Seo Haru wished for nothing.

  She didn’t wish for the boys on the track team to stop stealing and vandalizing her notebooks. She didn’t wish for the girls in her class to stop whispering about the burn scar on her collarbone. She didn’t even wish for a way out of her life, for a good university placement or a new apartment with friends or even to die.

  As she fiddled with the obsidian bracelet on her wrist, Seo Haru simply wished for nothingness. A quiet moment away from the cacophonous screaming of classmates and parents and teachers who stopped caring about her a long time ago. A book, a window, and some coffee. That was all Seo Haru wanted.

  Needless to say, the student council president sitting next to her caught her off guard.

  “Haru-ssi,” the student council president called. “We haven’t gotten to know each other yet.”

  Haru looked up. She barely knew anyone on the student council, least of all the President. Most of them were girls, save the Vice President, who had girls and occasionally boys regularly professing their love for him. The President, Secretary, and Treasurer had their fair share of admirers as well, letters being stuffed into their lockers by any number of students of any gender. Haru had watched all this go down more than once - perks of being invisible when her scar was covered.

  However, the President was one of the few Haru had observed who was quite simply not interested in the attention. Haru mused that the President could probably date anyone she wanted - her hair was always perfectly combed, her makeup was always elegant and not overdone, and her uniform was always perfectly pressed. She had brown irises that were dark along the rim but copper around the pupil, and they bore into Haru’s soul like knives, slicing Haru open to see what made the junior tick. But for some reason, she only gave short, polite responses when others clamored for her input.

  “I’m sorry, seonbaenim,” Haru said, averting her eyes.

  “Oh, please, call me Yeonghui.” The President - Yeonghui, evidently - smiled warmly in the periphery, though Haru was mindful of heat. “As student council president, I make it my mission to know all the students. And you’re a high rank, but I never see you doing any extracurriculars.”

  Haru didn’t look up, instead covering her bracelet with her hand and grabbing one of the beads for comfort. “I…I work part-time, Lee Yeonghui-ssi."

  “Oh, awesome! Whereabouts? I should stop by.”

  Haru bit the inside of her cheek. She worked in a library on weekdays and then at a tteokbokki shop on weekends, in the kitchen. The librarians were kind to her and allowed her to do her homework when things got slow. The shop owner was a kind older man who let her work in the back while the other part-timers stayed in the front. But none of this was something she was comfortable with sharing with a girl she barely knew, even if she was a senior technically. They were the slices of nothingness that kept her from needing to rely on others.

  Especially when the one person she wanted to rely on couldn’t be relied on, for no fault of their own.

  Yeonghui seemed to take the hint after a few minutes. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  “I’d rather not, thank you.” Haru was more forceful with her words than she expected. But everything about this situation, quite frankly, made her uncomfortable.

  “Well, I actually wanted to ask you if you had anything to do this weekend. The council and I are going shopping, and we heard about what Donghyeon did to your books. We wanted to take you to the bookstore and get that situation sorted.”

  This was…even weirder. Haru arched her brow, meeting Yeonghui’s copper eyes with her orbs of brown sugar. “Respectfully, Lee Yeonghui-ssi. You don’t know me.”

  Yeonghui feigned being hurt in a way so transparently duplicitous it was almost reassuring. “But I would like to.”

  “Even if you would, I value my privacy, seonbaenim.” Haru stood up from her spot on the bench. Her invisible nature meant the spectacle was only visible to her and Yeonghui, and this was likely for the best. “If I wished to get to know you, I would reach out. I do not, so I have not. Now, if you will excuse me, seonbaenim, I have classwork to get done.”

  Yeonghui didn’t seem particularly perturbed by this exchange, even as Haru dusted off her wrinkled uniform and walked away. If anything, she seemed…content with this situation. Haru only spared a glance for the senior when she was at the threshold of the school building.

  The copper spheres reflected light back to her like mirrors.

  The teacher had stepped out for only a second when the torment began once again.

  Choi Donghyeon was the leader of the onslaught. His father was the owner of a large record company, and his mother was a chaebol in every sense of the word, so there were no such things as consequences for him. Add on being the track star, and he was more than founded in his assertion that he could do whatever he wanted to Haru, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Haru let the athlete and his friends demean her, talk down to her, pour milk over her head, and poke at her shoulder to see if they would succeed at poking her burn scar. Haru didn’t know how to tell them that the pain had become a part of her life so long ago that their pokes didn’t hurt any more than the last time she got hit over the head with a bottle on her kitchen floor.

