Chapter Text

Renjun envisioned Donghyuck climbing his terrace every night. With his sleep-addled mind, Renjun would gaze at the sliding glass door that divided the freezing outside from Renjun’s stuffy studio. The passing cars flashed their headlights onto the terrace’s sidewall, forming silhouettes that ranged from seven-headed beasts to human-sized shadows. All of this accompanied by a constant knocking below his apartment, as though his downstairs neighbor, bothered by his distressed midnight pacing, used the wood of a broom to let the feelings known.

To soothe his mind, Renjun would nurse a mug of tea in hand, casting an unwavering stare at the terrace. He’d wait, eagerly so, to prove his midnight sightings inaccurate. He had gotten it wrong once: the claw-like branches that outlined his walls, the poignant dreams he’d had since that fateful night. But now, there were no trees. His New York apartment faced busy traffic and neon-glinting stores which served as the basis for mid-rise buildings. And his dreams were forever tainted with fever-like, sporadic bouts of insomnia, which he tried to self-medicate with mug after mug of Chamomile tea. To sleep, now, was to succumb to an exhausted haze from work with a full bladder.

Sometimes, Renjun’s restlessness drove him to venture further. He’d slide the door open, step outside swathed in a blanket, and look at the never-ending sparkling of buildings, stores, and restaurants, like stars in a dark sky, since to spot a natural star in the night was to lose the war before declaring it. He’d watch the people below, those trekking back home after full-time work, those drunkenly stumbling and grappling at brick walls to keep on their feet, and those who hurried their steps to avoid unpleasant encounters in the nearest alleyway. Renjun understood the latter process too well. He’d stand there, against the wind, in the short height from the first floor, until the tea ran cold.

Whenever he did this, a new memory would sprout into his mind, one condensed with unpleasantness and a five-year-old rancor that built on each passing day. After graduating from community college, Renjun had started a memoir. Out of a whim, following a devastating romance with a professor — Renjun came to learn he’d only fall for the wrong people —, Renjun began to write about his past, looking at it as a puzzle, like a detective might solve a long-forgotten case. The memoir was now a 150-page draft saved to his computer.

Now, after the usual back-and-forth on the terrace, Renjun clicked the computer power button with his toe, typed his password, and opened the Microsoft Word manuscript to scroll to where the vertical bar blinked like an unrelenting question.

Donghyuck would crawl into my room from the window, without regard to my family still awake and chattering downstairs. The looming possibility of being caught clung to the air like the fog outside. I didn’t care, back then. Because Donghyuck would kiss right behind my ear, trail down to my neck, bite with unrestrained force at the junction between my neck and shoulder, and I’d succumb as though my body were a jointless rag doll…

Renjun barely had time to properly shut off the computer. Whether the spurt of unadulterated sensitivity, or the reassurance that Donghyuck resided in his past and not his present, Renjun managed to crawl into bed and rest his head against the pillow to fall into a dreamless sleep. The noise downstairs was nothing but a lullaby.

—

With the analog clock marking him late for work, Renjun ran to the subway with untied shoes. He still knotted a tie around his neck when he waved a “Not today!” to the coffee shop owner who’d asked, “Some espresso, Mr. Huang?”

On the subway, he tapped his foot and checked his watch, staring at the floor. Among a public horde, he always kept his stare on the floor. Whereas he was to look up, everyone wore Donghyuck’s face like an overnight mask. His features extended along the passersby’s faces, stretched and uncanny.

Once, he’d deemed a stranger to undoubtedly be Donghyuck, since after the illusion dissipated and a common New Yorker did not glare back at him, Renjun had halted in place, mid-way through leaving the subway gates as the stranger charged towards him. Watch’u staring at? had been Faux-Donghyuck’s response to Renjun’s frozen fear. The voice had not resembled Donghyuck’s. The face, from up close, had not resembled Donghyuck’s. It’d left him thinking: without photos to certify the fact that Donghyuck had possessed, at some point, a human face, how long could Renjun trust his own memory of Donghyuck’s features?

Renjun arrived at work with a fast-paced beat to his heart from the sprint to the elevator. Landing on the 9th floor, Renjun received nothing more than a few glances from nearby cubicles. Entering his cubicle felt like entering his private sanctuary. Anything could be done in a heat- and noise-controlled environment, even sorting through emails that were a jumble of words for Renjun’s exhausted vision. Perhaps he needed reading glasses.

