to forget.

But how could he, when Sunghoon was carved into every part of him?

When no one else ever felt enough?

Jay laughed, but it came out broken.

Maybe this was his fate—to spend his nights chasing ghosts, kissing strangers just to remember how it felt to be wanted. To run his hands over unfamiliar skin while his heart bled for someone he could never touch again. To hum a name into the dark that would never be answered.

But no matter how much time passed, he could never erase Sunghoon from his mind. His name was carved into every thought, every aching breath.

No matter how hard he tried to move on, Sunghoon was there—haunting him, tearing at the wounds that never healed.

He would always remember. Always would want him to stay.

Just right after one of his gigs, he had stepped outside for some air, trying to shake the lingering tension of the performance. But when he turned the corner, there was Sunghoon, walking down the street. His eyes caught sight of him, and for a split second, Jay thought...

Maybe he could make it right. Maybe he could fix this, tell Sunghoon how sorry he was, how much he regretted everything.

Maybe, just maybe, Sunghoon would look at him and everything would fall back into place.

But then Jay saw the other guy. The one walking beside Sunghoon, laughing, the way Sunghoon used to laugh when they were together. The way he used to look at him before Jay had turned him away.

And in that moment, something inside Jay broke.

Sunghoon looked happy. Really happy. There was no mistaking it. His smile was wide, his shoulders relaxed in a way Jay hadn’t seen in months.

He was free.

Free from the weight Jay had put on him.

Free from the constant push and pull of a friendship that was never meant to be.

And Jay stood there, frozen.

His heart hammered in his chest, but it wasn’t the excitement of seeing Sunghoon that made it race. It was the realization that Sunghoon had finally moved on. Finally found someone who could give him what Jay never could.

For a long moment, Jay just watched while his chest tight, his throat thick with the words he couldn’t say. He wanted to call out to him, to tell him how much he missed him, how much he needed him. He wanted to reach out, to make it right, to ask for a second chance, even though he knew it was pointless.

Sunghoon was no longer his to claim. And Jay had no one to blame but himself.

Jay’s footsteps felt heavy as he walked away, each step taking him further from the one person who had managed to make him feel something real.

The night air was biting, but it was nothing compared to the ache gnawing at his chest. He walked aimlessly, not knowing where he was going, because it didn’t matter anymore. The weight of what he had done crushed him from the inside out.

He thought he would be fine, that pushing Sunghoon away would be the right thing. But now, in the quiet of the night, he realized that he had been lying to himself all along.

Jay had always been a coward. He had been too scared to face his own feelings, too scared of hurting Sunghoon, and in doing so, he had hurt him more than he could ever imagine.

The images of Sunghoon with someone else burned into his mind. The way his eyes sparkled with happiness, the way he laughed effortlessly, a laugh that no longer echoed in Jay’s ears. It should have been Jay beside him.

It should have been me.

But it wasn’t. And it never would be again.

Jay stopped walking, his breath coming out in shallow gasps as the cold wind whipped past him. He leaned against the nearest lamppost, his hands gripping the metal like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to reality. His chest tightened, his throat constricting as the words he had never said came crashing down on him.

"I love you."

The words were almost too soft to hear. He’d never said them before. Not when it mattered. Not when Sunghoon had been standing there, looking at him with those soft eyes, waiting for Jay to open up, to admit what had always been there.

But Jay had been afraid.

Afraid of what it meant.

Afraid of what he might lose.

And now he had lost everything.

But, if he could go back, if he could do it all over again, maybe he could tell Sunghoon the truth.

That he wasn’t pushing him away because he didn’t care. No, it was the opposite. He had pushed him away because he cared too much, because the thought of Sunghoon loving him, trusting him, was something Jay didn’t feel he deserved.

Sunghoon was everything that was good and pure and bright, and Jay had been too broken to give him the love he needed.

But what did it matter now? What good was regret when the moment was gone, the door closed, the chance lost forever?

Jay’s hands shook as he wiped his eyes, cursing the tears that threatened to fall. He was alone. And it was his fault. His fault for not fighting harder, for not loving harder. His fault for not telling Sunghoon that he had fallen in love with him too. That he had wanted to be the one to make him smile, to hold him close, to kiss him like it was the only thing that mattered in the world.

