⋮ ⌗ ┆synopsis: you became a museum of people, preserving every laugh, every story, every passing preference behind glass. the problem was that nobody ever stayed long enough to learn yours. a story about loneliness, being loved in fractions, and what happens when the person who always remembers decides to stop..
⋮ ⌗ ┆trigger warnings: emotional, self doubt, loneliness, insecurity, jealousy, overthinking, fear of being overlooked, mental health issues, intended lowercase, bestfriend taesan, my personal feelings over the past months compiled into a fic
⋮ ⌗ ┆word count: 3.55k
⋮ ⌗ ┆authors note: hihi everyone, I wrote this fic after months of bottling up my feelings and I couldn't keep them in hence I wrote this fic. i'm not someone who's good at expressing my feelings so openly so I hope this fic can be a substitute for that and just imagine you, the reader, is 'taesan' while 'you' in this story for maximum effect. :)
▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||။၊|• now playing: call me by boynextdoor
back to masterlist | as always ; reblogs and comments highly valued!! (please!!)
some people are constellations. no matter where they go, eyes naturally follow them, finding them in the night sky. others are shooting stars, wanted desperately and sparkled bright for a fleeting moment, burning in the night sky. you have always wondered which one you were. perhaps the one that twinkled? or perhaps neither. perhaps you were the moon reflected in a small puddle of rainwater, noticed only when someone happened to glance down when stepped on, only for a second and then they go back to their daily routine. you spent months weaving yourself into others, tucking their favourite songs between your ribs, carrying their stories in your pockets, remembering them with devotion that bordered on worship.
yet when you reached out your hands, hoping to find traces of yourself in return, they come back empty. you became a museum of people, every laugh preserved behind glass, every passing comment careful, every preference memorised as though someday there would be a test. meanwhile, your own exhibits gathered dust in the forgotten corners. nobody stopped to read the plagues with your interest or feelings carved into them. nobody lingered long enough to learn the stories behind them. they walked through your halls and left.
perhaps that was what hurt the most, not being hated, not being abandoned but being overlooked. being loved in fractions when you gave in whole numbers. being remembered only when convenient, like a bookmark tucked into a novel nobody intended to finish. you told yourself you didn’t mind, that you were being dramatic. people had lives of their own. people forgot people. but every forgotten message, every silence stretching a little too long, every moment you realised you were not the first name to come to mind became another stone in your chest.
eventually, you began to wonder what would happen if you stopped, if you ceased watering the gardens that never bloomed for you. if you stopped being the first to reach out, the first to remember, the first to care, would anyone notice the absence? would anyone search or the missing piece? or would the world carry on spinning exactly as it always had, proving what you had feared all along, that you had been a mistake.
after all, a candle can spend its entire life lighting the way for others, only to discover that once the flame dies, nobody remembers where the light came from.
more below the cut:
you’ve been friends with han taesan for months. long enough to know the songs he reaches for when the world becomes too loud for him, long enough to hear simply the opening notes of oasis, nirvana or my chemical romance and think of him before the song itself. long enough to know that he always buys pudding when he’s had a particularly tiring day, that’ll he reach for banana milk on the 3rd shelf without even looking, and that he can never resist stopping at street food truck on the walk home.
you know the stories he tells in passing. the ones that slip out between conversations and disappear as quickly as they came. stories about his childhood, calling his mom ‘auntie’, about his friend, him pranking his friend that they lost his passport, about things he finds funny. sometimes, he doesn’t even remember telling them afterwards, but you do.
the way his face softens whenever he talks about something he genuinely loves. the way he absent-mindedly hums songs under his breath. the expressions he makes when he’s thinking too hard. the habits he’s picked up over the months without ever noticing.
somewhere along the way, memorizing han taesan became effortless. it wasn’t something you consciously chose to do. it simply happened. every passing comment became something worth keeping. every preference became something worth remembering. every fragment of himself that he handed to you. no matter how small, found a permanent place in your mind.
sometimes you think you know taesan better than he knows himself. not because you’re special. but because you spent months paying attention. because caring for someone means remembering them. and you have always cared far more than needed.
whenever something reminds you of him remotely, you send it to him immediately. a song playing in a cafe. a black cat sleeping on a windowsill. a photo of a band tee that looked like something he would wear. an edit you see online. a quote you found on pinterest. if it reminds you of taesan, no matter how insignificant it is, your fingers are already sending it to him.
the problem is that taesan never seems to do the same. at first you don’t notice it. or maybe you do, but you convince yourself that it doesn’t matter. then someone mentions one of your interest, your favourite idol, and instead of turning to you, taesan turns to someone else. he send them pictures of the idol specifically to them, mentions the idol to them.
