Chapter 144

"……."

"Wonho-yah. Water."

"…ah. Thanks."

Inside the backstage tent.

Wonho was a beat late reacting as Taehyun found a water bottle and held it out to him.

Wondering if that slow response was still fallout from what had happened on stage earlier, Taehyun quickly scanned Wonho's face.

Contrary to his worry, though, Wonho wasn't pale or clammy the way he had been before. He'd just taken the bottle without moving his eyes off of whatever they were fixed on.

"……?"

Following where Wonho was looking, Taehyun found himself staring at the monitor streaming the stage live.

Still standing, he watched it with him.

On the LED behind the stage, photos of the Youth-Never-Dies members from childhood to now were slowly sliding past.

The full shot of the four cut to a one-shot on Haru.

In a white short-sleeved shirt, denim shorts, white socks, and beige low-top Converse, Haru caught the eyes of each of his hyungs on stage, one by one.

Child, butterfly — fly wide.

Rest wherever you wish,

head toward wherever you want to go.

Wherever you are,

flowers will bloom, in their own way.

"…ah."

Maybe it was the pure encouragement in what Haru was sending that reached him.

The moment he heard those lyrics, Taehyun felt his own eyes go hot before he could catch it.

He'd thought the lyrics were warm ones from the first time Hajin had walked him through them — but hearing them in a moment like this, each line felt like it was reaching out and touching him.

Now the camera framed Seok on the left. And over him, dissolving in, Siwoo came up on the right.

Hajin's piano, Siwoo's guitar, and the percussion in the MR built together, and the two of them opened their mouths at the same moment.

Where am I?

(Through the roughest of storms, new shoots push up,)

I must have been running out of breath —

(Even in the coldest cold, sunlight comes through,)

and I don't know where I'm meant to land

(so child, sometimes it's okay to fall,)

I'm the only one, stopped here, all alone

(you already know how to get back up.)

The two of them sang crossing lines, weaving into each other.

Being separate songs, the back-and-forth question-and-answer between the two didn't map perfectly to each other.

But the message and the emotion coming through inside it were sharper than any single song could have been.

Siwoo and Seok looked at each other. Only then could each finally find an easy smile.

Where are we, now?

(Child, butterfly, fly wide,)

Is it already too late to turn back?

(The very beat of your wings is beautiful in itself.)

A night with no stars, even when we dream —

(But child, it's alright even to just drift along.)

Am I going to just vanish, like this?

(Sometimes, in life, just holding on is enough.)

This time it was Haru's voice and Hajin's that harmonized.

The stark contrast between the two voice colors felt like a conversation between a boy and a young man.

After the sweeping vocals came an instrumental break.

Over the rich accompaniment of Siwoo's and Hajin's guitar and piano, Seok's plaintive violin solo carried on. Haru swayed slowly to the rhythm, and when his turn came, tapped the top line of 'Where am I' on the xylophone, clean and sparse.

"…it's beautiful."

"Yeah. They really put the work in. Feels like I'm about to cry, doesn't it?"

"…yeah."

Reassured by Wonho even offering a small reply, Taehyun let a soft smile through and sat down in the chair beside him.

The four's playing was slowly heading toward its finish.

Seok's violin — as if painting that shaky, wandering thing inside all of us — climbed higher and higher, hitting sharper notes.

And then, in one instant, every instrument stopped.

In the days I couldn't love myself, when it hurt to be me

a single beautiful flower that opened anyway —

In the time I couldn't love myself either, when it ached

that small breath, threading happiness into it after all —

Only the four Youth-Never-Dies voices filled the space now.

The acappella built from those four separate harmonies was more beautiful and more powerful than any instrument.

And then all the instruments rushed back in as one, the song racing toward its climax.

Child, butterfly — fly wide.

Rest wherever you wish,

head toward wherever you want to go.

Wherever you are,

flowers will bloom, in their own way.

Kim Wonho turned those lyrics over in his mind for a long, long time.

He tried, hard, to press the harmony of those four voices deep into memory.

Countless waves were breaking against the sandcastle in his heart, and breaking it again.

Only after everything had come apart could Wonho finally see.

That he hadn't even been trying to keep the sandcastle standing.

…I can't love myself, either.

How am I supposed to ask other people to love me?

While I myself find the place I'm standing this overwhelming, this crushing.

While I doubt my own skill and my own worth every single day.

How do I ask people to love me and cheer me on?

…I don't even believe I can make anything bloom.

The moment he realized the biggest white wave surging in had been himself,

a new question rolled up onto Wonho's shore.

Did I really give it everything I had?

Did I sweat as much as the ones I envied?

Was I as desperate as the ones ahead of me?

Enough that even if it all ended, I could say I'd tried what I could, I had no regrets left —

was I actually giving it my best?

"Kim Wonho."

"…huh?"

Sinking into thought over that new question, hunting for another answer inside it, Wonho lifted his head at the voice calling him.

In front of him — dark blue-black hair combed cleanly back, a black turtleneck under a grey hoodie under a vivid embroidered blue sukajan — Yugeon stood there at a lean. Probably about to head off to prep for his own stage.

"Here."

"……?"

At Wonho's what is it look, Yugeon jutted his chin and stuck a fist out in front of him. Wonho stared blankly, unsure what that was supposed to mean, but Yugeon just shrugged and offered the fist again.