He could see it so clearly now, the way things could have been. Sunghoon’s hand in his, their fingers intertwined as they walked through life together. The quiet moments when they didn’t need words, just the comfort of each other’s presence. But those were all just what ifs now.

His heart ached in a way he hadn’t known was possible. It was a pain deeper than anything he had ever experienced, sharper than the regret that cut through him like a knife. He had broken both of their hearts.

And now, there was no way to fix it.

Jay stumbled back down the street, the cold wind biting at his face, but nothing could freeze the rawness in his chest. He would carry this with him for the rest of his life—the weight of what could have been, the weight of what he had lost.

He had never understood the finality of loss until now. It wasn’t just that Sunghoon was gone. It was that he had never truly known how to hold him in the first place.

But the words were too late. The chances were gone.

And now, all Jay had left was the sound of his own broken heart echoing in the silence.

If only he had told him sooner.

If only he had let himself want without fear, love without hesitation.

If only he hadn’t been so much of a coward, so consumed by his own darkness that he pushed away the only light he ever had.

If only he could rewrite the past, beg the universe for another chance, another moment, another lifetime where he wasn’t too afraid to hold on.

But regrets don’t mend broken hearts. They don’t turn back time.

And now, the cruelest truth of all settled deep into his bones.

Sunghoon would have still loved him. Even in all his ruin, even in all his wreckage, even when Jay had been too broken to love him back.

[notesofthelivingdead]

stage two: anger

꒰ pairing ꒱ა park sunghoon x park jay

꒰ word count ꒱ა 4.9k

꒰ synopsis ꒱ა sunghoon thought he had moved on—he stopped writing about jay, stopped waiting for a text that would never come, stopped lingering in the places where love once felt possible. there’s someone new now, someone who loves him without hesitation. but anger festers beneath his skin, a slow-burning ache that tastes like wasted years and unanswered questions. because no matter how much he tries to forget, jay’s ghost lingers in old songs, in half-lit memories, in the spaces between someone else’s kisses. and the worst part? he’s not sure if he wants to let it go.

꒰ songs ꒱ა magnets, the way i loved you, toxic till the end

꒰ notes ꒱ა read part one here

Anger is Just Love With Nowhere to Go (Stage Two: Anger)

Sunghoon wants to hate him.

God, he wants to hate him.

He wants to hate the way Jay kissed him in dark corners but never in the daylight. The way he touched him like he was something precious, but never said the words that would make it real. The way he let Jay orbit around him, caught in his gravity, knowing damn well he had no intention of pulling him in.

He wants to hate the way Jay made him believe—believe that if he was patient, if he was good enough, if he just waited, Jay would finally look at him and say,

“It’s you. It’s always been you.”

But that day never came.

Instead, Sunghoon waited. And waited. And waited. Until the waiting turned into something ugly. Until he wasn’t even waiting anymore, just standing still, stuck in a love that never loved him back.

Until Sunghoon stopped.

He stopped waiting by his phone for a text that never came—stopped staring at the screen until his vision blurred, stopped convincing himself that maybe Jay had typed something and just never hit send. Stopped making excuses, stopped lying to himself, stopped pretending that silence didn’t already give him the answer.

He stopped lingering at the bar where Jay used to play. Stopped sitting in the same dimly lit corner, a drink in his hand, waiting for Jay to glance at him between songs. Stopped watching the way Jay’s fingers danced over the strings of his guitar, stopped memorizing the way he closed his eyes when he sang like the music was the only thing in the world that ever truly held him.

Stopped hoping because hope had ruined him the first time.

He stopped leaving a light on in his apartment, just in case. Just in case Jay ever decided he missed him. Just in case he ever came back, knocking on his door with that stupid half-smile, expecting Sunghoon to let him in the way he always had.

But the light stayed on for months, and Jay never came.

So, one night, Sunghoon turned it off.

He stopped writing about him, too. No more letters that would never be read, no more poems folded into the pages of old notebooks, their ink bleeding like fresh wounds. No more words about the boy who kissed him like a promise but never kept it, the boy who let him believe in a love that was never meant to be his.