To follow the emails chronologically proved itself unproductive, so Renjun searched for those who addressed him directly. Such as, DEAR RENJUN FROM CARAT MAGAZINE, PLEASE—

A hand gripped his shoulder. Renjun jumped.

“Scared you, didn’t I?” Boss’s tone was mocking as he clasped Renjun’s shoulder. His face sagged from his eyes to his neck, which resembled a rooster’s wattle, which overflowed his suit collar. He pointed at Renjun’s screen. “Why don’t you be a doll and search up some suits for me, don’t you?”

Renjun switched his email inbox to an Internet Explorer tab.

“I need to find my godson some good fucking suits,” Boss said. “He’s about your height. Maybe a bit taller. Maybe a bit bigger. It’ll be his first day on the job soon, and you seem to understand fashion.”

Renjun looked down at his thrift-stored workwear, far from Boss’s expectations of a fashionable suit — exported and car-priced. “Why me? Why not Mingyu?” Mingyu, whose column was attributed entirely to Fashion & Style, would have a word or a thousand to spare Boss, whose footsteps he’d lick off the floor.

Thumbing his collar so his rooster’s wattle sunk behind it, Boss didn’t seem to like this idea. “You have a certain look to you. Effortless. I like that. My godson needs that. He’s so uptight…”

The next minutes consisted of Renjun tabbing in and out of brand-name websites, clicking on a suit priced on the three digits, looking up to Boss for approval, and clicking out of it.

“All these fresh models remind me of my own youth,” Boss said after a pause. They’d stopped at a picture of a young man lounging on a chair, champagne glass in hand. “I can’t unwind time, my body won’t allow it. On my last drunken night, I stumbled out of the bar and into the Upper East Side, where I found this tailor-made suit store. I didn’t buy any, since they’d have to take my measurements, and I’d rather have a speedy death before then. I went home, ignored my naggy-nagging wife, and went straight to my office, where I ordered a suit from that same store online. Ah, the Internet. Most pure man-made invention.” 

Renjun browsed through other photos, trying to find mature-aged models with larger figures, ones that resembled, at least from an uninterested faraway glance, Boss.

“Only later, on my sober but hungover Sunday, did I realize the finished order on my screen and noticed I had chosen the wrong size!” He shook his head, making the rooster’s wattle flap side to side and spill from the collar. “Despite the picture showing a tall, sturdy man wearing the suit, it did not surpass a tight Large. Some things are just not what they seem. And, adding to the whole Diabetes thing, I have a newly found goal to watch my food intake: fitting in my 30-Kay dollar suit. Well, I can just give it to my son. He’s 10 years old. Sometimes I wish he was older, your age, but tall and sturdy. Maybe it’ll fit my godson.”

Renjun nodded and sifted through more suits.

“Why aren’t you working?” Boss said after the perusal of fifteen more garments, a renewed severe tone to his voice. “Precision is key, Renjun. Time is money. Enough talking, back to work.”

Relief, rather than indignance, coursed through Renjun as Boss crossed out of his cubicle and finally left him in the fake loneliness Renjun so desired.

He kept reading the email: DEAR RENJUN FROM CARAT MAGAZINE, PLEASE KEEP ME ANONYMOUS AS THIS STORY FOLLOWS VERY CLOSELY TO MY WORK LIFE. SO, IT STARTS LIKE THIS: I MET HIM IN HIGH SCHOOL—

A soft Psst! came from his right side. He turned to see Junhui’s head peeking from the plastic divider, just the two eyes that said to him, “I archived most of the spam. Didn’t want to delete them, so if you want to check, they’re still there.”

“Thank you,” Renjun said. Junhui’s head sank back. True to his word, Renjun found the archive, cluttered with more than fifty emails, some titled GROW HAIR IN 2 WEE… and YOUR CHECK HAS BEE…

Renjun, back to the same email, read the rest: I MET HIM IN HIGH SCHOOL AND, JUST LIKE YOU, DID NOT SEE ANY WARNING SIGNS UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE. ONCE I FOUND OUT HE’D BEEN SLEEPING WITH MY SISTER, I WAS ALREADY PREGNANT.

At this point, he didn’t need to read anymore. He copied the body of the email, missing the introduction, and pasted it on the Microsoft Word document labeled CHEATING.

