2. His Tattoo
The cafe smelled like stale sugar and regret. Nine years. Nine years since Jungkook had vanished, leaving me with a birthday cake nobody ate and a hollow ache that tasted like ash. I stared into my lukewarm coffee, stirring it with a chipped plastic spoon. The cafe was Hae Na’s choice, always some bright, cheerful place pretending everything was okay. She knew I hated it. She knew I was pretending.
“You still… think about him?” she asked, her voice soft as static.
I picked at a loose thread on my worn denim jacket. “Trying to forget him,” I mumbled, the words tasting like lies. “He never responded to any of my texts, anyway.”
Hae Na squeezed my hand, her nails digging into my skin. “Cheer up, hun. Jungkook may have left us, but I know he still remembers us. You two were super glue back then. He wouldn’t forget you.”
Her optimism felt like sandpaper on raw nerves. It always had. I forced a weak smile, twisting my fingers around the chipped ceramic mug. “I’m okay, Na. Really. I don’t wanna hear anyone comforting me about him. What’s in the past, let it be in the past. I don’t care about him anymore.”
We’d been inseparable. The four of us—Jinyoung, Hae Na, Jungkook, and me. A messy, chaotic tangle of Busan summers and stolen snacks. Then, on my fifteenth birthday, he’d just… disappeared. No note, no goodbye, just gone.
I’d clung to the hope he’d come back, convinced he’d left for some stupid reason—a family emergency, a secret mission. I’d imagined him showing up at my doorstep, apologising with puppy-dog eyes and a box of strawberry milk.
But hope had withered, replaced by a numb acceptance. He’d moved on. I’d moved on. Or at least, I pretended to.
“You remember the tattoo?” Hae Na asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.
I frowned. “What tattoo?”
“The one on his hand. A little crescent moon. He got it after that stupid fight we had over the arcade machine.”
I remembered. It was a stupid fight, fueled by sugar and teenage frustration. He’d gotten the tattoo the next day, showing it off like a trophy. It had felt like a secret, a tiny piece of him I could claim as my own.
“He never showed it to anyone else,” Hae Na continued, her eyes fixed on mine. “He said it was… for me.”
A knot tightened in my throat. The memory stung, a phantom touch on my palm.
“Turns out,” Hae Na said, her voice laced with bitterness, “he left for Seoul to be an idol. Needed to support his family. The perfect little Busan boy, chasing a perfect Seoul dream.”
I hadn’t known. I’d assumed he’d run away to escape something, some trauma I hadn’t imagined. The idea that he’d been chasing fame, chasing a life far away from me, felt like a betrayal.
“I’m happy he’s famous,” I said, the words tasting like ash. “Rich. But why didn’t he talk to me? We could have figured it out. We could have made things work.”
Hae Na squeezed my hand again, her touch a silent apology. I knew she was trying to fill the silence, to stop me from spiraling into the familiar grief.
“It’s been nine years, Y/N,” she said softly. “You have to let it go.”
I nodded, forcing a smile. But the ache in my chest hadn’t disappeared. It had just learned to hide.
Suddenly, Jinyoung, who’d been silently nursing his coffee, leaned forward. “Did you guys hear that?”
“Hear what?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
He pointed towards the door. “Sounds like someone’s fumbling with a lock.”
We pressed our ears against the door. A man was groaning, muttering under his breath as he repeatedly punched in a passcode. The door beeped each time he got it wrong.
“New neighbor?” Hae Na murmured.
“I don’t remember seeing anyone move in,” I said, my brow furrowed.
Jinyoung unlocked the door, pushing it open slightly. “Why would he move in so late at night?”
I followed him, curiosity overriding my apprehension. We stood in the hallway, watching the man struggle with the lock.
He finally punched in the correct code. The door clicked open, and he stepped inside, his shoulders slumped with exhaustion.
He turned, closing the door behind him. And for a fleeting moment, before the darkness swallowed him whole, I saw it.
A crescent moon tattooed on the back of his hand.
The same tattoo Jungkook had gotten all those years ago.
The same tattoo he’d said was for me.
To Be Continued