another time, he excitedly shares a story you’ve never heard before with a group of people you could have sworn he wasn’t at all close to. and then it happens again. and again. and again. they’re such small moment that nobody else would pay attention to them. moments that sound ridiculous when spoken aloud. moments that shouldn’t hurt as much as they do.
but they do.
because every time it happens, a quiet voice in the back of your head asks the same question, why wasn’t it me? you hate that question. you hate the jealousy that follows it. you hate the bitterness curling in your chest whenever you watch him remember someone first. most of all, you hate yourself for caring. because taesan isn’t doing anything wrong. he isn’t choosing to hurt you. he isn’t intentionally leaving you behind.
yet somehow, every time he remembers somebody else before he remembers you, it feels like standing outside a locked door with your hand still wrapped around the key. and eventually, the tiny cuts begin to feel less like cuts and more like proof. proof that maybe you’ve spent months memorizing someone who never thought to memorise you back.
you tell yourself that you’re being dramatic. jealous. selfish.
you tell yourself that friendships aren’t measured by who remembers who first, that taesan is allowed to have other people in his life. that the world doesn’t revolve around you. so you swallow it down. every sting. every disappointment. every moment where your heart sinks for reasons you can’t properly explain. you bury the feelings beneath excuses. he’s probably busy. it doesn’t mean anything. you’re overthinking it again. and for a while, those excuses work. until they don’t.
because no matter how many times you scold yourself for feeling this way, the ache remains. it follows you into the conversations and lingers long after they’ve ended. it settles quietly in your chest whenever you see taesan effortlessly connect with people in ways you’ve spent months wishing he could connect with you.
the guilt is almost worse than the sadness. you know he hasn’t done anything wrong. you know he doesn’t owe you anything. yet every time you realise you’ve remembered another detail about him white struggling to think of a single detail he might have remembered about you, something inside you twists painfully.
you begin questioning everything. whether you’re trying too hard. whether you’re too much. whether people secretly tolerate you rather than enjoy being around you. whether you’ve mistaken being available for important. and no matter how hard you try to silence those thoughts, they always seem to find their way back. because deep down, beneath all the guilt and self-loathing lies a fear you’ve been too afraid to name. that maybe you’re easy to forget. and maybe that’s why nobody ever seems to remember.
while everyone seems to have people waiting for them, messages flooding their asks, their inboxes, their phones, friends checking up on them, you begin feeling increasingly invisible. it’s a feeling that creeps up on you slowly. you notice it when your phone stays silent for hours unless you’re the one starting the conversation. when group chats ignore you. when nobody asks where you’ve been.
meanwhile, everyone else seems to have someone. someone reading their stories. someone checking up on them. someone bringing them into a conversation. someone remembering. and you begin wondering what it is about you that makes people leave your name at the tip of their tongue before forgetting to say it altogether. that you might be at the front as a trio, but at the end of the day, everyone remembers the other two.
still, you smile.
you become frighteningly good at it. you smile when people ask how you’ve been. smile when they joke around you. smile when they tell you stories about people who seem to matter more. eventually, the smile stops feeling natural. so you start practicing. standing in front of the bathroom mirror late at night, tilting your head slightly to the left because that angle looks more convincing, pulling the corners of your lips higher, softer, happier. again. and again. and again. until you’ve perfected the expression of someone who is doing just fine.
sometimes you stare at your reflection afterwards and wonder why it still looks so wrong. why the smile never quite reaches your eyes. why it feels less like happiness and more like a mask you’ve worn for so long that you’re starting to forget what’s underneath it.
even your text messages become performances. you add extra exclamation marks. you type out laughter. you send cheerful replies even when you’re lying in bed staring at the ceiling, feeling emptier than ever. sometimes you’ll catch yourself smiling at your phone while texting someone, not because you’re happy, but because you’ve somehow convinced yourself it’ll make the words sound happier.
as if emotions can travel through a screen. as if pretending long enough will eventually make it true. and maybe that’s the cruelest part. the more lonely you become, the harder you work to make sure nobody notices. because if nobody notices that you’re hurting, then at least you can pretend it’s a choice. at least you can tell yourself that you’re hiding. instead of facing the possibility that nobody was looking for you in the first place.
you wonder if anyone would notice if you stopped reaching out first. it’s a though that lingers in your mind for weeks before you finally act on it. not out of spite. not to test anyone. just because you’re tired. tired of always being the one who remembers. so one day, you stop.
