JEON JUNGKOOK | SAUDADE

The Hannam-dong villa is a tomb of amber and silk, and you are its silent priestess.

You sit on the edge of the velvet vanity, the same one where you applied your dark cherry lipstick on the night of the gala in '91. The world outside the window is a blur of motion, but inside these walls, time is a thick, golden syrup. You keep your breathing shallow—not because you need the air, but because you are terrified that one sharp exhale might blow away the vision standing in the center of the living room.

Jungkook.

He is there, standing by the window. He looks different today, his hair longer and shaggier than the day you lost him, but the curve of his jaw is a map you have memorized by heart. You don't dare speak. You haven't spoken in years. You are convinced that your voice is the weight that would break the thin ice of this reality. If you call his name, the ghost of him will realize he’s dead, and he will vanish, leaving you alone in the cold again.

So, you watch him with an ache so pure it feels like a physical bruise.

He moves through the house with a strange, heavy confidence. He has changed the furniture—the delicate lace doilies and the heavy mahogany tables have been replaced by sharp, cold lines and fabrics that look like liquid metal. You don't mind. You simply assume he is redecorating to distract himself from the grief that nearly killed you both.

He walks past you, his shoulder brushing through the space where your warmth should be. A shiver races down your spine, a phantom chill. You want to reach out and catch the hem of his white t-shirt, to feel the cotton between your fingers, but you clench your hands into fists in your lap. To touch him is to risk the end of the world.

He picks up a small, glowing slab of black glass from the coffee table. You watch his thumb slide across the surface. It’s a strange device, far too sleek for the electronics of 1992, but you tell yourself it’s just a prototype—something expensive he bought to fill the silence you left behind.

He sighs, a heavy, weary sound that vibrates in the air. He looks tired. He looks like a man haunted. You want to tell him it’s okay, that you’re right here, that you never left the house you built together. But the silence is your only protection. As long as you are quiet, he stays. As long as you are a shadow, he is real.

You follow him into the kitchen, your bare feet making no sound on the tile. He is boiling water in a silver kettle that looks like a spaceship. He stares out the window at the Seoul skyline. You look out with him, but the city looks wrong. There are too many lights, too many towering spires of blue and silver that weren't there when you walked those streets.

The world is moving too fast for us, Kook, you think, the words trapped behind your teeth. But here, it’s still autumn. It’s still our year.

He turns around suddenly, his dark eyes scanning the room. For a heartbeat, his gaze stops exactly where you are standing. Your heart—that heavy, dormant thing—stutters. You hold your breath, your body turning to stone.

"Is someone there?" he whispers.

His voice is different. It’s deeper, flavored with a modern Seoul accent that feels jagged against your ears. But it’s him. It has to be him. Who else would have the mole beneath his lower lip? Who else would have that specific, tilted way of standing?

He reaches out, his hand passing through the air where your shoulder sits. He frowns, rubbing his arm as if he’s walked through a patch of ice. He looks genuinely unsettled, his breath hitching in his throat.

You feel a pang of guilt. Your love is so heavy it’s making him cold. You back away slowly, retreating into the shadows of the hallway, keeping your eyes fixed on him. You are the observer, the silent curator of a life that stopped a long time ago.

You wander back to the bedroom, catching your reflection in the full-length mirror. You look exactly as you did on that final rainy afternoon—your hair perfectly set, your skin pale as milk, wearing the slip dress he said made you look like a Hollywood starlet. You look like a photograph that refuses to fade.

You glance at the bedside table. There is a newspaper there that he must have brought in. You lean over, careful not to let your shadow fall across it, though you have no shadow to give.

The headline is about technology you don't understand. But your eyes drift to the corner, to the date printed in tiny, sharp ink.

October 14, 2025.

You blink. It must be a misprint. A joke. It’s 1992. It has to be. You were at his grave yesterday. You remember the smell of the wet earth, the way you lay down on the mound of dirt because you couldn't bear the thought of him being cold down there alone. You remember the way the world turned grey, and how you woke up back in this house, relieved to find him walking through the halls again.

You look back at Jungkook in the kitchen. He is checking the locks on the door, his face pale and drawn.

You realize then that he isn't looking for a memory. He is looking for an intruder.

You look down at your hands. You try to pick up a silver hairbrush from the vanity. Your fingers slide through the handle as if it’s made of smoke. You try again, straining, pouring every ounce of your will into your fingertips.

The brush doesn't move. But the air around it flickers.

Jungkook enters the bedroom, stopping dead in his tracks. He’s staring at the vanity. He’s staring at the hairbrush that just vibrated under the pressure of your ghost.

"Who are you?" he asks, his voice trembling with a primal, visceral fear. "What do you want from this house?"

You want to tell him you want nothing but him. You want to tell him that it’s 1992 and you’re just waiting for the rain to stop.

But as he steps forward, he walks directly through you.

There is no warmth. There is no heartbeat.

As he passes through your frame, you feel the soul-crushing weight of thirty years of silence. You aren't watching a ghost. You are the ghost. You didn't survive that night at the cemetery. You died of a broken heart on the fresh dirt of his grave, and you’ve been haunting a home that no longer belongs to you, waiting for a man who has been gone for three decades.

This Jungkook isn't your lover. He is just a stranger who bought a house full of shadows.

You stand in the center of the room, the silent realization shattering the amber world you built. The 1990s dissolve into the cold, neon reality of 2025, and for the first time, you let out a breath.

It carries no sound.