—

When Junhui invited him for coffee, Renjun was on his 34th email. Caffeine-deprived for the whole day, Renjun promptly put his palm off the computer mouse.

At the closest busy café, both ordered a sandwich and black coffee. They sat on a bench outside, orders at their sides, the city cacophony a mere brown noise. Renjun gulped the steaming hot liquid as though it were water, not minding the burning in his tongue. He didn’t need to taste the sandwich, it only needed to sustain his body and mind for another day.

“It’s nice that you’re secure in your position,” Junhui said.

In the street nearby, a car honked for ten seconds.

Renjun’s brows pulled towards each other by sheer appreciation of the caffeinated beverage. In that expression of pleasure-pain, Renjun inquired, “What do you mean?”

Junhui stirred his coffee with a plastic stick, mid-way through his spicy chicken sandwich. “With the downsize and all,” he said. Renjun wondered if Junhui worried about his job the same way Renjun worried about his Donghyuck nightmares. Differently from Renjun’s, Junhui’s position could be replaced in a blink — his post consisted of proofreading and emending typos before the articles were sent to print, but, according to Boss, this was “a waste of money,” and “the machine can just do it.”

A group of middle-aged women dressed for the gym ran past them, their presence bringing a gust of frail wind.

“I’d trade my job for some peace of mind,” Renjun said over his burning tongue. Despite the heat in his mouth, he took another gulp from the coffee, now not as hot. Even though his past earned him irreplaceable work — aiding equally traumatized people to find serenity through words —, he’d go back in time and strangle Donghyuck at the sight of him on Renjun’s high school desk.

“At least you can profit off yours.” Junhui’s sandwich was nothing more than a wrapper now. He sipped on his coffee without the lid, as though it were a glass of champagne. The image of Boss sitting on an expensive chair with an expensive suit drinking expensive champagne darted into his head. He grimaced. “With mine, I can’t.”

Just as Renjun kept his past contained in vague, non-specific words, Junhui did the same, but to an extreme level of secretiveness. They had an unspoken arrangement: I don’t tell you mine and you don’t tell me yours.

“Did you figure out who’s being fired?”

“Couldn’t tell if I tried,” Junhui said. “HR is so secretive.”

A Poodle freed from its leash trotted happily towards them, anxious owner bolting miles behind. Once it came into proximity, Renjun snatched it off the ground, where it squiggled and whined until the owner, a young man in glasses and a shirt that said she wants to sleep with me inside a sea of pointing arrows, extended his arms to reclaim the dog.

“Thanks, man,” he said.

Before Renjun could retrieve the dog, it broke free from their grips and snagged Renjun’s uneaten sandwich off the bench.

“Sorry, man,” the young man screamed as he went back to his ultimate quest: catching the Poodle.

—

On the subway back home, Renjun’s tired mind obliged his eyes to wander around. In front of him, someone with the Donghyuck-aura, or so to say, read a book propelled over a knee. Donghyuck loved to read, loved the classics. He had acted outraged at Renjun’s scribbles on the page, but had no qualms about shooting him in the arm.

Renjun, on an impulse, snapped a hand to his right arm, where the scar showed prominent under the suit.

The sudden movement compelled the stranger in front to shoot his head toward Renjun, and the image wavered, shedding the mischievous smile into the average-looking New Yorker frown. 

Renjun averted his gaze and chose to analyze an ad for a cable sitcom show. He traced the scar over the fabric, his mind elsewhere.

—

He didn’t like my scribbles, the annotated observations I left behind. Because those were me, and he wanted to mold me into him. He wanted to erase me, rewrite my words into his, reformulate a story in which I had no contribution but had no choice other than to participate—

Mid-sentence through the spur of entranced inspiration into the manuscript, an MSN message from ＣＨΣＮＬΣ strayed Renjun’s mind off the trail of thought.

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ HAS SENT A NUDGE!

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ says: r u still having nightmares?

Renjun says: Yes.

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ says: u should wipe donghyuck out of ur memory

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ says: go out for a date

Renjun says: Yes, I’ll just turn off my trauma, thanks!

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ says: no im serious!

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ says: what abt that doyoung guy u met in college? he’s not ur professor anymore

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ says: u could date

Renjun says: Stop.

Renjun says: I can never be in a relationship like that. Any kind of relationship.