  As Haru closed her eyes, she tried to imagine what her sister would say. Haneul always knew what to say.

  “They can never take your strength,” she heard Haneul say in her ears. “They can never take your dignity.”

  That’s when Donghyeon pulled at Haru’s hair and said, “How does it feel to be abandoned by everyone who ever loved you?”

  That was the only time Haru felt like crying, but her sister’s words were louder.

  “They can never take your dignity.”

  So they wouldn’t.

  Haru wandered the halls aimlessly. School had been out for over an hour, but the library had called and told her they were closed to deal with a pipe burst. And Haru had no desire to go home ahead of schedule. If she timed it right, she could grab dinner and arrive home after her mother went to her night shift and her father was already at the bar.

  She fiddled with the beads on her bracelet. Haneul had given it to her, right before she had changed her name. Her classmates knew that her sister had left her family a long time ago, but they didn’t know that Haru hadn’t been included in that abandonment. Haneul had always kept in touch with her younger sister, discreetly, so that their parents wouldn’t ever try to use Haru as a bargaining chip. Haru was fine with that. It was their own little secret.

  Sort of. There was only one other person who knew what had happened to Haru’s sister.

  “Daylight, I’m going to level with you. Sometimes, you just need to punch boys in the face.”

  “Rosie, you know I can’t do that.”

  “Ugh, stop calling me Rosie.”

  “Why, is it emasculating?”

  “No, it’s cringey!”

  “I thought American boys were secure in their masculinity.”

  “I am VERY secure!”

  The memory made Haru smile, but by the time the expression graced her features, she was distracted by a sound.

  Music.

  In fairness, it was coming from the music room. That wasn’t unusual, especially after hours. What made Haru take notice, however, was the fact that the piano was in tune. That piano was never in tune, the music teacher could never get it fixed.

  The other thing that struck Haru was the song. She knew that song. She knew it better than any song she had ever heard.

  It was Haneul’s favorite song.

  The piano keys flew in a mournful melody, layers upon layers of pain penetrating the walls of the hallway. Every step Haru took felt like she was sinking further and further into the past. The memories that flooded into Haru’s eyes were beautiful, and painful, and visceral, and ethereal.

  Like paintings made from shattered glass.

  It took Haru a moment to realize that it was a man’s voice singing. It felt like the concrete walls would shatter as the linoleum floors vibrated from the power.

  Haru stepped into the room.

  The man sitting at the piano was the most unique man she’d ever seen. He had hair past his shoulders, muted gold skin and dark lashes. He was wearing a tailored suit, one that betrayed his physique. He played and sang with such prowess that Haru wondered if he’d gotten lost on the way to the symphony.

  As the man finished, he held the last note, his eyes remaining shut.

  There was a pause, as the vibrations in the air slowed and eventually stopped.

  The man opened his eyes and blinked when he saw Haru. “Forgive me, I must have gotten carried away.”

  Haru figured some of the students at her school would be swooning in her position, but men almost twice her age didn’t interest her, even idols or actors. “It’s okay. I liked it. That’s my sister’s favorite song.”

  “You know of it?”

  “Abandoned Myself by Basis. She prefers the Brown Eyes Girls version, though.”

  The man smiled gently. Haru felt warmth in it, but not the duplicitous kind that Yeonghui had, the kind that ran the risk of burning Haru. It also wasn’t the predatory heat she felt from the boys as they glowered at her, or men on the street as she walked to work. This was…comforting. It was like a fire, or a candle.

  “It’s my partner’s favorite song,” the man said softly. “She said it always reminds her of who she once was.”

  Haru pushed down the feeling of familiarity in his words. “Do you…have a song like that?”

  The man shook his head, his eyes showing a complicated collection of emotions. “Not yet. I suppose I have always been looking. However, this song is precious to me because it tells me about the woman I love. And there is nothing more precious than that.”

  Haru nodded. Distantly, she wondered if something like that was on the horizon for her. As she did, the burn seared her once again. Impassively, she adjusted her shirt to cover it.

  The man glanced once at the scar, but then met Haru’s eyes. Haru noticed that they were not brown - they were gray, but a gray so dark that you wouldn’t even notice at first glance. It was the color of a stormcloud, or an iron lock. “Are you and your sister close?”

