Hey…

It's cold.

Not the indifferent breeze of the midnight, nor the lack of warmth of your apartment — sure, they were cold. The tiles were freezing; not the best place to lay in. The lack of yellow light doesn't help either.

It's still cold. A different kind of cold. A new one — seconds new, as all you could do was watch the alcohol soak your shirt. You can't even drink properly.

What a fucking joke.

And as the only audience of the clown, you laugh. You had to.

You laugh as you disregard the mess, lean into the bottle — your only companion — as it pours you another.

You laugh as you raise it to cheer.

You laugh as you drink.

You laugh.

Because you are happy.

That's what you always tell them.

That's what you tell yourself.

And that's why you're here — blissfully laying on the floor as your third bottle rolls hollow.

Another laugh. It wasn't yours — god, you wish it was only yours that mocks you.

It's an echo. Again and again, and now it's here again.

You hear it. It wasn't here, but you hear it.

The same laugh that was once real within these walls. The same laugh she brought when you tried to mimic a bakery's special. The same laugh she wore when she was lost somewhere in the middle of your bantering. The same laugh she had when she was under you, the two of you trading sweet nothings.

The same laugh you heard back at the pub.

Her laugh.

You should've ignored it. Dismissed it as another ghost of hers — enjoyed one free night where you could be distracted from her. Almost every single night you willingly imprisoned yourself in your bedroom. A twisted need for repentance: to be haunted by her, to let it happen, all for a simple question of what if — something you could lament but never answer. Part of you always knew it was only an excuse to play the memories again and again.

So you tried. You genuinely thought you could escape. The night presented itself like it would — for the first time in a while you felt free from being suspended. Banter from your buddies as you made your way to the pub, congratulations so overdone they curdled into teasing. You were smiling. A bit more alcohol and you would've laughed.

All of it was true. So when you heard that laugh —

You really tried. Convinced yourself it was nothing, that she was not there, no longer there. But her name, wailed just ahead of you — there was no decision in it. You were bound to turn. Bound to look for her. And this time it wasn't just a trace.

You see her smile. Far from you, gone from you.

But she is there.

And now you are here.

Floor. Ceiling. The dark in between. Your shirt still damp, the smell of it sweet and stale at once. The bottle somewhere beside you, empty of everything useful.

You close your eyes.

She's still there.

Still the same as back then.

It started with a simple hey.

Just before when you first met her.

Jeemin.

Bang Jeemin.

There was something different that day. Maybe it was how unhurried the morning classes were, or maybe it was the wind blowing slightly different, or maybe it was the fresh pan that greeted you at the cafeteria door — just freed from the oven, warm and simple. Or maybe it was none of those things. Maybe it was simply because it was the day you saw her.

It wasn't the first time you'd heard her name. Wasn't the first time you'd glanced her way, or found yourself in the same room as her without it meaning anything.

But it was the first time she smiled just for you.

"Sorry, Jeemin?" You already knew it was her. You just needed to ask — needed the excuse to sit across from this girl who seems, impossibly, to have saved that smile specifically for you.

Your name, through her voice.

An echo for your greeting — though at that moment you were oblivious, not knowing that sound would stay with you even until now.

That was all the exchange she needed to feel familiar. There was a quip she initiated that is long gone from your memory now; you only remember how stupidly you smiled at it. Here's another thing you remember clearly: the conscious decision to stall on handing over the calculator — the reason you were meeting in the first place. You just had that urge. And you did stall. So did she.

The first thing you brought up was deliberately far from the reason you'd met, conveniently an excuse for it to not be over yet. As if you'd planned it from the start, you brought up lunch.

It might've been you just convincing yourself, but you were operating on a goal — to have a long conversation. It wasn't your forte, especially with someone new. You thought you could hold your own, but it was Jeemin who outdid you. She met you on every topic. Filled every beat.

It was one of the longest lunches you'd ever had, and yet it ended too soon.

And so did everything else.

The pub didn't change. Same noise, same warm amber light, same bodies pressing into each other over raised glasses. Nothing changed.

You did.

The moment you heard it — that laugh cutting clean through the noise like it always had, like it was looking for you specifically — everything went underwater. Not dramatic. Not slow-motion. Just a switch, flipped. One second you were there, present, halfway through something your friend was saying, and the next you were somewhere far below the surface, watching the pub happen without you.

Your lungs forgot the order of things.

You found her before you decided to look. That's the thing about haunts — they don't wait for permission. She was across the floor, shoulders loose, head tilted back, and she was laughing at something someone beside her had said. Unbothered. Whole. The world hadn't ended for her.