Renjun says: Even with Doyoung, that was almost a relationship. Almost. Short-lived because of my own struggles with intimacy.

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ says: well, u don’t need to be in a relationship, just sleeping around can b the best pill dont u think??

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ says: ur struggles r with emotions rite?

Renjun says: Not physical intimacy, no.

Renjun says: I need therapy. If I can ever afford it. Or bear it.

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ says: THERAPISTS AER GOVERMNMNENT PLANTS THAT COLLLECT UR DATA ADN SELL THME TO FOREING FACTOIRES!!!!!!

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ says: rlly, renjun. u don’t know how easy it is to bug someones phone. or car. or house. or even underwear!

Renjun says: That’s why nobody takes your P.I. business seriously, Chenle. Good night.

ＣＨΣＮＬΣ says: good night, incredulous.

Renjun closed the MSN messenger tab, but once back to the manuscript, he found himself drained of inspiration, as though the brief connection to his cousin could trigger the past in a manner so vivid it was impossible to translate the rawness into prose.

The path from his desk to the kitchen was three steps long, where Renjun turned on the oven for another load of tea. The ruffle downstairs rose to a crescendo, the noise of his neighbors living mundane lives through paper-thin walls and floors. They didn’t know how good they had it.

When the kettle hissed, Renjun poured the boiling water into the mug and stared out of the window, the teabag buoyant. The constant noise in the apartment was the least of his problems, and so was the size of the place, because what was one to expect when moving to New York with nothing but a dream and a Communications degree?

The mug of tea, finished in three gulps, retained its warmth inside him, which granted him temporary soothing. When he swiped the toothbrush’s bristles over his teeth, his mouth was still warm.

The walk from the bathroom to his bed proved even shorter. Renjun could collapse on the mattress by accident or by design. He belly-flopped over the sheets, palming at the wooly fabric, the wish to hang them over the terrace door growing in a gradual but incessant manner. He wanted to cover the glossy glass door not for its compliance to the searing sun cutting across the room in the morning, but because of the constant shadow of Renjun’s memories, that slashed their familiar silhouettes on the wall parallel to the door.

Sometimes, between tired blinks just before sleep hit, Donghyuck would be outside the terrace, waiting to be let in. Renjun’s eyes would snap up, struggling against the warm covers that at these times felt like restraints.

The terrace remained, as of custom, empty.

—

Renjun’s fingers flew along the keyboard in a rhythm so cathartic he longed to emulate outside of the workspace. Not even at home, when he found himself deep in urgency to describe Donghyuck’s atrocities in poetic language, did his fingers move in such precision, a clack-clack-clack that echoed not only through his cubicle but the whole office. Similar keyboards joined his unmelodic symphony, and that was the beauty of working in a corporate office. He wished to record the sound to replay it on those sleepless nights, when the thought troubling his exhausted mind was irrational and only acquiesced by outside intervention.

Dear Ms. Anonymous. I hope I am referring to you correctly, since you have not mentioned marrying this man—

“Then, I thought, if they get rid of me, how is the music going to critique itself?” Seokmin’s voice proved itself louder than the clacking, accompanied by hums distinct to Soonyoung and Seungkwan. “To put irony to it, Britney is releasing a second album this Wednesday, who’s gonna review it, then?”

Right beside Renjun’s cubicle, Seungkwan’s voice came in, “Seungcheol is also in your department, no? I mean, if any position is in danger, it’s yours.”

A gasp. Uh-oh. Then a scoff. A hand came into view, grappling at the plastic divider, like a venomous tarantula about to leap on his face.

“Yeah, dude,” Soonyoung mused, “it’s one-by-one. Two in the music department? Psh, if someone’s getting fired, I bet on either of you.”

Seokmin huffed and pshawed. Renjun felt rather than heard the fist knocking on his divider. Its collision fell in a rippling effect — it trembled the walls, the desk, his chair. Like a punch to his body. “Seungcheol is better off brainstorming the cartoon strips. He still hums Slim Shady in the break room. I’m staying.”

“Oh, Renjun,” Soonyoung’s voice was much clearer and behind Renjun. Renjun spun on his chair to face the trio. Soonyoung had one hand in a pocket and the other with a to-go coffee. His leisure pose, overall, made Renjun tighten a hand on his chair’s edge. “Hope we’re not making too much noise.”