you stop sending taesan songs that remind you of him. you stop taking photos of things you know would make him laugh. you stop texting first. stop asking how he’s doing. stop showing up in the places where he expects to find you. you make yourself smaller, quieter, easier to miss. and then you wait. at first, nobody notices. your phone remains silent.
days pass. then a week. the world continues turning exactly as it always has. people continue laughing. continue making plans. continue living. and somehow, that hurts more than if they had outright told you they didn’t care. because at least rejection is an answer. this feels like proof. proof that your absence creates no gap. that nothing changes when you’re gone.
while taesan continues living his life normally, you find yourself sinking and spiralling deeper and deeper into thoughts you can no longer control. you start seeing yourself through the lens of every insecurity you’ve ever tried to ignore. replaceable. forgettable. temporary. a person who only exists in other people’s lives when it’s convenient.
you begin replaying old conversations in your head, searching for evidence that you mattered more than you think you did. you come up empty every time. sleep becomes difficult. some nights you lie awake staring at the ceiling, wondering how long it would take for people to realize you’ve disappeared completely. a day? a week? a month? or would someone eventually mention your name in passing and be met with a confused silence, as though you were never there at all?
the worst part is that you know these thoughts aren’t fair.
you know loneliness has a way of twisting reality into something uglier. yet the longer the silence stretches on, the harder it becomes to argue against it. because if people miss you, surely they would look for you. surely they would call. surely they would notice.
but every morning, you wake up to the same empty notifications. and every morning, it becomes a little easier to believe the lie that has been growing inside you all along,
that if you vanished tomorrow, the world would simply be the same.
just as it always has.
meanwhile, taesan slowly begins noticing the absence of someone who had always been there. at first, it’s the little things. small things. the kind of things he never paid attention to because they were always there. his phone feels quieter.
there are fewer notifications waiting for him after school. fewer random photos in his chat. fewer messages saying, *plop* or this reminded me of you
he tells himself you’re probably busy. then a song comes on through his headphones. from the idol he knows you like. his thumb hovers overs your contact before he remembers. he hasn’t heard from you in weeks. another day, he sees something stupid that would have made you laugh. another day, he buys a snack and remembers you always trying to steal a bite. another day, he hears a story and thinks, i should tell—
before the thought abruptly stops. because he hasn’t spoken to you. a realization follows him everywhere, for the first time he realizes just how often his thoughts ended with you. through late nights spent staring at old conversations, he scrolls further and further back through your messages, only to discover something he wished he hadn’t noticed. almost every conversation started with you.
every song, every photo, every check-in, every how was your day?
you had been reaching for him for months. and he had never realised. because hed grown so used to your presence that he’s started treating it like something permanent. something that would always be there no matter how little attention he paid to it.
for the first time in his life, han taesan feels the shape of your absence. and it terrifies him. so he goes looking for you. except when he finally finds you, nothing goes the way he imagined. you don’t look angry, you don’t yell, you don’t accuse him. you just look tired. tired in a way he’s never seen before. and when the words finally start spilling out, months of hurt come pouring out with them
all the loneliness. all the jealousy. all the guilt. all the times you see others be better than you. all the times you have been overlooked. all the times someone was more important than you. all the times you’ve cried to sleep. all the moments you curled into a ball wishing life gave you a fair chance. all the moments you wanted someone to remember you instead of needing you of convenience. all the moments you convinced yourself that if you disappeared, nothing in his life would change. all the moments you wished you were someones choice..
taesan listens. and with every sentence, the guilt settles deeper into his chest. because nne of this is new. these feelings didn’t appear overnight, they’d been brewing for months and months. hidden behind every smile and every cheerful message.
and the worst part is realizing he never noticed. that while he was taking your presence for granted, you genuinely believed nobody would notice if you were gone. and now, standing in front of him, you look at him with the certainty of someone who has already accepted the truth.
while taesan is only just beginning to understand how wrong it is, by then, the doesn’t know whether he’s too late to make you believe otherwise because the problem is that by then, you've already convinced yourself that nobody would have noticed if you disappeared.
after spending so long feeling overlooked, you’re no longer sure if being remembers now is enough. because that is what you wanted, wasn’t it? for someone to notice. for someone to realise you were gone. for someone to come looking for you. for someone to choose you. and yet, standing here now, with taesan looking at you as though he’s afraid you’ll disappear again, you feel none of the relief you thought you would.
instead you feel tired, so unbearably tired. the kind of tired that settles deep in your bones after carrying something alone for far too long. because the loneliness didn’t vanish the moment he noticed. the insecurity didn’t disappear the moment he came back.