He stopped because he felt anger.

A kind of anger that burned low and slow, eating him from the inside out. A kind of anger that tasted like regret, like humiliation, like every goddamn moment he wasted on someone who never wanted him the way he wanted to be wanted.

And yet, beneath all the anger, beneath all the exhaustion and bitterness and pain was the thing that hurt the most.

He still longed for him. Because anger is just love that has nowhere to go.

And now, there’s someone new.

Someone who looks at him like he’s made of something holy, who laughs at his stupid jokes and holds his hand without hesitation. Someone who doesn’t make him feel like he has to earn love in fragments.

Some nights, when this new boy is kissing him softly under the glow of streetlights, Sunghoon almost convinces himself that he’s moved on. That the ghost of Jay isn’t still wrapped around his ribs, pressing into his lungs like an old, familiar ache.

Almost.

Because there are still nights where he rolls over in bed, half-asleep, and forgets whose name he’s supposed to whisper.

There are still songs he can’t bring himself to listen to. Still places he avoids because the memories are too sharp, too cruel.

Still moments where he catches himself looking for Jay in a crowd, expecting to find those dark and unreadable eyes watching him the way he used to wish they would.

And sometimes, when he’s staring at the ceiling, with another warm body beside him—one that isn’t Jay—he wonders if Jay ever thinks of him, too. If he ever feels the phantom pull of their unfinished story, if he ever looks at someone else and compares the way they love him to the way Sunghoon did.

But the worst part is—Sunghoon knows the answer.

Way to well.

He knows Jay has probably never lost sleep over him. That he’s probably kissed a dozen mouths since then, laughed into someone else’s neck, whispered things that Sunghoon used to dream of hearing. That Sunghoon was just a passing thing—a quiet love, a comfortable warmth, a body to sink into when the world got too heavy.

And that’s where the anger burns the brightest.

Because he is the one left haunted.

Because he is the one who can still feel Jay’s fingerprints on his skin, who still remembers the exact way Jay used to sigh when he was tired, who still aches at the thought of what they could’ve been if Jay had only tried.

Because he is the one who loved too much, while Jay never loved enough.

And maybe that’s why he’ll never really hate Jay.

Because despite everything—despite the wasted years, the unanswered questions, the heartbreak that still lingers in his bones—he knows that if Jay walked through his door right now, looking at him like he finally understood what he had lost…

He’s terrified that he’d still say yes.

[notesofthelivingdead]

stage one: denial

꒰ pairing ꒱ა park sunghoon x park jay

꒰ word count ꒱ა 8.5k

꒰ synopsis ꒱ა in a love story shaped by longing and silence, sunghoon writes jay into his poetry—an unspoken obsession that fills the spaces between them. jay, a boy with a voice like a storm, is a beautiful, fleeting presence sunghoon can never truly hold. as their connection deepens, so does the ache of something destined to slip away. between unwritten words, unfinished songs, and moments that never quite become real, sunghoon learns that some ghosts are impossible to exorcise, and some love stories never fade even when they were never his to begin with.

꒰ song ꒱ა would've, could've, shoud've by taylor swift

꒰ notes ꒱ა this will be written as a series with a total of five chapters. i hope you enjoy the journey, and your feedback is always appreciated!

If I Could Unwrite You (Stage One: Denial)

Would’ve.

Sunghoon writes about Jay like a ghost he cannot put to rest.

He writes him into verses laced with yearning, inks his name into the margins of unfinished poems, lets the syllables of his laughter drip into the spaces between his words. Jay lives in every unwritten sentence, in every metaphor that tastes of bittersweet what-ifs.

Some nights, he wakes to ink-stained hands and the ghost of Jay’s voice in his head.

You think too much, Hoon.

He wants to tell Jay that if he could stop, he would. That if he could exorcise him from the spaces between his ribs, if he could bleed him out of his poetry, if he could love him a little less—he would've.

But some things are written into you like fate.

And Jay?

Jay has always been a story Sunghoon was doomed to tell.

Could’ve.

The first time Sunghoon meets Jay, the boy is cradling a guitar like it is the only thing keeping him from falling apart, like the music is stitched into his very being, holding him together where words cannot.