“Yeah, Renjun.” Seokmin’s sleeves rode up to his forearms when he crossed them. A Rolex shined on his right wrist. “We’re not interrupting your love columns, are we?”

Seungkwan remained half-hidden behind the divider, avoiding Renjun’s eyes. “Guys, knock it off,” he hissed.

Too late to realize it, Renjun had been pressing the same key, which amounted to an elongated phrase of marrying this mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Renjun, in haste, backspaced the word into correctness.

Seokmin took it as an invitation to peek into the screen. “What’s it this time?” By moving closer, Seokmin bumped into Renjun’s chair. Renjun grabbed his desk so as not to spin out of position. Distancing from the screen would leave his work computer open for further invasive investigation. Seokmin came closer to the screen. “Cheating… Teen pregnancy… Baby-swapping? ”

Seokmin mock-gasped. Soonyoung laugh-choked on his coffee. “I gotta say, that’s more interesting than the ones I get.” Soonyoung raised a finger, like stopping Renjun mid-speech before he could open his mouth. “How to save up for a Summer cruise, you ask? Stop subscribing to cable! Dumb idiots…”

“Comfort for the troubled heart,” Seungkwan introspected. “Never out of business.”

Seokmin’s eyebrows shot up, like a child who’d just found a new toy to play with. He abandoned his surveillance of Renjun’s work and turned to Seungkwan, who, just like a prey lying belly-up to beek under the sun, had shown signs of weakness. He scorned, “Contrary to the cultured art of Musical Theater, huh, Seungkwan?”

If it were Renjun under that attack, he’d remain with his belly exposed, take the sinking predator teeth as if they were not but mosquito bites. But Seungkwan walked with those in the upper sector of the food chain. “Shut your yap,” Seungkwan bit back.

“Leave him alone,” Junhui’s voice boomed from the other side of the cubicle, only his eyes visible. Although following the mocking of Seungkwan, the protective glance was directed toward Renjun. Soon the eyes rose to a nose, a mouth, a hand swatting at the trio to send them away like disoriented flies buzzing haphazardly.

Renjun’s cubicle was, at once, empty. Junhui traveled through the many plastic gray walls to get to him.

“Were they bothering you too much?”

Renjun backspaced all the nonsensical words he’d written as the three had babbled on. “Not at all,” Renjun said. He was used to it. Exchanges like that filtered through one ear and out of the other like white noise.

Clack. Clack. Clack. Junhui’s breathing, just behind him, denounced his watching. “Do you think these are real, all of them?”

Renjun’s fingers paused. The question which advice he was writing for the column, now double interrupted, seemed amorphous and lacking in depth. “Why shouldn’t they?”

“Anyone can hide a lie under anonymity,” Junhui said. He looked at Boss’s office door, rows of cubicles ahead and opposite to the elevator door, like trodding to his office was a walk to be applauded. “From all we know, Big Boss there is drafting these emails to pad some pages.”

“I recognize suffering when I see it,” Renjun stated. “I believe victims. No matter how preposterous their stories might be.” Like I wish they believed in mine, back then.

“Sometimes,” Junhui said, then paused, like struggling with the ball of words to come up from his throat. “Lies can look like truths. Culprits, like victims.”

And there it was, the ghosts of Junhui’s unspoken past. Renjun hoped for one day to hold Junhui’s hand as he told the tragic tale of his early years. Then, maybe, Renjun might be willing to talk about his own, too.

A door, as though slamming shut, resounded through the office. It was the sound of Boss exiting his room. He darted them a scowling look. “Back to work!”

Junhui sprinted to his place.

—

Coffee in the morning, tea at night. Renjun’s insignificant mini ritual. Now, tea rested lukewarm on his desk while sending email after email to literary agents, one bit the bait. Renjun lodged the hollow of his foot into the edge of his desk, finger pulling at the curly wire until it was a smooth line from his ear to his pinched fingers.

“Hello? This is Renjun Huang. You offered to agent me,” he willed not to, but his voice still trembled into the landline phone’s receiver.

The other line was crackling with outside noise. “An offer to call is not exactly an offer of agency,” the agent said. An apology hid just behind his lilting voice. “My apologies for the misunderstanding.”

“There’s no problem!” Renjun hurried, like the agent could hang up at any moment. “It was just— I’ve read of the ‘agent call’ a lot, so maybe I am the one who needs to apologize for my high expectations.”