months of feeling unwanted cannot be undone by a single conversation. months of silence cannot be erased by finally hearing your own name. you spent so long teaching yourself not the need anyone, spent so long teaching yourself that being forgotten was normal. that expecting people to remember you was asking for too much. that caring less would hurt less.
those beliefs didn’t disappear overnight. they rooted themselves inside you. became a part of you. and now taesan stands before you, finally seeing all the things he failed to see before, finally understanding the hurt you’ve been carrying all this time. but understanding it now doesn’t change the nights you spent staring at a silent phone.
it doesn’t change the countless times you swallowed your feelings because you were afraid of being difficult.
it doesn’t change the way you’ve learned to expect disappointment before hope.
for months, you waited for someone to notice you were hurting. eventually, you stopped waiting. and that’s the problem. because somewhere along the way, the question stopped being will anyone notice if i disappear? and it became does it matter if they do?
taesan remembers you now. he sees you now. he’s reaching for you now. but after spending so long feeling forgotten, you’re no longer sure if being remembered now is enough to heal the part of you that learned how to survive with being overlooked.
perhaps you had been wrong all along. perhaps you were never a constellation. never a shooting star. never even the moon reflected in a puddle. because constellations are noticed. shooting stars are wished upon. even reflections catch someone’s eye eventually.
you were the sky itself. always there. so constant that people forgot to look. for months, you stretched endlessly above the people you loved, carrying their storms, their sunlight, their wishes and their dreams. you made room for all of them. held every memory they handed to you with careful hands.
and like the sky, you became something expected. something permanent. something people assumed would still be there tomorrow, asking for nothing. the tragedy of permanence is that people rarely think to appreciate it until it disappears. until one day they leave, and everyone finally notices how much of the sky was missing.
only when the stars vanish do people realize how dark the night has become. only when the music stops do people notice the silence. only when someone leaves do people begin measuring the space they occupied.
perhaps the cruelest thing about being remembered is that it happens only after you stopped waiting for it. for months, you stood at the edge of other people’s lives like a lighthouse overlooking a restless sea. you guided them home through storms. carried their secrets. memorised the shape of their hearts so they would never have to feel alone.
and then one day, exhausted, you let the lights out. only then did people notice the darkness. only then did they stop and wonder where the glow had gone. perhaps that should have been enough. perhaps it should have healed something inside you to know that your absence left a space after all.
but wounds do no disappear simply because someone finally acknowledges they exist.
a flower watered too late still wilts.
a letter delivered months after it was written still arrives stained with time.
some things are not broken by a single moment, but by a thousand tiny moments stacked carefully on top of one another until they become impossible to carry. you spent months searching for evidence that you existed in other people the same way they existed in you. months reaching into conversations and friendships, hoping to find your name stitched somewhere between the seams.
months wondering whether you mattered or whether you had simply become convenient. and eventually, the wondering became its own kind of answer. not because nobody cared. but because you had already learned how to live as though they didn’t.
perhaps that was the real tragedy. not being forgotten. not being overlooked. but becoming so accustomed to emptiness that even when hands finally reached for you, you no longer knew how to reach back.
after all, a candle can spend its entire life lighting the way for others, only to discover that one the flame dies, people suddenly remember how dark the room is.
but knowing that they missed the light does not undo the months spent burning alone.
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a/n: i haven't been feeling too motivated to write lately, which really saddens me :(( but i hope you'll enjoy this one!!
there were many things asakura jo preferred keeping to himself — the ever-growing collection of rice themed plushies and figurines in his room, the way he only pretended to drink all the alcohol his friends poured him each time they had a night out. all innocent secrets, truly, meant to preserve his peace and prevent unnecessary teasing. and yet amongst those small, seemingly insignificant secrets hid one far bigger and much more serious: a relationship.
it wasn't even that he wanted to hide it from his friends, not at all; he wouldn't have minded them knowing about the feelings blooming between him and you, about the connection which has far transcended that of friendship. he would've survived the teasing and the knowing glares, the never-ending stream of little comments from yuma and maki. but jo found out that breaking the news wasn't exactly an easy task — especially in a big friend group, where each hang out consisted of one person talking over the other. and with him and his soft spoken, calm nature, it was only natural his voice would sometimes disappear in the chatter. and as time passed and his friends continued to be unaware of his relationship status, he decided it would be awkward to tell them so late.
so he kept it to himself — a sweet, little secret meant only for him and you.
but that secrecy had its downsides, too. and one of them just so happened to reappear each time you hung out with everyone else — where all of the touches, even the smallest ones, were suddenly off limits, and the lack of affection from you slowly drove jo insane. especially today.
