SEOKMIN (3)

Even at five in the morning, the city pulsed like a living thing, restless and relentless.

It buzzed with the low thrum of sleepless ambition. Streetlights blinked like tired eyes refusing to close. Cars hummed past like they were trying to outrun their own emptiness. The high-rises loomed above, glass and steel facades catching the first ghost-light of dawn, like weary sentinels guarding truths no one wanted to confront.

This city had a rhythm. An undercurrent of movement and monotony. Of ache and ambition. It was the only symphony I still heard anymore. The only thing that reminded me I was still here.

I stepped out of the hospital as the heavy glass doors sighed shut behind me. The world was caught between darkness and light. The sky was bleeding—bruised plum fading into rose and ash. It was that liminal hour when everything felt fragile, like the day hadn’t decided whether it wanted to begin or break.

Another night shift survived. Another twelve hours of blood and breath and too many hands grabbing mine, asking me to save someone I couldn’t. I didn’t even feel the weight anymore. The pressure had melted into muscle memory. The scrubs clung to my skin with the faint scent of antiseptic and fatigue, but they were quickly traded for the comfort of anonymity—a black hoodie, frayed at the cuffs, and worn track pants that knew the shape of me too well.

My white coat was folded neatly in my duffel bag, tucked away like a second identity I wore only when necessary.

My sneakers slapped the pavement as I walked. Each step familiar. Automatic. The kind of routine that buried thoughts before they could bloom.

The gym was two blocks away. I knew the time it took—twenty-one minutes from the last stitch to the first step on the treadmill. I had it down to a science. Some people counted calories. Others counted prayers. I counted minutes. Steps. Heartbeats.

Anything to keep the ghosts at bay.

As I walked past a dark alley, a cat darted across, its shadow slinking like spilled ink. Somewhere, a bakery opened early, and the scent of warm bread floated briefly in the air. The world was waking up, stretching its limbs, pretending it hadn’t cried itself to sleep the night before.

I didn’t feel the ache in my legs. I didn’t notice the ache in my chest either. It was always there. A dull throb that never left. Like a missing limb you still try to move in your sleep.

The gym greeted me like a ritual. A space between spaces. Dim lights. The sharp scent of rubber mats. Faint hints of sweat and iron.

The receptionist looked up. Her mascara was still drying, clumped faintly on the edges of her lashes. Her smile wavered—painted on like hope, not quite genuine.

“Morning, Dr. Lee,” she said, her voice a little too polite, a little too careful.

“Habit,” I replied, offering that same hollow smile I’d perfected. The kind that said, Don’t ask. Don’t look too close.

She always hesitated, like she wanted to say more. Like she saw something cracked behind my eyes but couldn’t name it. She wasn’t the only one.

The barista who knew my coffee order by heart but stopped trying to make conversation. The nurse who brushed against my arm like she thought I might reach back. The fellow resident who lingered too long at my locker.

They all stared at me like I was some kind of perfect statue.

Polished. Stoic. Reliable.

They didn’t know.

They didn’t know that I flinched inside every time someone touched my skin. That I couldn’t remember the last time a kiss meant anything. That every time someone said I seemed calm, all I could think about was the fire in his eyes.

Joshua.

Even his name felt like a bruise. A fresh wound. A whisper down the spine.

He had been everything.

Not just a boy. Not just a lover.

He was a storm—wearing a grin that could slice you open, eyes that held the kind of chaos you couldn’t outrun. He was danger wrapped in silk. Madness made beautiful.

And I had loved him. God, I had loved him.

Loved him in ways that didn’t make sense. That blurred the lines between pain and pleasure, devotion and destruction.

Joshua didn’t love gently. His love was violent in its devotion. Possessive. Wild. He whispered things in the dark that still echo in my bones.

"You’re mine, Seokmin. I’d burn the world before I let it have you."

And I believed him.

Hate me for this but I still do.

His touch wasn’t soft—it was frantic. Like he wanted to tear me open and crawl inside. He didn’t just want my heart; he wanted every breath, every thought, every flaw. I feel so, no actually I know.

Because I was just as insane.

Because I needed him the way the sea needs the moon—pulling, drowning, helplessly in orbit.

I changed in the locker room, silence hugging me like a second skin. The clink of weights, the shuffle of shoes—background noise, irrelevant.

My body ached from hours of surgery, but I craved the ache. It made me feel real. Alive. Anchored.

The treadmill beeped beneath my feet as I began to run. No music. I didn’t listen to songs anymore. Too many of them had his laughter tangled in the background, his voice humming out of tune in the shower, his arms around my waist swaying to jazz on quiet nights.

I ran with precision. Measured strides. Breaths counted like prayers.

The mirrored wall in front of me threw back my reflection. I saw a man others admired. Clean lines. Calm eyes.

But mirrors lie.

Because none of those reflections showed the boy I really was.

The boy who stood alone on a rain-drenched platform two years ago, duffel bag in hand, heart in his throat, waiting for someone who never came.

Joshua had promised.

He had sworn—“Just one more job, Min. Then I’m yours.”

But instead… the news came like a knife in the back.

He’d vanished.

They said he’d betrayed me. Killed my uncle—my only family. That he’d disappeared into the night like a ghost. And days later, a body was found in the mountains. Burned beyond recognition.

Unrecognizable.

Only one thing survived the fire: a silver pendant.

His necklace.

I remember holding it in my palm, the metal still warm like it had a heartbeat. Like it knew it didn’t belong to me anymore. Like it was screaming his name into my skin.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just shut down.

I buried him. Quietly. Alone.

And I buried myself alongside him.

He killed my uncle and he deserves to be buried. I will never forgive him— I can never.

I worked harder. Smiled less. Let people project perfection onto me because it was easier than being seen. I dated on autopilot. Let people fall in love with the mask I wore.

But I couldn’t love them back.

Because Joshua didn’t just leave.

He took my capacity to love with him. Ripped it out of me like a thief in the night and replaced it with longing. With obsession.

Even now, these many years later, I still hear his voice in the quiet moments. Still feel his breath on my skin in dreams that end with sweat and aching.

Sometimes, I wonder if love that intense could ever really die.

Or if he’s dead at all.

My pace on the treadmill picked up. I pushed harder, past the point of pain, past breathlessness.

I ran like I was trying to leave myself behind.

But I could never outrun Joshua.

Outside, beneath the pale wash of dawn, a matte black motorcycle sat beneath the tree line. Sleek. Still. Watching.

I saw the motorcycle, it was attractive, I liked the color.

And suddenly something shifted.

A tremble in the air. A whisper in the back of my mind. That familiar prickle down my spine like I was being seen. Like the city, for all its indifference, had suddenly turned its eyes toward me.

I slowed the treadmill. My pulse thudded hard against my ribs, not just from the run.

I wiped my face with a towel. Told myself it was nothing.

Just ghosts.

Just exhaustion.

But as I stepped out of the gym, the sunlight sliced the world open—and that motorcycle wasn't there.

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