Renjun distanced the telephone from his ear for a second, pulling his lips apart so his teeth were visible on the dark landscape of his shut-down computer screen. He bared them at his dark reflection, then massaged his forehead as he brought the telephone over an ear again.

“There’s no problem,” the agent, whose name he’d forgotten — vast was the list of names and email addresses he’d forwarded his cover letters — and was too afraid to ask now. “Are you a thriller writer? Because, if I were to offer you my services, we’d work on changing the genre. This doesn’t sound like non-fiction to me. On the contrary, it’s very crime noir. Very marketable.”

Although the gesture wouldn’t be seen by the many holes in the telephone, Renjun shook his head. “You don’t understand. It’s not fiction.” He swallowed, the act of explaining himself to an unwavering force proved itself fruitless every time, and here was Renjun attempting to do the impossible. “It’s a memoir. True, factual happenings. I’m just structuring them like a novel.”

“I’m sorry for my confusion, but,” he said over the crackling and leafing through what sounded like sheets of paper. “From my quick search, none of what you described in the synopsis appears in any newspapers, as far as what my assistant has gathered. And you annexed no reports to prove the veracity of your story. From what I know, you’ve made it all up. There's no shame in that. It’s fiction.”

Renjun held the telephone with a sweating hand. The wire, now stretched taut, threatened to snap. Downstairs, the neighbors fussed with noise. A creak, a thump, steps. “That would be the appeal of my memoir. An unfiltered retelling of what happened to me and to others, a voice for those who were silenced in favor of the story dying off. Your lack of knowledge already proves that my story is real, Mr—” Renjun tried to conjure a name, but was rendered futile. “It’d be my chance to put it out, the truth, the raw details, the police censorship. Let’s work together to do good, to alert the major public that these things happen elsewhere, too, and that villains don’t always look like villains. They look like your classmate, or your boyfriend, or—”

The line went flat, like the wire still pinched between his index and thumb. Renjun freed it from the grasp and the wire regained its curliness. He placed the telephone back on its holder, and unlodged his foot from the desk’s edge to turn on the computer. The noise below escalated to the level of a construction site. The only sane answer for this creak-a-creak would be that his downstairs neighbors were moving away, and Renjun would soon revel in the type of silence of his refrigerator being the loudest noise in the room, a ring in his ears whenever the soothing electrodomestic humming ceased.

The unjust rejection of his memoir could’ve been channeled and directed towards whoever and whatever made those noises, but Renjun instead wondered if it was a family banging pans to prepare a hearty dinner. Perhaps a family of four, parents and children, the parents hurrying to set the table while the children ran unrestrained throughout the apartment and consequently elbowing a meritable heirloom off the TV rack. Or maybe a family of two, a young couple, still unmarried, gradually spiraling into a dish-throwing fight, shards of glass lying everywhere, even in between the creases of one lover’s hands. Or even a family of one, like Renjun, wrung out from a corporate job, hung up from a potential book deal. Maybe Renjun resided above himself.

The screen lit up blue, demanding a password. The MSN messenger tab painted ＣＨΣＮＬΣ’s virtual body in red under the Not Online sector. As promised, ＣＨΣＮＬΣ’s name was followed by “(offline)”.

As he sifted through his sent emails, glassy-eyed, without the bodily demand for sleep weighing his limbs, the urge to stumble upon an epiphany burned his blood to a boil. Renjun clicked on his spam box. Same as with his work email, his personal email address endured targeted scams. GROW HAIR FAST! GET RID OF ACNE! RESTORE 20/20 VISION WITH A SIMPLE TRICK! Renjun moved them one by one to the trash folder. Messages that have been in Trash more than 30 days will be automatically deleted, it read atop. Renjun rummaged through his mind what could cause him to step back from the decision of deletion, as if in the span of 30 days, his hair might fall out in its entirety, or his skin might blossom into oily busts of bumps, or he might go blind. He hovered the cursor, resolute, on CLEAR ALL.

Renjun held his index finger from clicking. An email without a subject caught his sight, lost among a swarm of capslock subject titles. Renjun led the cursor until it highlighted, and clicked it. 