Jay sings with his eyes closed, lashes casting soft shadows against his cheekbones. His voice low and raw, full of something ancient—something that aches, something that soothes, something that feels like standing in the eye of a storm and letting the wind decide your fate.

Sunghoon watches, transfixed.

Jay sings as if no one is listening, or maybe as if he is hoping someone is. His head tilts toward the ceiling, toward the dying glow of the bar’s neon lights, and Sunghoon wonders—

If the sky could feel, would it ever grieve the sun as it sets? Would it beg for just a little more time before it is swallowed whole by darkness? Would it know what it means to want something and know, deep in its bones, that it was never meant to keep it?

That night, Sunghoon goes home with Jay’s voice still humming beneath his skin, vibrating in the hollow spaces of his ribs. He writes a poem about the way Jay sings like he is breaking open, like his voice is the last desperate grasp of a love slipping through his fingers, like longing itself has taken shape in the form of a melody.

The words stain his hands, his sheets, the fragile edges of his heart.

He never shows it to Jay.

Perhaps he never will.

Or perhaps he is simply waiting for the right moment, for the right song, for the right kind of silence between them to whisper, “This is yours. It has always been yours.”

But the truth is, Sunghoon has always been afraid of things that demand to be felt.

He could’ve but would never do so.

Should’ve.

Their love—if it can even be called that—exists in the quiet spaces between moments, in the echoes of something unspoken, in the cruel beauty of almosts.

Jay, in the corner of a dimly lit bar, fingers moving over his guitar strings like a prayer, eyes flickering toward Sunghoon between verses, like he is searching for an answer in the way Sunghoon watches him.

Jay, slipping an earphone into Sunghoon’s ear, their shoulders brushing, the heat of his skin seeping through layers of fabric. His voice is barely a whisper, but it settles deep in Sunghoon’s chest. “Tell me what this song makes you think of.”

Jay, after a show, sweat clinging to his skin, his grin reckless and breathless, tugging Sunghoon closer like he cannot stand the distance between them. “Did you hear that last note? I swear, I almost lost my voice.”

Sunghoon should not let himself fall.

But Jay makes it so easy to fall, and even easier to pretend there is someone waiting at the bottom to catch him.

Jay is the kind of beautiful that feels like a warning—too bright, too sharp, something meant to be admired from a distance, not held too close. He is all raw edges and aching melodies, and when he looks at Sunghoon—really looks at him—it feels like being wanted.

Like being something holy.

Sunghoon knows better. Knows that some things are not meant to be held, only longed for. Knows that Jay is the kind of person who never truly belongs to anyone, who loves like a firework—brilliant, breathtaking, and fleeting.

But for now, he lets himself believe in the illusion.

Because when Jay smiles at him like that, like Sunghoon is the song stuck in his head, the lyric he keeps coming back to...

It almost feels real and he should've known better.

It happens one evening, when the city hums with the quiet ache of things left unsaid.

The rain has passed, but the air is still thick with it. The damp pavement gleaming under the hush of streetlights, the scent of something raw and electric clinging to the night. Somewhere in the distance, a car door slams, a siren wails, the world moves on. But here, in Jay’s apartment, time has curled in on itself, folding into the spaces between cigarette smoke and unfinished lyrics.

The room is a mess of abandoned thoughts—coffee-stained notebooks, broken guitar strings, words that almost meant something before they were scribbled out. It smells like nicotine, like late nights and exhaustion, like something Sunghoon should have walked away from a long time ago.

Jay is perched on the edge of the couch, guitar resting loosely in his lap, fingers absently strumming a song that doesn’t have a name. While Sunghoon's gaze falls on him as if trying to unravel him.

“You always look at me like you’re trying to turn me into something else,” Jay murmurs, his voice a whisper carried by the chord.

Sunghoon swallows hard. He lets the words settle, lets them bruise before he answers, “I look at you like I’m trying to understand you.”

Jay exhales before he sets the guitar aside. Moves closer. The air between them shifts, goes thick with something fragile, something dangerously close to breaking.

“And?” Jay asks, barely above a whisper. “Do you?”

