How the Light Lands on Both of You

MOVEMENT I: THE FOOTAGE

CLIP 1: First Meeting

SM Practice Room B: March 15, 2018: 14:23

The frame is crooked. It will be crooked for every clip across these three years because you are Y/n, age sixteen, brand new SM trainee, holding a digicam like it is something precious and dangerous all at once, and you never learn to hold it straight.

Practice room is mirrors and scuff marks and the smell of sweat and industrial cleaner that lives in every practice room in Seoul. Winter is center-frame, running vocal warm-ups, scales that make the cheap microphone distort at the high notes. Ningning is beside her, harmonizing in a voice that even through compressed audio sounds like it belongs in an arena, not a basement.

And in the corner. There.

Karina.

Stretching alone. Facing mirror. Not looking at anyone.

She looks untouchable. That is the word your brain produces at sixteen, watching this girl who is also sixteen, beautiful in a way that feels intentional, architectural, like someone designed her face and she signed off on the plans. Her reflection stares back. Her body moves through stretches with mechanical precision. She exists inside her own orbit.

You point the camera at her.

Your voice, tinny and young, off-camera:

"You're filming the wrong person. The tall one's the visual."

Winter doesn't look up. Keeps running scales.

"I will end your entire existence."

Ningning, grinning:

"He's not wrong. Jimin-unnie is literally right there."

Camera swings. Finds Karina. Stopped stretching. Looking at lens now. At you behind lens. Expression doesn't change. Flat. Guarded. Expression of someone who learned early cameras want something, best defense is giving nothing.

Karina:

"Stop filming me."

You:

"Make me."

Risk. Stupid one. Eleven days as trainee and already challenging girl everyone says will debut first.

Doesn't respond immediately. Just stares. Holds gaze through lens for five seconds, six, seven. And then something happens at corner of mouth. Twitch. Ghost of smile kills before can form.

Karina:

"You're annoying."

You:

"I've been told."

Winter, still not looking up:

"By everyone. Literally everyone who has ever met you."

You:

"And yet, here I am. Still filming."

Mouth does thing again. Twitches. Fights. Loses.

Smiles. Small. Reluctant. Real.

Then, quieter, something shifting behind eyes:

"Why?"

You:

"Because someone should. Before you're famous and unreachable."

Looks back at lens. Something softens. Just slightly.

Karina:

"You think I'll be famous?"

You:

"I know it."

CLIP ENDS.

CLIP 2: First Mention of Ryujin

SM Cafeteria: September 3, 2019: 12:47

Sixteen months later. Learned to hold camera slightly straighter. Haven't learned when to stop recording.

Camera sits on cafeteria table, pointed at nothing useful. Fluorescent ceiling tiles. Water stains. Ventilation duct rattling when AC kicks. Mostly audio. Trays clattering. Ambient roar of hundred trainees eating one real meal of day. Winter and Ningning arguing ramyeon brands in background. Karina's voice closer to mic than anyone else:

"There's a JYP trainee. Keep seeing at joint evaluations. Short hair. Sharp eyes. Dances like angry at floor."

Your voice:

"Ryujin."