We, at www.PerfectStrangers.com, welcome you to a new virtual experience: bond with strangers with similar interests. Our algorithm connects your profile to thousands of others, filtering the best match to offer you a meeting with your soulmate! The best part: your soulmate does not have to be only one person. Click the link below to get started and follow the tutorial, free of charge.

Renjun clicked on the blue link. It redirected the screen from his inbox to a browser washed in black. However, before Renjun toed at the shutdown button, The screen pivoted and shone in great detail: many glittery arrows persuaded Renjun to click on the glinting Register button, which took half the web page and looked more like an image than a link.

The screen, redirected again, caused Renjun’s foot to tap at the floor in the same disharmonious rhythm of the downstairs cracking melody. But the neighbors rested calm, now noiseless in their home. Renjun halted his tapping foot.

On the screen, a rotating wheel turned and turned and turned. Renjun watched, hypnotized, as the corners of his eyes began to take a sleepy glaze that blurred his vision.

SET PREFERENCES:

SET BOUNDARIES:

SET BIRTHDATE:

SET USERNAME:

SET PASSWORD:

Renjun, half-asleep, filled the form in a hushed state, rare was the moment when he felt the need to rest without the pacing and tea-induced ritual.

He pressed CONFIRM and let the web page load and load and load.

The spinning wheel stopped and gave way to a green checkmark.

Renjun shut the computer and collapsed in bed.

—

With his work defective from a lack of coffee, Renjun dragged his feet to the communal break room.

“Please just say it’s not me.” Joshua had his hands clasped in prayer to Wonwoo, who avoided his pleading. Wonwoo gazed at the fluorescent lights like salvation could be attained there, a plastic cup of coffee in hand. Joshua was calm but insistent: “Anyone but me.”

Jeonghan and Jihoon watched the scene as children did their favorite cartoon.

Renjun strode past them to the coffee machine and reached for the jug. It came off lighter than expected. Empty. Renjun restrained any sort of reaction, be it the urge to tighten his hands into fists or let out a profound sigh. He opened the upper cabinet and worked to refill the machine with a new batch.

“So, who is it?” Joshua pressed. “It’s not me, is it?”

If Renjun were forced to take a bet, he’d safely proclaim Joshua the one to be let go. He had no column, no subdivision of his own. Joshua curated Bible verses according to whatever “lesson” he wished the audience to take, like a Christian horoscope.

“I can’t say,” Wonwoo said, stoic. He held the coffee cup — the last of its kind — with a 90-degree arch to his elbow, like it’d been born that way: holding a plastic cup.

“But you can write, right? Like, on the confessional board. Or draw, or mimic,” Jihoon came closer with a sketchbook which he pushed onto Wonwoo’s other hand. “There, draw the person getting fired, and we’ll guess.”

Wonwoo’s grip wasn’t a grip at all. The hand, limp, let the sketchbook flop to the floor with a slap. Maintaining the angle of his arm, he sipped the coffee.

The coffee machine hummed and thrummed.

Jeonghan copied Wonwoo’s unwavering 90-degree elbow, but to probe Wonwoo with it. The jab was sharp, and propelled Wonwoo slightly off place, making black liquid slosh out of the plastic cup and fall into a brown splotch on the blank page. Before their eyes, the smudge morphed into a shape.

“That looks like you, Josh,” Jeonghan said with a derisive smile.

“It’s a large spot.” Joshua crossed his arms. “More like Mingyu.”

“Mingyu is Boss’s pet, no way in Hell,” Jihoon stated. Then condemned, “It’s you.”

“Are you calling me tall?” Joshua widened his eyes in an attempt to daunt, but only made the scene more comical. “Or round? ”

Jeonghan was long gone. With one hand he sustained his body on the counter’s surface, and with the other, he cradled his spasming stomach, such was the force of the laughter.

Despite it all, Wonwoo sustained his quiet demeanor.

When the coffee machine hummed for a final time and it’d begun to jettison black liquid into the jug, Mingyu, wearing a sliced smile like a non-licensed surgical gash in his face, entered the communal room followed by a head-bopping Seungcheol.

“May I have your attention, please,” Seungcheol rapped the lyrics like he’d written them for this occasion. They all ignored him. “May I have your attention, please?”

Wonwoo relented his stoic poise and threw his head back with a heavy sigh.

Motioning with his hands, Mingyu said, “This is major news,” as if to contradict Seungcheol’s effect of an impractical announcement, bringing a sense of serious immediacy to the following revelation.