the sun has long set, disappearing behind the horizon as the night sky spread its darkness outside the windows of jo's apartment, the living room bustling with chatter and energy as his friends brought up one embarrassing story after another, their laughter erupting with each mentioned situation. his focus was solely on you, though — sitting on the other side of the couch, in the center of all the chaos, quiet giggles escaping your lips as you listened to the stories.
you looked as beautiful as you always did — your smile bright and radiant, the sight of it enough for his heart to skip a beat. he wanted nothing more than to plop down right next to you and wrap his arms around your frame.
but he couldn't, and it frustrated him more than he would like to admit. and yet he didn't want to kick his friends out either — so he opted to sit in silence, the smallest, barely noticeable pout on his face. a pout which you would've recognized anywhere.
asakura jo was sulking.
he noticed you moving in the corner of his eye, head turning towards your frame as he watched you stand up from your seat, heading for the kitchen. but before you disappeared from his line of sight, you turned towards him for a quick second.
'could you help me get snacks from the kitchen?' you asked, trying to contain your laughter at the speed with which jo stood up from his seat. of course he would — anything to get some alone time with you, even if it'd only last a minute or two.
his arms were wrapped around you the moment you stepped into the kitchen — his taller frame towering over you as he leaned in, hiding his face in the crook of your neck.
'you're cute when you're pouty like this, you know?' you giggled quietly, words merely above a whisper. jo murmured something into your shoulder, barely audible. 'hm?'
'can't they just leave already…' he repeated, lifting his head to face you. you couldn't help but smile at him — hand reaching for his and squeezing it in a reassuring motion.
'they'll leave soon, trust me.' you whispered, planting a soft kiss on his lips. 'yuma looks like he'd fall asleep in the next twenty minutes and i heard yudai mention something about driving him home before he passes out.'
'and you?' jo asked.
'what about me?'
'will you…' he said, stopping in the middle of his sentence as if he hesitated for just a second. 'stay the night? only if you want to, of course. it's just we didn't get to spend much time together this week and i-'
'of course. i'd love to.' you cut him off before he was able to finish, the unsure expression on his face replaced by a gentle smile, a sigh of relief leaving his lips.
his lips captured yours in another sweet kiss before eventually pulling away, the boy reaching to open one of the cabinets, pulling out two bags of crisps from inside. once you arrived back in the living room, it seemed like jo's prayers have been answered — smile still plastered to his face as he noticed his friends getting ready to leave one by one, some of them already by the door waving their goodbyes.
only yudai remained in the living room — helping organize some of the mess left at the table, humming something under his breath.
'i'll drive yuma home.' he stated, catching the sight of you and jo entering the room in the corner of his eye. the space felt calmer than before, less suffocating thanks to all the people who have already left the apartment or waited in front of it. 'want a ride too? it's on my way home, so i'll be driving there anyways.'
his brows furrowed in curiosity as you shook your head, politely declining his offer.
'i'll stay a little longer and help jo clean up.' you explained, feeling yudai's suspicious stare burning holes into you. 'you guys left quite the pile of dishes in the sink, you know.'
'do you need any more people to help with-'
'no.' jo cut him off, his answer a little too abrupt, tone a little too sharp. yudai looked at him with initial surprise in his eyes — only for a knowing smile to emerge on his face as he looked between the two of you.
'alright, lovebirds. i'll leave you to it then.'
jo felt like digging a hole under himself and disappearing from this world entirely the moment yudai left his apartment, face heating up in embarrassment. you couldn't help the giggle leaving your lips at the sight of him, finding his current state adorable.
'he knows.' jo mumbled, looking like he'd just saw a ghost. 'do you think he'll tell everyone else?'
'i'm not sure.' you stated, thinking hard about your answer. 'but i don't think so. he more so seems the type to have fun watching you pretend there's nothing between us at every following hangout rather than blabbering to everyone. it's yudai, after all.'
jo knew you were right — and yet that thought didn't put him at ease whatsoever.
'we could just tell them, you know.' you murmured, hand finding his. 'you wouldn't have to sit and sulk like you did today.'
'i wasn't sulking.' he argued, turning to face you. you giggled.
'you so were. and you looked adorable while at it.'
jo couldn't help the heat traveling straight to his cheeks, his face turning a pretty shade of pink as he hid his face in the crook of your neck once more, trying to hide his embarrassment.
'we can tell them next time we hangout.' he mumbled after a little while, long arms pulling you closer to him. 'can we just… cuddle for now? i missed having you to myself.'
you smiled at his words, a small chuckle leaving your lips.
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