  Haru shrugged.

  “Interesting response.”

  “Well…we’d be closer, but she’s busy. I don’t ever get to see her.”

  “Do you want to see her more?”

  Haru shook her head. “I don’t want to be trouble for her, and I can take care of myself.” She also didn’t want her parents to see that Haneul had the ability to come around, even if she could.

  The man took this into consideration. “You are brave for doing that,” he said gently. “I do wish for you to consider, however, that she may want to take care of you. Siblings are often like that.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true…”

  “You’re trying to take care of her, aren’t you?” The man smiled, and once again, Haru was struck by how transparently kind the expression was.

  Haru blinked. She hadn’t considered that.

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  “It’s something for you to consider.” He stepped away from the piano and bowed. “It was lovely to meet you, Seo Haru-ssi.”

  Haru watched as the man walked past her, his hair flowing behind him. Curiously, she walked up to the piano and pressed one of the keys.

  It was out of tune.

  Like always.

  That’s when Haru realized she’d never given the man her name.

  Unbeknownst to anyone, Haru had a friend. She called him Rosie, which irritated the heck out of him. They’d met on an anonymous forum, where he went by stone_cold_rose. He was two years her senior, and he was the only person who never expected anything from Haru, other than her sister. But even though they knew each other only as Rosie and Daylight, he treated her with more dignity than anyone except Haneul.

  Haru checked that her house was empty before she booted up her computer and got on the forum. As usual, Rosie was already online.

  Daylight: hey rosie

  stone_cold_rose: hey daylight! How was school today?

  **Daylight: new day, same shit.

  stone_cold_rose: bruh

  Daylight: yeah, what’s that thing your sister says?

  stone_cold_rose: “Same old energy, baby, history repeats.”

  stone_cold_rose: it’s from a song

  Daylight: sounds about right

  Daylight: what song?

  stone_cold_rose: Same Old Energy by Kiki Rockwell

  Daylight: never heard of that artist

  stone_cold_rose: most people haven’t, but the vibes are good

  stone_cold_rose: what music do you listen to normally then? idk if we talked about this

  Daylight: old k-pop. like, 90s and 2000s.

  stone_cold_rose: was it better then? idk much about it

  Daylight: not better just different

  stone_cold_rose: based

  Daylight: what the hell does that mean

  stone_cold_rose: sorry it means like cool or true

  Daylight: how do you know if it’s true if you don’t know anything about k-pop?

  stone_cold_rose: fair

  stone_cold_rose: but like

  stone_cold_rose: music is so personal

  stone_cold_rose: so i believe you

  stone_cold_rose: send me some recs?

  Daylight: on it.

  Haru opened up a new tab on her browser. She was about to search for a music video when she saw the news thumbnail.

  Ha Seojin reported missing since Friday, September 17th.

  Haru’s heart stopped. Had she read that right?

  Daylight: hang on, one sec.

  Daylight: emergency

  stone_cold_rose: shit

  stone_cold_rose: is everything okay?

  Haru didn’t respond. She immediately clicked the link and started reading articles.

  When the page loaded, Haneul’s eyes stared back at her.

  Cosmic Records released a statement stating that Ha Seojin went missing after going home sick on Friday. Her disappearance makes her number 13 in a string of disappearances that fit the same criteria, making Ha Seojin’s disappearance a likely kidnapping.

  This couldn’t be real.

  This couldn’t be real.

  Haru pressed her hands to the sides of her head, feeling a migraine and a memory come on in tandem.

  “Why don’t you want Han to be your last name?”

  “Because if it’s Ha, that means I keep you with me, Haru. You’ll be a part of me. I don’t need to keep myself with me.”

  Tears welled up in Haru’s eyes as the notification sound rang out from her computer.

  stone_cold_rose: daylight?

  stone_cold_rose: what happened?

  stone_cold_rose: whatever it is, you know i’m here

  Haru stared at the texts as they came in. She knew her parents were going to say “good riddance” once they found out. She could call the record company, but other than a select few people, none of them knew she existed, and Haru didn’t have the numbers to contact them directly anyway.

  But she had to tell someone.

  She had to tell anyone.

  Haru settled for the one person in this world she knew she could trust.

  Daylight: my sister is missing.

  Brown Eyed Girls - Abandoned (?? ? ?? ??)

  Basis - Abandoned Myself (?? ? ?? ??)