“Will the real Slim Shady stand up?” Seungcheol kept on, shoulders popping with the silent beat. “I repeat, will the Real Slim Shady, please, stand up?”

Jeonghan popped a communal butter cookie into Seungcheol’s mouth. Lyrics muffled under the sweetness, crumbs spraying like beach sand.

“It’s not a downsize. No one’s getting fired.” Mingyu braced himself with one arm and bit the nails of the other with anxious teeth. “It’s a change in management.”

“So Daddy is stepping down?” Jihoon taunted.

Mingyu, as always, fell for the bait. “I’d be more concerned, given you’re most likely talking to your future superior.”

“Ha!” Seungcheol said over the butter cookie, wet chewing noises blending with his voice. “You? You? You can’t even use the fax machine.”

If Mingyu excelled in anything other than Boss-pleasing, it was reacting to teasing. He stepped closer to Seungcheol, who, chewing the cookie, looked up and kept looking up until his eyes rested on top of Mingyu’s complete height. Mingyu said, “I can intimidate pretty well, though.”

“More like incriminate,” Jeonghan chimed in, bitter. “Snitch.”

The jug reached fullness. Renjun filled a milky-colored plastic cup with the brownish liquid.

“Yeah, Mingyu, even Boss knows not to trust your blabbermouth,” Jihoon said.

“It’s a crime to steal office supplies,” Mingyu snapped, shifting from side to side like attacks were coming from all directions.

“It’s going to be a crime when I—”

Following Renjun’s first sip of coffee, the break room door swung open under Boss’s swollen hand. He paused as if to scan each face for any traces of incriminatory activity. The sight must’ve been satisfactory — he sighed, massaged the hanging sacs under his eyes before he spoke, “Good, the rest is here.”

Mingyu jerked like a wounded animal shot several times by the same bullet. He looked down and whispered, “The rest?”

“Some of you may already know of my godson,” Boss announced. “I’ve been talking about him non-stop these past few days, I fear. There is a reason for that. I’m afraid I cannot be the present, confident leader I’ve been for these past years under my condition, which has worsened. Due to my critical stage of Diabetes, I have been medically prescribed bed rest and little to no movement.”

“Like he did much movement,” Jeonghan whispered to Jihoon, mouth pulled to the side of his face in a smirk.

“In my absence, my godson will be my eyes and ears in this office.” Boss shook a pointing finger at each of them. “Don’t be fooled into thinking you can fool me by slacking. I know some of you do more chatting than working.”

This last part was directed at Renjun, who sipped, wordlessly, the steaming coffee.

“That is all. Any questions?”

Joshua raised his hand. Boss nodded.

“When will your godson be here?”

“Soon,” Boss said. “Before you can say, ‘Amen.’ ”

With that, Boss left, and Jeonghan hooted, along with Jihoon, over Joshua’s interaction with Boss.

“Looking at the splotch now,” Jihoon said after their cackling, looking down at the stained sketchbook with newfound knowledge. “It does look like Boss.”

—

Inside the shakiness of the subway, a familiar face that wasn’t the ghost of Donghyuck surprised him. It was Junhui’s.

They shared tight smiles and enjoyed each other’s company in a way unique to them: existing side to side, interacting with their surroundings in a manner that acknowledged the other. The train veered abruptly to one side, and Renjun clasped the metal pole. He placed a hand on Junhui’s ever-leaning form, so he’d shift back on his feet.

Junhui broke the moment of silence. “How do you feel,” How do I feel? Renjun thought to answer this in the most dishonest fashion, but then he realized Junhui hadn’t finished the question, “now that our careers aren’t in danger?”

Renjun shrugged, looked up, saw Donghyuck in the dark reflective glass. Renjun tightened his hand around the pole although he shouldn’t. He wiped his palm on his coat, for he reasoned it’d be Friday and laundry day, soon. He turned to glance at whoever stood behind him. It was just someone. Someone with a life, someone going somewhere, someone who, just like Renjun, sleepwalked through these New York streets in search of a gradually unattainable something. Something left behind, something so far away that to reach would be futile. Doyoung was almost that someone and that something altogether. However, if he was sleepwalking right now, back then he’d been in an interrupted daydreaming.

Now he was just numb.

“I feel numb,” he said. And the subway double doors slid open to his station.