"…what — what do you want me to do?"

"Cheer me on."

"Huh?"

"I ended up rapping because of you. I'm about to die of nerves, so — hurry up and cheer me on."

"Why is that because of me…. No — you picked it."

"After Blue Flare, you told me my rap was better than my vocals — that's why I'm here. I've been getting daily special training from Lee Doha-hyung because of you, whether you know it or not."

"That's ridiculous—"

At the sheer nerve of Yugeon dumping the blame on him, Wonho stared at him, floored.

Yugeon didn't so much as flinch — just kept waving that big fist in Wonho's face, telling him to hurry up, he had to go.

In the end Wonho tapped his fist lightly against Yugeon's, and Yugeon, satisfied, pulled back.

"Yah."

"What."

"Your hyung's gonna go chew that stage up."

"……."

"And when they interview me, I'll say it was thanks to you."

"…seriously ridiculous."

At the absolute nerve of Yugeon to the very end, Wonho ended up laughing.

Because he'd figured out that, in his own way, this was Yugeon's version of comfort.

"Don't blank on the lyrics."

"I won't. I can rap 'em in my sleep at this point."

"Sure. I'll be watching."

Something a little closer to Wonho's usual tone had come back into his voice, and Yugeon, reassured, put his hands in his pockets and turned toward where his own team was waiting.

Just as he took his first step, he caught sight of Taehyun — for some reason watching him with a proud look on his face.

The look of someone watching a seven-year-old successfully finish an errand — good job, buddy. Somehow it rubbed him the wrong way. So Yugeon pulled one hand back out of his pocket and, while Taehyun was off-guard, flicked him hard on the forehead.

"Ow! Yah!"

"Cheer Hyung on hard, alright~"

"…what are you two even doing, seriously?"

The instant Taehyun reacted, Yugeon was already off, footsteps quick as he made his escape.

Watching the pair of them, Wonho laughed again.

And the Youth-Never-Dies song, playing as the soundtrack to all of it, was now nearing its end.

Wonho glanced once at Taehyun — trying, quietly enough that the cameras wouldn't catch it, to huff over the forehead flick,

once at Yugeon's team heading out to take the stage,

and once at the Youth-Never-Dies stage — the light now past the red sunset, reaching toward a blue night sky.

"……."

…I envy them. Being able to look that confident.

Kim Wonho still envied them.

But it wasn't at all the same as before.

I want…. I want to be like that too.

In Wonho's heart, a foundation stone for a new castle was settling into place.

---

On stage, only Siwoo's acoustic guitar remained.

When even that sound stopped, Siwoo, at last, took the final verse into his voice.

The same delicate, precise breath as always.

Where am I?

After all the wandering — what then?

A night with no stars to answer by

Siwoo slowly lifted his head to the night sky.

Like the lyric itself, the sky — high, black, without a single star — felt close, tonight.

Should we —

try to take off, just once more?

The idea of changing the final line by quoting Siwoo's father's song had been Hajin's.

In part because 'take off' — as a word — carried a certain symbolic weight in Miro Maze itself,

and in part because the image of flowers blooming wherever you stood, from Siwoo's father's song, was a much better landing than 'Where am I''s image of walking a beach where your footprints leave no trace.

"……."

The song was fully over.

Like a midsummer dream — it didn't take long before the countless Destis who'd been held under the song's spell came back to themselves and started clapping.

""Encore! Encore! Encore!""

Weather, song, lyrics.

Everything had lined up like magic, and to the beautiful stage the audience willingly gave the best response they had.

Here and there, Destis wiping their eyes started multiplying. The Youth-Never-Dies members themselves weren't in a much different state, of course.

"Aw~ Seok-ah, don't cry! You did great! You did great!!"

"Siwoo-yah, your father's song is so good!"

Seok — who'd already been crying by the time they hit the last chorus,

and Siwoo — who, the moment the song ended, couldn't hold the swell of feeling in and had finally let the tears go — both got caught on the big screen.

Hajin and Haru each patted and comforted their hyungs and came forward to the front of the stage to bow to the audience, taking their spots.

"Yah — you not going?"

"…ah."

And, off in a corner of the plaza, someone was watching that scene, sunk into a whole other sea of his own thoughts.

"What. You said we'd just check it out and go."

"…yah, sorry. You guys head out first. I'll sit this one out for today."

"What? Out of nowhere? You're not going?"

"You guys just go first. I want to watch this more."

At that, his friends pushed back, what's this about, but the boy in the black ball cap pulled low just waved them off — go ahead.

"Yah, come on. Let's just go without him. Taehee wants to keep watching this."

"But — still. We waited around all this time because of him…."

"Yoon Taehee hasn't seen his hyungs in a while — he might want to watch a little longer, that's fair. Yah, Taehee-yah. We're gonna head out — see you next time?"

"Yeah. Get home safe."

One of the friends, quick to read the room, seemed to have caught what was on the boy's mind — brushed off the others still trying to press him, and said his goodbyes.

The boy in the black ball cap — Yoon Taehee — waved a quick see you at them and turned his eyes back to the stage.

"…they look good, all of them."

In someone's heart —

another wave broke, right then.