Sunghoon wants to say yes. Wants to say that he has spent years tracing the shape of Jay in stolen glances and half-finished songs, in the way his voice catches on certain words, in every moment that felt like almost.

But the truth is cruel.

He shakes his head. “No.”

Because how do you understand something that was never meant to belong to you?

Jay closes his eyes, and for a second—just a second—Sunghoon swears he sees it. The same ache. The same longing. The same unspoken thing that has kept them circling each other, never close enough to touch.

Then Jay leans in. Slowly. Like he’s giving Sunghoon time to stop him even though they both know he won’t. Their foreheads brush, breaths tangle.

This is it, Sunghoon thinks.

This is the moment Jay finally gives in, finally presses his mouth to all the words Sunghoon has never had the courage to say.

But Jay pulls away. And when he laughs, it’s quiet, bitter like the last note of a song that never got to end the way it was meant to.

“You make me want things I can’t have,” he says.

Sunghoon closes his eyes.

He wants to say, I know.

Wants to say, Me too.

Wants to ask, Then why won’t you just let yourself have them?

But he doesn’t.

Because Jay is a song never meant for his hands, and Sunghoon is just a poet trying to hold onto echoes.

They stop pretending soon after.

Jay stops leaving space for Sunghoon in his silences. Stops looking at him like he is something worth keeping. Stops playing love songs when they are alone—choosing instead to strum something empty, something cold, something that sounds like goodbye before it’s ever spoken.

Sunghoon listens anyway. Listens as Jay unlearns him as he rewrites himself into someone untouched by quiet confessions and lingering stares. Sunghoon memorized Jay in love songs, but now, all he hears is distance.

And Sunghoon?

He writes.

He carves Jay into the marrow of his poetry, into the gaps between his ribs, into the phantom ache of something torn away too suddenly, too cruelly. He folds him into metaphors that taste like blood, like smoke, like something soft that was never meant to last.

He tells himself he will stop.

That he will unwrite Jay from his bones. That he will forget the shape of his hands, the weight of his name, the quiet way he used to say stay without ever using the word.

That one day, he will wake up, and Jay will be gone from him.

But he doesn’t.

Because some ghosts don’t wait for permission to haunt you.

Because some love stories never make it past the prologue, and yet, they ruin you all the same.

Because the truth is, some people leave—but never really let you go.

And poetry, once written, never truly dies.

And Sunghoon wanders through the would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.

A ghost in a love story that was never his to begin with.

[notesofthelivingdead]

The Past That Haunts Us

・・・・・

There comes a time in life when we do something terrible. A choice, a mistake—sometimes reckless, sometimes inescapable. And that one act, that one fleeting moment of weakness, follows us like a shadow that refuses to fade. It doesn’t matter if it was out of desperation, fear, or sheer human flaw. The world won’t care about the why. It won’t care about the guilt that chews through your soul like rust on metal, corroding every part of you until even you start to hate the person in the mirror. It only remembers what you did.

And that’s all you’ll ever be to them.

People never forget, do they?

No matter how much you change, no matter how much you grow, to them, you will always be the person who messed up. You could carve yourself into something better, peel away your old self layer by layer, but it wouldn’t matter. To them, you are not allowed to evolve beyond your worst moment. They hold it against you like a sentence with no expiration date, like an open wound they refuse to let heal. And maybe they want to keep it that way because it’s easier to see you as a villain than to acknowledge that people are more than their mistakes.

And the worst part?

Sometimes, you start to believe them. You wonder if they’re right, if you are undeserving of forgiveness, if the past isn’t just haunting you but defining you. You carry the weight of it in your bones, in your breath, in the silence between conversations. You try to outrun it, try to drown it in distractions, but it resurfaces in the quiet moments, in the dead of night when there’s no one left to pretend for.

Maybe you don’t deserve a second chance. Maybe no matter what you do, it will never be enough. Maybe the ghost of who you used to be has its claws too deep in your skin, whispering that this is all you are... all you’ll ever be.

Because the truth is, some people will never let you be anything more than your worst mistake.

To them, you will always be the villain. And no matter how many times you rewrite your story, they will always turn back to the same chapter—the one where you lost yourself, the one where you became everything you swore you’d never be.

And maybe that’s the cruelest part of it all.

Not the weight of their judgment, not the endless whispers, not even the memories that tear through you like a storm.

No, the cruelest part is that in the end... you start to wonder if they’re right.

If maybe, just maybe, the past isn’t haunting you.

Maybe it is you.

[notesofthelivingdead]

Once the world brands you a villain, the label sinks deep, coiling around your identity like an iron vice. No matter how fiercely you fight against it, how desperately you try to break free, it becomes an inescapable cloak—heavy, suffocating, permanent. It’s not the truth of your actions that matter anymore; it’s the story already written in the minds of others. You could beg for redemption, perform acts of kindness that stretch your soul to its very edges, but none of it cuts through. Their gaze, cemented in certainty, pierces you, refusing to see anything other than what they’ve chosen to believe. A villain. Nothing more, nothing less.

It starts innocently, subtly—one wrong step, one rash decision, one moment of weakness. You tell yourself it’s temporary, a passing storm. They’ll understand, they’ll see the bigger picture once the clouds part. But time, cruel and indifferent, erases those hopes. Instead of healing, it festers, the wound widening, a scar thickening over the delicate threads of your good intentions. Eventually, you wake up to find the world has decided for you. You are the villain of their story now, their whispers growing louder, their judgment tightening like a noose around your neck.

You begin to notice it everywhere. The way eyes linger just a second too long when you enter a room. The silence that follows your footsteps, the way their conversations die in the air, thick with unspoken suspicion. You try to explain yourself, to peel back the layers of misunderstanding, but it’s futile. They don’t want to hear it. They’ve already made up their minds. Their vision is fixed, locked into place, a permanent lens through which you will always be seen. No matter what you do, no matter how fiercely you try to reclaim your truth, it’s always there—looming, omnipresent, unforgiving.

And slowly, insidiously, you begin to accept it.

At first, it’s a form of survival. You think:

"If they see me this way, maybe I can outlive their expectations. Maybe if I lean into it, they’ll leave me alone." 

But there’s a twisted kind of freedom in playing the part they’ve written for you. The world no longer expects you to be good, so you stop trying. The moral compass you clung to, the one you once believed would guide you through the storm, spins out of control, and for the first time, it doesn’t matter. You lean into their accusations, speak with the sharp edges they expect, make the choices they’ve already condemned you for. In a way, it’s easier. They’ve crafted this version of you, so why not wear it like armor?

But deep inside, you feel the price of this surrender. Every mask you put on, every bitter word you throw back, takes a piece of you. The person you once were—the one who cared, who believed, who fought for something more—recedes into the shadows, replaced by the version of yourself they demand. And then, the strangest realization: you begin to forget who you were before. The image they’ve projected onto you becomes so vivid, so omnipresent, that you lose sight of your own reflection.

You are the villain now, not just in their eyes, but in yours.

Yet, in the quiet moments, when the world is silent and you’re left alone with your thoughts, doubt creeps in. You wonder if this is really all you are now, if this role, this mask, is the entirety of you. Or is there still a flicker of the person you used to be, buried beneath the layers of accusation and expectation? Is there a path back, a way to break free from the chains of perception that weigh you down? Could you ever truly redeem yourself—not just in their eyes, but in your own?

You think of trying. You think of reaching back, pulling yourself out of the depths. But then, the laughter. The whispers. The knowing looks.

The constant reminder: This is who you are now. This is all you will ever be. 

And so, the question lingers, unanswered. Perhaps the hardest truth of all is that it no longer matters what you do, because once the world sees you as a villain, there’s no escape. The chains they’ve wrapped around you clink with every step, a constant reminder of the role they’ve cast you in. You can struggle, you can fight, but the sound never fades.

So you walk, carrying the weight of their perception, knowing that no matter how hard you try, the world will always see you through the same unchanging lens. The weight grows heavier with every step, until it presses down on you with such force that you begin to feel no longer human. More like an idea, a caricature of yourself, crafted by others and forced upon you.

And in the end, you wonder if it’s better to be misunderstood or simply forgotten, lost in the shadows of the identity they built for you, stripped of your own.